Wisdom

My friend Sharon and I went out for wine and appetizers after work today, talking, along the way to the bar, about family, work, life.

Sharon and I have known each other for more than 20 years. And have been working together for the same amount of time.

So we share a history, reference points that need no explaining. We each know what the other is talking about.

In that way we are like family, which is nothing more than groups of people who share a history, except it's on the basis of blood relation, not life circumstance.

It's interesting to think about that kind of relationship in the context of the where Sharon and I work. A newspaper called the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

A newspaper, more than most businesses, relies on the institutional wisdom, the family wisdom, if you will, that is shared among the reporters, editors and photographers who tell the stories for it each day.

As you tell stories about a place over the years, you acquire a knowledge of people. People who have influence, people who simply know things, people who are empathetic enough or opinionated enough that they can talk about many things.

This is good and it is bad. Good, because this knowledge gives your reporting breadth, bad, because after a time, you begin to rely on the same people. You end up with boilerplate.

No matter. If you live in a community and read a newspaper, in print or online, think about the work of the people whose names are attached to the stories, the photographs, the videos. They are repositories of received, conventional and family wisdom. And they have value because they are associated with a newspaper, something that has a cachet as a place for information.

A place where people call people. Ask questions. Call more people. Ask more questions. Sit. Think. Talk to others face to face. Condense information. Write. Re-write. Make more phone calls. Answer an editor's questions.

Then, and only then. Tell a story.

And then:

Think about it overnight. Come up with a follow up story idea asking all the questions you missed the first time.

If newspapers could download their reporters' and photographers' brains, that would be so much more valuable than keeping their contacts.

A contact to a new person is just a phone number or an e-mail address. Not a relationship.

And relationships are formed in families, of blood or circumstance, whose essential component is the rich medium of human contact.

Eyes, mouths, ears, noses, fingers, sharing contact, has got to be the finest technology of all. Because, pretty much, there's not much room for miscommunication.

Around the block

Late Monday night, after a late dinner.

I can't go to bed on a full stomach and it's a perfectly cool and lovely night for a walk. Around the block I go.

Starting with a pink hoodie around my shoulders, ending with the hoodie wrapped around my waist in the perfectly lovely, cool summer night.

Cicadas and crickets chirping and thrumming and an ethereal crescent moon, Mars red, sliding down out of my view behind trees, teasing me with its sublime shape and color, in the northwestern sky. I am so distracted by the mystery of it that the night's constellations elude my gaze entirely.

Around the block. There is a home that recently sold that has a stunning elm tree in the front yard; it's dripline must be at least 100 feet in diameter. To even be in this tree's vicinity, in full summer leaf, is to feel as if you are under the roof of a church. The real estate sign is gone, windows open to show bare rooms and as I walk past, I hope to myself that the new owners will keep the tree, not cut it down.

Home again and the dogs and I go out. 10 p.m. Time for bed. The best part of late summer is being sung to sleep by the insects, cooled by the fresh air, sheltered by the night's stars.

In fact, I think night time is the best part of late summer days.

August, after

Thank you, Counting Crows, for the inspiration for the title of this post.

I love August.

The crickets and cicadas buzz and sing at night, having taken over the night air from the fireflies of June and July. The sun is moving lower in the sky and there is a sense of gathering in the world. A gathering of last enjoyments of summer -- even though the warm days will last another six to eight weeks or so. A gathering up in the mind of preparation for winter's dark months. A gathering up of all that has been enjoyed -- quiet talks at dusk, dogs snoozing on the summer lawn, the pleasures (and frustrations) of the summer garden, the sun on bare skin, the cool sparkle of a clear pool-- and the anticipation of enjoying it all again next year.

August.

I think the year should be counted by halves. March to August and September to February. It is a richer way of marking time, and more subtle too, than the artificial observance of a calendar year's passing.


A musical ending. Some years ago, my sister Suzanne presented Carl with a CD by Pete Yorn. It rested, unlistened to, for a while. We have recently pulled it out of the pile, and have been enjoying it so much. He has a new release coming out in September with Scarlett Johansson.

So, we're late to the party, but thanks Pete Yorn. "Music for the Morning After" is tremendous.

Rhythms

There's a small bird's nest, fallen from its perch, sitting in a neighbor's yard up the street. It's been resting there for a few days this week, tiny branches woven into a tiny brown wreath and studded with tufts of white fur. I think it could be Holli's fur, she's shedding so much these days.

I noticed the nest at the beginning of the week, lying on the neighbors' lawn, with a soft indentation for eggs. The dogs sniffed and we walked on.

The weather has been tumultuous, so the nest must have been blown out of a tree during a storm. I thought about it. A home. Parents. Babies, fledglings, new families.

Life on earth. The smallest things reveal how splendid and beautiful it is.

What you want

Today's picture: Bags of basmati rice at Par Ganj market in New Delhi, taken on my last day in India this spring. Lots more food vendors here than in Chandni Chowk. Veggies spread out under tents, but so many flies, and hot. Vendors sitting among their mangoes and everything else. I like how they are sitting on what look like old tins of olive oil. That is so India. In making do, appearance becomes special. Basmati is a staple and it was good: light and a toothy texture. I haven't bought it yet here, but in the fall I'll try some Indian dishes to keep us warm.

Talked to my mother-in-law this evening, who related the slightly sad story of a very dear friend who is living in an assisted living community. Joanne, mom's friend, had not wanted to leave her home of 50 years, but clearly couldn't keep living there either.

Joanne had a stroke a few years ago, and, as you can imagine, her health didn't improve much. She's overweight, widowed and, after the stroke isolated. But she's hale enough not to need to be in a nursing home.

Joanne's story made me think of how passively some people lead their lives, always waiting for something to happen, for someone to help them. Joanne had my mother-in-law as a friend because they were neighbors who had babies at the same time. They stayed in touch after Mom moved (not far) and were part of a larger extended family of neighbors and friends. Yet Joanne still managed to be isolated after her husband's death. She seemed to have no skills for active socializing. Neighbors became friends, but that had nothing to do with any initial effort on her part.

When her husband was still alive and their kids were grown, their leisure activity was to go on cruises and eat a lot. A lot. Ray was tremendously overweight.

I'm sure they enjoyed the vacations, but I never remember hearing anything else from Mom about them except that they went on cruises.

Everyone ages differently. My mother-in-law still travels to family reunions, walks at the mall, has friends from church and from the old neighborhoods (like Joanne). She lives alone but close to my sister-in-law. Tends to mention people who have died a little more than I'd like to hear when we visit, but that happens when you get old. She does have her limits. At 79, she won't travel by plane anymore, though she talks about how she'd like to visit Europe again.

So between two women, you have different paths, though even Mom, I think, is of a generation whose members didn't push, because it was unseemly. You accepted whatever answer you were given and that was that. I'm generalizing, I'm sure, but I wonder if the Boomer generation, with its "Don't trust anyone over 30" mantra may have long ago been on to something. I don't entirely agree with the lack of respect for authority implied in that mantra, but I do believe more and more as I grow older that things that our elders would have taken on faith were set in stone don't necessarily have to be.

It's funny to be writing about what Mom had to say. This afternoon, Carl and I went to see "Julie & Julia." And Julia Child turns out to be just the kind of woman and wife who wouldn't settle for just being a wife, or just a woman without any passions. She didn't set out to be a great cook, but she wanted to do SOMETHING and in searching for what interested her, she fell in love with cooking. But she did the searching. She didn't wait for that passion to come to her.

After the movie, we stopped at Mitchell's Fish Market for drinks and appetizers. Carl wanted Oysters Rockefeller, recently taken off the menu (at a seafood restaurant? Why?!?) and was grousing.

"Why don't you just ask if they'll make them for you?" I told him. He did, and the chef did.

So how hard is it to go after what you want? You just have to know that you can.

I Wish

I wish life had a Control Z.

If life did, I would study French and Art History in college.

I would find a job in New York, love it and love living there.

I would go for my Master's degree right after my Bachelor's.

I would have kept up with ballet and been a dancer.

I would learn a LOT earlier to disregard worrying. To not stress. To not care, mostly at all, about what others think about me. (Side story: Job interview, 1978, after graduation from Ohio State University J-school. Some newspaper editor type. Asks me what I want to do. Me, I say, I think I'd like to try the Foreign Service. Newspaper editor type: Well, that concerns me. Blah blah, can I be committed to journalism? Me: Fumbling and embarrassed for not seeming committed to SOMEONE ELSE'S career path. "Well, uh, I, uh, oh, um." Thanks pal. Nice life lesson and way to just have your cake and eat it too at the expense of a naive 21-year-old.

Jerk.

However, no Control Z on life. So, I decided tonight, while walking the greyhounds, no more wanting something else, as in some vague "What I want from life."

I think I am going to stop wanting. It is too tiring. Rather, I accept that opportunities were missed (how is that for the weasel-i-est of phrasing: my fault? parents fault? advisors' fault?) and now is the time to just be prepared for opportunity. Be prepared in all of the things that I wanted (except dance, too old) and if opportunity arises, great. If not, I like what I do, am paid well for it and shall be satisfied with that.

And that, I think, is a real feat.

Half a mushroom, or, expectations, great and otherwise

Vacation. My husband and I visited my Mom for a few days earlier this month. Quiet, except for the rattle of turnpike noise nearby, and relaxing. Sister-in-law Edye joined us for an afternoon and dinner and told a funny story about her son, Stephen.

He was home, she left out the ingredients for a new meatloaf recipe and suggested he put it together. It had more than the usual amount of veggies.

So, Steve makes the meatloaf, it's delish and then Edye looks in the fridge and sees a package of mushrooms torn open. Recipe called for half a cup but there's barely a dent made in the package. Plastic shrink wrap ripped open and maybe a couple mushrooms removed.

Edye asks Steve about it. Sure, he says. Recipe called for "half a mushroom."

Mom asks son to cook. Mom's been cooking for years and knows how to read a recipe. Young-brained male son willing to try, maybe not so careful reading recipe.

Result? Open package of mushrooms in the fridge with a half a mushroom taken out, Mom totally amused by the whole thing and a family who gets to hear the story over again, and laugh along with her.

Family lore is born.

We ask others to do things for us all the time, or ask questions, or make gestures, based on what WE know. Disappointment, frustration, or best of all, humor, results when requests are responded to based on what the other person knows.

As I've gone through life, and been disappointed by my own expectations and how I've perceived they should have been responded to, (apologies for the clunky syntax), I've also learned that expectations need to be moderated. Especially if you don't have too much control over how your requests or directions will be followed. Or, maybe more important, sometimes people just do things differently. It's not better, not worse, just different.

Really, what's the diff between half a mushroom and half a cup of them? In regards to meatloaf, that is.

The picture, and I hope I haven't repeated it, is of a tiny little courtyard fountain in Pittsburgh, between Boulevard of the Allies and First Avenue. There are Japanese maples and hostas and a few hanging baskets and contemporary wire benches. It is a narrow place, between a parking garage and an historic building. And nicely unexpected. I love walking through it on my summer fountain walks. It is cool, quiet and quite peaceful.

Right here in Downtown Pittsburgh.