Memories Don't Keep You Warm Enough.

The neighborhood around the Los Leones Metro station in Providencia is full of second hand and vintage clothing shops. They bring stock down from North America and the neighborhood is  a godsend for those of us with rangy gringo builds that don't fit lines designed for the rather more petite Chilean figure.
            Right now, that's me.  I left my leather winter jacket in a taxi and I'm looking for a new one.
            There are a lot of really lovely leather jackets in Chile - but I'm tall, and broad across the shoulders, and if the jacket doesn't fit so tight across the back that I can't lift my arms, the waist doesn't drop below my bellybutton, and the zipper won't meet across my chest, and when I ask hopefully for a larger size, I'm already wearing XL and the line doesn't go any higher.
            Yesterday I went to Los Leones.  I started in a store called Vintage, just off of Calle Santa Magdalena, and deep in a rack of high-eighties leather (bat-wing sleeves, malignant shoulder pads, vented fronts, elasticated waists, studs, fringe, patchwork and brocade - and every benighted bit of it on each and every jacket) I hit the jackpot.  On my very first stop.
            You could practically hear bells ringing.  Because this was it.
            This was really it - a soft suede duster, with a flared collar, and a gentle drape to the long skirt and wide split cuffs that ran almost all the way up to my elbows.
            It was the sort of coat that Destiny's Child would have rocked if they'd dreamed that high.  My college-aged self would have given a half a point off of my GPA for a coat like this.  The Dixie Chicks would probably have thrown in a solid gold record.
            It didn't  fit me like a glove.  It fit like a memory, like a song, you know -  the one where you copied the lyrics into a notebook because they got you - got you in a way nothing else ever had before.  They laid it all out like it was, and told you who you were in a way you'd always almost known, but had never quite understood until you heard that song - 
            That's how that coat fit.
I stood in front of the mirror and admired, and I turned one way, and then I turned the other, and then I turned back the first way again  -
            and I suppose one day I will be grateful to the big burly fellow with the Harley Davidson beard who was put his hand on my shoulder and said, very gently, "No. This is not a winter coat. This is not 2003.  You are not buying that coat today."  


It could have been. It could have been 2003.  Because I have dreams.

Pirates!

It is cold tonight!  The air is cold and damp and I'm puffing it out in clouds. I'm rugged up - coat, scarf, gloves and a big pink wool beret.
            And as I headed out, a family walked in the door.  A small girl gasped.
            "Look!" she crowed, pointing at my beret.  "A pirate!"
            Her face had gone white and eyes were as large as stars.  Every storybook she owned had just come to life in the middle of mundane everyday-world Santiago.
            I grinned and said "That's right." and came very close to screwing up my face and growling "Argh."
            But I didn't.  I settled for a pirate grin, and walked out, feeling rambunctious and yo-ho-ho-y.

Finding the Light

Today a friend of mine is having surgery.  She has cervical cancer.  It was treated, it went away and at the end of last year it came back. Today she will undergo a rather radical procedure - quite a lot of her insides will be removed.
            It is difficult for her and for her family. She has a husband and two beautiful children - a boy proud of his missing front teeth, and a girl with an urchin grin and the largest curls a small child can reasonably carry on her head.
            It is difficult, and she finds consolation in what she phrases as "finding the light" - the light of a dinner with friends, a helicopter trip over Niagara, a son in second grade and a daughter old enough to imitate grownups and be useful - even if that useful is scrubbing down the bathroom when she can't reach the taps on the sink. The water in the toilet solves that problem, and the hysterical laughter that goes along with a hasty shower for a kid and a Clorox scrub for all bathroom surfaces under 4 feet high is about as much light as a human body can stand.

Today she reckons she can use all the light she can get.
            I find my lights in the endlessly variable dimensions of human imagination. Like your daughter, my friend, we dream, and when we have dreamed - then, we simply can't help ourselves. We make it. We tinker and fix and because we did this one thing, we make the dreams bigger and bigger until - to take an example that is not mine - "we find ourselves playing complicated instruments while marching in complicated patterns in lockstep with half a hundred other humans, all of us wearing funny hats" and the result of what is, considered soberly, a rather odd collaboration, sets a million watchers on fire, screaming for joy.
            Sometimes those million people, building and tinkering, iteration by iteration, adjusting and learning and loving, find themselves coming together in a different sort of dance - their million labors condensed into a dozen people with dozen complicated tools each, dressed in masks and silly gowns, moving in unison beneath a circle of bright surgical lights and making life.
            And it is exhilarating. For this to happen, someone dreamed.

You got this, my friend.  You're gonna come out flying.

Possibly a Scream. In the Dark. But not in my Living Room. Thank You.

So -
There's this art blog called This is Colossal that showcases young and contemporary artists and mostly, generally and specifically, I adore it. As with any venue, some of the stuff leaves me cold, some of the stuff leaves me wishing I had room in my house for a 10x14 foot wall installation, and sometimes I see something that makes me sit up and go "Oh."
And every single time, I crave what I have seen with every sinew and fiber of my being, and I damn my middle-class bank account. 
            This morning I found Livio Scarpella, a marble sculptor who is just the most. The skill, the craft, the artistry, the sheer nous and po-mo irony of his subject matter - I adore it and I want it.  I want it right in my living room.  And there's only one little problem with that. When i imagine actually possessing one of these remarkable works, I come out in cold gooseflesh all down the back of my neck. It's simply that I couldn't bear the thought of tiptoeing  to the kitchen in the middle of the night knowing that it was waiting for me in the dark.
            I showed the sculptures to Mr Tabubil, and I had to hold him by the shirt to keep him in front of the computer screen.
            "AUGGGGHHHHH."  He said.  "I do not want. I do not want to see, actually, and what's wrong with you AUUGGGHHH. Are you completely out of your mind?"  
            I must be, because they're just... divine, no?  What sort of crazy, fertile, splendid, febrile brain came up with this stuff?

Two Dreams

Last night I dreamed good things.

            I dreamed that I was given a helium balloon, and it was so buoyant that it pulled me off the ground.  I was in a university, and went bobbing through the hallways, creating mayhem among the teachers, who were dreadfully dismayed by a flying student who scattered papers and grading sheets as she went past! 

            I dreamed that I won the lottery.  Not a financial sort of lottery.  A man with a clipboard knocked on your door and told you that you had won a lifetime of happiness.  Throughout your life, you would always walk the path that would bring you the most joy.

Vacations are Splendid Places. And the Dutch are Terribly Tall.

Mr Tabubil and I have just returned from three weeks holiday – a week in Holland, so that I might see a bit of his country and meet his family, and two weeks alone together in Italy. 

Holland began in Madrid, where we changed planes for Amsterdam after our flight north from Santiago. Queuing up to board our next flight, I looked at the passengers all around me, and had a moment. 

            “Mr Tabubil!”  I hissed. “They’re all blonde!  And so tall – they’re practically brushing the roof of the plane!”

            When we landed in Amsterdam, Holland kept on coming.  It was something of a shock – Mr Tabubil had warned me, many times, but I hadn’t really taken it in. We were met at the airport by his aunt Anneke and his uncle Pieter and their two teenage sons.  Together they did something that I’d always thought would be impossible: they made my six-foot, strong-boned husband look petite.

            Mr Tabubil has dozens of aunts and uncles and cousins, and all of them – even the young boy who has just crossed through puberty and is only now beginning to grow - are at least a foot taller than he is. 

            Pieter is somewhat above normal height.  Just enough to be imposing.  Anneke brushes the ceiling when she stretches up to smile, and their two sons are the height of small skyscrapers.  Dinner-time in their house is rather like sharing a meal with two well-behaved Labrador Retriever puppies.  Anneke and Pieter prepare acres of substantial and nutritious food, and the boys inhaled the lot. I had the feeling that if we turned our backs for even ten seconds, we’d turn around again and even the place settings on the table would be gone. And they’d be back in their seats, not a hair on their heads ruffled nor a smear of tomato sauce or gravy out of place.

            After dinner, the two of the excuse themselves from the table and head for the bread bin and pull out a fresh loaf and start a second supper. 

            “We go through a whole loaf every day” Anneke said – half rueful, but mostly proud.
            It’s no joke feeding two growing boys of that magnitude.  The first night I was in their house I dreamed that Anneke had taken me by the hand and showed me the emergency freezer – piled high with frozen pizzas, in case the boys became hungry and stopped growing in the night.

Technicolor Dreaming

I have another sinus infection banging around inside my skull and I'm on heavy antibiotics.
They give me DREAMS.
At night everything is inside out: buildings are buried upside down in the ground and the ground is made of water. Macadam road race busily across mountains on thousands of little booted feet.
Last night I dreamed that Switzerland was created a neutral country in 1951- systematically stripped of its assets and infrastructure after it tried to annihilate most of Europe. I sat in a wooden lecture hall and heard the words "Switzerland's murderous hordes" a particularly vivid, lime-ish shade of the color GREEN. My alarm-clock rang and it's jangling clamor was a field of dried-out flowers - if dried flowers are a thick shower of gold.

(It's called Rulide, if you want a hit.)

Dreams of Twilight

 I have not read one of the Twilight books, nor seen any of the movies (the wikipedia summaries don't count), but my students are right in the prime demographic and last night the publicity barrage caught up with me and I dreamed about Twilight.
            Edward the Sparkly Son of Darkness lurked around corners looking glum and jaundiced, but this time out the worm turned: the pouty heroine (me) found a glittery emo boy with unexpectedly large incisors skulking about behind her to be rather alarming and called the sheriff to ask for a restraining order.  Two blocks distance, minimum.
            The sheriff picked Edward up and read him the riot act and Edward's stock expression of disdainful ennui deepened until he looked as if he wanted to bite the entire universe in the neck.  Didn't anyone realize that he had a literary imperative to Be With Me?  He didn't think much of it either, thank you very much - what sort of immortal being would enjoy skulking around after a teenager with about as much joie-de-vivre as a melted popsicle?  But did we see HIM going against canon?
            Well, DID we?!?
            The sheriff sighed, and apologized to Edward and told him to get right back to it, and told me to go talk to the author if I thought I had a problem.

When I was in university, vampire stories meant a young woman who stood up for herself, spent most of her life on the OFFENSIVE and took no BS from nobody.  Buffy was a role model.
            Today, vampires mean getting knocked up by your high school sweetheart, who will take care of you for ever and ever and ever and you will never have to worry about a thing.  Even when he hurts you.
            He loves you so VERY much that he crawls through your window at night to watch you sleep because daylight stalking just isn't enough - he just can't BEAR to be away from you for even a little bit. 
            We all know how well that sort of co-dependency works out in the real world. Buffy would have told him to grow up - right before she pitched him off the roof.

The Bang & Olufsen Gnome-Catcher

I dreamed that somebody gave me a Bang & Olufson gnome-catcher.  It was sleek and white and seamless, with an infinitely glossy depth to the surface, and shaped vaguely like a bent teardrop - like a very exciting iphone dock designed by Apple.
You held it against a wall inside your house, down next to the skirting, and gnomes would be sucked right out of the baseboards with a sort of sucking, whooshing noise, and plastered to the gnome-catcher like iron filings to the poles of a bar magnet.  While they were still stunned, you stuffed them, blue jackets and pointed red hats and all, onto the bent part of the teardrop and they would start vibrating very rapidly, and after exactly eight seconds they would dematerialize and vanish, with a faint glop!-ing sound.
If you didn't catch them, they would dig right through your walls and pull up all your wiring.