Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 12, 2008

Gorham Mt. Giantess

GiantThe terrific wind of yesterday had gentled some over the night, and the frigid temperature rose somewhat this morning. By the time I arrived down at the Ocean Path along Otter Cliffs, the sun was shinning and 24 degrees felt almost pleasant.

In fact, an hour later as I toiled up the side of Gorham Mt., I found myself stripping off layers. It was the must wonderful thing to have the sun actually warming my cheeks – it lifted the inevitable February frump and made me feel like I was glowing a little.

Up there on the mountain under the sun, I felt ten feet tall. Maybe I was!

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 12, 2008

Turn off the TV – Read to Your Kid!

I spent half an hour walking around Bar Harbor yesterday, buffeted by an extraordinarily cold wind. Finally deciding that I was risking frostbite on my ears, I darted in to Sherman’s Bookstore to use up my last fifteen minutes before work. Walking into a bookstore is always a dangerous thing to do. I usually come out with a completely random purchase, as I did yesterday. I carried a copy of Adbusters, the Journal of the Mental Environment, under my arm.

Reading it proved to be a more interesting way to pass the evening at work than playing Tetris or Solitaire. Adbusters is a Canadian magazine full of weird pictures and scary journalism.

I learned that the number of bipolar kids, suicidal kids, and ADHD afflicted kids in the US has skyrocketed in the last couple of years. It is significant that the average household in the US views 8 hours of television in a day as well. What else is new… How often do people have to be told that letting kids watch too much TV is dangerous to their health?

A woman I know who recently had a new baby told me that she can now understand why parents let their children get sucked into the TV trap. She has found that it is easier to plunk her 3 year old in front of the television, than try to care for both of her children at the same time.

Although sometimes I have felt like I missed out on something because my parents did not allow me to watch TV, I am coming to realize how incredibly fortunate I am. Instead of “plunking” me down in front of a glowing screen, my parents read out loud to me. Once I was old enough to do so, I read out loud to my younger sisters. We can all testify to the value of this experience – for one thing, we don’t suffer from ADHD, are not bipolar, and have never shown suicidal tendencies!

It’s a frightening world out there. I can only recommend that you move to Sweden, (where the average household watches only two and a half hours of TV a day – still enough to cause children to “suffer from social and mental problems”) or save a little money on cable bills and pick up a book!
Up for a Minute
Better yet – go outside. 🙂

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 11, 2008

Solitary Fiction

I found an interesting thought in the book Fifty Days of Solitude by Doris Grimbach. While spending fifty days in almost total silence and solitude in Sargentville, Maine, the author reads a lot, and these words she discovers spoke to me as well:

“When [people are] there for you in the flesh, the real world is sufficient. When you’re alone, you have to invent imaginary characters. You need them for companionship.” – Peter Aaron

This expresses more completely a thought I have almost arrived at a couple of times – the answer to my question, “Why can’t I write fiction anymore?” When I was younger, living at home, tucked away in my basement room, with few friends and a sheltered view of the world, it was almost effortless for me to come up with characters to populate my fantastic stories.

Look Both WaysOnce I left home and ventured out into the real world, met a great many interesting people, and was hit by a flood of experiences, I no longer needed my imaginary people and places to satisfy me. Real people, and real places occupied my mind, leaving little room for the fictional characters of my stories. For several years I didn’t even miss those characters.

Now I have fond memories of them, and sometimes wish that I might conjure up new characters. I am still too much interested in the real world though, and rightly so. I am writing again, but now I am writing about the things that actually happen to me. I am my favorite character!

It’s all research though, and an expansion of my craft. To be as fully alive in the real world as I can be now, will allow me to return to my imaginary places with more knowledge and wisdom and a greater ability to visualize my characters.

Perhaps for me, as for Doris Grumbach, “solitude is the proper condition for the creation of fictional characters”. It was once. I’m not ready to admit that it will always be so, and I am not willing to return to any basement rooms to find out!

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 11, 2008

Too Young for Dylan?

kate blanchettI don’t know why, but I find it annoying when people who are older than me do this:

Me (talking about the movie I’m Not There): I enjoyed it a lot, even though I watched it without knowing much about Bob Dylan.
Woman (with a short laugh): Well, I guess you’re a little young to know Dylan.
Me: *polite smile* There is that.

Why do people feel that it’s necessary to point out that I am “too young” to know Bob Dylan, but no one would ever say the same thing about Beethoven? I am constantly exploring and discovering new music (among many other things) and I have never cared what decade it comes from, or what century. If it sounds good, I like it, and I feel that it is as much my music as it is the music of the people who were alive when it was first written. If it moves me and challenges me and changes my view or simply pleases my ear, it is my music. I can identify with it, even if I wasn’t there to see it born.

What are people really saying to me when they make that face and say “Oh, but that was before your time”? Are they getting possessive about the music of their generation? Do I make them feel old? Do they think that because I am young I can’t appreciate the music and what it meant and how it changed their world?

I said that I didn’t care what decade or century music came from, but that is, on second thought, far from true. If some piece of music or artist especially captures my attention I will usually try to learn a little about the person and their time and what was going on and why they wrote what they did. Greater appreciation of the music prompts me to do so, and the satisfaction of my curiosity.

That is why, after watching I’m Not There, a fascinating look at the numerous lives and persons that make up the being that is Dylan, I went to my computer and to my library to find out more. I even rented and watched Martin Scorsese’s 3+ hours documentary titled No Direction Home. I am satisfied. I can now appreciate the music that I listen to and enjoy even more.*

dylan Maybe those people mean nothing by their comments. Maybe I am just getting hot and bothered for silly reasons having more to do with the fact that I AM so young, and often feel like I have a great deal of catching up to do. I want people to appreciate the fact that I am learning and am excited about the music they enjoyed when they were my age, instead of making me feel like I just missed out. It’s not my fault I wasn’t born until 1986. Give a girl a break!

*And I can further appreciate Cate Blanchett’s amazing performance as Dylan in I’m Not There. My eyes were riveted to her face in every scene she graced, and I knew she was great, even having never seen Dylan’s body language or heard his speaking voice for myself. Now that I have, I find myself even more astonished that anyone could so completely disappear into another person’s being as Blanchett did in this performance.

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 9, 2008

Docks

Twins
Finally a sunny day. I walked down to the beach and became fascinated with the docks that have been pulled up onto the sand. It’s funny how things appear un-interesting one day, and then totally capture your attention the next. I kind of like that about the world.

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 7, 2008

A Lazy Wind

After the numerous spills I took the other day while walking, I was non too eager to go outside during another snow storm. However, as I have committed to this Avon Walk thing, and have only 15 weeks or so to get in shape for a marathon and a half marathon, I forced myself into my snow pants and boots and headed out.

Ice HutsI had a much better time, although when I first stomped down to Jordan Pond and was punched in the gut by a vicious wind, I almost turned back. My “stiff upper lip” prevailed though, (somewhat literally) and I marched on.

Jordan Pond was finally frozen all the way across, and covered now by a sweeping of snow that had kicked drifts up onto the shore. The path around the pond was unrecognizable in spots, making my navigation of it a constant adventure.

I counted eight ice huts here and there, and a neon green snowmobile kept zipping to and fro across the pond. A beautiful Golden Retriever came dashing up to me at one point, it’s lush fur shining like a newly minted coin against the white of everything surrounding. The fellow who popped his head out of his hut at the sound of the dog barking was friendly, and mentioned with classic Mainer dryness “Bit windy today.”

I think it was Terry Pratchett who mentions a “lazy wind” in one of his books – a wind that doesn’t bother to go around you, but blows right through you. (Knowing Pratchett, the idea is probably not original!) That’s the kind of wind that came tearing gleefully through the pass between the Bubbles and Sergeant Mt., a veritable sneeze from Jack Frost’s mouth.

Beaver Trail?I put my head down and trudged forward. My footprints followed those of a beaver who had gone before me, leaving little paw-prints and the marks of it’s paddle tail on the surface of the snow. I remember walking this same path during a summer dusk, with the beaver swimming beside me. It was like meeting an old friend to see evidence of the beaver’s passing.

A week or so ago, I complained to one of my librarian friends about it being too cold to walk. She told me, with the surprising vigor of an older woman “Oh you should still go – you’ll always be glad that you did!”

She’s right of course. What if I hadn’t gone walking this morning – I would have missed out on the beaver tracks and the ice huts and the trees dressed in snowy gowns. Imagine all the things you miss when you, like that terrible wind, are too lazy to bother?

Today on Good Morning America, Cher said in an interview that she only regretted the things she hadn’t done (such as not going on a trip to Vegas with Elvis!)

Thank goodness I don’t have such regrets! 🙂

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 5, 2008

Thoughts from Vonnegut

I finished reading Kurt Vonnegut‘s collection of his speeches and articles from the 80’s – Fates Worse Than Death. It was an amusing book but not a particularly hopeful one. Vonnegut, after all and at his own admission is a humorist who writes about very un-funny things. It is the humorist’s job to make us laugh at our own pains. Laughing makes it seem better.

White PavementI fell down five times while out walking this morning. The sheet of ice hidden beneath the new-fallen snow might have had something to do with it. It seems pretty funny to me now – like a scene out of a Charlie Chaplin movie – but while it was happening I was frustrated and a little frightened.

I feel very similar when I read about Antarctica melting and the ocean temperatures rising and the sun’s rays not bouncing back as they should and the seven year drought in Australia (which I want to visit this coming winter). I feel frustrated and a little frightened. Vonnegut feels pretty bad about those same things, among other world-wide plights, and in one speech (making fun of himself for finally being an old poop who “imagined that life was ending not merely for himself but for the whole universe”) he said this:

“If flying-saucer creatures or angels or whatever were to come here in a hundred years, say, and find us gone like the dinosaurs, what might be a good message for humanity to leave for them, maybe carved in great letters on a Grand Canyon wall?
“Here is this old poop’s suggestion:
WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES, BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD.
“We might as well add this:
AND TOO DAMN CHEAP.”

The other day at work we were all standing around talking about new technologies (did you know they’ve created robots that have learned how to lie?! Where is Asimov and his Three Laws of Robotics when you need him?!*) and one guy said that he probably wouldn’t live to see the real doomsday stuff that we seem to be spiraling toward. I believe otherwise.

In fact after reading that bit about robots in a Discovery magazine this morning, I am certain that in my lifetime a whole lot of exciting and scary things are going to happen – I hope more exciting than scary, but I am afraid that we’re all going to be too excited to realize that it’s scary.

That’s just how humanity is wired it seems. I am guilty of it myself – and demonstrated the potentially destructive power of that wiring when I ventured outside this morning, high in spirit and low in common sense, and returned home bruised and subdued.

We probably can save ourselves…but will we bother trying?

At least Vonnegut can keep his tone light. For myself, all I can say is that I recycled my cardboard this morning.

*Okay, so robot lying isn’t part of the laws, but I still feel like it’s a step in the wrong direction!

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | February 2, 2008

Pancake Happy

Small things make me happy. Listening to Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in b minor for the first time in a long time. The perfectly round pancake I made myself for breakfast. The bright sunshine that crept up on the heavy ceiling of clouds this morning. These words, spoken by Kurt Vonnegut in an interview with the Weekly Guardian in 1991:

“Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A: Imagining that something somewhere wants us to like it here.”

Later in the interview:

“Q: When and where were you the happiest?
A: About ten years ago my Finnish publisher took me to a little inn on the edge of the permafrost in his country. We took a walk and found frozen ripe blueberries on bushes. We thawed them in our mouths. It was as though something somewhere wanted us to like it here.”

I am learning that you can not be happy all the time. It is hard for me to admit to myself that I am unhappy though. I had to struggle with myself the other day, to admit that I was in fact not all right, I was totally miserable, and it was okay to feel that way. In fact, I discovered that admitting to yourself that you are unhappy helps you to recognize and appreciate better those sudden exquisite moments of complete happiness.

Heavy SkyIf you think more money or more possessions or a new job or new friends or old friends are going to make you happy, you will be wrong. You don’t understand happiness. It can’t be made. It can only be found. If you expect certain circumstances to make you happy you will be disappointed. Happiness isn’t this overwhelming thing that is going to wrap you up when everything finally goes your way.

Happiness to me is like the sunshine that crawled beneath the clouds and poked it’s head through when it found a break. It was always here, behind the clouds. Over the past few difficult months, that is how happiness has found me – by hanging around, waiting for me to open myself a little and let it poke it’s warm fuzziness through.

I’ve learned to find the jewel-like moments that I can recognize as happy ones, and even in circumstances that are less than ideal, know in that moment that I am completely happy. And that this amazingly round pancake is proof that something somewhere wants me to like it here. 🙂

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | January 31, 2008

A Little Walk

Avon WalkWell, it’s now official. I am going to walk a marathon. And then a half marathon. 39 miles in two days. A weekend in May. Me and over a thousand others. Boston. For the greater good. For myself.

I am going to participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I have been looking for something to do that would be fulfilling to me but would also make an impact on the world. In order to do the walk I have to raise a minimum of $1,800, so this will be a challenge for me on two fronts. The physical part of it will be fairly easy when compared to the fundraising. I’ve never done anything like it before. I’m going to have to have a bake sale or a car wash or something…!

I am excited to see what happens, to see how much money I can raise, and meet new people. I feel really good about doing this thing. Even though the walk is for breast cancer, I am doing it for every person I have known who has battled any kind of cancer – aunts, uncles, my father, the grandmother I never met, friends, and the parents of friends. I’m doing it for myself and for my sisters.

I keep thinking of Miss Rumphius, and her lilacs, and her grandfather’s words; while traveling and seeing the world is all fine and good, she must do something to make that world more beautiful. I have done a lot for myself over the past couple of years, and have worked hard in order to make money so that I could have fun. That’s all well and good, but now it’s time to do something for someone else. Help make the world a better place. And I think I’ll still have a little fun in the process!

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Posted by: Sally Ingraham | January 30, 2008

Read a Magazine or Two

I have been reading a lot of magazines recently – Smithsonian, Bangor Metro, Down East, National Geographic, Portland, Discovery, and any number of other magazines. If it has an interesting cover I’ll pick it up, if it’s about the area, or a subject that interests me, or even something I know nothing about that looks intriguing.

The more magazines I pick up the more subjects I find that are interesting. I read a whole magazine about archeology the other day, and an article in it tied into an article I had read recently in Smithsonian. Something I read in Smithsonian was brought up in conversation with friends later that week, and I could say something intelligent about it. Suddenly, I am feeling more informed.

I don’t watch TV – being unwilling to pay for it – and I only read local papers, so all too often I fall behind the times. Perhaps reading magazines is the answer. I have frequently desired to be a “well read” person, but there are so many books to read and I feel like I could never read enough. Besides, all too often the books at the library are out of date themselves. So to the magazines I will go.

I realize that it’s not really a matter of being “well read”, whatever that means, and that if I am striving only to sound intelligent I will probably end up just sounding foolish. Who cares what I know, or if others know how much I know. It’s really about keeping my curiosity alive. It is so easy for me to hole up in my house with my movies and my novels, and go for walks alone, write a little and scribble drawings of trees in my sketchbook…being creative to some extent, but falling into a sedentary mindset. I stop learning new things.

I sometimes wish I could step out of myself, so that I could study myself and watch the patterns that my life makes. Sometimes, even from as close as I am, I can watch myself and tell when I have let myself go, when I have settled, when I have turned into a puddle and my only activity is evaporating. If only I could catch myself doing it and stop myself before I reach that point!

I must be a moving stream, active, involved, stirred up, stretched. Although it sounds silly, let these magazines be the bow that draws across the string of my being, keeping me vibrating so that sounds and music come out – new notes, not old stale ones. I need growth, especially right now in my life. I need new thoughts, new ideas, new subjects, new discoveries, new things to be excited about.

I sat for an hour this morning, variously enthralled by articles about Hemmingway in Cuba, trout populations in the US, Elvis impersonators, and the newest theories about Stonehenge. Maybe next week I’ll have woken up enough to delve into politics and the state of our economy, be curious enough to pick up a Times Magazine, or Popular Science, or US News Weekly!

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