After weeks and weeks of missing, I flung the poop bag right into the pot! Blam!
It’s a tough shot — not so much because of the distance (from where picture was taken) or the small target, but because the missile has a tail (we use long, plastic newspaper bags) and the ballast is weighted unevenly. You can’t throw overhand or at least, I don’t, and hence you have very little control. How satisfying to nail it!
Was my aim improved by an hour long walk through sunny, summery, quiet neighborhoods? Three-quarters of the way along a sour knot in my gut disappeared. Just by walking. In the sun. With my dog.
We saw lavender blooming on Ripley Street, two Chinese brothers heading to the T in matching pj’s and yellow caps on Braeland with their dad, people out jogging, cycling and walking their dogs. Closer to home, the lavender has yet to blossom, but on Walter Street we were treated to sun-illumined rust-vermillion Japanese maple leaves and a morning dove perched up on a cable backed by blue sky.
Finn had a Training Victory on our walk, too — a trifecta. Some other time.
Given the TV’s current state, I’m plowing through a memoir called, “They Left Us Everything” — a book recommended by a blog reader a couple of weeks ago. This was Plum Johnson’s debut effort and it came at age 68. Sixty-eight!
The book won an RBC Taylor prize, an award for literary non-fiction that “best combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception.”
The memoir is interesting and well-written. Doesn’t hold a candle to “H is for Hawk”, but then, very few memoirs do (that’s like comparing debut historic fiction to “Wolf Hall” by Hillary Mantel — it just isn’t fair — but I think it’s the last memoir I’ve read?)
Johnson crafts nuanced portraits of complicated parents, not just their late, declining years, but their more vibrant youth as well. Both of her parents led interesting lives — informed by tragedy, travel and unusual circumstances. Johnson gets at the essential unknowability of parents by their children, something made plain as she sorts through their belongings.
Her mother was a piece of work and her father over-reliant on military experience as a benchmark for parenting. And yet, whatever wounds linger they scarcely show up on the page. Whether this is a testament to Johnson’s person or her writing style is hard to judge. It does strike me that building a narrative around the objects of her parents’ lives may have kept a certain kind of self-reflection at bay.
I like memoirs that get down and dirty too, but the absence of grudges, whining, or blame is notable.
I don’t know nearly as much about my parents’ courtship or their early work lives as Plum Johnson does about hers.
On our second walk, Finn and I rounded the corner to find a huge heart-shaped cloud, like a blousy kiss from the sky.
Perhaps it was meant to compensate for today’s crossword puzzles? Or the personal torment of the last couple of weeks? KISS!
And now it’s gonna rain again — no wonder I’m ecstatic about puffy white clouds and doves backed by blue sky. Man! Meanwhile, the catalpa blossoms that seemed celebratory days ago now clump in wilting piles of rot, four inches deep in places. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep. And grab. Good thing I’m totally into sweeping these days (seriously into sweeping). And good thing this old bod can still squat with ease.
for some reason, i like that you named the streets…?….but i like it.
I thought about that — the specificity does bring something to the description. For that reason, – I wish I’d noted what cartoon characters were on those two boys’ pajamas, but I didn’t catch them.
what a good day well written
Notable that for the most part parents inner lives are hidden from children of course, but to convey that is tricky. Plumb sounds interesting though. I’ve made up histories for my Mom ’cause I have more facts to piece together. But for my father I have only biographical information I read somewhere after his death.
You had a lovely day. Hooray!
Somehow I missed this post when you wrote it, it was languishing at the tail-end of my unread inbox. Your neighborhood sounds lovely, every walk must be an adventure in people-watching! One question: blousy? Did you mean blowsy?
It was so long ago, I had to go back and read. And then look up the two words. Here’s part of what I found: “In addition to the above definitions (i.e. resembling a blouse), it can also mean puffy and made of a light material – definitely something with volume, motion and lightness.”