The Purpose of Winter

Does winter matter? Is the coldest season important? What is gained by it?

I once lived where winter was wet and green, where the smell of freshly cut grass meant only one thing: Christmas. And yet, it was the coldest season Palo Alto had and so it sufficed. However, most of the time my winters have been truly frosty.

As a child, Virginia winters were plenty cold. There was ice to scrape off the windshield in the morning, it snowed a few times each year, and I knew how to wear a scarf and hat. Next came Utah winters with blowing, powdery snow and a real need for boots. The snow on the mountains stayed from October till summer. Good times.

My stretch of California winters was interrupted by one in Boston and one in Ankara- and the two were remarkably similar. Then came the Cleveland winter- brrrrr. Lake-effect snow was compounded by loneliness and insufficient insulation. (Cleveland and I didn't really get along.)

Vermont was next: cold outside but warm inside. Yes, I had to seal up a few windows for the season and it was two years before we had heating vents upstairs, but somehow the fact that I was finally home made all the difference. We were still wet behind the ears and giddy about being Vermonters. We relished the snow and making our kids don so much gear each school day morning. Shoveling massive amounts of snow from the roof and the driveway made us feel hardy and tough. Learning the wintery ropes of Northerners was a challenge made enjoyable by doing it together.

And so, is it any wonder that my "easy" winter here in Virginia has thus far failed to inspire me at all? Yes, I brought my bin of Christmas decorations, but I don't really feel like putting them up (I will, though). My good sweaters are nearly useless so far. The children balk at wearing their coats because they know it's just "not that cold".

Without truly feeling the need to button up, snuggle up or find my down slippers, preparing for Christmastime feels like the marking of just another annual event. Somehow, for me, real Christmas is much more difficult and that makes it more meaningful. The joy of the Grace given at Christ's birth is sweeter when life around you is unbearably frozen. The warmth of celebration and light is cozier when the alternative is so very dark and cold. Winter and Christmas are the great opposites, each a foil for the other.

My husband is on his way to Australia today. I am trying to get my mind around Christmas traditions that include the beach and BBQ's. If I had to celebrate Christmas in shorts, I would lack a certain element of gratitude and appreciation. Not that it can't be done, mind you, but it would be hard for me. In fact, it is hard for me to feel seasonally cheery as I sit here in a house that's 65º... without the heat on.

Fortunately, I have 24 more days to get my act together and find a way to achieve that powerful, deep joy that only comes once a year at this great season.

Maybe it will snow....

Missing Verdancy

The grass is brown and dry,

The sun glares in the sky,

And I am wondering why

I remember this place as so green.

Every weed seems to grow

And how, I'll never know.

But I really do miss the flow

Of the rain that I haven't seen.

Maybe it's not the weather,

Or it's everything all together. 

But I'm not really sure whether

I can survive in a landscape so lean.

I Have a History With This Field

(A Driving Tour of Vermont Route 116)

By Maren Mecham

I have a history with this field. 

I watched through the summer as the short soybeans grew like a carpet

and white morning glory vines took over the hedgerows. 

I have a history with this field. 

Every time manure was spread here, I had to shut my windows.

I have a history with this field.

It was here that I remembered how my friend mourns the end of summer 

when the corn is finally harvested and the field is left 

with stiff, dry, truncated reminders of the green that is gone.

I have a history with this field. 

This field made me marvel as the low October morning sun and shimmering dew

collaborated to illuminate a thousand sparkling spider webs in the grass. 

I have a history with this field.

This is the one that made my children shout, “Horses! Horses on the right!” 

and as I passed I knew my favorite pond was just around the bend.

I have a history with this field. 

Here I saw a flock of turkeys in November, 

hunting and pecking between the corn stalks. 

My daughter asked, “What color are turkeys’ eyes?” 

“Red, I think. Let’s ask Grandma.”

I have a history with this field. 

It isn’t very big. In fact, it’s child-sized.

Not more than an acre by the barn. 

But this one is my favorite. 

This is the field in which I grew my children. 

(Someday I'd like to make this into a book with illustrations, but maybe not this year.)

May Poetry 2 (2009)

Richness
by Maren Mecham

I love this day,
the snail’s pace of little children
as they discover this and that.
I’m glad we have nothing on the calendar today.

I love the tender softness of the baby.
I never appreciated it with the first one
or the second one.

I love the way is fat finger
briefly tries to understand
the hole in my sock.

I love the long epic songs
that reveal the inner workings
of the five year old.

The wit, humor and gentle care
of the oldest child
as she shows her little brother
how to ride a wooden stick horse-
this is my paycheck.

The fistful of squished dandelions
melts my heart.
“I picked these for you, Mommy.”
Does he know how timeless and universal those words are?

Someday he won’t bring me such treasures.
Someday I will think my own thoughts as I eat my dinner-
and I will taste my food again.

Maybe that day will never come.

Super Food

Blueberry

you are the orb of summer

biggest when the rain comes

gathering dark sugar in your skin

sweetest when the sun comes

first green, pink, purple, and midnight blue

Buy the Book

My book came today and it's really quite nice. I like the dust jacket, the printing, and the quality. It's fun to see it all bound like a real official book. My images are just a tad washed out, but that may be due to the calibration of my monitor. I can fix that. Anyway, all in all, I have to say it's a pretty good pruduct. Make yourself a book!

Bookmaking 301

My sister posted a piece about making one's blog into a book and it looked so enticing that I gave it a try. Then I kept trying, tweaking, copying and pasting, fixing fonts, color managing photos, fine-tuning, spell checking (blogger spell check doesn't work on my mac), and soft and hard proofing.

Some 20 hours of work later, I'm ready to publish volume 1: all the posts, comments, and most of the photots from 2006 and 2007. As soon as I make my first copy and approve it, it will be available at the Blurb Bookstore for you die-hard readers as a hardcover for approximately $40.00. I don't expect you to actually buy it (and I won't make any profit on it), but I wanted to make a copy for myself because I haven't been as good at keeping up my journal lately. Besides, I'm one of those design geeks who enjoys color managing photos in Photoshop and fine-tuning colors in HSB and RGB late into the night. I hope it turns out right... it's certainly been fun.

Here's to another year of Thirty Marens Agreeing. Happy New Year!

Ivory Towers

Ok, Dave. Here's what I came up with- it's not perfect, but it will have to do. This was harder than I thought it would be- my ending isn't that strong and I found I'm not a very good comedy writer. Anyway, it's sort of Just Shoot Me meets BBC's The Office meets Fawlty Towers. For those of you who don't keep up with Dave's blog , he set up a tv pilot challenge. Here's my response. I went to http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/storygen.php and got my random elements. They are:

Setting: California University
Plot: Fawlty Towers Plot
Mandatory Narrative Device: Vegas Baby
Hero: Margaret Simon
Villain: Enigmatic Minion
Mandatory Character As Device: Hot Librarian
Mandatory Trope 1: The Worf Effect
Mandatory Trope 2: Stock Aesops
(Optional) Stock Phrase: Let Me Get This Straight
(Optional) Genre: Brit Com

Welcome to "Ivory Towers" [Brit Com]. The setting is [California University], San Jose campus. Short, slim, and shy, Preet Chowdry [Margaret Simon] is a new associate professor of English Literature. She is talking to (30-ish) tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed Christian Olsen [Hot Librarian] over the counter at the Science and Technology Library, where he works. Preet is clearly smitten and has done her homework. She's trying to impress Christian with her deep scientific knowledge. However, he's so far out of her league that he doesn't even realize she's a professor and not a student. He says something to the effect of, "Yes, I can bring out that original edition on distant parallelism, but you'll have to get a professor to sign it out for you." Preet opens her mouth to reply, but doesn't get the chance; Christian is distracted by someone else in need of assistance. Enter Preet's friend, Kabir Mehta, also from London, also of Indian descent, but a computer science professor. He walks behind her and says (in an Indian accent), "It's such a shame. You'll just have to come out and tell him one of these days, you know." He continues on his way, smiling.

Preet enters her office, which she shares with fellow lit professor Sarah Dunford. Sarah is American, uptight, stressed out, and up for tenure review this year. Grades are due in 3 days, and Sarah is busily reading, marking, and making wild comments out loud to no one in particular. "Are you finished?" she asks Preet. "Not yet", Preet says, "but almost. I have 8 papers and 15 exams to go. I'm going to take them with me this weekend." "To Las Vegas?! [Vegas, baby] What are you, crazy? Good luck finding the time to grade in Vegas!" Sarah exclaims as she closes another blue book and throws it on the pile. Margaret Gould [Enigmatic Minion] (over-weight, over-bearing, power-hungry department secretary) pokes her head in the door to remind them that grades are almost due. Oh, and by the way, has anyone seen her desk lamp? It seems to be missing.

Preet, Kabir, and Matt Jameson (American, assistant rugby coach and math professor, though a bit dense) are headed off to Las Vegas with fellow Brit Will McNeil, a big, soft-hearted guy of African descent. He's from Kabir's old neighborhood and is California University's rugby coach. (He's only soft-hearted off the field.) CU has a match with UNLV, so Preet and Kabir thought they'd go along and support the team. While in Vegas, though, Preet loses one of her exams. She and Matt were grading at dinner last night, and she thinks it might have gotten mixed up with his blue books. She convinces Kabir to help her look for it, and hilarity ensues when Matt comes down the hall of the hotel while they are searching his room. [Fawlty Towers plot] Kabir manages to keep him out of the room (just barely) while Preet puts things back in order, but she can't escape the room. More antics when Matt and Kabir enter the room with Preet in the bathroom. She does manage to escape after some close calls.

CU's rugby team is one of the school's only decent sports teams, but this time they got creamed by UNLV [Worf effect]. The four of them go back feeling a bit low. Preet is especially down because she still hasn't found her lost exam, and grades are due at noon the next day. Monday morning, she goes into Will's office to mope. He sits on the edge of his desk and says, "Let me get this straight [stock phrase], you brought your grading to Las Vegas, lost one, then searched Matt's room- without telling him- but you didn't find it? You're in big trouble! What are you going to do? It's 11:30--" Suddenly, in walks Matt, holding Margaret's antique, frilly desk lamp.

"Look at this, you guys! I found it on a desk over in your department, and it has to be just like the one my mom used to have. I took it home to compare it to some old pictures, and I think it's exactly the same! My mom is going to be so surprised!" Preet's eyes get big, she goes a bit pale, grabs Matt by the arm, and heads out the door.

Sarah's all in a tizzy- she can't believe Matt took the lamp, but she's going to help him put it back without Margaret knowing. Will's job is to get Margaret away from her desk and into the coffee room long enough for them to return it, which proves nearly impossible. (Lots of physical comedy.)

Meanwhile, Preet is searching her office, and Christian walks in, holding a blue book. "Is Professor Chowdry in? Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong office."

"Wait! Yes! I am Professor Chowdry! Is that my exam? Thank you!" He hands it to her, looking a bit confused by her anxiety. She says, "I must have left it at the desk the other day when I was researching distant parallelism. Oh- it's an English exam, I know, but... um... I have this really deep interest in science, and...." He slowly backs up as she slides toward him. As he backs out the door, he bumps into Kabir. Christian turns and heads down the hall, looking nervous. Kabir turns to Preet and grins. "Sorry, was I interrupting something?"

"I guess not,'" she sighs.

Kabir: "You know, I think that you are going to have to be a little more bold with that library man. He does not seem to know which way is upwards!"

In walk Sarah, Matt and Will. Matt: "Whew, that was close." Margaret appears at the door. She says, "I'll say! Miss Chowdry, is that an exam? It's 12:00 and grades are due. What do you have to say for yourself?" She is clearly enjoying the tight spot Preet is in.

Preet is hunched over, busy underlining and marking up the exam. She stands up, hold the exam in the air, and says, "Ha! That it's not over until the fat lady sings![stock aesops]" Margaret opens her mouth (like singing), but doesn't reply.

The Adventures of Kew and Shelley: First Installment

(An exercise in character development, which I'm not very good at. More installments to come later... maybe... if I can figure out a decent plot. Comments, questions, and suggestions welcome, especially since I know most of my readers are really, really good writers.)

Shelley put her hand to her forehead and sighed. It had been a long flight and, as usual, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She squinted at her watch and tried to do the math. “What time is it on the East Coast?” she asked.

Kew didn’t answer, though. He was busy trying to figure out which baggage carousel their luggage would be spewed out on, and his Dutch wasn’t very good. “Say what?” he responded absently.

“Never mind. Hey, Kew, while you’ve got that book out... what does ‘munt’ mean?”

“Ah... let’s see... I think that’s the way to the currency exchange. I’ll get the bags and meet you there in a minute,” Kew said as he lunged over to a carousel and grabbed his backpack before it disappeared behind the curtain and back into the Land of Oz. He had gotten plenty of sleep on the plane and was feeling ready for some good old fashioned foreign travel adventures. As he surveyed the crowd and drank in the various styles and flavors, he said to himself, “Well, Shelley, we’re not in Rhode Island anymore.” Kew had never been to Europe and visiting Amsterdam was top on his list. In his imagination, it was something like his hometown of Seattle, only bigger, better, and more cool. Now that he was done with design school, it was time to see the world- or at least Holland.



“May I help you?” said the bright-eyed girl behind the glass.

“Oh yes, um, could I please change these into euros? Thanks.” Shelley chided herself for having memorized “Euros, tevreden”. Of course the people at the currency exchange would speak English; maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as she had thought. Shelley had been to London for a semester, which meant she wasn’t all new to Europe and traveling. However, she definitely had a tendency to over-pack and worry too much. She was really looking forward to beginning this trip she and her friend Kew had been planning for the last year. When they were juniors at the Rhode Island School of Design, they dreamed of traveling all around Europe after graduation. They had been making long lists of museums, towns, and schools to visit based on their design education: there was no way they could afford to do it all, but it was worth a try anyway. Whatever they could see would be better than nothing. Amsterdam was a natural place to start because of its great sense of design- and also because their friend Patricia lived here now.


Patricia Mersadeghi had a natural talent for graphic design and an offbeat sense of creativity. She credits her father, a colorist for a German publishing company. For her thirteenth birthday, he took her to see the paintings of the great Polish artist Tytus Czyzewski in downtown Berlin. That’s when she caught fire and discovered her passion for art. She went to see every exhibit she could at the Neue Nationalgalerie and spent endless hours filling pieces of paper with pencil drawings. She went through a cubist phase with such intensity and flair as only a fifteen year old girl can muster. She wanted to study in America, which led her to a small design school with an excellent reputation. RISD, or “Riz-dee” as everyone called it, was perfect for her. She really grew under the challenging tutelage of her professors, and learned important educational and life lessons from her friends there as well- people like Kew and Shelley. After graduation last year, she landed a great job in one of her favorite European cities.

“Hey, thanks,” said Shelley as Kew dumped her heavy backpack at her feet. “We’d better take off if we’re going to meet Patricia at the Film Museum on time. We have to figure out the system and find something to eat. I’ll leave the navigating up to you and your magic book, Kew.”

Amsterdam was not, in fact, bigger than Seattle. The center of the city was smaller and there seemed to be just as many people, making it feel more crowded. However, there was a familiar laid-back attitude which made Kew feel comfortable immediately. It was a marvelously sunny May day. Walking from Centraal Station, Kew and Shelley agreed that nearly every street had something good enough to inspire a term paper. There were fantastic buildings with interesting details, sculptures from another planet, joyful and disturbing murals, and window after window revealing shops full of unique items. The whole city was in full flower, and Kew occasionally caught scents that reminded him of Grandma’s garden he had visited long ago in Korea. Shelley really tried to keep up, but her body was exhausted. She spied a small oasis up ahead where they paused to buy some street food.


The Vondelpark was gorgeous and full of all kinds of life. It was refreshing. Shelley began to feel energy building up in her again as she finished her falafel and soaked up the sun. Being a bit early for their meeting, they stretched out on the grass to wait.


Patricia had taken the afternoon off. It was rare that she asked for special treatment at work, but she had built up some good karma and it was time to use it. Today felt like it should be a day off anyway; the weather was simply perfect and she found herself smiling as she passed through the glass doors and into the sunshine. “Erstaunlich”, she thought, loosening her vermillion scarf. Marvelous. She breezed through the streets, slowing as she entered the park. As she walked, her thoughts were filled with memories. Shelley had been her close friend, but Patricia realized she was truly looking forward to seeing Kew. He had a certain aesthetic sensitivity that she admired. The joy and beauty he found in the world around him were easy to see in his face and this made him an especially pleasant companion. Patricia knew both her friends would be awed by the offerings in the museums of Amsterdam and she looked forward to hearing Kew’s astute running commentary.