December 9, 2008
Tuesday

Look into her eyes. Do you see what I mean?
Just look at her hair, and when she speaks,
Oh, oh what a pleasant surprise.

How do you feel? Just look at her smile.
Do you see what I mean? She is looking our way.
Oh how I wish we could stay, just stay for a while
How do you feel?
             — Tom Mastin, b. 1940s
                 American singer-songwriter

It’s been observed by some friends that my Gallivants tend to take on the qualities of an adventure. I seldom just go someplace, do what I wanted to do there, and then come home without some complication or unexpected aspect that can turn out to be more interesting than the original purpose of the trip.

I enjoyed last night’s reading by Elizabeth Spires, and the brief conversation I had with her afterward, when I asked after her daughter, about to turn eighteen and begin the process I began with Lynn in 2004. (The daughter is Celia Dovell Bell — her father is writer Madison Smartt Bell — and she is a writer. See The New York Times Magazine from last March for a sample of her work.) I bought two more volumes of Spires’s work, including Now the Green Blade Rises, poems about “the life-and-death matters of midlife: the separation of parent from child, the loss of family and friends, the evolving nature of our closest relationships.” (Sounds like a book best kept for February.) And gifts. Refrigerator magnets with quotes from Shakespeare, like “There is money. Spend it, spend it, spend more!” from The Merry Wives of Windsor, sure to delight two impecunious young friends, and a rubber duck that looks like Queen Elizabeth I (if she had been a duck) for Lynn, who collects rubber ducks. (Alas, they had no Emily Duckinson that would go nicely with my plush Emily Chickinson.)

This morning I went downtown again to visit the National Museum of Women in the Arts, on New York Avenue two blocks from the 13th Street exit of the Metro. An exhibit of the work of Mary Cassatt focusing on paintings of mothers with their children seemed to be just the thing to complement my experience of Elizabeth Spires’s poems about the same ideas.

The museum wasn’t open yet when I arrived, so I went across the street to a two-story McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin and coffee. The place had a lot of signs. No food may be eaten that was not purchased at McDonald’s. No loitering — 30-minute limit while consuming food. It was like a junior high cafeteria. There were no complimentary papers to read. You had to buy the USA Today. So I just sat there, eating my sandwich and waiting for my coffee to cool. (McDonald’s has the hottest coffee in the world. The Days Inn had instant, served with that regrettably-named substance, “powdered creamer.” which contains no actual cream and which Ron sometimes refers to as “beaker dust.”)

I did enjoy the people watching. All of the employees seemed to be speaking Spanish to each other. I have no Spanish beyond “­¡Albondigas! ¡Hoy es miercoles!” so I couldn’t eavesdrop to test my language skills, the way Lynn does with speakers of French. I made the sandwich and coffee last until 10:00, and then I gathered up my things, threw away my wrappers and napkins, and left.

I was aware that a man who had been sitting across from me had left just as I got up. He was a little on the scruffy side — needed a shave and a haircut. He was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt over another sweatshirt that had a sports team logo on it, although I don’t remember the team nor even the sport.

He was standing on the sidewalk when I came through the door. “So, honey, where are we going?”

What? I looked at him. Maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe he just asked where was I going, although I have no idea why I thought I had to answer him. “I’m going to the museum across the street.” (Trust me, this is not how I taught Lynn and the other young women I’ve been able to influence to handle themselves when faced with uninvited attention from strangers.)

“I don’t want to go there. I want to go . . .” He must have named a place, but I didn’t hear him. I found my stranger-danger wits and was walking swiftly away from him.

He caught up to me at the corner, where I had to stop for traffic. He seemed to become agitated when I wouldn’t engage with him. “Hey,” he yelled at me. “We had a nice thing going in there. I was having a conversation with you through our eyes! I want to get to know you better! I thought you wanted to get to know me!”

He put out his hand and I thought he was going to take my arm. The pedestrian sign came on and I started into the intersection. I was concocting Plan B in my mind — maybe I should enter the museum and alert someone that I am being followed — when I noticed that he had remained on the far corner. He was yelling at me, something about my deceptive smile, when I reached the museum entrance. As it happened, about six large young men were standing there and I had to shoulder past them to get in.  As it also happened, admission to the museum was free today, and I thought briefly that this might mean that my new friend, who didn’t look like he had $10 for a ticket, might be able to find me in there.

I looked back down the street and saw him going into McDonald’s again.

I used to meet men that way, deliberately, eyes engaging across a crowded room or a broad library table, a smile offered to show I was interested. And in those days “scruffy” was something of an advantage. 

Not anymore.

*********

A year ago, I visited the Potter’s Field of Willow Grove Cemetery in Buffalo, Wyoming.

Two years ago, I talked about Holiday White Wine, a product of a local vineyard.

Three years ago, I reported on my attendance at a performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Four years ago, I wrote about being motivated to tip my newspaper carrier after reading a short story about the drudgery of the work.

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