Seattle 81, or Night Owl, or In Which Dane Has Thanksgiving

My mother is a night owl. I have middle school memories of waking up at 2 or 3am, walking to the bathroom and pausing in the doorway of the still-bright office den, eyes closed, but knowing the hard klicklicklick of her old keyboard.

"Go to sleep," says my groggy 12 year old self.
"I know, sweetie, but I have to finish this. I'll see you in the morning."

As a kid, I assumed that she was finishing Important Business - she wasn't yet running her own business (that would come the following year) but she's always run the family finances, and, since I never looked into her office that late at night, I assumed the floor was covered in Important Papers to Input. Or something.

It wasn't until I was in college that I became familiar with my mother's nighttime routine. I learned that I could call her as late as 1:30am (as long as she could pick it up on the first ring and not wake my father) just to talk. I learned that she played a couple hours of some computer game - it used to be Solitare, but lately she's been on a Mahjong kick - to wind down before going to bed. A couple of hours. I had no idea why. Sometimes, she'd stay up until 2 or 3, knowing full well she had to be up by 7 or 8. College kids do this, I reasoned, because they have that much work (or that much procrastination) and can muscle their way through the morning with coffee.

I've never asked my mother when or why this habit started - and I'm sure it didn't start when computer games became common. She's a bit of a crossword puzzle fiend, too, and I can imagine her sitting up with the daily Times puzzle in the days before computer Solitare. But lately, I've begun to form a theory.

This week, I worked a full 40 hour week for the first time in awhile - including a double shift (7am-11pm) on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was actually kind of a fun day to work - I got to hang out with lots of kids' families who had come to visit, eat turkey, give presents and share the day. Although it's sometimes frustrating to face the families at first ("oh, so you're the reason this child is terrified of the dark? lovely to meet you") I really learn a lot from watching them interact with their kids. What kind of parenting did they have? What's important to them? I try to check in with parents at the end of their visits once the kids have left and ask them these things - what's most important to you? As a parent, what values and beliefs do you want your kid to grow up with? How can we help you achieve that while your kid is here?

The end of the night was exhasuting - one tough restraint and mild amounts of chaos, right as I hit hour 13 of my shift. One of the staff pulled a muscle in her thigh and spent the rest of the night limping around with a package of frozen peas clamped to her pants. One kid tried to run away. We caught her in the middle of the field, because the 3-inch mud had tripped her and she'd fallen, and she didn't stand up. She wasn't hurt; just crying too hard. "I don't have a family! I don't have a family!"

The rest of us were just wrung out, staggering a bit as we cleaned the kitchen - even the kiddos get a 9-course Thanksgiving feast, cooked by yours truly and many, many others.

When I got home, I went over to house Bet, not quite ready to face my own house's Thanksgiving, and found Joel and a houseguest quietly talking in the kitchen. I told them stories about the day, heard about their Thanksgivings, and then Masha came in with a request: her clients had been talking all day about "Alice's Restaurant," and could we please explain this American phenomenon that had somehow escaped her?

Of course, Joel had the record (his record collection is...shall we say...extensive) and the four of us trooped into the living room. Joel sat at my feet, and I worked on his neck and shoulders, Masha plopped down next to me and scratched my back and head while I worked, the houseguest looked up facts about Alice's Restaurant, and we all listened to that sweet old album. I've shared Thanksgiving with Arlo and Alice and Officer Obie since I was a kid, and there, in the living room, in my filthy clothes, with back scratches and my home-people, it felt like a holiday. I left the house ready to come home and sleep.

But I didn't. I did instead what I've been doing for weeks now, after a long shift - I come home and I play internet backgammon, or mahjong - just for a couple of hours. Just so it feels like the day is a just a little bit mine, a few early dawn slivers of being alone. I don't think I could sleep at that point if I tried, no matter how tight I shut my eyes. Lately, I've been using the time to plan peoples' Chanukah gifts. It's peaceful, even if I know I'm shaving precious hours of sleep off the clock.

And I think about calling Mom, just to say, "hey, look - I do it too. I think I get it."

But I wouldn't want to interrupt the part of the day that's really, truly hers.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Seattle 80, or Whirligig

"Allemand left. Now ladies' chain. Left-hand star. Back to the right. Actives down and back. Cast off. Everybody swing!"

Couples turned in circles, skirts rippling. Brent stared. It was a human whirligig, set in motion by music instead of wind. He sank into a chair and watched dance after dance. Suddenly, a young woman rushed up to him.

"We need one more couple." She held out her hands.

To his great amazement, he agreed. A few people clapped when he got to his feet. As before, the caller walked them through the dance slowly, without any music. Brent now recognized some of the steps. Knowing hands turned him left instead of right and pointed him toward the proper partner. Then the music started up at full speed and the dancers, like clock parts, began to turn. Arms reached for his. Faces whizzed past. He was instantly enmeshed with the others. Wordlessly, they corrected him, adjusted his grip, smiled at him. He'd always been gawky. this hadn't changed. But the pattern of steps, repeated over and over, slowly began to sink in. the galloping tune had an Irish feel. It was exalting to be part of the twining and twirling, and strangely thrilling to touch other hands an to feel them grasping his. He felt like a bee returning to the hive, greeted and accepted by all."

~excerpt from Whirligig, a novel by Paul Fleischman

Tonight, I went dancing for the first time in a very long time. I was needing contact, needing to feel the familiar steps, the comfort of that hive of motion. And it just so happened that my favorite dance band was playing in town. My knee, completely healed, did not complain once.

Here's why I love contra: it's restrictive, prescribed movements leave so much room for variation. You can tell everything about a dancer by what they do in the moments between movements. Do they wait? Bounce their knees rhythmically? Fit in an extra twirl or two? (That's my standard.) Your personal variations in the dance become your mode of communication - does your hand sink a little lower than the standard spot on your partner's back? If so, you're probably flirting, or just really short. Do you twirl your partner when your partner is expected to twirl you? You're flirting, or showing off, or both. Mastering the dance to the point where you can play between the lines is like learning to write poetry in a foreign language - you make it your own, despite the fact that a guy with a microphone is calling out each next step.

It was a good dance, full of experienced contra folks who had come out to see the special traveling band. As I passed through dozens of bodies, skirt whirling, I grinned like an idiot, showing off and flirting for all I was worth - an extra beat of eye contact, grabbing another woman's hand to twirl her in a spare moment, taking an unexpected lead with a male partner, switching places - all of these things, to show belonging. Contra dances are the same everywhere - Greenfield, Massachusetts, Seattle, Washington. Hell, they're probably the same in Nebraska.

The last bus left before the dance was over, but I wasn't worried - I know dance folks, and they're kind and generous. I wasn't disappointed - two women offered me, the new girl with the nice skirt, a ride home. They didn't even know how far they'd have to drive me, and they offered. My dancing told them everything they needed to know - I might come from somewhere else, but I'm a dancer. I'm one of them.

Now, everybody, swing.

Seattle 79, or Jabberwocky

Last night, two houses hosted Shabbat - a sushi-making party for the young'uns at Aleph, and a more casual standard Shabbes at Gimel. I hopped between the two, snagging a salmon, albacore, avocado and tofu roll, leading Kiddush, meeting new people and snuggling on Aleph's couch, then heading for Gimel, with its small, quiet crowd of regulars. We immediately went for the couches and rocking chairs by the fire, and sat, as grownups do.

As I felt myself getting sleepy, I curled my feet next to Asya, rested my head on the end of the couch and asked, "Joel? I'm in the mood for a bedtime story. Can you recite Jabberwocky for me?"

Last month at the open mic, Debs read a story involving the famous nonsense poem, and Joel had let slip that he knew the whole thing by heart - it was his bedtime story for years. I knew he'd tell it well, probably just as it had been told to him.

" 'Twas brillig," he began, eyes alight and eyebrows bouncing,
"and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

Then, rocking his chair forward, and causing it to emit a loud creaking, he put his face close to mine, but looked out at Debs, who was mouthing the words along with him. As he recited the next section, she got up from her chair and began to mime,

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

We had to stop for a minute and laugh at Debs, who was making claws of her hands and angling them at Joel and me. But then Joel continued, and Asya made her appearance into the mime:

"He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back."

Debs fell on the floor with her legs in the air, and pulled her sweater over her face to mime her execution. Asya galloped around the coffee table triumphantly, sword raised over her head, imaginary head tucked under her arm. I cracked up, but kept my eyes on Joel for the triumphant stanza, which Debs and I recited with him:

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy."

And as the room quieted, Joel went back for the repetition of the first verse, just as quietly as it had come,

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

The assembled crowd broke into applause, and Asya and Deb bowed. Joel pensively scratched his chin and wondered aloud, "Do I still know the Walrus and the Carpenter?"

Immediately, Deb (not Debs) and I recited,

"The Time Has Come, the walrus said,
To Talk of Many Things -
Of Shoes, and Ships
And Sealing-Wax
and Cabbages and Kings
and Why The Sea is Boiling Hot
And Whether the Pigs Have Wings!"

Then Asya recited the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (Eliot), I followed up with one of Shakespeare's sonnets, and a slam poem (not my own). There was some kind of magic in the room, generated by a group of generally overeducated and underemployed intellectuals who really, sometimes, need to forego the intense politicking of Kibbutz life and just...tell bedtime stories.

Seattle 78, or Tomatillos

Ilana brings in the haul of tomatillos from the garden - two mixing bowls, filled over the top with tiny green balls in papery skins. She leaves them on the table with an invisible note. I imagine the note says something like this, "I grew these things from six seeds sprouting on the windowsill at our old house, and now they've taken over the garden and y'all had better do something with them."

I knock on her door. "Has someone claimed the tomatillos yet?"
She answers, "Sergey was planning to make salsa tonight."

I head out to the store, buy bunches of cilantro, a bag of limes. Garlic, we have. Sergey has a jar of habanero peppers. That's pretty much all you need.

Sergey and I start by ourselves in the kitchen, peeling, washing, chopping. We listen to music from all over the world, talk about life, kibbutz politics. Faced with far more tomatillos than I can imagine, I throw a panful in the oven to roast. I make the first batch - a rich, verdant green, thick with cilantro, and spicy.

Ilana comes in. She and Sergey light each other up - they get silly, comical, talking in thick Slavic accents and making jokes. I love hanging around them. The next batch goes in, similar to the first, but spicier. Ilana takes the roasted batch out of the oven, spears one juicy, pale green fruit with a fork and chews thoughtfully. They taste almost like apples, very sour, soft apples.

Deb comes home to find us all in the kitchen, and is delighted. She breaks out a bottle of cider, and we toast twice, three times, our togetherness, our jars of salsa lining up on the counter. She's got chips, too, so we pour some salsa in a bowl and dig in. For the next hour, we sing along with the blender, pure nonsense, laugh nonstop, and eat. At the end of the night, we have six jars - about seven pints, all around - lined up on the counter, in different shades of green. Some cooked, some raw, some with cilantro, some without. We've laughed enough to fill barrels.

(This isn't the best piece I've ever written here, but I just wanted to get this night down - when things are going to change dramatically in just two months, and then again, in another six - I want to have this in my back pocket.)