« November 2006 | Main | January 2007 »

December 25, 2006

Unending Gifts, Christmas Day

“But no key unlocks Moby-Dick.”
--Ruland & Bradbury, Puritanism to Post-Modernism
~
On Christmas Day, in Chapter 22, the Pequod left Nantucket for the high seas. It is Christmas Day now, and New York City is quieter than Nantucket was then, when “the short northern day merged into night.” In the rare absence of traffic, the dogs and I freely—and against the light—gallop across the highway. There’s no snow; still the white denseness of the sky is suggestive of snow; it resembles, as well, a sweeping chunk of unpolished marble. And with the river trembling like crushed gray tissue, the sight–quite a gift this Christmas morning —is that of an immense stone sculpture of, say, a giant hoary whale, lying unwrapped upon packing and paper.
~
Bordered by iron fences and short-term bulwarks of lath, the vast lawns by the water are “closed" for the winter, bedded under tarps. The little sunflower garden resembles a blasted heath: the neglected plots and weathered wharf-gray planter might be in potter’s field. The colors of vegetal remains span the spectrum of boiled green, but amid escarole and chard there spouts a stand of plume-grass, pale blond in the wan light. Its tawny feathered scrolls and eddies nod above a tangled skein of straw stalks.
~
Near the North Cove, construction has stopped on a high rise which, conforming to the curve of the land, resembles the hull of a ship being built, complete with looped lanyards, halyards, rigging and poles projecting upward like bowsprits. Webbed nets waft in the wintry breeze; bundled tarps mimic furled sails. A hoist-hook resembles a dangling anchor. Atop the heap is a cabin-like edifice that resembles a deckhouse. Above it all whips an American flag, like a ship’s pennant. This structure seems on the brink of casting off and sailing through the harbor to the high seas.
~
This nautical imagery comes from reading Moby-Dick, which I am doing at the moment, curled in my narrow listing bunk-bed, in an unheated little cabinet-room, with struts athwart the ceiling, in the fo’c’s’le of a house close to the water, which was probably a mariners' inn when Moby-Dick was written. To keep warm, there are the dogs and cats, and Ishmael’s advice, from his bed at the Spouter-Inn, Chapter 11:
~
...to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.... if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire…. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
~
Their patchwork quilt symbolizes unity within disparity. It is, after all, made of disparate scraps sewn together into a patterned whole. The counterpane unites the pagan (whose tattoos remind Ishmael of the quilt) and the Christian into a common humanity, just as the Pequod binds together a literal motley crew, until the whale rips out the stitches. The whole is fractured by the whale, as men, boats and ship splinter and scatter into the sea. All save Ishmael, who rides the life-buoy of Queequeg's tattooed (self-portrait) coffin.

Posted by Jane on 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2006

Shirley’s Sheep

From a few minutes past Thanksgiving until a few minutes to Christmas, the sidewalks of New York are uniquely lined with bundled spruce, pine and fir trees, creating balsam-fragrant avenues of greenness. Here in Tribeca, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, despite the cold, stalwart farmers arrive to sell their produce. On Saturdays, when the neighborhood quiets way down, Tribeca resembles a country village, a felicity enhanced by these most welcome farmers.

Shirley Bianco drives down on Saturdays from her farm in Bedford, NY. In minutes she sets up a white tent whose walls are dozens of skeins of beautiful wool, sheared from her own sheep and hand-dyed. Enclosed on three sides by thick, colorful loops of wool, I feel I’m inside a rainbow.

Shirley is lovely, knowledgeable, kind. Her passion is protecting the environment. She lives that opulent, Thoreau-like frugality I admire and emulate. The first time I stopped to talk to her, I was inspired to take up knitting again. I bought a pair of bamboo needles and a skein of fern-green wool. The best-smelling, best-textured wool I’d ever had. I’ve re-discovered how akin knitting is to meditation. Focusing on the needles and the yarn, you can get a knitter’s high.

Today, the temperature is below freezing. To warm up, Shirley sits in her car with the heat on. Caleb, Tracy and I join her for a few minutes. Then I go fetch some of the soup I’ve just made – winter squash, root vegetables, red lentils, barley, star anise.

Shirley has a herd of 55 sheep, and I have sheepdogs just begging to herd. To bring the dogs to Bedford would be a treat for us all. Shirley says it’s a distinct possibility.

In mid-afternoon, Shirley, who has been here since early morning, disassembles the tent and its walls of brilliant skeins, and packs everything back into the station wagon. The sun has begun withdrawing, but it’s the abrupt absence of her rainbow that quickens the dark cold.

Posted by Jane on 12:39 PM | Comments (0)