On my return from Wisconsin and reacclimitization to New Orleans, the anti-S.A.D. light came out of cold storage and that can mean only one thing. This is the time of year when I (and hence, the blog) enter a state of inactivity and metabolic downtime. Since humans do descend from Eozostrodon and lesser mammals (I imagine an irate squirrel or lemur wanting to slap me for those words), my theory stands that we retain the genetic urge to hibernate once the tilt of the global axis begins to work against us. Brain matter resembles the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s Learning To Fly and works just as usefully, leaving plenty of time to watch such edifying masterpieces as Buckaroo Banzai, X3: The Last Stand, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, Batman Begins, Collateral and Underworld: Evolution. Of course, Loki would disagree with my characterization of Buckaroo Banzai as noise for mental downtime.
Speaking of the The Humid One, his lovely fiancee, Alexis, and I have recently spent a lot of time together preparing for their rapidly-approaching Big Day. Alexis is all that and a bag of chips – creative, giving, mischievous and full of good humor. We now have a ritual meal, and have decided that when one buys clothing or toys for oneself, the other is obviously going to like it and will want one, so buy two.
Mom’s rasam would hit the spot right now. Some rice, rasam on top and a giant helping of beans curry, followed by a bowl of yogurt with pickled citrus – oh, how the tastebuds yearn! The real thing is a pipe dream until Thanksgiving. For now, I will drool over the essay and experiment with the recipe Tilo offers us in her latest article for the Christian Science Monitor.
In Tamil, my mother tongue, mulligatawny (milagu plus tannir) means pepper water. But you’ll see no flicker of recognition in Grandma’s eyes even if you enunciate the name of the dish very carefully. It isn’t your accent, either – her reaction would be much the same if I said it. The dish she prepares is not called mulligatawny at all. It’s called rasam.
Funny how the seasons work. I left my office late the other night, and the early-evening dimness and suggestion of something resembling cool in the air put an extra spring into my step. The Nordic genes are stimulated.
“Remember — no matter where you go, there you are.” Thanks for making me smile; just a bit less than half a lifetime ago, BB was my secret notion of the ideal guy. (I now realize that the movie sparked an unrealized desire to enjoy my own uniqueness and adventures; it amuses me, thinking about how that focus shifted over 22 years’ time.)
Some of the trees ’round this neck of the woods are already bare; others are vibrant and ablaze. Just within the past two weeks’ time I’ve gone from driving to work while watching the sun rise to driving to work in pre-daybreak darkness. In another two months, our total amount of daylight will be less than eight hours each day. The rainy season started this week; days with clear skies will be few and far between until the 4th of July.
It’s not all bad, really… I started enjoying my fireplace again last weekend, and added the electric blanket to the bed last night. The birds have returned to the feeder on my balcony. And eventually there’ll be that perfect day next June when it’s 10:00 PM and I’m waiting for the sunset while kite-flying at Gasworks park (when the time between sunset until sunrise is just about eight hours total).
The only thing about witnessing this cycle start again that makes me sad is this: I can no longer deny how quickly time passes at this stage in my life; this year has left me slightly breathless, trying to catch up. As my grandmother would say, I’ve finally noticed that the moon is drawing closer.