a disciple of hastiness slows down to consider a new dogma

tuesday night i attended my second yoga class of the season — and only my fourth ever. on wednesday, besides a bit of soreness, something happend (twice, in fact) that really surprised me.

before i tell you what, let me explain that for all my centered, zen aspirations, i'm actually a slave to multi-tasking, both physically and mentally. i equate being busy with being alive, and though i adore cleanliness, it's busyness that's next to godliness in my book. there seems to be a constant surge of chatter in my head at all times, one idea stumbling over the next to get heard, to-do lists trying to line up in my mind like little kids who've just eaten too much sugar and can stand neither straight nor still.

i think the source of this runaway train of thought is the string of deadline-dependent jobs i've held for the past 15 years. a life without constant lists of looming deadlines is now somewhat unimaginable — i wouldn't know what to do without them. i'm so accustomed to speeding from one task to the next and scratching things off an ever-changing to-do list for 8 hours a day that it's become my modus operandi — whether i'm at work or not. it's made me compulsive, rarely satisfied with my accomplishments for more than a brief moment before i'm setting up the next goal and scrambling towards it. along the way i do my best to be mindful (to the point of making it yet another task) but i'm easily distracted by what i suspect may be the next greatest thing that's about to come along. and the darting isn't just mental, but physical. i've trained my whole self to rush. i don't believe it's an entirely bad thing. it's such a part of who i am i not only accept it, i have a certain amount of attachment to it.

but wednesday...ah, wednesday. i was siting at my desk in the office and realized it was past 5:00 and everyone else on the floor had already gone home. which is not unusual except that i also noticed i was rushing to get through something that could have easily waited until the next day, and not only was i needlessly rushing but i was simultaneously holding my breath and tightening my body up like a spring while doing so. it was at this moment that i heard a question form in my mind. "why am i speeding through this right now when i could be moving more slowly?" the chatter and the lists and the 10,000 ideas duking it out for attention stopped for a brief minute and i very slowly put what i was doing down and took a deep breath. this sounds so ridiculously simple, but it felt deeply liberating — and it happened again only minutes later. calling it a day, i had retreated to the restroom to change before hitting the gym. this time it was a small, meaningless action — i was impatiently pulling on my socks — when i looked down at my foot, the small black sock half on, and thought "this is ridiculous. why am i rushing to pull my sock on? what's the big rush to get to the gym? why don't i just relax and put it on slowly, like a normal person?" and so i did. and it felt really good.

why do i attribute these two late day revelations to the yoga class? because as far as i can tell (as inexperienced a student as i am) yoga seems to be about being centered, both physically and mentally. it's about being able to balance, quite literally, and about being grounded to the earth like a strong tree with it's branches held high. like my first love, weight-lifting, it's also about being strong — but it seems to strive for a strength that's far more complete and deep than the ability to lift a 25lb barbell x number of times until your muscles cry "uncle" and fail. like the letter-sending i mentioned yesterday, it's a deliberate practice, one that requires you to center your thoughts and appreciate the process. and i'm willing to bet it's even more than all that, that there's a bounty of advantages i'm not even able to consider yet. if you have any experience with yoga i'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. i know that some of you have been practicing for some time.

ironically, i must rush like a maniac in order to get to this particular class on time . . . but laying on the floor quietly after doing the asanas, surrounded by other people in a dark, warm room, made me almost giddy in its simple luxuriousness. here i was around other people, united by a common desire to find balance, gain strength, and slow down. what could be more important at that moment? namaste.

i'm lichen this heart...

as well as this sweet story about a 95 year old man who's been a "big brother" to a (now) 37-year old man for the past 30 years. when i read it on gothamist yesterday, i immediately thought of love thursday. it's so lovely you may even find it in your hearts forgive my atrocious pun.

correspondence

when is the last time you sent a hand-written postcard or letter instead of an email? for me it's been quite a while, but i miss the process — from selecting the stationery to licking the envelope's tangy glue strip, it's so deliberate and tactile. there's a slow food revolution...how about slow correspondence?

wound/wound

i've been taking plenty of photos lately, but most of them aren't very springy. it's not that spring isn't dazzling me with it's sunlight and vigor, but as the weather warms and i find myself spending more time outside in the yard and garden my thoughts keep wandering to my father, who, with the onset of spring, is starting to feel trapped and depressed at the assisted living home. he's always enjoyed being outside and maintaining his property, happy to work from morning until after dark as i do, and now every time i pick up a rake i can't help but imagine how he must feel with his passion for being outdoors reduced to brief walks. among other things, it's painting me a very bleak picture of growing old. i find myself wondering why on earth these places don't have gardens the residents can work in, or chores they can assist with to make them feel that they're still contributing in some way.

my mom's situation is equally intense, and my own mind is seeking distraction, attempting to bolt, an uneasy dog on a flimsy leash.

so, this week i'm going to post the muted photos of what i'm working through rather than of the cheery-faced flowers i'm apparently not quite ready to point my lens at.

you can't do this in winter.

a belated five senses friday no. 3

what can i say — spring has thoroughly distracted me this year, especially this weekend of hot, sun-filled days.

see:
• snow flurries on the drive to work thursday
• daily visits from a broad wing hawk
• the last remnants of snow on top of mt graylock
• tiny spring green leaves on the trees here in the hilltowns - magnolias in full bloom in nearby northampton
• the first peas and lettuce sprouts poking through the garden soil. i could watch the time lapse above for hours

hear:
• my friend's band radio free earth playing at the ashfield lake house last saturday night
• peepers. lots of peepers
• the cry of piliated woodpeckers, and the ethereal song of the first wood thrush
• something (a racoon i hope, as opposed to a fisher cat) shrieking in the woods last night, loud enough to wake me out of a sound sleep several times
• the old beams of the house roof settling and snapping above me, louder than you'd expect

taste:
• stolen sips of maker's mark
• fuji apples
• the first grilled hamburger/asparagus/kabobs of the season

touch:
• hands and feet on a sticky yoga mat for the first time since last winter

smell:
• new bottles of essential oils: cedar, pine, peppermint, tea tree, sweet orange, and lemon. i'm making all of my own household cleaning products, and loving it
• the almost maddening smell of spring in the air - a musky scent of pine and earth that rises from the ground and floats on the breeze.

are you looking at me?

on friday i helped a friend hang some old cabinets in his construction trailer, accompanied by a very inquisitive chicken.

one stands out & two drift away

arbor day, 2009

The Remains

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

— Mark Strand

it's still april, still national poetry month, and you can check out more poems i love by clicking here — but be warned that most of them are just as melancholy as this one.

the birth of a blog

it's been over a year since i started talking to people at work about the possibility of having our very own blog, a place where employees, authors, book sellers, and others can share our enthusiasm for gardening, farming, cooking, fiber arts, sustainability, publishing, and more. the idea developed slowly from a mumble to meetings — but suddenly last month i found myself choosing a template and designing a header, organizing a team of administrators and blog authors, and finally, as of this morning, watching our first post fill all that empty white space.

i know first-hand the potential of a new blog, it's ability to inspire, inform, and connect people, and i'm looking forward to seeing what develops in this new space. i also feel as if i should be breaking a virtual bottle of champagne over it's virtual hull (though honestly, i'd rather be drinking a chilled mimosa). please visit and spread the word! just don't tell them who sent you! though it's growing increasingly difficult, i'm still determined to maintain at least some small modicum of separation between my compulsive blogging and compulsive work self.

faith & humble patience

every spring i begin to suspect the ground has spent the winter slowly pushing more rocks to the surface of the garden. i've been raking and harvesting stones from these beds for 8 summers now — where do all these new ones come from?

i also find myself humbled by the amount of faith we entrust to handfuls of tiny seeds — faith that the magical amalgam of saturating rain and warming sunshine will aid our agrarian efforts,

faith that we'll even be here to reap the harvest come august.

but as humans we're programmed for this optimism, riding along on a current of expectation that propels us forward. it's evident in so many aspects of our lives — yet i see it most clearly manifested when it's buried in a neat row of dirt labeled swiss chard, or squash,

and tamped down with expectant hands. happy earth day!

visit our friend's nest!

the home of our lovely and talented friends rebekah brooks and christian hawkins was just featured at the cookie mag blog — check out the link, and hopefully you'll feel as inspired as i was the first time time i visited the amazing converted church they call home.

as some of you may remember, last autumn j built the cabinetry for rebekah's beautiful flagship jewelry store in northampton, ma (check out this necklace of 14kt gold and multistone briolettes...swoon) rebekah has also recently started her own blog!

links for lunch. gathering moss...

As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense

of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow. — A. C. Benson

just a few links to share today, but i wanted to show this photo of my chartreuse moss ball, one of two recently given to me by a friend...

and which reminds me of this set in stone faux moss pendant from a line of "living" jewelry by adornjewelry at etsy,

this living moss bathmat designed by nguyen la chanh,

this beautiful moss-inspired painting at working the earth, and these photos of the zen garden of saiho-ji in japan. if you have any moss-themed links you'd like to share, please leave them in the comments so i can visit (and gather). thanks!

meet the neighbors

our resident cardinal couple stopped by for breakfast this morning. i photographed the female (top) from the kitchen window, and the flashy male from the upstairs bedroom.

spring cleaning

this weekend is all about attacking the leaf and brush-littered yard, and the winter-weary house with maniacal vehemence. did you know it's a good idea to clean your your terra cotta pots in the spring to prevent bacteria, fungi or viruses from infecting your new plants? there are several ways to do this, but i chose to soak mine overnight in a 1:10 bleach and water solution before scrubbing out any remaining dirt and debris and letting them air dry.

five senses friday no. 2

see:
• a red fox hunting in a nearby field, looking, at first glance, like the world's most beautiful cat.
• my dad home for easter dinner, my family gathered around the dining table at our house in rhode island.
• the first daffodils opening in what i thought was a too-shady spot.



hear:
• several new podcasts from the moth that brought tears to my eyes on the drive to work — especially mike destefano's franny's last ride. the moth podcasts are available for free on i-tunes, or you can click the franny's last ride link i've embedded above to hear the episode. grab your tissues.
• jonatha brooke's cover of the alan parson project's "eye in the sky" (above).
• peepers, just waking in the forest's vernal pools.

taste:
• strawberry and ricotta cheese crepes (a good way to use up some of those bargain bin berries!)
• chocolate & peanut butter brownies, made from scratch with semi-sweet ghiradelli chips
• my favorite: leinenkugal sunset wheat beer.
• red peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, garlic, onions, and cherry tomatoes quickly sauteed and tossed over whole wheat pasta with olive oil and basil-tomato feta cheese. one of my more successful no-recipe dinner ideas.

touch:
• the buttery sheen of freshly oiled leather.
• the silky remains of last year's grass.

smell:
• smoke from the brush we burned last saturday — the remains of the fire are still smoldering, a neat little ash heap high on the hill.
• my mom's pineapple and clove covered ham, baking for easter dinner.

a colorful dozen

check out the amazing color variations in the shells of these local eggs i purchased from a coworker today — from bright white and brown, to robin's egg blue, to a speckled green!

a baby highland joins the herd

i know from your comments on previous posts you like to visit with my friend's rugged, furry, highland cattle via the blog, so i couldn't pass up the chance to show you the newest edition to the herd, born last thursday. though i wasn't there to witness the birth myself, another friend was on the scene with a video camera! according to her, the now-dry baby is a soft mushroom color. this i may need to confirm for myself on friday, which promises to be a gorgeous, sunny spring day i plan on spending locally (mostly very locally, in my own awakening garden, and hauling more brush from the ice storm into a pile by the fire pit, which is still smoldering with the remains of last weekend's burn).

a toe on the edge of tranquility

"nature does not rush, yet everything is accomplished." — lau tzu

i'm halfway through one of the busiest, craziest work weeks of the year, today being one of the two most frantic days, the day i need to quickly process round after round of changes, tweaks, and corrections to our latest catalog pages so they can be photocopied and collated en masse for next week's sales conference in nyc. it's the day i create (in photoshop) one realistic-looking book after another out of cover and spine designs the book designers have been scrambling to complete. when finished (each one takes 7-10 minutes to create) the fake book files look like this, giving a fairly accurate representation of how the finished product will both look and bulk — though many of these books won't be releasing 'till 2010! it's the day i create somewhat less realistic-looking point-of-purchase display images, using files i've been designing as the book covers themselves progress. while these particular tasks aren't very creative or glamorous, they're absolutely essential to the process of selling and promoting our titles, and there's a certain zen to be found in plowing through them at an efficient pace. fueled by whatever chocolate i can beg, borrow, or steal from coworkers couple with frequent trips to the water cooler, the crowded hours pass swiftly by.

hot on the heels of sales conference is book expo america in late may, the largest publishing event in north america, where our finished catalogs and shiny new marketing materials will be distributed at my company's booth. for this event i have another 8-10 marketing projects in various states of design/edit/production, destined to be wrapped up and sent to printers by the first week of may.

then there's the company blog, due to launch next wednesday (gulp) with an introductory post from our editorial director, followed by posts from two of our authors — one a virtuoso of vegetable gardening from the northeast kingdom, vermont, the other a well-known bag and laptop case designer. the blog is named, the header designed, a basic template is ready to roll, our author's blogs are on the blogroll, several staff members are enthusiastic to post on a regular basis, and offers are coming in from more authors, sales reps, and bookstore owners who want to contribute. i'm confident it will only grow from there.

it's a good thing i love what i do (and what my company does) and that after almost 5 years in the department we've managed to organize and subdue even the craziest parts of the process so there are no more dinners at my desk, no more days that stretch into nights. tonight i wrapped things up at 6, hit the gym, and witnessed this early-spring sunset on the drive home.

a few miles passed and i was content to enjoy the view in my rear-view mirror until i reached this pond and spotted the reflection of dark trees and blushing clouds in the undisturbed water. you must stop, my inner voice commanded, and indeed, taking a few moments to stand still on the edge of tranquility felt like an appropriate way to end the day.

birdhouse and bowl gourds

i shot these last saturday simply to experiment a bit more with my wide angle lens, but if you have a bit of extra room in your garden this summer, i encourage you to try growing your own birdhouse or bowl gourds for drying. just be sure to provide a strong, tall tepee or fence, because these vivacious vines will swiftly scramble towards the sky, cover themselves in enormous green leaves, and produce a multitude of heavy, curious-looking fruit. a healthy, gourd-filled tepee is an impressive sight, believe me, and once the gourds have been harvested, dried (i hung mine in the attic for a long, new england winter) and scrubbed clean they can be turned into decorative bowls, functional birdhouses, or percussive shakers (the seeds inside, once dry, rattle freely about). or you can simply keep them as they are and enlist them as models in early spring, when you're eager to get outside and take photographs.

almost fresh, not at all local

judging from how many different types of fruits and vegetables made it home from the market with me today, i think it's safe to say i'm craving summer. and while nobody's going to mistake me for a locavore, buying strawberries in april, when i saw several packages of them piled on the marked-down produce shelf i could not resist. this whole colander-full cost just $6, and though they're certainly ripe, none were ruined. all but a few handfuls are now washed, sliced, and tucked away in the freezer for future shakes, filled crepes, and strawberry-banana pancakes.

did you know that you can also brush your teeth with fresh strawberries and baking soda? apparently the acid in the fruit acts as a safe bleaching agent that rivals many expensive teeth-whitening products.

hello, spring

happy easter

planet of the...misfit chicks

"it's a mad house. a mad house."

"it's too late for a wake. she's been dead nearly a year."

the window display at thornes marketplace in northampton this week.

five sense friday no. 1

i'm not sure who i should be giving credit to for starting "five senses friday" because i don't know where it originated. what i do know is after enjoying rachel and kristen's observations for the last few weeks, i can no longer resist joining in. it's a very pleasant way to reflect back on the week — i encourage everyone to try it, whether you're a blogger or not!

see:
• the stunning final artwork for the quilled paper illustration i commissioned for my company's fall '09 catalog cover (i can hardly wait to show it off here)
• amethyst and white crocus in full bloom, steps from the front door
• the full moon rising like an immense orange balloon, floating up over the treetops
• a curving rainbow arched above the berkshire hills when i left the gym on monday night
• a new red clock hanging on the blue-gray kitchen wall

hear:
• a cardinal pair chipping away to each other from within the lilac
• the engine throttle of a small stunt plane as it looped, dove, and spun through the sky, high above the field across the street
• my mom's voice at the other end of the telephone
• new songs: "the world spins madly on" by the weepies, and "inyi watoto" by the african children's choir
• the monotonous scratching of plastic rake tines against the ground

taste:
• a green & black's cherry chocolate bar
• a margarita with salt, rocks, and patron silver at the end of what proved to be a long, long week
• cannellini bean and pasta gratin with basil, ricotta, and homemade bread crumbs from vegetarian cooking for everyone

touch:
• the dryness of last season's decaying leaves and plants as i continue to rake and scoop them away
• the walking fluff balls that are our cats

smell:
• fresh soil after j turned more of the vegetable garden beds
• lavender essential oil when i made my own all-natural carpet freshening powder

happy singers

Khula Happy Singers St. Lucia from Jan van der Meer on Vimeo.
recently i watched almost all of the short video clips by jan van der meer on vimeo.com. they're all incredibly inspiring, but i thought this one was particularly wonderful. i'm off to work in the garden. happy friday!

"beer & bids" at the silver circle studio

jp jacquet, an old friend of mine from providence, is having a 6 week show at the silver circle studio in putnam, ct which began on friday, april 3rd. there will also be a "beer & bids" auction of his work on friday, april 24th, if you happen to be in the ct area. i don't know if the auction will include his interactive cubes (shown as a still image above but can be played with here) but personally i would love to have some 6.5' tall art i could move around and change to suit my mood.

keep saving words!

last week i was contacted by the team at savethewords.org and asked if i'd like to share these photos i took of my aging dictionaries (such as the one above) on their facebook fan page with a few words about the process. not only was i excited and honored to do so, i managed to save some more words along the way!

here's the post, in case you're not a facebook addict like i am. and yes, those are capital letters, which you might be seeing many more of here in the near future (but more on that later). i'm including the definitions for the 5 unloved words i found at savethewords.org at the bottom of this post.

After coming across a Save The Words related entry on my blog, Secret Notebooks • Wild Pages, the Save The Words team asked if I would be interested in sharing the photos I shot for the post here on their fan page. It's with great lubency that I'm submitting them here. Several out-of-date dictionaries have moved with me from place to place for years. Apparently heavy old lexicons aren't leeftail, because I've rescued mine from garage sales and liberated them from recycling bins. I love browsing their pages in my succisive moments, and discovering unfamiliar words, and I've often wondered why more of them aren't still in use. For this series of photos my models were two fusty Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionaries (unabridged). One, from 1969, is five and a quarter inches thick — and though I don't have a scale, I would guess that at 2,295 pages it easily weighs in at 10lbs. Oddly, I can't find a date on the second dictionary, but it's slightly more ornate with a decorative, embossed cover. The stacked deck of pages contained within have lost their neatness thanks to its broken binding, giving it the appearance of having a fluttery, deckled edge. I shot these with a Canon Digital Rebel xti and a Sigma 70-300mm macro telephoto zoom lens at Av 5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/25. I was experimenting with giving the images a soft dreaminess, and in doing so these tattered, old, water-stained books seemed to achieve a state of venustation. At least I thought so, and I hope you do too. Come visit my blog http://secretnotebookswildpages.blogspot.com for more photos and flosculation! And keep saving words!

lubency: (n) willingness, pleasure
leeftail: (adj) in great demand
succisive: (adj) of spare time
venustation: (n) the act of causing to become beautiful
flosculation: (n) an embellishment or ornament in speech

merchant's cold storage building

thinking about the move to providence campaign i posted about on saturday has me reminiscing about the beautiful old factories i got to know intimately when i lived there in the early 90's. it feels as if i spent my early 20's falling in love with one cavernous brick edifice after another, spaces thick with settled dust, unheated, unplumbed, illegal. i think it had something to do with the texture of the bricks, the sheer height, width, and number of windows (the first loft had 20), the feeling of standing in the center of a room surrounded by only light, sky, and a slice of the city's panorama. i was intrigued by the particular sharp ringing sound of footsteps through the long factory hallways, the mysterious remnants left behind by what once were thriving industries, window ledges generous enough to lay down on, and by the prospect of chasing the sun across the floor from sunrise 'till sunset. i'd love to own a brick building of my own some day, though not a condo in a subdivided space. once you've slept in the middle of a 5,000 square foot factory floor, a subdivided parcel isn't as appealing, even if it does have central heat and hot water.

sadly, most of my brick paramours have since been demolished to make way for new shopping centers and parking lots. it's the character-crushing force of gentrification — the majority of the buildings still standing are now high-priced condos, not low-rent studios for artists.

above is an image of the stately merchant's cold storage building, courtesy of art in ruins, a website whose pages i often find myself lost in, reminiscing. historic new england mills, lost landmarks, streetscapes, and areas of both urban decay and redevelopment are explored in depth through photos, history, and reader's shared anecdotes. the goal of the art in ruins site is to become "a place people can come together and discuss the issues affecting art, artists, musicians and architecture in providence." for me, it's a little window into the past, and i haunt it like a ghost.

in 1992 i lived in the cold storage building, in a space that occupied the right hand side of the second floor, and included the two gothic-revival style arched windows you see in the photo above as well as the smaller rectangular window in between them. i know what you're wondering, "wasn't it cold?" well, just before i moved there, the cold storage business closed and the building was defrosted for the first time in it's 98 year history. with it's thick, solid brick walls (or insulation of cork or mineral wool) the space held dampness and cold very well, so yes, actually, i felt a bit shivery and sodden until the height of summer — note that i'm wearing not one but two sweaters (mohair over cotton) and a turtleneck in the photo below! there was no working heat, and my (then) boyfriend and i relied on a small kerosene heater for warmth. in fact, my ex once set the entire front of his sweater on fire after filling up a container with heating oil at a gas station, then (stupidly) lighting up a cigarette. luckily, the sweater must have been made of somewhat fire-retardant material and he escaped shaken but basically unscathed.

the loft had two 6/6 double hung, sash windows. there were no screens or storms, but they were gorgeous to look at and out of. these were pre-internet days, so i spent hours watching the real world float by through glass as oppossed to the virtual one. if only i'd had a digital camera and the skill to use it back then — this space would have provided plenty of inspiration.

this is the room just before moving in. the chair was a filthy left-over from a previous tenant that we had to discard. i do wish i knew what happened to that small arched window leaning by the door.

here's the room after settling in with our mish-mash of second-hand trappings, gleaned from yard sales, relatives, and the crowded aisles of antique co-ops. above the drapery to the right there was a sleeping loft beneath an enormous skylight, and below the sleeping loft a tiny kitchen with a dorm-sized fridge and a counter top built of 2x4's and plywood. rented out as work studios, these spaces were technically illegal to live in, so kitchen and sleeping quarters needed to be subtle, if not completely hidden behind fake walls and tucked into closets. storing food was a challenge, and the only plumbing was in the bathroom, set up like a public restroom with two stalls, florescent lighting, and a cheap, plastic, stand-up shower. to wash the dishes we loaded up a portable dishwasher and wheeled it to the bathroom sink.

cow the cat, keeping vigil by the window. i thought the corner of the room was interesting with this strangely angled brick wall, as if the front and side of the building weren't originally fated to meet. there was also a make-shift stage/riser set up against the far wall of the room, and behind that an ominous metal door that led to a cavernous storage area filled with palettes stacked high with flat corrugate cardboard boxes, printed and ready to hold product from the rhode island fish co., also located in the building. along the darkest edges of the room detritus left by former tenants loomed in teetering stacks — mostly furniture that had seen better days, abandoned canvases, blown speakers. i wish i'd wandered around the innermost parts of the building more, but it was spooky — mostly empty, but still home to a few remaining businesses, and i didn't want to raise awareness that anyone was living alongside them. there was only one other tenant in the building that i knew of, and our loft did get broken into once, on a sunday afternoon.

the best thing about the cold storage space was the view from those arched windows of the river and the extensive brown & sharpe/foundry building beyond it. the foundry complex was home to the original living room, a dark, loud, music venue that smelled of puke and urine, a place to see bands like black flag, the circle jerks, and husker du, drink cup fulls of cheap beer, hang out on the couches or get your toes pulverized in the mosh pit.

the second best thing about living in the cold storage building was the proximity of the silver top diner, which opened at midnight and closed at dawn to cater to the after-the-bars-closed crowd. i spent many early morning hours in this brightly-lit, breakfast-scented space, eating scrambled eggs and toast with home fries and feeding quarters to the jukebox. signs on the diner's metal roof advertised, "infra-red broiling, air-conditioning, and vaculator coffee." aglow with neon, the silvertop was a mirage in the desert of drunk hunger, of not wanting the night to end. photographer erik gould was kind enough to grant me permission to use the photo above, which shows the silvertop (closed for the afternoon) with the gothic arches of the providence cold storage building behind it.

the merchant's cold storage building was demolished between the years of 1998 and 2000, and the area now looks like this. i've never returned to harris street, where it once stood, and suspect that when i do i won't recognize the surroundings. most of my landmarks are gone, reduced to a collection of photos and acedotes, memorialized on the internet.