restingmotion

Looking Back 2: The Knitting Front

Another glance over my shoulder perhaps, this time looking at my knitting progress in 2022.

Let's get the statistics out of the way first.  In 2022 I finished 10 projects and used up 71 skeins of yarn totaling 10,909 yards.  On first glance, it looks like I knitted less than the previous year in that there were two fewer finished objects, but the objects were larger and used more yarn.  Technically, it is not about yarn use, although that was one of my goals, or number of finished objects, but both of methods of accounting serve a purpose.

More specifically, the project breakdown was as follows:

• two blankets
• one soft-sculpture (toy)
• four shawls
• one pair of socks
• two sweaters

Now let's look at that more thoroughly.

There were no photos taken of the two blankets or the toy.  The toy and the first blanket was started in 2021 but never really photographed or blogged.  This was probably because I had mixed feelings about them from the get-go, but I was too pig-headed to give up, rip out, and start something new.  Instead I forced myself to finish both and promptly gave them away. The second blanket was one of those crazy ideas where I decided at the last minute to knit a baby blanket, finished it in a desperate rush, and immediately presented it to the new parents.  I really liked that blanket, but I was too overwhelmed at the time to deal with record-keeping. 

 

After that experience I decided I would never force myself to finish something again.  I would admit defeat or I would rip and repurpose. Luckily, my remaining projects of the year turned out to be far more satisfying, although admittedly there were some false starts and some ripping out.  Each false start then became a challenge and an opportunity.  Not all of those opportunities have yet been realized as projects, but I have found a certain satisfaction in the simple act of swatching, in letting a yarn tell me what it is, even if that initial exploration does not yield immediate results.

 

But now that the disappointments are out of the way, what about the successes?

 

I knitted four shawls, the first three of which were blogged (shown above). Shawlography, (pink, purple, green wool) was started as part of Stephen West's 2021 MKAL.  It was challenging, often fun, and sometimes maddening.  None of the techniques were particularly difficult in and of themselves, but West did put things together in ways I would not necessarily have thought of if left to my own devices.  Knitting this shawl was both fun and a constant struggle.  This was partially due to the fact that my fingers, beset with lingering chemotherap-induced neuropathy, struggled to maintain tension, and partially because I was constantly fretting about my color choices. Half the time I was convinced that the resulting shawl would only be suitable for a clown show, and it was not until I knit the final border that I could admit to being happy with the result. Even so, it gets the least wear of the three, primarily because it makes the boldest statement.  Still I think it was the accomplishment I was most proud of.  I learned a great deal knitting it, mostly because the brioche was not kind to my hands.  The brioche was ripped twice and reknit, even with the ripping and reknitting, I struggled.  The sense of accomplishment I feel for this shawl is primarily due to that brioche section.  Not only did I come to love brioche, I taught myself how to drop down to repair individual errors in brioche without ripping back and entire section, an accomplishment of which I am still proud even though I can honestly say that if the mistakes are many and frequent, it is still easier to simply rip back. Skill-wise, this shawl was my greatest accomplishment of 2022.

 

The cream striped Nantucket Summer shawl was the biggest shawl I knit in 2022, at 22 x 120 inches.  It is almost a blanket and it has admittedly seen me through many cool evenings on the patio as well as early mornings watching the sun rise, coffee and hand. The yarn was originally intended for a cardigan, but as I have a long-standing aversion to heavy cotton cardigans, I feared it would be a cardigan I would never wear.  The shawl is wonderful and I wrap myself up in it all the time, a perfect choice for me.

My absolute favorite knit of 2022 was the Artyarns silk wrap I named blue wave.  This was an absolutely fun knit, full of short rows and changing colors.  It required attention but was not particularly difficult and it was so exciting that I raced through it.  This shawl was completely fun to knit and the results are absolutely gorgeous. Using 766 yards of Artyarns beaded silk and sequins light, knitting this wrap is an indulgence but well worth it.  If I could justify having two versions of such a distinctive wrap, I would happily knit it again.  It was that much fun.  

 

 

My final finished project of 2022 was the fourth shawl, seen above.  This shawl was knit in Noro Kakigori, a mostly cotton and silk yarn, using the "Stormy Sky" pattern by Ksenia Naidyon.   Originally purchased for use with another yarn in a different project, it became evident upon swatching that I hated the two yarns together and felt that this yarn was completely unsuitable for its originally intended use.   Upon further swatching I decided that I liked the fabric the yarn created and that it would be lovely as a relatively simple shawl.  It is a not particularly large shawl, with both drape and a touch of crispness, which I think will prove very versatile in Knoxville's climate.  I would happily knit with more Kakigori, because it creates a lovely fabric, although the yarn itself tends to want to twist up on itself while knitting, so it does require a bit of patience.

 

 

The one pair of socks knitted in 2022  have proven quite satisfactory.  I intentionally knit them longer than my usual, perhaps a tad too long, but they still get worn. The Mominoki Finnwool, used for the body of the sock, is 100% wool without the nylon usually added for sock yarns.  It was a remnant from Shawlography and put to good use here.   I actually prefer socks that are pure wool without nylon, but they don't tend to wear as well, and so, as it true for so many things in life, represent a trade-off.  These are holding up well, except for a bit of wear at the back of the ankle above the heel.  I suppose it is a bit early to see that much wear after less than a full year's wear, and that area will be mended when the time comes.  I love the socks nonetheless.  

 

As I look in my sock drawer, I see that I need more socks, and I am loathe to purchase them.  It seems that there must be sock knitting on the horizon.  I have thought of exploring breed specific wool, looking for hard-wearing wools that hold up better for socks and I may well do that.  In the end, however, I will probably mostly use nylon reinforced sock wool, which comes in many pretty colors.  Although I may struggle with a brightly colored shawl, I have no issue with wearing carnival-colored socks.  The first pair of socks I ever knit are still going strong, after 13 years, knitted with KnitPicks simple stripes, 75% wool yarn, a ringing endorsement if ever there was one. I will admit that the tutti-frutti color palette of that first pair is not one I would chose today, but those socks simply will not die. That specific yarn has been discontinued, but I would think KnitPicks' sock yarn would still be a good economical and hard-wearing option if that is a consideration.  But longevity is not my primary criteria when knitting socks.  I am all for knitting, and wearing, what one loves and we each make the compromises that best suit us. I am fine with balancing practicality with comfort in my sock wardrobe,  but also admit that there is nothing quite as nice as cashmere socks on a cold evening, even if they are not practical for everyday wear.  Perhaps my sock wardrobe needs a touch of softness, as well as an indulgence in frivolous colors.

 

 

Even though I was once almost exclusively a garment knitter, I only knot two sweaters in 2022.  The first, a cardigan finished in June, was not really worn until fall, when the temperatures had cooled.   Although it is not a winter cardigan, being knitted with cotton/nylon/polyester novelty yarns, this was not a sweater for hot humid summer heat.  It may have been had I followed the pattern as written, which was for a cardigan with more ease and drape..  After knitting my swatches however, the hand of the resulting fabric reminded me of the kind of light drapey boucle that is often used for soft Chanel-style jackets, and I decided that a short, more fitted cardigan was required.  I altered the pattern accordingly, individualizing it by taking in some of the asymmetry I was finding in my sewing pattern sloper development.  There was some fudging, and some ripping and reknitting, which is not easy when three rather snaggy strands are held together while knitting.  But I am absolutely enamored of the finished cardigan.  This is not a hard-wearing everyday sweater but more of an occasional item.  I need to take care not to catch the rather fine sequined filament that runs through the sweater on buckles, latches, or even rings and other jewelry.  This cardigan wants to be the star of the show in its own understated way.  It is a sweater I can imagine myself wearing for a long time. 

 

 

The second sweater was for a wool shell or vest, knitted to be worn as a layering piece.  The pattern was Carol Feller's Trellis top, and I used the recommended yarn, Stolen Stitches Nua Sport.  Even thought I used the designer's yarn I did not quite manage to get gauge, My gauge was slightly tighter in stockinette, but the same as the recommended gauge in the pattern stitch.  Since I wanted to make my sweater a bit more close-fitting than the pattern, this was easy enough to manage.    Aside from size issues, I more or less knit the pattern as written with the exception of the shoulder shaping and the finishing.  The original design is looser and more casual, with  button bands in lieu of seamed sides.  As I was seeking a more classically close-fitting silhouette that could also be worn under a jacket, I simply seamed the sides.  I am very happy with the result and this sweater has already proven to be a favorite.  I wore vests frequently in my 20s and early 30s, did not wear them in the intervening decades, and find I now reach for them again and again, something to consider as I contemplate future knitting.

 

As to 2023, who knows.

 

My plan is to begin the year by finishing the temperature blanket I started at the beginning of 2022.  This started as a whim, but I have mostly stuck with it.  I put the blanket aside during the hot months and picked it up after Thanksgiving, trying desperately to catch up.  When the year ended, I had knitted the blanket through the last day of September, or three-quarters through the body of the blanket.

 

I am determined to finish this blanket before finishing anything else this year.  Since January 1 I have knitted 47 garter ridges, which finished out October and put me half-way through  November.  I should finish the body by early February and then I need to pick up and knit the borders, As you can see from the blanket, spread out on my bed, the borders will be long, and I am thinking now that I do not want them to be particularly narrow, although I am considering the idea that the side borders may be wider, perhaps, than the top and bottom borders. I haven't yet calculated what color the borders should be, but if I am serious about finishing this, I should figure that out and make sure I have the yarn in house before it is needed, simply to avoid further delays.  I do know that should I put it aside, it will be difficult to pick back up again, so best to keep knitting until it is finished.  The blanket itself is fun because I love watching the color patterns unfold.  The border of course will be more tedious, but the reward will be in the joy of curling up under it on chilly evenings.

 

Also on the schedule for this year is to finish a modular, log-cabin style blanket I started knitting out of Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande,  I do think I will take a short break between blankets, finishing something smaller.  I have another sleeveless cotton sweater on the needles, although I am not devoting much time to it at the  moment.  The cotton sweater is my portable project, but the blanket remains my main focus and the center of all my crafty energies at the moment. Expect that knitting updates may be few and far between at least for the first quarter of the year. 

 

Hello New Year, A Brief Look Back

Somewhere around about the time of my last blog post my brain started working again. I felt as if a switch that had been jammed for a long time suddenly slipped back into position. It was that sudden.  I was still tired, I was still recovering from my fourth cardiac procedure of the year, but suddenly it felt like a cloud had lifted and whatever remnants of my old self that were still hanging on stood up and listened, 

As I was suddenly finding myself increasingly alive, increasingly doing, I also found that I stopped writing.  I had no urge to write.  As is evidenced by the erratic nature of this, or these, blogs over the last two years, this was part of an ongoing struggle.  In many ways I write to make sense of who I am. And yet, in many ways the "me" in me was in hibernation.  As that dormant part of myself began to reawaken, I found I needed time for reassessment and nesting.  Writing would come in its own time. 

Anyway, I am still here.  I can honestly say the last 3 1/2 months have been the longest period of good, at least in terms of health, since July of 2020.  I don't yet feel like I am out from under the mountain because the simple truth is that I was barely coping and there are tons of the daily stuff of life with which I was barely managing.  I did what I needed to do.  I tried to explore my creative instincts. I read a great deal, but I am not convinced that all the circuits in my brain were functioning.  Of course they weren't functioning. My brain and my body were in siege-mode.  I was doing what I needed to do to get through it all, and now I am dealing with the wreckage that surrounds me.  But the wreckage is the past. All that matters is now.

I am a different person than I was on the eve of my 62nd birthday.  Pain, cancer, heart issues, all these things changed me.  And although we like to say that getting through these things is a journey, and when we come out on the other side we have achieved something, the truth is that for the most parts these are journeys we would really rather not take.  We are changed. And parts of us are lost in the process. A part of who I was before has been erased, and a part of who I am today has yet to be discovered.  

And yet, the need for an assessment prevails.  Not an assessment of illness or health, nor necessarily either an accounting or an owning-up. I suppose I simply feel the urge to reflect on a few trends.

I read 83 books, fewer than in the previous few years. My reading slowed considerably in the last three months of the year and I found myself beset with an urge to reread, even books I had recently finished.  I reconned this a shift in my mental landscape, perhaps an acknowledgement that something essential had been missing.  This is not surprising. I have always been a collector of words and ideas, of books, not just a reader.  For me reading is relationship, and a worthwhile relationship, like a good book, grows with the retelling.  Primarily however, my reading slowed because my ability to do increased.  In the business of resettling and rebuilding, there is peace in the slow progression of words on a page, of ideas filtering through the interstices of thought.

2022 was also a year that  I managed to do more sewing, and more in the studio than I had in the entire time since George died in 2013, more than since I left Hyde Park at the end of 2011.  This despite flirtations with heart failure and four cardiac procedures. This despite long weeks where I felt very much like I was living at the bottom the ocean. Small though my accomplishments were, they were very much a good thing.

The photos in this blog post are mostly gathered from various posts on my sewing blog, which is once again being retired.  I will never be the world's greatest seamstress, embroiderer, weaver, any of that.  I don't care and it doesn't matter.  Nor do I always want to maintain a blog devoted to a single subject. You will simply have to put up with me.  The original decision to retire sewdistracted was sound, its resurrection arose from my own feelings of division and loss, feelings that are best returned to the past.

Here also is an accounting of sorts.

1.  I did a lot of alterations.  I needed things to wear and I was stubbornly resistant to going out and buying things simply because I could.  Some things were bought, it is true, but many things were taken in and a few were completely reconfigured.  I only posted two of the many items I altered, (a linen tank/tunic that surprisingly is still in my closet, and a pair of slacks).
2. There was a steady stream of church related sewing, both in terms of mending and making new items.
3. A friend and I made a plastic-wrap sloper/muslin and I worked with that somewhat, although not enough, both modifying knitting patterns and working on sewing muslins.
4. I sewed three simple summer dresses.
5. I fitted five muslins for future dresses, all basic styles that I will be made and worn, perhaps in multiple iterations.  This was done during a fabulous seminar at PaperMaple Studio in New Orleans, another experience that did wonders for my state of mind and improved skills.
6. I organized my pattern stash.
7. I organized three corners of my studio. There is more organizing and sorting to be done. Yarn remains only partially unpacked and there is an entire closet to design and put to use.
8. I went to the boro stitch workshop at Arrowmont.
9. I went on a sewing retreat with friends and I thread traced a dress.
10. I finished said dress only to decide I didn't like it.  I proceeded to take it apart, and redesign it in a way that I think works better. I have not yet completely put it back together. 
11. I made gifts, mostly quilted, mostly small projects, but not all.
12. I started to refresh my embroidery and hand-sewing skills.  At first I despaired that my fingers would ever work again, but eventually my fingers began to cooperate, stitches became more even, the feel of a needle and thread became calming rather than stressful.

All in all I sewed 39.6 yards of fabric in 2022.  It is not much, and yet it is more than I have sewn in many years.  For the most part I was happy with the projects I completed. I sewed more fabric than I bought, also for the first time in years. 

 

 

Opening Doors

A week ago today I came home from a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in nearby Gatlinburg.  This is what I took:  The Boro Stitch as a Brush Stroke, taught by Deborah Fell. 

 

I had been looking forward to the class all year, and although I had ended up missing other classes due to annoying health issues, I was determined not to miss this one.  I didn't really know what to expect.  I didn't think I would learn a lot, technique wise, but I hoped this would ignite a creative spark.  I was right and wrong.  Oh so very wrong. And yet completely on point.

 

In fact I found the workshop overwhelming.  I was tired.  One week post my third ablation and fourth surgery since March, I was very tired.  But sometimes it seems that exhaustion allows cracks to appear that otherwise might have been remained firmly shut. 

 

I had been wanting to play for a long time.  I had dreams and ideas and I would sketch them out in my crude fashion, dump my fabrics and yarns in a pile and stare at them in frustration only to pack them up again and go back to something tried and true and familiar.

 

Our studio space was filled with inspiration. Deborah brought many samples.  I took many many photos, most of which seemed to have disappeared, although I am certain I took them. That doesn't really matter.  It seems to me, and I do not think my brain is the only brain wired this way, that inspiration files both inspire and limit.  Perhaps better that ideas become fleeting memories.

 

Some photos remained though, and I made a collage of some of Deborah's work that she brought to share.  For me, perhaps the collage itself, both in the act of combining the images  and as a reference piece for my own folder, is greater generator of ideas than the individual works were, as much as I admired them.

 

That first day, I was very overwhelmed.  I was tired.  I was dehydrated.  My pulse was erratic.  I perhaps had too much to drink the night before following a very stressful drive.  I was too literal in my intent and that is quite a statement from a woman who believes life itself is a metaphor.

 

We were supposed to let grow of rules but I struggled with that idea.  I wanted to make neat orderly controlled embroidery stitches, exactly the kind of stitching I used to make, but at the same time the kind of stitching I have been struggling with lately.  My hands do not work they way my younger hands worked.  But eventually something snapped in place and I realized that it is not just my hands that do not want to do what they used to do; my psyche also wander in new fields, fields of random stitches and overlapped collages of life. 

 

Things started to loosen up on the second day.  I had always been happy to be there, in this workshop with my fellow students, but something started to become easier.  At some point on Wednesday I was bubbling with excitement.   An idea had cropped into my head, and as I pursued it, sparks started firing and one little patchwork sampler took on a life of its own.   Black canvas, various upholstery fabrics, thread, bronzed wire, sisal twine.    This was the first piece that I felt was really finished, was itself, and came from some place outside my conscious control.  It is still perhaps my favorite piece of the workshop, although I did not say that at the end, when we were supposed to evaluate our own work.  It was all too emotional for me then, too connected to what I wanted it to be, too connected intention and desire, struggle and hope.  Even a day later my perspective changed.  

 

Honestly, I think everything I did was a success, even those pieces that are not successful in and of themselves, not successful as something I want to save.  I suspect that some are simply unfinished.  Some might be cut up again and take on new lives. Who knows.  But the success is in the play, in taking those first steps and sometimes in learning that forcing the issue is the wrong path to take.  There are one or two pieces I want to love, that started off with promise, and which I initially was quite satisfied with, but which now I see took a hard turn in the wrong direction, where I forced the issue, letting my conscious mind determine the direction the work should.  Somewhere, subconsciously, it knew what it wanted to be. But I lacked trust.

 

Looking at the photo above, at my own body of work, I see things differently than I did at the time.  Distance.  Perspective.  I see connectivity that I had not noticed; potential as well.  

That one week at Arrowmont was probably the best thing I did this year, even at the risk of exhaustion, or as mentioned above perhaps because of that very same exhaustion.  It wasn't just me. It wasn't being inspired by Deborah Fell's work, but by the entire class, by the people I met, the work I saw around me both in the studio I was working in, in artist's presentations, in odd corners here and there.  I had misplaced something and I found it again.  My hold is still tenuous.  But that is part of the journey.

 

My other favorite piece is not in the photo above.  I finished it the last morning. It started out as a stitch sampler, an attempt to solve a problem in another one of the sampler squares (which is on that wall), but it suddenly took on a life of its own, becoming its own thing.  It doesn't matter what kind of thing it is, or in a sense if it is "art" or not, if it is "good" or not, simply that it is what it needs to be.  

I see a lot of playing in my future.  Everything is a new spark.  Everyday is a new ignition point. 

 

Hello Blog

Well, geesch.  I feel like I have been on a journey even though I haven't been anywhere at all.

 

I feel like this blog has lost its way.  Or perhaps I have lost my way and I have nothing more to say.  I am not sure how completely I believe that, but I also must admit I don't completely disbelieve it either.  I am tired of how constrained and deeply inside my head my life seems to have gotten over the past few years.  I'm sick of it and sometimes sick of myself.

 

 But hey, let's just shake out the cobwebs and see where we are.

 

A couple of weeks ago now. Garbo and I went to dinner and a jazz concert on Market Square in downtown Knoxville with a friend and her pup.    It was a lovely cool evening, perhaps bordering on crisp.  The jazz was fabulous.  This was really the third or fourth musical performance I had heard this fall, as the Symphony and Opera seasons had also begin and I admit that I have just been revelling in the ability to go out and be enchanted and inspired by live music.  I just sat back and enjoyed the flow of music and the happy atmosphere.

In the photo above I am waring one of the three summer dresses I made in May using the same pattern but different fabrics, and it may be my favorite of the three.  This one is the least crisp and polished of the three dresses and also the one made of what is, to. my mind, the nicest fabric, a drapes, almost slouchy 90% linen, 10% tightly spun mohair blend.  I always thought it might transition well into fall due to its muted color.  It was deliciously cool all summer long and it was deliciously comfortable on this chilly evening with boots and a light turtleneck.  I might not have done much sewing over the summer, but those dresses have served me well and made me happy.

I am back to snapping odd photos of bits and bobs of things that are meaningless to anyone but myself. Arches. 

Bits of roof lines perhaps.

New clothes. (finally)  A soft new blue sweatshirt for chilly morning walks with Garbo.

Playing with fabric.

Sunsets.

This isn't a normal blog post.  But frankly I am not sure what normal is right now, or even if normalcy is a desirable goal.  I just know that I am changing and simultaneously staying the same.  Maybe insisting that there is a difference is the illusion.  Maybe I didn't know it but this is where I've been heading all along.  Does it matter where the path forward leads?  What if the familiar has been the radically new all along and we just haven't opened our eyes to it. 

 

All photos by me except the second one, on me and Garbo on Market Square.  That photo courtesy of Cynthia Moxley, here

 

Booker Reading Part 1

This year it felt like I was making great headway on the Booker. Prize long-list.  At one point it even felt like I might finish all the books before the short-list was announced.  Considering that I had read none of the long-listed titles before the announcement, that was probably unlikely, and this proved to be the case.  As the date of the short-list announcement approached, I realized that I would be far from finished, yet I still fully intended to write a post listing and rating the books I had read. This is not due to any pretensions that my opinion matters in the scheme of book prizes, or anything really, merely an exercise in pursuit of mental clarity.

 

However I found myself slowing down and unable to corral my thoughts.  

The short-list was announced (above in title order).  I was simultaneously thrilled to see that four of the books I had read made the cut and frustrated that I had failed to write.   I thought the opportunity was over.  Then I realized it wasn't.  I still like the books I like.  In the end, I think it will be interesting, to me at least, and since this is my blog nothing else matters, to note my own comparisons, ratings and thinking on the matter

 

Still it took me over a week to get myself to a point where I felt I had energy enough for my brain to work in a somewhat coherent matter and then another week to actually get words to take shape.  That is just the way my life rolls at the moment.  Hopefully my brain and I will get through this intact.

 

So what did I read?  Before the short-list was announced I had finished seven novels on the long list, and was in the middle of an eighth.  I have since finished the eighth, but this post is only about those initial seven novels.

 

 

These are the novels, shown above in order of my preference, from first (Small Things) to last (Booth).  I thoroughly enjoyed all the books except one.  Even though I had not read the entire list, I thought my top three were strong short-list contenders and I was rather on the fence about the fourth, Glory.  I found that rating these books was very difficult because they are all quite strong and the distinctions that make one book more meaningful than another are often minute.  

 

And now my thoughts, in reverse order.

 

7. Karen Joy Fowler:  Booth.  This was the third Booker-nominated book I read.  It was, and continues to be, the least in my estimation by a rather wide margin.    I suppose what I struggled with the most was that there was little that was literary about this book, other than its intentions perhaps.  Booth is about the Booth family, the family of the infamous John Wilkes, and the times that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  Ostensibly it is supposed to be about how the forces of the time and culture shaped the outcome and how the family itself both contributed to, and dealt with, the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination.  The author has stated that she wanted to write about how a family deals with their own culpability and all of the questions of might-have-been or could-have-done. She has also spoken about her own struggles with current political turmoil in American life and her attempt to reconcile her feelings through writing this novel set in another time of great political and social turmoil.  In fact there is no shortage of interesting ideas and big questions in this novel. The problem is that these ideas are dealt with in a rather heavy and plodding way with conventional language and really rather pedestrian prose. They remain, somehow, "ideas that we are supposed to address" rather than something seamlessly revealed in the story itself.  This novel captured me with neither literary allusions that opened new insights or a story that captured my imagination.  

 

6. Leila Mottley: Nightcrawling.  This novel, based on a real-life case of institutional misconduct, was a fascinating, thought-provoking, enlightening and thoroughly enjoyable read, even if its subject matter is ultimately upsetting to my own comfortable middle-class illusions.This is the story of Kiara, a seventeen year old girl who lives alone with her older brother following the death of her father from cancer, possibly exacerbated by his own sojourn in prison, and her mother's incarceration following the drowning of a baby sister due to neglect.  Her brother is a talentless wanna-be rapper who has abandoned caring for her in pursuit of his dreams.  Kiara also serves as babysitter and ultimately the primary caregiver for a nine year old boy whose mother is a junkie. She is a girl with no options.  Faced with a tremendous rent increase and a series of happenstances, Kiara drifts into prostitution and quickly finds herself in a situation from which she cannot extricate herself.  The writing here is brilliant, and Mottley, who is really a teenager herself, captures the combination of innocence and scathing bitterness that define the world of her protagonist.  The action and the feelings are often hyperbolic, but to me this both works for and against the novel.  It gives a sense of urgency and loss to the story, and it captures completely the way a teenager, a teenager who has seen far too much of  the bitterest side of the world, deals with what she sees around her.  Hyperbole and teenage angst go hand in hand.   The  amped up emotion however is a dual edged sword; it is both a strength in terms of drawing the reader into Kiara's mind and heart, and a profound weakness, because there is no way to delineate issues, no way build emphasis. When everything is overwrought, there is little room for nuance or clarity.  I am grateful for having read/heard in my mind this voice, but at the same time there were times when the story would have had even more power had a little more distance been maintained.  I do recommend this powerful novel, and Mottley is a rising talent.  I hope to read more from her in the future.

 

5. Hernan Diaz: Trust.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, and it has remained on my mind but I give it more points for ideas than for actual execution.   Trust is a novel written in two parts, or is it four parts? There are actually four short novellas which make up the novel, all of which revolve around the story of a Wall Street Tycoon and his wife during the time leading up to the crash of 1929.  But there are actually two parts to this novel, and the first two stories are divided from the second two stories by a rather significant shift in point of view, and in fact reflect a greater cultural shift, although the stories are not necessarily told in strictly linear order.  Sounds complex no?  

 

The novel opens with a short, roughly 100 page novella written in the style of Wharton, Wharton with a perhaps a touch of Theodore Dreiser thrown in, about the life of a wealthy New York financier and his wife.  I found it quite interesting and engaging, but flawed.  It is not completely successful, either as a nineteenth-century novel, or as a modern pastiche of a nineteenth century novel. But that is, at least in part, the point.  The second novella tells a very similar story of a Wall Street tycoon and the mental instability of his wife.   The third version of this story is told by another narrator, Ida Partenza, who tells the story of how she wrote the second novella, combining this with the story of her own life and choice to become a writer.  In Ida's novel we make a transition toward the a more modern approach in novels, and from this point Trust becomes a far more engaging read.  The reader might wonder why the author did not interleave these stories in alternating chapters, but I do think the linear progression and delineation is part of the story, even if I feel the technique was not entirely successful.  Diaz is giving us a deconstruction of the novel which is simultaneously a deconstruction of the myth of the American dream and the stories we tell ourselves.  Diaz deconstructs not only the division between art and science and art and finance but also the divide between the stories we tell and the realities we portray, especially as they concern capitalism, free markets, the idea of the self-made man, and the common good,  as well as the even bigger question of trust.  The reader trusts the writer, must trust the story being told, must trust the myth on which a society is being built.  But this novel consistently calls that trust into question and raises the issue not only of who gets to write the stories but of how and why the story is written.  This grand scheme also references all kinds of side issues around which this novel revolves:  finance and markets, the suppression and co-opting of women's ideas and voices, and an interesting discussion of music as well as art.  In once sense, I can also see this novel as a musical composition in four movements.  I need to follow that idea a bit further, which means of course that I will be reading this novel again.

 

4. NoViolet Bulawayo: Glory.  Glory is a viciously funny satire that seeks to portray the events in Zimbabwe following the coup which deposed Robert Mugabe.  Despite my laughter, I admired it more than I actually enjoyed reading it.  The author has stated that she initially considered writing non-fiction or perhaps more conventional novel but eventually decided to write something more satirical taking her inspiration George Orwell's Animal Farm and utilizing local animal-based mythologies.   I can perfectly understand the choice of Orwellian satire, and although I do feel that Bulawayo has successfully updated the Orwellian tradition for a perhaps younger, twenty-first century audience, writing a novel full of wit and humanity.  I do not think the novel quite measures up to the level of art seen in Orwell, other African writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’, or even some of the other writers on this list.  I also think that her use of the animals, the constant references to twitter, and the repetition of short sound bites have made the novel more of-the-moment and accessible, even if ultimately less profound as art.

 

3. Percival Everett: The Trees. This is a powerfully explicit and confrontational novel about lynching in the United States, specifically connecting our history of lynching and police violence against people of color, which the author explicitly links to genocide. 

Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over 100 years, no one notices. Where thee are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life.

This is accomplished in a novel that successfully wraps a brutal expose in a cover of genre convention, in this case a crime procedural or detective novel.   Short chapters, snappy dialog, and laugh out loud stereotyping and humor lure the reader into its circle. The novel is outrageously funny while simultaneously being deeply unsettling.   In one heartbreaking section there is a list of names of the victims. It is a sobering list, coming as it does in the middle of the action, the impulse may be to skip over it, but instead one should take time with these names, google them, think about the implications. Everett does not pacify his reader with with pat answers or easy solutions.  In fact the novel questions the entire idea culpability for the past and the role of justice, of its necessity, of the way it makes us uncomfortable because it often defies morality, defies societal convention, societal secrets.   I did have some issues with this book, although not with its subject matter.  If anything Everett played to my own biases and understandings.  But I do think this is a pointedly inward looking and pointedly American novel. Although the need for justice is universal, and historically this need always erupts somewhere, somehow, into something deeply unpleasant, the novel does not feel as much universal but deeply specific.   Still it stays on my own short list because it is so brilliant at what it does.

 

2. Alan Garner: Treacle Walker. Treacle Walker is the story of a young boy of indeterminant age, Joe Coppock, who is convalescing at home, when he encounters Treacle Walker, a rag and bone man "able to cure all things except jealousy", which caused this reader think back to the etymology of the name treacle itself, which harkens back to Middle English as an antidote to venom, where it is derived through old French from Latin and Greek thērion or wild beast, a derivation aptly relevant throughout the course of this short book.   Treacle Walker is also probably the most elegant literary exploration of quantum mechanics I have ever read. As might be expected from that previous statement, there is a plot but it is follows a rather thin, definitely non-linear thread. I find the book thought provoking and thoroughly enchanting, but I also acknowledge that it may be difficult for many American readers as it is rife with colloquial language, references to British culture from the mid 20th century, and a heavy use of local (English) folktales and myths and literary traditions.  Still, it is worth the effort.  Alan Garner has written a novel that seems to capture the magic of reading.

 

Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These. Keegan's novel has already won the 2022 Orwell prize for political fiction. Set in Ireland in 1985, the story, on the surface, has all the makings of a sickly sweet holiday feel-good novel.  Christmas, Ireland, A protagonist who does the right thing and helps a girl in distress. And there are probably people who will read this short novel as just that, but it is so much more.  This is the story of Bill Furlong, the father of five daughters, a man who runs a successful coal and timber business, and also the child of an unwed mother who was taken in and helped by a widow who employed her as a domestic servant.  Bill, who is an introspective thoughtful man, who is already disquieted by the poverty he sees around him and the comfort displayed by the Catholic Church, is thrown into a deeper crisis when he visits the local convent to make a coal delivery and is shocked by the appalling physical condition in which some of the girls under the care of the nuns are treated.  Keegan captures this man, his history and his struggle, as well as that of his country and his church, in spare, elegant, pitch-perfect prose.  Not a word is wasted. Rarely does the reader come to know a character so deeply and thoroughly in such a short time.  It is a beautiful book, and yet one that does not pander to the reader with easy answers and a perfect ending except that Bill knows that his action is not an ending but a beginning, and not an easy one at that, but one upon which he has no choice but to embark.  

 

Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

 

Adventures in the Kitchen

Slowly I start adding things back into my life.  And yet.  I think I will leave it at that, a fragment full of both frustration and hope.  I grow frustrated. I grow tired. The eternal cry of "MORE" rears its ugly head.  This has always been my curse, and perhaps it is the one lesson from my childhood that will be the most difficult to relinquish -- the wanting to know everything, to see everything, to miss nothing. And yet, despite this struggle, I become increasingly unhurried, increasingly content to just be here, wherever, with less, worried about less.  It is a good place to be, although I do not always manage to remain wrapped in its stillness and peace.

 

When I take the time to pause, I see that these frustrations are unfounded.  Yes, I can grow tired.  Who does not? Certainly I am doing so much more than I was a year ago, when, in the midst of chemotherapy, I was not doing well at all.  And yet I wonder.  Why this need for an accounting?  I wonder if it matters, ultimately, in whether or not a life was well lived.  Perhaps the pursuits of more, whatever they be -- popularity, power, things, experiences  -- perhaps this life of pursuit is a life in pursuit of a mirage.  Increasingly I think all that matters in life is that we love and find joy, our own joy, the joy that is essential to our natures, the joy that resonates and explodes our own essential selves into lights in the world. As I increasingly understand, joy is not a solitary pursuit.  In order to live in joy, I must also share that joy with others.  I cannot do it by myself for only myself.  Self-centerdness is the opposite of joy.

 

Sometimes joy is quiet and calm.  Sometimes it is active and riotous. Sometimes it makes a mess.

 

 

In July I started cooking again.  Not "get dinner on the table" cooking, but cooking cooking.  I started exploring new recipes and rediscovering old ones, playing with dishes both complicated and simple.  Certainly the results were often delicious and satisfying.  There was an occasional failure.  But the joy came not just from the results but the very act of making, of exploration, of rekindling a kind of muscle memory.  Cooking is a creative exploration, a gift to those we feed.  Or it can be.  We need to cook; we need to eat.  There is necessity.  One of our gifts as humans is the ability to elevate necessity into something beautiful, powerful, shared. The creation of food is also a gift, an act of creation and also of reverence of sorts, of honoring the things that nourish us, and in nourishing both ourselves and others in the process.  Mostly I fed only myself.  Occasionally I fed others.  I tended to go overboard, but that was primarily because I was caught up in the act of exploration, of rekindling some previously misplaced neural networks and following them into new delights.  But I have no doubt that the act of creating, of feeding myself even, not only of feeding others, percolates into every aspect of my presence in the world

 

A lot of this cooking came about because I would flip through my old recipe files and think about the things I have not made in a long time.  I learned that my tastes have changed.  Some recipes were successes.  Some were failures.  I am far more sensitive to tastes of preservatives in food, far less enamored of commercial processed food than I once was.  Perhaps not oddly, I would have said, even then, that I did not eat that much processed food. But perception is relative.  Now even less appeals.  Except for Fritos perhaps.  I still love Fritos.  But my once-upon-a-time self could devour a bag of chips, hoarding them for myself, and now about a handful is all that I want before something shifts and the bag goes in the trash.   Once I could eat a Frito plain, but no longer. It remains a great vehicle for something else, but even then the limits of my tolerance is easily reached.  I would rather have a slice of turnip, or cucumber, or even a spoon with my hummus or my dip, but the spoon, of course, is not an option in a social setting.  The spoon itself, the idea of eating a shared dish with a spoon, is an inward, and ultimately selfish act, a turning away from the communal. It is good we do not serve spoons with our dips.  The communal table allows us to use appetite, a physical appetite, as a trigger, turning ourselves outward to others.  I need to feed myself, but I cannot be whole, wholly myself, alone.  "Our daily bread" is not just bread, it is the communal experience we need to survive: physically, emotionally, spiritually. We humans are selves only as part of a communal gathering.  Nourishment is also communion.  So also is creativity.  The creative act might seem solitary, but in fact the very act of creation means that it flows beyond itself, sometimes even in ways that are not immediately evident.

 

Oh wait, I am writing about food, about cooking.

 

A significant amount of my recent cooking explorations revolved around a new to me cookbook, Mi Cocina, by Rick Martínez.  I grew up eating both Mexican and Tex-Mex food.  I spent a great energy in my 20s expanding my Mexican culinary horizons beyond what I learned in childhood, primarily because options for Mexican food in New York State were slim in the 1980s.  We ate a lot of Mexican food, both simple and complex, exploring regional Mexican cusines, and revisiting my childhood Tex-Mex favorites.  But after my husband died, I mostly stopped cooking Mexican food.  Perhaps it seemed too much work for a solo diner.  Perhaps it was simply too emotionally fraught of an exercise.  Martínez has rekindled that love affair with both the flavors of Mexico, with the joys of flavor itself,  of cooking something with attention and detail and yes, joy.  He has also reminded me that although complexity in and of itself is not needed, detail is important. Nourishment, and joy also, often comes from the meetings of several simple things.  I needed this.

 

 

Exploring new culinary ideas, finding new favorites, revisiting the once tried-and-true.  Not all was measured and calm.  I have always been a person  inclined toward too-muchness, all in or all out.  I repeatedly write about that here. It is another of my ongoing struggles.  But our struggles and our joys shape our lives. I am not sure that this tendency, this bubbling forth and then retreating, is at all unusual. I look around me.  The world is balanced, but it is rarely measured in its flow.  Perhaps this too, this idea a life well-lived is a life of moderation, of calm, of evenness, is another mirage.

 

In some fit of energy, or was it madness, I looked at the freezer, which desperately needs cleaning out, and some detailed culinary plans started to come into focus. What after all is the point of exploring the new without also using what I already have.  Accumulating more is rarely the answer in and of itself.   I decided to make chili.  Three big pots of chili in fact.  Remember that part of my nature that tends toward excess?  This is not in fact as extreme as it sounds.  It does not, in fact, take three times as long to prep three pots of chili as it does one, as many of the ingredients overlap. Once the first pot of chili is bubbling away, the others fall in place.  I made two long-time favorite recipes and one new one:  one in the slow cooker, one braising slowly in the oven, and one on the stove top.  The cooking also takes no longer for three chilis than for one.

 

Of course, one is left with a great deal of chili.  A party perhaps?  That would have been a great idea, and I will do it someday.  This time I just put the chili in the fridge for 36 hours, allowed the flavors to meld and the fat to rise to the surface and solidify, then I reheated the chilis and canned the bulk of it.  Does it make sense to move meat from the freezer to pantry shelves?  Yes. Although it doesn't really eliminate the problem of having a backlog, pints of chili are more usable than pounds of frozen meat.  There will always be days when I need to eat but really just want to reheat something simple.  So yes, having chili, or beans, or spaghetti sauce makes sense.  I would simply rather can, or freeze, my own than buy commercial.   My pressure canner holds 14 pints. A pint is a good sized quantity for a solo household. And so I canned chili. I could have frozen sealed pouches of chili, but remember, I am cleaning out the freezer here.  It needs to be defrosted, as well as reorganized.  After two rough years, my priorities have evolved.

 

Little did I know the chili would prove useful sooner rather than later.  Early last week, I went back into atrial flutter, where I have remained.  Each day my energy would be lower than the day before.   Rows of glistening jars of easy and nutritious chili and the pouches of colorful vegetable soups lining the shelves of my freezer, have been a godsend.  Earlier this summer I mourned that I did not have the energy to grow tomatoes, to can them as I had a few years ago. I miss that, and my home-canned tomatoes were more filled with the essence of ripe tomato than anything I can buy the store.  I wondered if I would ever undertake such activities again.  Then chili happened, and I find myself blessed with bounty just when I need it.  I am all about efforts that yield tangible rewards.

 

And my fluttery heart? We are addressing that also, I am in no danger, or no more than any of us are on any given day, and all is well.  

 

 

 

Thoughts Without Resolution, or July Books

I did so much in July.  None of it was exotic or exciting.  Mostly I just started doing things, the kinds of things that were once routine. Finally I am feeling like I am getting my feet back under myself and beginning to function in some way that feels like it is approaching normal.  I am still tired; occasionally I become temporarily frustrated, especially when I overtire myself and all my routines and plans crumble around me.  I do realize,  however, that I am tired because I am doing more, and this is a good thing, and my frustrations are alleviated.  There is nothing like getting your assumptions about your own independence knocked out of you. And yet at the sometimes it is necessary to stare upward from the bottom of the well before realize that "doing more" has nothing to do with the meaning or purpose of life.

 

But that does not mean I am not going to write a blog post. Nor does it mean that I will not admit that I did not lot read a lot of books in July.  I read. It is just finishing that was slowed, and it is ok to admit that, even to admit that I struggled with some of my reading. There was one book I loved, and one, more difficult, that I did not love, but the reading of it was still a good thing.  Alas I just noticed that I listed the first book, the one I love, in my last post, crediting it to June when I actually finished it on July 8th.

 

That leaves only one book to list here:

 

44.  Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

 

As. I've already stated, I struggled. I am quite aware that Poe is a seminal American author, and that much of the development of American Literature, are influenced by his work.  I am not just talking about mass or popular culture and our love of horror stories and tales of mysteries and the haunted house at the county fair.  His influence percolated into high culture as well.  I cannot deny that he was a great storyteller, or that he was brilliant, a genius, really.

 

I was plagued by the thought that he could really never be credited as being a fabulous wordsmith, or even at least to my mind, a great writer.  That is okay.  There are those who write beautifully but emptily, and those who capture our imaginations and even shape our culture but whose prose is pedantic at best.  Perhaps that is one of the downsides of working one's way doggedly through over a thousand pages of an author's work.  Most of the work is not great.  Even the great work could use editing, but as I also look at the some of the edited editions, I also see that much of Poe's genius gets edited out as well.  Oh we all know the stories.  

 

If I don't feel that Poe's poetry is great as poetry, it is certainly great in terms of its cultural influence.  I suspect that most Americans, especially those educated in this country, can quote at least some part of the Raven. Poe, was also a critic, and particularly a critic of the influence of the earlier poetic tradition America had inherited from Britain, and I do think his thoughts on the evolution of poetry are something he explored in his own writing.  He is also on the cusp, if not a pivotal influence, although this is nowhere near my own level of competence, in the changes in poetic form that were soon to occur, both in American and English poetry.  But I think his insight, and his obvious attempt to pursue it, were more astute than his craftsmanship.

 

In terms of the stories, I think the best of them have seeped into the popular mindset.  They have been edited and reprinted for readers of all ages.  They have been turned into movies.  Much as I disliked reading some of the stories, and thought they needed editing.  Poe tends to expound at length on distracting topics, and he repeats, again and again, the same tropes and conventions to the point of pedanticism.  But he is a brilliant storyteller. His stories are cryptograms, often historically funny as well as frightening,  Poe had great insight into the human psyche, and also a great understanding of how to create myths that pervade the mind of both the individual and the greater culture beyond.  In this, he reminds me of Dickens, although Dickens was by far the better artist.  And in his understanding of the motivations, fears, and actions of his characters, he reminds me also of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.  But Tolstoy wrote his novels with great understanding of the human psyche, but also with great love and care for his characters.  Both he and Dostoyevsky were, again, far superior artists.  And although Dostoyevsky explored some of the darker impulses of the human mind, and did so with great insight, his novels seem almost naive compared to the darkness explored by Poe.  Perhaps here it is blessing that Poe's art does not bring the reader that sense of connection that Dostoyevsky does, because to do so would make the story unbearable.  

 

But enough of Poe.  I don't regret reading Poe, and he made me think of many things, including how little I understand Poe's writing and in fact that entire period in American Literature and its influence on the literature of today.

 

I do want to mention, briefly, What Strange Paradise.  It is a beautiful book and I loved it.  But it is also very dark, very sad, and has a very ambiguous and not hopeful ending.  It is the story of a 9 year old Syrian boy who follows his uncle onto a fishing vessel set to sail north with a load of refugees seeking asylum.  It is a rash decision and the boy, Amir, does not really understand what is happening, the pressures, or the consequences.  The boat flounders, and Amir is the only survivor among hundreds of refugees found dead on a beach.   The story is told, quite effectively, in alternating segments titled "Before" and "After".  In each we see the world, often as interpreted by a small child.  It can be quite devastating, and much of the story will bring up issues about bravery, desperation, hope, and fear, but also uncomfortable truths about cruelty, about the fleeting nature of outrage, and even kindness.  It is a novel that can be quite uncomfortable to the sensitive reader, as it is explores the limits of hope, and the reality of a comfortable world that may rise up in occasional moments of outrage, but us otherwise perfectly content to keep unpleasant truths, especially those we fear might affect our own security,  hidden behind barriers. It is a novel I will not soon forget.

 

 

 

Books Read January Through June 2022

I've got to start somewhere.

 

There have been periods where I have read, and periods where I have not.  Periods where I have thought about writing about what I have read, and, yet again, long periods where I have not.  For long stretches of time I have not written anything at all.  All this sounds, in many ways, negative but I assure you it is not.  Circumstances are what they are.   Passions too, those things that drive us, ebb and flow.  And yet these things are not the source of joy, or even happiness.  All of this to say, in a rather complicated way, that I am doing well.  There have been dips and bumps but overall this has been a very good period in my life, even if it is not a period defined by outward accomplishment.

 

Perhaps that is exactly what has been needed.  This has been a fallow period of sorts, a drawing in, of coming to terms, and of growth, of replenishment.  It seems to me more and more that I know I am changing, that I have changed, but I don't yet know what will come of all that.  My own tendency to want to do all the things , if not moderated, leads to the internal stripping of nutrients from the soil of my soul.  And yet rest alone is not the answer.  But what is rest anyway? Rest means not only resting while giving the body time to heal, which perhaps is not rest at all, or it touches on only one aspect of the complex face of rest, because healing itself is hard and active work for the body.  Rest can also simply entail the quiet drawing in of nourishment. Not passive. Not empty. Stasis, not in its sense of inactivity but of equilibrium.  

 

Balance.  I've never been a person given to balance.  But perhaps balance itself is something to be explored further.  We tend to simplify: advising ourselves that balance entails a form of compartmentalization, our efforts and indulgences parceled out in given packets of time or energy, or thought.  Wake up, meditate for 15 minutes, shower, work x hours, exercise 30 minutes a day, knit for 1 hour a day.  This is not balance as the earth knows it. Think of the thunderstorm and the rainbow, the powerful force that also opens the opportunity for new growth.  The harshness of winter followed by the languor of summer. Even the fallow field is hot with activity, activity that lies just below the surface. Replenishment. Fallow. Balance.

 

Meanwhile I have read, as I mentioned, in stages.  Most of my reading has been lightweight, completely fitting in this period of rest and regeneration. Occasionally I have ventured into something deeper. Occasionally something haunts my thoughts.  I don't think I will discuss these books or even necessarily rate them. At least not here. At least not now.  They are just part of what has filtered into the soil that is the field of my soul.  Some of it good, some of it not, and yet all a part of the cycle of life and growth.

 

1. Lauren Groff.  Matrix: A Novel.
2. Amy Greene. Bloodroot.
3. Kreis Beall. The Great Blue Hills of God.
4. Joyce Maynard. Under the Influence: A Novel.
5. Anuk Arudpragasam. The Passage North.
6. Lilo Bowman. Love Your Creative Space.
7. Kevin Kwan. Crazy Rich Asians.
8. Kevin Kwan. China Rich Girlfriend.
9. Kevin Kwan. Rich People Problems.
10. Robert A. Weinberg. The Biology of Cancer.
11. Judith Krantz. Scruples.
12. Colson Whitehead. Harlem Shuffle.
13. Diana Gabaldon. Outlander.
14. Diana Gabaldon. Dragonfly in Amber.
15. Richard Powers. Bewilderment.
16. Matt Bell. Appleseed.
17. Damon Galgut. The Promise.
18. Diana Gabaldon. Voyager.
19. Diana Gabaldon. Drums of Autumn.
20. Diana Gabaldon. The Fiery Cross.
21. Bryant Terry. Black Food.
22. Mabel Dodge Luhan. Lorenzo in Taos.
23. Diana Gabaldon. A Breath of Snow and Ashes.
24. Paddi Newlin. Hidden Treasures.
25. Diana Gabaldon. An Echo in the Bone.
26. Louise Erdrich. The Sentence.
27. Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina.
28. Andrew Sean Greer. Less
29. Patrick Radden Keefe. Empire of Pain.
30. Diana Gabaldon. Written in my Own Heart's Blood.
31. Laura Bates. Everyday Sexism.
32. Mary Dan Eades. Caddo Bend.
33. Stanley Tucci. Taste: My Life Through Food.
34. Heather Cox Richardson. How the South Won the Civil War.
35. Diana Gabaldon. Go Tell the Bees I am Gone.
36. Lee Child. Better Off Dead.
37. Stuart Woods. Chiefs.
38. Iona Wishaw. An Old Cold Grave.
39. William Davis, MD. SuperGut
40. Anthony Doer. The Shell Collector.
41. Patti Smith. Woolgathering.
42. Bridget Quinn.  Broad Strokes.
43. Omar El Akkad. What Strange Paradise.

 

Looking at the list, I see much rereading (marked in blue):  19 of 43 books.  All were intentional, for one reason or another.  One thing that did stick out is that I belong to two book clubs, and between them almost every book this year has been a reread for me, sometimes of books I would not otherwise have reread.  Only two of my first reads were for book clubs.  In many ways that seems to fit into the theme of the year, a period of gathering in, of reevaluating.  Looking at the list now, I am filled with wonder.  What I see are roots sprouting, spreading, intertwining.  What I see are roots that belie the arbitrary categories by which my trained, educated, conscious mind wants to organize the world. 

 

I don't quite know what I think about this, about what is worth rereading and what is not, what is worth rediscussing and what is not.  Often I am surprised. Other times I am disappointed, but I realize these things are all about me, not the books, not the people with whom I am discussing the books, me. I see books as living things, the thoughts or ideas of a writer taking shape through words. Reading can be an act of relationship, even though may not be as complex as an ongoing active relationship with a person.  Or is it?  My relationship with some books is more multifaceted and complex than my relationships with some people.  And yet, with either, it is up to me to hold up my end.  Each of us is exactly where we are, exactly where we can be, in this moment. And that is all.  Expectation is about the person who is doing the expecting, about their own internal struggles, although they may not see it as such. As humans this is part of our struggle. We lead with our own preconceptions, with expectation; I am not certain we can completely abandon its grip, but I do believe we can chose to set it aside.  We are our pasts, our presents, even to some extent our futures although we know not what they may be.  Judgement closes us off from the world.  So does passive acceptance.  If we are not in struggle, we are not, perhaps, in relationship.  

 

And yes, reading has brought me to this point, at least in part.  Books are like the seeds, old and new, that sit in the soil.  Then, when I am in the world the thoughts that have been slowly taking root sends out little shoots of understanding, of empathy.   The source of insight is irrelevant, sometimes even surprising, and often more multifaceted than we think.  Whenever someone tells me they are a simple person, when I say this myself even, I think "no, you are not, you are minimizing the interleaved depths that have made you what you are."  On the other hand, we are all, in once sense, incredibly simple.  We are all incredibly complex.  We all hide parts of who we are from ourselves and from others.  This we call survival. 

 

And, after saying I will not read books, I am reminded of a quote from a book:

"Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters."

                    Louise Erdrich, The Sentence, page 3

Like books, like thoughts, like a fallow field, there is a lot hidden in that sentence. Its meaning, when first read, belies its depth, its contradictions.  Intentionally, I choose not to discuss.  Not today. Think about it,

 

But for me, enough with thinking.  I am here. I am hopeful. I am filled with thoughts and dreams.  In the end that is the crux of it, circumstances be damned,

I Have No Idea

What do you do when you have fallen out of a habit that you once found useful, calming even, but which now seems like a distant memory.  Is it better to "let sleeping dogs lie", or is there some semblance of yearning still hovering in the inner recesses of the soul.  Is this a true yearning, or simply a reminiscence, a remembrance of things past, nostalgia rather than growth.

 

I don't have the answer to any of these questions.  2022 has not been my best blogging year, but it has not been a year in which blogging was absent from my mind.  Rather it has been more of a time of reacquaintance with so many things -- chores, passions, energy, loss, newfound treasures.  I suppose this is a long drawn-out way of saying some kind of reset has been required.  

 

The month of May in particular has felt very much like a slow process of reconnection.  There has been plenty to do, including things I used to write about:  books and music in particular, but random navel grazing as well.  These are all things about which I have spent time thinking even if not writing, thinking and wondering. There is a part of me that wants to return to the blogger I once was, before I knew anything about blogging, before anyone read my blog, when I just wrote whatever I felt like writing for the joy of it.   A time when most of my friends thought the idea of blogging was suspect, and then, since they didn't know or care that I was blogging, I felt no sense of obligation to be anyone other than myself. Is there a way to recreate that bloggerly moment?  Blogging is, in many ways, an anachronism.  At least the kind of blogging I yearn for, not the commercialized, stylized, marketing-world blogging of today.  But then, perhaps I too am an anachronism.

 

I am older now, and I am far less inclined to feel any sense of obligation to being anything anyone outside of myself expects me to be.  But a yearning for the past isn't necessary a path forward, even as I think there are things to learn from that yearning.  Our dreams, our thoughts, our emotions -- not just these but also our indulgences -- the things we read, the things we listen to, even the things we watch -- all of these are our instruction manuals, if we are paying attention at least, our guides through the complex process of constant change that is life.  I do believe we are attracted to and find the things that relate to some essential aspect of our inner selves, but whether we move forward or continue to look backward is up to us. Holding on to the past, to false stability, isn't growth 

In early May I adopted a dog.  Her name is Garbo and is is mostly standard poodle with a tiny sprinkling of golden retriever fairy dust. She is sweet, elegant, silly, and a great companion.  She greets me all wiggles and squeaks when I come home, and she runs around improvising a small symphony in squeaky toys to show her gladness at my return.  She is also a calm and patient studio assistant. 

 

Garbo has also gotten me out of the house for two walks most days, a long walk in the morning, and a shorter walk most evenings, although there are some evenings when I am out at other events and our late walk becomes very short indeed. My goal is to gradually increase my walks to be 3 to 5 miles per day, not all in one walk, but divided between two, or even three walks, although three may not happen often in the midst of summer heat and humidity.  At the moment we are up to three miles per day.  In terms of energy, and cardiovascularly I am ready for an increase, but last week I had a bit of ankle tendinitis, and this week my left knee is bothering me, so best not to push.  The knee is probably due to differences in gait caused by back pain last week, and that aforementioned ankle, and I do not think it will be a long-term setback.   

 

I have also been catching up on the piles of stuff, and the many tasks and routines upon which I fell behind following chemotherapy, radiation, and then struggles with atrial flutter and two additional procedures.    I am still working through cycles of physical therapy for damage to my right shoulder and chest musculature. It has taken me some time to get fully settled back into these routines:  walking, stretching and exercises, housework, cooking and all the activities of maintaining a comfortable and valuable life, including reading, knitting, needlework and yes, sewing.  The goal has been in terms of reestablishing habits.  The writing habit has not yet been the priority, but the air seems to be signaling that said change may be in the works.  The trick for me is, always, to maintain structure and habits, when my natures is now, and always has been, to throw myself entirely into the activity of the moment and allow all other things to fall away.   This was not manageable when I was 20, but at that time I could convince myself I had time.  Now I realize more fully how interrelated everything is, how fleeting the passage of time,  and my increasing inability to bounce back from abandoned structures.

 

I can accept that I have not, prior to this moment, had time to write.  Do I now?  Once again I have no idea. 

 

I don't want to return in any haphazard, piecemeal fashion.  I want my writing, like my daily walks with Garbo, to become a fixture in my life, something that is a necessary part of existence whatever other temptations may arise to lure me away.  I want my writing, like my walks, like cooking, like playing with fiber, to be something that is a necessary part of who I am, and therefore not subject to whim.  I must walk, even when I don't feel like it.  Garbo and I both need the walks, and the need to walk Garbo is enough to pull me out of my own periodic funks and reluctances.  But rebuilding habits is a struggle.  Is blogging the same?   I suspect it is.

 

I suppose then, I am writing a long, navel-grazing statement of intent.  I intend to blog.  I intend to maintain the three separate blogs, as they play different roles in my mental and writing life.   Does that mean that occasionally one or the other will be neglected?  Probably yes.  Just as in life.  There was the week I cooked a great deal, trying new recipes from a new cookbook.  All other activities fell back.  This past week I have spent more time sewing, and my knitting has fallen by the wayside.  I have knitted most days, but there are days when that knitting may consist of a single row, a tiny blip.  The habit has not been lost, but my focus has been more about priorities than product.  

Am I ready to add something new into the mix?  HaveI  a reached a state where the habits that I have formed are well enough established, like these flowers in the garden, that they will continue to blossom?  Am I ready to fill in the empty spaces? It seems the only consistent thread in this post is that I have no idea of what the thread is, or where the answers may lie hidden.  Here I am.    Life is often easier than I expect it to be, and at the same time it is harder than I want it to be.  But isn't that the basic conundrum of human existence?

The May Garden in Detail

I've had several blog posts rooting around somewhere in the back of my brain, but they haven't yet coalesced into anything coherent so I have nothing to fall back on but another garden post, heavy on photos and light on words.  Hopefully that, the energy deficit, is turning around following a flutter ablation last Friday, but, let's not count our chickens and all that stuff.

The garden, despite the empty spaces, has been a gift. The Siberian iris, Caesar's Brother, is finally coming into its own.  This is its third summer.  Last year I had blossoms but they were small and spindly.  This year the combination of the iris and the geraniums is everything I hoped it would be.

One of the irises, in detail.

The peonies have started blooming.  This was the first to open.

Here it is again, becoming a bit blowsy but more blossoms are opening all around it.  This time with the new bearded iris behind it.  I found this bulb in a discount basket somewhat late for planting irises las summer, and stuck the three bulbs in the ground.  Only one came up, not bad for $1 though.  This is its first season of bloom.

The little apricot ground cover roses are also starting to bloom.  They survived a year in their nursery pots; it didn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm, so I dutifully snapped pictures the first blossoms.

And the blackberry vines are slowly filling with blossoms and promises of fruit to come.

The shady azalea garden in the back is also coming into bloom.  The pink shrubs in the back were in full bloom about two weeks ago and are now fading. The white are in their glory now, and the pretty large pale pink blossoms only slightly behind (below).

The fringe tree is also filled with blossoms.  In fact everywhere I look something is blooming.  Oh, I know this exuberance will not last, but at the moment it is all glorious.