restingmotion

Five Things Friday

1. It seems my mind has been too fragmented to write regularly, at least here, and I accept that it may be so for some time.  It is not actually a matter of discipline because I do sit and write each day; or perhaps it is a matter of forcing myself into disciplined focus.  And yet, I am content to let things slip by, unremarked, without analysis.  I am sure this will change in time but for now this transitional time is both a time of discovery and a time of letting life slide past, a floating perhaps, and perhaps something will come of it in time. 

2. More small tulips are blooming.  I love their petit blossoms, and the slowly evolving scattering of blossoms is like an extended goodbye.  I don't really plan on taking any plants with me from this house to the next one.  I did, with few small exceptions, take care not to plant anything too unusual, or which I would feel attached.  Besides, I do feel strongly that this garden is itself meant to be here, it is not mine to take.  This was simply my contribution to this space.  Whether anything will last, or be changed is beyond me, but I am content.

3.  I have just finished reading Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett.  There were passages that were quite beautiful, and at least one small segment I found moving, but I haven't really figured out whether the book simply did not resonate with me, or perhaps it was more that I did not resonate with it.  Perhaps it is simply that the fragments of my life at the moment and the fragments which made up the book were in opposition, with the book feeling far too insular.  It is certainly odd that I would think that, as I am a master of insular over-thinking.  But there it is. It is also possible that my own struggle with the book has had an effect on my own lack of writing, my discomfiture with the book amplifying my dissatisfaction with my own writing and therefore creating the aforementioned inability to blog.  Or perhaps I am just too scattered to pay attention to such detailed, and admittedly at times profound, focus on the mundanities of the every day.  As I stated, there were passages of great beauty, and Bennett does have the ability to capture and transform stream-of-thought musings into something more poetic than most of us probably manage on a daily basis.

 

4. Have you watched the Netflix series Chef's Table?  I just recently discovered it, and have watched season one and half of season two over the last month or so.  It is not something I want to watch quickly.  I want to watch and savor and occasionally watch certain episodes again.  Yes it is about fancy food in fancy restaurants, and although I have eaten in some of these restaurants I may never do so again, and I am content.  I yearn for something simpler now, but at the same time, I find the stories moving, especially the way the chefs speak about the elements of their cuisine, the food itself, and its connection to both the earth that nourishes, and the community of people who are dining.  They practice both an elevated and an elemental simplicity.  Never think that simplicity is easy. Listening to these chef's speak I am reminded of how we are each connected to this earth, and how each item and each moment is connected and precious.  I am reminded of the joy of cooking and why I love to cook, even in my simple and rather crude way.  I am reminded of the pure gift of sharing food with other people, of the bounty of this earth.  I am also reminded also of how disconnected most of us, at least those of us in Western Industrial Societies, are from the actual world we live in, the food we eat, and the cycle of life that nourishes us.  The series makes me want to cook, even a simple burger, but to pay attention, and it makes me want to work in the garden, to take time to smell the dirt and notice the new leaves, and think about my place in this world.  A stretch perhaps but what does art do but cause us to stretch?

 

5..  It is Big Ears time once again in Knoxville.  I will not be attending as much this year as I have in the past couple of years, not because there is less to hear, but simply because there are too many things to do elsewhere.  But I will still go, and already my heart and brain are overflowing with music.  For me, the magic started last night with the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra playing with Carla Bley.  From the moment I walked in, and I did miss the beginning, the music carried me away.  I was reminded of the way music focus and transforms us, and ties into the essential spirit and eternal motion of life.  The music is all around us every day, in the sound of the wind, even of the grass growing, but we are usually too distracted to notice.  In music however, we reconnect to something elemental, an eternal prayer of sorts, that has the power to take us beyond ourselves, connect us to the universe, and even bring us back home, safely into where we most need to be.

 

 

 

Life Interrupted

I found myself back at the Knoxville Museum of Art the other day, once again spending time with the Jered Sprecher exhibit.  I adore this set of 8 paintings and the space they create, a multi-layered space where one can reflect on the passage of time, memory, technology, and how our lives seem to blend together seamlessly but are in truth made up of many random elements seemingly all kind of mashed together but actually layered and filtered by our experiences and our connections.

 

Or perhaps I am just more inclined to notice the liminal spaces of life right at the moment seing as my own life seems to be buffeted about by forces outside myself, even if those forces were set in motion by my own actions.  The truth is I did not anticipate how chaotic life would be with my house on the market, although I probably should have known better.  An oversight.  But then, I wonder how many new ventures we would undertake if we actually clearly anticipated the toll and turmoil involved in reaching our goal. 

My experience with the Hyde Park house was completely different -- even though we were living in the house, even though we were packing to move -- but the situation was different as well; the area had not yet recovered from the housing crash of 2008, and we had few showings.  I deliberately set the price of this house competitively, wanting to sell quickly, but was still surprised at the amount of interest.  I'm not complaining mind you, but I am still, at times barely maintaining my equilibrium. 

 

And yet, despite the disruption, despite the fact that very little is routine at the moment, despite the fact that my life is, in fact completely interrupted while at the same time going full tilt with several new projects in the works, I am finding that this time of exhaustion and chaos is also a time of great creativity. My mind is experiencing an explosion of creative expression, with ideas for garment sewing, for embroidery and fiber creations that border more on art than the kind of practical things I have been dabbling with in the recent past, and I have been writing and sketching and trying to capture fragments of imagination.  I didn't realize how much my space, the space that was our space, the space that was always meant for a specific thing, was not my space.  I didn't realize any of this until I was not only ready, but actually willing, to let go. The freedom of chains unbound is exhilarating, even if the chains were invisible, so invisible that I had perhaps grown complacent and forgotten they were there.

 

Nothing is going to happen quickly.  And yet everything is changing incredibly rapidly.  Roughly five weeks until I must be out of one house; roughly eight weeks until I am into another. Multiple and overlapping timelines.   Have you ever noticed how change seems to barge in like a March wind, stripping away our self-satisfied sense of comfort, piling disruption atop discomfort, and yet bringing with it new joys, new blossoms?  Do we fool ourselves that we want security and comfort, when that is really death? When you look at human history, our shared nature is change; our shared nature is the struggle between the desire for security and the need for change.  Do we push on or do we hunker down? When we finally chose to push through the barriers, be they our own internal biases or worldly constructs, we are following the path  nature itself has set for us; creating something new.

 

 paintings by Jered Sprecher.  All photos by me.

 

The Moment

A couple of days ago, before the current cold snap, I was out with Tikka for our usual morning walk when I noticed some small blue wildflowers.  Each one was tiny and perfect.  Each one was tiny and perfect and fleeting, a perfect moment in the cycle of life. 

 

As I stood there waiting for Tikka and meditating on the flower, it struck me that what if the flower is the perfect expression of life, the entire cycle of existence captured in a moment -- perfect, beautiful, fragile, but essential.  The flower is the moment, is life, is the most perfect and beautiful moment of life.  Each of us is the flower, each and every one, perfect, beautiful, fragile, and yet oh so precious and oh so necessary. 

 

How does this change how I approach my own life?  How does it change the way I view the lives of others?

Thoughts On A Saturday Morning

Las night I sat and knitted, contented in this place of safety, this place that is still my home even though it is now just a temporary place.  The photographer was here, the real estate listing will be live early next week, and I, at last, was able to settle contentedly into some handwork.  I've not been particularly observant lately, nor had time to really reflect, which I suppose means I have also had little time to overthink and worry ideas to death.  Work also starts on the new house next week.  I just need to watch and wait, and keep moving forward. At last I have time to slow back into myself.

 

I've been reading Outline by Rachel Cusk.  In one sense it is odd I picked it up, as I was not immensely happy with her previous novels, but I am glad I did.  I am reading the book slowly, as it reveals itself slowly, and I pause to admire beautiful passages or passages that simply lead me down my own meandering mental paths.  Following is one such passage, one that I copied out earlier in the week.

 

When I think back to the time before, ... it seems as if  (we) looked at the world through a long lens of preconception, by which we held ourselves at some unbreachable distance from what was around us, a distance that constituted a kind of safety but also created a space for illusion.  We never, I think, discovered the true nature of the things we saw, any more than we were ever in danger of being affected by them; we peered at them, at people and places, like people on a ship peer at the passing mainland, and should we have seen them in any kind of trouble, or they us, there would have been nothing whatever either one of us could have done about it.

 

I've left out a few words to suit my own purposes, as I think this applies to so much of the early part of our adult lives, when we are building our place in the world.  If we are lucky we begin to open up and throw off our blinders, to grow in grace.  Feel free to discuss..

 

The Slow Shift Forward

The curtains came down yesterday in the house I currently live in, but which I now, refer to as my old house.  Tomorrow the photographer comes, after which, I am officially but a caretaker.

 

And this is a true thing, that the house I currently live in is my old house.  I'm not in my new house yet.  And so the process of transition continues to move purposefully forward, and occasionally backwards, catching me by surprise.   I live here and yet I don't.   Last week furniture was removed from the old house, but the curtains remained, leaving the house feeling somewhat unbalanced, the comforts of material wealth at odds with the increasing minimalist sparseness.

The heavy planters which had previously flanked my garage doors were also moved, and they have found a new home here in the entryway to the new house.  In fact they may be slightly large for the space, although that is not particularly evident in this photo. Seeing them here I am reminded of my first visit to the this house, before I knew I would buy it, or perhaps some part of me knew, when I said to myself something along the lines of "my planters will look good on this porch".

 

But I digress.

 

Yesterday the curtains came down and the old house assumed a state of minimalist balance.  I too felt balanced and settled.  This was in contrast to my feelings over the weekend, when I had felt more at odds with my space.  My sanctuary had been invaded. Worse, I had been the perpetrator of the crime.  I felt aimless and occasionally teary-eyed, not due to regret really, more likely due to some sense of being partially uprooted, neither here nor there.  I'm sure it was mostly that I was over-tired,  and although my efficient, intellectual side was happy ticking off boxes, I had not allowed enough time for my emotions to catch up.   Today, with both furniture and curtains gone, it seems the undoing is complete and a sense of balance has returned --  my pieces but in a more minimalist setting. 

 

This is something else that surprised me, the importance of my own sense of balance in the space.   Today, as I look around the old house, the same house that made me teary with loss on Saturday, I can say, quite honestly, that this was never my house.  I made it something nice, and now it is time to let it go.

These camellias are blooming at the new house.  The fire columns have been temporarily been relocated onto this patio, although I'm not convinced this will be their final position.  For now they are safe and out of the way until after the process of moving is complete.  I've brought a table over as well, and a couple of chairs,  so I can sit here on a sunny afternoon and enjoy the exuberance of blossoms in this space that is rapidly becoming my new sanctuary,

 

 

February Books

It seems that 2017 has been the year of reading, although I read only two books the later half of February, and one of those was an extremely short, and easy read.  It has struck me that although I have read more than in the recent past, my inclination to write about what I am reading, to review something and make a statement about whether it is I good or not, or even to propose an argument over why it mattered to me,  seems superfluous, a waste of time.  That doesn't mean I shouldn't share things that touch my life or thoughts, but in this I've been remiss.  Obviously I'm still sorting out meanings and motives and directions.  In fact, I seem to have entered the time of sorting, on multiple levels at that.

 

So here, in yet another collage that has nothing to do with the order read, are the books I read in February, perhaps accompanied by a note or a link:

 

 

Books I read and gave away:

Insurgent Mexico by John Reed

Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed

Why Kids Lie by Paul Ekman.  Started years ago and stopped because I was bored to tears.  Started again just to clear out the stacks.  Some good points, but still boring.

Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson.  Actually excellent and I enjoyed it.  But I won't read it again or probably refer back to it. With two major biographies in two months, my biographical tolerances have hit the ceiling.

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World by Alan Roxburgh.

 

A Book I Disliked:

The Wonder by Emma Donohue.

 

Books that are (still) on my shelves:

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer by Fredrik Backman. Short, probably simplistic, but it captures something that reminds me of George, Stella in her wanderings through dementia, and others I've had the privilege to know.

  

 Everything Else:

32 Yolks by Eric Ripert

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles.  Although I am embarrassed, I will admit that it took me half the novel to realize that my vague feelings of familiarity with this novel were indeed because I had read it before. Enjoyable, but apparently forgettable.

The Color of Lightening by Paulette Jiles.

Lost in Translation by Nicole Mones.