restingmotion

Fiction Month

I mostly read fiction in May and doing so made me very happy. 

I did read two nonfiction books.  One was wonderful, and will be saved to be read again and again, the other, for me at least, is best forgotten.  The good book?  That would be The Dream of God by Verna Dozier.  The subject is theological, basically working from Dozier's premise that institutional Christianity has emphasized worshiping Jesus rather than following Jesus.  It is a short book, and it is not difficult  reading in the sense that is not particularly academic, but it is difficult because it is thought-provoking, because the author addresses difficult questions, questions that are worth exploring, not just in terms of institutional life but in terms of individual life and action.  She explores the problems we have as humans, as creatures who live communally and need structure,  but also as creatures with souls, as people of faith, and I personally don't care what your faith is.   She asks us what it means to be a person of faith, what it means to be a person of belief and to live that belief, to live the truth of one's soul, as opposed to building a structure and letting the structure define the life rather than aide it. 

 

But I am still feeling a little tired and overwhelmed and I can't really begin to discuss Verna Dozier with any confidence.  I can say, however, that I did not like David Yaffe's Reckless Daughter.  Actually the book was fine.  Yaffe is a good writer, and I think he sees himself as a Mitchell fan-boy, but the book comes across inconsistently, as if the author is struggling with his own lilac-hued view of his subject.  I can admit that I read the book because I like Joni Mitchell's music, and that I believe she probably is brilliant.  I can admit that I have no problem with the idea that people who are brilliant or geniuses are often very imperfect in other ways, and may in fact even be unlikeable.  None of us is perfect after all. And, although it may not be true, I am willing to grant leeway to people of great brilliance, as if the excessive light takes its toll in other ways, leaving great failings.   That does not, to me at least, make the genius of the work less amazing, merely human.  Having said all that, I still struggled with this book.  It wasn't the tell-all information about Joni Mitchell, the fact that she comes across as incredibly self-absorbed, arrogant, fragile, self-righteous and incredibly twee, that bothered me.  I would expect that all that informed her genius, her ability to put emotion into songs.  What bothered me was that somehow I didn't feel drawn into understanding the subject any better as a human, I merely grew increasingly annoyed with the author and the book itself.  Just me, but it was not my book.

 

Fiction:

Ali Smith, Winter.  A favorite.  In case you missed it, I wrote about it here. 

Ali Smith, Autumn.  Reread after reading Winter. Mentioned in the link above, and here as well, although I didn't write much about this book the first time around.

Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness and Dear Life.  I am not, by nature, really a short-story reader.  I tend to prefer to lose myself in long novels.  Short-stories always seem exactly that, too short.  These stories were brilliant however, and the author captures some essential aspect of each character in each story.  Together they reveal a lot about human nature, and I am glad I read them. I remain unconverted to the form.

Salman Rushdie, Grimus.  Rushdie's first novel is rather fantastical, a jumble of science fiction, folk-tales, and fantasy, and I can see that it would not appeal to everyone.  It is ambitious.  Based on a Sufi poem, the novel explores what it means to be human and how we seek to find or reconcile our desires with our search for identity and meaning in life.  I think at times the story gets overwhelmed.  Rushdie manages his stories more smoothly in later novels, but I loved Grimus anyway, not perhaps despite its flaws, but because of its flaws. Perhaps  because it is so abstract in a way, metaphorical and difficult, I am drawn into the story as if into its own space, another world, but one that reflects, although only partially, our own struggles in this one.

 

Xhenet Aliu, Brass.  Really this was an incredibly good novel.  It is not the kind of thing I am normally drawn to, and yet I am very happy I read it.  Aiiu tells the story of two women, mother and daughter, in alternating voices, and she pulls this off beautifully.  Elsie's story is told in first person.  Her daughter's story is told in second person, a voice I often find incredibly difficult to be drawn into, but it fits here.  Luljeta, is still young, is struggling with her own life, with the tremendous chip she carries on her shoulder, and the second person voice fits with her personality and personal struggles.  Elsie and Luljeta are very different people as young girls and the voices fit them and reveal them each in their own way.  This is one of the strengths of the book, and the way that Aliu can tell a story that draws the reader into those small, sometimes dark places, that haunt people, even good people, or perhaps especially good people, and threaten to pull them down. But the voices are also interesting, as each story takes place at a certain turning point in the teenage life of each character.  In that sense, one might think that Luljeta's voice, being the more recent, would be the first-person voice, and Elsie, looking back on her life, would be telling the story in second person.  But that is not what Aliu is doing here, and by telling Elsie's story in the present-tense voice of her youth, she effectively sets a stage, and renders the story with a depth and poignancy that echoes through both lives.  Highly recommended.

Self Sufficiency

There are days when being an independent self-sufficient adult is really annoying, days when you just want to roll over and say "Go away world." 

    (dried fruit for mostarda)

Monday was one of those days although the weekend had started off really well.

 

I had decided to do some cooking, and although I often make simple meals for myself during the week, I find cooking for one to be far more tedious than I found cooking for two.  I love it when I have an excuse to spend a day or two in the kitchen, and this weekend was one such occasion.  I needed to make vegetarian chili (yay! feeding people!) , and since I was in the kitchen anyway, I decided to work on several things: a few pantry staples and a few more time-consuming things for myself.  

 

Friday and Saturday were shopping days.  Saturday morning is farmer's market time anyway, and what I see in the stands tends to inspire and inform a lot of what happens in the kitchen.  Saturday night, inspired to clean out the freezer,  I started a batch of chicken stock in the slow cooker and shredded up some leftover cooked chicken to make a Burmese dish, Kyethar Ngayakethee Kyaw, or shredded crispy chicken.

     chili paste, frozen in 2 tablespoon portions

 

I had several projects in mind for Sunday: I toasted whole chiles, simmered them briefly, and left them to soak while I went to church.  When I returned home I made chili paste, reserving some for the vegetarian chili and freezing the remainder in 2 tablespoon portions.  Then I started on a Mostarda.  I had a pile of dried fruit left over from earlier in the month, so I cut that up and simmered it in sweet vermouth, which may not be traditional but was already in the pantry, while I cut up the fresh fruit.  After that was out of the way, I started the vegetarian chili, and once everything was in the pot, I boned out a lovely pork shoulder I had found at the farmer's market, salting the meat and putting it in the refrigerator overnight, with the intention of making carnitas on Monday.

 

Monday's plan was to deliver the chili (I had my share for breakfast with an egg), make the carnitas, make a simple ground beef chili, for those days I was too rushed or tired to cook, and to make a chilled cucumber soup.  Hopefully I would also take a bicycle ride.

 

But then everything fell apart.

 

It poured Sunday night.  I didn't think much about it except that Tikka refused to go outside.  I continued working in the kitchen, finding the sound of the rain outside the windows soothing somehow.  It proved to be a false sense of peace.  I strained the chicken stock and put it in the refrigerator so I could let it sit overnight before removing the fat and packaging it for the freezer, then I went upstairs, thinking I had time to read before bed.  I saw a puddle in the doorway to the bedroom, and initially I was annoyed with Tikka, who had refused to go out in the rain. I quickly realized that the puddle extended around half of my bedroom and was far too big for Tikka to have made it.  I ran downstairs to the laundry room for extra towels.  While I was downstairs I looked in the unfinished half of the basement, where a flooding problem arose over the winter, and which the contractor has not yet come back to fix. Admittedly this is at least partially because we were unsure of the cause, and since there has been little rain, I have had no reason to push.  That scenario has now changed.

 

I had more water in the basement than I have had before, although the there was very little water in the laundry room itself.  At least one leak had been fixed.  Back upstairs.  After soaking 10 towels and hauling them back down to the laundry, I noticed that there was water at the bedroom windowsill, but it didn't look soaked.  My bedroom floor was soaked however, including the carpet and the pad.  I hauled a drying rack upstairs to get the curtains off the floor so they could dry, and went back downstairs, where I saw that I also had a flood in the dining room.  Luckily there is no carpet there yet, and the floor is polyurethaned.  I took towels from the dryer, mopping up that water, put the second load of towels in the dryer, and the third load in the wash. Then I looked around at the basement walls. 

 

The basement is below grade and I noticed that in both rooms, the finished laundry rooms and the unfinished area, the water was not coming in at the windows.  They were perfectly dry.  It seemed like it was seeping through the cinder block.  I had an awful lot of water, but it was contained on a painted cinder block shelf that circumnavigates the perimeter.  There was nothing more that could be done right then and I was about to collapse with exhaustion, so I went to bed.  It was 2 AM.

 

Monday morning I awoke at my normal time, still exhausted, and would have much rather stayed in bed, but I couldn't.  I realized that although I had mopped up as much water as I could the night before, the floors still felt wet, and the carpet was sodden around the fringes of nearly half the room.  It is my house, my choice, and there is no one to fix things except me.

 

The upstairs floors have not yet been refinished, and the old wood felt like it had just absorbed some of the water.   I packed up my sewing project so I could use the cutting table for clothes storage, emptied my dresser, stacking everything on the cuttiing table, and tried to move the dresser out of the corner.  It is an incredibly heavy piece, but it was holding the carpet down and the area all around it was heavy with water.  I was struggling to get enough purchase to get sliding disks under the legs so I could move it, but it was too close to the corner, the carpet was thick and swollen, and I didn't seem to have the strength.  Just as I was about to give up, just as I called a friend to come help me move the dresser, I figured out how to do it, and I got the dresser across the room.  I was inordinately proud of myself.  It didn't look like there was any water on the bottom of the dresser itself, or underneath it, the water had just spread through the rug with capillary action. I hadn't thought of it previously, but of course a wool rug will hold a tremendous amount of water.

 

After turning back all the carpets, I went to Target to buy oscillating fans.  And then the next stage of my adventure occurred.  I was on the road, heading home, when I heard "thwack, thwack, crash, bang, rumble bumble, thud thud and my windshield wiper went flying across the road and hit a car going the opposite direction.  Bye-bye windshield wiper.  It was raining again, and of course, the flying wiper was from the driver's side of the car.  

I assembled three fans and set them up in the bedroom to help dry out the carpet and floor.  I also turned the A/C down to 65 upstairs, mostly because I thought the extra air flow could help, and because I wanted to discourage any mold or mildew growth.  Tikka seems to think I've made this special place just for her.  You can't tell in the picture above, but she is in the sweet spot between two oscillating fans. She looks like she is in pomsky heaven, in  a cold room with cold air blowing on her.  

 

Then I went downstairs to start moving stuff and mopping up water from the basement.  Or at least that was my intention.  When I got to the dryer I saw a snake in the corner.  Not a big snake, just a rat snake, but not a tiny snake either, about 1 1/2 times the length of my foot.  My foot is 10 inches long, in shoes.  Back upstairs, out to the garage for a hoe and perhaps a pitchfork.  I didn't want to hurt the snake, but I did want to get him out of the corner and out of the house, and I didn't want to be all that friendly.    I'm really not frightened of snakes, but still, sometimes I do have to battle my own princess instincts.  Perhaps I was just really tired.  None of this is tragic stuff, just annoying. Seeing no prince on the horizon, I coaxed the snake onto my fork and happily settled him outside.

     A daylily that decided to bloom on Monday.  I don't remember its name.

 

By that time the rain appeared to have stopped and I needed to deliver the chili.  While I drove it started to drizzle again, but luckily my drive was short, only 3 miles or so.  I had to stop every couple of blocks  to get out and wipe my windshield so I could see, but the rain finally did stop on my way back home, at least temporarily.  I am now carless, at least as long as it rains, at least until I can safely get to a shop and get a new windshield wiper.  

 

I tried to take a nap, but couldn't settle down. It made more sense to do something, so I packaged chicken stock and took it to the freezer, then drained the liquid from the fruit, boiled it down to a syrup and returned it to the bowl to macerate for another  24 hours.  I went upstairs, but couldn't read.  I puttered at my desk, and as I looked up and out, through the condensation filled panes (remember the upstairs is cold) I was somehow captured by the magic of that contrast.  The silvery panes of condensation looked like little doorways, some promised reward hidden behind each one.  I noticed in the perimeters that the rain had stopped and the sky was beginning to clear.  I realized that this is just a hiccup.

 

I think I know what the problem was.  It was just a conflagration of events.  We had over 2 inches of rain in a couple of hours, at least according to my trusty 5-inch rain gauge. I think the gutter on that side of the house was overwhelmed.  There is obviously a drainage issue, and it may well be underground. I do have the gutters cleaned regularly, but there is a problem in that area of the yard, probably with the buried portion of the drainpipe.  The basement walls in that area were wet.  Everything that touched them was wet. The rooms are all stacked in a line above that area of wet walls and sodden soil, of a drain pipe that perhaps doesn't drain properly and may well back up. I don't know if something went wrong the last time the gutters were cleaned and cleared, or if there was something happening that just finally gave way recently.  I suspect the latter, I suspect there was an issue there before I bought the house, but it was more minor.  It is no longer minor.  And yet understanding a problem, even just the beginnings of understanding, as I may be wrong, offers hope.  With hope comes determination, and with determination a renewal of resolve and energy.

Refreshed and energized, I started cooking the carnitas.  I hauled stuff around the basement yet again.  I sopped up water and washed towels and sopped up more water.  I assembled the last fan and started it running in the basement.  I didn't put away my clean clothes.  I have no place to put them. I am tired of stuff piled up everywhere.  I want to put stuff away and have it stay there.  I want everything to work the way I want it to work.  But don't we all?  

 

This too will pass. Such a cliché, such yet such truth.  Would life be happier and more rewarding if nothing ever went wrong?  Well, I'd certainly like to imagine it, but I suspect not.  I'd grow bored, complacent even; unhappiness would creep in anyway.  Happiness grows out of meaningful work, out of connection to others and to the physicalness of life itself. What if life is really like those little fogged-over panes of glass?  What if what we think is reality is really just obscured, a story we tell ourselves in order to survive, and the truth is around the edges, mostly unnoticed.  What if we only see when we are outside of ourselves, outside of our routines, outside of our perfect little rituals and habits?

 

I would, however, like to sleep tomorrow. 

 

 

Traversing the Slough

I spent a bit of time in the slough of despond this week.  In many ways there was no reason for it, I was coming off a fabulous weekend, although perhaps an excess of happiness and the remnant trails of exhaustion exacerbated my state.  Who really knows, I am not here to explore the roads to the slough, or even the process of extraction, although I am on the other side.  I am simply admitting that sometimes life grows difficult, our hearts and feet heavy and we trudge onward, hoping not to be pulled down into our own darker thoughts.

 

As stated above, it had been a fabulous weekend.  Friday night I went to the symphony, the last concert of the season, and a lovely concert it was.  I went despite the fact that I was exhausted.  I went despite the fact that the program's theme was Rhapsody in Blue, a piece of music I have never really liked although I have admittedly never really spent time sussing out what it is about the piece that I don't like.  I didn't like it when my piano teacher insisted I play it, even though I tend to like the piano composition far more than the orchestration.  It all seems jangly and jumpy and although I know that is the jazz influence, I'd often rather just hear jazz.  

 

But I went to the concert to hear the second half, Aaron Copeland's Symphony #3, "Quiet City", a beloved work, despite its inconsistencies.  This is, in a way, and odd statement to make because I didn't even stay for the second half.  I was so tired that I feared my ability to drive safely home, and although I could have ubered home and come back in the morning for my car, I probably would have slept through the Copeland anyway, no matter how beautifully performed.  Surprisingly, I Ioved the Gershwin.  Pianist Michelle Cann's performance was brilliantly exuberant, with a controlled rhythm and an elegance that I don't often hear in that piece.  Still the rhythm was there and it made me want to dance.  In fact the entire piece, piano and orchestra was alive, except instead of all jangly and jumpy it felt more to me like silk and chiffon moving and swirling in the winds of the music. Perhaps this interpretation of the Gershwin was shaped by the Florence Price work played earlier in the concert Concerto in One Movement for Piano and Orchestra, which I admittedly knew nothing about but which seemed to be a rather gracious melding of old-world European traditions with the roots of ragtime. 

 

Saturday was puttering day, and catch-up on sleep day, which is why there was no blog post.  I had been sleeping badly for a week, for no discernible reason. Mentally and emotionally I did not feel stressed, but my body did; perhaps this too was a precursor to this weeks trudge through the tar-like slough, some previously hidden imp of a thought working its way out of my psyche.  Perhaps my body occasionally tells tries to clue me in to things my mind is refusing to acknowledge. But Saturday was mostly a grocery shopping and cooking day.  I was cooking both for myself and for another family, which offered a double joy in a way, as I got to play in the kitchen and feed people, two activities that are always dear to my heart.  At the end of the day I was tired, happy-tired, but tired nonetheless. 

 

Sunday I went on a bike ride with a friend.  It was my first excursion outside my immediate neighborhood, my first ride of over 2 miles,  and I was a bit nervous to start, still wobbly, still occasionally getting my gear-shifts confused, but excited as well.  We met at the EarthFare parking lot and rode to the UT Gardens and back, a ride that was, to my best guess, nearly 7 miles round trip.  It is a good beginner trail and not nearly as hilly as my neighborhood, which was helpful.  It was perhaps a mile too far, as I was struggling to get myself up that last slight hill returning to my car, but I made it, and it was my own fault anyway as I was the one who insisted I could make it to the gardens. and back.  I've always had a tendency to overdo.

 

Sunday afternoon I made chocolate bark, and toasted and soaked Mexican Chiles to make a couple of kinds of Chile paste just to restock my pantry and for some upcoming menus.  Then had a lovely dinner with friends.  My Vitamix crashed on Sunday, well the canister did, and a replacement canister is on the way. Monday I crashed. No replacement self alas, but although perhaps more volatile, I am less brittle than plastic, and can be restored.  

 

Wisely I didn't stop doing things during the week.  Although my accomplishments slowed considerably.  I am working on yet another round of sorting and putting away.  I walked but I did not ride the bike, which may have been a mistake, as the feel of the air against my skin might have perked me up considerably.  There were days when Tikka, reading my reluctant mood, did manage to convince me not to walk, whereas usually I drag her along, or she drags me along, and we support each other.  Perhaps we were both simply experiencing an early summer miasma.

 

And here we are again, another weekend.  It is an active weekend, but perhaps with a better balance between my social and solitary selves. This may be a good thing.  It is human to want to find reasons, preferably problems we can fix, but I am not sure that is the answer.  There are always hills.  There is always mud.  Perhaps, because I was tired, certain barriers were down and I was more open to vulnerability. But relationships also require a willingness to enter into vulnerability on occasion, even if that means occasionally traipsing through the mud.  The trick seems to be in both allowing oneself to wallow when needed, but also being willing and able to both enter, and to see oneself to the other side.

 

Have a wonderful weekend.  

Trees of Life

As I look out my office window I see the "hairy tree" as I affectionately refer to it.  The tree, actually a pair of trees, was heavily girdled with ivy when I moved in.  I have no excuse for thinking of them as a singular it, but I do. I cut back as much of the ivy as I could, and had to employ help as some of the ivy vines were as thick as my arms.  The grounds crew used chain saws and also did make a few cuts into the bark, about which I worried.  Most of the ivy was left in the tree to die and much of it is still there, dead and brown, from my window making the tree appear chewbacca-like in its corner.

Mostly what I have noticed this spring however is the new growth.  Previously the trunks of this tree were mostly bare, with only a swath of leaves at the very top of the canopy. This spring there is new growth everywhere, leafy islands of green that fill my imagination, dancing in the breeze, reminders of fortitude, rebirth, survival. The old is still there, the vines,  I can't pull them all out, but we never fully escape our pasts anyway.  The presence of a past, no matter how traumatic, no matter how touchy we may be about the memory, doesn't mean the death of beauty, of growth, of life.

 

But the ivy branches, and the bare bases also remind me not only of setbacks and growth, but of arrogance and mistakes and how life still endures, constantly moving forward.  The bare bases of the trees remind me of Tikka's bare bottom, where the vet shaved her undercoat because the fur was badly matted.  I know now that we could have probably trimmed out the longer hairs and saved that hair, that the vet knew it wouldn't grow back, that there was another alternative.  Just as I probably could have found a better way to cut the ivy, a way that did not harm the tree, although I doubt I could have gotten all the vines pulled down.  My own arrogance played into the arrogance of the workmen, and all of our efforts built on the arrogance of that which came before, of letting the ivy take root and grow to the point of almost overwhelming the tree in the first place.  The cut lines are there to remind me of human folly, just as the vines remain, dead but reminding us of adversity, adversity overcome.  I often think we need to be reminded of both, of the beauty and the growth, but also of the costs and the perils of life.  Let us only hope that our mistakes can be overcome, not forgotten, but reimagined.

Random Post on Thursday Morning

I started writing a blog post last night but I was tired and I tore it up.  I decided to knit instead.  Now that was a far more calming use of my time even though I am still knitting the same red sweater.  I am past the half-way point on the front, moving up the sides, and almost done with the sequined yarn.  Before long I'll start the neckline shaping. I stopped knitting for a while, but now I'm back.  Sometimes lately however, I am already too tired before I begin, and I end up unknitting as much as I knit.  Somehow I find even that to be soothing, a way to let my mind purl with the stitches, putting the day to rest. 

That reminds me that yesterday started and ended in the sewing room. I wanted to wear a skort I had purchased in Florida two summers ago.  I wore it heavily that first summer, and not at all last year because it needed mending and some minor alterations.  I failed to get the sewing room unpacked so the skort sat, unworn, until now.  The inner portion was partially disassembled, so I traced it off before reassembly.  I wanted to trace the entire skort so that I can make a pattern and reproduce it, but I could't find my tracing wheels and the day was moving on.  Instead I dressed and took Tikka for a walk.

 

That makes the second garment I've worked on in the new sewing room.  It took me a year, which is pretty bad, considering I will probably have to pack back up soon enough while we go through the remodel phase.  I am not however, going to stop sewing, stop making, and this time I have a plan for how I can continue working, whatever else is going on.  I've done enough of putting my heart aside.  No more of that.

 

But all I've done so far is mending, although I have pulled fabrics and patterns. The first thing I worked on were my favorite black shorts.  They needed taking in, in fact this is the second time I have taken them in and I still love them, even after 5 years and two major alterations.  I suppose when they finally fail, which may well be at the end of this season, they too will have to become a pattern.  But working on them was difficult.  Black thread on black fabric in a room with no light is not how I define fun. I have not yet unpacked my task light that I used in the old sewing room, where the light was also very good.  

 

Are you seeing a theme here? Things unfound?  The lamp was not in any of the boxes labeled "sewing room", all of which have been unpacked.  That meant it had to be in one of the boxes still in the basement, the boxes labeled quilting, needlework, or dying.  Perhaps my tracing wheels could be located down there as well. But initially , at least before the skort, I wasn't eager to go down to the basement and haul those boxes out.  Instead I went to Target and bought two small, inexpensive task lamps, six-month lamps, lamps I will be happy to use until the new sewing room is done, hopefully in early 2019, and then, if I no longer need them, will be happy to set free. Those lamps made using the sewing machine and the serger possible, navy on navy this time, for a navy skort.

 Then the day got in the way.  Tikka and I walked.  I rode my bike. Sheets went in the wash while I went out in the garden to plant small dwarf sedums and Meditteranean iris, iris ungularis, in the sunny rock garden near the roses.  After working in the heat and the sun, I went down into the laundry room and chilled, ironing sheets and drinking coffee.  The laundry room stays about 62 - 64 year round, and I keep a sweater by the door, but yesterday, hot from the sun, the chill felt wonderfully refreshing.   I looked at the last two winter sweaters drying on a rack, ready to be stored until next year, thinking about the large alpaca blanket I need to disassemble, wash, repair, and reassemble in a slightly new form, thinking about how much I love that space and how I should really hang photos on the wall, make the space more cozy.  

 

Just as I finished the sheets,  Varmint Busters showed up to take a look at the bat problem in the attic.  Apparently not much can be done abut the bats until they leave for the season, meaning the end of November or early December.  The previous owners had apparently tried to fix the bat problem before they put the house on the market, but rather than putting up the kind of screening and one-way gate system that prevents the bats from reentering, they have some other kind of ad-hoc screening system, which gives the bats a way in and a protected space in which to stay should they so desire.  Apparently it also allows squirrels in, and the squirrels have already chewed through the screening, which I suppose the means I have had squirrels in the attic as well.  Trying to get the bats out now will be a major headache, if it is even possible, and it probably isn't. In December the whole mess will have to be torn out and done properly.  Oh well.  Welcome to my old house.

 

Lunch, more work in the yard, some time spent starting to clean and clean-out the garage, errands, another walk with Tikka, dinner.  So goes a day.  

 

I decided that I would try to find the tracing wheels and the lamp, so I hauled the three large boxes out of the basement storage area and into the laundry room.   Needless to say I found my lamp, in a box labeled "dye stuff -- store".  That was a mistake.  I also found the tracing wheel and a stash of other miscellaneous tools, some of which will prove to be useful.  I found a bolt of muslin, a plus for summer sewing plans. I also left a pile of stuff on the laundry room floor, stuff I have to go back and sort through and put away.  

 

It is time to finish sorting and unpacking anyway.  I've been here too long, I hate the weight of things undone, things pulling me backwards, boxes of things that are never opened.  Some things are waiting for the remodel, such as books waiting for library shelves, but generally I want it all unpacked and sorted, which is strange because in a couple of months I'll be embarking on the remodel and things will get packed up again.  But I am different than when I moved here.  Decisions I could not make a year ago come more easily now.  I no longer want to drag the past along with wherever I go.

I went back upstairs and traced my skirt.  I didn't take the tracing and make the actual pattern pieces.  I was already too tired for that.  As I mentioned above I tried writing a blog post, but I was too tired for that as well.  Instead I knit 8 rows in my red sweater and went to bed.  All in all a successful day.  Today there is more planting to be done, and I have to water all the new plantings, take a walk, and deal with the chaos in the laundry room.  It is enough.

Book Love: Winter

I am going to be a bit too exuberant here.  I read Ali Smith's novel Winter last week and I was completely blown away.  I think it is brilliant. It is also thoughtful and funny and blisteringly compassionate, if blistering and compassion can be used together in a way that makes sense, but somehow, in terms of this novel, it does.

 

Admittedly it took me a bit to get settled in the novel, and I had my doubts over the first 50 pages or so, but then I was lured in. In the end, I I think Winter is even more compelling than Autumn, although it isn't nearly as immediately accessible.  This is a novel to savor slowly, and as I read, I also saw that the discomfort one feels, especially at the beginning, is intentional.  After that I began to see what Smith was doing, and I feel deeply for the book, for its beautiful prose, for Smith's amazing way of looking at things and telling a story, for the layers of humanity and metaphor and meaning, as well as the way the author can subtly and magnificently turn everything on its head and make it seem like the most natural thing in the world.  

 

Initially it seemed to me that Winter was more deeply imbued in its seasonal theme than Autumn was but that was only on my first reading.  I went back and read Autumn again, and think it fits its title perfectly, and Winter, well winter is a more difficult time for most of us.  Smith actively uses winter metaphors and ideas here, more directly than in Autumn, but Autumn is no less autumnal than Winter is, in many ways, an exploration of winter.  The novel is rooted in its time, and yet it is not.  The author understands the way the threads of relationships, of past, present and future all intertwine and are simultaneously related and separate.  

 

I would say that Autumn and Winter are kindred, and I am using Smiths' phrasing here.  The novels are related, but not directly so.  There is overlap.  Two characters in Autumn reappear in Winter, although a major character in winter was but a whisk of memory in Autumn, and a major character from Autumn plays a minor role in this novel.  You do not have to have read one to enjoy or understand the other.  The novel deals with relationships, as did Autumn, but not just the relationship of the characters to each other, but to themselves, and it is also a skillful commentary and allegory about changing climates, in our understandings of ourselves, our relationships, in our social and sociopolitical worlds, science, art, socialization and self-absorption.  

 

Smith explores the ways in which we are constantly evolving as the world around us also evolves, through storms and deep freezes, and eventual springs.  The winter metaphor and allegory is explored, no it is almost embodied in its many forms in the text, but like winter itself, the story is not without hope.  And this is where I think the novel really is brilliant.  Smith uses winter as a way of exploring the human condition. This novel, its subject and its title, gives the author a way to frame and explore relationships and who we are, forming a metaphor that bridges our experiences, bringing new perspective.  I used the idea earlier that the novels are kindred, picking up from this line in the novel, referring to Kepler, but as part of a deeper tale:

Kindred means family, what I'm saying is that the thought that truth and time are sort of related, family to each other.

 

And yet I think this also relates to what Smith is doing here, and to the reason that I am looking forward to the next novels in this series, more so now than I was even after reading Autumn.  In fact I bought this book immediately upon its release, and then put off reading it after a couple of people said it was a disappointment, as if that should really matter to my ability to form my own opinion.  Now however, after reading the novel, I would say that even this tendency to trust the consensus over one's own opinion is also melded into the themes of these novels.  Winter is complex and musical in its structure, not a simple little ditty, but a symphony.  My words cannot do it justice.  I think this is a novel that will bear up to reading and rereading, which is good, because I think I will be revisiting it with each new addition to the series. Going back to that symphonic metaphor, I feel as if each of these novels is the movement in a symphony.  Each stands alone, and yet I cannot think of one without referring, either backward or forward to the other.   Smith is writing stand-alone novels, but which are also intimately a part of something greater, something that is revealed only in the relationship between the parts, just as the phases of our lives and our relationships seem to stand apart but are not, are all woven into a complex fabric which we, for the most part, never unravel.

International Quilt Study Center 2: Craft....

I've broken this visit to the Quilt Study Center into two sections mostly because it grew long, and I've divided it into sections labeled art and craft, not so much because I believe that one is more or less worthy than the other, or even that dividing lines are all that clear, but because it suited my purposes.  In this post I am covering the parts of the exhibit that were devoted to pieces that were created to be functional.  

Simply put, as much as I love art in and of itself, there is a special place in my heart for those who make things that are beautiful for everyday use.  We have little time or even use for such things in modern life, when everything is available to us without much thought and it is time that feels rare.  But I sometimes wonder if we've missed something truly important.

There was a small, but lovely exhibit of Miao pieces which included the two collars shown above.  These are pieces intended to be worn, and they show signs of wear and use, but the design and workmanship is stunning.  I want to say that they are in fact children's collars, but I neglected to take a photo of the descriptive plaque and cannot remember.  That seems foreign to us in modern life, where we feel our hands are put to better use than on handwork that will be quickly outgrown, but I'm not sure the results of our labors are any less ephemeral.  The act of making shows respect and honor and love, the wearing connects one to the art, to the cycle of life and art combined.  Such things remind me that we humans are creative creatures, that we are compelled to make beauty, and that it is in fact the act of living itself, and celebrating the small, the immediate, and the circle of our individual family and community is from whence our well-being and happiness ultimately arises.

It is not really important if something was made for everyday use or for special occasions.  What attracts me is the making as well as the using, that it is the act of living itself that is worthy of art.  Look at the detail in this Miao women's jacket for example.  It is not fast fashion.  This is something to be worn and cared for, to be treasured.  It is something that is meant to last, not permanently no, but nothing really is permanent, and to be worn with pride.

In some ways, we modern people have lost that.  Would any of us spend the time embroidering a jacket, putting in time to perform intricate work such as in the example above?  We think of our time as too valuable, and yet do the things we do with our time prove to be more lasting?  Do they bring us greater pleasure? I am not trying to denigrate the art quilts, I think they are fabulous.  I think human need to create is something essential to our being, that we are all creative, if anything, we do not honor or desire for creativity enough.

But one of the joys of looking at older, or traditional quilts and bed coverings is not only in admiring the skill of the makers, but also in reminding oneself of the joy in making something that was both necessary and beautiful.  No one has to make beauty, and yet we do. And our desire to express beauty can take many forms. The bedspread above is not quilted, or embroidered but stenciled. It is no less beautiful, no less useful, and the stenciling is artfully done.  Similar stencils are available in Michaels and we might stencil a placemat, a piece of furniture or a wall, and yet this bedspread dates from sometime in the 1820s or 1830s. Would we stencil a bedspread? Are we missing something in not curling up under the warmth of our own handiwork?

Or consider this embroidered blanket, embroidered with wool thread, which the description stated had probably been spun from local wool.  Note the date, 1816, making this blanket over 200 years old.  The workmanship is beautiful.  Can we imagine it today?  Such workmanship takes much practice and skill, and not every budding embroiderer has the patience or talent, but can we even imagine sitting down today and embroidering a blanket?  What have we lost and what have we gained?  

Is this any less art?  Someone meticulously cut out motifs, arranged them, and attached them by hand.

And so we still admire and celebrate that which survives, the patience, the skill, the handiwork:

Today these things are the exceptions, the treasures, and most of them are just that.  Most of what makes it to a museum is the exceptional, the work of the skilled and talented, but many of these objects also came from a time when most people needed to make what they used, and not everyone was equally talented.  The truth is that most quilts were not exceptional.  But we tend to forget about the quality of the average.  We are blinded by our own exposure, our experience, our knowledge.  We forget that we have become critics, and we forget that our vantage point is indeed from a point of exception.  But in many ways the average, the everyday, even the fact that individuals and communities made quilts, that the making was itself both a necessity and a bringing together, is forgotten. 

I think in some ways, that was the beauty of the Ken Burns quilt exhibit, although we admittedly did not spend enough time there.  It is something I regret.  I admit that compared to the work in the other exhibits some of these quilts seemed boring, but we were blinded by our own knowledge, our own skills as seamstresses although I for one am no quilter, and the fact that we had just come from the art exhibits.  But I also blame this on the curation of the exhibit itself,  It could have been so much better.  To that end I am showing two photos from the International Quilt Study Center's website illustrating the exhibit.   The photo above shows an example that I think worked.  The words printed on the wall relate directly to the quilts displayed, and give the viewer some sense of what attracted the collector, but for most of the exhibit this was not the case.

More often we had random words and phrases, yes Burns' words, but disembodied from a conversation and not necessarily relating to the nearby quilts.  Often these words, taken out of context, in a sense disembodied, seemed shallow and often patronizing.  They seemed to lessen the experience of viewing the exhibit rather than enhancing it.  The collection is in fact quite interesting, even though we did comment that the quilts were often boring.  But that is not the point, surrounded in a museum of the exceptional in terms of technique and style, a bit more work was required in order to bring the heart of this exhibit to the viewer.  I don't think it succeeded.

 

After returning home I googled Ken Burns and came up with this article in the New York Times.  I highly recommend the article.  Many of the words used in the exhibit come from this conversation, but here they are warm whereas in the museum they seem cold and detached.  There are also photos of quilts not seen in the exhibit, lovely quilts, but their loveliness is not why I mention them.  Read Burns descriptions of the quilts, what attracted him to them.  This is what was missing from the Burns exhibit, the connection with the collector.  In the end I think this is what we all want.  We want to see art, yes, but we also want to understand, we also want relationship.  We want to know what attracted the collector to the works he collected, what meaning he derives, so that we an then form our own conversations with what we are seeing.  This was lacking.

 

Having read the article, now I'd like to go back and see the exhibit again.  Still I think it could have been better done, it could have offered an opportunity for connection with our past and with the idea that everyday creativity is not mundane or even boring. Instead I am left with regret, regret that despite all the beauty, all the exceptional workmanship, we missed something essential, regret that perhaps we did not see the forest through the trees.

 

The two photos from the Burns exhibit are not my photos but are taken from the website of the International Quilt Study Center. 

 

Five Things on a Beautiful May Friday

This week has gotten away from me a bit, and the challenge for today is to see if I can get this "five things" post written and posted before the day is done, and maybe still get a post up tomorrow.  It may be wishful thinking, but I've always liked a challenge. 

 

1.  I bought a bike.  I spent last Saturday trying to ride my old bike and keep air in the tires, neither very successfully.  I fell repeatedly and at one point wondered if should even be trying, but I also realized three things:  1). The bike was old and probably not rideable.  2). The gears were stuck somewhere around 8th or 9th gear and I couldn't unstick them enough to get myself up the hill in my driveway.  3).  My old, circa 1980 racing style touring bike was probably not the best bike for me to be riding at this particular point in my relearning process.  I took the old bike into a shop to see if it could be repaired and came out with a new bike.  I realized that my insistence on riding the old bike was actually hampering my progress.  The new bike is exactly what I need right now.  I've been riding it.  At first, I didn't even make it around the block.  Apparently riding a bike uses muscles I've neglected for a decade or two.  I was terrified of speed because I was still terrified of falling, I couldn't quite figure out the gears so that I was in control of the bike instead of the bike being in control of me, and I wobbled all over the place.  At the same time, I was exhilarated and thrilled.  I can't remember being so excited about any new project in such a long time.  I was out on the bike twice a day every day at the beginning of the week. I didn't go far, but I came home exhausted and happy.  As I'd stagger up the steps into my house I was already dreaming of my next ride.  Each morning I would go for my normal walk of a couple of miles in length, then get on the bike, mostly because I learned I couldn't walk after riding the bike.  This morning however, I went for a whole loop, roughly 2 miles, my first real excursion that I can actually call a ride.  I had to get off a couple of time when my legs refused to go further up a hill, and I had to walk the bike up the final stretch of one steeper hill (but still not very steep) after I misjudged my gear shift, lost my footing, and fell into a forced dismount.  But I did it.  I was terrified coming down the steep hill after the final turn toward my house and I had to fight the urge to ride the breaks, terrified I would have to stop and not be able to, terrified I would kill myself.  I can happily report I returned home safely.  I climbed the stairs to my office and this computer.  I can't wait to ride again tomorrow.  

 

I want to keep riding.  I want to fix the old bike and when I get steadier see if I can ride it, see if I want to tackle longer rides.  When I was young I thought nothing of going 20 or 30 miles on my bike.  I may or may not ever be there again, but I am looking forward to the adventure.  Oh, and now that I know I can actually ride even a short loop, perhaps it is time to start alternating walking and riding days.  

2.  The pink camellia behind the house is doing beautifully since I had the river birch taken down.  It bloomed but looked rather sad and I suspected that it was in too much shade.  This spring, with the long period of cool weather and the increased sun it has filled out and grown phenomenally.  You can see it behind the irises in the photo above. Unfortunately it is right next to the deck, meaning it is right in the middle of the proposed construction site.  Finding it a new home, either permanent or temporary, for any plants in this area I want to save (irises and camellias etc) is now becoming a priority. 

3.  I posted a photo of the Cora Louise peony on Instagram earlier this week.  I took another photo this morning, where I thought I captured the color just a little more clearly.  

4.  Breakfast this morning, or brunch I suppose since it was after 11 by the time I stopped to eat.    Avocado, and egg salad topped with hot-smoked salmon on a small, salad sized plate.  

5. I went to see the musical Beautiful: The Carole King Story, with a friend last Sunday afternoon and I had an absolutely marvelous time.  I love the sets, the colors, the acting, the music, absolutely everything.  It was a happy event that made me want to sing and dance and smile for the rest of the day. The show was like sping, something joyous and hopeful and inspiring, just what I needed on a Sunday afternoon.  Carole King's album Tapestry came out just before I entered high school, but I didn't really discover her until I was in college, where many of my friends had all her albums.  It was a period of great musical discovery for me:  Carole King, bluegrass, rock, Talking Heads, King Crimson, early punk, jazz, swing dances, Hindemith and Phillip Glass, and although the musical was about King and her music, not my other explorations, it still reminded me of that time, of that sense of the joy of song of music and the idea that music itself could change the world.

 

But I also admit that I also struggled afterwards with the fact that I enjoyed Beautiful more than I enjoyed Aida, and in simply writing the above paragraph I have written more about the musical than I did about the opera. I recognize that this struggle reflects some kind of acquired parental, societal, and cultural bias that I don't actually believe has any basis in reality, but which still occasionally raises its ugly head in my consciousness.  I did enjoy Aida, but I admittedly didn't love it.  I'm not convinced that is the fault of the performance.  As I said, the Choral Society gave the best performance I have heard, and the soloists were good as well, but they occasionally were quashed by the poor acoustics of the hall, well all of them except the baritone perhaps.  In retrospect it was that problem with acoustics that hampered my experience.  I understand why the performance was held in the Civic Auditorium -- they needed the space on stage.  And I'm not certain my experience of the sound was shared by those around me, as many of my near neighbors seemed very happy with the performance.  I felt the performance often sounded muddied, which is more the fault of the venue than the artists themselves, enough so that I am not eager to go to another opera performance in that particular venue.  I'd rather hear sparkling sound at the Tennessee Theater than muddied sound waves at the Civic Auditorium.  But then again, I know this is my own bias, the same bias that showed up  in the early days of my marriage when I was the one that was constantly turning off the radio when static would invade the airwaves.  It never bothered George, but it ruined the sound for me, rendering the musical completely unlistenable.   Mea culpa

 

I have no music scheduled this weekend, but the sun is shining and I shall see friends, spend time in the garden and on my bicycle.  Grand adventure always awaits.  What delights will your weekend bring?

 

 

 

International Quilt Study Center 1:Art....

I've been going through photos, and was reminded that I always intended to write more about my trip to Lincoln, including our visit to the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.  I took a lot of photos, only a few of which are shown here.  In fact editing through those photos and deciding what to write was one reason this post was delayed nearly a month.  Be warned, this is a photo-heavy post.

This large art-quilt is by Velda Newman.  There were three quilts in this exhibit, all huge, all meant, it appears to me, to be public installations, quilt as art.  The smallest one, the last one I show, is about the size of the large painting I bought for my living room.  The one shown above is larger than my longest living room wall. I suppose I should have gotten a photo with one of us for scale, but that would have interfered with the loveliness of the quilt itself.

Despite being large, the detail is also meticulous.  Admittedly, I was most entranced by the colors, and there is nothing surprising in that. And I am amazed at the artist's ability not just to conceive of the idea, but to execute the work with the large pieces of fabric.  I love small things and small pieces, but if you've been reading here you've seen that.  My inclination with large pieces of fabric is simply to roll myself up in them, swaddled. And yet it is for this reason that I am even more amazed: the idea and he execution are breathtaking.

Look at the piecing and the quilting on this detail,  a section of the quilt seen below.  

Obviously none of these are one's grandmother's quilts.  The quilts I am showing today are all by artists, artists who are respected in their field. but the styles are remarkably different.  That is the point.  Some quilt are envisioned as art, some as craft, some as a blurring of the two.  Newman's quilts, at least the quilts seen here, are traditional quilts in terms of technique but not in terms of subject and scale; they are quilts obviously meant for public spaces, not intimate lives.  

Although they speak the language of art, they do so in a different dialect than that which is traditionally reserved for the fine arts. This merging of genre's offers much latitude for insight and revelation.  This blurring of genres is something I see happening in similar ways in some kinds of music, in venues like Big Ears.  But perhaps that is my bias as well.  I love tiny details and amorphous broad categorizations.

 

Notice above the way the butterfly extends past the edge of the border.  Notice also the way the stitching of the smooth fabric, from a distance, gives an sense of softness, of depth, almost of a velvety texture, like the wing of a living butterfly.  If I did not know the scale of this piece, I would think the red tip on one butterfly's wings was softly embroidered, but it is stitched with smooth fabric.  Notice, in the photo below, by a different artist, the blending of materials, the watercolor-like effect created by blending hand-dyed fabrics with piecing, embroidery and brushstrokes.

But much as I love these large-scale works and the idea of art for public spaces, which is a bit of a theme at this moment in time, not just in quilt circles,  I also love the small and the intimate, the functional, the idea that beauty is something that is a part and parcel of our lives, both public and private.

These works are by Japanese quilter Eiko Okano.  Many of these quilts were more functional, and more traditional in size.  The above small pieces were actually described as study pieces, but I love how they are also useful, not something to be placed in a drawer but which can be used.

Although Okano uses multiple techniques, her work bridges the traditional with the modern, art with life, and the necessity of things, but things that bring beauty to existence.  The quilt above is a traditional size that could be used on a bed or on a wall.

Note the detail, each of these tiny pieces that make up the whole.  Traditional techniques and stitches, a widely varied selection of fabric styes and prints, combined into something that both honors tradition and the present, art and craft, necessity and beauty.

So how do we define art? How do we define craft? I do think that is always a question worth exploring.  This work by Molly Anderson is obviously a quilt, obviously a celebration of traditional handwork with appliqué, quilting and embroidery.  And yet it is something to be seen, to be appreciated in and of itself -- visual representation of both the world, but also of something intrinsically human -- something that takes what we know and moves us to think and see in new ways.

 

 

Saturday Morning Musings

Contentment:  sitting still in the early morning, cup of coffee in hand, looking out over the yard. This morning I am just looking at lawn, lawn and the line of woods at the back of the yard, two tall trees that shade the neighbor's yard.  I managed to cut back much of the ivy that was choking them last year, but needed help with some of the bigger vines.  The ivy was removed at the base but I didn't get all the long vines pulled out o the tree, now, from this window the tree looks almost hairy with the dead vines traversing its trunk. Cardinals and robin and bluebirds are cavorting in the early morning light, and yes, I do imagine the border I will eventually plant between the woods and the lawn.  The garden of my dreams is always present but actually the yard in and of itself is enough. What more is needed?  

People are needed of course.  We all need other people, need to love and be loved.  I don't work a day job where I am surrounded with people during the day.  Many of my pursuits are solitary:  writing, gardening, playing with needle, thread, fabric.  I am past the days when empty time alone seemed overbearingly depressing.  I can be content with myself, and perhaps that is primarily because I have a choice, to find balance between time spent alone and time with friends.

It has been a good week, filled with music, time with friends, and creative pursuits as well.  There was a lovely performance of Haydn's Creation at the beginning of the week.  Last night I went to see Aida, which was also beautifully done.  Aida was the first opera I ever saw live and seeing it again reminds me of my youthful self. The choral society outdid themselves, the soloists were excellent.  I am continually amazed at the dedication of local musicians and the quality of local efforts.  Here we are, in Knoxville, a relatively small city, with two major choral productions in one week, and many people putting in long hours in rehearsal.  Granted the musicians come from the greater metropolitan area (in government speak) which is actually a rather large geographic space, and this actually impresses me all the more.  We are blessed to have people who are willing to spend time and effort to share something they love with the rest of us.  

 

I see that music and art, fill my heart, but I also see that I sometimes overindulge.  I want to go to everything, and I often try.  Music fills and soothes my heart, and yet, I wonder.  I always have been inclined toward too-muchness, but how much of my indulgences are running toward something, and how much is running away? I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those evenings watching tv or movie with my beloved, companionable silence, the palpable peace of shared space.  But space and time are not something to be filled.  The trees remind me of that.  And you can't be companionable with others if you can't be companionable with yourself; or so it seems to me.  That is not to say I don't enjoy evenings at home -- they are no longer a black hole -- but do I run too much? Try to fill too much?  I am not looking for a substitute for just being present.  

There, I think I found the answer.

 

Which brings me back to what do I need?  What do we need?  A safe place to sleep.  Food.  These are basic necessities.  People we care about, people who care about us.  Our passions, the things we care about, including ourselves. The earth around us, our own little space on this planet, wherever it is, whatever it is, to know that this space that is our lives, that our very selves, is enough. My view through this tiny window, watching the squirrel that is running across the yard right this moment.  Beauty, perfection, love, heaven -- it is all right here every day, ready to touch each of us, if only we open our eyes and our hearts.

 

None of the flowers shown here are visible from my window this morning.  The flowers in the front yard are not visible from most of the windows in the house, and yet they greet me every day, a welcoming beacon.