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As I stated in my last post, I feel like I have found my footing, and reconnected some link between the person I was, the person I might have been, the person I am now, and the person I might be, whoever that person will be.
But I also find that I am overwhelmed and I have let that sense of being pulled in too many directions fracture the center. I feel like my life has become a melee. I need to regroup. This blog will return on April 1 (no fooling).
Last night I dreamt that I was on a highway in the rain at night and I was lost.... Last night I dreamt I was lost on a highway, I made a turn onto another highway and suddenly I knew I was on the right path, the path home..... Last night I dreamt I was on a highway in the rain and I was cold and soaking wet.... Last night I dreamt I was on a highway in the rain on my bicycle....Last night I dreamt that I was on my bicycle at night in Michigan, and that I had been riding my bicycle across the country from California..... Last night I dreamt that I had been traveling aimlessly, vaguely headed in the right direction (east), but without a known path I had wandered slightly astray.... Last night I dreamt that although I had perhaps floundered, I had, in fact, found the route home.
Dreams are, of course, often not linear, at least mine aren't. They are jumpy and scattered, oddly fragmentary and yet at the same time whole. Increasingly I tend to view life the same way, although sometimes I wonder if I have wandered off the generally accepted path and find myself somewhere wilderness.
Last night's dream was not, in many ways surprising. I started one project, the house, that was supposed to go one way, follow one path, and that path has changed and grown and become far more complex than I had wanted. What I had hoped would be three discrete projects over a period of years has turned into something that at times feels like a storm crashing around me, even though in the end I know it will all come together.
So too, my supposed idyll in the apartment. I had hoped this would be a time outside of normal life and obligations. A time to explore creative impulses, to reflect and refine. Well reflection has occurred, although I sometimes feel it has been dragged out of me kicking and screaming. Refinement as well. Nothing is as I had hoped it would be. And yet, I am not worse for this wandering and at times overwhelming path. I may even be better.
The sun is out, for a part of this week anyway. The house is coming along. Stucco is going up on the outside walls. The garage and studio are progressing. We are playing with layouts so that the electrical wiring can go in. Floors and tiles are also starting to be installed in the house. In short things are starting to come together. A new path is being revealed. I may grow lost again, but at the moment promise reigns.
This is true personally as well even though the path has not been as simple or as clear as I had hoped. I should not be surprised at that. If dreams are a form of metaphor which helps us to understand our paths in life, I increasingly feel that life itself is a metaphor, and part of our life's journey is actually a job of deciphering and understanding. We can explore, or refuse to explore, to the best of our ability. I often, and I suspect I am not at all alone in this, want to take the easiest, safest, kindest path. I just want to be content, to have fun, to be happy. And yet each time I am turned upside down I find that my previous understanding of happiness was just a reflection in a mirror, that I have never seen beyond the surface of things.
And so here I am again actually, finding myself heading exactly where I always thought I wanted to be, except that the road to this place was not at all what I expected, nor is the place itself quite what I had imagined. Well, I suppose that is not surprising. If life is a metaphor, then the words we use, the understandings we form as we unravel each level, prove inadequate with each layer we manage to peel back. And like any good metaphor, my purpose, my understanding, my meaning, can never be more than a partial view of the whole, and therefore completely different from other's understanding. Different and yet the same because we are all the same matter, all the same energy. All completely alike and completely different.
Quite frankly there are days I think I would have remained much happier had I never fallen into a rabbit hole, had I continued to refuse to delve beneath the surface. I liked my life. It was, by all contemporary social measures, a successful and happy life. Even in the face of grief and loss, I could have clung to that life. Some part of me may wish I had; there would have been less pain, fewer tears. I would not wish it on anyone. And yet at the same time I would, because every time I re-experience joy I see that my former understanding was but a shadow of what joy could be. Make no mistake. I am no wiser. I am just as foolish, just as attached to my own little bits and bobs of this and that as I ever was, even as I realize that they could all disappear tomorrow and the essential fact of who I am, of joy, of sorrow, and also of love, would not change. I am just as lost. In fact the more I think I know where I am going, the more I find I have lost my way.
And yet, I have found my footing yet again. Each time I fall in a hole, I come up simultaneously wanting less and more, being less and more. Who knows what the next blossom will be, or in fact, if it will be at all distinguishable from the blossom that came before. Why blossoms? Well the amaryllis has sent up two more flower stalks, from nothing it appears. I thought the bulbs were spent, done, complete. And yet, new blooms are incontrovertibly present.
it seems there never really is a good time for a week of rest, although it is possible that my own inclination toward too-muchness hinders the process somewhat. I am still sorting it all out --- my reading time, and by extension my writing time, remains somewhat constrained -- and more often than not I feel simultaneously still and yet fragmented and pulled in many directions. I feel, in short, much the way I imagine the woman in this painting by Pablo Picasso feels. I saw this painting, Crouching Woman, at the McNay during my last visit to San Antonio, and it came to mind this morning as I try to juggle the things I want to do, the things I need to do, and the realities of negotiating a path through the competing demands on my time and my energy levels. I am not sure what Picasso actually intended, but I see a brilliant portrayal of the multi-faceted roles and demands placed on women, and the complex angles and folds created by the push-pull of intelligence and emotion, time and space, expectation and desire.
Perhaps I am reading too much into this. But that just tells you where I am coming from on this particular morning.
I am reading again, although only in short bursts, and the amount of time in which I can read varies significantly with the light and the size of the type. How much running around I have been doing also seems to have an effect on my vision. I never realized that driving itself was so hard on the eyes. Rain doesn't help, of course. Rather than writing I have focused on tasks that may be less appealing, but more important perhaps. Tasks which can be divided into short bursts of activity are doable: taxes, budget revisions, filling out paperwork for an appointment with a new doctor. Spending time in the kitchen is easier than sewing, or doing any kind of needlework. I can knit, as my current project is simple, but all too often my eyes are too tired by the time I sit, and I fall asleep. This struggle between energy and exhaustion, visual acuity and blurriness, has also upended my sleep patterns, which is not helping me balance my path through the push-pull of obligations, but I assume it will all sort itself out in time.
Despite all of this I have been out and about. I attended two fabulous concerts which I hope to write about while they remain fresh in my memory. There was one evening when there were three concerts I wanted to attend, and alas, it was also raining and I attended none of them. I've had a few lunches with friends. Last night I went off to the Clarence Brown Theater to see King Charles III, which I enjoyed to a point. I think the play itself is brilliant but although all the performances were good, and some were excellent, I felt there was an excess of earnestness and a certain lack of wit that would have elevated the production. There were also more than a few instances where the cadence of the iambic pentameter felt strained and my inner grump threatened to surface. But overall it was good and an enjoyable evening.
It strikes me as interesting that this, the most seriously dramatic performance I have seen at the theater, has been my least favorite production. It is odd because I have always been more of a fan of serious drama than of lighthearted fun on stage. Perhaps friends and colleagues who claimed I was too serious for my own good, were right. Perhaps I just needed to learn to let go. But this year, it has been the light stuff that has truly appealed to me, which I have most enjoyed. I saw Candide twice, even though I once despised the work, and loved it. I laughed so hard throughout The SantaLand Diaries that I could hardly contain myself, and I could have seen A Christmas Carol happily more than once. The same was true last year, and I still smile at the thought of a couple of contemporary light operas, and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.. Perhaps it is not so much that I am changing, as I always had this sappy happy inner core, but that I no longer care if my sappy side is good enough and think that my inner grumpy-pants has had more than her share of time in the sun.
But now my eyes hurt and I have spent too much time here while other tasks are calling my name. I shall return when I can.
I've been in and out of San Antonio all of my life. My late uncle lived here, and his wife, my aunt Lillian still does. My grandmother lived in the Menger Hotel for some years, and I loved visiting her there. That hotel was a grand adventure and an exciting home-away-from-home, although I have not stayed there in recent years.
On my last visit, I stayed at Hotel Emma, housed in the landmark Pearl's Brewhouse, at the heart of the relatively newly redeveloped Pearl Brewery district. I've been to the district for the farmer's market, for brunch, and for shopping. But this was my first stay. I may have found a San Antonio home away from home.
I was entranced as I stood, waiting to check in, part of a sudden bubble of new arrivees. I was happy to look at the Mexican tile floor. Of course it seems I have a long history of looking at floors, and remembering them. The only thing I remembered from my first visit to the Alhambra at age 7 was a particular floor. Thirty years later I was happy to find that floor once again, connecting my childhood self to my adult self in a strange land.
Of course this tile floor also reminded me of my own, as yet not installed, Mexican tile floor. This one will be in my guest bathroom.
That first evening, after checking in and unpacking, I wandered down to the library for a welcome cocktail. The library was a welcoming and cozy place filled with books and comfortable chairs. I was particularly attracted to an interesting collection of art books and I spent some time perusing the collection, especially in the mornings, when I would wander down for coffee. Coffee was available every morning beginning at 6AM, freshly brewed and served by a hotel employee. This was just one of the many details that make the place special and welcoming. Coffee, served in a real china cup, and a touch of human contact is no small thing. I could have had a pot sent up to my room, but I think I was more attracted to the idea of coffee in the library, and one morning, when it was cold and rainy and my aunt was otherwise occupied, I just settled in with a book and my journal, watching and occasionally conversing with a steady stream of hotel guests, young and old.
In fact complimentary coffee, and plenty of bottled water, generously distributed in the rooms were among the small details that make the Hotel Emma stand out. It is not that I could not or would not buy coffee or water, but that it is ultimately a small expense that feels far more welcoming than forcing your guests to buy these things. It is the little details that make me want to come back, even more than the well-appointed rooms and the fabulous view from my window.
Even the bathrooms made me happy. They seemed to fit the space, feeling luxuriously modern yet still in keeping with the vintage vibe of the hotel, and were supplied with generous towels, cushy bath mats, and full-sized bottles of soap and shampoo. One felt like a welcome guest. I appreciated all the small details like period-appropriate ceramic switch plates and an old-fashioned battery operated alarm clock, as well as well-thought out and generous outlets to accommodate all sorts of modern electronic accoutrements.
I had a great weekend despite the weather. In fact, Hotel Emma is a great retreat, a great home away from home, and it was probably the perfect hotel in which to spend an otherwise miserable weekend. The food was fabulous as was the bar, and there were places to settle in and either converse with one's neighbors or curl up with a book.
Granted I loved the thoughtful planning of the space, the industrial-chic look, and the thoughtful seating areas that were actually comfortable and inviting. But Emma felt like a place to gather, not simply a place to rest one's head. It is also conveniently located as well. The Pearl district has several inviting places to eat and shop and the hotel is on the river walk, offering a good place for either a casual stroll or a more ambitious run. It is only a mile and a half, more or less, to the historical arts district, La Villita along the riverwalk, slightly less to a plethora of restaurants and bars. Of course you don't have to walk, Emma is also an easy drive or uber away from downtown restaurants, an easy center from which to explore, or in which just to stay in, as I did when I wasn't visiting my aunt or my favorite museum. I could happily go back tomorrow.
Top photo, of the Hotel Emma, is taken from the Hotel Emma website. All other photos are mine.
Not many words again today. I have indeed strained my eyes, and I am supposed to be resting them. Yesterday I was to abstain from all reading, watching and driving, and I did, for the most part. Only a few minutes here and there, less than 10 minutes over the course of the day. It has made a difference and I can tell when my eyes grow tired.
Instead today I shall show you flowers. Yes a few things have survived the men in boots and heavy machinery, and they dare to bloom in the midst of chaos.
I can definitely see a big improvement today. I do have to go out this morning but the excursions are short, less than 2 miles each direction. I'm not sure which is worse, driving or looking at my phone to call an uber, so I will opt to drive myself and see how my eyes hold up. Then I will know if I can drive downtown this evening for the symphony, or if I should uber or call a friend instead. I can close my eyes while I listen to the music. In the meantime I am knitting (yes, with my eyes mostly closed) and resting as needed until my eyes recover. I will be back to this blog next week.
Good morning! It is going to be a bright and sunny day. I do believe that metaphorically as well as literally. Or at least that is my hope. Yesterday's clouds and heavy rains played off my already dampened spirit, and although I had a post I was planning to write for this morning it was not written. But the sunshine outside my window makes me smile, as does this photo of the breakfast room with the new back entrance, and all the additional light from the new windows in the kitchen. Of course now it is all bright with primer, and color will return, reducing the glow somewhat. But it will still be lovely.
I will not live in a white house, even if color reduces the amount of light. I love other people's white houses, but I need the color., need to be enveloped in color. Whiteness is a promise of potential, of what will be.
It seems I overstrained my eyes on Sunday in the many hours traveling, reading far too much, far too long, staring at small I-phone and its kindle reader app. I really haven't been able to read anything the last two days. Paper, kindle paperwhite, screens of any kind. I have responded to texts, as necessary, only to have blurry vision, watery eyes and headaches. At first I just thought my glasses were dirty. They weren't. I eventually realized I need to rest my eyes. Rest them thoroughly and completely. Already this morning I have written too much and my vision is growing blurry.
So just a couple of photos more. These are both of the upstairs studio in its raw state.
I need to rethink travel reading. I must stop relying on my phone and carry my kindle paper-white with its eye-friendly screen. One more object is less of a strain than this inability to read, to write, to knit, to do needlepoint, embroidery or sew. I am not blind. I can see as long as I am not focusing on small details.
I made an appointment to have my eyes checked, and although there may be a small change in my prescription, I suspect I already know the answer. Rest. I am not good at rest. I had tickets to a play tonight, but thankfully I had already moved them to next week so that I could go to my grandson's basketball game. Now I think this was a wise decision. I can rest. I can sit in my comfy armchair (not a reading chair today), put something on the stereo, close my eyes and let the music wash over me.
I wrote this post last night when it was late and I was tired. I did read it this morning, and fix glaring errors but avoided reading too closely. I got in late. I slept late. I need to wrestle Moisés into a carrier for his annual trip to the vet, and bring Tikka home from boarding. I decided somewhere along the line it is better to just post.
It is late in Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson Airport and I am waiting for my plane. It is well past my bedtime, and I was supposed to have been home hours ago. I am sure that my face looks as punch-drunk-tired as I feel. But mine is but one exhausted face in a crowded gate filled with exhausted faces, all waiting hopefully and patiently for any news that we may indeed be flying soon. This is not the first time I've been stuck in this airport, or on this airline, (Delta) but I am continually grateful for the airline staff that go the extra mile to keep us updated on what is going on (and what is not), cheering us onward, and making sure that there are snacks and plenty of water at the gate. I have just learned that we are being moved to another gate and another plane, a plane that was originally scheduled to go to a different city. We will get home tonight. I hope the people who were scheduled on the flight we usurped make it home tonight as well, although at the moment that seems iffy, as ice conditions in their city has reduced traffic to a trickle..
But exhaustion aside, I had a lovely weekend visiting may aunt in San Antonio. It was cold in San Antonio and I did not walk along the river as much as is my wont, walking as necessary exercise rather than indulging in lazy strolls. I used the hotel gym on one particularly windy and sleety morning. I stayed in a new place for me, a place that felt like a home away from home, which had a lovely library where I spent one morning drinking coffee, journaling and browsing through an interesting selection of art books.
I had great visits with my aunt. I did walk along the river walk when the weather warmed slightly and the biting wind calmed. I wandered the farmer's market. I ate at a restaurant I have been wanting to try for a few years. I even managed to spend extra time in one of my favorite museums, and how can that not be a boon?
In fact, it seems to me that every time I go to the McNay I see something different. It feels simultaneously familiar and yet new. Sometimes I wonder even if I love the place itself as much as the art. I'm not always sure I can tell the difference.
I enjoyed being at the museum but I can't say that anything leapt out at me, at least not art specifically. On this morning I was somehow struck by the way the gray heaviness of the light outside the windows reflected into my vision of the art in the museum. I was almost more entranced by the light and the placement of the art, the way one picture played off other works in the room, the rather dark day and the stead gray light through the windows. I had wandered through half the museum, not quite aimlessly, but in a foggy bubble, noticing the space, the play of light, the artful placement of create a sense of conversation between art and space, before I saw this painting by Robert Rauschenberg, Black Mail. I suppose it too is rather dreary, but it really captured my attention. After I sat down to look at it further I noticed that the mirror was actually a mirror. That it is both a painting and a collage and I that tickled me even further, that little bit of reflection, of peering inward and outward simultaneously in the middle of this painting.
But then I noticed the floor, and the way the muted colors of the floor complimented the colors of the painting, and I was once again fascinated by the intersection of art and space and light. I sat on the bench thinking about floor and painting and the window in the corner, a window with a sculpture in front of it, thinking about all of this together and how it made something more than any one piece. I kept staring at the corner, at the floor, and the painting. I took a picture of the floor. I took a picture of the window. That was not meant as insult to Rauschenberg, but somehow everything came together in a way that made me very happy, as if something was shifting in my perspective. The Rauschenberg lightened as if in conversation with its setting. Walking back out through the museum it was, once again, like seeing something old become new again.
Yesterday morning I was out walking Tikka early, well before the sky was starting to brighten with the impending dawn, and I was struck by the scent of the air. It was something hard to describe, not a floral perfume, not exactly the scent of fresh dirt, but of something I could only call hope or growth. It was a warm, woodsy, green but also slightly sparkly scent, not floral, not fruity, a scent of brightness, a hint of promise. I thought to myself, "Ah! Spring!". It may be early yet, there may be setbacks, but spring has announced itself, not just in the hellebores and the leaves of bulbs and buds on trees, those can always be false starts, but something in the scent of the air and soil and the leaves themselves. There are always setbacks but the cycle moves forward.
The house is moving forward as well. Every day I see something new, although at the moment the most dramatic visible transformation is occurring with the garage and studio. Windows went in last week, although they were not completed when these photos were taken.
This wall of windows faces north and north light was one of the most important criteria for my studio. Yes there are windows on all sides of the studio, and good lighting is being added as well, but north facing windows were one of my most important demands for this space. North light is the light I love. I love seeing the sunrise, I love watching the sunset. But if I could only have one window for the rest of my life I would want it to face north.
Here is the view looking out from the very unfinished studio. There is a courtyard below, between the house and the garage, the same courtyard that attracted me to this house in the first place, and a view of the street, where I can, should I choose, watch the neighbors passing by walking their dogs. Of course this also means that if I am working at night, and if I am in the middle of a project the hours tend to disappear, anyone on the street can see me in the studio. I am not sure I that I am uncomfortable with that. I am perhaps more uncomfortable that everyone who can see me can see the mess that often occurs in the sewing room, the mess that indicates that something is being created. It can be limited, but it can't be completely contained.
My entire life is not as organized as my refrigerator. In fact much of my life has been a struggle between these too sides of myself, the organized spreadsheet-loving person who likes things sorted and lined up in pretty little rows, and the more creative impulsive part of me. In my youth these aspects of my character were mostly at war, but now I am finding a sense of balance and peace, Or at least I am trying to find a sense of balance, trying to find a sense of peace. I do not always succeed. There are days when one side or the other is winning. There are days when I have to remind myself it is not a battle. There are days when I need to pull myself out of the fog of melancholy.
I am beginning to understand how these things are related in my soul: clutter, order, inspiration, melancholy. I wonder sometimes if art, if meaning, if transformation, actually exists in the interstices between order and chaos, between our need for security and our need for change. Perhaps this is exactly where I need to be, where I see magic, see creativity, as happening, in the fog between passion and reserve. Passion, discipline, love, mysticism, melancholy, even perhaps moments of despair. Each can be overwhelming, can indeed destroy us, but somewhere in the tension between them lies meaning, is that thing that I think art, life even, is trying to capture. That thing that we yearn to discover.
Order in and of itself can become an obsession, and I try to nip that impulse in the bud. Order can help with life but it can also stifle creativity, at least my creativity. I am all about balance and happy accidents, the ways things just happen to fall. But I am also all about pretty things lined up in pretty ways. I cannot say that I would choose form without consideration for function, but I would never chose function without consideration for form. And I have come to accept that this is one of the reasons that I want my studio to be a separate place from my house. The house needs to work for me to be content there. I like little jars lined up in the refrigerator and I learned long ago, that if I wash the lettuce, dry it and put it in a container, it will last longer, but I will also be more likely to use it before it spoils. If I cut the bell peppers into strips and put them in a pretty container, I will see them and use them. If a whole bell peppers rolls around in the back of a crisper drawer, God help it, because I will likely forget its existence. I hate food waste. I like pretty little things lined up in rows. Spending time prepping and putting away saves me time in the long run, and brings me peace. It gives me more time in the studio, where I and pull things out of drawers and pile things up and let them speak to each other, where serendipity plays a role.
I can't really explain why some clutter makes me crazy and other clutter fills me with joy. All I can do is go with it, and learn to respect my own strengths and failings. Also learn to accept that anything I see as a strength may indeed be something someone else sees as a failing. But who cares. The joy in existence is that each and every being is different. For me, having food prepped in anonymous little containers encourages use and play, and helps me find things. I won't rustle through plastic bags, but I will look at little jewel boxes of color, and use ingredients before they spoil. That is how I ended up with roasted chicken thighs and a simple sauté of bell pepper and baby box choy for dinner one night. I saw the vegetables, saw that I needed to eat them before going away, thought they looked pretty together and so they were, delicious also, simply tossed in the pan drippings from the chicken.
But where am I in all this? I don't know. Someone said to me in a conversation about something, some choice for something, "but you are an artist". I was taken aback. I don't really think of myself as an artist. I don't actually think of myself as much of anything, just myself, just a complex mix thoughts and ideas and activities. I don't produce anything, not necessarily anything that anyone wants. But I do think life is art. I care about the details of how life is lived. Can being an artist be a way of looking at the world? I don't know.
Where am I in all of this? It is worth repeating. Evolving. Aren't we all, always evolving? Or at least that is the hope. Here I am sitting with my grand-dog, Dash. Dash is growing to big to be a lap dog, but he is still a puppy and he wants desperately to be a lap dog, so he tries. I feel that way sometimes, like I am trying to shove too much into my time and space wanting to be -- something -- l am not sure what, but also content to just be what I am inconsistencies and big floppy messes and all.
I surprised myself, and that, in and of itself is not at all surprising.
As I looked back on my January reading, I was surprised that I read more than I gave my self credit for. I spent the biggest part of the month, over 3 weeks really, reading Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore, and that book has occupied my thoughts and imagination in a way that shoved other reading to the side, undeservedly so in fact. But those other books, the non-Murakami, were not forgettable bits of fluff, well perhaps they are, slightly fluffy, and I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed reading a couple of books that otherwise might never have crossed my path.
But since I haven't really been able to sort out what to say, I shall just work my way through the list chronologically. Reading Mark Sisson's Primal Endurance, which I read in December, sparked an interest in the work of Phil Maffetone. I ordered The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing, which I have peeked at but not yet read, even though I have no interest in racing. Before it arrived however, I saw Maffetone's older (out of date) book, The Maffetone Method, at my local second-hand book store, where I bought it for a buck and a half. I read it the first day of the new year and it was worth the cost. I can't say that I've made as much progress as I hoped with my own endurance training. What I've learned is that I need patience, and this process, if I am going to do it right, takes time. I do see improvements, but have also had minor setbacks as I've been struggling with sinus issues the last couple of weeks, and my arthritis has been acting up as well. Both have slowed down progress but I am slowly on the mend.
Billy Collins' volume of poetry, The Rain in Portugal, and Michelle Obama's Becoming, were both Christmas gifts. Both were books I might well have missed if left to my own devices, and I am glad to have received them as I enjoyed both. I was aware of Collins' poetry. He was, after all, poet laureate for a bit at the beginning of this century. His work is popular. Is that why I previously dismissed him? I don't think so, but in the end I often don't know my own oversights and biases until they smack me upside the head. Anyway, I discovered more depth to the poems than I had previously appreciated. As I mentioned, surprises abound.
Michelle Obama's book, Becoming, was another surprise to me. I was aware of the book, and as much as I admire Michelle Obama, I also dismissed the book as another bit of self-promotion and pandering, yet another "my time in the White House" marketing ploy. And it may be those things, but I was also pulled into the warmth and humanity of Michelle's story as she told it and the deliberate blurring of focus. It was both a personal story but also a reminder of community and the importance of being aware, or mentoring, and of reaching out without the all too common sense of being chided. I was really struck by the kindness and empathy that is expressed in this book, and am grateful for the opportunity to have read it, and the gift of being able to see the world in a new way.
And then I opened Killing Commendatore. It was a book I read very slowly as it seemed to beg to be read slowly. I savored the words and the ideas and was constantly stopping to let my own thoughts and understandings simmer beneath the surface of my life. In many ways it seems to be an atypical Murakami novel, in that it is the most linear of the novels I have read (and I have read most of them). It is also in many ways the most overtly directed in terms of the author's use of metaphor and "magical realism", a term I hate because it negates the importance of metaphor, of using metaphor and imagination as a way to explain and explore thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences that cannot be translated directly into words. I think Murakami has been a master of exploring this, writing novels that have strong musical elements in the way explore feelings and experience. In that sense this may be a masterpiece, and I certainly think it is a culmination in some sense of what has come before. But I also see enough reviews by people that hate it. It is more direct than previous novels, and really, in one sense, not much happens, while at the same time everything happens. It is a novel about love and loss, what it means to love. It is about art and creativity and transformation and the difference between practice and technique, order and art, being creative and creating, between being "in love" and love itself. It is a book about transformation, what it means, and about the process of finding one's true self through all the clutter of life.
In that sense the novel is very spiritually or psychologically adept. I am not sure I see the difference between faith, spirituality, and psychology, although I have friends who would argue for one discipline or another. I see the differences as one of mindset or frame of reference with similar goals, that of finding and understanding the true self, the one buried under all the layers of adaptation that life piles onto us. In that sense, the experiences and the journeys in this book use similar metaphors that are found throughout human history, in faith traditions, in psychology, in science, and the experiences of Murakami's unnamed protagonist echo and enlighten my own experiences. I also like the way Murakami uses the word metaphor, and explores metaphor and meaning, including his use of the idea of the double metaphor to explore all the inner self-doubt and fear that plagues all of us. I copied out huge sections of prose that led my thoughts down various meandering paths. My brain meandered to the point that I had trouble writing about other things, although I didn't really explore the book here, I found it far too personal at this point, although I did mention it here and here. I do think I will be returning to this novel and it will have a lasting effect, not the least because it has sparked relationships with other favorite writers, and I have also been drawn back into the works of Nietzsche, TS Eliot, and William Blake, all of whom explore related metaphors, in very different ways of course. Good company, don't you think?
I ended the month with Tana French's newest novel, The Witch Elm. It was, of course, well written, intelligent and thoughtful. I may prefer her mysteries, but I enjoyed this and thought it was a good and thoughtful exploration of character and family dynamics in a time of crisis. I grew impatient at times, but that may have been more a reflection of my own timing and state of mind when I read this book. Anyway, it was good and, as always, enjoyable. It was kind of an in-between book for me -- not light enough for treadmill walking and although enjoyable, not quite entrancing enough for me to curl up of an evening.
So that leaves one keeper in the lot, and that one a book I will probably reread multiple times. But all the books I read in January enriched some aspect of my life and my perceptions in one way or another, for why else do we read? To pass the time? To expand our horizons? To become the people we are meant to be?
Last week I was in search of escarole. It was a commonly available ingredient when I lived in Hyde Park, available both in grocery stores and specialty markets. Not so much in Knoxville, which is a shame because I would purchase it regularly if available. I did not find any in the stores I normally frequent, and so I ventured further afield, actually finding it in a store where I once shopped regularly but had later abandoned due to increasing frustration over a steady drop in quality. I not only found the escarole, but I was pleasantly surprised that the store seemed to have turned around.
I decided it was time to reconsider my shopping trails, and so I turned to my pantry spreadsheet. Years ago, when I still lived in NY State, I would periodically do grocery store surveys, strictly for my own benefit. I would go, pantry list in hand, and compare prices, brands, and quality of the food items I routinely purchased. This was useful both from a budget perspective, and an organizational perspective, because I have apparently never been the kind of person who will buy everything in one store out of convenience, but I do need to know where to get the things I want, and how to balance price, convenience, and availability, given that time is also a commodity with its own costs.
I hadn't done a store comparison since I first moved to Knoxville, 7 years ago now. It seemed to be about time, especially since I have found myself more settled and am regularly cooking again both for others and myself. I simply took my existing spreadsheet and added a set of columns for the stores in the area, both specialty markets and grocery stores, and decided that over the next few weeks I would do a price and product comparison, thinking about where the best places are for me to shop based on availability and, yes, convenience simply because there is a cost to travel and to time, even as a retired person.
There are more stores on this list than on my first Knoxville comparison, mostly because more stores have moved to town, but also because I have moved and have grown more familiar with this area as well. Similarly, there is at least one store that may not make the list simply because the nearest branch is far enough outside my normal circle to make it uneconomical unless it has some prized ingredient that is otherwise difficult to source (doubtful).
Besides, I was already in another reorganization phase. Quite a few of the food storage containers I had purchased 5 years ago had lost their seals, and I was looking for something to replace them. I have long been a person who partially preps and repackages food into storage containers. And I have found that the effort pays in terms of both convenience and freshness, both because the repackaged items keep longer and because I am more likely to remember things I have actually worked with, as opposed to tossing them unheeded into the refrigerator. I also find I prefer to not be assaulted by branded packaging, at least for those items that can be easily repackaged.
Purchasing identical packaging is a luxury but one that brings me joy on a daily basis. Gradually, the contents of the refrigerator are being organized so that I can identify and find everything easily, although there are still a few jars on the side, awaiting an order of a specific size of storage canister/jar. This is important as I generally dislike the refrigerator in this apartment and find it difficult to use; anything that encourages me to open the refrigerator door and actually use something is a good thing.
I also started freezing extra portions of soup as I made it. This seems obvious, but I had not done it in years. I love soup, but I easily grow bored eating the same soup every day for a week. Rather than storing the soup in containers, I decided to try storing it in ziplock bags, each of which contains two servings of soup. This is also probably pretty obvious but I had never done it this way before, even thought I started packaging stock in Ziplock bags over a year ago.
The bags allow me to make a "soup file" in the freezer. The whole system makes it easier for me to see what stocks or soups I have on hand. Having soup in small quantities makes it easier to come up with a meal when I am tired and feeling uninspired. I am far more likely to use a 2-serving package of soup, than a big container of soup. And, since I love soup, and it is a convenient way to use up odd bits that would otherwise languish or go to waste, making soup is an easy feel-good activity.
I've also been engaged in a bit of a baking experiment. I made some shortbread for a friend, the traditional Scottish kind that consists of nothing but flour, butter and sugar. Although I used gluten-free flour because I won't have the other kind in my kitchen, I did use real butter even though I can't eat it. But as I worked I started to think about shortbread. Scottish shortbread is a really simple thing, simple and elegant. The recipe is a classic 321 ratio of ingredients, and the main trick is not to overwork the dough, and to cut it while warm but to wait until it fully cools before removing it from the pan.
My thoughts revolved around whether I could make a dairy-free version of shortbread using clarified butter rather than one of those dairy-free butter blends, which neither taste nor act like real butter. Hence the experiment. This last iteration was very close to perfection, but not quite. The photo above contains pieces from two batches of shortbread. Both are delicious, even if I think there is still room for improvement.
The first was using straight clarified butter, butter in which all the milk solids had been removed, and adjusting the proportions of the recipe to match the weight of the butter. It worked, but the resulting shortbread remains a little too tender and friable. It is difficult to eat without it falling into crumbs in one's fingers. Gluten-free flours do not absorb fat in the same way as wheat flour, meaning I may need to play with flour blends, or increase the protein solids which were lost in the clarification process.
In the second batch I added collagen protein to the clarified butter to replace the milk proteins that had been removed in the clarification process. This batch also tastes buttery and delicious, but it is a little too firm, and it got a little too dark. Of course collagen proteins and milk proteins are not identical, but I also realized that I made a basic miscalculation. I added protein to replace the entire weight that had been lost from the butter in the clarification process, forgetting that some of that weight loss had been due to the evaporation of water. Next time I will weigh the clarified butter and the remaining milk solids and adjust my proportions accordingly. I don't know if the water weight is important in this small of a quantity, or even if I can add water back into my clarified butter mix, to make a new emulsion, or even of that matters. It will be a couple of weeks before I can pick up this challenge again, but I am looking forward to the process.
