restingmotion

A Slow Start, But A Start Nonetheless

It seems that a good part of my time last week was spent in the studio.  Mostly I was simply unpacking, but I didn't want to leave.  Now, back home, without the prospect of having to pack up and leave again soon, unpacking was not necessarily less tedious, but it was still somehow more enjoyable.  I was already to starting to think about what I want to work on, where things should go, pulling projects. And also hitting walls.  There are still things I have to do, some cubbies that have to be built because I haven't unpacked the components yet.  I don't yet have a pressing table.  That too still has to be built, but I am about half-way there.  It remains a transitional space, but an increasingly functional one.

 

I worked on a few small projects for others.  I am ready to get started sewing for myself, but some of that progress was hampered by the slow progress of unpacking, burnt fingers, and travel plans.  I haven't made anything for myself in many years now, and I have no TNT patterns.  So although I have materials and ideas, I feel very much like I am starting fresh, like I am diving into the deep end of the pool, rather than wading in from the shallows.

 

I threw some things in a suitcase and went to my mom's.  We've been working in her sewing room.  She is working on a few quilt blocks.  I have commandeered her cutting table and am tracing.  I traced a pattern for a dress.  I know what basic alterations I used to make generally, but enough has changed during the transition into my 60s that I think a simple shift, and starting from scratch, is the way to go.  I am, in fact looking forward to both making and wearing this dress, as I see much potential.

But I am also working on a few things which may yield more immediate success.  I have a woven tank that I purchased from Lafayette 148NY some years ago and which I have since worn constantly.  In fact I have another version of the same tank, with variations in hem and fabric.  This piece is, and once I copy the basic shape, will continue to be, a staple in my wardrobe.  There are a few minor fitting issues, but I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done to complete the transition from very good to favorite basic.  

Or perhaps I don't.  As I started to trace off the original tank, the first one I bought, I realized that I have worn it almost to death.  The fabric is worn and fraying, stretched in places, threadbare in others.  In fact I probably should have stopped wearing it months ago.  Trying to trace the fragile, warped piece was proving to be difficult.  In the end I realized I would never wear this iteration again, so I simply cut it apart to make a pattern.

In fact, when I first traced the front, I probably made a mistake.  I traced it as it was, but then realized it had warped somewhat, actually following the same asymmetricalities as my own torso.  I wonder if that is good or a mistake, I suspect the later, but I was tired already.  It seems that reacquainting oneself with old skills is a process, and memory is sometimes slow to engage fully. I have straightened the piece out, and this morning I believe I need to trace another, straighter version before starting.    Whichever piece proves to be the most useful, the experience itself will be educational.  

 

I did a better job with the back pieces (above).

 

Lastly, I started tracing a pair of pants, a style I wear frequently and love, a pair that fits pretty well, but with a couple of  significant but easily corrected flaws.  I started tracing off the pants last night, only getting as far as the back yoke.  I will hopefully finish up today.  I am desperate for bottoms, assuming fall temperatures will arrive sometime.

 

In the meantime, do not expect much from me this week.  I am traveling again.  I am attending a sewing retreat, but I will mostly still be in pattern- and muslin-making mode.  I'll have knitting and needlepoint with me as well, to sooth frayed fitting-nerves, if nothing else.  And, as if there is not already enough on my plate, this morning I started coughing; my nose is running and my eyes are feeling heavy and tearing up.  I am hoping that mom's cats, Scooter and Cat, have simply made an impression on my sinuses, hoping that this is not a cold. If it is the former, my upcoming exit will help; if not, all other plans are up in the air.

 

Flowers from My Mother's Garden

I walked around my mother's neighborhood this morning, first out through the back yard in the early morning sunlight, then back.  The sun was higher, the light different but not yet high.  These photos are being shown in the order they were taken, as the sky brightens, as I leave and return.

Aside from the lushness of the flowers, the first thing I really noticed was the softness of the air, the relatively low humidity, at least as compared with Tennessee, the gentle caress of a steady soft breeze on my skin. It is unusual to go from Tennessee to Texas and find a kinder, gentler climate.  And although this is not the fist time this has happened, I continue to be surprised when the world upsets my expectations.

As I walked, my senses began to experiences the differences between the neighborhood and the one I had walked a mere 24 hours earlier.  Both of us live in neighborhood with manicured lawns, where homes have sprinkler systems, and yet nothing was the same.  Of course the plants are different in Texas than in my Tennessee neighborhood, but there were other signs of difference as well.  Garland Texas is not in the midst of a drought, and the air is rich with the smell of earth, of green leaves and continued growth.  Autumn is not advancing as quickly here.

Even though I live in a neighborhood filled with sprinklers, we cannot water enough to counterbalance the continued heat and the lack of rain.  Texas as well has suffered a heat wave, but the availability of water, and the plethora of more heat tolerant plants is evident.  Walking in Knoxville I smell dry dusty earth, browning leaves, decay.  Walking in Garland I smell flowers, freshly mowed grass that smells of new growth,  wet earth.  The scent of a freshly watered lawn still in the flush of growth is markedly different than a freshly watered lawn that is nonetheless struggling to survive.  

I notice other things as well.  The birdsong is different.  I hear the sounds of the marching band coming from the nearby high school, although I would probably hear something similar if I lived near a high school in Tennessee.  I am reminded that it is Friday, that there will be a pep rally, and I am carried back to my own high school days.  

I think about the drive to Texas, the long ride into the extended Texas sunset, broad and wide and filling the sky with a different kind of light than I see in Tennessee, where one feels closer to the earth perhaps, and less dwarfed by the sky.  I think about how I watched the motion of the grasses on the sides of the road in Arkansas, the movement of the air through the leaves, the changes in wave motion and velocity as different vehicles passed in close proximity.  I wondered why I had never noticed this before.  I wondered about how easy it is to pass through life without really paying attention.

Sometimes I struggle with travel, with the idea of travel on an intellectual level, not the desire for it.  Sometimes I think of travel as going someplace exotic, and put visiting family in a different category, travel that is not really travel with a capital T.  But that isn't really fair.  All travel, all experiences outside the constraints of our normal boundaries can open our eyes, expand our horizons.  I remain unconvinced that we really need to travel in order to learn to open our eyes, but perhaps we do, perhaps we need to be forced out of the boundaries of our normal habits.   Perhaps it is the interruption that is as important as the location, the interruption that allows us to stop our internal monologue for just a moment, and see something a little differently.

 

 

 

Necessary Accounting

It seems I have been remiss in updating you regarding my reading habits.  Odd as it may seem, given my own internal struggles with the idea of posting book lists, this was not intentional.  Also not surprisingly, once I noticed that I had failed to make book posts, I was initially more than willing to just let them remain in the ether.  Then I wanted to write about something I had read, and relate it to something I had read previously, except that a previous post only existed in my imagination.

 

So I suppose today's post is an attempt to rectify that situation, or at least insure that it does not happen again in the future.  

May

May was packing month.  

Three Reacher novels on the exercise bike, or when my back was sore from packing boxes. 

Holy Envy was read twice, because I needed to read it twice to really get the gist of what Barbara Brown Taylor was saying.  She manages to be accessible and deep and to subtly explore what we can learn from other's faith and traditions without either belittling them or ourselves, or falling prey to a kind of imperialism of belief.

Olive Kitteridge:  I had intended to reread this for a long time, not having liked it much the first time around.  I  still found it interminably sad.  A novel about the way we all hunger for intimacy and connection, but sometimes cannot allow ourselves to experience it.  I am glad to have reread it but will not read it again.

The Sense of an Ending:  This I loved.  That same sense of yearning for intimacy, but deftly explored.  A book that seems straightforward, but isn't.  Life as we assume it to be, as we remember it, how we perceive it, and the vagaries of memory.  You don't really the see the depth until the end, and then you wonder how you missed it all along.  Much like life, that -- if one is astute and observant.  Barnes pulls off magic here.

Two lives:  Linda Ronstadt's life in music with great insight into the process of making of music.  Stephanie Land's astute social commentary from a perspective different from a majority of its readers.  Maid pushes buttons, MANY buttons, alas.

 

June

June was moving month. 

Lee Child, Alafair Burke and George Simenon offered distraction and easy entertainment on the bike and off.

Rosalind Creasy's Edible Landscaping filled my head with dreams and ideas and helped me refine my own desires.

I found The Road to Character both fascinating and simultaneously frustrating due to sense of whinging about the book that bordered on off-putting. I came close to abandoning it.  With time, my feelings have softened because of the ways it has sparked connections between ideas in my head.

Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is an incredible, moving, and powerful novel.  I loved it even though it is often dark, often distressing.  Also tender.  The majority of the story takes place in India in 1975, during the time of the great emergency, but for all the despair and horror in this book there is also hope and transformation.  I emerged from reading it a different person than the one I had been going in.  I wish I had written about it. It is worth reading again, not in order to write, but because it has more depths to plumb.

 

July

I don't really know what happened in July; unpacking perhaps and light reading.

Ruth Reichl reminded me of a time and place and a magazine I loved.  Lidia Bastianich reminded me of my own path to becoming a cook and inspired me as I settled into a new kitchen.

The War of Art is about how we sabotage ourselves.  It is repetitive, annoying and, as an audiobook, an effective tool to be wielded when one needs a bit of a push.

I found the horses more interesting than the people in Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt. 

I am late to discovering Tana French, an author who seems to write murder mysteries that appeal to those who love literary fiction.  The Likeness is enjoyable and thought provoking read that explores the way the choices we make shape the people we become.

 

August

The month of escapism perhaps.  I was in the house, but not settled.  I may be paying the price now for the things I could have done but did not.  The books were good though.

Six Week Cure...  is a good summary of information in the Eades previous books, with notes, but I decided not to keep it on the shelves.  I like the links to primary sources.  It is not difficult.  I have no idea if the diet works as I haven't attempted it.

Salt, Sugar, Fat is a very good exploration of how corporate interests have altered the way we eat and imagine eating.  Not necessarily a good study of the implications therein, but there are other books for that.

My Sister the Serial Killer captured my attention from the beginning and held it with smartly written spare prose which walks the perfect line, keeping the poignancy and absurdity in check, while simultaneously hiding and revealing. There is a lot of depth here, but it sneaks up on one from behind.

I read Where'd You Go Bernadette simply because I saw a trailer for the movie. It was a thoroughly enjoyable light read and the author uses humor and satire well in describing the absurdities of modern life as well as our lack of tolerance. Actually the aspect of this novel I enjoyed the most may be the way the author portrays the tyranny of those without imagination. I decided the movie would probably bore me and so haven't seen it.

I got through Nine Perfect Strangers on the bike, but wouldn't read it otherwise.  Average.

I couldn't ride the bike reading Where the Crawdads Sing.  The nature writing was too poetically beautiful.  I enjoyed the novel, although it verged into sappy sentimentalism at times.  This suited the story however so I can't consider it a flaw. 

David Graeber's Debt is one of the most intellectually enjoyable and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time.  Graeber encourages the reader to ask questions, to get beyond the blinders of one's own mind-set.  You might not agree with him about everything, nor should you, but he will make you think.

Two books about art:  Rackstraw Down's In Relation to the Whole, and Mary Gabriel's Ninth Street Women, which isn't so much about art as the artists and the cultural changes that shaped an art movement, have continued to crop up in my thoughts and understandings.  Both are important because they have helped me to see in new ways.

 

Finis.

 

 

Monday Miscellany

A few highlights, diversions and meandering thoughts from last week...

Radish Greens Soup

I had purchased radishes, as much for their beautiful greens as for the radishes themselves at the farmer's market the Saturday before I burned my hand, and since I did not want those gorgeous greens to go to waste I managed to make soup, despite the burn, although it was a more time-consuming process than I might usually expect.  I was using Béatrice Peltre's recipe from My French Family Table, which I had used a year and half ago, before the book was packed away.  That first time I had noted that the soup was too redolent of potato for me, and needed more onion and so this time I halved the potato and added a leek to the shallot that was called for in the recipe, mostly because I had a leek on hand.  I also sweated the leek, shallot, and celery slowly over very low heat, rather than sautéing them over medium heat as directed.  Although I probably did not need to, I used homemade chicken stock in the soup, and given that I tend to make a rich bone-broth-type of stock, my final soup is really more of a green chicken soup than was intended.  I probably didn't need the chicken stock at all, of perhaps only one cup of stock and three cups of water.  The soup was delicious though, and a good thing to have on hand.

 

Downton Abbey

It will come as no surprise that I loved Downton Abbey and am ready to see it again anytime.  I loved the series after all.  Perhaps my mom would like to go see it, although I've had difficulty getting her out to movies in the recent past.  At the same time perhaps my affection is surprising given that, aside from British literature, I am not an anglophile and care not a flip for the hoopla over royal weddings and babies, but there you are.  I am nothing if not inconsistent, and although I love the costumes, I also love the story lines, and the idea of fine acting around smaller themes, the idea that one can float ideas without blowing things up, that one can participate in a system even while knowing it is doomed.  Perhaps I just grow tired of darkness and harshness.  Perhaps I too just want to look at a pretty dress and smile, relish the witty asides and 15-second references to all too human foibles, perhaps even a hint of nostalgia for something I am well aware was never really the way we imagine it have been.

 

Garden

General planting and landscaping is delayed by the continued heat and drought, the good news being that although I am surrounded by clay and dirt, at least I am not surrounded by mud.  Nonetheless I was thrilled to look outside and see the that the two remaining lace cap hydrangeas are showing signs of budding. I shall enjoy the flowers and hope that this is not an all-out last ditch attempt at replicating themselves before giving up the ghost.  Perhaps it is part of my concerted effort to water the existing shrubs, running slow trickles around the few surviving specimens, for long hours, hoping that the water will be absorbed rather than running off.  I wonder that even this may not be enough, wonder if my attempts at watering are actually helping or prolonging the agony, although I take comfort in the fact that the plants that once looked peaked and weary seem to have perked up a good bit.  Perhaps this is all worth the call from KUB informing me that my water usage has been high... yes, I know.  If I had to give up showering in order to water the plants I would do so.  I am tired of losing things, not that my own feelings will affect the outcome in any way.  I only hope it is enough to keep everything going while I run off to Texas.  I will have contractors in the house, but I can't expect them to water the garden.

 

The Planets

The symphony season opened Thursday with a performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets, which was accompanied by a video presentation of images compiled and collated from NASA.  Admittedly I had mixed feelings going in, but felt it worked beautifully, the powerful images mostly playing well with the music and riffing off cultural references (such as Star Wars) that probably 80% of the audience, if not more, was simultaneously running through their heads.  The concert hall was almost full on Thursday, when I went, and apparently sold out on Friday, and the music was powerfully and beautifully performed.

 

And despite all that, perhaps as much because of the pictures as due to the fact that I know the music so well, my mind did wander a little bit. Mostly I was thinking of the music and it's cultural associations, and not just because of Star Wars, and other film and television references.  Themes and ideas from the Planets show up in religious music, school songs, popular music, so many places.  And of course this is not unique to Holst.  I always think that there is a world of educational opportunity out there, that although we have lost a certain degree of musical literacy, much of this strong tradition exists in our cultural memory, although it may be hidden and not overtly recognized.  Much the same can be said for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, early polyphony.... but during the performance of the Holst, I was thrilling to the music and imagining the possibilities of uniting the world, the music of Holst, and Star Wars, Christian Hymns, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath all running through my head.  The music has its own weight and presence, but all experience builds on previous experience, and a performance is never just itself, but always this fusion of all that has come before it with al that is happening in the present.  A fine evening.

Science in Motion

The same evening that I attended the symphony I also went to an opening reception for a new exhibit at the McClung museum of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbot and Harold Edgerton.  The exhibit was lovely and well worth attending.  I was already familiar with most of the work by Muybridge and Abbot, less familiar with Edgerton, although some of the images are very well known.  I found myself as fascinated by reading about the techniques and processes as in viewing the images themselves, thinking about the intersection of art and science, and the radical changes that the world has seen in the past 100 to 150 years. I was also taken with the camera cookies, even though I couldn't eat a one of them.  

 

 

Break Time

 

The fountain by the small back patio is up and running, for the first time since I moved into this house.  Already, I feel its calming vibes.

 

But you can expect a blog break, beginning today.  Yesterday I burnt my right index finger, picking up a roasted eggplant by the stem.  The eggplant itself had cooled; the stem had apparently been transformed into a still-burning piece of woody charcoal.  I should have known better.  Now I do.

Above is a picture of my index finger, all bandaged.  Yes it is dirty.  Friends drove me out to an Azalea nursery in Sevierville, where I purchased 17 azaleas, some of them good sized.  I purchased 7 evergreens and 10 natives,  6 varieties in all.  Despite the fact that I was trying to be careful, and I can't really do much with my right hand, certainly not with that index finger, the bandage did get dirty looking for tags on plants.   It is OK, I was due for a cleaning and bandage change anyway, and my finger remained clean.

 

There are things one never things about until forced to do so, the importance of the index finger is one of those things.  I can still walk and go to the gym. Salman Rushdie's new novel is waiting for me on the sofa.  I may not manage to vacuum the floors.

 

And now that is all I can type for today.  I won't tell you how long this brief post took. Have a good week and I will be back soon.

Weekend

Last night was spent with my favorite grandson, celebrating his 13th birthday and a lovely evening was had by all, with the exception perhaps of a certain one-year old grand puppy who was frustrated that all the people were having fun together and that he was not included.  How can grandma come over, after all, and not include her grand-puppy in the festivities?  

And this morning I was there at the Farmer's market bright and early, before one of the stands I tend to like to frequent even opened.  In fact it was not open both times that I walked by, but there were plenty of other opportunities. I love spending early Saturday mornings at the farmer's market, when there is a full selection of produce, but mostly because there is time, time to wander amongst the stands,  time to account for what you see, to make mental notes, to create fantasy dishes and menus, and to dream of what I might want to eat, might want to cook before heading back for a second round and settling into the business of actually shopping.

As I wandered back to my car, laden with two heavy bags I wondered if perhaps I had perhaps over-indulged.  I always start with a list, I try to think while I shop, but I still occasionally get carried away and today I was rearranging my menus in my head as I walked back to the car.  But as I was thinking about these small personal things I was also watching people at the market,  wondering about my own excesses and also the simple pleasures of life, time with family, walking the dog, and a certain amount of focus on the personal and the small, as opposed to the outside world, knowing full well that we were all there, in downtown Knoxville, the morning before a football game, each in our own bubbles, some in bright orange bubbles, planning on a day celebrating a football game, me thinking of soup and homemade sriracha, perhaps some time curled up with a book, bumping up against each other, every bubble as worthy as any other.

And so it seems it has been a good Saturday, playing in the kitchen, taking a nap, reading the score and libretto to the fabulous opera performance I attended Thursday night, the US premier of City of Ashes by Evan Fein, with libretto by Knoxvillian Emily Anderson.  In fact, I had read the libretto several times before attending the opera, and I wish I had had access to the score before the performance as well.  But perhaps then, I would have known too much.  Sometimes it is enough to be surprised by something new, to be carried away in the moment.

 

In fact, although I might have wished I could see the opera again the second night, I would have missed that 13th birthday for anything. I would not have missed wandering through the farmer's market.  I would not miss curling up on the sofa with a book or a score or some knitting.  I recognize that all of this is part of the process of settling back into my life, a small life really, a life shaped by my birth and race and education and fortunes in the world, but my life still.  

 

 

 

 

Inside, Outside, InsideOut

 

Sunset at the Knoxville Museum of Art, the evening light reflecting on Richard Jolley's Cycle of Life.  I was at the museum for a fund-raising event and the way the light reflected on the glass, particularly the light passing through the two pieces of the final stage, Contemplation, really stuck in my head that particular evening, seeming to draw attention to both inner and outer light, the balance, or lack of it that illuminates our humanity, needing both the interior and the exterior stimuli to feed our creativity and wholeness of self.  As I enjoyed the evening, caught up in that externally extroverted sense of social hubbub, I was reminded of this inner light, and the way it sustains us, sometimes glowing from within, other times hidden.

 

The social season has begun again and the next two weeks will be filled with music and art, some literature, another play, as well as social interaction.  I am reminded of how the external or the social also feeds our creativity, or at least, my own creativity --  reminded  that as much as I need the interior, and feel stressed and drawn when time for necessary quiet is not available, the same can be said for the social aspect of life as well.  I need both for balance, and wonder if perhaps the summer was, in itself, perhaps a bit too isolating, a bit too deeply mired in the internal slough of excess introspection.  

 

Or perhaps this is simply the story I tell myself.  It increasingly seems to me that as much as well need our stories, both personal and cultural, in order to find our own place in the world,  those same stories also have a tendency to mask truth, which always requires communication and a meeting of perspectives.  As soon as one claims some hold on truth, "my truth", one is already on a slippery slope. 

 

 

And yet I continue to feel unsettled, both exuberant, this sense of buzz and excitement fed by the social milieu, while simultaneously feeling overwhelmed.  Like Tikka when she wanders around in circles, pawing at the carpet or a chair cushion trying to make just the right spot to settle in comfortably, I feel like I've not yet found that comfortable place where the inner and he outer can meet.

 

Look at this photo above, of a painting by Karla Wozniak called Synchronous Fireflies in the Knoxville Museum.  I was at the museum again yesterday for another event, and I took this photo with an entirely different narrative in mind from the one in which I find myself this morning.  I love the exuberance of the painting, the sense of light, of motion and also lushness.  It. reminds me of the giddy interaction of social setting, of surprise connections, of this dance  of interconnectedness.  And yet the lushness, and perhaps this is just the way I am looking at this painting this morning, also holds a hint of danger. It reminds me of how light and perception can change, and the way something that can seem lush, rich, and exuberant in one moment can be transformed in an instant, suddenly becoming dark, dangerous, and overwhelming.

 

I am reminded of when I first moved to New York state from Texas, of the way I was enamored of the tall trees and the lush sense of greenness, but how at certain times in my yard, in the flush of rain and humidity and summer heat, I would dream that I was being devoured by that very excessive growth.  I still feel that way sometimes in Tennessee, although not particularly this summer with my flat brown yard, which bare as it is, also holds a comforting sense of promise.  And yet there is still that sense of celebration combined with the fear, (is it fear?) of being overwhelmed, of going too far in one direction or the other.  And I wonder if this very feeling is something shared by others, or if I am just being presumptuous, attempting to project my own mistruth onto the world.  I wonder if I am obsessing over "my story" or if there is some connection there to something more human and universal.

 

The flash of the fireflies, the light of the painting reminds me of how social interaction sparks creativity and pulls me out of the overgrowth, the strangling vines and deep much of self-indulgent introspection.

 

Two other pictures, also viewed yesterday, reminded me of the opposite extreme, at least for me.  The photo above if of a print made from the cancelled plate of an engraving by Lester George Hornby called London Bridge.  The crosshatched marks are added to the plate to prevent further prints from being made and passed off as originals.  But I also find it interesting in and of itself.  The pattern of the crosshatching seems to me to add a sense of distance, and even disengagement from the view seen in the print, as if one is standing behind a window with heavy leaded panes looking at the world.  For me, this is the danger of too much extroversion, too much social engagement without the requisite private interior time.  I feel like a fly trapped in some sticky surface atop the glass, unable to fully become a part of the scene, present but disengaged.

 

Here is the official print.  Notice how we are much more deeply drawn in here, much more a part of the scene.  I look at this print and feel palpably drawn into this world, into the detail.  This print engenders a sense of connection, as opposed to the sense of separation in the previous print.  Perhaps this is what I am trying to articulate, the struggle to find the balance that is needed in order to live in this world, to function on a daily basis in a world that is basically imposed upon me both externally and by my own psyche, and the ability to look beyond that, to be neither mired in the mud or trapped on the surface, to create the life I want, a life that in the end requires that I look beyond myself and into the whole of the community, a communion, in a sense, with the world.

 

 

Little bits of Life

A spice order arrived from World Spice yesterday and as I unpacked the box and then filled jars and grinders, the entire kitchen was filled with the aroma of spices.  I felt like I was in some exotic spice market and the experience followed me throughout the day, the aroma of spice a part of my skin.  Appropriate then that I was reading Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, where memories often begin with recollections of evocative scents or tastes. Shafak's prose often captures an almost poetically sensory sense of place and time that can feel palpable to the reader.  

I really only filled the tall salt grinder, the matching pepper grinder had already been filled as Tellicherry peppercorns were one of the very few spices I replaced before moving.  In fact, I should have ordered spices earlier,  and it was only as I was setting the table for a dinner party that I realized I did not have salt for the table.   I managed to put out small cellars with Maldon flakes but although I am happy with fingers in bowls of salt, not everyone shares this predilection.  But now the grinder is filled with chunks of Himalayan pink salt, oh I know, how trendy of me, and I concocted a blend of six peppers for the smaller funky-looking grinder.

 

I actually bought that grinder just so I could fill it with mixed peppers.  I didn't need it but somehow its weird almost alien looks drew me in. I can't say it is beautiful and yet it is in an odd beautiful-ugly sort of way.  I like that It is made of local seed pods.  I actually like that its strangeness draws attention to itself.  Perhaps I just like it because it is unexpected.

 

And while I am thinking about scent and sensory stimuli, I am reminded that the scent in the air changed a couple of weeks ago.  It is still hot, too hot to plant in my yard, and I don't think the sprinkler system is fully in yet, or if it is, no one has told me how to use it.  But the air now has a subtle scent of autumn about it, a whiff of dust and decay, most apparent in the hours around dusk and dawn.  This morning also, my toes were cold.  That is probably more about me than the actual weather.  The house is the same temperature it has been, but somehow my body is sensing the shift, and whereas a cold floor was deliciously soothing in the summer, it is now becoming chill.  I needed new slippers in the spring but delayed purchasing them until after the move.  It is now time and so slipper-buying will be added to today's list.

 

I can't say that I am really settled yet.  I still feel like I am in a somewhat transitional space although I admit that this may be primarily because the yard remains so unfinished.  I don't expel it to feel finished anytime soon as I have deliberately decided to only put in certain areas or larger items now.  I want the garden to evolve over time, and yet at the moment perhaps it remains a little too bare. Or perhaps it is all just in my head.  I am unpacked but I feel like I am standing on an empty set.

Not a set like the set for Million Dollar Quartet, which I saw at the Clarence Brown Theater last week.  It was a fabulous show and a fun evening.  The actors were incredibly talented and good, but I felt the show worked better as an event, something like musical entertainment, than it worked as an actual play exploring that particular moment in the development of Sun Records. But that may just be me -- I always want something to think about, I always want discovery and meaning.  It is likely that my brain looks for it, refuses to take the passive, easy, way out.  I felt there could have been, perhaps should have been, more of a story to be told even thought the characters themselves, the relationships between them and the music was fabulous. 

 

Perhaps it is just a symptom of my own pensive state of mind, but this exploration of the early days of rock reminds me of the cultural shift that had started over a decade previously, a shift sparked by the horrors of WWII and the changing of the American cultural landscape that it sparked.  Rock wasn't really something radically new, but merely a specific symbol of a change already well under way, even though it may not have been visible as such at that particular time.

 

I wonder if we are  in the midst of another shift....

 

 

Meanderings

I experiences a bit of a petulant moment on Saturday as I was out shopping, whinging to myself, quietly, under my breath, about why there was only one store in Knoxville I could count on for having Belgian endive in stock (or escarole for that matter).  Both are vegetables that I would consume regularly, perhaps weekly, if they were widely available.  But, as is usually always the case with these small annoyances in life, the situation is as much about ourselves as it is about the situation itself.  Of course my formative adult years, ie. my formative cooking years, occurred in the Hudson Valley where both escarole and Belgian endive were indeed widely available in most grocery stores.  It was a different time and place, with a different population, holding different expectations.  It is on me, when moving, to realize that expectations and norms are different in different spaces.  I should be grateful that I can find Belgian endive, and that the store in question is on my list of preferred stores (following last spring's spreadsheet comparison).  I do in fact know where to go to get the things I want, and there are in fact probably many things in the store that are considered essential in this region, things that I never buy. In the end, it seems it is all about how one looks at the world, and how willing one is to adapt.  And therefore I musk ask myself:  Why whinge?

(chilled tomato soup with an endive and shiitake salad, a soup I've been making for over 20 years)

 

Of course I live in an age that celebrates the individual, which has not been the case for most of human history.  I am not always convinced that this is the best course.  Not that I don't believe that all people should be treated fairly and with dignity, but because I doubt that a society can successfully survive on individuality without developing a class of winners and a class of losers, or in fact whether even a person can live life solely based on his or her own desires without hurting others in the process, even inadvertently.  Then I move on from there, thinking that we are not really living self-actualized individual lives at all.  That each of us is a slave in one sense or another to this vision of society and culture, and that there is no way for some people to make it to the top without forcing other people to be on the bottom.

 

Oh dear, this is not at all where I thought I was going with post this morning.  And yet here I am.  

 

I realize the precariousness of my position because my life, and the very things I waste energy fretting over (endive?, landscapers?), where and how I live, are all a part of this same view of society that I am currently questioning, and I am unquestioningly not on the bottom of the heap.  And so it seems I must hold my own good-fortune lightly, recognizing that were it all to disappear tomorrow, both the gain and the loss would be but a blip on the course of human history, and in fact should have nothing to do with the joy and purpose to be found in human life.  Perhaps even my insistence on endive is a failure to adapt, an insistence that the past, my past, was somehow superior to the present, a dogged persistence in holding the ideals of the individual over all the rest.

 

Oh there is the rub.  But how did I even get into this reflective state of mind?  Blame it on books, because a lifetime of reading has shaped me, both fiction and non-fiction.  Fiction makes us more empathetic, more human (and yes people have studied this); non-fiction forces us to think about the world in new ways.  And the books I have just read, both non-fiction, have put me in a questioning mood.  But to blame my own inclinations solely on books is also misleading -- there is truth there of course, but such a simplistic explanation is acceptable only to a fool. Of course books alone do not make the person, so do our environment and the people we encounter, both willingly and unwillingly, but books force us to perhaps look outside ourselves, to open ourselves up to greater encounters with others. Although l cannot blame books entirely for who I am and how I think, they play a role.

 

 Perhaps this is why books are so often banned?  Thinking truly can be subversive, the ability to look outside of one's self and one's circumstances revolutionary.  Or madness......  Or adulthood. Who was it that said the difference between looking at the world as a child and as an adult is the ability to step outside of one's milieu and self and look upon the self as if an outsider?  But that too is revolutionary because the path of self-actualization of seeing the self as it truly is also means letting go of the idea that the world can revolve around one's own needs. The life of self-gratification is the life of a child.

 

Admittedly one of the books I have been reading, Debt, by David Graeber has perhaps provoked some of my more radical questionings, but I do not think radical questioning of one's basic assumptions is such a bad thing.  Debt, has, in fact, been one of the most intellectually stimulating, enjoyable, and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time.  It is not so much an economics text as it is a study of the history of debt as in idea, both economic and moral or cultural, and Graeber is best when he looks at the historical and anthropological record and pulls big themes and ideas together. He gets a lot right, but he is also sometimes a little loose with the details.  I am not convinced that is important here as the aim seems to be to provoke and challenge the reader to think and perhaps stand up on his or her own opinions.  I certainly don't agree with everything, but I do agree with some of what Graeber says and he has made me think and reconsider many a treasured bias, which proves useful even if I return full-circle to my previous position, now more fully informed.  I think it is a book everyone should read, but which most people won't read, as it is too full of philosophy, history, and just plain old challenging and upsetting ideas.

 

The other book is in many ways less challenging but still thought provoking.  It is not so much a book about nutrition as a book about the way corporations and the drive to constantly increase corporate profits have reshaped the way we eat and even the way we think about and crave food.  This is not necessarily to our benefit, or to the earth's although Moss doesn't go into that in detail.   He does talk about how sugar specifically, and the combination of sugar, salt and fat are used to create desire, and to change the nature of what and how we eat, of the very way we experience and think about food, and this is sobering.  And he discusses how a drive to increase corporate profits has lead to the way we eat today, across all fields, not just prepared food although that is increasingly the bulk of what we eat, but also dairy and even meat production.  He doesn't really go into the implications, or the way the corporatization of food has altered the environment in ways that we, willing sheep that we appear to be, have allowed because we assume that this is the way things are and must be.  

 

I suppose I am channelling a bit of Graeber here but also my own natural inclination to question everything even if I don't find answers right away.  Graeber tells us that we aren't asking the right questions.  Moss as well, although not as explicitly.  He shows us a problem and leaves it up to us to decided if we want to ask those tough questions or not.  As for me, as I stated I have long thought that our ability to question is one of our greatest strengths.  I also tend to think there our choices are rarely binary.  If we see the world as black or white, yes or no, this or that, or even this is the way it has always been and anything else is chaos...... then, I've long been with Graeber -- we are asking the wrong questions.