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Visible

Issues of visibility have been weighing on my mind a lot lately. Partly this was due to my continued absense from this blog, but partly it was the seemingly endless weeks of wearing shorts or chinos and loose tees or my husbands old shirts as I cleaned out attics and basements, oiled paneling, painted, sorted and cleaned putting the house on the market. I felt like a nameless, faceless drudge, and although I told myself that the end result would be worth it, there were days that I truly felt invisible.

But of course there were exceptions. I did leave the house and I did dress, although it is also true that I was letting parts of myself go into hibernation. I also cannot deny that a certain creative impulse was satisfied as I moved around pieces of our accumulated life together, trying to fit them into a specific vision of the house that I wanted to sell.

And yet, shallow as it may be, when we finally put the house on the market I felt a certain palpable relief at being able, finally, to dress as I pleased, not according to the dictates of paint and bleach and other nasty stuff. Not that dressing as I pleased lead to a seismic shift in personal style. I don't work outside the home other than teaching an occasional knitting class, a field not known for requiring strict adherence to a corporate dress code, so jeans tend to be the staple of my fall wardrobe. and often, in the fall and winter, those jeans are worn with boots.

This is what I wore the photos were taken of my house last week. The morning started out rainy so the boots are rain boots by Aquatalia. With the boots I wore DKNY Soho bootcut jeans, a black turtleneck by Spanx (which I love not for its supposed figure flattery but because the wrists and neck do not sag and bag, remaining close fitting throughout the day without feelig constricting) and Teasel, a linen, wool and alpaca sweater I finished knitting in June. I love wearing things I made myself, but I am especially happy when one of those hand-made items gets incorporated into my wardrobe in a way that lives up to the my original vision. Even though you probably can't tell from this picture, I felt sleek and strong and pulled together. I felt ready to stride purposefully into the future. I felt visible, but not just visible, fully myself.

Last week I learned about Visible Monday and seeing as how this is the week I have come out of hibernation it only seems fitting that I should join in the Visible Monday brigade. You can find links to other particpants in today's post at Not Yet Dead Style. Check it out.

October 10, 2011
Pulling My Head Out of the Sand

I never intended to disappear. And yet for a while I did, if not from reality, at least from the virtual version of reality as it shows up on the internet. In some ways this was good as I was quite busy and the time gained helped me focus. And that time was time was well spent.

But it wasn't really the busy intervention of life that kept me away, at least not at first, but a head-slamming encounter with the kind of nastiness that swirls around the currents of the interwebs. By the time I dealt with the issue and my own feelings, life had indeed intervened, and I was swept up in other tasks.

But I'm back, perhaps in some ways more open and more connected to my own voice, my own thoughts, and actually less interested in what other people think. For that I have to say "thank you" to the trolls. It seems that I have spent most of my life worrying about what other people think, worrying if I am doing the right thing, saying the right thing, trying to look right, trying to be right, trying to maintain the peace and avoid conflict at all costs. Especially trying to avoid conflicts. And it struck me that all that effort trying to avoid conflict, trying to do the right thing, trying to be nice, was for naught. I'm not going to go into all the nastiness, because really what is the point? We all get our share of it. Hopefully it never crosses the line from our internet lives to our "real" lives, but it can. I now know that from personal experience. Despite this, I am still here.

Consider this blog active once again.

In the intervening time a few things have happened:

1. My House is on the market.

2.There has been some sewing and some knitting. These projects may or may not appear on this blog, depending on my whims.

And a few decisions have been made, namely that this is my blog and I am not particularly interested in pursuing a narrow focus or in any kind of move toward having a presence or branding. It is what it is and I hope you continue to follow, but in the end I shall write what I feel like writing. This blog is my space apart from the pressures, conventions, and tyrranies of expectation.

There will be knitting.

There will be sewing.

Some of the knitting or sewing will be new garments, but some of it may also address alterations or refashioning of garments as well. I am not and never will be interested in sewing all of my clothes and I honestly don't mind alterations. In fact I've learned more about garment construction from altering high-end ready to wear than from any number of sewing books and classes. I don't expect clothes to fit perfectly off the rack (no one should) and I don't expect patterns to fit perfectly either. This leaves room for exploration.

In my mind, wearing and creating are completely different processes. Posts about things I make will be about the thing and the making. Posts about what I wore will be about the wearing and the reasons behind the wearing. I refuse to submit to the tyrrany espoused by some, but by no means all, in the sewing and knitting communities that garments must be shown as they are worn on a person.

There will, of course, be books and music. I am no critic. I am increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of criticism per se, and of ratings systems. Writing about books and music will be about what said books or music meant to me and will therefore be highly subjective and personal.

And of course, I will write about whatever else lodges in my mind and refuses to budge until I have beaten it into submission under a pile of words. This is after all my blog, my journal, my place. Hopefully that place will be a calm place. Athough I might occasionally vent, I hope to do so in a reasonable way. I expect that my readers will do the same. Different opinions and constructive criticism are welcome if they are offered with civility and at least a nod to keeping an open mind. Comments remain open; however, those who persistently violate the tenets of civil discourse will be banned.

October 9, 2011
Small Joys

Although living with someone with severe short term memory loss can at times be trying, there are also moments of pure joy as you watch this same person rediscover the world on a daily basis.

This morning at breakfast, G took a bite of his eggs with smoked salmon, capers, and tomatoes and looked up, eyes sparkling with joy. "This is wonderful" he said, his voice filled with awe at having made a fabulous new discovery. No matter that he has had the same breakfast once a week for the past 36 weeks.

These are the moments to treasure.

August 16, 2011
Before or After?

As I sat at the table this morning, savoring those few moments when the house remained at rest and all was quiet, I realized that mid-August has crept upon me far too quickly, and I have been far too laid-back in my approach to reaching a few goals concerning this house and the planned move to another. It is probably a good thing that I always worked well under a deadline. Once again, however, I may be scarce, or not.

I did however, clear my mind of all the things I had missed writing about, that I intended to share but didn't quite manage. The past is the past and I shall not dredge it up except as if plays a role in the present or the immediate future. And this in itself is liberating.

But of course the past cannot be completely forgotten. For example, when I went down to Knoxville a few weeks ago, I took a book to read on the plane. I looked at other books in the airport at Newark but did not buy anything, assuming, incorrecctly, that I could buy a book at the Knoxville airport should the need arise. This proved to be a mistake because the book I took was not long enough to get me through two 2-hour flights plus a 1 hour delay, and I was left with over an hour to kill in flight with nothing to read.

But what was that book? And how does it affect the present? The book was The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I forgot that it follows Oryx and Crake, which I had not read. This didn't particularly bother me. I loved the book and felt it worked well on its own, although I did pick up on the presence of Oryx and Crake in the background, and Jimmy/Snowman, who I didn't even realize was a character in the former book. But I did realize that it might serve me well to read Oryx and Crake and then perhaps reread The Year of The Flood.

Of course the problem is that I can never go back to The Year of the Flood and read it as if I hadn't read it first. And I am no longer looking at Oryx and Crake with unjaundiced eyes. Rather than seeing Flood as the story of minor characters in Oryx, I immediately recognize characters that were minor in Flood, and think of this as fleshing out a different story. How we read a book depends heavily on what we have read before and how our own experiences and life affects the way we react to the words on the page. Although I try to read each book separately, without comparison to other works, a work that is written in a series necessarily makes this more difficult. Reading the work outside of the order in which it was written or intended can completely change the perception of the thing.

I am not far into Oryx and Crake at this point, having started it only last night. But I can already see that I am going to be looking at a world from two overlapping but entirely different perspetives, and I am intrigued. In many ways this is a gift, an opportunity to explore two views of the same world, in an order that I would not have encountered had I kept up with my reading list. It is rare that we are able to remind ourselves that what we see is only a fragment of reality viewed through a broken lens. As I see this now, these stolen moments of reading over the next few weeks promise a rich reward, perhaps made richer than they would have been had I started reading the books in the intended order.

August 15, 2011
Knitting the colors of the September Garden

I went through a period of non-knitting, or more exactly, rather reluctant knitting last month. Mostly we just had houseguests and I was feeling overwhelmed and all too easily slipped into a semi-stupor in the evenings.

That has changed. I am entranced with my current knitting project, a cardigan, purchased as a kit from L'atelier in 2008. The back consists of a simple stripe sequence.

I love the colors and the squence of the stripes in the top photo. They make me happy. This is my variation on the original however. The kit came with the black yarn shown in the second photo and I did not like it at all. I found the black far too demanding a partner with the more muted blues and greens so I ripped it back and banished that yarn. Luckily I had a couple of skeins of the glittery red left over from some ancient project. Of course, this completely changes the spirit of the knitted fabric.

As I look at the photos I see that the black really isn't as bad as my reaction warranted, but I respect my reaction. These colors, with less contrast make me much happier and I look forward to knitting time sitting next to G in the evenings. Hopefully by the time I finish this the weather will have turned a little cooler as well. And the reds make the sweater very autumn-appropriate. Whereas the original colorway was named "April Showers" I'm thinking of naming this something like "September Garden".

August 13, 2011
Cabinets and Flooring and Tiles, Oh My!

Two weeks ago today, I was in Knoxville. It was a quick trip. I left my house at 6 AM Wednesday morning and was back home 37 hours later.

I arrived at my meeting place early and thought I'd get an outfit photo, but no one was around in the parking lot so I perched the camera on the top of the car. Then my phone rang. So much for distance. Just as my phone call ended, my real estate agent pulled up so I sureptitiously scooped my camera into my purse.

We spent the afternoon picking flooring and cabinetry and countertops. Actually we spent the afternoon writing down all the options and talking to the builder, it didn't take me long to pick from the available options at all and I was determined to stick as closely to the standard options as possible. I didn't quite manage that, but I came acceptably close.

I picked a pretty granite called Sapphire Blue for the kitchen countertops, and I opted to use the same granite in the master bathroom. That was an upgrade. I manged to find a cultured marble I liked for the guest baths, but not the master, so I went with the granite.

It quickly became apparent that we were going to have to go to tile showroom to pick the tiles as they only had a couple of options at the model and none of them were acceptable. I had hoped we would be able to do it all Wednesday, but it was not to be as the person we needed to meet at the tile showroom couldn't meet with us until Thursday morning.

I had really wanted to go to my favorite museum on Thursday morning and see an exhibit that was about to close but that was no longer possible. Luckily by the time we got back to the office and I retrieved my car, it was only a little after 4 PM. I figured I had just barely enough time to drive to downtown Knoxville and get into the museum before they closed at 5. I got lost, but I still made it.

I didn't have much time but I managed to see the exhibit I was looking for as well as take a quick turn around, not enough time to slowly absorb and commune with the works, but enough time to savor minute moments. This piece, made of mylar, foam core board, intaglio etching, and graphite by Crystal Wagner, a part of the permanent collection, really captivated me as it seemed to hint at the spirit of the imagination and the boundaries between the "real" and fantasy, reminding me of the magic that can be found when we allow ourselves to dream and transcend the everyday, that it is possible to be both in the world and apart from it.

And then, it was done. The museum was closing. I was on my own again alone in the parking lot. No one would be home yet at my step-daughter's house so I had some time. I thought I would try the camera on the roof of the car trick again. I was not particularly successful. The sun was so bright I couldn't tell when the camera was about to go off. I was so wired I couldn't stand still. Actually I kind of like this photo, it captures the feeling of the entire trip, a little dizzy but fun.

Thursday morning we went to the tile showroom. Once again I knew right away exactly what I wanted. Once again it took longer to write everything down and work out the details than it did to make the actual choices. And a good thing that because I just barely had time to grab a bite of lunch and head back to the airport.

I took photos to show G some of the selections I had made. So far, these photos are my only link to my new home. The first picture shows the cabinets that will be in both the kitchen and the master bathroom. Above the cabinet is the tile that will be used for the kitchen backsplash and the tub surround in the master bath. I thought I had taken a photo of the tile next to the granite as well, but apparently not. Below the cabinet is the master bath flooring. The kitchen floors will be wood.

This second photo shows the tile I chose for the fireplace surround in the living room. This isolated image is the only concrete thing in that living room as it is the one space that remains completely shrouded in my imagination, a space undefined until I can at least see some floor plans and get my mental bearings.

August 10, 2011
The View from the Kitchen Sink

On Saturday, Lisa posted photos of the view out the window from her kitchen sink and I was entranced by her lovely gardens, her flowers, and the connections she made. Of course she was responding to yet other posts extoling the virtues of views from kitchen windows, but I have not yet visited those posts.

I've shown you the view from my kitchen window before, but here is this year's version. It is a little bit overgrown. I've been rather lax about weeding as my mind has already moved forward onto the preparing for what comes next; weeding isn't really on my horizon at the moment. Of course I am cognizant that once I am ready to put this house on the market a massive prepping of the garden will be required. Besides, I like to tell myself that the weeds meet a need, providing shade and shelter to more delicate plants in this summer of unwelcome heat.

Standing at my sink this morning I realized that I will only be gazing on this view a few more months and I shall miss it. I shall miss seeing the deer on the lawn in the evening despite the fact that there have many times when I have run out the front door shooing them away from from some flower or another. I shall miss the early morning parade of the turkeys with their brood of little chicks. The guard turkey always sits up high in the pine at the upper left corner of the photo, and if I wander out the door without having checked on their presence first, he lets out a frantic call and the turkeys scatter quickly, often before I even get the door completely closed behind me. I will miss watching the rabbits and the woodchucks and the cavorting of the chipmunks on the stone walls.

All of this thinking about kitchen windows reminds me that there will be no kitchen window in my new house. If there were I would only get a view of the neighbor's kitchen window a few feet away, and the thought of looking out the window into the eyes of another person standing at their own kitchen sink already makes me shiver just a bit. Perhaps no window is better. I don't quite know how I will adapt to that yet. I do know that when I am standing at that sink my back will be turned to the long open space consisting of the dining room, the sun room and the screened porch. Perhaps I will put a mirror up on the wall above the sink so that I can be simultaneously looking forward and backward. Or is it backward and forward?

August 8, 2011
A Brief Pause

It has only been a week, well, a little over a week and I feel like it has been almost a lifetime since I last posted.

Last week was both full to bursting and quiet all at the same time. My step-son and his wife were visiting and we had a lovely visit both joyous and sad as they realized that it may well be the last time they visit us in the Hudson Valley. And this was sad for us as well, as we reminisced about shared history. Even knowing this the right thing for us now does not make the sadness of preparing to leave our home of 30 years fade away.

Among the good things was being able to spend time with my daughter-in-law, shopping, getting a pedicure, stopping for a mojito and just chatting. These are activities that our visits here or there have rarely seemed to include time for, usually because visits have been too short, too packed with activities, too stressed. We dined out with friends. We also dined in, mostly for very casual meals. No fancy cooking marathons for me on this visit, perhaps I will save those for a future winter visit in our new home.

This simple lunch of smoked salmon rolled around arugula leaves and mascarpone cheese flavored with herbs and scallions was inspired by a recipe in Jody Adam's cookbook In the Hands of a Chef. I didn't have enough arugula to use as a salad we used fresh local spinach and sugar snap peas instead.

I also purchased a few things for myself on our shopping expeditions even as I told myself that I have enough to pack. Luckily the things I did buy have already become mainstays in my summer wardrobe. My new rule is that it gets worn or it goes back; no saving things for "better". I picked up this purple/periwinkle linen tank top on sale at a store in Rhinebeck. It is by a company called Flax, and I really like it as it is very cool and breezy, which has proved to be important this week as the combination of high temperatures and high humidity are pressing in all around.

The top is very simple and I think I can copy it easily. It is a nice length and shape and think it will become a kind of hot-weather basic, and possibly a layering piece if I play with fabrics. I am actually looking forward to replicating this, either when I get settled, or if I come across a tempting piece of linen while I pack, as a brief diversion and respite from summer heat and the trials of sorting, discarding, packing.

In the photo I am wearing the tank with NYDJ straight-leg white jeans, natural espadrilles, and a linen blend scarf which was purchased a few years ago from Banana Republic.

I wore the same outfit again early this week, except that I figured out the scarf looked better wrapped and draped around the neckline of the top, not just dangling down. I felt it needed something at the neck though, something small, and I fished this single blue pearl out of my box of things I rarely wear. Almost perfect.

When it comes to jewelry, I am attracted to statement pieces and the small pieces seem out of scale or not me. As a result it seems I have a box full of pieces that all scream "look at me" and hog all the attention. I am only just beginning to appreciate the subtle joys of those quieter pieces. I see that I could actually benefit from having a few things that can be mixed and worn together in different combinations. This is something I think I need to explore a little further.

July 21, 2011
Ch…Ch…Ch…Changes

I've been not particularly present on this blog the last month or so and that has partly because big changes have been afoot but had not yet been settled enough that I was at liberty to reveal the good news.

An opportunity presented itself and we have seized it with all four hands. Yesterday we signed contracts and committed to building our new home in a PUD (planned unit development) in Knoxville, Tennessee. We hope to be there by the end of the year, with an anticipated closing date, at this point, of mid-December. My mind is whirling with all the things that need to be done, and yet at the same time I am strangely calm, calmer than I have been in a while because I know this is the right decision at the right time.

I'll still be blogging, although I may be a bit erratic at times. I hope to do a bit of sewing, and of course a bit of knitting as well, although I will be taking my new sewing room down and returning it to its previous master-bedroom status soon. Everything I started, thinking I had time, is now in overdrive.

Right now I have family visiting (step-son and his wife) and I am stealing a moment to write this, but I hope you have patience with me while I drag you through even more transitions.

July 13, 2011
Celebrations, Contemplations and Wearing the new Skirt

As intended, I wore my new skirt on Tuesday for my 53rd birthday lunch, creating a new tradition in the process as is the second year I have made and worn a new birthday skirt. Although I had no intention of being repetitious, apparently I wore the same shirt with both skirts. Last year's look was a bit more sophisticated though. Oh well, I am thoroughly enjoying my new skirt, even though G commented that I was going for "peasant chic" when he saw me in the skirt with the flat sandals.

When I made the skirt I had a strong suspicion that it would go well with my birthday present from G, a pair of tourmaline earrings and a bracelet, not matching as they are made by different designers, but very similar in color and feel. The skirt also goes well with these favorite gladiator sandals, which I have had a few years. The coarseness of the fabric complements the raw leather of the sandals, which is good because although I love the sandals I have had trouble pairing them with outfits at times. I rather like the mixture of the pretty, feminine print with the coarser leather, and I am tickled that the colors of the skirt echo the colors of the daylilies I planted last fall.

This year I opted to go to lunch instead of dinner, partly because it makes the day seem more relaxed and I have that option since we are both retired, and partly because G is simply brighter in the afternoon. Once again we went to the Culinary, this time to the American Bounty Room, where we hadn't dined since we had lunch with Marji last fall.

I had the duck confit salad which was incredible, even without the crusted goat cheese, which unfortunately has gluten in the breading, followed by the salmon and smoked scallop roulade, which was lusciously light. The combination of the salmon and the scallops, at once tender and sweet with just a hint of smokiness and deeper flavors was perfectly offset by the lobster butter, and the most delicious artichokes I have ever eaten. They were simultaneously astringent and tart, and full of nutty, earthy artichoke flavor combined with a rich buttery intensity, perhaps from the lobster butter, that almost a symphony of complimentary flavors. I judiciously parceled my artichoke pieces around so that I could savor them slowly. I ended with the banana white chocolate creme brulee, which was just perfect, and only just sweet enough, not as overwhelmingly sweet as I had feared, despite the combination of often too-sweet white chocolate with sugary bananas.

G had the crab cakes to start and ended with the modern baked alaska, which is a lemon sponge cake topped with strawberry gelato and then baked with a meringue topping. I couldn't sample either but he raved about the dessert enough that I am seriously considering making a gluten-free version at home. For his main course he had the grilled smoked pork tenderloin which amazed me because although it had all the tenderness and silky texture that I associate with well prepared pork tenderloin, the flavor was rich and complicated and far more intense than I expected with that cut of meat, having all the flavor of a rich slow-braised, caramelized, fattier cut of pork, except wrapped in the tenderloin package. I would love to know how they did that.

While we were eating I was trying to pay attention to the flavors and enjoy the moment, but I was also thinking about how I would describe the meal, and thinking about all the food and travel blogs where people post photos of the delicious things they have eaten. I found myself thinking "how do they do that?", when of course, I know "how" they do it. They simply take photos. Just as I was thinking this, and thinking that I couldn't really bring myself to interrupt a lovely dining experience and conversation by pulling out my camera and photographing my plate, the food was brought out to a group two tables down from us. As soon as the waiters departed, the entire table stood up and pulled out their cameras and smart-phones and started snapping, playing musical chairs as they moved around the table photographing each other's plates. It seemed like a game and a dance. The flow of the restaurant was unchanged; no one seemed to notice. I probably would not have noticed had not been thinking about that very subject. But I still couldn't do it. Perhaps it is a generational thing like the tables of young people I see at otherwise fancy restaurants, interrupting their meals or their conversations to text.

And there you have it. At 53 I do not feel old although I acknowledge that I am on the tail-end of middle-age. And yet, I am old fashioned and out of date. The habits of the young sometimes seem completely foreign to me. I do not disparage them, I simply recognize that my views are becoming passé. I am not yet ready to give up my standards, nor am I willing to withdraw, but I also realize that everything changes, that time and culture marches on, and that the world will, inevitably, pass me by. I can interact with the world and continue learning, I can remain youthful in spirit, but I cannot become young. No matter how much I grow and change, the building blocks that form my perspective will never be the same as those that form the basis of this brave new world, just as the framework around which I built my life was foreign to the perspective of my own parents and grandparents. As I celebrate my birthday, so I celebrate being able to be a part of an ever-changing world.

July 8, 2011