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Standing in the Doorway, Perhaps Passing Through, Perhaps Still on the Threshold

It has been two weeks already since Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door opened at the Knoxville Museum of Art, part of a celebration of native son Beauford Delaney. I have been to the exhibit three times and still I feel like I haven’t seen it. I’ve looked but i haven’t seen.

Inevitably my eyes focus on a few paintings, the same few paintings that struck me initially that first viewing, the evening of the VIP preview reception. Of course I was unable to focus amidst the crowds and general hubbub. There were over 100 people in the rooms, and I would dash into one of the exhibition rooms, become overwhelmed by the energy in the paintings and drift back out to the reception, my nerves already tingling from the melee. And melee is the apt term here: The art vibrated at its own frequency, and usually I find the energy of a social setting exhausting in its own flow, but this night the energy of cocktail hour conversation seemed placid next to the vibration of the art, and what felt like almost clashing energies where art met social scene in the galleries. But perhaps I was simply too wired to my social self, and my quiet side needed to take in these paintings in peace. And, rare for me, I usually want at least a small opportunity to take in the works before listening to a curatorial discussion, I wished for some kind of talk about the works, something to focus my scattered attention. I find it overwhelming, and I struggle with my inability to absorb, my inability to focus or to articulate, although images of the art continue still to drift through my sleeping and waking mind.

I met the charming and fascinating Dr. Monique Y Wells, whose blog Les Amis de Beauford Delaney, I have since begun to read. Therein lies more information about Delaney and the exhibit and events in Knoxville. I actually did not speak to her as much as I would have liked. In my normal fashion, I flit at parties and am not good at striking up conversations with new people. I do occasionally regret this, my lack of small talk, that on-spark that might lead to further things. Instead I listen, and I flitter about. I dance around, occasionally looking for a place to land and what is, for me, the repose of a deeper conversation, but more often carried around on the energy of the evening. And as friends ask me, “did you meet X?” I sometimes regret my skittishness, my introspection combined with this restless social instinct and failure to connect on a broader scale, but I also realize that the key to this is something I consider essential to myself, and so I am content.

I returned to the exhibit two days later for a brief visit with the paintings. I had hoped to spend more time, but I found myself overwhelmed and unable to focus for more than a short period. I do wonder about that sometimes, my inability to spend time in museums, my short attention span and inability to focus, to absorb, to transform my thoughts and reactions into a coherent flow of words. Or perhaps I want to absorb too much, to crawl inside the painting and find my way out again, and each such experience drains me and I retreat. This act of articulation remains a problem. In fact it seems I look at art, perhaps in all its forms, music, painting, writing, in much the same way I go through parties. I flit and alight to stay and absorb something. I miss much, but occasionally I see something.

Of course we are all that way. What we see isn’t really so much about where we are or even what we are looking at, but about us, about how openly we are able to engage, and then about our own personal histories with all their biases and vulnerabilities. What art does of course, is strip all that away and cut to something deeply essential beneath the layers we have padded onto our souls over the course of our lives. It doesn’t really matter what the art is — it is the way it strips us bare and brings us to a new viewing and understanding of ourselves and the world.

In fact I was having a conversation with a fascinating woman about just that, about the power of art, and about how sometimes we do not really want to be cut and bleeding, our hearts laid bare, we just want to look. And this is true about painting but also about words, and music, they all tap into some essential melody of life. Fitting I think for an exhibit about painting, but also about words, about Delaney and Baldwin, in an exhibit that captures the way painting itself has its own rhythm and melody, like writing, and music. Fitting I think also because I was speaking with Carole Weinstein, sister-in-law of the late James Baldwin, although our conversation was cut short as others sought her out and I drifted away.

When I was talking to Carol she was sitting in front of the painting shown above, Dark Rapture (James Baldwin) 1941. One of the paintings that drew me, even though I struggled against its pull as it was such a bright beacon in the room simultaneously deep and dark and filled with light — the depths of human emotions and potential captured in a painting. Not the only one, of course, but still. I was held. There is so much in this painting, much beyond the obvious, the glowing naked boy. Baldwin was still a teenager, Delaney was in his 30s. This was early in a lifelong friendship. Was Delaney “in love” with Baldwin? Perhaps. That sense of potential, of eros, of both the sexual and the romantic is there, the way the world glows and simultaneously retreats back, the way the body of the boy floats above the surface of the painting, a body in all its complex erotic potential. But being in love is as much about the self as it is about the person one loves, perhaps more so. What I find fascinating about this painting is that it is both about the yearning and objectifying of desire, but also about moving beyond that, about coming to a somehow greater communion of two minds, a conversation that blurs the understanding of self and other, making each better at seeing themselves. This painting comes from an awareness far beyond that first flush of love. Both Delaney and Baldwin, at least the young Baldwin, struggled with their sexuality. Both were sons of preachers. Both were black, gay, artists in a culture that truly accepts none of those things. Still. We pay lip service to art, admire it even, put art and artists on a pedestal, but do we treasure our artists? Love our artists? Care for them?

The problems with photos of paintings is that you cannot capture the depth of the color, the way color deepens, and reveals itself, leaks out like little flashes of light. You cannot see the brushstrokes, feel the energy, the movement of the work. Notice the depth of contrast and color in Baldwin’s flesh. The complexity, the wonder, but also the struggle of both beauty and despair, the desired and yet the forbidden. The colors are strong here, the feeling as well, but it is not feeling without struggle. And yet compare it to the background. Swirling and wild and yet happy, as if this sitting, this relationship painter with sitter, is the source of something greater than either. Notice the changes in the direction of the brushstrokes, they way thy create a small gap around Baldwin, giving him the appearance of floating. The way the struggle, the relationship, which I will say seems to initially speak of something physical but is actually something greater than that, the burgeoning awareness of a communion of souls, the way a deep friendship can grow and make each participant more themselves than they would be alone.

Look at the contrast between head and body. I am not an art critic. i regret deeply that I never took Vassar’s acclaimed art history class, never studied art, and often feel adrift trying to put words to feelings. But look at the way the face is surrounded by pastel light, the face itself in contrast to the body, a body that speaks of struggles for selfhood and understanding, and yet a head also filled with fierce intelligence, with light of spirit, simultaneously young, yet filled with sight and yearning beyond its years. Mind and Body. Head and Heart.

I still do not understand this painting. I think the eyes are important. Baldwin’s eyes, Delaney’s eyes. I need to study the portraits. Sometimes, although the two individuals are quite distinct, the eyes confuse me, as if they are twin mirrors. But I have no photos of Delaney’s self portraits, yet.

Look at this portrait of James Baldwin made 16 years later. Baldwin middle aged now, and the portrait softer, and yet still intense. The same eyes. Deeply seeing. The same fierce, deeply seeing, intelligent face. But also contrast the portraits. The whole portrait is at the top of this post, James Baldwin 1957. Baldwin is now middle-aged. And yet in this portrait too he floats above the background, in a similar position, except this time more contained within himself. Do not fool yourself that this portrait is less powerful, or has less energy. The young Baldwin is blistering with the energy of youth, of unrestrained potential and its power. The older Baldwin seen here, clothed, more pulled into himself, legs crossed in a more enclosing way, is just as powerful, with just as much energy, but this time more controlled by self-awareness, perhaps even more powerful due to its control. I still see explosive power here, but it is a power lurking behind the veneer, leaking out like layers of colors in paint. In fact I think I need to go back and look at this painting again.

I haven’t even gotten to the second painting that seared itself into my memory that first night. But the exhibit will be here until May, and I, like a moth to a flame, will undoubtedly find myself returning again and again. If you have any reason to be near Knoxville, please come take a look.

February 22, 2020
A reading mash-up

I went to a book group meeting this week, one of a couple of book groups I have suddenly found myself attending after several years of famine, and that meeting as well as the book we read, reminded me that had I promised to subject you to another catch-up post, a discussion of books read in January, simply because I had, and unimaginatively at that, already consigned the books to some kind of mental dust-bin.

Fear not, for that is not exactly where I am going with this post. I will clean up some lose ends, and write about books, recent and past reading, but this will not, by any means be a full accounting.

But to start, what was I reading this week, and why? The book was At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight, who is local and who was attending our meeting in order to talk about his book. Truthfully, I would probably not have picked up this book had it not been a book club choice, and had I not wanted to hear what the author had to say. The marketing description of the novel read as more a coming-of-age story about a pregnant teenager at a girls school with the addition of a ghost and a planned Disney theme-park.

I was mistaken in my initial impressions and i am glad I read the book. The novel is well-written and well-plotted, and the prose is elegant and spare, with a lack of sentimentality that functions at a remove while still being sympathetic to its characters, all of its characters. Neither Disney nor the Ghost are the main points of this novel, except in that this is a novel about history, about how history flows around us — our own personal history, the personal histories of those we encounter and who influence us, often in ways we do not even recognize, and how even the greater historical currents of our particular time and place play out in the small details of our lives. Everyone in this novel is haunted. History is ever present, rippling outward, although rarely recognized. Knight does not shy away from the way pivotal changes often come in quiet, almost stealthy moments, easily missed.

All that said, I liked the book but did not love it. I must admit that I have enjoyed writing about this book, and meeting the author, more than I actually enjoyed reading the book. The novel appeals to more to my head than to my heart, and i am a reader who wants to engage both my head and my heart. For me it was a novel more of shallows than depths. That doesn’t mean it is not good, or that the person next to me at book group didn’t love it.

And this brings me to the catch up portion of my post. In writing about At Briarwood School for Girls, I found a way to write about the other novels I have read recently, the orphan novels, the novels that I don’t want to write about in and of themselves, or that do not tie into another theme, another potential post. Some of them I loved, others I enjoyed, and at least one not so much.

Why don’t we start there, with the not-so-beloved book. Ken Follett’s Jackdaws was another book club choice, different book club from the one above, about which I remain undecided. Apparently I am trying out book clubs.

Anyway, Jackdaws gripping and fast-paced. Follet is a master of his genre and his protagonist, Flick, is sharp and spunky enough for modern readers to project into while at the same time being bland and never fully developed as an independent character. But the plot was tenuous at best and the story forgettable.

Lisa Jewell’s I found You was a more tightly drawn story, and I thought Jewell managed the structure, alternating between three narrative voices, quite well. The story was engaging and entertaining, and quite well played. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, although once again it is quickly forgotten. No memorable characters but a great bit of occasional entertainment.

Then last week I also reread Stephen King’s novel Mr. Mercedes. It was the most satisfying of this group of novels. I read it a few years ago and picked it up again because I had been watching HBO’s series The Outsider while knitting. I know the HBO series is based on a novel of the same name, but Holly from this novel appears, and I wanted to reacquaint myself. Brady continues to give me the creeps and the sections written in his voice still make my stomach churn, Holly makes me smile, and reading this novel was more satisfying than a few episodes of The Outsider. King is a master of plot and suspense, of balancing intensity with moments of calm, even false calm, and I find his characterizations compelling, even in characters I dislike or find annoying.

Perhaps I will slowly work my way through this series before moving onto The Outsider as well.

February 15, 2020
Playing In The Kitchen With Fennel

Saturday I went to the Farmer’s market. It has been a warm winter and there has been a lovely crop of greens and cool-season vegetables.

I didn’t actually buy these, although they looked lovely and I may wish otherwise. I bought more carrots, admittedly mostly for the gorgeous greens, which I have chopped, washed and frozen for future soups. i will use the carrots too, probably mostly roasting them and they are handy for flavoring dishes especially soups and stocks, but these are so fresh and young and lovely, then deserve to be eaten and enjoyed, even if they are not my favorite vegetable. Perhaps I am just a greedy person and the carrots are the price I must pay for a love of the greens. Although the thought of a curried carrot soup sounds nice as we face another rainy week.

I also bought fennel. I was having some friends over dinner Sunday night, and thought I would roast the fennel wedges with local garlic and Belgian endive which was not local. I would like to grow some endive, and it might be a worthwhile project considering how much I love endive and its price in the store. I know it is a two-step process. Perhaps next winter I will be able to eat my own home-grown endive. I will have to figure out the frost date and work backward. Even though I have lived in Knoxville for eight years now, I am still a little more vague on the weather than I was in Hyde Park. Having a garden and working in it will tie me more closely to the seasons over time.

But back to the fennel. I knew I was roasting the bulbs, and I also knew, from experience that these local fennel bulbs were often tougher than the tender bulbs often found in grocery stores, so I knew they needed to roast at fairly low to medium heat, allowing them to caramelize slowly, a technique that also works well for both endive and garlic.

But what to do with the rest of the fennel. Look at those gorgeous feathery green fronds. I knew I could cut the stems off and make a batch of broth with them, the basis for a lovely fennel soup, or perhaps even a seafood stew. I had chopped and frozen my stems from my last farmer’s market foray, including the tender green fronds. But somehow these fronds were so generous and so lovely it seemed that turning them into stock would be a waste.

Two weeks ago I made pesto from tender young carrot greens, and it was delicious. I wondered if I could do the same with the fennel. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try. I stripped the tender fronds from the leaves and tossed them into the food processor with a fairly traditional mix of a fruity olive oil and pine nuts. I added a little salt, but later, deciding it needed more, I added some goat milk feta, also made by a local farmer, and it was the perfect thing to round out the flavor.

I was so excited, I had some fennel pesto on a simple plate of scrambled eggs yesterday morning. I might do that again today. Apologies, I was apparently also so eager that I forgot, and took a bite before I took the photo.

This whole process makes me happy, happy to support local farmers, eager to grow and produce some of my own food, even if only a few small bites, happy to use as much as possible of what is offered with less waste. The chicken bones from last night’s dinner are in the freezer waiting to become stock, along with the onion and garlic peels and those aforementioned fennel stalks. Increasingly, it seems that what I think is important, balance and connection, seem tied as much to my relationship to this earth of which I am a part, as it is to other people, who are of course equally a part of this earth. I worry that in our quest for convenience, and in elevating our lives outside of our basic dependence on the very earth of which we are a part, we have lost something essential to ourselves. And of course this adds tension because I live a modern American life and I love my life. Well, life is an evolution after all.

Now if only I can weed myself off ziploc bags. That seems to be a goal worth pursuing, but it is a task that has proven to be more complicated than I initially assumed. A freezer filled with bags of vegetable peels and stems and bones is a testament to that. At least the bags that contain vegetables can be washed and reused. I am not sure that is true for the bags that contain bones.

February 10, 2020
Breathe

Yesterday I took a Sabbath day of sorts. The day started out fairly normally. I went to the gym, stopping to admire the camellias that had suddenly burst into bloom after a warm rainy week. This in and of itself is not surprising, this particular camilia tends to bloom sometime during February, March, if it has been a cold winter, which it has not. I posted a photo to instagram, the same one as seen below:

Upon my return I started upon normal household chores: a little vacuuming and dusting, for example. I took the leaves out of the dining table, only to decide I needed to put them back in for a dinner party tomorrow. I fully intended to write a blog post.

But then I sat down to knit and realized that is what I needed to do more than anything else, and so I knitted and puttered for the bulk of the day and well into the night. There was an interruption for a fabulous violin concert, a concert that left my heart vibrating with song and fueled knitting late into the night. I am still working on the pink sweater, the only day I had to work on it for over a week, and I finished one sleeve and made a good start on the second.

I had trouble going to sleep, and I realized that I this too is a part of who I am. When I can devote days to myself, to my “work”, I am happy and calm and at peace. Then I can go out in the evenings and be all buoyant due to the effects of that balance. And I tend to do that. There was a fund-raiser for the YWCA this week, another fabulous party for the opening of the Beauford Delaney exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art, (which I will have to write about another time), the aforementioned violin concert, and one whole day filled with meetings, and that same evening as well, a day that simultaneously inspired me, exhausted me, and caused me to question whether a particular cause, much as it is close to my heart, is really the place where my talents can flourish.

I realized that this day (work, meaning creative exploration) evening balance is essential. That the social feeds the contemplative, but the obverse is equally true. That I go out and then sleep well, and that if I start creative pursuits in the evening I loose all track of time and space and am likely to work far too late. I am likely to tumble into the slough of despond, but this may equally be due to lack of sleep as to an excess of alone time. I realize, well have long realized that I am not the “sew a dress in 10 minutes a day” kind of person. I need long blocks: the social block, the creative block — be it writing, cooking, playing with needle and thread in all its many permutations, even gardening — the cuddle with someone on the sofa block, wait, that one is on sabbatical, so the social fills a bigger and more important role. But life is like that too, ebbs, flows, sometimes even tidal waves.

I like sitting in my breakfast room in the early morning, catching up with news, or a book if I feel the world is too intrusive, looking out at the flow of hellebores. I can open the window and hear the birds.

I am only a few pages from the end of the first volume of William Manchester’s life of Churchill, The Last Lion, continually fascinated by Winston: his obstinacy, his brilliance, as I said earlier sometimes his naïveté, by the very complexities of the man in fact, strengths and flaws. I also enjoy Manchester’s prose, and his own comments and comparisons, contrasting time and culture, his and Churchill’s, each with its own biases and blind spots, each population confident in its modernity, its a self-assurance that their own beliefs are the path of the future. I have long wondered, and this book feeds that wondering, what future generations will think of us, looking backward 100 years from now. I suspect each and every one of us would be surprised.

I like the way Churchill needs to keep busy to fight off his own battles with “the black dog”, the way we all have gifts, and strengths, but also weakness. The way he plays with his children, determined they would not be lonely the way he was lonely, but equally never around. I admire the determination to make the most of those times he was around.

And I am reminded also of a smaller book. One I read this week in a fit of early morning insomnia.This would have been Kreis Beall’s The Great Blue Hills of God, a book that I believe is in the small pantheon of books having one of the most perfect opening chapters I have ever read. But even this is subjective, and I suspect that what I see and love in this book may not be what everyone sees. But that is the good thing about books, good books, that they speak to us on different levels.

I am reminded of a conversation at the art opening, about how art, literature, music, dance as well, cut through to the soul, wiping away the fogs and shadows we drape around our lives, and how most of the time we do not want to be impaled, do not want to see the depths of our souls. Some of us are better at the shallows than others, some of us, having fallen into the depths find we don’t really ever want to return to the shallows.

After reading that first chapter, I was impelled into Beall’s book, and it think it was gracefully written, reporting the stages and struggles of her life, looking back with a kind of distance and humility, even though it has been an accomplished and in many ways enviable life, that can only come at the cost of great personal unraveling and reknitting. This is the woman who I found admirable and fascinating. And odd for me, because I too have been guilty of always being busy, of wanting to make things look perfect in a mistaken belief that they will then be perfect, of searching for love and peace through shadows and trappings, I found that I felt indomitable sadness for that younger Kreis, for her own self-described lack of options, even as her life was in many ways charmed. I suppose I am saying I find it odd, because my younger self would have been awed and intimidated by the younger Beall’s accomplishments, but my older self finds this less important than my enormous respect and admiration for the woman she has come to be. But then, none of us, if we allow our hearts to break and mend, are the people we once were.

I shall leave you with the last sentence from that “perfect” first chapter:

Only when I let go of perfectionism and learned to sit with devastation, and from there slowly breathe in meaning, did I discover that what I had built was not a picture-perfect life, but a real and beautiful one, stronger for the breaking.

February 8, 2020
What the Mannequins Taught Me

Meet Abigail and Matilda

Matilda is the older of the two; the one wearing the evening dress, and Abigail is the younger. But even she must be at least 15 years old.

Both Matilda and Abigail were in storage for essentially a couple of years, since I moved out of the condo and into this house. Their rediscovery has been revelatory. First of all, dressing them was a bit of a challenge. Then, when I looked at them across the room, for the first time really in a long long time, I noticed how long, small and willowy Matilda was. Both are my height. Both are wearing my old clothes, garments I have loved and worn again and again. But I never, in my entire life, considered myself willowy.

That seems sad.

I dubbed them Laurel and Hardy, for reasons I will now explain. Size and the perception of size are interesting things. Stan Laurel, for example was not particularly thin. He was of average size but looked small and thin compared to Oliver Hardy who was 6’1” and bulky. Matilda probably is slender but still curvaceous, as was I at that time, but her smallness, as compared to her height, surprised and almost shocked me. She is probably closest to an American size 6, if there is any standard. Abigail is probably closest to an American size 14 or 16, and she looks large compared to Matilda, but she is closer in size to the average American woman.

I named them Laurel and Hardy because of the shock factor, of the idea of the terms “skinny” and “fat” which I have come to realize more often than not have nothing to do with actual scientific data and relate more to cultural norms and biases. When most women say they feel skinny, they mean attractive, and this is triggered by a cultural bias in which women are supposed to be small, take up little space, to be insignificant. Of course many will argue with me. I know women who consider thinness and the ability to wear towering heels as a symbol of power; I may have been one of those women. Turning a symbol of weakness into supposed power is not new, but it may also not be helpful. The same is true of the word fat, at least as it applies to women’s appearance. When I say I am fat, I am basically saying I feel unhappy about myself, and more often than not, that has nothing to do with my actual weight. I am fairly confident that I am not alone. These words are the words of shaming. Matilda and Abigail reminded me of this, and reminded me to stop it. And we all should. But I don’t want to go into shaming and shaming words in this post.

When I wore that evening dress. I did not consider myself willowy. In fact I probably thought of myself as fat. I was probably a good 30 or 40 pounds heavier than I had been in college, but even then, I never thought of myself as thin. I did not have an eating disorder, but I was deeply conditioned into the way I thought about myself and if I had not been “fortunate” enough that I could eat anything and everything and still remain unusually thin, I might well have developed an eating disorder. But eating disorders are not really about weight. And despite the fact that we tell ourselves that “thin” is healthy and “fat” is not, this is belief is based only partially in fact and does not correlate in the way our biases assume. The obverse can just as easily true, and often is.

So, if I was shocked to see Matilda dressed, I was equally surprised by Abigail. I had always planned to pad Matilda out eventually and use her for fitting as I started to sew again. I knew I would never look like Matilda again. Discovering I was celiac (a malabsorption syndrome) and having an atrial septal defect (which made my heart work extra hard just to move my skinny self around) repaired, put a stop to that. But in my head I kept telling myself “if only I can get back to being as thin as Abigail again, I will be happy”. But there are no conditions on love, including self love. I remember telling my (step) children that there is no such thing as “I love you, but…” or “I will love you if….” But did I apply that to myself? to self-love? Obviously not.

So dressing Abigail was a shock. None of my current clothes fit her. In fact I could not get them on her. Abigail is bigger than I am, so why am I condemning myself? Yes, Abigail’s waist is smaller than mine, but Abigail is eternally in her early 40s and I most certainly am not. When I say I am fat, I don’t mean that I am obese. I am not. A little overweight yes. But really I am saying that I can’t walk as far as I want. I don’t have as much energy as I would like. I have trouble with the first 10 or 15 minutes I walk, and in fact may always as that is a residual effect stemming from my scoliosis. Some of those things I can change, some of them I cannot. I honestly don’t believe attractiveness has anything to do with weight. In fact I think almost every woman, or man, I meet is attractive. But Abigail and Matilda reminded me that I did not extend the same courtesy to myself. And this was in large part a big reason that I pulled inward and away from the blog for a while. Because I know my self-criticisms are not true, that the little girl who was shamed is grown up now, that I only have to please myself.

The plan was always to pad Matilda out eventually. I thought I would be padding Abigail out as well, but we will see. She has padding now, and she captures the curve of my spine well because she was made from a cast of my actual body. The dress Abigail is wearing is a dress I loved and plan to copy. I still plan to copy it even though it is a bit big now and I am less curvy.

Abigail and Matilda reminded me to stop fretting. I had several beloved things I had made but not worn for a while, things I would say that will look better when I am ……. Surprisingly, or not actually, they all fit better than I thought they would. I cannot wear them in the same way I did when I was 45, but who cares about that? I have been wearing the cashmere cardigan seen above, knit sometime before 2005, which is when I joined Ravelry. Yesterday I wore a sweater I knit in 2008. The photo below is from 2008. But I am just as happy with the sweater now as I was then.

But this is not really about wearing old things, or trying to regain lost youth. It is about settling into who I am now without burdens. This process of settling is physical, is mental, is emotional. It is time to let go. This is my space. This is my time. Here I am.

February 5, 2020
Monday Miscellaney
1. Candles lit at the end of the Celtic Service last night at Church of the Ascension.
2. I am still reading Churchill. Nothing else at the moment. Still impressed at the genius, the impetuousness, the naïveté. We forget this, that no one is brilliant at everything, that one can be wise and still a child, at any age. But then who is not complex? Brilliant people as much as the rest of us, except that perhaps their complexities seem more glaring simply because we fear what we do not understand. This is, was, and probably always will be true — this tendency of humans to judge “as through a glass darkly” without seeing or understanding what they are judging.

3. I went to a concert Wednesday night, not so much a formal concert, but a working-through of a piece the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra is commissioning from composer Michael Schachter, titled Cycle of Life The piece will premier in May and is based on a large scale work of the same title by Richard Jolley. This concert was very much a working through and it was fascinating. I sat very close, in the front row between the cello and bass and I loved being in the middle of the flow of the music, the working through. The musicians would play fragments of a work still very much in progress, with alternate selections, and one could hear the differences in the ways the music would take shape, hear and feel the difference in the playing between the musicians, a give and take, sometimes joyous, sometimes reserved, some things working for one musician but not for others, coming together and pulling apart.

I have no real musical ability or talent, merely ears, so this kind of experience was new to me. I had never been in anything quite like it, well except for that Phillip Glass premier nearly two years ago, that rehearsal and working-through of the final piece with composer and musicians. I wrote about that here. I loved it but it was also different than this as this work is still at least partially nebulous. I could hear and feel the tensions in the playing, and of course this is so because even though I do not play, one can hear, and sitting so closely, even feel at times the vibrations of the music, hear the difference in playing with passion or reserve. And of course this very give and take of conversation, of communion almost — meaning a communal sharing — combined with an antagonism, not meaning that in a negative way, this, this sound of coming together and pulling apart is what I always look for in chamber music concerts, this melding of the music with the person playing the music, structure, abstraction and humanity intertwined. It is an indescribable thing that one knows when one hears it, and misses when it is absent.

The entire evening took on the atmosphere of a great and exciting conversation, with moments of coalescence, and where even those elements that did not work added to the sense of excited tension in the room, the growing of something new and beautiful. I am very much looking forward to this work, filled with eager anticipation and excitement, like a good mystery, I do not know what is going to happen. But snippets remain dancing in my head, adding to that sense of fulfillment to come. Above the composer and KSO Music Director Aram Demirjian conferring about a section, the musicians briefly pausing.

4. From the sublime to the mundane. I have a large second-cut piece of brisket in the fridge which I hope to start curing/brining this afternoon with hopes of having a lovely piece of corned beef in a few weeks.

5. And now I am running, this post unedited, as the day is about to run away without me.
February 3, 2020
Closing out 2019 and A Goal

Yesterday afternoon, during a period of a brief slump, I collapsed in a chair in the living room, not the coziest chair, but the chair that was most convenient to my current state of energy drain.

There I stained at the doorknob on the French doors which open to the Living room, for a good 2 to 3 minutes, before realizing that this was going nowhere. I as mostly just fascinated with the patterns of light in the glass. But I also realized that I have been inconsistent in balancing competing priorities since my return from Texas and was feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed. Trips, even short trips, often do that, at least for those impulsive among us who are never bored and always find themselves pouring themselves into more projects and passions than can ever be accomplished.

Then I got up, made three passes up and down the hallway, practicing my lunges, drank a glass of water, and made an espresso. It seems I can either sink into lethargy or get moving. I opted for the latter. I had someplace to go. Owen’s school chorus was singing the national anthem at the basketball game that night.

But I also realize that at least a portion of my mental malaise was due to the dragging on of catch-up posts. So let’s close out 2019, at least in terms of books. Here is the full list, in order, with links where available, although in some cases the books are barely discussed. Highlighted books are my favorites for the year, although there are plenty of others worth reading.

Billy Collins, The Rain in Portugal. (poetry)

Michelle Obama, Becoming. (memoir)

Phillip Maffetone, The Maffetone Method. (health)

Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore. (fiction) also mentioned here, and here.

Tana French, The Witch Elm. (fiction)

Dan Brown, Origin. (fiction)(treadmill)

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility. (non-fiction)

Stuart Woods. Smooth Operator. (fiction) (treadmill)

Tara Westover, Educated. (memoir)

Stuart Woods, The Money Shot. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Sex, Lies, and Serious Money. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Below the Belt. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Fast and Loose. (fiction) (treadmill) I had forgotten what a struggle that first month on the treadmill really was, or realized how far I have come.

Sally Field, In Pieces. (memoir) better than I expected. One of the good books.

Lee Child, Past Tense. (fiction)

Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything. (food)

Reese Jones, Violent Borders. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Running Blind. (fiction)

Stuart Woods, Indecent Exposure. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Quick and Dirty. (fiction) (treadmill)

Lisa Jewel, Then She Was Gone. (fiction)

B. A. Shapiro, The Art Forger. (fiction)

Michale Lewis, The Fifth Risk. (non-fiction)

A. L. Kennedy, Serious Sweet. (fiction)

Sally Rooney, Normal People (fiction)

Stuart Woods, Doing Hard Time. (fiction) (treadmill)

Mike McCormack, Solar Bones. (fiction)

Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose. (memoir)

Erika L. Sanchez, I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. (fiction)

Mikail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita. (fiction)

Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol. (fiction) Instagram

Kate Morton, the Lake House. (fiction) Instagram

Ruth Reichl, Comfort Me With Apples. (Memoir, food) Instagram

Bruno Monari, Design as Art. (art)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle. (memoir)

Mary Higgins Clark, You Don’t Own Me. (fiction).

Belinda Bauer, Snap. (fiction)

Leslie Bennett, The Beautiful Edible Garden. (garden)

Rafael Yglesias, A Beautiful Marriage. (fiction)

(by this point, I was still catching up, but perhaps starting to write more about the actual books)

Lee Child, Without Fail. (fiction)

Lee Child, Echo Burning. (fiction)

Lee Child, Persuader. (fiction).

Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy. (religion)

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge. (fiction)

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending. (fiction)

Stephanie Land, Maid. (memoir)

Linda Ronstadt, Simple Dreams. (memoir)

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance. (fiction)

David Brooks, The Road to Character. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Make Me. (fiction)

Georges Simenon, Pietr The Latvian. (fiction)

Alafair Burke, The Wife. (fiction)

Rosalind Creasy, Edible Landscaping. (garden) I’ve had this a long time. Still a favorite.

Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums. (memoir, food)

Lidia Bastianich, La Cucina di Lidia. (cookbook, food) Instagram here.

Steven Pressfield, the War of Art. (non-fiction, self-help)

Tana French, The Likeness. (fiction)

Rosalind Belben, Our Horses in Egypt. (fiction)

Michael Eades, the Six Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle. (health)

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer. (fiction) Instagram

Maria Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. (fiction)

Mary Gabriel, Ninth Street Women. (Art)

Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers. (fiction)

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing. (fiction)

Michael Moss, Salt, Sugar, Fat. (food) also here.

David Graeber, Debt. (non-fiction) and here,

Rackstraw Downey, In Relation to the Whole. (art)

Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians. (fiction)

Elif Shafak, 10 minutes, 38 seconds in this Strange World. (fiction) Instagram

Meryn G. Callender, Why Dads Leave. (non-fiction)

Cid Corman, Tributary (Poems). (poetry)

James Baldwin, Gypsy and Other Poems. (poetry)

Kevin Kwan, China Rich Girlfriend. (fiction)

Louise Penney, A Better Man. (fiction)

Kevin Kwan, Rich People Problems. (fiction)

Tracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light. (memoir)

Katherine Eban, Bottle of Lies. (non-fiction)

Erik Larsen, the Devil in the White City. (non-fiction)

Salmon Rushdie, Quichotte. (fiction). Instagram post here.

Anne Thurston, Knowing Her Place: Gender and the Gospels. (religion)

Rachel Cusk, Kudos. (fiction)

Allison Pittman, Loving Luther. (fiction)

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs. (non-fiction)

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. (fiction)

David Brooks, The Second Mountain. (non-fiction)

Ann Patchett, The Dutch House. (fiction)

Deborah Levy, The Man Who Saw Everything. (fiction)

Marty Makary, The Price We Pay. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Blue Moon. (fiction)

Rob Gieselmann, Irony and Jesus. (religion)

Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier. (fiction)

Stephen King, Elevation. (fiction)

Stephen King, Dr. Sleep. (fiction)

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon. (fiction) Rich tapestry of a story, best read as poetry.

Jonathan Haidt, the Coddling of the American Mind. (non-fiction) Interesting and thoughtful exploration of one aspect of American culture. Not as combative as the title implies

Ian McEwan, First Love, Last Rites. (fiction) beautiful and compelling stories about the more disturbing and perverse underbelly of the human psyche.

Earnest Cline, Ready Player One. (science fiction)

Patti Smith, Just Kids. (memoir) Fascinating, at times poignant, at other compelling. True to the artists voice, and about finding one’s path.

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Again. (fiction)I am not part of the Olive club, but I enjoyed this more than the first.

Thanhha Lai, Butterfly Yellow (fiction, young-adult) Beautiful novel about a young Vietnamese girl who escapes from Vietnam and comes to America to find her young brother who had been airlifted out, and away from his family years before. Pearlescent is how I described the language in my notes. But also difficult until one gets the hang of the speech. The author uses phonetic spellings to capture Vietnamese-inflected English, which takes a bit of getting used to but also adds power to the novel.

Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You. (fiction) I loved this story, and exploration of loss, of secrets gone awry and the way the things we do not say have an impact far greater than we would wish. Perhaps I also enjoyed it in conjunction with the two previous novels.

Done. Or almost. It suddenly seems important to stop littering my life with catch-up posts. There is nothing wrong with looking backward as a reflection. I will still do an annual book list, much like the one above. But, I am already behind simply because I believed, for most of January anyway, I would pull out an end of month book post and I see now that it is time to upset that cycle. I could have written a post about the last two novels of 2019. I will write a January post of some sort, but January will be the last month I allow this kind of round-up post. It seems that as I settle into my house, my place, I am settling my mind as well, coming more comfortably into myself, but that path is sometimes bumpy.

January 30, 2020
Monday Miscellaney

Life seems to have been quiet so far this January, but I do in fact grow weary of simply reporting on books past. Here is a round up of small things, alas with few pictures. It seems, in my general contentment, I have been remiss in snapping photographs.

1. Although it turned chill while I was in Texas early last week, they too had been having unseasonably warm weather. These roses were still in bloom in my mother’s garden.

2. Two concerts this week, both focusing on Beethoven. I missed my normal night at the Concertmaster Series as my flight was delayed returning from Dallas, but I managed tickets for the second night, which combined Haydn and Beethoven trios, a beautiful performance of the Violin Sonata #7, and Mason Bates’ Ford’s Farm for Violin and Piano. Then, yesterday, an all-Beethoven program, which concluded with a stunningly fabulous performance of Symphony 1; a performance which both acknowledged the classical legacy of Haydn, while also highlighting Beethoven’s own restless modernity. Beginning with that slightly off-center opening chord, the music danced and playing with expectation, shining light in corners sometimes forgotten in the fog of familiarity. I was particularly taken with the incredibly playful Scherzo, which could only make me smile, kittenish as it was: flirting, happy, withdrawing and coming forward again; but also almost kitten-like with its tumbling, rolling, falling, and leaping.

Sunday’s concert also featured the two Romances: one played in a classically European style, with a surface reserve that did not hide the depths within but revealed them subtly; the other in a lushly and emotionally melodic performance, that flowed straight to the heart, but also captured the head, subtly shining light on the mathematics of the inner structure. The two together provided the perfect counterpoint to the lushness, depth and complexity of the music, to its utter and complex humanity.

3. Saturday was the first time in 2020 that I made it to the winter Farmer’s market. I went in thinking I would pick up only a few things, but January warmth has led to a flowering of produce and I came home heavily laden. I have been happily cooking. Tiny carrots were roasted and their tender fluffy greens, young enough not to have the typical tinge of bitterness have danced through salads, and have been washed and saved for a future soup. Many baby greens came home with me, as did beets, although they were purchased mostly for their lush greens. Once I finish this post, and after I head to the gym, those beets will be transformed into Monday brunch in the form of red flannel hash.

4. Knoxville Symphony Music Director Aram Demirjian’s talk before the concert had me making new connections, perhaps a stretch, perhaps not. As Demirjian talked about the young Beethoven and his really rather revolutionary musical explorations I was struck by a similarity to the young Winston Churchill. Perhaps this is a stretch, but perhaps not. I am still working my way slowly through the first volume of William Manchester’s life of Churchill, and young Winston also happens to be much in mind of late. After the concert I spent time alternating knitting with more reading about young Churchill, his own process of thinking and reshaping that which came before and his own path. Probably not the most efficient way to either read or knit, especially as my mind kept wandering to questions about the nature of creativity and genius. Oh, and I also finished the front of my cardigan, something that had been neglected of late. Now onto the sleeves.

5. Listening. Inspired partly by this week’s bonanza of Beethoven, a jazz concert I missed because I was away, and the necessities of travel (there is no longer a tv at my mom’s house so I listened to music in the evening), it seems there is always time for music. Recordings are not the same as live music, but I cannot imagine a life completely devoid of either. In fact, live music inspires me to listen more at home. These three albums (two new, one not) have been in pretty heavy rotation this week:

Maciej Obara Quartet: Three Crowns

Bill Fay: Countless Branches

Jupiter Trio: Beethoven “Ghost” Trio and Shostakovich Trio #2

There may be a theme there, between the occasionally naked emotionality of Obara’s saxophone, Bill Fay’s liltingly vulnerable songs offset by spare piano, and the dynamic passion of the Jupiter trio’s performance on this album. I would love to hear all three live.

6. I am reminded of a book I read earlier in the month, a book that has been in my mind this week, as it addresses so much, including yearnings, both the yearnings for a future combined its impatience of childhood, and the yearnings and occasional regrets of adults, combined beautiful evocations of place and the struggle between mind and heart that makes art, or genius. The book is Peter Goldsworthy’s Maestro. And I am reminded of a quote from fairly early in the novel, in the opening pages, where the Maestro is describing the hand, specifically the hand of a pianist, but also employing it as a metaphor about the struggle between mind and muse, head and heart, the relationship that makes art. Specifically he is talking about the fingers, but his description also reminds me of the way a great quartet works (or perhaps a trio, see above)

”They are great friends. A circle of friends. But also great rivals.”

Strong-willed, compassionate, occasionally struggling, at times vulnerable, emotional, at others reserved. The give and take, the release and the holding back. This is what makes life, and art, what we yearn for, but also, sometimes, what we fear.

January 27, 2020
“the hurried I go the behinder I get” or more books…..

I am in the midst of rereading Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds. Which I read when it was first released in paperback. I figured it would be a good travel book, good for tired lonely nights, or airplanes and airports, and because it is the alternate novel selection for a group. In fact, I was not, at first, certain I wanted to reread the novel remembering nothing more than it was a saga of forbidden love, even though I remembered loving it at the time. I quickly realized that memory was playing tricks however, that my memories, and my doubts were based more on the mini-series based on the book than on the book itself, and I am finding it a very satisfactory read, a book I am not only happy to be reading again, but which I feel sustains the differences in perception I as reader bring to the novel after a 40 year absence, because there is more to this book than the story of Meggie and Ralph. In fact although they are the axle around which this story revolves, they become almost the least interesting characters in this drama of family, environment, love, and fate. In am thinking that hidden in this story is a rather complex meditation on the choices we as humans make and the consequences of said choices, both for ourselves and those around us.

I am reminded that the last time I took to the air, last November, I read Stephen King’s new novel Dr. Sleep, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. Dr. Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, which I read long long ago, and although this book picks up some years after the events of the first novel, and carries through on certain themes, it is very much its own book, its own story. King is a master of a genre that actually has a long history in American Literature, and I would not give him short-shrift. The story is very well told, but although The Shining is a great, terrifying, introspective horror, this novel is something else altogether. I do not think it is any less for that. We all evolve after all, even Danny, the little boy from The Shining. One of the things I enjoyed about this book is that Danny does evolve, he chooses to confront his demons, although the path that gets him to that choosing is not necessarily of his own making or his own desire. So it is for all of us. Although Danny seems to come very close to being sucked down by his past and never pulling out of his own internal morass, he manages to become something more than his hurts and terrors, more than his inner fears might allow. And this is the thing about King; yes, he writes horror stories, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as merely a writer of genre fiction. He writes psychological novels about the stranger that lives deep inside all of us, taking us on romps through the human psyche, guided romps where we know we may be frightened but where we also know we will come out relatively unscathed. There is always something more going on, more than just the terror; although just as in life, one may choose to see or not to see.

Which reminds me that I am still behind as concerns reporting about my reading list, so let’s take another stab at rounding out November.

Dr. Sleep was not the only deeply psychological novel I read that month. I also reread A Christmas Carol, and there are many similarities between the two and their authors. A Christmas Carol was dashed off because Dickens needed money to pay his bills, and i don’t think Dickens, in his day, was considered any more literary than King is today. He was a writer of mostly serialized popular fiction, and in many ways he was a cultural icon of his time, much as King is today. In fact, that he is still so esteemed may have been considered by some to be surprising. And yet A Christmas Carol is a deeply philosophical and psychological story, and this does not even include all the Christmas trappings. It is a story of redemption, of gaining wisdom, of what we currently popularly think of as the journey of the second half of life. And the very contradictions of it, that it was written to make money, yet it sharply criticizes the life spent in pursuit of avarice, the combined darkness and the glowingly define Christmas sparkle, make it into something both simple (Christmas yes!) and complex. In fact, Christmas, as we think of it today, owes more to Charles Dickens than to any religious sentiment, and I think my youthful self sometimes read the story with visions of movies and musical interpretations dancing in my my head. Or do I experience Scrooge’s journey more poignantly today because I have made my own track through the forest?

And then there was the Dutch House. The house is as much a character in this family drama as the members of the family themselves. Two children are booted from their family home after their father’s death by a stepmother who is more interested in the house than in human relationships, and the house takes on an outsize role in their yearnings for the happy family they lost. Except that it was never happy, and the house, and what it symbolizes for the various members of the family proves to be a great foundation for this exploration of family dynamics.

Patchett, as usual brings a keen understanding of human complexity to the story. I particularly like that the story is told from the perspective of a boy, who becomes a man, who himself is neither particularly introspective or observant, which makes him a great foil for this deft exploration of interpersonal dynamics. I also like the way the story is written around the house, the way the house itself, although inanimate, stands in the midst of all of them, both through its presence and its absence, a symbol of yearning, loss, love, isolation. This is a novel about the way people make assumptions — about places, people, their lovers, family, coworkers — that are more about the self than about opening a relationship. Everyone in this story knows everyone else, but for the most part they go through life never seeing each other.

Interesting to me, is how all these stories relate, in one way or another, to the novel I am currently reading, and will finish today. It is of course one of the grand themes of human existence, one deserving of much exploration and always benefitting from new insight and further explorations,

And that seems to get me about two-thirds through November, and I feel I am at a stopping point, which means alas there is more catching up to do, four more books from November, eight from December, and whatever is happening this month. So be it. Slowing down, no so much physically or mentally, although that does happen as we age, but more in terms of a reflective slowing seems to be one of the current themes of my life. I do not at the moment feel the need to rush through things, to accumulate experiences as if I am crossing off items in a list. Bear with me.

January 23, 2020
Musical Musings and Meanderings

There was a brief burst of spring-like warmth last week, followed by a return to more seasonal temperatures. The sunshine-yellow of forsythia acts as a beacon of promise throughout my neighborhood, the bulbs are beginning to shoot skyward, and the hellebores are blooming. I am not worried about them, they are all tough, and it is a joyous thing, always to see that little burst of spring promise, especially in my own garden which is remains filled more with hope and dreams rather than actual plants.

I have been suffering through a bit of rotator cuff tendinitis. This has limited my ability to do a surprising variety of things, not just take advantage of the warmth to dig in the garden, but also to type, write, and knit for more than very short stretches. I suppose I could have pushed through, but am rather hoping that enforced rest will result in healing and another kind of blossoming.

During this period of forced repose, I attended my first symphony concert of the new year, following a week of excited anticipation. My heightened expectations were at least partially fed by the experience of attending at least part of a rehearsal for the performance on Tuesday. Friday night the music filled me with joy.

The part of the rehearsal that I had attended was for the first half of the concert, the Mozart Piano concerto #23 played by the exciting new young pianist Aristo Sham. During the rehearsal I had felt that Sham was almost ethereally calm, the music flowed with speed and grace, although I wasn’t yet sure what I thought. Friday night, I was delighted. Sham’s performance was fascinating, outwardly still and calm, and yet the music flowed with a kind of sunny light sparkle. This was a young man’s mozart, filled with grace but also a kind of bubbling enthusiasm. Sham’s performance was quick and light, not at all ostentatious, skipping along like a conversation between vibrant young people who grew up together, almost instinctually anticipating each other’s moods and reactions. Sham provided a new insight to a familiar piece, making me realize that my favorite performers of the Mozart concertos, although quite different from each other share a more mature reflective sense, and that perhaps, although I too am inclined to more mature reflection, I also need to hear the light brought by music from new perspectives.

The Mozart was followed by Mahler’s first symphony. Although I adore Mozart, Mahler is particularly close to my heart and it was for the Mahler that my heart was yearning. It was fabulously done, with a tightly focused point of view — necessary in such a sprawling, overwhelmingly human work. The soft opening was breathtaking, evolving slowly into the lush theme of the first movement. The effervescence of the dance, the sadness of the slow movement, of familiarity tinged with despair and absurdity, and the thunderous ending. From the audience as well, that thunderous ending.

I have missed hearing Mahler in Knoxville. I do not think a Mahler symphony has been performed here since I moved to this city, whereas I heard at least one every year in New York. Judging from the excitement and applause surrounding me in the concert hall, i do not believe I am alone in wishing for more.

Admittedly, I came home wired and electrified, wishing to discuss the performance and the depth of the music. instead, I opted to hear it again. I watched the wonderful DVD of Claudio Abaddo leading the Lucerne Festival orchestra, (available on Amazon Prime Video) before collapsing into music filled dreams, comparing, contrasting, reveling. This is not a bad thing. Each performance brings its own particularly clarity of vision, its own point of view. A good thing in humanity and music, reminding me at least of both the complexity and the commonality of human experience.

Truthfully, the music still runs through my head, and I want to keep listening. Each of the 4 or 5 recordings i own of this work brings its own unique perspective and exploration, and right now my brain is too full to absorb even more voices; at the moment I want to just savor the memory of this performance, so close to home, and also close to my heart.

But of course nothing remains pure in memory, new experiences barge in, altering our perspective, and other, seemingly unrelated memories also wend their way through the thoughts. In my case this means that Mahler and Mozart are somehow picking their way through my thoughts joined by the musical musings of R. B. Morris, whose songs have also been in my mind and heart since hearing him perform the previous Friday. I somehow don’t think either one of them would mind; they were both, after fully aware of the musical idioms and traditions of their own times and cultures. And although I found the Morris concert to exert slightly less of a lightening-rod like shock to the easily bored and distracted nature of my own peripatetic brain, the songs themselves are no less satisfying, filled with the kind of wisdom and poetry and intelligence that haunts the memory, much like their forebears.

January 20, 2020