A WordPress Site

Author: 459856pwpadmin

Reflections At The End Of A Journey

I wrote this post last night when it was late and I was tired. I did read it this morning, and fix glaring errors but avoided reading too closely. I got in late. I slept late. I need to wrestle Moisés into a carrier for his annual trip to the vet, and bring Tikka home from boarding. I decided somewhere along the line it is better to just post.

It is late in Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson Airport and I am waiting for my plane. It is well past my bedtime, and I was supposed to have been home hours ago. I am sure that my face looks as punch-drunk-tired as I feel. But mine is but one exhausted face in a crowded gate filled with exhausted faces, all waiting hopefully and patiently for any news that we may indeed be flying soon. This is not the first time I've been stuck in this airport, or on this airline, (Delta) but I am continually grateful for the airline staff that go the extra mile to keep us updated on what is going on (and what is not), cheering us onward, and making sure that there are snacks and plenty of water at the gate. I have just learned that we are being moved to another gate and another plane, a plane that was originally scheduled to go to a different city. We will get home tonight. I hope the people who were scheduled on the flight we usurped make it home tonight as well, although at the moment that seems iffy, as ice conditions in their city has reduced traffic to a trickle..

But exhaustion aside, I had a lovely weekend visiting may aunt in San Antonio. It was cold in San Antonio and I did not walk along the river as much as is my wont, walking as necessary exercise rather than indulging in lazy strolls. I used the hotel gym on one particularly windy and sleety morning. I stayed in a new place for me, a place that felt like a home away from home, which had a lovely library where I spent one morning drinking coffee, journaling and browsing through an interesting selection of art books.

I had great visits with my aunt. I did walk along the river walk when the weather warmed slightly and the biting wind calmed. I wandered the farmer's market. I ate at a restaurant I have been wanting to try for a few years. I even managed to spend extra time in one of my favorite museums, and how can that not be a boon?

In fact, it seems to me that every time I go to the McNay I see something different. It feels simultaneously familiar and yet new. Sometimes I wonder even if I love the place itself as much as the art. I'm not always sure I can tell the difference.

I enjoyed being at the museum but I can't say that anything leapt out at me, at least not art specifically. On this morning I was somehow struck by the way the gray heaviness of the light outside the windows reflected into my vision of the art in the museum. I was almost more entranced by the light and the placement of the art, the way one picture played off other works in the room, the rather dark day and the stead gray light through the windows. I had wandered through half the museum, not quite aimlessly, but in a foggy bubble, noticing the space, the play of light, the artful placement of create a sense of conversation between art and space, before I saw this painting by Robert Rauschenberg, Black Mail. I suppose it too is rather dreary, but it really captured my attention. After I sat down to look at it further I noticed that the mirror was actually a mirror. That it is both a painting and a collage and I that tickled me even further, that little bit of reflection, of peering inward and outward simultaneously in the middle of this painting.

But then I noticed the floor, and the way the muted colors of the floor complimented the colors of the painting, and I was once again fascinated by the intersection of art and space and light. I sat on the bench thinking about floor and painting and the window in the corner, a window with a sculpture in front of it, thinking about all of this together and how it made something more than any one piece. I kept staring at the corner, at the floor, and the painting. I took a picture of the floor. I took a picture of the window. That was not meant as insult to Rauschenberg, but somehow everything came together in a way that made me very happy, as if something was shifting in my perspective. The Rauschenberg lightened as if in conversation with its setting. Walking back out through the museum it was, once again, like seeing something old become new again.

February 11, 2019
Further Explorations

Yesterday morning I was out walking Tikka early, well before the sky was starting to brighten with the impending dawn, and I was struck by the scent of the air. It was something hard to describe, not a floral perfume, not exactly the scent of fresh dirt, but of something I could only call hope or growth. It was a warm, woodsy, green but also slightly sparkly scent, not floral, not fruity, a scent of brightness, a hint of promise. I thought to myself, "Ah! Spring!". It may be early yet, there may be setbacks, but spring has announced itself, not just in the hellebores and the leaves of bulbs and buds on trees, those can always be false starts, but something in the scent of the air and soil and the leaves themselves. There are always setbacks but the cycle moves forward.

The house is moving forward as well. Every day I see something new, although at the moment the most dramatic visible transformation is occurring with the garage and studio. Windows went in last week, although they were not completed when these photos were taken.

This wall of windows faces north and north light was one of the most important criteria for my studio. Yes there are windows on all sides of the studio, and good lighting is being added as well, but north facing windows were one of my most important demands for this space. North light is the light I love. I love seeing the sunrise, I love watching the sunset. But if I could only have one window for the rest of my life I would want it to face north.

Here is the view looking out from the very unfinished studio. There is a courtyard below, between the house and the garage, the same courtyard that attracted me to this house in the first place, and a view of the street, where I can, should I choose, watch the neighbors passing by walking their dogs. Of course this also means that if I am working at night, and if I am in the middle of a project the hours tend to disappear, anyone on the street can see me in the studio. I am not sure I that I am uncomfortable with that. I am perhaps more uncomfortable that everyone who can see me can see the mess that often occurs in the sewing room, the mess that indicates that something is being created. It can be limited, but it can't be completely contained.

My entire life is not as organized as my refrigerator. In fact much of my life has been a struggle between these too sides of myself, the organized spreadsheet-loving person who likes things sorted and lined up in pretty little rows, and the more creative impulsive part of me. In my youth these aspects of my character were mostly at war, but now I am finding a sense of balance and peace, Or at least I am trying to find a sense of balance, trying to find a sense of peace. I do not always succeed. There are days when one side or the other is winning. There are days when I have to remind myself it is not a battle. There are days when I need to pull myself out of the fog of melancholy.

I am beginning to understand how these things are related in my soul: clutter, order, inspiration, melancholy. I wonder sometimes if art, if meaning, if transformation, actually exists in the interstices between order and chaos, between our need for security and our need for change. Perhaps this is exactly where I need to be, where I see magic, see creativity, as happening, in the fog between passion and reserve. Passion, discipline, love, mysticism, melancholy, even perhaps moments of despair. Each can be overwhelming, can indeed destroy us, but somewhere in the tension between them lies meaning, is that thing that I think art, life even, is trying to capture. That thing that we yearn to discover.

Order in and of itself can become an obsession, and I try to nip that impulse in the bud. Order can help with life but it can also stifle creativity, at least my creativity. I am all about balance and happy accidents, the ways things just happen to fall. But I am also all about pretty things lined up in pretty ways. I cannot say that I would choose form without consideration for function, but I would never chose function without consideration for form. And I have come to accept that this is one of the reasons that I want my studio to be a separate place from my house. The house needs to work for me to be content there. I like little jars lined up in the refrigerator and I learned long ago, that if I wash the lettuce, dry it and put it in a container, it will last longer, but I will also be more likely to use it before it spoils. If I cut the bell peppers into strips and put them in a pretty container, I will see them and use them. If a whole bell peppers rolls around in the back of a crisper drawer, God help it, because I will likely forget its existence. I hate food waste. I like pretty little things lined up in rows. Spending time prepping and putting away saves me time in the long run, and brings me peace. It gives me more time in the studio, where I and pull things out of drawers and pile things up and let them speak to each other, where serendipity plays a role.

I can't really explain why some clutter makes me crazy and other clutter fills me with joy. All I can do is go with it, and learn to respect my own strengths and failings. Also learn to accept that anything I see as a strength may indeed be something someone else sees as a failing. But who cares. The joy in existence is that each and every being is different. For me, having food prepped in anonymous little containers encourages use and play, and helps me find things. I won't rustle through plastic bags, but I will look at little jewel boxes of color, and use ingredients before they spoil. That is how I ended up with roasted chicken thighs and a simple sauté of bell pepper and baby box choy for dinner one night. I saw the vegetables, saw that I needed to eat them before going away, thought they looked pretty together and so they were, delicious also, simply tossed in the pan drippings from the chicken.

But where am I in all this? I don't know. Someone said to me in a conversation about something, some choice for something, "but you are an artist". I was taken aback. I don't really think of myself as an artist. I don't actually think of myself as much of anything, just myself, just a complex mix thoughts and ideas and activities. I don't produce anything, not necessarily anything that anyone wants. But I do think life is art. I care about the details of how life is lived. Can being an artist be a way of looking at the world? I don't know.

Where am I in all of this? It is worth repeating. Evolving. Aren't we all, always evolving? Or at least that is the hope. Here I am sitting with my grand-dog, Dash. Dash is growing to big to be a lap dog, but he is still a puppy and he wants desperately to be a lap dog, so he tries. I feel that way sometimes, like I am trying to shove too much into my time and space wanting to be — something — l am not sure what, but also content to just be what I am inconsistencies and big floppy messes and all.

February 8, 2019
January Books: A Murakami Feast

I surprised myself, and that, in and of itself is not at all surprising.

As I looked back on my January reading, I was surprised that I read more than I gave my self credit for. I spent the biggest part of the month, over 3 weeks really, reading Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore, and that book has occupied my thoughts and imagination in a way that shoved other reading to the side, undeservedly so in fact. But those other books, the non-Murakami, were not forgettable bits of fluff, well perhaps they are, slightly fluffy, and I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed reading a couple of books that otherwise might never have crossed my path.

But since I haven't really been able to sort out what to say, I shall just work my way through the list chronologically. Reading Mark Sisson's Primal Endurance, which I read in December, sparked an interest in the work of Phil Maffetone. I ordered The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing, which I have peeked at but not yet read, even though I have no interest in racing. Before it arrived however, I saw Maffetone's older (out of date) book, The Maffetone Method, at my local second-hand book store, where I bought it for a buck and a half. I read it the first day of the new year and it was worth the cost. I can't say that I've made as much progress as I hoped with my own endurance training. What I've learned is that I need patience, and this process, if I am going to do it right, takes time. I do see improvements, but have also had minor setbacks as I've been struggling with sinus issues the last couple of weeks, and my arthritis has been acting up as well. Both have slowed down progress but I am slowly on the mend.

Billy Collins' volume of poetry, The Rain in Portugal, and Michelle Obama's Becoming, were both Christmas gifts. Both were books I might well have missed if left to my own devices, and I am glad to have received them as I enjoyed both. I was aware of Collins' poetry. He was, after all, poet laureate for a bit at the beginning of this century. His work is popular. Is that why I previously dismissed him? I don't think so, but in the end I often don't know my own oversights and biases until they smack me upside the head. Anyway, I discovered more depth to the poems than I had previously appreciated. As I mentioned, surprises abound.

Michelle Obama's book, Becoming, was another surprise to me. I was aware of the book, and as much as I admire Michelle Obama, I also dismissed the book as another bit of self-promotion and pandering, yet another "my time in the White House" marketing ploy. And it may be those things, but I was also pulled into the warmth and humanity of Michelle's story as she told it and the deliberate blurring of focus. It was both a personal story but also a reminder of community and the importance of being aware, or mentoring, and of reaching out without the all too common sense of being chided. I was really struck by the kindness and empathy that is expressed in this book, and am grateful for the opportunity to have read it, and the gift of being able to see the world in a new way.

And then I opened Killing Commendatore. It was a book I read very slowly as it seemed to beg to be read slowly. I savored the words and the ideas and was constantly stopping to let my own thoughts and understandings simmer beneath the surface of my life. In many ways it seems to be an atypical Murakami novel, in that it is the most linear of the novels I have read (and I have read most of them). It is also in many ways the most overtly directed in terms of the author's use of metaphor and "magical realism", a term I hate because it negates the importance of metaphor, of using metaphor and imagination as a way to explain and explore thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences that cannot be translated directly into words. I think Murakami has been a master of exploring this, writing novels that have strong musical elements in the way explore feelings and experience. In that sense this may be a masterpiece, and I certainly think it is a culmination in some sense of what has come before. But I also see enough reviews by people that hate it. It is more direct than previous novels, and really, in one sense, not much happens, while at the same time everything happens. It is a novel about love and loss, what it means to love. It is about art and creativity and transformation and the difference between practice and technique, order and art, being creative and creating, between being "in love" and love itself. It is a book about transformation, what it means, and about the process of finding one's true self through all the clutter of life.

In that sense the novel is very spiritually or psychologically adept. I am not sure I see the difference between faith, spirituality, and psychology, although I have friends who would argue for one discipline or another. I see the differences as one of mindset or frame of reference with similar goals, that of finding and understanding the true self, the one buried under all the layers of adaptation that life piles onto us. In that sense, the experiences and the journeys in this book use similar metaphors that are found throughout human history, in faith traditions, in psychology, in science, and the experiences of Murakami's unnamed protagonist echo and enlighten my own experiences. I also like the way Murakami uses the word metaphor, and explores metaphor and meaning, including his use of the idea of the double metaphor to explore all the inner self-doubt and fear that plagues all of us. I copied out huge sections of prose that led my thoughts down various meandering paths. My brain meandered to the point that I had trouble writing about other things, although I didn't really explore the book here, I found it far too personal at this point, although I did mention it here and here. I do think I will be returning to this novel and it will have a lasting effect, not the least because it has sparked relationships with other favorite writers, and I have also been drawn back into the works of Nietzsche, TS Eliot, and William Blake, all of whom explore related metaphors, in very different ways of course. Good company, don't you think?

I ended the month with Tana French's newest novel, The Witch Elm. It was, of course, well written, intelligent and thoughtful. I may prefer her mysteries, but I enjoyed this and thought it was a good and thoughtful exploration of character and family dynamics in a time of crisis. I grew impatient at times, but that may have been more a reflection of my own timing and state of mind when I read this book. Anyway, it was good and, as always, enjoyable. It was kind of an in-between book for me — not light enough for treadmill walking and although enjoyable, not quite entrancing enough for me to curl up of an evening.

So that leaves one keeper in the lot, and that one a book I will probably reread multiple times. But all the books I read in January enriched some aspect of my life and my perceptions in one way or another, for why else do we read? To pass the time? To expand our horizons? To become the people we are meant to be?

February 6, 2019
A Nerd in the Kitchen

Last week I was in search of escarole. It was a commonly available ingredient when I lived in Hyde Park, available both in grocery stores and specialty markets. Not so much in Knoxville, which is a shame because I would purchase it regularly if available. I did not find any in the stores I normally frequent, and so I ventured further afield, actually finding it in a store where I once shopped regularly but had later abandoned due to increasing frustration over a steady drop in quality. I not only found the escarole, but I was pleasantly surprised that the store seemed to have turned around.

I decided it was time to reconsider my shopping trails, and so I turned to my pantry spreadsheet. Years ago, when I still lived in NY State, I would periodically do grocery store surveys, strictly for my own benefit. I would go, pantry list in hand, and compare prices, brands, and quality of the food items I routinely purchased. This was useful both from a budget perspective, and an organizational perspective, because I have apparently never been the kind of person who will buy everything in one store out of convenience, but I do need to know where to get the things I want, and how to balance price, convenience, and availability, given that time is also a commodity with its own costs.

I hadn't done a store comparison since I first moved to Knoxville, 7 years ago now. It seemed to be about time, especially since I have found myself more settled and am regularly cooking again both for others and myself. I simply took my existing spreadsheet and added a set of columns for the stores in the area, both specialty markets and grocery stores, and decided that over the next few weeks I would do a price and product comparison, thinking about where the best places are for me to shop based on availability and, yes, convenience simply because there is a cost to travel and to time, even as a retired person.

There are more stores on this list than on my first Knoxville comparison, mostly because more stores have moved to town, but also because I have moved and have grown more familiar with this area as well. Similarly, there is at least one store that may not make the list simply because the nearest branch is far enough outside my normal circle to make it uneconomical unless it has some prized ingredient that is otherwise difficult to source (doubtful).

Besides, I was already in another reorganization phase. Quite a few of the food storage containers I had purchased 5 years ago had lost their seals, and I was looking for something to replace them. I have long been a person who partially preps and repackages food into storage containers. And I have found that the effort pays in terms of both convenience and freshness, both because the repackaged items keep longer and because I am more likely to remember things I have actually worked with, as opposed to tossing them unheeded into the refrigerator. I also find I prefer to not be assaulted by branded packaging, at least for those items that can be easily repackaged.

Purchasing identical packaging is a luxury but one that brings me joy on a daily basis. Gradually, the contents of the refrigerator are being organized so that I can identify and find everything easily, although there are still a few jars on the side, awaiting an order of a specific size of storage canister/jar. This is important as I generally dislike the refrigerator in this apartment and find it difficult to use; anything that encourages me to open the refrigerator door and actually use something is a good thing.

I also started freezing extra portions of soup as I made it. This seems obvious, but I had not done it in years. I love soup, but I easily grow bored eating the same soup every day for a week. Rather than storing the soup in containers, I decided to try storing it in ziplock bags, each of which contains two servings of soup. This is also probably pretty obvious but I had never done it this way before, even thought I started packaging stock in Ziplock bags over a year ago.

The bags allow me to make a "soup file" in the freezer. The whole system makes it easier for me to see what stocks or soups I have on hand. Having soup in small quantities makes it easier to come up with a meal when I am tired and feeling uninspired. I am far more likely to use a 2-serving package of soup, than a big container of soup. And, since I love soup, and it is a convenient way to use up odd bits that would otherwise languish or go to waste, making soup is an easy feel-good activity.

I've also been engaged in a bit of a baking experiment. I made some shortbread for a friend, the traditional Scottish kind that consists of nothing but flour, butter and sugar. Although I used gluten-free flour because I won't have the other kind in my kitchen, I did use real butter even though I can't eat it. But as I worked I started to think about shortbread. Scottish shortbread is a really simple thing, simple and elegant. The recipe is a classic 321 ratio of ingredients, and the main trick is not to overwork the dough, and to cut it while warm but to wait until it fully cools before removing it from the pan.

My thoughts revolved around whether I could make a dairy-free version of shortbread using clarified butter rather than one of those dairy-free butter blends, which neither taste nor act like real butter. Hence the experiment. This last iteration was very close to perfection, but not quite. The photo above contains pieces from two batches of shortbread. Both are delicious, even if I think there is still room for improvement.

The first was using straight clarified butter, butter in which all the milk solids had been removed, and adjusting the proportions of the recipe to match the weight of the butter. It worked, but the resulting shortbread remains a little too tender and friable. It is difficult to eat without it falling into crumbs in one's fingers. Gluten-free flours do not absorb fat in the same way as wheat flour, meaning I may need to play with flour blends, or increase the protein solids which were lost in the clarification process.

In the second batch I added collagen protein to the clarified butter to replace the milk proteins that had been removed in the clarification process. This batch also tastes buttery and delicious, but it is a little too firm, and it got a little too dark. Of course collagen proteins and milk proteins are not identical, but I also realized that I made a basic miscalculation. I added protein to replace the entire weight that had been lost from the butter in the clarification process, forgetting that some of that weight loss had been due to the evaporation of water. Next time I will weigh the clarified butter and the remaining milk solids and adjust my proportions accordingly. I don't know if the water weight is important in this small of a quantity, or even if I can add water back into my clarified butter mix, to make a new emulsion, or even of that matters. It will be a couple of weeks before I can pick up this challenge again, but I am looking forward to the process.

February 4, 2019
Update

Suddenly a lot is happening at the house. This is good because everything looked like a disaster for far too long. It is also good because I seem to have too many pots on the fire at the moment and I can simply entertain you with a couple of pictures. Or so I hope.

The windows are finally in, and wallboard is going up this week into next week. This is the breakfast room, looking toward the kitchen and the new back entrance. It amazes me how happy a simple thing like windows makes me. The window openings were simply covered in plywood for far too long, and this made the house look sad and abandoned. Now, it is almost as if it has eyes again. The house once again feels like a happy place.

I am especially entranced with the increased light in the dining room. At the moment it is a little brighter than it will be because there is still an opening directly into the kitchen, But I know the light will be good, simply because that wall was covered with plastic (and a refrigerator) not that long ago, and the room was still brighter than it ever was during that first year I lived in the house.

And the hall. I want to dance in the hall. Doesn't it look so promising? So bright and welcoming? The French doors will eventually open onto a deck, although at the moment there is nothing there, just a drop to the ground, but the sense of promise is still present. The reflective covering on the floor makes everything seem brighter than it will be when I actually return, when the wood floors are once again uncovered, but the sense of promise remains.

In the meantime, I am scattered, with too many things going on. I don't understand why I believed moving into this apartment would be like a retreat, a creative time freed of normal distractions. Hah! I completely underestimated how much attention and energy this job would take. However, I suspect if I had fully understood how much I was getting into I wouldn't have leapt. And yet, I wouldn't have it any other way.

January 30, 2019
Coming Home

Lenten roses preparing to bloom in deep shade of my side garden.

A little over a week ago I was admiring the lenten roses blooming in a friend's yard. Simultaneously I was filled with joy, and with sadness. The joy was at the intrepid beauties of this world and the idea that spring would indeed come, that despite cold and frost and possibly snow, these small blossoms would carry on and persevere. My sadness was more personal. I was sad because I was thinking about the lush field of hellebores that had surrounded my house and which have now been mostly lost. I was sad because I had given up more than I wanted to give up. I was sad because I had not expected how poignantly I would feel the loss of the old and familiar even as I accept and know that the new is good and indeed where I need to be. I was sad because I wanted to be home.

Home, and the subject of our own human longing and need for a sense of home, has come up in quite a few conversations over the past couple of weeks. It has been a steady track in the background of my own thoughts as well and I have come to a new understanding of home and what it means, at least for me. But first I probably need to deconstruct.

Home is one of those complicated terms with layers of meaning. Home can simply be where one lives. It can be the people one loves, the place where one spent one's childhood, the place that shaped the person we became. Home can be many things. It can be everything and it can be nothing. When we meet new people we often ask them where they are from. At least here, in the Southern United States, we are asking where they were born, where they grew up, who their people were. It is a question that sometimes comes up early in conversations here, but this is not true in all cultures or societies. Although the idea that where we are from is an important part of who we are is universal, it can also be a question that delves too deeply into the personal for casual exploration.

The idea of "home" is actually both simpler, and more complicated, than simple explication would allow. Home can be the place we make, the people we choose, but it is also shaped by the people we are. Tom Wolfe wrote a novel called "You Can't Go Home Again" and he was right. But we often misconstrue the message. It is not that you can't go back to your childhood town and pick up again. You can. But that place is not the same. You are not the same. None of us are the same people we were. We are not the same people we were last week, although we tend to think we don't change that much. The changes are so incremental we don't notice them until something happens that shocks us into awareness. Something like tearing apart your house. Or worse: divorce, death of a loved one, loss of one's career, home, way of life. Life is full of loss. Mostly we inure ourselves to the small losses, and yearn for a better place, a place without loss, a place we call home.

Two things, two contradictory things, struck me last week. They were not a part of this lingering conversation about home and yet they played into it. One of them was the "Violins of Hope" program performed in Knoxville last weekend. I attended, although reluctantly and mostly because I felt obligated out of family history and loyalty, but in the end I was glad I went. Musicians from the symphony performed on the old instruments. The readings were well done and the entire evening was poignantly beautiful. And yet I struggle with the entire mentality of "never forget". We are already forgetting. We forget that Jews were not the only victims of the holocaust, that twelve million were killed directly by the Nazis, including a far higher percentage of the Roma population (although a smaller number of actual individuals). We forget that between 38 and 55 million people died in WWII if we include military casualties. I am not saying this to negate the impact on the Jewish community, which was intentionally attacked, but it is only one story. We forget that genocide plagues human history. We forget that bad things do not happen in a vacuum, that bad things sometimes happen because good people turn their eyes away, yearning for the past, for better times, forgetting the past was never as we remember it. We forget and yet we do not. Is there a cost to not forgetting? yes. Is there a cost to forgetting. Also yes. Is there a cost to defining oneself by one's losses, not by one's gains?

The other thing that stuck in my head was a line from Haruki Murakami's novel Killing Commendatore. It is not the most beautiful or resonant passage I recorded from this novel, but it struck me in this moment of my life.

"You have the strength to wish for those things you cannot have."

This sentence captures in some essence much of what this book is about, as it is a novel about art, and love, and transformation, mostly about transformation and how art and love are about transformation as well. The ability to undergo transformation is a rare thing, and it almost always comes out of some deeply unsettled place, if not outright darkness, and yet, if we succeed it always results in something I will simply call beauty, even though that may not be obviously evident on the surface of things.

So, here is my question, or the line of my thoughts anyway. Not all of us yearn for home. Most of us are content with wanting whatever we can achieve. And yet the echo of that yearning still exists deep in our psyches and we are right to be afraid. To wish for the things you cannot have takes strength, and if you fail the costs can be great as the journey often involves dismantling so many of the things we believe about ourselves. But when does yearning for home become destructive? When is yearning for "those things you cannot have" lead to insight and transformation, and when does it become "never forget" and the road to defining oneself in the past, the road to death?

But back to the hellebores, and my own ever-changing understanding of home. There is a mythical place called home — the people I came from, the place I grew up — but I recognize that although those people and places shaped who I am, I also recognize that they are no longer home, if indeed they ever were. For a long time I made my home, not in a place but with a person. George was my home and I thought my house in Hyde Park was my "forever home". But that was an illusion. The house was only home because George was my home, and then I began to lose George and I found that I was homeless once again. Although I grew greatly through the love offered in that relationship, I also stopped growing. That is one of the funny things about relationships. We strive to be vulnerable and open ourselves up to each other, to grow together, but there is also the danger that we will stop growing and allow the relationship to be a substitute for inner growth. I sometimes wonder if this is more of a danger for women, who are often subtly taught to subvert their true natures, to become vulnerable in order to be cared for, or for people who have been damaged through early experiences, but I suspect it too is universal. I suspect it comes out of fear, fear of being alone, fear of not being good enough. Most of us never really find our true selves. Many of us never really even try.

Anyway George died, and once again I had no home. I had he house we bought in Knoxville, but I gradually came to see that our house was not my home. It was the place I bought so that George could be near his family, and I as well of course, but actually it was the place I bought so that George could die and I could start a new life. Eventually, that house held me too tightly to past and I had to let it go.

When I bought my current house I fell in love. Yes, you can fall in love with a place, although I realize now that I was also falling in love with the person I could be but was not yet. I felt instantly at home. For a long time I felt it was the place that was home, the physical house. I have no regrets. I am glad I bought that place, it was a refuge during a very bad year, a year when I learned another place I had thought was home, was not really home, just another external structure upon which I had built false home, to which I had given too much of my heart. I was looking for home in all the wrong places.

What I have discovered, although it has just now truly become coherent in my thoughts, is that I have found home, and it has been with me all along. I thought it was my house, and so it was, is and will be again. But that is not my true home. My house is home because it is the place I can be my true self. It was not the house that offered me security, but myself, even if initially I didn't realize the extent of how that worked.

What I realized most forcefully of late is that the search for home is a false search. Home is within each of us all along, it is our true selves, our best inner nature, and we carry it with us wherever we go. Other people, other places, cannot build home for us, but we can let those people and places in and welcome them into our homes. Or we can continue seeking. But if we keep on seeking, letting the external define us, if we keep looking for some kind of external validation or sense of home, we begin to define ourselves by the past, by our emptiness, not our fullness. And home becomes a place we can never reach. You can't go home again because home was never a place. You take it with you everywhere, the more you run from yourself, the more you look for an external place to fill the internal center, the more you obscure the path to that center and the further from home you ultimately find yourself.

At the moment, I am completely at home in my apartment. This was not initially the case because I moved here thinking that it would be holding station, never intending it to be "home". That changed when the scope of the job changed. And now I can say I am at home here. This is reflected in the fact that I am comfortable, and that I am cooking, sewing, planning out projects and, evenly more importantly, perfectly content to be doing nothing here, content to just be myself. And when I move back into my house it will be my home as well. Until it isn't. Until I change yet again. I hope that when the time comes, I will remember to not hold too tightly onto the past, to live in the present, ever-shifting as it may be, and to remember that home is with me always.

January 28, 2019
The Tendrils of My Thoughts

I am a little scattered this morning. My sinuses are draining, which may account for at least some of the randomness of my thoughts as every time I seem to get settled on a particular track, I am stopped and rerouted by a trip to the tissue box.

It seems therefore that this is proving to be the perfect morning for a few random bits.

I replaced the hose on my gravity feed iron this morning. The previous (yellow) hose had proven to be a problem when I was working on the Christening gown, not surprisingly as it was actually a piece of medical tubing I had dug out of George's box of essential supplies after he passed away. The hose had served for a few years, when I was only sewing lightly and in short bursts, but it did not stand up to the prolonged heat necessary for a larger project. This is not surprising; it was never meant to go on a hot iron. Admitting defeat, I ordered a proper hose, one intended for use with a hot iron. Yesterday I removed the old hose, which also required some scraping, soaking, and general work to remove areas of melted rubber from the metal parts of the iron. This morning the new hose went into place, and I am ready for prolonged work in the studio, without the frustrations of working with inadequate equipment. Of course the problem was one of my own making, but that seems to be often the case with human endeavor, not that I am willing to go down that path very often (admitting to mistakes, not the making of them, a process in which I engage far too frequently).

One of the amaryllis bulbs is about to open. I am very much looking forward to the big reveal.

A friend and I attended a reception yesterday evening, where the upcoming season of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra was announced. It was a lovely evening, and the presentation was interspersed with musical interludes performed by the symphony's Wind Quintet, Looking at the amaryllis bulb this morning reminds me of one such interlude, where they musicians were playing some 17th century Hungarian dances. The music felt joyous and peaceful, and wrapped itself around my thoughts like the tendrils of a climbing vine, gently winding their way into my thoughts and opening up, like a flower into new vistas.

Such I suppose will be the case with the Amaryllis. I am looking forward to the exuberance of the big reveal, and already in a musical state of mind, I am reminded of the vibrant joyousness of last week's symphony performance, which ended with an excess of joyful exuberance as the Knoxville Symphony and the members of the Youth Symphony performed Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World". I was particularly tickled by this (I have always loved that symphony) because George always hated it, thinking it was far too populist and overwrought. And yet George's memory accompanied me to that concert as the Dvorak, among other things, was paired with one of George's favorite pieces, Korngold's Violin Concerto in D major. It is quite possible that in my youth I felt much the same way about the Korngold as George did about the Dvorak. Anyway, the Korngold was stunningly performed. Tessa Lark brought a beauty and lyricism to the piece, which too my ears had always seemed to full of schmaltz for comfort. I think I believe both new depths and new lightness was revealed, a newly discovered sense of joy, as well as the deep peacefulness that comes when one recognizes how one is shaped by one's past, and yet not necessarily defined by it.

And lastly, Tikka. Here she is sleeping in my closet, her head resting on some metal hand weights. This seems particularly uncomfortable to me, but as it is one of her favorite spots, I must assume our understandings and experiences of comfort are different.

Tikka was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease around Christmas and it took a few weeks to get the details of the diagnosis and treatment squared away. She started her new medicine late last week, and although not all of her symptoms have abated, she is already a much lighter spirited, bouncier and happier dog. I am reminded of how she slowed down over a period of months and how we thought the problem was back or hip issues, both of which are present, but now I see that this disease was probably just building up slowly, see how things can sneak up on us before we realize what is going on, see how powerful healing can be.

January 23, 2019
On Conversations: With Books and With Myself Regarding Books

I am still reading Haruki Murakami's novel Killing Commendatore. I have been reading it slowly and thoughtfully, as there are many passages that interrupt my ability to push forward, leading me to sit back and ponder what I have been reading. I have probably spent as much time musing over the book as I have in actual reading, perhaps more. This is not a complaint. I love a book that demands attention, demands conversation.

But the process has also led my thoughts down subsidiary paths, caused me to reflect on the process of reading, of reading deeply, and my own inner conflict around marginalia and note taking. And that leads me to a question, a question not geared to those who read without noting, and move on. The question is, do you write in your books, or do you keep a reading journal, keep notes in a separate location? To be honest I don't think there is any best answer to this question, although I do wish to explore the issue as it relates to my own mental wiring.

I am mostly of the latter persuasion, but I have not always been convinced that this is the best way. Some part of me has always admired people who mark up their books, who write notes in the margins, and I realize that this is a more complex issue than I had previously assumed, at least in terms of my own psychological makeup. I admit that I don't often know what I am thinking until I write it out, or talk it out, but really there are only a handful of people in the world I can talk deeply with at that level, where knowledge and understanding and vulnerability can be laid out in the open without risk and growth can occur. I treasure those dear souls, but more often I am writing out my thoughts about books. Increasingly, I recognize that I admire practitioners of marginalia because I assume, probably not correctly, that they are smarter and more adept at pulling together their thoughts, than I. In fact, this may or may not be the case, and ultimately it is, altogether, the wrong question.

Perhaps it goes back to childhood, to those days when books were all a property of my parents, where we were not allowed to scribble in our books, to those days when we were taught to wash our hands before reading and hand inspections were routine, all the better to insure that grubby fingers would not mar precious pages. Those rules had something to do with a father who could not stand amateurish efforts, who probably did not want to be forced to encounter immature or silly thoughts. I how those rules fed my increasingly deep-seated insecurities by feeding my inner conviction that my thoughts were not good enough to compete, even in my own books, books I purchased myself, with those of wiser and more mature minds.

When I met George, one of the things he admired, and often mentioned to his friends, was how I would read scholarly journals and books, and that I always had a notebook where I copied out quotes from the books and wrote extensively about my understanding of what I was reading. This habit partially arose in childhood when my parents, increasingly worried about how quickly I plowed through books, required me to write book reports on everything I read.

I got in the habit of taking notes at an early age, rather than using a pen or a highlighter. Because the process of taking notes interrupts the flow of reading, and therefore of comprehension, I developed the habit of reading the book or article or chapter once through quickly, just for general understanding, and then a second time, more deeply, when I would copy, note, and ponder what I was reading. This habit served me well throughout college and grad school. I fretted that I was slow-witted, and needed more time to study than most of my peers, primarily because note taking is slow, but I also assumed that my fellow students, who did not take notes, naturally remembered more of what they read than I did, making the erroneous assumption that their lack of note taking skills was an indication of greater ability. In retrospect, I see that although I may have spent more time initially on my studies, I had the advantage when it came time for exams and term papers, as I already had extensive notes organized, I rarely had to crack my texts to study. I rarely needed to pull an all-nighter, and for the most part I could review my notes and ideas would return to the front of my memory. And so this habit, this habit of writing things out was honed.

I still admire marginalia. I've even gone through periods when I tried it with varying degrees of success. I admit I love reading a second hand book where the original reader has made notes. The notes enhance the reading experience, making me look at what I am reading with different eyes, and act therefore much like a conversation between readers. But for me this is the gift of a double-edged sword, because even as another person's notes can make me look at a book in a new way, they can also prevent me from forming my own independent relationship with the book. My understanding of the book is shaped subtly by what someone else has written. I don't know if this is universal, or if it stems from some insidious remnant of that early insecurity. This proves to be the problem for me with my own books as well. I love rereading books. For the most part, I feel that if a book is worth owning it is worth rereading. The conversation will evolve with each reading. What I have found, for me, at least, is that if I have notes or underlined and bracketed passages in a book, my previous relationship with the book shapes my future reading. We stop growing together, the book and I, just as, with a person, friendships can stop evolving if we refuse to forgive a slight, or acknowledge our separate growth and changes in circumstances.

I love other people's marginalia more perhaps than I love my own, although I increasingly indulge, creating my own small system of notes, even as I struggle with its effectiveness for me. I personally feel less invested in books if I have only marked them up without also writing extensively about the process of reading. I still admire people that write in their books, and still, deep down in some corner of my soul, feel that the ability is a higher calling. I can also admit that, in my youth especially, not writing in my books was something of a self-protective mechanism, a personal wall to protect myself from vulnerability. If no one could read what I wrote, I could feel safe and protected. Notebooks, after all could be destroyed.

Now that I find myself beginning my 7th decade on this planet, most of those early insecurities have been recognized for what they are, and mostly banished to the margins of my existence. But the patterns that I have developed seem to have become a part of the way I think, and although they are now hard to break completely, I believe I can still adapt. I still write out particularly favored passages. The advent of ebooks and ebook readers has made it easier to highlight, and to erase highlights, making the process faster. I can highlight a book as I read it, send my notes and highlights to Evernote, and then edit the whole thing, returning to the book as needed to expand upon ideas. I still make handwritten notes, but I use Evernote as well, both by typing in particular passages, and scanning in handwritten notes on books. This is helpful due to the search ability of Evernote. I can read a book again, and go back and look at my notes, should I desire to do so.

I no longer have my old college notebooks, even my reading notebooks from before I moved to Tennessee. I had file cabinets full of notes and journals and I destroyed them all. Do I regret that? Sometimes. That all harkens back to that deeply seated insecurity, and the entire world-upending changes that I was thrown into with George's illness and descent into dementia. My insecurities came back to haunt me in those days, and I realized I had built a structure of confidence and self worth that was fragile, that was built on sand. When the storm came my identity came crashing down and I was thrown into the pit.

I can ask again, do I regret having destroyed my journals and notebooks? In part, yes, because they connect me to a part of myself. But that part is not lost. I do remember. But now I am, mostly, better at integrating the parts of myself. Now I can move forward. I still take notes, but once in a while I will bracket and underline, once in a while a note will appear in the margins of a book, often linked and connected to something written somewhere, or some computer file. I find myself finding strength and joy in going more slowly, in letting go of the idea that happiness and joy comes from doing more, but rather from enjoying the conversation. Whether that conversation is with a friend, a book, or the way the sunshine hits my face as it breaks through the clouds is irrelevant.

January 21, 2019
Five Things Friday

1. Rain and headaches. That was yesterday. I woke up with a headache and the rain started before my first meeting ended. I was completely scatterbrained and drove past my second appointment and was therefore late. It seemed wise to spend the rest of the day quietly at home, where little actually got done, but I'm OK with that. Cold rainy days seem perfect for random laziness. Perhaps the headache was a gift. The pounding eventually subsided around 6 PM, when I had another meeting, but I still felt subdued and unfocused. I can't explain it but all has returned to normal this morning.

2. A building rises from the mud. Yes. Foundations are in place and they started framing the garage. Roofing materials also arrived and perhaps soon there will be a roof on the addition to the house. That period from Thanksgiving to Christmas felt awfully long, as progress was slowed by rain and mud. Waiting can seem interminable, and although necessary underlayment was progressing, I was feeling somewhat subdued about the project. Foundations, HVAC, and electrical wiring, as necessary as they are, don't look like much when they are going in, and I didn't realize how much I yearned to see something, anything, that looked like I might live in it again. Perhaps I just hadn't recovered from the shock of loosing plantings due to the need to replace and expand the buried drainage system, or the shock of the disruption of the backyard when the old garage was excavated and a buried septic tank was discovered, a buried septic tank that had to be removed. Every day it felt like the mud was increasingly exponentially. In December, that sense of having lost control was palpable, and although it is, perhaps, shallow and frivolous, seeing the framing take shape, floors and walls begin to appear, has lifted my spirits considerably.

3. I made chicken stock this week, for the first time since probably before Thanksgiving. The beef stock surplus is dwindling as well, so I will probably be back on a weekly stock-making schedule before spring is well established. With this batch of stock, I also made a pot Attukal Paya, a spicy Indian soup or stew made from mutton legs and/or feet, except that I used lamb because that is what I find at my local Asian Market. I've been making the soup for a few months now, off and on, but this is the first time I started with a base of my own rich chicken stock before extracting the collagen from those lamb bones. I will never go back.

I tend to pull the lamb out once I've extracted all the flavor, and then drink the pureed soup in a mug, but yesterday I had a bowl for lunch along with some baby bok choy I had seared in some smoked chaabani pepper olive oil. It turned out surprisingly well since I wasn't actually sure what to expect from the oil, a new-to-me ingredient and gift from my brother.

4. I also stepped out of my sartorial comfort zone, by branching out of my everyday boots and jeans mode and wearing a skirt and tights with a favorite pair of everyday boots. Actually, perhaps I found my groove because I was very comfortable and very much myself. Perhaps I am also rediscovering a bit of joy in the occasional jolt of black in my wardrobe. That black knit skirt had not been worn for a while, and now I can't wait to wear it again, black leggings and boots and all.

Of course the proportions worked better with the coat than they did with the sweater underneath, but that is something I can work on. It ended up not mattering much on Wednesday, the day I wore that outfit, because I had two meetings at the house, which is always cold given that it is not yet closed up, and otherwise ran errands. I ended up with my coat on for most of the day, the sweater simply acting as an insulating layer. The sweater itself, much as I have loved it in the past (it is 9 years old) may be spending its last winter with me. It no longer seems to just work the way I want it to work with the things I want to wear.

5. A secret garden. I suppose that best describes how I feel about this small collection of artifacts. Granted, they arrived in this spot because I didn't know where else to put them, but this location, the corner of my desk, has proved fortuitous because I see them everyday and they always make me smile. The glass rose is new, a Christmas gift from my brother, Charles. The silver llamas were my grandmother's, and I see I need to polish them, although at the moment I am also fascinated by the way the reflection of light off the rose plays out in a subtle play of colors dancing across the tarnished surface of the llamas. I don't remember the provenance of the small vaseline glass vase but looking at it I am reminded of where it sat in the house, on a windowsill in the sunroom, the play of light and shadow and the green of oak leaf hydrangeas behind it. Those hydrangeas are now gone, but the vase does not make me sad. There will be new plantings, new leaves, new light. For now however, we just wait, remember, and dream.

January 18, 2019
A New Christening Outfit from Old Lace

I've spent the better part of 2019 so far playing with lace, lace and fabric. I was making a christening gown for a little girl, using one of her great-grandmother's old cocktail dresses. Although the skirt was full, Great-grandmother had a tiny waist and there were many seams and darts, seams and darts sewn through many layers of lace and fabric and tulle.

The first order of business was to deconstruct the original dress. The lace was delicate and fragile, disintegrating in places. I am sorry I didn't take any pictures of the full dress, but it was strapless with a full skirt. There had obviously been a pink ribbon at one time, threads remained where it had been tacked in place, and several areas of the lace had pink stains.

Once the fabric was in pieces, repairs were made, where possible, by appliqué and embroidery, layering lace motifs and creating new lace chains as needed. This was the longest part of the job, but in many ways the most enjoyable.

A week before the baptism, which was this past Saturday, I was given another dress. The dress was mostly tulle, but there was a panel of embroidered organdy on the front of the dress. Unfortunately the organdy was very white, and the original lace was off-white with a yellowish-green cast. The two did not look good together and I could not quite figure out how to combine them in one dress in a way that would satisfy me. I decided to keep the dress out of the original lace, and use the organdy as a coat. I also decided to use a third shade of white, an off-white silk satin organza which was sitting in my stash, as a lining for both pieces.

The organza was a remnant from Miriam's wedding, and as I hadn't yet used it for anything, I decided that it had been waiting for just this occasion. It was off-white, with a beige-cast, more yellow than the white organdy, but not as yellow as the lace, although you can't quite tell that in the photo above, taken late in the evening under artificial light, before the dress was finished. The firm hand of the satin organza also provided stability and protection for the lace.

Both garments were finished with a simple bias binding at the neck. The dress was tied at the back neck with a ribbon, but I could not find a ribbon to that worked with the hybrid color of the coat, at least not on short notice. The coat remained open.

The coat was made in a simple, sacque shape, and was really the simplest part of the outfit since no great efforts were required to preserve the fabric.

But the two garments worked together, and better yet, looked adorable on Annalyse.

(all photos are mine except for the last photo, from the baptism. This photo was used with permission of Annalyse's grandmother)

January 16, 2019