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Wandering

My Texas trip came to a close with a visit to San Antonio, always one of my favorite cities. My first day in town was occupied mostly with family visits, but my second day, my last day in Texas that wasn't a travel day, I reserved as a personal day, not that I did much. Actually not doing much was the point. I took a couple of walks along the riverwalk, one of several miles duration, Tikka wandered around the Pearl Farmer's Market and had brunch, I visited a sculpture garden.

I sat on my balcony, overlooking the Riverwalk, and read a book. The photo above was taken in the very early morning however, before there was enough light for reading, but perfectly pleasant enough to sit with coffee and watch the runners go by.

I did take a few pictures here and there. Bits that I found interesting. I have a new phone, with a new camera and it was fun to play with it a little bit, although mostly my focus was not on picture-taking opportunities. More likely I was just enjoying a beautiful day, breezy and cool with temperatures in the 60's. A perfect day for walking and letting one's thoughts meander.

The fall colors were lovely.

But, as per usual, I was also intrigued by human artifacts and influences.

Of course we humans always have an impact on our environment.

I continue to be fascinated by the play of light, structure, vegetation in the view from the river walk of the Tobin Center for the Arts. I believe I took the same, or a very similar, photo on my last visit.

And there is always the question of whether what is good for us is also good for our world. Sometimes we do better than others, sometimes we fail miserably, but hopefully we learn to live together. Family visits are like that as well. We start out with altruistic intentions, to see a loved one and support them, spend time with them. But our wishes and desires often overrule our kinder instincts. We want to see and support and bond with our families and friends, but we also want them to do and be the kind of people we want, do the things we want. Family visits. All that yearning and wanting and the stress of conflicting needs and desires can lead to both moments of stress and moments of kindness and empathy.

I was reading Rebecca Kaufman's The Gunners, which I enjoyed, and which was, in many ways a good book to read over the course of a few days visiting family. The book explores a friendship over many years, and a process of coming together, drifting apart, and reconnecting. But it also discusses secrets, desires, things said and things not said and how they all influence our relationships, often the things not said having a greater influence than the things said as they allow imaginations, always tainted by an isolated solitary perspective, to run wild. And yet…

It is precisely there, in the "and yet" that all the possibilities coalesce, especially the possibility of love.

November 26, 2018
A Museum Discovery And A Concert Review

I was looking at this painting, Soup, by Miquel Barceló the other day and was reminded that I had not yet written about last Friday's concert by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

Somehow the idea of soup seemed relevant to me at the time, referencing the idea of art as a soup, as an essential form of nourishment but one that is a melding of all the interests and influences that go into the pot, yielding something that is shaped by and yet not necessarily completely defined by its parts. Friday's concert, titled "Schumann's Circle of Friends" was in its own way a different soup, each work created by an individual, but also existing within a relationship of creative ideas and influences bubbling through the lives of a group of friends, music of a time and a place and a milieu, and yet, at least for some of that music, something that also transcended the limitations of that very culture which shaped its creation, in short, soup.

The concert opened with Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream, written when the composer was 17. It was followed by Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op 7, completed when she was 14. The piano concerto was beautifully played by Gabriela Martinez. Clara Schumann was a virtuoso pianist and the piece was written to show off her talents; Martinez seemed to capture this spirit of youthful exuberance beautifully, and the piece was elegantly and harmoniously played, especially in the solo cello passages played by Andy Bryenton.

But I felt the first half of the program was the weaker half. The Clara Schumann work was lovely, extraordinary really for a 14 year old girl, but although it seemed to capture and coalesce all the themes of the moment, it struck me as just that, a perfect pulling together but ultimately without anything new to say. The Mendelssohn overture was also lovely, well-known and beloved by the audience, but the performance felt out of sync at times, and, at least as heard on Friday night, I felt the Mendelssohn did not hold up to the works that followed the intermission.

The second half of the program opened with Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Notturno in G minor. Originally written for solo piano, this arrangement was for flute and strings. I felt the music was truly gorgeous; lyrical, tender at times, but also lush with a great balance of emotion and restraint. I don't know enough about the music of Fanny Mendelssohn, but this concert led me to wonder what might have been had she lived in a different time, with more opportunities for women, led me to wonder if perhaps she was the more talented composer.

Certainly the Notturno held up against Robert Shumann's Third Symphony, "The Rhenish", a work that could be both grand and solemn, yet also lightly lush and lyrical. I was impressed with the performance of a beloved piece that I have admittedly not listened to in a very long time. The guest conductor, Eric Jacobsen, appeared to be adept at balancing this work, which can sometimes feel heavy with conflicting themes, in balance with the mood of the evening. I felt like I was listening with fresh ears, carried away by the music, a feeling only magnified in the final piece, Brahms' Hungarian Dance #1. In fact I think the entire audience, or at least a significant portion, was dancing in their hearts and heads by the time the music ended, and the audience rose up in one swell of joyous applause. Most admirably was how these three pieces, so very different from each other, also were pulled together to create a sense of their own space, of something greater than any single one.

And so I am back to the idea of soup. I saw Barceló's painting at a small museum, the Meadows Museum, on the campus of SMU. I went to see a particular exhibit, which I will write about later, but I was entranced by other pieces in the museum's collection, including this sculpture by Jaume Plensa outside the main entrance. I was taken by its huge scale, and the way its size and construction play with weight and transparency. Perhaps this work too, reminds me of how I felt leaving that concert a week ago, thoughts expanding with the music but also with a sense of transparency, of the light of seeing something familiar in a new way.

But let us enter the museum. Immediately, we proceed up the stairs to the second level, where the main collection and special exhibits are housed. I am as intrigued by the view as I climb, and the glimpse of a twelfth century Spanish painting of The Three Marys, entering the tomb of Jesus.

On the landing are four works, offering a glimpse of the breadth of the museum's holdings. Opposite that first piece is another twelfth century work, this one of the last supper. I love the way the art is positioned so that I cannot get a photo of any one piece without partial glimpses of other works, I love the reflections in the mirrored doors. Alas I was so entranced by the multi-dimensional reflections of he works that I forgot to note anything about the sculpture in the center.

Representing the 20th Century, and bridging the passageway between the two galleries is this sculpture, titled In Between, by contemporary American artist, James Surls. I went to the right, where I found 20th century Spanish art, including the painting at the top of this post, and the special exhibit on Dali, which I hope to be able to tell you about soon.

November 23, 2018
Giving Thanks

It is the time in this country when we take a day to give thanks. And so we do. We go overboard preparing too much food, occasionally eat to excess, watch football and parades, spend time with family and friends. Some of us rise early the next morning and do battle seeking material excess at low prices.

Some of us, those whose hearts are perhaps too big, who take the worries of the world too greatly, secretly fret about whether or not we should really be celebrating excess when there is so much tragedy in the world: people who have lost loved ones, families displaced by fires in California, hurricanes on the gulf coast, towns devastated, people who have lost everything. The tragedies of the world seem unimaginable, our own comfort and security shallow.

But of course it is good to have a ritualized day of Thanks, a reminder that there is always something to be grateful for, although we may not always see it. Perhaps it is human nature to wish for whatever it is we do not have, what we do not see, as if wishing would make it better. But I'm not sure we wish for the right things. Yes, wishing for rain to put out fires may seem good. But what if it rains too much? Mudslides, flooding. The world rarely seems to work in the way we humans would imagine it to be.

I have been remembering a book I loved as a child, Half Magic by Edward Eager. Children find a coin or talisman that grants half a wish. Misadventures ensue. There are parts of the book that are difficult for today's readers, yes, but I am not certain the we should abandon that which is good because of that which makes us uncomfortable. Easy answers often ignore difficult questions, and life, human life, is nothing if not complex and often contradictory. And so it is good to be grateful. It is good to be reminded that the things we wish for often have unintended and unimagined consequences, and that true magic can happen in the most unexpected and unanticipated ways.

Be grateful. Be kind. Do something for someone else, no matter how small. Have a wonderful day, by which I also mean take time to breathe in the wonder. Give thanks. Then, having stored up all that goodness, share it with the world.

(the painting is by Joseph Delaney. I originally posted it, and wrote about it, last August, here.)

November 22, 2018
Catching Up with Favorite Haunts of Old

Friday Tikka and I walked through Daingerfield State Park in East Texas, a place my family frequently went camping in my my youth. It was kind of a spur-of-the moment decision, although I have thought of stopping by before.

It was cool, perhaps even chill, in the upper 40s, cloudy and dark. I had just been driving through a couple of hours of rain, but although dark and dreary, it was not raining in East Texas although there was evidence that rain has been ample of late with signs of flooding in many places. In fact the contrast of wet and burnt were unsettling on my walk, spongy earth and areas of charred burnt forest and stumps amidst the lush new growth, reminded me that Texas is coming off a drought of many years duration.

Still, it was a lovely day for a walk. There is a trail around the small lake, a trail of about 2 1/2 miles duration which I would have liked to take but I was worried about it being too far for Tikka. I needn't have worried and I am sure there is a lesson in that. Tikka hasn't been walking as much lately, and she does have some degenerative issues in her spine, but she was happy to wander off, blazing a trail. Perhaps, now that the weather is cooler, we need to explore more. Perhaps she is simply bored with the apartment complex, I know I am as a walking trail, at any rate.

We didn't take the lake trail, but instead wandered partly around the lake, then took the Mountain trail, and a subsidiary offshoot, I think officially named something else on the maps, but the signs simply said Mountain trail. My thoughts were that these trails were shorter, and they were, .66 mile, and .5 mile each, but I had to get to them, having parked along the lake trail, not near to the mountain trails. In the end we walked 2 miles, and it was a harder walk than had we simply taken the loop around the lake, but I think it worked well for us.

At one point the subsidiary trail went steeply uphill, not quite vertically, but close. Tikka scampered up boulders and tree roots like a mountain goat, looking curiously at me I picked my way more slowly, looking for steady footholds, and often handholds as well, in the mud and wet leaves, and over the rocks. Still it was a good walk, and we had both recovered enough energy to sprint across the lawn back to our car at the end of the trail. Tikka of course then got to take a nap while I drove the last 2 hours or so to my mother's house in Garland.

I'm expecting a quiet week. Blogging will probably be irregular.

November 20, 2018
Just in time for the Holidays

It appears that yes, I can finish something I started.

You may or may not remember this sweater. I last showed it to you in Mid September, in pieces on the blocking board. I had every intention of finishing it up right away. There were some complications and then I had every intention of finishing it in mid-October, but alas I managed to distract myself once again. And now, finally finished. Presenting Abigail modeling Raspberry Glitter, just in time for cooler weather and holiday parties.

If you look back on that original post, you might note that there were sleeves. Alas they were the source of great angst and upset, and after (yet another) ripping and re-knitting session I abandoned the sleeves all together. It seems I had forgotten something critical, namely that bias fabrics need to be cut with ample room to allow for drape, and although the sleeves would have fit had they not been knit on the bias, they felt too snug when I wore them. So I ripped and re-knitted them a bit larger only to find that I still disliked them. Although the shell itself is perfectly comfortable, I found the sleeves to be shifty itchy things, best banished from my presence. Abandoning the sleeves has resulted in a sweater which I will actually wear.

But there is more.

While I was battling those recalcitrant sleeves, I needed something peaceful and relatively calming in my hands. Enter a bag of Classic Elite Paisley in a lovely muted aqua. It seems that I keep buying the same colors over and over again, and I decided that this yarn would make a lovely shawl, a shawl for someone else. Shown on Matilda, who is waiting to be padded out, is the finished shawl, which has been donated to my church's prayer shawl ministry. The resulting fabric is soft and snuggly, with a lovely drape, and I am sure someone will enjoy it. Blocked dimensions are 19 inches by 90 inches (or 7 1/2 feet), Which proved to be a slight blocking challenge, as seen below in a photo I shared on instagram last week.

I've already started another project. Details, perhaps, soon. And for those of you who want more than pretty pictures, who wish to delve into the gory details of yarns, patterns, mods and what have you, I will manage to update the knitting blog within a few days.

November 16, 2018
Rainy Day Walk

It is raining. It has been raining all week although at the moment I am not really perturbed by the rain; by the mud perhaps, but not the rain. In fact I had forgotten how nice it can be to walk in the rain. When I was a girl, in my teens and twenties, I loved walking in the rain. I was perhaps silly and naive, perhaps a bit of a romantic, although I'm not sure I allowed many to see that side of myself, even then. Then life became busy, filled with family and career, and I became stressed and perhaps occasionally bitter, or if not bitter, at least cynical. But cynicism always hides an edge of bitterness. I began to perhaps resent the rain, and long for sunshine, to associate sunshine with happy days and happy activities. But that grumbling wasn't really about the weather it was about my own inner unhappiness, even though I wouldn't have said I was unhappy. Stressed perhaps; I would have admitted to stress. So much easier to blame the rain, to find a scapegoat, rather than to look inward, seeking inner fissures, seeking to heal oneself. And then of course loss and grief got in the way and forced me to peer into those cracks before they consumed me. I'm sure you are tired of hearing about that by now, but it continues to surprise me how fine the line is between death and life, between grief and joy. I continue to marvel about the way growth and healing isn't so much about finding a new path but about rediscovering an old path than had become neglected and overgrown.

I hadn't planned on taking such a thoughtful turn this morning. But my thoughts after a morning walk wend their way along their own path, purling through the undergrowth of my life.

I've taken my morning walk in my home neighborhood every morning the past week. So much nicer than the apartment complex, even in the rain. Even for 2 1/2 miles in the rain. Monday it rained steadily for my entire walk, and yet I couldn't stop smiling, looking at the soft colors of the leaves, smelling the wet earth and the slightly musty smell of damp and decay mixed with another scent I can really only call clean. I couldn't stop smiling despite a few inner grumbles brought on by my own misunderstanding of the layers needed for the cold and damp. First I grew too hot, then, as I divested myself of a poorly chosen layer, I got a little wet and grew cold. Still the smiles returned, unbidden. Tuesday I was also dressed for rain, the forecast 100% chance of rain, so I once again had my raincoat, my water repellent pants over my leggings, and my trusty blunnies, but smarter layering choices underneath. However the rain kindly held off during the time of my walk, starting up again just as I was returning to my car. Tuesday I was able to take a few pictures.

I love the peacefulness of early morning walks, especially mornings after a rain. The wet earth holds a different kind of silence than drier days, the bird calls, always present, are less exuberant perhaps, but there is still that early morning sense of everything being new all over again, now with the magic of droplets clinging to the tips of flowers. I love the way the leaves gently shimmer and shake when a bird alights on a delicate branch, or the shower of droplets scattering through the air when they take flight.

I love the cool air, the way the chill hits my face, or my fingers when I pull them out of my pockets. I love the leaves, bright and colorful on the trees, a blaze of glory proclaiming a life well-lived. But I also love the fallen leaves, the carpet they make on the ground, and those solitary hangers-on, still clinging tenaciously to their branches, torn, ravaged with blight and age, under siege, determined.

I suppose it is easy to love Spring with all the new blossoms, or Summer with its warmth and exuberance, but still I love Autumn, and walking in the rain. I love the knowledge that this rain, cold and dreary as it may be refreshes and replenishes the earth beneath my feet. I walk occasionally melancholy, yet also filled with hope, secure in the knowledge that because it rains in November, there are sure to be flowers again in March. I wander on, occasionally grumbling yes, but also secure in the knowledge, or is it faith tinged with knowledge, that joy and happiness and love are always there, in the very soil of our lives. Sometimes cold and wet, oozy and uncomfortable, at other times hard and unyielding, but always full of promise. Waiting.

November 14, 2018
Musings on a Rainy Friday Morning

It is a gray and rainy fall day, but for the moment at least I am enjoying looking out the window at the way the colors fade away in the gray light.

It would probably be a perfect day for a fire if I were in my house and could have a fire, but I am not, so glancing dreamy-eyed out the window will have to do. I have a book and a knitting project to finish, and those things should keep me adequately entertained.

It was also a good morning for a little experimentation in the kitchen. I had wanted to attempt the Sweet Potato and Squash Parathas from Sumayya Usmani's Summers Under the Tamarind Tree since buying the Pakistani cookbook last year. This morning seemed like the perfect time, and I hoped that this recipe would be something that would work as a gluten free option, not at all like traditional parathas or stuffed parathas. Usmani states in the book that these are more like a griddle scone than a traditional paratha, and I hoped the combination of flavors would make something that could be equally comforting even if not at all like its wheaten brethren. There is a copy of the recipe online here. Mine aren't as pretty, and can't be folded over. The gluten-free dough is more friable, and rolling out didn't work as well as patting, making something closer to a Pakistani-spiced scone than a true paratha, but they are good, and I am content.

As I knit, I have been listening to Vivaldi, reminded of how much I adored Vivaldi when I was a young girl by the fabulous chamber concert Wednesday night at the Knoxville Museum of Art, the first performance of this year's concertmaster series. In fact the entire program focused on music of the baroque period and it was both very well programmed to provide breadth and depth of interest and very well performed as well. I don't think I could have imagined a more enjoyable and rewarding evening of baroque music. It felt like a rare treat, although admittedly there were also two separate baroque choral performances in Knoxville during the same week, two performances I missed, although I had planned to attend the Choral Society's concert before I pooped out. It is indeed a treat to live in a place where there is more on offer than I could ever possibly attend.

And speaking of treats, Thursday proved to be another evening of musical indulgence. After doing a bit of Christmas shopping, already light-hearted and bouncy, I proceeded to a concert by the Seraph Brass for another evening of wonderfully programmed and beautifully performed music. I heard some works by new-to-me composers and some fabulous reworking of familiar pieces; music that was both lovely and thought-provoking in how it shed new light on music I might otherwise assume I knew. I also enjoyed the musicality and sensitivity of the playing, even subtlety at times, a word I do not always associate with the brass section, although perhaps I should.

Every year I seem to marvel that both concert season and autumn go hand in hand, my favorite season accompanied by some of my favorite things. I love the fall colors, the cool mornings and evenings, the music, the ability to add layers again, to indulge in softer colors. In fact, it seems that, having given away half of my already reduced wardrobe I am rediscovering old favorites, even while adding a few new things, like the sparkly gray and blue necklace above.

In fact I've made a couple of discoveries about myself, one of which is that I like a bit of sparkle more than I had thought. It is not the glitter I object to, but the brightness. I don't like bright sparkle — too much jangly color or white put me on edge. Too much bright feels too forward, and therefore more formal and less like myself; even when I am most dressed, I don't like feeling formal if that makes any sense. Suddenly I know why certain things are never worn, and it not what I had thought. Through this new sense of understanding I am thinking I may finally be ready to start seriously sewing for myself again, sewing regularly that is, because I may finally be ready to ask a couple of critical questions. The two questions that have always been at odds in my creative life are: "Is this something I want to make just to make it?" and "Is this something I actually want to wear." Each has their place, but I haven't always been successful in sussing out the distinctions.

After all, I am the woman who once, when asked to introduce oneself to a group with a fact about oneself, chose "I love fog". I love rainy days and crisp cool mornings. Yes I love color too, but I love the way a gray day makes colors shine in a way completely differently from the bright sunshine. I love color the way I love music, the way the many layers of subtlety and technique and shading make a greater whole. I don't want to be hit in the face with the obvious, I want to find the subtleties. It is true. I love fog.

November 9, 2018
Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I love the way my phone turned the sunrise this morning into something almost abstract and painterly:

Otherwise I don't really have much to say. My silence isn't really due to the election results, although I have mixed feelings about them. I happy that voter turnout was high for a midterm, especially important here in East Tennessee where we tend to have low turnout. I am happy that some races were actually close. I choose to see hope. But at the same time I know that elections aren't won based on reason, they are won and lost based on emotion.

I'll share what I wrote in my journal this morning. I am transcribing it here but not editing. Expect no polish or expansion, just the beginnings of thoughts:

But again fear and division is winning and it makes me sad — all the hatred in the world. But the problem isn't really hatred, it is fear. Hatred is the symptom. The problem is fear, and people slowly absorbing the messages of division that surround us all. No matter how smart we are, no matter how well-intentioned, we are all like sponges, absorbing part of our being from our surroundings. We can't stop the anger and hatred until we can learn to to listen and attempt to understand, until we can share love and not dismay. We are all guilty of this, myself as much as anyone else. It is never them versus us, it is always all of us together. Until we try to understand each other, until we say no to those who spread the fear, until we open our arms to each other even in the midst of fear and disagreement, kindness can never prevail, humanity can never win over hatred. You can't say no to hatred, it begets more fear and hatred. We can only say yes to people, and hope that we can release the bias that enchains us all.

November 7, 2018
Home Is For Sharing and Other Random Thoughts

You know, there are moments when I sit down to write this blog and I wonder why. I don't wonder why I write, that suits me, but it seems so random lately, like my life, increasingly without structure, and I wonder what that says. But maybe I am also just wondering what it is about structure, about defining myself by some external structure and standard, that makes it seem so important. Isn't just life enough? Yes, probably, for living. I'm still not so sure about blogging. Perhaps blogging itself requires a structure. And yet I see that the blogging serves its own purpose in my own process, and so here I am.

But perhaps it is that same process of structure and releasing oneself from the constraints of structure that continues to wend its way through my own psyche. For example I have rearranged and resettled in the apartment, making small changes really but important ones that make it feel more like home. And I realize that part of that sense of home has always revolved around my conflicting needs for order and organization as opposed to my tendency to make a mess. I need to get what I want in the middle of creative burst, and I need to be able to restore it to order when that burst has exhausted itself.

I am also learning to increasingly let go of control. Enter the dinner party, my first for friends. Family has been here a couple of times already. The table is set. The main course is ready. We were having Chicken Tikka Masala and Jeera Rice. And then I partially relinquished control. My usual mode is to have as much done as possible in advance, so I can sit back, enjoy the company, and not worry about burning something. Once people arrive, I'm all about having fun, rather than slaving away in the kitchen, and over the decades I've refined my techniques to meet that end. But it usually all about control, control, control, and a moment of release.

This time I let go a bit. I did the advance prep, slicing radishes on a mandolin, meticulously cutting tomatoes into tiny cubes, for after all, who wants people drinking and chatting while using sharp instruments? Then I grouped together the cumin, lemon, cilantro, ginger for a radish salad, but did not assemble said salad. The same with the tomatoes. When everyone arrived, we greeted each other, hugged and moved into the kitchen. Rather than siting and chatting and waiting for the food to miraculously appear, we all took a station, one person making radish salad, one assembling the kachumbar, one cooking the Gujarati green beans, one gathering the nibbles. Then we adjourned to talk while the flavors of the vegetables took their time to meld. I thought it was fun. Advance prep was still required, but it felt less pressured. Everyone made something. The ingredients were suggested but not required, so each dish varied according to its creator. I relinquished control and we each made our own contributions to the flavors of the meal. Then we talked and ate for hours.

At the end of the meal my guests offered to help clean up, and I said yes. This is in direct opposition to my older control-driven self, who would have sent everyone home and had my own contemplative cleaning session. We all piled back into the kitchen. We washed and dried and put things away and chatted. I had so much fun; it seemed like everyone else did as well. Everything came full circle. At the end of the evening, I dried a few last dishes, started the dishwasher and sat back with a cat on my lap, filled with joy and contentment.

This morning my apartment feels like home, more so than it did yesterday. It is a place for me, a sanctuary from the world, but also a haven of companionship. My friends and I blessed this place with laughter, conversation, and shared activities; there will only be more laughter, more conversation, more sharing in the future. Most importantly, I learned something more about letting down walls. Sunday felt like the perfect mix of my enjoyment of playing in the kitchen, blending spices, creating the setting and then sharing with friends and letting other voices, other views help shape the meal. It was is if my understanding of sharing food had come to a new level. I love having people over, and I love feeding people, but the food is only the medium. For me cooking is like play, it is my joy and my gift. but I have to let others in. It would have probably been just as much fun if we'd had hot dogs and beans. Except that I probably wouldn't, well maybe hot dog goulash, which has been one of my favorite comfort foods since a college friend made it for me oh so many decades ago. In short it doesn't matter what the food is, just that it is shared.

Two of the pictures in this post were posted on Instagram yesterday. I'm not convinced I like cross-publishing, but I haven't worked out the details yet. I like the Instagram format, with photos as short snippets of life, combined with wordier posts here, but I also feel I need photos on the blog, so there is overlap. But there may or may not be overlap in audience, I'm not sure. I may never work that out. It seems life is often not as easily categorized as I might like.

November 5, 2018
Books, Triple Denim, and Another Opera

As I settle further into this current phase of semi-settled liminality, my reading has picked up a bit.

October saw a few more books pass through my hands. The two non-fiction books, Momofuko Milk Bar and Devil in the Milk have prompted some changes in my way of thinking (yes, even a cookbook can do that) but those thoughts have not yet settled. They may well surface at some future date.

Otherwise, not surprisingly, I read fiction. Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins mysteries bookended the month. The first of the two, A Crown of Lights, was not my favorite and I struggled, impatient with Merrily and the story. But perhaps also I was mentally contrasting it with Anna Burns' Milkman, which I had already started. There was no comparison in terms of prose and the contrast may have simply unsettled me. I was hoping light diversion from the Burn's intense meanderings, and Rickman fell flat. You can read my review of Milkman here, and my thoughts on Donal Ryan's beautiful From a Low and Quiet Sea, another Booker-nominated novel, here.

By the end of the month I was ready to return to Rickman and I read The Cure of Souls, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps I had simply distanced myself enough from poetically lyrical prose that I was ready to settle into the story, perhaps I also found story itself more appealing. There continue to be times when I find the jumping around choppy, and Merrily continues to be someone about whom I simultaneously feel becomes more familiar while also being completely unknowable and unrevealed. But I think that may be the point, and part of her strength, even though she does at times try my patience. Anyway I will continue with this series, and there are moments when Rickman so perfectly taps into something about the faith experience, about the mixing of the psychic and the holy, the muddling of human ego and odd moments of clarity, of good an evil and what we perceive and more likely(and often) misperceive, that continue to draw me in.

With the advent of transitional and autumnal weather I also made my first foray into double-denim, layering a chambray tunic over dark-wash jeans, although probably too late to be on trend. Well, I've rarely been on trend with anything. Obviously, it quickly became triple denim when I added my purse, which, now that I think of it means I've probably been doubling up on denim without even thinking about it. When I bought the denim bag I wondered if I would wear it — now it seems to go everywhere except the dressiest of occasions.

The denim bag even accompanied me to the opera last night, not that it was a particularly dressy opera. I did wear my new velvet jeans, although, seeing as it was a rainy night and I feared I might traipse through mud, I wore them with my trusty blunnies. Apparently I fit right in with the crowd.

I was stunned by the performance, but I don't know how to write about an emotional opera about a self-indulgent madman, Nero, without descending into a self-indulgent morass.I will quote the brief description on the program:

"Nero Monologues" is a one-woman pastiche opera. The show journeys the inner workings of he notorious Roman emperor during his final hours. The resulting work explores themes of abandonment, abuse, passion, sexual identity, love and power and comes together to paint a portrait of a damaged man; equal parts crazed artist and idealistic ruler.

What immediately struck me was Sarah Toth's incredible emotional resonance. Her diction was not always clear, but her ability to portray emotional content, even conflicting emotions through her voice and her movements wrapped this listener up in the experience. The interlayering of the music with alternating sung and spoken parts was evocative and very well done. The program notes had compared the Peter Learn's technique of layering music to Samuel Barber, and I could see that comparison. The music, beautifully filled the role of inner voice, heard but not seen, as the musicians were in another room. The composition itself was fascinating, at times very much touching on jazz and more contemporary atonal and minimalist forms and yet seamlessly mixing in passages by Handel and Monteverdi in order to build a complex emotionally-rich portrait.. For a moment even I was certain I heard a bit of Kurtág. The relationship of Toth's performance to the musicians and the music seemed to embody an ongoing battle between emotion and reason, between madness and power, sanity and insanity.

One moment that stands out for me in this immensely powerful performance occurred when Toth was singing Nero's lines from Monteverdi's Pur ti Miro. This duet, to my mind is one most beautiful love songs in the operatic repertoire, becomes perverted, a song about one-sided obsession and fractured lust. To me it spoke of the descent into insanity but also of the difference between relationship and obsession, and how what we might think of as simple, unrequited affection, can become warped in the mind, can lead into a dangerous path that is something else entirely. The power of this piece is in its emotional content, the way it brings humanity to its subject, while at the same time bringing the receptive listener right up to that line that separates and protects us from our darker inner impulses. A lot of questions are opened here, about art, idealism, power, fear. We don't necessarily need to see the answers, just trying to understand the questions may be a good start. I am happy I went.

Nero Monologue photo of Sarah Toth, from Marble City Opera, here. There is also further information about the piece and a link to the poetry of Geoffrey Lehmann, a selection of which is used in the performance.

November 2, 2018