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Small Glimpses of Progress

I am becoming settled, but today I am simply weary. All the weeks of excitement and unpacking, that sense of being somehow unmoored, the frustrations of nesting and organizing — I suppose all this activity has taken its toll, and I just want to sink into a stupor.

At least I have some basic, functional spaces to call home. The kitchen is functional. I have a place to sit and eat. I have a cozy place to sit and watch tv or knit, although I don't yet have suitable lighting for reading on the sofa at night. But the progress feels good, and it is perhaps time to take. little break from constantly unpacking and reconfiguring. With minor adjustments, the place is beginning to work.

The round bookcase in the photo, has been taken to be repaired as it was broken during the move. That is why the books are on the floor. I suppose life is never fully settled.

Demolition began at the house this week.

The exciting news is that we found a doorway! This is the wall that was hidden behind cabinets in the kitchen sunroom. It was once the outside wall of the house. That gap was a doorway into the dining room, exactly where I was hoping to cut out a new doorway. It is not so much the savings that excites me, although it does, because I am sure the labor and cost of cutting the doorway will be eaten up by some other unanticipated expense, but by the fact that the door was there originally, as if even though I am adding onto and changing the house, I am also rediscovering and restoring something lost.

August 23, 2018
A Short Stroll Through The Neighborhood

I thought I'd share a few photos from my walk this morning.

Just a jaunt around my neighborhood, and a shorter route than usual because my right knee is quite uncomfortable. I don't know if it is a knee issue or a sciatica issue, and it could be a bit of both.

As usual, I am mostly interested in the small details, and the contrast of texture and color.

For today's walk I took a shorter walk and I took pains to seek out the gentle slopes as opposed to the steeper hills which really were bothering my knee. I still had ample opportunity to stretch my legs.

But I have also learned to give myself a pass. I realized at some point, when I was pushing myself too far, when I was sitting in my car in tears, that I push myself in ways that I shouldn't, and that if anyone else were sitting in their car crying, I would tell them to go home, put ice on their knee and have a glass of wine. And so I did, go home that is, and have a glass of wine. This morning I treated myself to a short, meandering walk. Since it appears to be a beautiful day, I will take another stroll later. There need be no pressure, only balance. There are times to push, but there are also times to slow, to stop even, and simply find the peace where you are.

August 21, 2018
A First Impression of the Joseph Delaney Exhibit at the KMA

Thursday night I attended a reception for the new Joseph Delaney exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Joseph Delaney was a Knoxville native, the younger brother of Beauford Delaney, the better known of the two painters. He painted in New York at the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

When I walked into the first room of the exhibit, I was immediately struck by this wall of drawings, charcoals, various works on paper, all in blacks and grays. The works here span the artists lifetime and the sense of presence, characters and vision are strong. But I didn't really get back to that wall to study anything in greater detail that evening. There were too many people milling about, too much noise, and although I had a fabulous time, I could really only absorb about two or three pieces. Oh, who am I kidding? I can usually only absorb about 3 pieces in any trip to a museum or gallery, no matter the circumstances.

I want to write about my initial impressions that night, my first impressions. the black and white wall (although not really so white) shaped the atmosphere of the room, and most of the works in this gallery were more somber in colors. There was so much to see, but a couple of pieces really stuck in my head and heart, and those are the pieces I will show here. I really didn't get beyond them in the exhibit, and I will have to go back. I also didn't read any of the little plaques describing the pieces, and I know little about the artist himself. This is typical for me. I always want to look first, to open my own relationship to the work, then go back, and continue the discussion with whatever curatorial notes I find posted. I suppose this is my form of disavowal: these are my impressions, uninformed perhaps, but heartfelt. Two of these works were discussed at the reception, and I was both gratified that two of my favorite pieces were chosen, but I was also distracted and tuned out part of the talk, possibly to my detriment, as I probably would have learned a lot.

The first work that caught my attention was this piece, and no, I did not take a picture of the plaque and I do not remember what it was called. What struck me immediately is this powerful sense of combined movement and stasis, as if held in balance. I liked the way Delaney plays with perspective. It felt like he was messing with my mind a little; it seemed like there was an obvious sense of distance, but also another layer of perspective that turned it all on its head. What you see, and the perspective of the piece shifts as you move, depending on the angle at which you look at the work. Near and Far; or is it Far and Near? Or does it even matter? One gets the sense it is the power of motion itself that matters, as if that combination of motion and place creates its own vitality. Notice the ship moving out to sea, toward the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. You can see the island on which she stands, but the colors of the land are echoed in the water, blurring the distinctions. She is both a statue, and a guiding angel. The sense of place is palpable, as is the multilayered sense of movement, as if the two cannot be separated, either in space, or, in another sense, in time.

A friend commented on the portraits, and I turned to look. I admit I am not good at portraits, at describing what I see, for the most part they always seem to subtle, flat even, but not this one. I was drawn in by this portrait, titled Romaine, struck by the vibrancy of the personality that was captured. It is full of life, the painting itself seems to shimmer with life, as if the subject could burst through the canvas at any moment.

And then there was this New York scene. This painting shone like a beacon in the gallery. It was by far the lightest work in the room, and that sense of bouyancy was palpable. You get a sense of the grandeur of the city, but also of light and joy. not the almost dark energy of the first painting I posted. And yet, there is something more than the grand ideas, and the idealized skyline, The figures in the bottom of the painting seem almost too dark, related more to the other works in the gallery than to the light-filled upper reaches of this painting. It is as if the painting is saying something about ideas and aspirations as contrasted with the realities of life.

Notice these figures in the lower left corner of the painting. There is the lightness of the family pulling their groceries, almost a joyous embrace of the present moment. Notice how the mother and child are bright, glowing, even, whereas the man is turning away from them and is beginning to fade. There are other people, children and adults of mixed races and backgrounds, some seem fully present, others almost like ghosts and remnants of the cities complex histories. This seems especially poignant in the image of a jewish man walking toward the viewer, with what appear to me to be ghosts of ghettos past hovering behind him, who seems almost partially faded. Even he seems somewhat tenuous, fully there, and yet linked to some disappearing past.

Next lets look at the figures in the center, all blurred together in motion, a mix of outline and color as if the present and history are all superimposed upon each other in the sense of a place, in the lives of its residence. I love Delaney's figures, the way they capture motion and life, and also a sense of historic timelessness. I also can't let go of the idea that the man directing the traffic, a policeman probably (?) reminds me as much of images of Greek satyrs as he does a man.

I will have to go back to the exhibit and look at all the things I have not absorbed. I will have to go back and look at these works again, and probably read all the available information, trying to see what I have missed, to further understand what I may or may not have misconstrued. There is so much I missed that first visit to the galleries, so many fleeting glimpses floating through my thoughts awaiting further exploration.

August 18, 2018
Endless Reconfigurations: the kitchen chronicles.

While I am not yet fully settled, everything is unpacked except for the sewing room. The apartment is functional and livable even, although there is still art to be hung on the wall and a couple of corners where things are piled up, waiting for me to figure out the best storage/use options. But the kitchen is operational, and increasingly more efficiently so.

I was cooking the day after I moved in, jumping right in and filling the space with fragrances that speak to me of comfort and home. I started with the idea of my grandmother's tomato sauce swirling in my thoughts, but I modified it to fit current circumstances. Rather than simmering it for hours on the stovetop and adding meatballs, I made it in the slow cooker with a lovely chuck roast that had been kicked out of its previous freezer allotment. This required a slight modification of the fluid ratios, as slow cookers do not concentrate the liquid in the same way as a pan simmer would. Rather than cooking it for 4 hours, I started with 12, and ended up cooking everything for 18 hours. I had three quarts of sauce, two of which were frozen, and a wonderful pile of meat which saw me through several meals, including in a wonderful Sunday brunch of pot-roast hash with eggs.

I've also been to the farmer's market twice, which means I have been cooking, or at least eating in, because there have been a few meals built around salads and simple soups. Although I mostly ate out during the two weeks I was packing and preparing to move, I did make 20 quarts of beef stock, in 3 quart batches in the slow cooker, simply because I had a batch of bones in the freezer, and it is more efficient to store the stock. I had ambitiously purchased a bulk package of beef bones in the late winter because I tend to use 3 -4 quarts of stock a week, but I'll probably stick to smaller packages in the future. I don't have space in the freezer while I am in the apartment, so that makes sense. Even when I return home however, I may forgo the bulk package and buy smaller packs, at least as long as I have a local supplier of grass-fed bones. It makes sense to save freezer space for things that must be procured seasonally or ordered in, hence making larger quantities feasible. I will have to think it through as I am definitely the kind of person who would weigh the options: considering any savings from buying in bulk rather than small packages; the cost of an additional freezer; as well as a cost in time and effort for procuring supplies. But that is months away and not worth fretting over now.

The increased time in the kitchen has not been without its frustrations, however, in that it seems that each time I cook I hit some logistical problem. The kitchen has been configured and reconfigured multiple times. I suppose the kitchen is a microcosm of what is going on the the rest of the apartment, but in overdrive, because cooking is so central to my own sense of home and happiness. I may have finally gotten it right as I've gone several days now with nary a glitch. There are still some things that don't have homes, and I am still in the process of sorting out storage, but at this point we are only talking minor refinements.

Part of that process has been adding over-the-door racks, like the one above, and another in the closet I am using for pantry, bar, and miscellaneous storage. I didn't have enough baskets the first time around, and I was not surprised by that as I needed to see how everything actually worked in the space, so I have ordered more baskets and am now waiting. I admit that I have more cooking stuff than many, and I use my sous-vide set up and my slow cooker multiple times weekly so they need to be accessible, but I have come to a far greater admiration for people who cook complex meals in truly tiny kitchens.

The complex has a grilling area, so I grilled a steak one day. Actually I cooked it sous-vide to perfectly halfway between rare and medium because the thing was nearly two inches thick and it is hard to get a steak that thick just right on the grill. I simply seared it briefly on the grill. The steak was so big that it lasted me for several meals, including another salad.

Another day I made peanut soup, west-african peanut crusted chicken kabobs and a salad, and that prompted a bit of an organizational melt-down, as I was tripping over myself, my pots, and various other equipment. However, the food was good and the experience really helped focus my attention on what works and why, another reason I think I am close to finalizing the kitchen arrangement. As I grow happier in the kitchen, I grow happier in general, and it is a contented kind of settling in.

A more successful, at least in terms of kitchen functionality was a batch of an anglo-Indian style Beet and Tomato soup. I got the recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cookbook, and I've been making it regularly since my 20s. The cookbook is now falling apart and is kept together with rubber bands, and my version is no longer true to Jaffrey's, but I like to think it maintains the same spirit.

I served it in my grandmother's vaseline glass bowl with some seared shrimp.. I am already thinking of what soup I will make next. I procured some fabulous carrots complete with a bounty of greens, so perhaps it is time for carrot greens soup. That tends to be another market-season favorite, mostly because it is the only way to find nice carrot greens.

I am getting hungry already.

As you can see from this past Saturday's market haul, there have been more salads, but also spaghetti squash and zucchini which I turned into zoodles. I've come late to summer cooking, as I was mostly preoccupied with other things in the earlier part of the summer, but I am thoroughly enjoying the process now. The process of cooking connects me to my better self, to family, to youth, to joy, despite the fact that it is often actually work, or is because of that? Spending time in the kitchen reminds me of the girl I once was, and still am, the girl who baked cookies and cakes for her dorm-mates every exam week. Cooking, and baking, although I do less of that now, always reminds me of the good things in life.

August 16, 2018
slash and burn

There was a blog post scheduled for yesterday morning, but well, life got in my face in a rather major way and I couldn't finish it. I think I will post it later in the week probably as a slightly different post than originally intended, but hey, I'll just see what happens. I am pretty sanguine, but I am not quite yet in a place where I am ready to make promises. Yesterday was a bit of an emotional roller coaster of a day.

I remember how just a few days ago, I reviewed preliminary ideas for future landscaping. A good part of it further in the future than I might like, it turns out, simply because of the way I am staging things. But I realize that I have made the right decisions for me, and in the conflict between my desire for instant gratification and uncertainty about what I actually want and/or need, time is my ally. Anything good is worth waiting for. I posted this collage of plans, hinting at where I hope we are going, on Instagram. Apologies if you have seen them. At the time, I had no intention of blogging about garden plans.

I simply planned on coming to my construction site, talking to my house, watering the front plantings, and communing, consoling, comforting and communicating with this place I call home. I hoped the quiet peaceful bits of sanctuary I find in my gardens, my space, the space I share with this house, and yes I do think that each house has its own unique needs, would sooth my soul even as so much is torn up and I dream about the future.

That was before Monday afternoon, when I drove by the house to get mail. Apparently the landscape crew had been there on Saturday. As I learned later, when I irately spoke to the head of the landscape company, they had been there with instructions to do light weeding and to remove vines from the roses and hydrangeas. In the perfectly understated terms of my landscape designer, (not at all related to the landscape maintenance company that perpetrated the crime) speaking from a position of greater detachment than I was able to muster, they "over performed". My initial reactions were not so kind, and still, although I acknowledge "over performance" is indeed what happened, the wound itself remains raw.

Luckily the first thing I saw was the side bed, where some weeds had been cleared out, as had, unfortunately a lovely tree peony, "High Noon" which I had planted this spring and which was settling in beautifully. Some of the iris crostata "Tennessee white" are also missing, a plant that I had been looking for since I moved to Tennessee and only found this past spring. I hope the nursery has them again next year, as they are one of my favorite small iris varieties. Today, with a heavy heart but cooler head, I can see the iris are dying back as it is August after all, and if one was not paying much attention, one might confuse them for crab-grass. More likely someone was paying no attention at all, and pulled up peony and iris indiscriminately.

But then I looked up. It looked like someone had just taken a chainsaw across all my shrubs. Everything was hacked off, all the new growth on the hydrangeas. The undergrowth was ripped out, including hellebores. It looked like devastation; it felt like violation. The arching oak leaf hydrangeas by my private little courtyard had been stripped back to twigs, the camellias slashed back by more than half. The ground laid bare, the branches stripped of growth, shrubs and trees hacked away, in ways I would never have eve dreamed of stripping them, denying them their essential nature. It felt as if everything I believed and loved about this garden had been deemed worthless and destroyed.

Will these little twigs, all that remains of one oak leaf hydrangea, come back? I don't expect I'll see much in terms of blossoms next year. At least there are still some leaves. In a few years, when my garden is full and lush again, I may look back and laugh. Not so much now. It is not about the plants. They are gone. What is left will survive or it will not. What is done cannot be undone. I am actually calm about that aspect of the situation. Plants may be replaced, or not. What is lost is lost; what survives will be stronger, life and beauty will win in the end.

But that is my brain. My heart remains knotted in outrage, in a sense of having been violated. My space was brutally assaulted. The words, slash, pillage, maim, keep echoing through my thoughts, although my thoughts are admittedly calmer than they were. I spoke civilly but angrily. to the owner of the landscape company. I really see no point in using brutal language, although I felt like doing so. He saw the problem. He apologized. We both acknowledged that my anger was justified. As the day progressed, I slowly relinquish the idea that I should hang whoever slashed my shrubs by the thumbs in the sun.

No, I am not normally a fan of torture. But I also accept that we have to accept our emotions. Our history, our literature, even our holy liturgies are full fo it, full of violence and outrage. To deny its existence is to deny part of what it means to be human. Equally so to act out our rage. No, I will not collect eye for an eye, a chain-saw welding hand for a garden. There are healthier ways to deal with rage, anger, hurt.

It may be only a garden, but I admit that I have not been so angry since a hapless young man broke up with my (step)daughter on the eve of her move across state-lines, giving up everything she had built to be with him…..the coward chickening out at the last minute. At the time I was in full mother-bear mode and I shocked myself. For the first time I fully understood why someone would be so consumed with rage and hate that they would truss a person up, tie them to the bumper of a car, and drag them down the road. Am I proud of those thoughts? Not really. But I acknowledge that I felt them, even though I would never have acted on them. I felt a similar total outrage Monday, and even yesterday morning. I am not going to deny that I felt anger, outrage even. It is healthy neither to deny emotions nor to give in to them.

But here is the thing. As I wandered around my yard, as I gently pulled a vine out of the Illicium that was planted this spring, and which was thankfully missed by the grounds crew, I realized something else. Whoever cut up my garden did not think they were doing personal harm. I am sure they knew they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. As I stood there, I could imagine it in my mind. They started with the roses, They are far from the house and were not damaged. But then, working next to the house one could see in the windows, see that all the furniture was gone. I can imagine it now. They wanted to finish, they wanted to do other things, perhaps they even thought they are doing a good thing, preparing the house for a future occupant. Perhaps they simply thought no one cared. I am not excusing them, but I can attempt to understand.

Today, I am not as angry, although I will probably still well up with tears next time I go to the house. I am sanguine about the future. The garden will recover, and this may even be a small boon to the construction timing. Because the foundation plantings have been butchered, it is actually easy right now for the contractors to get into the beds and dig new drains for the downspouts, to fix a drainage issue that would otherwise have waited until winter. Does pragmatism negate the horror? No. But it is best to move forward, not denying, because that is the path to death, but acknowledging and moving on.

Today I will look at the bouquet of flowers I brought home from the farmer's market. I will continue to settle in to my apartment. I will walk and listen to music and read a book. Tomorrow I will go back to the house and move a small camellia that needs to be relocated before excavation begins. I will place it in the front yard where I can water it, where I can be reminded that hope is always present, even though I don't always feel all that hopeful. If I give hope a chance, it will worm its way back into my heart.

August 15, 2018
The “Old” Neighborhood

The last couple of mornings I've walked around my neighborhood, my old neighborhood, the place I call home. In fact, it feels odd to call it my old neighborhood because I feel like I still live there, it is home in a way that the apartment complex really is not, even though I am perfectly comfortably settling in to my temporary location. Perhaps that is the key, that I know where I reside at the moment is temporary, and my heart is still in my home.

In fact, I assumed I would come back and walk around my neighborhood, although I did not really manage it most of the first week. There were reasons for this of course: the frustrations of establishing a new routine, the trials of unpacking and not finding things, the general principle that I dislike the idea of driving somewhere just to walk. However it has dawned on me that some principles are just pig-headedness, at least some of the time, and although the apartment complex is large, and is nicely planted with miles of sidewalks, it is a functional but completely uninspiring place to walk. I can listen to a book on tape, but then I miss the early morning conversation that I have with the world when I walk in my home neighborhood. Rather than a centering experience, walking around the apartment complex simply feels like exercise, another task to be completed, and although I need exercise, what I am interested in my morning walk is both movement and a spiritual centering, a centering that can occur in my neighborhood, but does not in the concrete world of parking lots and apartment buildings.

When I walk around my streets, and it is easy to walk anywhere from a couple of miles to several, I slow down, I listen to the early morning, I greet the plants and watch the birds, the rabbits, the occasional deer or fox. I am present, fully present in a way that I am not in the acres of concrete. I notice tiny things. They are not necessarily unusual things, but that is not the point. My soul calms and slows, even if I am puffing up a hill, and my awareness picks up thing that I would miss in the hustle and hurry of modern American life.

It is a mile away, as the crow flies, and yet I feel like it is a different world.

There is a large park near me as well, with a walking trail, and I've gone there a couple of times, but it is often more populated even in the early morning. I am more distracted when I walk there, and it all urban-nature, shaped by man, not at all like wild nature. The park is neither wild, nor lived in, and to me it seems more detached and impersonal, not wild, and yet not a habited place. Nature-nature and civilized nature feel different, just as I feel different at Lakeshore Park, than I do in my home neighborhood. The latter is home, a little more intentionally planted, but the difference is really not so great, and the comfort in the space is palpable, at least for me. We all seek and bring different perspectives to our activities, and there is a place for each, what is best for one does not have to best for all. Actually, it has been a while since I've gotten outside — outside the city — to a different kind of nature, and it is time to do so again, but I count that as different from the immediacy of my morning routine, my morning walk.

Tikka also enjoys going home. We went for a ride, went by the house, and when we pulled onto our street she perked up, started looking eagerly out the window, growing visibly more excited as we reached our driveway. She was eager to jump out of the car, eager to go inside, dancing around, displaying her inner puppy self, not her often calm 8 or 9 hear old self. She ran into the house and ran around, checking out the rooms; even empty, they were still hers. We went out the front door and she could hardly contain herself, eager to go piddle in her own front yard, eager to go for a walk around her block, to sniff the old familiar smells. It reminded me of the way I used to feel when when George and I returned from a trip and we crossed the Hudson River on the way to our house from the airport, as if the air changes, and you are suddenly home. It is a feeling I still experience, or I have experienced again since I moved into this house, just as I accept that in a certain way the condo on Maple Branch was never completely home to me, much as I tried to make it so.

This is not to say I am at all unhappy here. I am fairly content, I am becoming more and more settled. My neighbors are nice. I will have people over soon. But this remains a temporary landing pad; it is not my home. Today I will finish unpacking books in the living room, the books I chose to bring with me, the books I decided I would or should read, as if I could anticipate what I would want to read. But limitations and constraints are also good, and I am determined to read those books, at least some of those books. A few new books have also arrived — the first of the Booker longlist — a couple of which are available through my local library system, but most of which I must buy. I've started The Water Cure, but I am not far into it yet and cannot judge. The writing is poetic and lyrical, but the book also seems somewhat hallucinogenic, with a distinctly disturbing undercurrent despite its lyricism. I am drawn in and enjoying it, but so far have trouble connecting what I am reading to the blurbs on the back of the book.

Unpacking. Walking. This is farmer's market Saturday and I love wandering around, the joy of the experience. I've been cooking and have actually cooked, using up last week's haul. Some time with family. A swim. Perhaps I will get pictures up on the walls. Perhaps a stroll along one of the nearby nature trails. It seems like a weekend full of promise, and I hope your weekend plans and hopes are promising indeed.

August 11, 2018
Book, Book, Book

Time for a book update. I had been thinking that all I wrote about was books, but it isn't quite true. I had been thinking that all I thought about was books, which may have been slightly more correct, but mostly I thought about books I want to read (Booker longlist) and moving books. When it came to actual reading, July was very light.

Three books. Three very different books, but I enjoyed every one of them.

I've discovered something else as well. Remember how, in the last post, I stated I would surely discover something that should have been brought to the apartment but got stored instead? Well I stored all my journals, including my reading journal, up to the most current (new) one, and most of my notes, the passages I copied out, are in storage. I shall have to rely on memory.

Mohsin Hamid: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.. I loved Exit West, and thought it would be good to read some of Hamid's earlier work. When I saw this at McKay's books, I snapped it up. Obviously the same author, writing about one thing, while pretending to write about another. The book is very witty, at times sarcastic, and very wise, and I can see how it could be off-putting to some. It is written under the pretext of being a self-help book, but it never quite achieves that goal, nor is it meant to, it is a parody of a self-help book. There are no proper nouns in the book, and two parallel narratives. The protagonist, "you" is both the narrator, who rises from poverty to great wealth, and the reader. The other main character, the "Pretty Girl" runs a parallel but different course. The book appears to be about how to achieve great success, but it is actually about the way achieving success and the path to that achievement corrupts us, and what is lost in the end. Although the books take place in Asia, in a world that appears quite corrupt, and we in more developed western countries may think it does not apply to us, Hamid's lessons are universal in that the pursuit of power corrupts, and money is also power, but what the heart really wants is to love and be loved. In the end it is a love story, a love story in a time of seismic social change, and this reader found herself in tears.

Deborah Levy: Hot Milk. Deborah Levy's Hot Milk was short-listed for the Booker a couple of years ago but I just now got to it. I enjoyed the novel, but I think there is a lot I didn't get, a lot going on beneath the surface. I can see how it is the kind of novel that people who dislike literary novels would despise. Half-Greek British girl goes to Spain with her disabled, controlling, hypochondriac confabulist of a mother. The prose is vivid, and sometimes hallucinatory. It does not tell the story directly. But it is still a great novel, about coming of age, about what we gain, but also what we lose, when we unloose chains. Through beautiful and often intensely metaphoric prose riddled with parallels to Greek Tragedy the author throws in Brexit, economic disaster, a warm Spanish paradise that is a horror of toxic waste, sexual freedom, dependence and independence. A lot is made of the themes of those who serve only themselves, vs those who serve others, male and female, and the dangers and traps in both extremes. I found the novel to be at times cryptically elusive and yet easy reading and entertaining, often even quite funny. I could read it again. Perhaps I should read it again. But I probably won't.

Caitlin Macy: Mrs. If I picked up this novel in a bookstore I would probably think of it as one of those quick reads about the imperious and overly arrogant one-percenters who are due for a fall, and I am certain there are readers who chose this book for that reason. They would be disappointed, because there is very little action and no really shocking upset. I read it slowly and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the writing rewards attention, as the author is deft at subtle detail, the kind of thing you would miss if you were skimming through quickly. The beauty of the book would be lost. Yes it is about the one-percenters, parents of children in an exclusive pre-school in Manhattan, and yes there is some cultural upheaval. But the book is more than that. It is a satire, but a satire with an undercurrent of humanity. The story is almost an illusion. What is important here is the characters, and the stories they tell themselves, both the primary characters, and those in the backdrop, deployed here as a kind of chorus. Actually, although the story occurs in a specific socio-economic setting, the characters, and aspects of their mores and their behaviors, their assumptions about each other, can be found in any place, in any group. Perhaps I have a soft spot for the book because I have known too many women like these women, but I suspect we all have, if we allow ourselves to look beyond the superficialities. The settings may be different, the level of privilege, but we are not so different. Macy is a deft observer of humanity, and she tells the story through the voices of her characters, interleaving their stories and their perspectives. Each character is portrayed tenderly, with understanding, and yet also witheringly. Each character, in telling the story, reveals themselves inadvertently, showing that weakness or darkness that is meant to remain hidden, often even from themselves, with a subtle turn of phrase. I found this to be great satire because it slips in so quietly, catches one by surprise, if one is paying attention, and therefore hits directly like a needle to the heart. It was an enjoyable read, with some really great lines and a few truths.

I don't know what August will bring, reading-wise. I don't have any of the Booker novels yet, so I can't make predictions about what I will or will not read. I will however, look back, and come up with a list of the books I read in June. Leave no rock unturned, after all.

August 4, 2018
Farewells Are Often Sad: Some Thoughts on Moving Week

I wrote a post with every intention of posting it Thursday morning, but then Thursday happened and nothing was posted. Completely my fault. When I look at the post now however, I want to save some of it, but it is out of step, and it feels weird to post it as is, so I am going to try something new, at least for me. The end result may or may not make sense. Anyway, what I am writing today is in italics, and the original post is not.

Let's see what happens:

Goodbyes are always hard. Even temporary ones, even when one is saying goodbye to a place not a person, even when I won't really be gone. After all we will still see each other, but the relationship will be changed, a trial separation of sorts, a bit of surgery, and then we will be reunited.

When I walked through the house yesterday, (Wednesday) after the movers had taken everything away, or at least had taken away everything that is going to storage, the house felt sad to me, like we were saying goodbye, and a part of the life of the place had already been stripped away.

And that is how it felt to me on Wednesday, and even Thursday morning before the movers returned. But late Thursday, after the house was mostly empty it did not feel so lonely at all, only paused, like a person holding their breath, as if waiting, waiting for the next stage to begin. Without all the distractions of stuff, I also saw the way the house needs to flow, and feel renewed confidence that everything is on the right track. I saw what I loved about the house and what needed improvement, and was able to see more clearly that the plan is good, for me and the house, for making it work without sacrificing too much of its character.

The art was mostly packed the first day. One person made crates for the larger pieces, while another boxed smaller items. Tikka and I enjoyed watching the work from the upstairs windows, although I think Tikka was mostly watching for people walking by. I had already pulled out a few smaller pieces, mostly sentimental in their appeal, to take to my temporary abode. Today, I miss my art. I am sure I will feel more settled when the smaller pieces are unboxed and hung, but at the moment I still feel like something important is missing. I feel at home in the apartment, even unpacked, but I walk into the house I AM home, even empty. It will be an interesting transition.

Yesterday was moving day, and today I have started the process of unpacking and putting away. I've already been to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. I am certain there will be more of such excursions in my future. I had charts and drawings, showing where everything would go, and in that sense the move went well because everything fit where it was supposed to fit, but there are always a few things that don't work out. I intentionally brought most of my kitchen supplies to the apartment, not because I will need everything, but because we haven't yet finalized kitchen cabinetry and layout, and I am persnickety enough that I need to know exactly what goes where before I sign off on those plans, to check and double check, even as I accept that there will be missteps and failures. Plans on paper and reality rarely perfectly align. I've already discovered miscalculations however. I wasn't as thorough in sorting out what would go to storage as I should have been. Mostly I am unpacking things I should have stored. For example I forgot that a tall vaseline glass pitcher was stored with some tall pots, only because it was the only place it fit. I forgot how quirky my storage system was in the old kitchen. I wanted the pots, not the pitcher. I'm sure I will eventually find things I should have brought with me that got stored instead.

Oh jeez, I just deleted an entire paragraph. (I partially rewrote the one above). Basically I was sad on Wednesday night and wanted to binge on carbs and self-pity, but I managed to resist. Today, Friday, I am back on track. I also realizedthat I needed to take a walk today so I went for my once-standard 2 mile walk, except that I did it at mid-day rather than in the early morning. I survived. I had stopped walking during the 10 days I was moving little things, mostly because I was tired, but also because I was putting in 20,000 to 28,000 steps a day, roughly 10 to 14 miles, and felt I didn't need the extra steps. This week, where I had felt relatively sluggish all week, I haven't logged less than 10k steps, but they have mostly been back and forth, moving and unpacking steps, not unkinking steps. I needed that long stretch of the muscles, and I noted, after walking about 3/4 of a mile, that my back was seizing up, that my stride had become more like a martinet, and I was occasionally dragging my left foot. I had to slow down, concentrate on tightening abs and lower back muscles, concentrate on rotating my hips properly, and eventually my back felt better, and I had less pain. I did not have to cut the walk short; in fact, I felt much better afterward, even if a little overheated. I know I have been overdoing it when I have to start concentrating on basic movements, but at least I have become aware enough to catch myself when I start to fall in bad patterns, and take corrective measures. I suspect I will always have to do this occasionally. It doesn't mean I must do less, but sometimes I need to go more slowly.

I miss my house already, although I know that is mostly because I am still trapped in this space "in-between". I am not settled in the apartment, although i know that the settling-in can begin later today. (And has already begun) I know I will love the house when I return, and I look forward to both the process and the result, but the process hasn't started yet, and it looks like there is going to be a delay on the start date, which was scheduled for Monday, then delayed until August 20th. (I've just been told that it may be sooner, possibly even next week. I am not holding my breath). And perhaps this is what is sad, this period of indeterminancy. The die has been cast, and I just have to go wherever the process leads me; even through sad days in empty houses and unsettled apartments.

I am feeling better already, eager for the next stage, still sad to leave the house, but eager to see what develops, eager for our future return. And yet I still feel trapped in some kind of nether-space, a doorway I haven't yet gotten out of. And in many ways that is what transitional space is, a doorway. We can choose to enter, or we can stay behind, but once we walk through, as much as we may have planned, we still don't know what is on the other side.

One small calm space in my apartment, this tiny piece of counter next to the stove. This will probably not end up being the final layout. To begin with, that particular pepper grinder belongs on the table, but the table piled high with paper right now (still, two days later). This is my little oasis of calm, but also an oasis of potential. Something can be cooked here and so there is hope and creativity — the promise of nourishment. Yet the sense of calm is but an illusion, a necessary one if we are to maintain our sanity, but an illusion nonetheless. The trick is to hold on when necessary, but also to be willing to let go.

August 3, 2018
Transitional Spaces, Meandering Thoughts

I am sitting in my empty apartment writing this post. Why? Because it is hot out and I am not ready to go back outside. Also because my computer is here since AT&T came today to set up my internet service. Why am I writing my blog post from a mostly empty apartment? Because fiber.

The apartment is not completely empty. The laundry room is partially organized, which is good because the washer and dryer at the house have been disconnected and prepared for storage. I've brought over most of the pantry. There is an aerobed, a table, a few pots, coffee. There is a bookcase in the alcove that will become my office, and two stacks of Elfa wide single runner drawers filled with yarn. Those came because everything is sorted and labeled and cataloged and I didn't want the movers to mix things up. The wide frame that they belong in is not here yet because it will not fit in my car.

I am tired, and hot, but I am not as stiff and sore as I was. The Elfa drawers were the last big things I brought that had be be carried in front of the body, and lugging them up the stairs, even one at a time (light but still awkward) was still difficult. The simple truth is that I can't carry stuff like that. Everything else can be tossed in a sack or a duffel and carried over my shoulders or on my back. It is still tough going up the stairs, but my back is no longer sore. I huff and puff too much, and am reminded that I miss that earlier Mardel, the one who was a bit of a gym rat, who walked and bike and did furious workouts. That isn't exactly right. I miss the feeling of being capable and strong, but I don't miss being that girl, that girl who worried about what other people thought, that girl who could never believe she was somehow good enough. Now I want to be strong again just so I can do the things I want to do, and enjoy doing them. Now I know I can be strong. I can carry heavy packs up the stairs on my back, but probably couldn't carry a platter of drinks across the room. Now I can accept that I can dig the hole, that I can be tough with a pickaxe, but I can't lift the shrub that needs to go in the hole. I can dig the rocks, uproot them, but I can't carry them away. And you know what, that is all fine with me. None of us are really meant to be solitary, to be completely self-sufficient. I can do what I have to do, and if I had to move that rock I could figure out a way. Solitary gets in the way of solidarity. My skills complement other's skills. Together we turn things around.

But back to the move: I am writing at this little table, the same table I spray painted over the July Fourth holiday. It looks a little lonely in this very empty, very beige apartment, but stuff will arrive and we, the table and I, will settle in. This is not a table for big dinner parties. I could have brought my dining table. But then there would have been no room for chairs. Maybe one chair, with its back to the living room, but what fun is that? I can't imagine anything more depressing than a big dining table with only one chair, no with hope of sharing a lovingly made repast, no hope of convivial dinnertime conversation. Better a smaller table with potential. Although if four people ate here they would have to be four people who didn't mind getting entangled with others, knees touching, feet intertwined. All kinds of potential for trouble. All kind of potential for togetherness.

I'll probably just have people over for drinks and nibbles. And it does strike me as one of those funny little jokes that life plays on us that, now, moving out of my house which is good for entertaining, I suddenly am ready to entertain again. For six months I needed to pull inward and not be particularly social. It had nothing to do with the house and everything to do with me, me and my own propensity to root around in the undergrowth, stirring up the leaf-mold and things that are best left undisturbed. Oh wait. I wasn't the one that stirred the pot. But there is a lot of pot stirring going on the world right now, and a lot of turds are floating to the top. People I once thought of as wise and kind let their reactionary edges show, and burrow deeper. I realize they are often only trying to shut out the unpleasantness, but in reality they just create more cesspools, uprooting even bigger turds. Not everyone mind you, many of us are still kind. But I fear the cesspools will grow deeper and more and more sinkholes will be revealed. I fear more of us will fall in. All the more reason to gather together, to keep each other afloat. Hence parties.

But I digress. The official move is next week. First stuff for storage. Then stuff for the apartment. There are a few more things I have to get taken care of this weekend, just to make life easier for myself next week, but hopefully also to make the transition a little less stressful for Moises and Tikka. Tikka will go back and forth with me, but I've decided that it may be best for Moises if we move to the apartment tomorrow, camp out a bit before the rest of our stuff arrives. He will be upset regardless. But I am hoping he will be a little less upset than he would be at the house, with people moving his stuff around.

And I am thrilled with my small accomplishments:

The little things include my coat and wine closet. There are no closets on the main floor of my house, and no hook, or place to hang a coat either. That will be remedied when I return, but for now I am thrilled to have a convenient place to store coats, and a convenient place to store wine. I've also hung shower curtains, and I am thrilled to have a bathroom that actually has towel bars and a place for toilet paper. The previous owners of my house seem to have removed all the toilet paper holders and towel bars when they vacated the premises. Admittedly I could have replaced them. But I didn't want to spend money on towel bars when I was going to be redoing the bathrooms within a year anyway. Count me cheap, at least about some things. The truth is, I am tired of my efficient, but tiny little bathroom with no place to hang a towel. Perhaps buying a towel bar would have been cheaper than removing a wall and redoing everything, but well, I probably would have done that anyway. I'm still a Texan after all, "go big or go home" runs in my veins, but I'm not all about bigness or space, just getting it right. I'm either all in, or I'm all out. No halfsies here.

July 28, 2018
It begins:

Bookstool:

This little African stool was George's before I knew him. I didn't think of stacking books on top of it, but it was a good idea. The content, and the location, have evolved. Last summer and fall the stool was stacked with the nominees for the 2017 Booker Prize, and they were removed as they were read. Paul Auster's 4321 is the only remaining book on the short list I have not gotten to, although there are actually three additional books from the 2017 longlist that I still haven't read, and still intend to read. I hope to do better this year.

Currently the stack contains the Booker winners from the past 5 years, plus the aforementioned 4321. I have not read them all, although I hope to do so. I also hope to read this year's longlist. I accept that although I may well read all these books, I may not do so in a timely fashion. Still, it costs me no more to hope.

The 2018 longlist was announced yesterday. The collage shown above was taken from The Telegraph, here. Of these books, I have already read Warlight, and I have a copy of the Overstory on my stack, just waiting for a little post-move defragmentation and a hoped for increase in my ability to concentrate. I've been of mixed minds about The Mars Room, but accept that I will indeed read it. In fact there are a couple of novels I would probably never have chosen to read were they not on the list, and so I shall be thankful in advance for expanded horizons.

But there are very few Booker-nominated books I have felt were a waste of time, and some have completely entranced or changed my way of thinking. The Sellout was one of those books and, in fact, it was a difficult read. Initially I was simply shocked and dismayed, but the novel won me over, and showed me a new way of looking at a culture, at people's hearts, and through the novel, at myself and my own assumptions.

But of course that is what fiction does. it doesn't have to be literary fiction. Three of my favorite books last year were on the short list for the Man Booker, and I probably would not have read two of them were it not for that list. My other favorite books were by Louise Penny; I don't consider them inferior, just different. In fact books chosen for the Booker Prize may not be better, just different. There is room for all kinds of books in the world, just as there are all kinds of readers. C.S. Lewis said something along the lines of: "there are no bad books, only poor readers", and I tend to think there is a lot of wisdom in that statement. That line has been running around in my head a lot this year, as has Abraham Rothberg's statement that "fiction is a lie that tells the truth". Lies are lies, except when they are not. The truth is the truth, except when it is not. I better not let my poor brain spin in circles.

Better, I think, to start looking for books. Last year, most books on the list were not available at my local library. I don't suppose this year will be much different.

July 25, 2018