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Trees of Life

As I look out my office window I see the "hairy tree" as I affectionately refer to it. The tree, actually a pair of trees, was heavily girdled with ivy when I moved in. I have no excuse for thinking of them as a singular it, but I do. I cut back as much of the ivy as I could, and had to employ help as some of the ivy vines were as thick as my arms. The grounds crew used chain saws and also did make a few cuts into the bark, about which I worried. Most of the ivy was left in the tree to die and much of it is still there, dead and brown, from my window making the tree appear chewbacca-like in its corner.

Mostly what I have noticed this spring however is the new growth. Previously the trunks of this tree were mostly bare, with only a swath of leaves at the very top of the canopy. This spring there is new growth everywhere, leafy islands of green that fill my imagination, dancing in the breeze, reminders of fortitude, rebirth, survival. The old is still there, the vines, I can't pull them all out, but we never fully escape our pasts anyway. The presence of a past, no matter how traumatic, no matter how touchy we may be about the memory, doesn't mean the death of beauty, of growth, of life.

But the ivy branches, and the bare bases also remind me not only of setbacks and growth, but of arrogance and mistakes and how life still endures, constantly moving forward. The bare bases of the trees remind me of Tikka's bare bottom, where the vet shaved her undercoat because the fur was badly matted. I know now that we could have probably trimmed out the longer hairs and saved that hair, that the vet knew it wouldn't grow back, that there was another alternative. Just as I probably could have found a better way to cut the ivy, a way that did not harm the tree, although I doubt I could have gotten all the vines pulled down. My own arrogance played into the arrogance of the workmen, and all of our efforts built on the arrogance of that which came before, of letting the ivy take root and grow to the point of almost overwhelming the tree in the first place. The cut lines are there to remind me of human folly, just as the vines remain, dead but reminding us of adversity, adversity overcome. I often think we need to be reminded of both, of the beauty and the growth, but also of the costs and the perils of life. Let us only hope that our mistakes can be overcome, not forgotten, but reimagined.

May 22, 2018
Random Post on Thursday Morning

I started writing a blog post last night but I was tired and I tore it up. I decided to knit instead. Now that was a far more calming use of my time even though I am still knitting the same red sweater. I am past the half-way point on the front, moving up the sides, and almost done with the sequined yarn. Before long I'll start the neckline shaping. I stopped knitting for a while, but now I'm back. Sometimes lately however, I am already too tired before I begin, and I end up unknitting as much as I knit. Somehow I find even that to be soothing, a way to let my mind purl with the stitches, putting the day to rest.

That reminds me that yesterday started and ended in the sewing room. I wanted to wear a skort I had purchased in Florida two summers ago. I wore it heavily that first summer, and not at all last year because it needed mending and some minor alterations. I failed to get the sewing room unpacked so the skort sat, unworn, until now. The inner portion was partially disassembled, so I traced it off before reassembly. I wanted to trace the entire skort so that I can make a pattern and reproduce it, but I could't find my tracing wheels and the day was moving on. Instead I dressed and took Tikka for a walk.

That makes the second garment I've worked on in the new sewing room. It took me a year, which is pretty bad, considering I will probably have to pack back up soon enough while we go through the remodel phase. I am not however, going to stop sewing, stop making, and this time I have a plan for how I can continue working, whatever else is going on. I've done enough of putting my heart aside. No more of that.

But all I've done so far is mending, although I have pulled fabrics and patterns. The first thing I worked on were my favorite black shorts. They needed taking in, in fact this is the second time I have taken them in and I still love them, even after 5 years and two major alterations. I suppose when they finally fail, which may well be at the end of this season, they too will have to become a pattern. But working on them was difficult. Black thread on black fabric in a room with no light is not how I define fun. I have not yet unpacked my task light that I used in the old sewing room, where the light was also very good.

Are you seeing a theme here? Things unfound? The lamp was not in any of the boxes labeled "sewing room", all of which have been unpacked. That meant it had to be in one of the boxes still in the basement, the boxes labeled quilting, needlework, or dying. Perhaps my tracing wheels could be located down there as well. But initially , at least before the skort, I wasn't eager to go down to the basement and haul those boxes out. Instead I went to Target and bought two small, inexpensive task lamps, six-month lamps, lamps I will be happy to use until the new sewing room is done, hopefully in early 2019, and then, if I no longer need them, will be happy to set free. Those lamps made using the sewing machine and the serger possible, navy on navy this time, for a navy skort.

Then the day got in the way. Tikka and I walked. I rode my bike. Sheets went in the wash while I went out in the garden to plant small dwarf sedums and Meditteranean iris, iris ungularis, in the sunny rock garden near the roses. After working in the heat and the sun, I went down into the laundry room and chilled, ironing sheets and drinking coffee. The laundry room stays about 62 – 64 year round, and I keep a sweater by the door, but yesterday, hot from the sun, the chill felt wonderfully refreshing. I looked at the last two winter sweaters drying on a rack, ready to be stored until next year, thinking about the large alpaca blanket I need to disassemble, wash, repair, and reassemble in a slightly new form, thinking about how much I love that space and how I should really hang photos on the wall, make the space more cozy.

Just as I finished the sheets, Varmint Busters showed up to take a look at the bat problem in the attic. Apparently not much can be done abut the bats until they leave for the season, meaning the end of November or early December. The previous owners had apparently tried to fix the bat problem before they put the house on the market, but rather than putting up the kind of screening and one-way gate system that prevents the bats from reentering, they have some other kind of ad-hoc screening system, which gives the bats a way in and a protected space in which to stay should they so desire. Apparently it also allows squirrels in, and the squirrels have already chewed through the screening, which I suppose the means I have had squirrels in the attic as well. Trying to get the bats out now will be a major headache, if it is even possible, and it probably isn't. In December the whole mess will have to be torn out and done properly. Oh well. Welcome to my old house.

Lunch, more work in the yard, some time spent starting to clean and clean-out the garage, errands, another walk with Tikka, dinner. So goes a day.

I decided that I would try to find the tracing wheels and the lamp, so I hauled the three large boxes out of the basement storage area and into the laundry room. Needless to say I found my lamp, in a box labeled "dye stuff — store". That was a mistake. I also found the tracing wheel and a stash of other miscellaneous tools, some of which will prove to be useful. I found a bolt of muslin, a plus for summer sewing plans. I also left a pile of stuff on the laundry room floor, stuff I have to go back and sort through and put away.

It is time to finish sorting and unpacking anyway. I've been here too long, I hate the weight of things undone, things pulling me backwards, boxes of things that are never opened. Some things are waiting for the remodel, such as books waiting for library shelves, but generally I want it all unpacked and sorted, which is strange because in a couple of months I'll be embarking on the remodel and things will get packed up again. But I am different than when I moved here. Decisions I could not make a year ago come more easily now. I no longer want to drag the past along with wherever I go.

I went back upstairs and traced my skirt. I didn't take the tracing and make the actual pattern pieces. I was already too tired for that. As I mentioned above I tried writing a blog post, but I was too tired for that as well. Instead I knit 8 rows in my red sweater and went to bed. All in all a successful day. Today there is more planting to be done, and I have to water all the new plantings, take a walk, and deal with the chaos in the laundry room. It is enough.

May 17, 2018
Book Love: Winter

I am going to be a bit too exuberant here. I read Ali Smith's novel Winter last week and I was completely blown away. I think it is brilliant. It is also thoughtful and funny and blisteringly compassionate, if blistering and compassion can be used together in a way that makes sense, but somehow, in terms of this novel, it does.

Admittedly it took me a bit to get settled in the novel, and I had my doubts over the first 50 pages or so, but then I was lured in. In the end, I I think Winter is even more compelling than Autumn, although it isn't nearly as immediately accessible. This is a novel to savor slowly, and as I read, I also saw that the discomfort one feels, especially at the beginning, is intentional. After that I began to see what Smith was doing, and I feel deeply for the book, for its beautiful prose, for Smith's amazing way of looking at things and telling a story, for the layers of humanity and metaphor and meaning, as well as the way the author can subtly and magnificently turn everything on its head and make it seem like the most natural thing in the world.

Initially it seemed to me that Winter was more deeply imbued in its seasonal theme than Autumn was but that was only on my first reading. I went back and read Autumn again, and think it fits its title perfectly, and Winter, well winter is a more difficult time for most of us. Smith actively uses winter metaphors and ideas here, more directly than in Autumn, but Autumn is no less autumnal than Winter is, in many ways, an exploration of winter. The novel is rooted in its time, and yet it is not. The author understands the way the threads of relationships, of past, present and future all intertwine and are simultaneously related and separate.

I would say that Autumn and Winter are kindred, and I am using Smiths' phrasing here. The novels are related, but not directly so. There is overlap. Two characters in Autumn reappear in Winter, although a major character in winter was but a whisk of memory in Autumn, and a major character from Autumn plays a minor role in this novel. You do not have to have read one to enjoy or understand the other. The novel deals with relationships, as did Autumn, but not just the relationship of the characters to each other, but to themselves, and it is also a skillful commentary and allegory about changing climates, in our understandings of ourselves, our relationships, in our social and sociopolitical worlds, science, art, socialization and self-absorption.

Smith explores the ways in which we are constantly evolving as the world around us also evolves, through storms and deep freezes, and eventual springs. The winter metaphor and allegory is explored, no it is almost embodied in its many forms in the text, but like winter itself, the story is not without hope. And this is where I think the novel really is brilliant. Smith uses winter as a way of exploring the human condition. This novel, its subject and its title, gives the author a way to frame and explore relationships and who we are, forming a metaphor that bridges our experiences, bringing new perspective. I used the idea earlier that the novels are kindred, picking up from this line in the novel, referring to Kepler, but as part of a deeper tale:

Kindred means family, what I'm saying is that the thought that truth and time are sort of related, family to each other.

And yet I think this also relates to what Smith is doing here, and to the reason that I am looking forward to the next novels in this series, more so now than I was even after reading Autumn. In fact I bought this book immediately upon its release, and then put off reading it after a couple of people said it was a disappointment, as if that should really matter to my ability to form my own opinion. Now however, after reading the novel, I would say that even this tendency to trust the consensus over one's own opinion is also melded into the themes of these novels. Winter is complex and musical in its structure, not a simple little ditty, but a symphony. My words cannot do it justice. I think this is a novel that will bear up to reading and rereading, which is good, because I think I will be revisiting it with each new addition to the series. Going back to that symphonic metaphor, I feel as if each of these novels is the movement in a symphony. Each stands alone, and yet I cannot think of one without referring, either backward or forward to the other. Smith is writing stand-alone novels, but which are also intimately a part of something greater, something that is revealed only in the relationship between the parts, just as the phases of our lives and our relationships seem to stand apart but are not, are all woven into a complex fabric which we, for the most part, never unravel.

May 15, 2018
International Quilt Study Center 2: Craft….

I've broken this visit to the Quilt Study Center into two sections mostly because it grew long, and I've divided it into sections labeled art and craft, not so much because I believe that one is more or less worthy than the other, or even that dividing lines are all that clear, but because it suited my purposes. In this post I am covering the parts of the exhibit that were devoted to pieces that were created to be functional.

Simply put, as much as I love art in and of itself, there is a special place in my heart for those who make things that are beautiful for everyday use. We have little time or even use for such things in modern life, when everything is available to us without much thought and it is time that feels rare. But I sometimes wonder if we've missed something truly important.

There was a small, but lovely exhibit of Miao pieces which included the two collars shown above. These are pieces intended to be worn, and they show signs of wear and use, but the design and workmanship is stunning. I want to say that they are in fact children's collars, but I neglected to take a photo of the descriptive plaque and cannot remember. That seems foreign to us in modern life, where we feel our hands are put to better use than on handwork that will be quickly outgrown, but I'm not sure the results of our labors are any less ephemeral. The act of making shows respect and honor and love, the wearing connects one to the art, to the cycle of life and art combined. Such things remind me that we humans are creative creatures, that we are compelled to make beauty, and that it is in fact the act of living itself, and celebrating the small, the immediate, and the circle of our individual family and community is from whence our well-being and happiness ultimately arises.

It is not really important if something was made for everyday use or for special occasions. What attracts me is the making as well as the using, that it is the act of living itself that is worthy of art. Look at the detail in this Miao women's jacket for example. It is not fast fashion. This is something to be worn and cared for, to be treasured. It is something that is meant to last, not permanently no, but nothing really is permanent, and to be worn with pride.

In some ways, we modern people have lost that. Would any of us spend the time embroidering a jacket, putting in time to perform intricate work such as in the example above? We think of our time as too valuable, and yet do the things we do with our time prove to be more lasting? Do they bring us greater pleasure? I am not trying to denigrate the art quilts, I think they are fabulous. I think human need to create is something essential to our being, that we are all creative, if anything, we do not honor or desire for creativity enough.

But one of the joys of looking at older, or traditional quilts and bed coverings is not only in admiring the skill of the makers, but also in reminding oneself of the joy in making something that was both necessary and beautiful. No one has to make beauty, and yet we do. And our desire to express beauty can take many forms. The bedspread above is not quilted, or embroidered but stenciled. It is no less beautiful, no less useful, and the stenciling is artfully done. Similar stencils are available in Michaels and we might stencil a placemat, a piece of furniture or a wall, and yet this bedspread dates from sometime in the 1820s or 1830s. Would we stencil a bedspread? Are we missing something in not curling up under the warmth of our own handiwork?

Or consider this embroidered blanket, embroidered with wool thread, which the description stated had probably been spun from local wool. Note the date, 1816, making this blanket over 200 years old. The workmanship is beautiful. Can we imagine it today? Such workmanship takes much practice and skill, and not every budding embroiderer has the patience or talent, but can we even imagine sitting down today and embroidering a blanket? What have we lost and what have we gained?

Is this any less art? Someone meticulously cut out motifs, arranged them, and attached them by hand.

And so we still admire and celebrate that which survives, the patience, the skill, the handiwork:

Today these things are the exceptions, the treasures, and most of them are just that. Most of what makes it to a museum is the exceptional, the work of the skilled and talented, but many of these objects also came from a time when most people needed to make what they used, and not everyone was equally talented. The truth is that most quilts were not exceptional. But we tend to forget about the quality of the average. We are blinded by our own exposure, our experience, our knowledge. We forget that we have become critics, and we forget that our vantage point is indeed from a point of exception. But in many ways the average, the everyday, even the fact that individuals and communities made quilts, that the making was itself both a necessity and a bringing together, is forgotten.

I think in some ways, that was the beauty of the Ken Burns quilt exhibit, although we admittedly did not spend enough time there. It is something I regret. I admit that compared to the work in the other exhibits some of these quilts seemed boring, but we were blinded by our own knowledge, our own skills as seamstresses although I for one am no quilter, and the fact that we had just come from the art exhibits. But I also blame this on the curation of the exhibit itself, It could have been so much better. To that end I am showing two photos from the International Quilt Study Center's website illustrating the exhibit. The photo above shows an example that I think worked. The words printed on the wall relate directly to the quilts displayed, and give the viewer some sense of what attracted the collector, but for most of the exhibit this was not the case.

More often we had random words and phrases, yes Burns' words, but disembodied from a conversation and not necessarily relating to the nearby quilts. Often these words, taken out of context, in a sense disembodied, seemed shallow and often patronizing. They seemed to lessen the experience of viewing the exhibit rather than enhancing it. The collection is in fact quite interesting, even though we did comment that the quilts were often boring. But that is not the point, surrounded in a museum of the exceptional in terms of technique and style, a bit more work was required in order to bring the heart of this exhibit to the viewer. I don't think it succeeded.

After returning home I googled Ken Burns and came up with this article in the New York Times. I highly recommend the article. Many of the words used in the exhibit come from this conversation, but here they are warm whereas in the museum they seem cold and detached. There are also photos of quilts not seen in the exhibit, lovely quilts, but their loveliness is not why I mention them. Read Burns descriptions of the quilts, what attracted him to them. This is what was missing from the Burns exhibit, the connection with the collector. In the end I think this is what we all want. We want to see art, yes, but we also want to understand, we also want relationship. We want to know what attracted the collector to the works he collected, what meaning he derives, so that we an then form our own conversations with what we are seeing. This was lacking.

Having read the article, now I'd like to go back and see the exhibit again. Still I think it could have been better done, it could have offered an opportunity for connection with our past and with the idea that everyday creativity is not mundane or even boring. Instead I am left with regret, regret that despite all the beauty, all the exceptional workmanship, we missed something essential, regret that perhaps we did not see the forest through the trees.

The two photos from the Burns exhibit are not my photos but are taken from the website of the International Quilt Study Center.

May 12, 2018
Five Things on a Beautiful May Friday

This week has gotten away from me a bit, and the challenge for today is to see if I can get this "five things" post written and posted before the day is done, and maybe still get a post up tomorrow. It may be wishful thinking, but I've always liked a challenge.

1. I bought a bike. I spent last Saturday trying to ride my old bike and keep air in the tires, neither very successfully. I fell repeatedly and at one point wondered if should even be trying, but I also realized three things: 1). The bike was old and probably not rideable. 2). The gears were stuck somewhere around 8th or 9th gear and I couldn't unstick them enough to get myself up the hill in my driveway. 3). My old, circa 1980 racing style touring bike was probably not the best bike for me to be riding at this particular point in my relearning process. I took the old bike into a shop to see if it could be repaired and came out with a new bike. I realized that my insistence on riding the old bike was actually hampering my progress. The new bike is exactly what I need right now. I've been riding it. At first, I didn't even make it around the block. Apparently riding a bike uses muscles I've neglected for a decade or two. I was terrified of speed because I was still terrified of falling, I couldn't quite figure out the gears so that I was in control of the bike instead of the bike being in control of me, and I wobbled all over the place. At the same time, I was exhilarated and thrilled. I can't remember being so excited about any new project in such a long time. I was out on the bike twice a day every day at the beginning of the week. I didn't go far, but I came home exhausted and happy. As I'd stagger up the steps into my house I was already dreaming of my next ride. Each morning I would go for my normal walk of a couple of miles in length, then get on the bike, mostly because I learned I couldn't walk after riding the bike. This morning however, I went for a whole loop, roughly 2 miles, my first real excursion that I can actually call a ride. I had to get off a couple of time when my legs refused to go further up a hill, and I had to walk the bike up the final stretch of one steeper hill (but still not very steep) after I misjudged my gear shift, lost my footing, and fell into a forced dismount. But I did it. I was terrified coming down the steep hill after the final turn toward my house and I had to fight the urge to ride the breaks, terrified I would have to stop and not be able to, terrified I would kill myself. I can happily report I returned home safely. I climbed the stairs to my office and this computer. I can't wait to ride again tomorrow.

I want to keep riding. I want to fix the old bike and when I get steadier see if I can ride it, see if I want to tackle longer rides. When I was young I thought nothing of going 20 or 30 miles on my bike. I may or may not ever be there again, but I am looking forward to the adventure. Oh, and now that I know I can actually ride even a short loop, perhaps it is time to start alternating walking and riding days.

2. The pink camellia behind the house is doing beautifully since I had the river birch taken down. It bloomed but looked rather sad and I suspected that it was in too much shade. This spring, with the long period of cool weather and the increased sun it has filled out and grown phenomenally. You can see it behind the irises in the photo above. Unfortunately it is right next to the deck, meaning it is right in the middle of the proposed construction site. Finding it a new home, either permanent or temporary, for any plants in this area I want to save (irises and camellias etc) is now becoming a priority.

3. I posted a photo of the Cora Louise peony on Instagram earlier this week. I took another photo this morning, where I thought I captured the color just a little more clearly.

4. Breakfast this morning, or brunch I suppose since it was after 11 by the time I stopped to eat. Avocado, and egg salad topped with hot-smoked salmon on a small, salad sized plate.

5. I went to see the musical Beautiful: The Carole King Story, with a friend last Sunday afternoon and I had an absolutely marvelous time. I love the sets, the colors, the acting, the music, absolutely everything. It was a happy event that made me want to sing and dance and smile for the rest of the day. The show was like sping, something joyous and hopeful and inspiring, just what I needed on a Sunday afternoon. Carole King's album Tapestry came out just before I entered high school, but I didn't really discover her until I was in college, where many of my friends had all her albums. It was a period of great musical discovery for me: Carole King, bluegrass, rock, Talking Heads, King Crimson, early punk, jazz, swing dances, Hindemith and Phillip Glass, and although the musical was about King and her music, not my other explorations, it still reminded me of that time, of that sense of the joy of song of music and the idea that music itself could change the world.

But I also admit that I also struggled afterwards with the fact that I enjoyed Beautiful more than I enjoyed Aida, and in simply writing the above paragraph I have written more about the musical than I did about the opera. I recognize that this struggle reflects some kind of acquired parental, societal, and cultural bias that I don't actually believe has any basis in reality, but which still occasionally raises its ugly head in my consciousness. I did enjoy Aida, but I admittedly didn't love it. I'm not convinced that is the fault of the performance. As I said, the Choral Society gave the best performance I have heard, and the soloists were good as well, but they occasionally were quashed by the poor acoustics of the hall, well all of them except the baritone perhaps. In retrospect it was that problem with acoustics that hampered my experience. I understand why the performance was held in the Civic Auditorium — they needed the space on stage. And I'm not certain my experience of the sound was shared by those around me, as many of my near neighbors seemed very happy with the performance. I felt the performance often sounded muddied, which is more the fault of the venue than the artists themselves, enough so that I am not eager to go to another opera performance in that particular venue. I'd rather hear sparkling sound at the Tennessee Theater than muddied sound waves at the Civic Auditorium. But then again, I know this is my own bias, the same bias that showed up in the early days of my marriage when I was the one that was constantly turning off the radio when static would invade the airwaves. It never bothered George, but it ruined the sound for me, rendering the musical completely unlistenable. Mea culpa

I have no music scheduled this weekend, but the sun is shining and I shall see friends, spend time in the garden and on my bicycle. Grand adventure always awaits. What delights will your weekend bring?

May 11, 2018
International Quilt Study Center 1:Art….

I've been going through photos, and was reminded that I always intended to write more about my trip to Lincoln, including our visit to the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. I took a lot of photos, only a few of which are shown here. In fact editing through those photos and deciding what to write was one reason this post was delayed nearly a month. Be warned, this is a photo-heavy post.

This large art-quilt is by Velda Newman. There were three quilts in this exhibit, all huge, all meant, it appears to me, to be public installations, quilt as art. The smallest one, the last one I show, is about the size of the large painting I bought for my living room. The one shown above is larger than my longest living room wall. I suppose I should have gotten a photo with one of us for scale, but that would have interfered with the loveliness of the quilt itself.

Despite being large, the detail is also meticulous. Admittedly, I was most entranced by the colors, and there is nothing surprising in that. And I am amazed at the artist's ability not just to conceive of the idea, but to execute the work with the large pieces of fabric. I love small things and small pieces, but if you've been reading here you've seen that. My inclination with large pieces of fabric is simply to roll myself up in them, swaddled. And yet it is for this reason that I am even more amazed: the idea and he execution are breathtaking.

Look at the piecing and the quilting on this detail, a section of the quilt seen below.

Obviously none of these are one's grandmother's quilts. The quilts I am showing today are all by artists, artists who are respected in their field. but the styles are remarkably different. That is the point. Some quilt are envisioned as art, some as craft, some as a blurring of the two. Newman's quilts, at least the quilts seen here, are traditional quilts in terms of technique but not in terms of subject and scale; they are quilts obviously meant for public spaces, not intimate lives.

Although they speak the language of art, they do so in a different dialect than that which is traditionally reserved for the fine arts. This merging of genre's offers much latitude for insight and revelation. This blurring of genres is something I see happening in similar ways in some kinds of music, in venues like Big Ears. But perhaps that is my bias as well. I love tiny details and amorphous broad categorizations.

Notice above the way the butterfly extends past the edge of the border. Notice also the way the stitching of the smooth fabric, from a distance, gives an sense of softness, of depth, almost of a velvety texture, like the wing of a living butterfly. If I did not know the scale of this piece, I would think the red tip on one butterfly's wings was softly embroidered, but it is stitched with smooth fabric. Notice, in the photo below, by a different artist, the blending of materials, the watercolor-like effect created by blending hand-dyed fabrics with piecing, embroidery and brushstrokes.

But much as I love these large-scale works and the idea of art for public spaces, which is a bit of a theme at this moment in time, not just in quilt circles, I also love the small and the intimate, the functional, the idea that beauty is something that is a part and parcel of our lives, both public and private.

These works are by Japanese quilter Eiko Okano. Many of these quilts were more functional, and more traditional in size. The above small pieces were actually described as study pieces, but I love how they are also useful, not something to be placed in a drawer but which can be used.

Although Okano uses multiple techniques, her work bridges the traditional with the modern, art with life, and the necessity of things, but things that bring beauty to existence. The quilt above is a traditional size that could be used on a bed or on a wall.

Note the detail, each of these tiny pieces that make up the whole. Traditional techniques and stitches, a widely varied selection of fabric styes and prints, combined into something that both honors tradition and the present, art and craft, necessity and beauty.

So how do we define art? How do we define craft? I do think that is always a question worth exploring. This work by Molly Anderson is obviously a quilt, obviously a celebration of traditional handwork with appliqué, quilting and embroidery. And yet it is something to be seen, to be appreciated in and of itself — visual representation of both the world, but also of something intrinsically human — something that takes what we know and moves us to think and see in new ways.

May 8, 2018
Saturday Morning Musings

Contentment: sitting still in the early morning, cup of coffee in hand, looking out over the yard. This morning I am just looking at lawn, lawn and the line of woods at the back of the yard, two tall trees that shade the neighbor's yard. I managed to cut back much of the ivy that was choking them last year, but needed help with some of the bigger vines. The ivy was removed at the base but I didn't get all the long vines pulled out o the tree, now, from this window the tree looks almost hairy with the dead vines traversing its trunk. Cardinals and robin and bluebirds are cavorting in the early morning light, and yes, I do imagine the border I will eventually plant between the woods and the lawn. The garden of my dreams is always present but actually the yard in and of itself is enough. What more is needed?

People are needed of course. We all need other people, need to love and be loved. I don't work a day job where I am surrounded with people during the day. Many of my pursuits are solitary: writing, gardening, playing with needle, thread, fabric. I am past the days when empty time alone seemed overbearingly depressing. I can be content with myself, and perhaps that is primarily because I have a choice, to find balance between time spent alone and time with friends.

It has been a good week, filled with music, time with friends, and creative pursuits as well. There was a lovely performance of Haydn's Creation at the beginning of the week. Last night I went to see Aida, which was also beautifully done. Aida was the first opera I ever saw live and seeing it again reminds me of my youthful self. The choral society outdid themselves, the soloists were excellent. I am continually amazed at the dedication of local musicians and the quality of local efforts. Here we are, in Knoxville, a relatively small city, with two major choral productions in one week, and many people putting in long hours in rehearsal. Granted the musicians come from the greater metropolitan area (in government speak) which is actually a rather large geographic space, and this actually impresses me all the more. We are blessed to have people who are willing to spend time and effort to share something they love with the rest of us.

I see that music and art, fill my heart, but I also see that I sometimes overindulge. I want to go to everything, and I often try. Music fills and soothes my heart, and yet, I wonder. I always have been inclined toward too-muchness, but how much of my indulgences are running toward something, and how much is running away? I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those evenings watching tv or movie with my beloved, companionable silence, the palpable peace of shared space. But space and time are not something to be filled. The trees remind me of that. And you can't be companionable with others if you can't be companionable with yourself; or so it seems to me. That is not to say I don't enjoy evenings at home — they are no longer a black hole — but do I run too much? Try to fill too much? I am not looking for a substitute for just being present.

There, I think I found the answer.

Which brings me back to what do I need? What do we need? A safe place to sleep. Food. These are basic necessities. People we care about, people who care about us. Our passions, the things we care about, including ourselves. The earth around us, our own little space on this planet, wherever it is, whatever it is, to know that this space that is our lives, that our very selves, is enough. My view through this tiny window, watching the squirrel that is running across the yard right this moment. Beauty, perfection, love, heaven — it is all right here every day, ready to touch each of us, if only we open our eyes and our hearts.

None of the flowers shown here are visible from my window this morning. The flowers in the front yard are not visible from most of the windows in the house, and yet they greet me every day, a welcoming beacon.

May 5, 2018
In The Kitchen With Thai

The last week of April, while I was still recovering from my cold/sinus-explosion, I spent some time in the kitchen cooking Thai food. The experiment was prompted by the book Simple Thai Food, which was the April selection for the Food52 Cookbook Club. I wrote about my first foray, simple egg crepes stuffed with pork, here. But I continued trying recipes from the book, just barely squeezing in with four dishes by the end of the month. It was a fun month, and I enjoyed everything I made; not a failure in the bunch, although I did like some things better than others, and I've already made the egg crepes more than once. One advantage of that recipe, if you are cooking for one, is that the filling can be made in advance and simply reheated to add to fresh egg crepes for subsequent meals. That may not be the Thai way of doing things, but it works in my life.

So I recommend Leela Punyaratabandhu's cookbook. Her instructions are clear, and many, if not most, of the recipes are simple and easy to prepare. Nothing I made took as long as half an hour, although one or two things required some advance planning, and everything was, as stated above, very good. I would say that the book is well worth adding to my collection of Thai books, shown above. Of these books, Leela's may well prove to be the one I use the most frequently as her instructions are clear and she makes the process very accessible. I love David Thompson's books, and there are many similarities between Leela's recipes and David's, at least when they overlap, but there are also a lot of recipe variations in Simple Thai Food that are not in my other cookbooks. Besides, although I have cooked from Thompson's books, and will again, his recipes are not always clear to the beginner or cook who is unfamiliar with Thai food. Many recipes are time consuming, although perhaps thoroughly authentic, (I can't really say as I have not yet been to Thailand), and instructions are written for a cook who possesses a pretty high level of skill before he/she even opens the book. Still, Thompson offers the best reference available.

But what did I cook? Apparently a lot of chicken, as it was what I had on hand. Chicken Ginger Stir-Fry, pictured above was fast and excellent. I used dried wood-ear mushrooms, as I keep them on hand, and they did require soaking. You can use fresh mushrooms if you prefer and Leela explains what kinds of mushrooms work and why. I soaked the wood ears while I took Tikka for her walk, but they can probably be soaked while you prep the ingredients, or even earlier in the day and set aside until time to cook. This was the only meal I served with rice, which would be more authentic, but, much as I love rice, I don't eat it very often.

I also made Chicken with Chile Jam, which was very good as well, but it probably ranked 4th of the four meals I made. I loved the combination of flavors, but felt I might have preferred less onion. This could have been simply due to my stove, which doesn't really go to high, difficult for stir-frying, and I felt the onion should be cooked more. But I also think I might prefer to replace some of the onion with bell pepper. I'm not worried if this is what a Thai grandma would do, but it would work for me, and this could be as much because I did not serve it with rice, and most Thai dishes of this sort are served as accompaniment to rice. Anyway, it is a really simple dish with a high flavor profile, that is not necessarily hot, but can be adapted to taste. Leela also includes a recipe for Chili Jam, or Nam Prik Pau. This is available in oriental markets, and there are several varieties in my market, most of which are gluten-free, but her recipe is also good, very similar in terms of content to David Thompson's above, but with simple, clear instructions that make the process understandable to the regular non-Thai cook. I like making my own because I can regulate the quality of the ingredients.

Perhaps my favorite dish, or second-favorite dish (I'm pretty fond of those crepes) was for salmon in red curry. I did plan to serve that dish with rice, but the sauce was so yummy that I ended up just putting my salmon and sauce in a shallow soup plate and eating up my sauce with a spoon. I'm sure my grandmother would be shocked, but hey, it is my kitchen. I served it with a spicy apple salad, that is much like a green mango salad, which I've been making for a few years now. I didn't take a picture of that, but the recipe is from Leela's blog, shesimmers.com.

Simple Thai Food is a good addition to my collection. The other cookbooks shown above all stay, and I would have to say that at this point, a new cookbook would have to offer something noticeably different before I would consider it. Punyaratabandhu offers a unique voice, and truly supplies simple recipes that are big on Thai taste. Unlike a lot of cookbooks that claim to offer simple Thai food for western cooks, this book seems more authentically Thai. Cooking from this book is much like having a Thai sister in the kitchen, one who understands the pressures and stresses of modern Western life, one who takes the time to meld tradition with convenience.

As to the other books, I consider Pok Pok to be unique unto itself, Thai and yet also a chef's cookbook. I didn't like the restaurant much, but I love cooking from the cookbook, although I admit that most things are somewhat adapted due to my own gluten-issues. Still it has changed my way of cooking and my understanding of food. Dancing Shrimp and It Rains Fishes, both by the same author, focus primarily on fish and seafood. It Rains Fishes is really more a story about a culture, lifestyle and an approach to food with a few recipes, than it is a solid cookbook. I don't cook from either one a great deal, but I've learned a great deal from both of them, and can't imagine not having them.

In the spirit of one-in, one-out, I did release one cookbook from captivity in my cabinet. Keo's Thai Cuisine was the first Thai cookbook I ever used, and I've held on to it for a long time. This is where I learned to make Tom Kai Gai, Tom Yam, and chicken lap. But I no longer use Keo's recipes for those dishes and I held on to the book mostly for sentiment's sake. That is no reason, and it's space on the shelf has been relinquished.

The only dish from Keo Sananikone's cookbook that I still make is Evil Jungle Prince, but that too has evolved to the extent that my current version is nothing like the original, although I have retained Keo's name for the dish. Long ago I started adding my shredded cabbage to the dish itself and simmering it together with the sauce and chicken, rather than serving the dish on a bed of cabbage. This makes the dish more of a one plate meal, especially since I increased the quantity of cabbage in lieu of serving this over rice. Then, after I discovered I had celiac disease I could never find a gluten-free version of Thai yellow bean sauce, so I substituted Nam Prik Pau, which completely changes the dish, although it does not make it less Thai. And yet I retain the name. This is somewhat keeping with family tradition. My mom made a Country Captain which is nothing like the original Southern dish called Country Captain. I didn't discover the truth until I was somewhere in my 20's. I still make my family version and think of it as the true "country captain", just as I will always think of Keema Matar as "Missionary Curry", and believe that matzo brei should be cooked in bacon grease. My own Evil Jungle Prince is the version of choice, the prince I want in my kitchen.

I suppose what we all think of as authentic is what our mothers and grandmothers cooked.

May 3, 2018
April Reading

I am basically feeling well, but still congested, and perhaps then a little unfocused. Perhaps my reading was a little unfocused as well. Anyway, all I'm up for is a simple accounting. If I blogged about a book there will be a link, and I probably will have little to say. My goal continues to write about books as they affect my thoughts, if they affect my thoughts, and just give a monthly accounting. Obviously I have a long way to go before I perfect that idea.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Interesting and entertainingly written. I'm sure I learned something; I also thought about the book occasionally while reading other books this month although they had nothing, directly, to do with astrophysics. But that's the thing about learning, ideas crop up in interesting places, new insights arrive.

The Cinderella Murder, Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. Another in a series I started last month and now have finished. Entertaining fluff.

The Leavers, Lisa Ko. This was an interesting and somewhat difficult novel. For me the difficulty was in the way the story felt disconnected and choppy here and there, like I never quite fully connected with the protagonist or any of the main characters, It was really only as I came close to the end of the book that I fully understand that that the author was intentionally playing with a sense of disjointedness, trying to help the reader actually experience the way the various experiences in this young man's life contributed to this sense he had of not belonging. The author does pull this together in the end. I still feel a bit unsettled about the book, perhaps that too is the point.

The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt. Interesting as a literary detective story, which is, in fact, the majority of the book.. Not quite so interesting in its interpretation of Medieval thought. Greenblatt's argument about the role Lucretius played in the changes in ways of thought that lead to the renaissance and modernity are actually pretty nuanced, and his writing is smoothly entertaining and at times gripping. And this is the problem in that Greenblatt glosses over many aspects of Medieval philosophy and culture if it does not suit his story, leading to a rather one-sided and not particularly accurate view of the medieval period, that appears misinformed or misguided. But this may be only distortion due to simplification and the consequences of an easy read. On looking back, the nuance gets lost sometimes in the story, but if the story alone brings one to consider history and philosophy in a new light, it cannot be considered a bad thing. Recommended.

The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck. I really wanted to love this book. It came highly recommended by friends, and I like the premise: a group of German women coming together, dealing with the aftermath of the war. It just didn't seem to live up to its potential for me. It wasn't that I disliked the characters, although they were not necessarily likable, more that they just seemed like puppets to me, each with a designated role to play, and little real human development to help us understand the people behind the stereotypes..

The Things We Do For Love, Kristin Hannah. Sweet.

I've Got You Under My Skin, Mary Higgins Clark. Apparently I'm not generally a Mary Higgins Clark fan, although the book was enjoyable enough.

The Christian Moral Life, Timothy Sedgwick. (not in above photo, oops). EFM book. This was my second reading and I still find it profoundly thought provoking. Worth reading.

The Triumph of Christianity, Bart Ehrman. Not theology but a historians attempt to show how a movement got started. Ties together a lot of research in an easy-to-read way, and corrects some popular misconceptions.

Nutshell, Ian McEwan. My favorite book of the month.

May 1, 2018
In a Nutshell

There are mornings when I want to move, to take a brisk walk, but Tikka wants to stop and smell the leaves, and the bushes, and everything else in her path. It pays to slow down. As a a reward for patience, I was treated to this lovely ephemeral blossom, a reminder that beauty, and what is most important and essential about life is often close at hand.

Which brings me back to where I am supposed to be this on this lovely Saturday, writing about Ian McEwan's 2016 novel Nutshell. I mentioned that I had started the book earlier in the week, here, and I stand by what I wrote. It is a hilariously funny and enjoyable read. But there is also a lot more to the novel than mere entertainment, or even its witty send-up of contemporary Western civilization.

The prose is beautiful and elegant and often cold, more sarcastic and often bitter than warm and cuddly, which can be quite disconcerting from a narrator who is in fact not yet a person, a fetus 2 weeks shy of his supposed "due date". In fact that is one aspect of the book that is brilliant while it makes the reader at times quite uncomfortable. This is no Boss Baby or Look Who's Talking; there are laughs but McEwan is far to sophisticated to sink to common one liners. And yes, if you'e read any reviews, the story pretends to be a modern retelling of Hamlet, with our narrator's mother, Trudy, sleeping with her husband's brother, Claude. And certainly a fetus, flooded with emotions and wine and all too close proximity to too much sex is a completely impotent Hamlet. In fact, all the wine and sex, and the narrator's observations of the flood of feelings brought on by both, can also make the reader, this reader anyway, flinch a little bit.

And yet, there is so much more. One holds on, wondering if this hormone-driven emotional wreck of a woman and her stupidly arrogant lover will actually pull it off. There is no mystery about the crime; we are in on it from the beginning. And yet we are kept guessing, just as our young narrator is kept guessing, until we reach the end, the truly perfectly timed end. But I mentioned that there is more to this novel than thinking fetuses, witty commentary, and fun romps through the baser sides of human emotions, and there is. In this, in some ways the young unnamed hero is the our perfect modern everyman, because, as increasingly becomes apparent, we are all trapped in the same kind of bubble, incapable of action, incapable actually of even knowing what is real and what is just intellectual folderol. The narrator is constrained, but we are also constrained. He is flooded with maternal hormones and too much wine, not knowing what is real and what is not. But we are not much different. We spend our lives bombarded by information, by media stories and appeals, our sense and our emotions manipulated daily by media to the point that our judgements and our sense of well-being can be shaped by ideas and things that may be terrible or wonderful, but which are really just abstractions to us. They affect our sense of the world, but are not really a part of the world we inhabit each and every day, our own small slice of it.

As is natural, our narrator finally finds the world, his own small patch of the world, and finds that there is no comparison really between the reality of the present and the abstraction, between the world in which we spend our lives, which we can choose to own and possess and allow its beauty to possess us, or the abstraction, which can hold us, impotent. In the end, even in the face of of disruption, hope lies waiting, quietly, in the most unexpected places.

A slithering moment of waxy, creaking emergence, and here I am, set naked on the kingdom. Like stout Cortez (I remember a poem my father once recited), I'm amazed. I'm looking down, with what wonder and surmise, at the napped surface of a blue bath towel. Blue. I've always known, verbally at least, I've always been able to infer what is blue — sea, sky, lapis lazuli, gentians — mere abstractions. Now I have it at last, I own it, and it possesses me. More gorgeous than I dared believe. That is just a beginning, at the indigo end of the spectrum.

April 28, 2018