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This and That, Garden and Kitchen

April is almost coming to a close and I have been living in this house 11 months. A year ago at the end of April I owned this house, but I hadn't moved in yet. Work was being done, and I was here daily. I already felt like this was home, and yet there was so much I still hadn't discovered, that I still didn't see.

I am still in love with my house. It just feels like home. I smile when I turn into my driveway. I loved the house and the garden and even the empty lawn and the wooded slope in the backyard, so full of potential, before I moved in, but it feels like I am still discovering the joys of my own house. I don't remember the red azaleas from last year even though I was here everyday, even though this house felt more like my home than my old house did, even though the yard was filled with trucks and the workmen and I still lived elsewhere. But then, I was packing up the old house, getting ready to move. Perhaps I was a tad distracted.

I do remember the tiarella near the front door, I admired them all summer, but I don't remember them blooming. That was probably lost in packing, and moving, and making choices. Above is a photo I posted to instagram the other day. These lovely little foam flowers make me smile every time I walk through my front door. In fact I am just happy being home. It seems absurd that such a small little patch of earth can hold so much promise and joy and happiness. Moises meets me at the door, Tikka dances around in circles, I curl up in a chair with a book or music or work in my kitchen. Even the fact that another drawer has broken on the old refrigerator doesn't dent my joy.

When I returned home from Nebraska last week, I was stunned to turn the corner to the garage and see the large pink Azaleas. I had photographed them before, they had started to bloom before I left, but I returned to a mass of bright vivid pink. My heart swells with laughter every time I turn that corner, every moment I am confronted with such a mass of pink. Who knew that a pink azalea could mean so much?

I need to start a garden journal before I forget, forget what I saw, forget what I planted, forget my dreams. I had one in Hyde Park. I may not have brought it with me. I guess I thought that part of my life was over and I abandoned it. Or perhaps it will still turn up somewhere. Perhaps I was too quick to think my life was over in those days. Perhaps now I feel like it is just beginning. Not such a bad thing, to begin again, and again and again.

Do I feel so much more settled in my skin, so much more like myself because I found a place I can just be myself? Or did I find the right place because I was already beginning to reawaken to who I was, who I am, hopefully who I can be? These are all chicken or egg questions and there is no correct answer, but my first spring in my home has been a joy, and I have been happy to sit and watch the birds, to dig in the dirt, to read a book, to simply come home — home — and feel that deep sense of contentment, that sense of this is where I belong. What is next?

Oh, and I've been cooking too. Well I cook when I am happy, even for myself. Since I was under the weather this past week, it has mostly been for myself. This is kai yat say or stuffed egg crepes from Leela Punyaratabandhu's Simple Thai Food. Leela writes the blog shesimmers, which I've been following off and on for quite a while. The dish is savory but mild and pretty simple. It is pretty much an omelet, only shaped a bit differently. I had it for lunch and made no attempt at creating a traditional Thai meal. I like the square omelette. The ratio of filling to egg seems higher, and there are no ends where you just get overcooked egg without filling, which seems to happen too often in traditional omelets. Or perhaps I am just too picky. Besides the little package is pretty. Perhaps I will experiment with the idea some more.

Anyway, I hope you are having a good week. I went to hear a concert the other night, a piano trio. I had to leave after the first work because I started coughing and couldn't control it, but that first piece was worth the effort. My spirit danced even as my lungs convulsed. I took a nice walk yesterday, and went out to dinner with family. I ironed sheets. Yes, I am the kind of person who finds ironing sheets a joy, perhaps even more of a joy than slipping between freshly ironed sheets that first night,,..

I hope your week is filled with small joys.

April 26, 2018
Reading on Airplanes or When Under the Weather

I came home from my trip to Nebraska with a cold or sinuses gone horribly wrong, although it probably started with the former and ended with the latter. My own tendency to overdo has probably contributed to my suffering. I felt better Friday afternoon and went out to a fabulous concert. I then compounded the excess by going to the Winter farmer's market on Saturday, well I did need eggs, only to find I had overdone it, and my exhausted, achy, congested body sent me back to bed for another 36 hours.

Lesson learned. It has been raining. It will be raining. I shall take this as a reminder .

In the end I was grateful that I had some pretty mindless reading with me for the trip, although I often just opted for sleep on the flight home. On the flights to Omaha I read Kristin Hannah's novel The Things We Do For Love, which was warm and touching, with characters that drew one in, a nice easy read to distract one from the petty annoyances of travel. On the flights home I started the prequel to the Under Suspicion series by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. Actually I originally started reading Bart Ehrman's The Triumph of Christianity, which had just come up as an e-reader download from the local library. I've been a little overloaded on library books lately and I wanted to be sure to finish this one in time, but I quickly figured out that I just wasn't up to it. It is an easy enough read, straightforward and friendly but artless, and my head was pounding enough that I needed to be entranced with the prose, or lulled into a mindless story. What I had initially began as a catch in my through in a mildewy room of antiques, turning into something much more like a bad cold. I ended up simply buying cold medicine to suppress my cough and bouts of sneezing, then sleeping through most of the flights. When I wasn't sleeping, rather than trying to read through my blurry eyes, I watched the first two episodes of the Netflix series Lost In Space.

I spent the next 36 hours or so in bed, intermittently reading the Mary Higgins Clark (solo) novel I've Got You Under My Skin, and continuing to work my way through Lost In Space. The Clark was entertaining, she is a good story-teller, if predictable, but in the end I think the later novels are more tightly executed. But then I've never been a Mary Higgins Clark fan. Lost In Space, was also fun. I didn't expect much from it. I loved the original series when I was a child, but even then I knew it was pretty silly. The new version takes itself a little more seriously, but its still just fun entertainment. Again, it passed the time and I have no regrets. Moises and Tikka were certainly happy for extra mommy snuggle time.

I did finish the Ehrman yesterday; which proved to be a good, friendly, non-academic repackaging of the first few hundred years of Christian history. The growth of a small sect into a religion that shaped Western Culture is endlessly fascinating, and Ehrman does a good job of cutting through a lot of accumulated mists of time and misinformation in an accessible way.

I hope to dig into the new Elizabeth George sometime this week, but it is a big book, and I have been wimpish. I started reading Winter by Ali Smith — I love the opening chapter, but I want to rustle up my copy of Autumn, and have it waiting in the wings, so that is on temporary pause. I'm currently reading Nutshell by Ian McEwan, which I am finding wittily entertaining. McEwan manages to indulge in beautiful prose indulging his world-weary, prickly, astute social and psychological observations (out of the mouths of babes) coming from the thoughts of a protagonist whose very articulate precociousness also reveals and explores his profound vulnerability and the haunting fragility of life. Sounds serious; it isn't. This is a fun book.

April 24, 2018
Musica Sacra

I was in Lincoln, Nebraska earlier this week, listening to the music of Phillip Glass. Tuesday night was the world premiere of a new piano quintet, Annunciation, and I was thrilled to be present, thrilled to be invited my my friend Liana, who was involved in the commission. Well, actually, I seem to recollect that I invited myself, and Liana graciously agreed. But the experience also found me questioning myself, refining my thoughts both on why I find one piece brilliant and another not so much, but also in terms of reminding myself that all of these thoughts are subjective and personal, and finding balance is key.

Late Monday afternoon we went to the rehearsal, and I was immediately entranced, enmeshed in this stunningly beautiful work, based on the the communion hymn of the Annunciation from the Greek Orthodox service, a hymn that is itself based on Psalm 133. At the rehearsal, the pianist, Paul Barnes, and others first sang the hymn for us, to help us to hear and understand the references, and then the piece began. Powerfully soaring opening chords drew me into the music, opening a space for the introduction of the chant as it develops into a repetitive, shared theme that is at time meditative, at times brooding, simultaneously expansive and inclusive, ending that reminded me of hearts and arms thrown open.

As I sat in that room, listening and absorbing, present with a work, a performance I felt to be brilliant, my focus was also on the previous week’s symphony performance. I was still struggling with the last blog post, and listening to this new work helped focus my attention both on what I love about music, and about my own uneasy feelings about writing when I was not thrilled with a performance. Of course one cannot be thrilled with everything, and, aside from technical matters, everything is subjective. The trick is in understanding my own biases and preferences, and in finding words that communicate something that is, in effect ephemeral and experiential. It like so much of everything else of value in life, seems to be an ongoing process of learning and expanding horizons.

I felt incredibly fortunate to be in Lincoln, to listen to the musicians and the composer review and refine the details of actually translating the notes from paper to sound, to hear adjustments and changes as they evolved, in some ways refining my own experience of the piece as the performance itself was refined. Not really being a musician myself, merely an avid listener, I nonetheless found the process fascinating and enlightening.

I felt equally fortunate to attend a dinner that evening with Phillip Glass, Paul Barnes, the Chiara Quartet, and other Artists and sponsors of the event. It was an honor to meet Phillip Glass, although I was neither charming, nor witty, with nothing creative to say, awed and tongue-tied at meeting a composer whose work I have followed since my early 20’s, a composer who inspired me to trek to New York City and take the subway to Brooklyn, where I had never been, by myself, just to hear Einstein on the Beach at BAM. Looking back on it now I see how shy and naive I was then, my older self bemused that I thought going to Brooklyn was an adventure. And yet that memory also makes me smile because it was the beginning of a newly found adventurousness in music, a first-step, one of many, toward becoming who I am today. Still, I was thrilled to shake his hand, to sit at the table with him to watch the interactions around me. To converse with musicians and artists, and just be present in a creative space.

God, that makes me sound far mor voyeuristic than I think I am.

Tuesday night was the world premier of the work at the Lied Center in Lincoln. The difference in the space, from the small room where the rehearsal was heard to the large space of the concert hall amazed me. It was almost as if I was hearing two different works, except that they weren’t different. I remembered the music and I knew intellectually I was hearing the same thing, but the emotional resonance was different. Perhaps it was just that, having heard the piece before, I was able to focus more on the complexities of the music itself. In the small hall the opening chords where strong and enveloping, drawing you immediately into its own space, and the conclusion a bright transfiguration. In the concert hall the opening bars felt more meditative and softly seductive. The patterns of the Byzantine chant more evident to this listener, and yet still welcoming and inclusive, One still felt drawn into the music, the space felt transformed, and the ending a transcendent release, a brightly ephemeral scattering of light into the space.

But the quintent was not the entirety of the concert, although the concert was mostly devoted to the music of Glass. And of course I have quibbles. The concert opened with members of Cappella Romana singing selections from the Greek Orthodox Mass, ending with the communion hymn for the Annunciation, in two versions, the piece which inspired the Piano Quintet. The singers were fabulous, and I loved the pacing and cadence of the Byzantine chant. But I was also somewhat familiar with the style because George had long been a lover of Orthodox Christian music, and although his specific love was for the Russian Orthodox, and I had not heard the Greek before, there were enough similarities that I felt comfortable, and calmed, in the listening.

The singing was followed by a short, unpublished, work by Glass, Pendulum for Violin and Piano, performed by Barnes and Hyeyung Yoon. It was a lovely work, but in retrospect I the positioning was off, and it distracted from the opening of the piano quintet. I would have opened the concert with this short Glass work, to whet the appetite of the audience for that which was to come, then gone into the chant, and followed the chant immediately with the Piano Quintet, to highlight the progression of the theme. But as I said above, this is a minor quibble.

The second half of the program began with a short choral piece from Hydrogen Jukebox called the Father Death Blues. Based on a poem by Alan Ginsberg, written after the death of his father, the song was gently mournful, and the performance was truly lovely and beautifully performed. I find Glass's choral works richly rewarding, and a surprise sometimes, to friends who know only his instrumental pieces.

The concert closed with the Piano Concerto No. 2 “After Louis and Clark”. I am sure this work was chosen because it was also commissioned by Barnes and premiered in Nebraska, but it seemed to me to be a good counterpoint to the new work, as to my ears at least, although both works at obviously by Glass, they are not at all alike. The Quintet is lushly spiritual and spaciously uplifting and enfolding, whereas the second piano concerto is full of movement in an entirely different way — a driving, exploring movement with a spacious, outward reaching sense of movement that feels more horizontal as compared to the vertical movement of the Piano Quintet. It was a lovely performance. I admit I have a recording of the piano concerto, also played by Barnes, and it was fabulous to see and hear him perform live. He made the music dance, and seem effortless, allowed it to occupy the space. Even that part of the first movement that increasingly amazes me each time I hear it, where the pianist is playing in two different tempos simultaneously, bridging and uniting the orchestra in a rather complex polymetric rhythm, playing in one meter with the right hand, in concert with the violins, while the left hand is simultaneously playing a slower tempo with the violas and cellos, felt like a natural progression of the music, flowing part and then together again, as a natural course of events, the piano dynamically and yet calmly holding the center.

Much as I enjoyed the performance however, The orchestra, which is an excellent student orchestra, did not quite master the subtleties and nuance in the repetitive themes that I have heard in the recorded version of this piece. In such a performance it is easy to forget that Glass’s music involves a layering of repetitive themes that are not at all simple, but complexly layered. The layering is essential, as the apparent simplicity of beauty is a veil. To build multifaceted layers that appear simple is genius. The lack of subtlety in the playing lent a sense of “sameness” to the piece, a sameness that does nothing to help me convince my many friends that Glass does not write the same theme over and over. The performance was beautiful but could have been more.

As to hearing Barnes play, and meeting him, that was also one of the highlights of my trip. I have a couple of Barnes’ recordings, but had never heard him play live. The fact that the first time I heard him live was in the intimate space of the rehearsal was amazing. I’ve long admired his playing, at least on recordings, but in watching him in a small space, playing as part of a chamber group I was impressed by the warmth and inclusiveness of his playing, his movements and expressions, his interactions with the quartet. Everything seemed to be part and parcel about a conversation with the music, and expansive conversation that stemmed outward from the music and drew the musicians and the listener in. In fact he reminded me of one of my all favorite pianists, Menahem Pressler, a pianist I used to seek out in performance whenever I could. It turns out that Barnes studied under Pressler, although I'm sure many others did as well, but few musicians express that sense of the performance and the music as a living conversation with such beauty..

April 19, 2018
Mozart and a Misstep

Friday night was symphony night in Knoxville. Following a dinner with friends that ran a little late, I was concerned that I would miss the beginning of the concert and admittedly pushed ahead. As we walked to the theater, shades of my college self resurfaced in my mind, memories of being accused, even then, of being more interested in music than in people. Of course it was not true then, and it is not true now, but on Friday night I was indeed more interested in getting to the concert than in lingering over dinner.

I was happy that I arrived before the music started, as I enjoyed the first work, Missy Mizzoli's Violent, Violent Sea. But I did not know the name of the piece until after I listened to it. Since I arrived late, near the end of the talk, just before the music started, I listened to the piece free of expectation. I heard a rather impressionistic work, without any clear narrative, with a somewhat placid and almost joyful manner, occasionally broken up by a sense of hidden danger lurking beneath the surface, the tension brought out by a deep rumbling beginning in the bass. I thought of a day on the beach and a hidden undertow, although the same technique is used in movie scores and other thematic music. The piece ends with a sharp, but brief startling movement, like a slap in the face, or someone dumping ice down the back of your collar. Between pieces I glanced at the program, making note of the title of the work, the double use of the word violent and felt a sense of discongruity with my experience of the music itself. Although I could relate to a sense of mild foreboding, as mentioned above, and I did indeed think of a beach, I heard no great turbulence or violence in the music itself. The piece felt more akin to the suspenseful build up impending threat, that one hears in suspense and horror movies than anything truly dangerous or violent. Perhaps that was the point, the threat of hidden or unanticipated violence rather than the violence itself, but the disconnect between title and work felt more like another example of the kind of hyperbolic excess and overstatement that seems to populate modern life. Everything is the "most unique", "best", "worst", "most amazing" whatever in our modern life, when what commonly results is slavish hype and attention over what are ultimately small things, and we follow along like sheep. It was a lovely piece although it was hardly violent, pleasant enough and enjoyable even, but ultimately just another pleasant and enjoyable way to while away an evening.

The second piece, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor was beautifully performed by pianist Fei Fei Dong, and the orchestra, led by guest conductor Edwin Outwater. It is of course a beatiful piece, justifyably popular, and Mozart balances truly stormy and turbulent passages with movements of great lyrical beauty and hopefulness. This performance was emotionally resonant, although at times it was also perhaps a little too determined in its execution. The second movement in particular was nuanced and balanced, bringing sense of harmony between musicians and music, always a lovely treat. Dong's performance was beautifully executed, the orchestra and the soloist played well together, and yet this listener, despite the fact that she enjoyed the performance, also felt a bit unsettled. It has in fact taken me these couple of days to articulate this puzzling sense of enjoyment with a soupçon of doubt. In the end I believe it came down to this: The performance was indeed beautiful and satisfying, but there was something that I can only call "Mozartness" that was lacking — it was Mozart but it wasn't. I felt as if the entire piece had been transported to another time, and perhaps this linked to the sense I had of the performance being a bit too determined, as if Mozart had been teleported a hundred years and become a romantic composer, and something was lost in the translation.

The concert ended with Robert Schumann's Symphony Number 2, which was skillfully and eloquently performed, but was also perhaps too placid, a programming error following the Mozart performance. The second half felt a bit like being trapped in a slowly deflating balloon. The Mozart performance out romanticized the Schumann, the Schumann fizzled in comparison. I understand that it is usual to schedule the guest artist before the intermission, but then you need something rousing to close out the concert, to carry the heightened emotions. I think I can discern an intention and a theme in the programming, and yet the idea was perhaps not fulfilled. A misstep, yes, but only a small one in what has, overall, been a fabulous season.

April 17, 2018
Garden Progress

Looking out my front window on a gray day, last weekend I believe. This is the part of the yard I have been working on this spring, it is the eastern side of the front yard, to the right as I walk out the door.

I have to admit the view makes me happy. Well, my whole yard makes me happy, even the parts that are rougher and need more work, they are just fertile grounds for my imagination. But for now I am happy to be working here, in this stretch of earth. I've been out every day this week, digging, planting, trimming, weeding, coaxing, and just generally revelling with my hands in the dirt.

It feels like I have done a lot, and I have, and of course now I just have to sit back, tend, and hope. Of course that is sometimes the hardest part, hoping that the things I plant adapt, hoping that they thrive over their first summer, hoping that they survive the winter, hoping that they come back next year, when, even though I shall hopefully anticipate them with bated breath, I shall also be thrilled and amazed when they finally arrive, a new parent all over again. In the photo above I am sitting in the grass after planting some iris cristata. This photo was taken earlier this past week, eyeing the hakonechloa and black mondo grass (ophiopogon) that I had planted before easter. They seem to have settled in, and are sending up new leaves, the first good sign, a small milestone that warms my heart.

Yesterday I noticed that the new iris cristata are blooming. These are the "Tennessee white" iris that I went up to Sunlight Gardens with my friend Anna to buy. While I was there I also saw some blue iris crostata, I do not know the specific name, and they are blooming as well. (below)

Right now these are teeny isolated specs of color, but if I have chosen well, in terms of positioning, and they thrive, I will eventually have mats of greenery and waves of tiny blossoms. The anticipation is almost as pleasant as the flowers themselves. Ahh, hopes and dreams.

I also noticed that the new Celestial Dogwood is blooming. I had not expected that, the tree overwintered somewhere in a pot, and was just planted, so I really only hoped for leaves. Perhaps I should have known better.

The first rose is opening. There are buds, but so far only a single blossom. It seems terribly early, but the roses have been exploding in leaves and growth since the first initial warm spell, subsequent frosts seemingly not slowing them down all that much. I would usually cut them back in early to mid February before growth started, but they were already green, reaching for the sun when I cut them back. I was struggling with fear of cold damage on fresh wounds, whereas they were simply reaching for the sun.

Otherwise much of the rest of my yard, is much the same. Above is the walkway from the garage, around the eastern side of the house. I Love the lush informality. The Japanese maple at the end of the walk is the same one seen in the photos above, in the front of the house.

Hellebores everywhere, lush and beautiful, with scattered bits of colors and emerging plants. I'm not sure I will have much else to show you, garden wise, this year. We will just have to see how things evolve.

The pink azaleas I see (and posted previously) from my sunroom window.

And then the other side of the front yard, the less finished side (west). Hopefully this will be next year's project, but I may be distracted with other things. There is little point in sprucing it up now, as this is the side that the trucks will be coming in and out, and there has already been plant damage on that side. They will never match, there is far more sun on the east, shade on the west. But I see that the small tree near the mailbox is another dogwood, and I like the symmetry offered by a dogwood on each side of the yard, and there is a crape myrtle hidden in there, almost being choked out by some other small trees which crowd around it and are far less appealing to me. The offenders will be removed, but otherwise, for now at least, there will be this uneasy balance, the more intentional east garden, the untended western wooded area, and the lawn in between. Perfect setting for a world of dreams and imaginings.

April 14, 2018
Two Prints

I recently rediscovered a photo I had taken at the opening of a new exhibition of contemporary prints at the Knoxville Museum of Art back at the end of January. I returned to the museum this week to refresh my memory and perhaps to explore whether my thoughts had changed or evolved. The exhibit is closing the end of this week, so I do recommend seeing it I you have a chance, although the works are part of the permanent collection and will resurface again.

What I discovered is that thoughts and impressions do indeed change, but certain things do not. The print I loved in January remains my favorite print of the lot, even though there are many fabulous prints, including examples by artists whose names are more well-known. I am too old to think that this means anything significant. My attraction to this print is not really about the quality of the print, although I do think it is masterfully done., All the prints are fascinating, and I am not qualified as a critic. The fact that I am drawn to this particular work is as much about me and what I bring to the conversation as it is about the artist and the print itself.

This is the print I loved, the print I still love, and I have actually been back to look at it on multiple occasions. The print, titled Building, is by James Surls. I love the depth of it, which is imperfectly captured in this photograph. Notice how the artist utilized both sides of the paper, so one sees depth to the print itself. Imagine the complexity of that process: these are not random bits on paper, the dual printing adds layers of complexity, but also enhances that sense of randomness I see in the print. But it is very hard to make something appear random, easier for nature than for orderly human brains. What I particularly like is the way it speaks to me of memory, of things past and things present, old and new and how our past shapes and organizes our perceptions of the present and the future. This print speaks to me of home, of self, of holding on and also of letting go, and how we never quite manage either. Our pasts, our expectations, our experiences, shape us and are always there floating in our own personal ether, sometimes up front, sometimes further back, a part and parcel of who we are. And yet there is a certain sense of disruption here, of uprootedness. One is grounded but just because who we are, our past, is always with us, does not mean we do not sometimes flounder, does not mean we have control over how we are shaped.

Oddly, this print also reminded me of another print, one I had seen at an exhibit at the McNay Museum in San Antonio back in August. The prints are nothing alike. The artists' work is nothing alike, and yet, even in this last visit to the Knoxville Museum, that connection came to mind, a connection not so much between the art itself as between the feelings the works evoke in this particular observer.

This print, titled Headed to the Promised Land, is by Juan Mora. Where the first print was light and airy, this print is dark and heavy. And yet, they both speak to experience and memory and the things we hold onto in the face of disruption. Mora's prints, at least the ones at the exhibit in question address the experience of the immigrant, and this experience of holding onto culture and the past, while simultaneously being very uncertain about the future. In both prints there is, at least to me, a sense of how the past and expectations shape our present, a tacit acknowledgement that who we are is shaped by all the bits and pieces of our lives. Mora explores how we hold on to our pasts, explores fear, and the unsettledness of facing the unknown, acknowledging that we cannot imagine or seek the future, or even salvation, as separate from our fears and hopes, from the compounding of our experiences. And yet the bundle of the things that we deem necessary for life, for security, also burdens us, and holds us down. We must carry it with us, but we must also lighten our load, allow our stuff to fall by the wayside. If you look closely, you still find hope in this print, you still see that, although the things that we hold on to are both a part of who we are, it is not our baggage that will get us where we are going.

Two prints. Two cities. Six months between my encounter with each. An older artist and a younger one. The Surls work is 20 years old, made when the artist was middle-aged. Mora is young. Both works speak to the experience of transition. I recognize that the connection is extremely tentative, and yet I remain compelled by something I am not sure I understand, I am not sure I need to understand.

April 12, 2018
March Books

It's not all been light and frothy novels and frivolous reading around here, although that was indeed exactly what I needed for a time. In fact, my favorite novel caught me by surprise. Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant had been sitting on my pile for a while, and I believe I had picked it up more than once, but somehow it never clicked. I can see how that can happen as it is not what I might have expected from Ishiguro, and yet the more I read the more I was drawn in. The author is a fabulous storyteller, and on that front this novel does not disappoint, or perhaps it does, if you are looking for a simple tale with easy answers, or if you have been lured into this novel unwittingly by its use of Authurian legend and magic. But although the author uses these devices, this is neither a historical novel or a traditional fantasy, but a multi-layered allegory, ostensibly about memory, but read on multiple levels it is about love, life, memory, war, the need to remember, the need to forget, and how ego sometimes masquerades as altruism and vice versa. In short it is about life, and about what is truly important, truly human. And yet what struck me the most was perhaps how truly enjoyable it was to read this novel. I was, and continue to be, enchanted, although I wish perhaps that I had written more about the book when I was actually reading it.

I have intended to write more often about my readings and the word-inspired musings that cross my brain, but I suppose that I should be content that I write anything at all at the moment as I seem to be perfectly content just puttering along. But at least there is the monthly post, with occasional updates appearing randomly.

My second favorite book read in March was another not-so-new book, W.S. Merwin's The Lice, a book of poems, and difficult poems at that. Although it was not at all intentional, they were, in an odd sort of way a suitable companion to the Ishiguro. The Lice was written during the Vietnam era, and the poems are filled with metaphor and allegory, and often filled with shocking and brutal images, mundane activities that take a turn, leaving this reader feeling like she had been turned inside out and upside down. Ishiguro does the same thing, but in a much more subtle and pleasing way. Of course we need both: to be shocked and brought up short on some occasions, and at others to be lead innocently down a flower-strewn path before we encounter the precipice. Merwin reminded me of the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, mostly because Merwin and Ezekiel are doing much the same thing, of course in different times and for different audiences. Or perhaps it was just that my EFM group was reading Ezekiel as I was in the middle of the Merwin. Either way, I might wish I had written, but I didn't, and the poems and stories and words still haunt me. I wonder sometimes if we have grown more stupid even as we've grown more technologically advanced. I don't believe the ancients believed their stories were factual for a moment, only that they understood that metaphor and allegory pointed to truth in a way that experience and fact never could.

But what else did I read?

I mentioned All Dressed in White, just the other day, here. I also read The Sleeping Beauty Killer and Every Breath You Take from the same series. I enjoyed the stories. I like the main character. I always figure out who the killer is long before the end of the book, but not necessarily the reason or the circumstances. Similarly, although not a mystery, Ginger's Reckoning, was fast and entertaining, and captured the whole greed/scandal/look-the-other-way thing going on in the 1980s, but I wish it had more depth and fewer easy answers.

Also high on the easy answer scale was The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Hannah is a fabulous story-teller, and the book was a great read. The kudos about this book are well-deserved in that it is a great indulge-yourself-with-a-cup-of-tea-and-enter-another-world type of book. Set in France during World War II, it reminded me of several other historical novels exploring related settings and questions that have cropped up in recent years, without being quite as treacly, and, surprisingly, that proved to be a disappointment. My impression was that Hannah's skill as a writer has grown since I last read one of her novels, quite some time ago, enough to make me wish this book was more than it actually was. I'm on the waiting list for her new novel, way down on the waiting list, so that will be a while, and I've picked up one of her early novels at the local second-hand book store to take on an upcoming trip, just to resolve memories and impressions; besides, it is always good to have a throw-away read on a plane.

Other books were as follows:

The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben was discussed here.

L'appart is David Lebovitz's tale of finding and renovating his Paris apartment. Charming and disarming the book was occasionally frustrating to this reader simply because I marveled at his naïveté, at least where his contractor was concerned. But that is actually one of the strengths of this book: I could never be the baker that Lebovitz is, and we have different skills. One of the things I have learned is that it is hard for us to accept that people we admire for one set of skills may appear ill-prepared, or even incompetent in other areas. But this is one of the unpleasant truths of the human condition. We all excel at something and yet are incompetent in other arenas, we just don't want to be reminded of our own failings. Writing a light-hearted book about difficult times is harder than it sounds, and incredibly brave. Kudos.

The Gluten-Free Revolution came up because I am once again going through cookbooks and books about food, thinking about what will have to be packed up and stored during remodeling and what is worth hanging onto for the duration. No answer to that question yet, but it did lead me to spending a week or so poring over Bouchon Bakery. Lowell includes a recipe from the latter book, but she prints it using measurements rather than weights, and the numbers felt odd. I wanted the weights so I got the book out of the library. I've updated the recipe to include the weights, and I won't buy the book, as I probably could not use most of it, but I spent quite a few happy evenings reading about baking and imagining flavors in my head. Just the reading reminded me of my younger self, the baker, and although I some part of me would love to get involved in baking again, another part of me knows I would lose the battle with my sweet tooth were I to embark on such a path. Everything in Bouchon Bakery, with the exception of the one recipe, would have to be adapted, but I certainly spent hours thinking of a time when I could bake, and was ignorant of celiac disease and ignorant of the dangers gluten and butter posed to my well-being. And then, like all good trips down memory lane, I was happy to close the book, return it to the library, and embrace the future.

Peculiar Ground was beautifully written and I would repeatedly stop and just savor the prose, but neither the story nor the characters fully captured my imagination. Beautiful as it was, prose alone, for this reader at least, was not quite enough. I did appreciate the way the author pulled together the two timelines at the end of the novel. This duel or multiple timeline approach, with the subsequent stitching together is a current trend, and it was managed well here, but still it was not enough for me to care. There was also a theme about gardens and trees, and the arrogance of men and gardeners in the book which struck me perhaps because I had just finished The Hidden Life of Trees.

I struggled a bit more with The Unforgotten. This first novel was actually quite well done, even though I struggled at times. I figured out who the real killer was early on, and the murder mystery was not the source of the suspense in the novel, but I felt that at times the tension fell flat, and didn't really connect or build up to the final reveal. But I am nitpicking here, and the characters and the story have stayed with me, far more in fact that anyone in Peculiar Ground. The author had a good handle on how memory, choices, and perceived betrayal and even good intentions can haunt one and shape a life in ways never imagined, and I am even willing to admit that the unsettledness of the story line, and its opaqueness may have been intentional, just as the perceptions and intentions of the main characters were opaque to each other, making the end all the more tragic. It is an ambitious first novel, and I am looking forward to more from this author.

April 10, 2018
On frivolous novels and an overdose of pink

Two week ago, or nearly two weeks ago, I picked up a book. I was at the Salt Spa and I had brought something with me to read, but I didn't feel like reading it. This book was on the shelf, so I picked it up. It was pure, unadulterated mindless entertainment, really perfect for a period where I was supposed to be resting and breathing. At the end of my session, about an hour later, I was half-way through the novel and I took it home with me, not because I planned to finish it at home, but because I wanted to be certain it would be there at my next appointment.

That was the day I realized I was retired. That day I realized I could sit in a sunny chair and read a frivolous book if I wanted, that my time was mine to fritter away as I pleased without repercussion. When I hit a slump, rather than turning on the TV or turning to the internet, I picked up my book and finished it that afternoon. There was no blood and guts, just a well-told story, with characters broadly drawn but engaging so that the reader could fill them out in their own imagination (as is the point in popular fiction). In short, I enjoyed my brief foray.

Over the following week I read two more books in the series, one when my back was sore, another when I found myself unable to focus on knitting while watching TV and therefore growing restless. Like eating a bowl of ice cream, or sorbet in my case, these novels have proved to be enjoyable little pleasures, not necessarily memorable, but no less enjoyed for their lack of nutritional value.

I have the fourth book in the series, but haven't started it yet. The days since my return from Texas have been full, and full of fun as well as the requisite chores of life. A friend and I went to the opening of the Knoxville Symphony Leagues annual decorator's show house, and I perhaps liked this year's foray more than usual. I think this was due to the format more than anything else. This year the "show-house" was actually three residences in a new luxury residence tower downtown, and each of the two-bedroom residences had a unified point of view and style, as well as spectacular views of the city, and I appreciated that sense of consistency.

Friday I went to Sunlight Gardens up in Andersonville, ostensibly to pick up some Iris cristata Tennessee White, a form of Iris I had been seeking for some time. Of course I bought other plants as well, perhaps a few too many. It is hard to resist plants, almost as hard as it is to resist books. And I am only now noticing, as I add photos to this post, how much pink there is in my garden, not that I have anything against pink.

I did not plant yesterday as it was raining and a bit on the chill side. Instead I tossed a new cloth over the table and played with china and place settings. This Indian mandala print came home with me Friday as well. Actually I was initially wondering if I could make a dress out of it but quickly realized it was large enough to be used as a bedspread or a tablecloth, and perhaps better suited for either. It came home with me because I love it, even though I wasn't 100% certain it would work in my blue dining room, with the blues and greens of my china, and because I knew it would find its place. Of course I shouldn't have worried. Already it has brought me hours of joy, playing with color and pattern and texture on a rainy Saturday.

I spent part of the afternoon, after putting everything away and between other chores, yes they do interfere at times, reading in the sun room. It wasn't sunny, but the beautiful pink azaleas outside my window seemed to glow in the soft gray light. I didn't remember them from last spring, but then I was still in my old house, packing and moving when they would have bloomed.

My current book is Neil deGrasse Tyson's Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. It too is fun, although it requires more thought and attention than Mary Higgins Clark's mysteries.. Even though Tyson is writing about the world beyond my small corner of the earth, he reminds me that these azaleas and I share a certain commonality in the very basis of our existence, and, paraphrasing some theology read and discussed earlier in the spring, we are all just combinations of little bubbles that come together and drift apart, smashing into each other, perhaps joining together, perhaps bursting apart and making something new, but still connected, all of a piece.

April 8, 2018
Morning Musings

Do you ever finding yourself wanting to do more than is possible? Perhaps it is not good, this wanting to do too much; perhaps it is the root of sin, although sin is a word that I think has been misaligned and misused. The pursuit of too-muchness is a kind of gluttony, and of course we call it that, at least when it turns bad: a glutton who eats too much, a person who is a glutton for punishment. But I suspect one can be a glutton in many ways, even in doing too much, even in doing too much in a well-meaning way.

Hmmm. I don't really know where those thoughts came from. Perhaps because I am home from a trip to Texas over the Easter weekend and there is more I want to do this week than is physically possible. Perhaps because I had grand plans for something, where grand plans aren't even really required. Perhaps also because I am realizing that the better part of valor is to sit and look out the window and have another cup of coffee, to consider what is important before plunging in willy-nilly.

So I went to Texas and visited my mom. We didn't go to church on Easter, the first time I've missed since I moved, but that is ok. I think that sometimes you have to let go of rituals, and remember that it is not the specific ritual that is important, but where it points you. Sometimes it is best to let things go. Anyway, we went to brunch. We did some things mom wanted to do and had a good time. I pet sat my brother's dog for a few days while they were between pet sitters. Spring. Easter. They occur at the same time for a reason, as does Passover, when you get right down to it. I'm sure there are other spring renewal rituals. Rest. Repose. Death. Rebirth. Let's not go there.

Sometimes it is good to simply accept that rest is good. That small things are important. Sometimes we need to let go of striving and let the dirt cover us so that we can grow in new ways. This is the thing: I don't believe there are any black and white choices in this world. I believe in good and evil, but I think it is rare that we truly see either one in life as we experience it, and they don't, at least in our lives, spring forth pure and unadulterated. Nothing is ever either/or, dual, or limited to exactly two choices, and even not making choices is a choice. And if we end up heading one way or another, we do so all too often without thinking. By the time we realize the path we are on the choices have been ingrained in our consciousness. Still, we can make a choice. We can choose to change our path, or not.

What I do know, is that there are no situations where the answer is either A or B, and only A or B, at least in life as it is lived, as opposed to theory. If we see only two choices were asking the wrong questions. I believe the answers are often simple but are not always easy. And I believe that good choices never directly hurt other people, either intentionally or accidentally due to callous oversight or self-interest. I also know that I make bad choices every day, usually without even realizing it, but I hope and will continue to hope, that my good choices will outnumber my mistakes, that I can seek rectification and reconciliation, and that kindness and dignity will win the day.

April 5, 2018
Of Marathons and Music and Miscellanea

Sunday, the last morning of Big Ears, Tikka and I both slept late, at least as compared to our normal schedule. When we went downstairs the street was already filled with people. We were 20 minutes from the starting bell for the Knoxville Marathon, and the starting gate was right outside our hotel. Tikka was a little excited but she happily walked over to the little garden where she normally took her morning piddle stop and hoped up over the short wall. There were several runners in place, using the wall for their pre-run stretch. Tikka, never shy, jumped between them and took care of business. I apologized, half heartedly, because really I was just laughing at the image of Tikka and the runners all in a line taking care of their various morning necessaries. A little absurdity to start the day.

Then we went back upstairs and I had coffee and breakfast in the bar/restaurant, where I could watch the start of the marathon. As Tikka and I took our morning walk, a little later, we would occasionally cross the marathon route, encountering pockets of runners or bicyclists, and it made for an exciting variation on our downtown morning walk.

And then it was back to the music. My notes on Sunday are a little sketchier as I didn't really write my thoughts down, grateful to simply being there, enjoying the music. Whereas Saturday I had stayed mostly in the southern tier of the concert venues, Sunday I primarily stuck to the northern portion of Gay Street, attending concerts at the Standard and the Mill and Mine.

Anyway, I started the day with the Tyshawn Storey Trio at the Mill and Mine. The Mill and Mine is kind of a good sized, cavernous room, and the group really managed to play with the dynamics of the room well, creating a flowing sense of movement in the space, alternating between power and a sensitive quietude, from the piano and the bass, but also from the drums. The group were really beautifully in tune with each other and the space, and it was a marvelous concert.

Next I wandered over to the Standard, but I took the long way around, rather than over the Bridge, which was a gentler walk. There I heard a young musician named Rostam, whom I knew only because he used to be a part of the band Vampire Weekend. The concert was fun and infectious, making me smile and want to sing and dance.

Then it was back over the bridge to Suuns. I was walking very slowly, and I stopped to take this photo along the way. And somehow I just realized I didn't even try to take photos of musicians on Sunday, and that is also fine. I still enjoyed the music and I enjoyed Suuns, but it was loud, and perhaps not as fascinating as the previous two concerts, or I was just beginning to feel antsy. I thought that if I left early I could perhaps slowly make my way south to the Bijou for Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei, so I very slowly made my way up the hill.

But by the time I got to Chivo, a taqueria just over the top of the hill, I was wondering if I would indeed be able to make it to the Bijou, so I stopped and had lunch. I enjoyed my tacos, and thought about what I could do next. I figured my best option was to head back toward the Standard and catch Julie Byrne, which I enjoyed, before leaving early and heading back to the Mill and Mine for Kieran Hedban and Mats Gustafsson. Although I loved that concert, I also realized that I was no longer comfortable and was fast approaching my limit, so I ubered back to my hotel for a rest.

The break was good, and afterward, perhaps just because I had finally figured out what was going on, walking became much easier. I could walk and stand all I wanted, although sitting would became problematic, not at all unusual for a disc-related scenario. I went to the Tennessee Theater to hear Nief Norf perform Steve Reich's 'Quartet', which was short, but also electrifying, and for which I stood. Then I actually had time to stop at Nama for some sushi before heading up and over the hill to hear the Craig Taborn Quartet for a fabulous concert that seemed to blend and push genres, mixing electronica and jazz and classical ideas into something that seemed perfectly itself and a perfect way to end a fabulous weekend. I made my back to my hotel and collapsed in contentment.

Last week was intentionally quiet and low-key, and as a result my back has continued to improve. I am by now pretty close to back to normal. I did walk, and I also did a little gardening on Wednesday. My goal was simply to get something in the planters out front as I am on the Dogwood Trail and although the beds and yard were all clean, the planters were still empty. I picked up some ferns for the planters by the front door. They are probably too large, but the selection in the nurseries was still slim, and once they start to grow they may have to move elsewhere. But they look pretty from the street now, and I have a good spot to put them later in the season so I am content.

I also managed to find some plants for the smaller planters. I don't quite know how these will work out yet, but it is a good attempt, soft grayed-greens to offset the rosemary in the round planters, and a variety of coleus plants in the tower, mixing upright and prostrate varieties. At least the front looks intentional. While I was at the nursery I also found some grasses and plants I had been hoping to put in a bed that I cleaned out last fall, a small bed filled with weeds, or more exactly, perennials that were too large for the space, and obscured the shrubs and Japanese maple that were there, and which I wanted to save. My own theory is that a weed is just a perennial in the wrong spot, (and vice versa). It felt good to have my hands in the dirt, to spend a couple of hours in the garden, and to be upright and pain-free afterward. Hopefully I've got things in the right spots, my ideas are good, and the garden will thrive. I always feel it is a guessing game, but one worth pursuing, and this reminds me that I need to start a garden journal. I had one in Hyde Park, where I had drawings and diagrams and planting information, and I could see the evolution of the yard, what worked and what failed.

I can't help myself. I have another project.

April 3, 2018