A WordPress Site

Author: 459856pwpadmin

  • Snow

    Truth be told, I miss snow.  I still love snow.

    IMG_0717

     

    Although it is possible that my Tennessee neighbors may not agree with me. Snow is not typical here and it has been many years since Knoxville has seen this much snow.

    IMG_0720

    Snow makes winter beautiful and lifts the soul, relieving the eye of dull brown and lifeless grey.  The pure enchantment of new snow is a welcome balm, even if only for a brief time, before modern life with all its ugliness interferes.  And where snow is concerned, when mixed with cities and towns, roads and automobiles, snow turns ugly very quickly.

    I am hoping that it is warm enough in the daytime here that the snow will be vanquished back into mud, rather than the greyish brown piles of ice and slush that were common in New York. Neither is lovely, but sidewalks and parking lots filled with brown ice seem an affront to my eyes, necessary, but too harsh of a reminder of the ugly underbelly of modernity. 

    My neighborhood has been plowed, although the neighborhood between me and the next major street has not, and my driveway is clear.  I am ready for the melting, the overnight freeze, and the rain that is anticipated for tomorrow.

    ** Both photos were taken a few moments before sunrise, when it was still cold and a light snow was still falling.  

  • Books, Lists and the Question of Reviews

    First, a little housekeeping: A list of books read in the current year has been added to the sidebar, but I don't believe it has assumed its final form. Brief reviews will no longer be included, but I will add links to any reviews or comments as they appear.

    Having spent far more tiime than is necessary deciding whether or not to post a list of books and then what or how much to post, a couple of points have become clear:

    1.  I've been puttering about  with LibraryThing and Goodreads for a few years.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but I increasingly prefer LibraryThing as it allows me to categorize books into collections and categories, keeping track of my impossibly long list of books I might be interested in reading someday, books I own and have or have not read, books I've read and donated or sold or never owned in the first place etc.  I also find it easier to both manage and display lists of books on Library Thing, although Goodreads is better in the social aspects of reading.  Since, my working list is on LibraryThing, I don't need to keep a list here, but I like having it, and it will provide a convenient way for me to add links to books I have reviewed should I decide to review them.

    2. I will still maintain my Goodreads list.

    3. I will probably add a "current reading" list to the sidebar as well.

    4. I have resumed the habit of my youth, namely of reading many books simultaneously depending on my mood, time, and attention on any given day.

    5.   I am not really interested in the standard review format.  I am not interested in critical analysis, although, as an ex-English Major, I am well versed in that approach.  I suppose I am most interested in the ways a book fuels my thoughts or imagination, about philosophical or moral compass, about the vistas that have been opened by reading a particular book.  I suppose I have given myself permission to choose whether or not to review a book based solely on the completely personal and arbitrary criteria of what I am thinking about on a given day.  

    6. I haven't yet decided whether or not to blog about books that do not end up being the subjects of posts. I will however always answer questions about any book.

     

  • At least I have socks

    Oh My,  I'd said I'd be back by now and I'm not….(enough contractions do you think?)

     

    I had a great visit with my mom.  I came home to some kind of super-cold or virus that is going around right now and although I have mostly recovered from that I seem to be a bit distracted, unfocused and accident prone at the moment.  All is well, just jumbled.

    IMG_8146

    I will leave you with a pair of socks I finished last week.  I'm working on another pair now and I hope to balance small mindless projects like this with tackling the mountain of UFOs and continuing my needlework, along with whatever trouble I've gotten myself into of course.

     

     

     

  • Traveling

    Yesterday I was flying west from Tennessee to Texas.  I was flying in the early evening, apparently close to sunset.  I have a habit of closing my eyes as the plane taxis down the runway and often dozing off.  I am not aware that I am particularly frightened of flying, I am not, but drowsiness always sets in just as the plane prepeares to leave the gate, although I never sleep long, just until we are airborne.  I am sure there is some meaning to this, to why I doze off during take-off but never during landing, and no landing doesn't make me nervous either.  I am inclined to think it is just a period of mental release, of closing the business of "home" with the more relaxed breathe of "away", but pehaps I am fooling myself.

    At any rate, when I awoke we were above the clouds.  The sky was a deep deep blue, gradually deepening into midnight but not yet black, and the clouds wee gray and somewhat soft looking below, with a texture somewhat like quilt batting, dirty quilt batting, but quilt-batting none-the-less.  But the horizon was a ring of color, firey-bright oranges and yellows fading to greens and soft blues that started light and became duskier as they merged up into the skies.  I love flying into the sunset and I suppose I sat there, looking out my window lost in the present moment, watching the gradual fading of the light, the slow deepening of the colors, the sense of stillness combined with slow steady change.  No matter that we were rushing toward that change, that was not apparent to those on the plane, and it was the very fact that we were rushing toward it that extended the sunset, that sense of peace and calmness.

    I was startled by the flash of a camera.  The person across the aisle from me took a photo of the sunset.  It occurred to me that I might be a better blogger if I took out my phone and snapped a photo to post here, if I tried to capture the texture of the darkness below, the deep glow of the sunset, the placid smooth stillness of the darkness above.  the etchings on the plane window that suggested runes across that darkness, my knitting sitting on my lap, red and yellow and orange of my sock echoing the colors of the sunset.

    But I didn't.  I enjoy the sitting in the moment too much.  I admire photographers.  I admire their patience and determination, their art, the ability of the good ones to capture that intense presence of the moment.  But in the act of capturing the moment you lose out on experiencing the moment, and I always choose the latter.

    I am traveling. I am not going to compel myself to post during the trip.  I'll be back on or about February 3.

  • We are all born equal onto this earth.

    I believe we are all born equal onto this earth.  We may all die equal as well but that is something we are not privileged to know. I believe that if we do not die as equals, that inequality has nothing to with material things or power, it has to do with our hearts and our souls and whether we have attempted to live with compassion or not.

    We are all born as equals.  We share certain minerals and biological connections.  We share compassion.  That does not mean we are all dealt equal opportunities.  I would like to think that we all have the opportunity to see to those to whom the world has been cruel as equals, as the people we might have been had our own fortunes been less kind.

    We are all born as equals.  How we chose to deal with the blows and opportunities life gives us is our choice.  Whether we chose to see others as equals or not is a choice.  Whether we chose to be bitter or happy is a choice. We all make choices.  We all make mistakes.  The best we can do is to try not to hurt other people either purposefully or inadvertently.  The best we can do is to care.  But it is not our job to judge because there is so much we are not privileged to know.   

    Thank you all, the many of you with your kind words.  They meant a lot to me.  Childhood rhymes to the contrary, words do hurt.  But hopefully we have resilience to overcome them.  I had a cup of cocoa and curled up with my cats for a bit, but only for a bit as my step-daughter and her family were coming for dinner, really just an impromptu simple repast of sausage and collards, food to soothe the soul, after which I ran off to the symphony.  It was a perfect concert to lift people's spirits in a dreary January:  The Overture to Die Fledermaus, a Mozart Piano Concerto, Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite, Strauss's Emperor Waltzes.  The music provided the perfect respite for me as well, despite my normal inclinations; it was not a night I would have embraced Bartok.

    I can see that I only give a partial portrait here, and therefore much can easily be interpreted in ways I do not intend.  But that is another way all people are equal, we all show ourselves only in shadows and angles and half-formed images. Most of the time we do not bare our souls to any but a treasured few. I am only human, with all the faults and failings that being human entails. I know I like pretty things and some may consider this a weakness.  I suppose happy was not the best choice of words, because although I am happy it is not because of things. 

    Those of us in industrial nations, and I assume most of us who read blogs hail from similar lands, live in a world surrounded by things, a world in which one needs things.  It does not seem much to ask that those things, while filling a need, also bring a small amount of beauty or joy or contentment, fleeting though that may be.  But if the cost and name and value of a thing mean more than the joy of using the thing itself, then one is a slave.  One can be enslaved to the sense of not having, to the coveting, just as surely as to the having.

     I am very lucky in many ways.  One of the things that makes me lucky is that I know I could start over, and that I would still be happy.  I've lost everything before.  I've even lost everything that mattered, and no I am not referring to things. But I've been extraordinarily lucky because I've never lost my resilience, and I've always known that I could get help if I needed it.  And that is what really matters.

     We are all born equal onto this earth.  It is only in how we live our lives that we distinguish ourselves. 

     

  • A Relic of My Former Life

    Sometimes letting go of the little things can be as hard as, if not harder than, letting go of the big things.

    IMG_8109Take something simple, like my wallet. This wallet was not old, I bought it 3 years ago, and it was still in good shape.  I still love it, I love the soft blue leather, the caress of the leather in my hand, the feel of the woven leather —  intrecciato — it is called.  But now it is too small.

     

    Funny that,  I bought the blue wallet to replace a red wallet that was too large.  Perhaps I should have kept the red one in the wings, in anticipation of this day.  But when I bought the blue wallet I couldn't imagine needing more than 8 card slots.  In fact I already thought I was heading into dangerous territory, expanding from the small card case that I had used as a wallet for years.

     

    But my life in Knoxville is different than my former life.  And I carry more cards.  I would slide them into the various open pockets, only to have them fall out and bounce around on the floor whenever I opened my wallet.  This is really not so good.  It was time for a change.

     

    When my mom was here in November, I admired the convenience of her Vera Bradley wallet.  I had never imagined myself using a Vera Bradley wallet.  I thought they were pretty but for "other" women, not for rmyself.  Mom went home and her wallet slipped out of active memory until an episode that occurred about a week ago. I was standing at the counter at some store or another, it doesn't really matter where, and as I was paying for my purchases, I turned my wallet over and a few credit cards fell on the floor.  This wasn't the first time this had happened.  It wasn't the first time I was frustrated with my wallet.  But it was the first day that I was willing to acknowledge that it was time to stop avoiding change.

     

    IMG_8110So I went shopping.  I knew Vera Bradley was an option, but I made a noble effort, searching out various other options first.  Cracking through ancient biases can be tough work. But I didn't find anything I liked that had at least 12 slots, where the leather was soft and buttery, that was convenient to use.  Vera fit the bill.  Well, except for the bit about buttery soft leather. It holds my cards, the ones I use all the time and the ones I use less often.  There is a place for coins, and bills, and receipts.  I can even put my cell phone in it if I want to use it as a clutch.

     

    IMG_8139Yes, I would love to have a beautiful leather wallet in a color that is not black.  Saint Laurent may make one, but I haven't seen it in the flesh, only in pictures.  Bottega Veneta makes a new one with 20 slots!  But I don't need a fancy wallet.  The truth is this wallet fits my life now.  Most days I run around carrying Gray Baggellini bag that will hold my knitting, or my books for class, or whatever I need to drag around with me, a bag that is not to pretentious to wear with jeans, a bag that works with plaid sneakers.  That old blue wallet was simply out of place.  Besides the new one coordinates very nicely with my kindle.

     

    I'll save the blue wallet.  I'm not completely ready to let it go, even though I am perfectly happy not using it on a daily basis.  It is not the thing itself, strange as that may seem, but the way it reminds me that beauty itself is something worth pursuing, and that pursuit can represent a different kind of freedom, a freedom from the cares of the world that may pieces of plastic represent — discount cards, ID cards, all the various little bits of things that make life in this world "easier". (I am not talking about credit cards here, I still only carry 2). Perhaps someday I will travel someplace where I don't want to feel tied down by bits of plastic, where a pretty wallet can just be a pretty wallet.  Perhaps I just need time to say goodbye, which is strange, because I am not usually sentimental about things.  I actually don't miss my former life, but maybe I do still need to hold on to a few talismans.

     

     

  • Baby Blanket

    I made dinner for the family of one of the newest members of our parish last night and was reminded of the baby blanket that was knitted for him.  

    IMG_8095

    It was my fourth finished item for 2013 and it is the third one have I posted; the other two are here, and here.  The third finished object was a gift for my mom but I neglected to take a photo.  I'll try to get one next time I see her.  Don't hold your breath.

    This used to be my standard baby blanket pattern.  But it has been quite a few years since I've any reason to knit baby blankets.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to knit.  If you want details about yarn or pattern, you can find all that information over at purlsandmurmurs. 

  • Top Ten

    Bonnie asked for a list of my top ten books from last year's list.   Of course the list is subjective, and even my own sense of what is "best" might change over time.  In the end, aside from selecting a group of favorites, I can't narrow it down to a strict order.  They jockey for position, depending on the lens through which I am viewing them.  

    At any rate, for better or worse, here are the top 10 from last year.

    1590525132.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_Redeeming Love  by Francine Rivers.  This novel was recommended by one of the women in my bible study class when we were studying Hosea.  It is a romance based on the story of Hosea but it set during the California Gold Rush and I thought it would be a good piece of escapist fiction.  I found it to be more than that. The search for grace and redemption are not easy in this story (as they are not for Hosea)  but I felt the book captured all the pain and doubt and messiness that the human search for grace can entail.

    0758269285.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Ties that Bind by Marie Bostwick.  This is the fifth book in Marie Bostwick's cobbled quilt series, and although I enjoyed them all, with their story of the trials and tribulations and caring friendships between a group of women, this book was my favorite, probably simply because the stories of Margot and Phillipa resonated with me. 

     

     

    0399158170.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton.  Shapton swam competitively when she was younger and she is a very good writer and artist.  This book is a series of reminiscences and reflections presented as a series of vignettes interspersed with drawings and photographs.  The resulting pastiche captures a sense of a person, place and time in a way that a simple narrative could not.

     

     

    073820904X.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_Transitions by William Bridges.  Disintigration provides the fuel on which renewal can be built.  Perfect book for me to be reading this year.

     

     

     

     

     

    0062065254.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Round House by Louise Erderich. Wonderful and engrossing story about a boy dealing with some very difficult issues. Not an easy book, but the writing draws one in and creates a sense of intimacy.

     

     

     

     

    0316182338.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean. Keen is a good writer who makes science clear and easy to understand without being patronizing.  Filled with interesting facts and tidbits of information, the chapters are discrete, enabling the reader to pick and choose, reading a bit here and there.  

     

     

     

    0767903439.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Marriage of Sense and Soul by Ken Wilber.  I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not have a philosophical bent, but I loved it and read it twice.  It was very helpful to me in clarifying my thoughts about science and spirituality in ways I hadn't previously considered.  I disagree with Wilber on some points, which feels like a bold statement to make.  But I can love a book without agreeing with everything the author has to say.

     

     

    006073888X.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles.  This is a really good novel, compellingly told about two sisters in Brazil in the 1920s.  I felt the story occasionally got mired in detail.

     

     

     

     

    1416562605.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.  Brilliant novel but not a particulaly easy read. On one level it is a rather savage condemnation of the injustice of the Indian caste system and the rather unpleasant underbelly of globalization.  But it is also a story of individualism, the burning desire for freedom and to make something of onself, of greed, of the opportunities and dangers of misinformation.  Perhaps one of its greatest strengths though is that it is a serious book that doesn't take itself too seriously. 

     

    0810996170.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger.  Short illustrated story about the love of reading and the danger of loosing oneself too deeply in books.  Disconcerting.

     

     

    1439169012.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_Her fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneggar.  This is a thought-provoking novel of great intensity and detail masquerading as popular fiction. I don't think it works very well purely on the level of story and none of the characters are easy or likeable.  And yet, if one is willing to spend the time and effort to read this novel closely, it is fascinating.  Niffenegger explores the complexities of relationships and the nature of couplehood, and while doing so touches on duality, the nature of the mind,  integration, loss, internal versus external, even art versus sciene.  But then perhaps I would say that all these things are tied together in the way we see the world and the way we relate to both ourselves as individuals and in our relationships with others.

  • A Warm Winter Sweater

    One nice thing about the cold weather is that it has provided an opportunity to wear some of the heavier handknits I brought with me from New York.

    IMG_8108

    Now if only they would keep my hands warm.  I have never found a pair of gloves or mittens warm enough to keep my hands warm.  No I take that back there was a pair of neoprene gloves purchased in Italy.  Everything else seems to work only if your hands actually start out warm, a minor problem, as my hands are rarely warm.

     

    Anyway, now that the sweaters are down and off the high shelf, it is quite apparent that I could wear a few of them more frequently.  Perhaps the lovely black striped boxy turtleneck is not as versatile as the cardigans, but I am sure it could see an outing or two even in a more typical Tennessee winter.

     

    The nicest benefit is having something I actually knit to wear.

     

  • On Books and Bookcases in 2013

    The books are finally off the floor.

     

    IMG_8100

    The bookshelves went in the week before Christmas.   This large wall unit is in the living room and there are more shelves in a small bedroom that has now become a library/office. A significant portion of my time  during Christmas week, and up to New Years Eve, was spent shelving and cataloging books.  When this picture was taken the Baylor Bears, my great-nephew's team, were about to play in the Fiesta Bowl and I was ready to unwind and cheer them on.

     

    There are 2000 books shelved in this house.  As I put away the books and catalogued them, I found about 50 books I am no longer interested in reading,  and they have been sold.  I also found 3 books (out of another 2000 or so) that I donated before moving that I should have kept, that I regret not having now.  I think this is pretty good.  

     

    Of these 2000 books, I have read 1700 of them and I am interested in reading all of them again at some time in my life.  I accept that I may not reread them all, but I recognize that libraries are as much about promise, about hopes and dreams, as they are about actual accomplishments.  If I have kept a book it means that the conversation that was begun when I read the book is something I consider worth continuing.    I do expect to make headway on the "to read" list now that it has been indexed but don't expect me to limit myself.

     

    Reading fell off a bit in 2013.  This is not surprising really.  I read 48 books, 30 of which reside in my library.  Because I like lists (and anyone who majored in medeival and renaissance literature probably likes lists), they are listed below in alphabetical order. I don't really care about the order in which they were read, and an alphabetical list is more tidy.  I can state that April – June were particularly heavy in terms of light reading.

    1. Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund.

    2. Around the House and in the Garden, Dominique Browning.

    3. The basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Carlo M. Cipolla.

    4. Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter.

    5. Believing the Lie, Elizabeth George.

    6. Between Heaven and Texas, Marie Bostwick.

    7. Deep Nutrition, Catherine Shanahan.

    8. Eleven Days, Leah Carpenter.

    9. Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark, Bill Dedman.

    10. A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby Payne.

    11. Friends Forever, Danielle Steele.

    12. The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson.

    13. The Great Cholesterol Myth, Johnny Bowden.

    14. Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger.

    15. Hornet Flight, Ken Follet.

    16. House: A Memoir, Michael Ruhlman.

    17. Intelligence Reframed, Howard Gardner.

    18. The Marriage of Sense and Soul, Ken Wilber.

    19. The Millionaire Mind, Thomas J. Stanley.

    20. The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas J. Stanley.

    21. The Minotaur, Barbara Vine.

    22. Never Go Back, Lee Child.

    23. The Night Bookmobile, Audrey Niffeneggar.

    24. One Shot, Lee Child.

    25. Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers.

    26. The Round House, Louise Erdrich.

    27. The Seamstress, Frances De Pontes Peebles.

    28. Severe Clear, Stuart Woods.

    29. Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane.

    30. A Single Thread, Marie Bostwick.

    31. Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan.

    32. Swimming Studies, Leanne Shapton.

    33. Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Eric, Jensen.

    34. Think Like a Cat, Pam Johnson-Bennett.

    35. A Thread So Thin, Marie Bostwick.

    36. Threading the Needle, Marie Bostwick.

    37. Ties that Bind, Marie Bostwick.

    38. Transitions, William Bridges.

    39. Travels in Alaska, John Muir.

    40. The Trouble with Physics, Lee Smollin.

    41. Under the Lake, Stuart Woods.

    42. Venus in Winter, Gillian Bagwell.

    43. The Violinist's Thumb, Sam Kean,

    44. A Wanted Man, Lee Child.

    45. The Way of Transition, William Bridges.

    46. White Cargo, Stuart Woods.

    47. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga.

    48. Wooden Boats, Michael Ruhlman.

     

    Usually I remember every book I read.  When I compile the list I reflect on the books, no matter how trivial.  This year however there is one book I have absolutely no recollection of having read.  The book is Eleven Days, by Leah Carpenter. I noted that I enjoyed it and wrote "beautiful novel of mothers and sons, committment, love and courage".  I know what it is about.  But I remember nothing.  Strange.  It is back on my reading list for next year.