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This and That

I have been a bit under the weather this week, battling a sinus infection that probably rolled in with bad weather Sunday night. The sun is shining today, and my sinuses are better. I am still moving more slowly than normal but whether this is due to the lingering effects of a massive sinus headache or just the routine purling of my own thought-processes and temperament, I have no idea.

I will at least get this post up this week, although it is already apparent that I have failed in my goal of three posts per week, one to each of three blogs. I am less inclined to fret about this than perhaps I was in bygone years, and I think this is actually to the good. A goal is something to work toward, as I recall, not a hard and fast rule, and at this stage of my life I am inclined to think that meaning simply comes from being present, rather than from branding or accounting in any market-place sense of the word. As I write that I feel brave. It will not be long before I am once again plagued with doubts. It seems to me that the doubting, the questioning, the challenging, all of them building up to communing, which must be in some way related to communicating, both with ourselves, with the world, with others.

I don't know where I am going with this. Perhaps I had better stick with the accounting.

On that front I can't say that I have accomplished much. On Sunday, I disassembled and cleaned out the coffee grinder, the first time I had done that since probably around Thanksgiving. Usually this is a monthly task, but well, sometimes even the best routines fall by the wayside.

I must admit that the quality of my espresso improved noticeably. I had avoided espresso over the last couple of weeks, mostly making Americanos, because there was a tinge of bitterness and weakness in the espresso. What a joy it was to sit in the sun Sunday morning, espresso in hand. The timing was fortuitous as that espresso was greatly appreciated on Monday when I was felled by a sinus headache so severe movement was an issue. After the first two espressos I staggered upstairs for a nap. I managed to get back down to the kitchen for an Americano in the afternoon before curling up with a book, my head cocked at just the perfect angle, the one where it did not feel like it would explode and fall to the floor, grateful for good coffee, good books, a blanket, a comfy sofa, a cat by my side. I was reading Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane, which I thoroughly enjoyed: A slow, thoughtful, and lovely novel and a read filled with characters drawn with compassion. Now I am on Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half which has been on my stack forever. I am not yet far enough along to tell you what I think, just that I have been drawn in.

I have been feeling increasingly better since Tuesday, but I have remained in low gear. I did organize the hall linen closet, which remains somewhat bare. I need to buy new sheets for the guest bed. I need blankets as well, but I would rather knit those. There is no accounting for that. I could buy something perfectly functional for less money, and certainly less time, but that is not what interests me and what I have will do. I see no need to fill the space just because there is space to fill. As you see from the little hollow he made in the yellow cashmere throw, Moisés took a nap when I wandered away and left the door open. I also seem to have a lifetime supply of Kleenex. Somehow after the surgery to repair my broken nose, I have tended toward far less sinus congestion and Kleenex use than previously. I suppose there is a gift in everything.

The camellias began opening on Monday and the one shrub is filled with blossoms. There is another that has been struggling; it has buds but they have not yet opened and its ultimate fate is as yet undecided. I planted peas on Tuesday. I have cleaned out the herb bed in preparation for planting some sorrel and some lime balm, although I suspect it remains too cool for the balm to germinate. Other spring greens also need to go in the ground, but whether my timing is right or not is always a guess. I haven't yet settled into the groove of Tennessee gardening. But then a garden is always an experiment, a learning experience, and a reminder that much as we may prefer to pretend otherwise, we are not in control.

The sunshine and the advent of warmer temperatures seem to have sparked some kind of latent urge to clean and refresh, odd enough for me, and also an urge to sort through stuff and declutter (less unusual), as evidenced in the closet cleaning above. I cleaned the glass in the front door and the side windows, and then sat down in the living room to sort through the mail and admire the afternoon light in the entry hall. It seems like I have been fascinated with the entry hall lately, posting a couple of photos on Instagram. Perhaps I am simply in the mood for welcoming others in, inviting life in, although quite frankly I don't see that actually happening all that soon. There is something about spring however and the seasonal urge to blossom-forth I suppose.

I was talking to an acquaintance the other day, we ran into each in line at the hardware store, and she was complaining about how her son had painted his living room a color she did not like, how she hated homes where she noticed the colors of the walls, and in her opinion walls should all be neutral. This was shortly after I took the above photo. I think I smiled to myself and thought she would hate my house. That is not unusual; many people feel. they could not live with the color. Obviously I am a different sort of person. This bothers me not a whit. I should love my house, you should love yours; we should simply learn to find our commonalities and accept our differences, especially perhaps when our children disagree with us.

As I was cleaning the windows I noticed that I should really clean the window sills and the corners that stay in the shade in the winter but it is too early for that. I would clean and they would just get all nasty again after pollen season. Better to wait. The same thought occurred to me regarding some of the bedding plants. My neighbors have been out cleaning out their beds, and although I admire their industry, and their manicured and mulched beds, although I acknowledge that it all needs to be done, and chastise myself for my lack of ambition, it still feels too early to me. The nights are still too cold; creatures still take shelter, tender leaves and buds need protection. The time will be soon, but not yet. Of course what usually happens is that I think it is too early and then suddenly it is late and I feel rushed. The flower heads are still on my hydrangeas, the nuts I left on the ground have provided food for birds and squirrels. I think of myself as living in a conversation with my house, with my garden, with my place on this earth. Whatever I don't get to, Mother Nature will handle in her own way. In fact the bed which I am not going to landscape this year, where I planned to put in some buckwheat, currently looks lovely with a nice crop of lush, low growing weeds. I feel no need to disturb them at this time.

I suppose there has to be one of us in every neighborhood.

March 4, 2021
January Books

I read 12 books in January. That seems like a lot, even for me. Not that there is any reason to justify how much I do or do not read. In this year of social distancing however, there are days that reading seems to be my only contact with my fellow humans. I believe reading is necessary, reading for fun, reading for information, reading because it opens a person's mind and understanding, both of the world and other humans but also of themselves. But I also realize that reading has become a privilege, at least in this country, and that saddens me to no end. But if I delve into this rabbit hole of what it means to be literate, and the implications for society, I will never get to the stated purpose of this post. Besides I am not an expert and therefore more research would be required. What I do know is this, in an age that is becoming more and more complex, and where more people are going to and graduating from college, the percentage of American adults who are proficiently literate is decreasing. That is not, and should not be, a comforting idea.

In short, yes, I have returned to writing about books. I will post a list, and I will try, hopefully sometimes successfully, to explore what the books I read mean to me. Occasionally my thoughts may approach the idea of a review, often not, and I am sure the process will be refined over time.

First, the list:

1. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. (non-fiction: race, criminal justice)

2. Colum McCann, Apeirogon. (fiction: historical, literary, Israel, Palestine)

3. Diane Cook,The New Wilderness. (fiction: literary, dystopian, mother/daughter relationship)

4. Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground. (fiction: mystery, Northern Ireland)

5. Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age. (fiction: popular culture, race relations)

6. Don DeLillo, White Noise. (fiction: literary, postmodernism, sarcasm)

7. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. (non-fiction: culture, sociology)

8. Stuart Woods, Skin Game. (fiction: thriller)

9. Michael Curry, Love is the Way. (non-fiction: memoir, faith)

10. Joe Ide, IQ, (fiction: mystery)

11. Jess Walter, The Cold Millions. (fiction: historical, American West).

12. Stuart Woods, Bombshell. (fiction: thriller)

The year began with Michelle Alexander's fabulous book The New Jim Crow, and I mentioned it briefly at the end of my 2020 reading review, here. I had read it in 2018 but I wanted to read it again simply because so much of my own thinking and understanding of race and American Culture and history had changed over the past year. I am glad I did. It is an informative, well written and well researched book, a book I would like to say that everyone should read, even as I recognize that this will never happen simply because over half of American adults are, if the statistics are accurate, incapable of reading and comprehending this book. It is a valuable book, filled with complex ideas and well-researched information. On the downside, at least for this reader, there is considerable repetition in the opening sections, which I still found extremely annoying, although this time around I perhaps found myself more willing to forgive, understanding that the author may have felt the repetition was necessary given the complexity of the subject. I disagree but it is a relatively minor quibble.

Unlike so many books, Alexander's message grows stronger and more focused as the book progresses. The book moves from outrage, outrage that is focused but simultaneously still somewhat nebulous (hence repetition) as to details, to a deeply detailed critical study of the current situation, its roots, its history and its entrenched pervasiveness. The book starts where we are, knowing something is wrong but not knowing how or why, and then delineates the spider web of entrenched biases and systems that have led us to this place, a place in which should never have found ourselves. The last section, with its pointed and often painful analysis of the pitfalls of past reform and its damning account of what is needed, is the books strength. It is a book that is worthy of rereading, and even gains in strength.

I went immediately from the complexity of The New Jim Crow into another kind of complexity, this time in Colum McCann's novel Apeirogon. It is a fascinating tapestry of a novel based on the true story of two real men, one Israeli, one Palestinian, who lost their daughters due to violence. Through an unusual structure of 1001 short pieces, McCann weaves metaphor, history, allegory, fact, place and the very real weight of human emotion: joy, profound loss, grief. It is a book that often left me in tears, that occasionally rendered me speechless with beauty, which in fact led me through an array of emotional responses. It is a book that changed my understanding of a place and a people involved in conflict in a way that I might otherwise never have experienced.

For this reader, the non-linear structure was compelling. I found the convoluted interlayering to be reminiscent of the way memory surfaces and then seemingly disappears in our lives, apparently triggered by random events, of the way grief evolves and shapes us. In the seventh episode of Pretend It's A City, Fran Lebowitz states "A book is not supposed to be a mirror, it is supposed to be a door." This novel opened a door to me and lured me in, into a world I still would not have seen, even had I visited Israel (I have not). What I do see, now and in the future, will never be the same.

I read two additional ambitiously literary novels in January, Diane Cook's The New Wilderness and Don DeLillo's White Noise. Both were interesting, well-written, and challenging, I could appreciate them both on a purely intellectual level, but I did not enjoy reading either one.

The New Wilderness takes place in some dystopian, not to distant, future and although the opening scene, of a lone woman, Bea, giving birth to a stillborn child in the forest, a woman who had obviously once lived in a culture at least somewhat like our own, felt compelling, the novel is plagued by inconsistencies and I quickly felt mired down. Nothing in this world makes sense, and although that may be the point — the very arbitrariness of government and policy and transitions of power, as well as the confusion and blind stupidity this creates — the act of reading the novel felt arbitrary, illogical, and strained by awkward transitions. The New Wilderness felt somewhat like two novels to me: a not very successful dystopian novel which encompasses a novel about the relationship between a mother and her daughter (Bea and Agnes), about coming to womanhood, and about nurture and abandonment. Agnes herself is richly and fully developed and the relationship between Agnes and her mother is strong and finely nuanced, but finding and savoring that relationship felt much like finding occasional nuggets of gold in a sea of wildly shifting sand. I am sure there are people who loved this novel but I am not one of them. The novel does offer much to discuss however and I would be open to a conversation.

But what about White Noise? This novel was written in the mid 1980s and I reread it now for book group. Intellectually it was a fascinating novel, filled with incredibly beautiful sentences and sharp satire, both of which I enjoyed. But it was flat, intentionally flat, but flat nonetheless. I know this is the point. There is no difference in the cadence and emotional resonance of the different voices — as if the world exists on a flattened plain. I cannot say it is a collection of beautiful sentences without a plot, because there is a plot, even though it is not a plot-driven story. In fact, I am not convinced it is a story at all.

I think White Noise is an excellent representation of a particular moment in the post-modern absurdist mindset. A part of me remembers being a student of literature, remembers studying twentieth century literature. The novel reminds me of my early struggles with Genet and Barth, although I think I prefer both authors to DeLillo. I could be wrong because much has changed in the ensuing 40 years. I have changed as well. Reading White Noise reminded me of the intellectual I could have become, reminds me how grateful I am to have escaped that fate. While I was reading, I could not help being struck by the cruelty of its intellectual conceit — the cold sardonicism, the deliberate mocking tone. DeLillo was writing about how modern invention had created a simulacrum of life, hence the flatness. In fact there were overlapping simulacra here. I was thinking about the philosophy of Baudrillard, which I had been quite happy not to think about for those same 40 years. In the end I think DeLillo wrote a simulacrum of a novel, although it did prove good fodder for discussion in my book group.

In between all of that intensity, I needed a bit of lightness and escape so I indulged in a variety of mysteries and thrillers. Adrian McKinty's The Cold Cold Ground is the first in a series about Detective Sean Duffy and both the series and the author were new to me. I enjoyed it, although I found the character of Detective Duffy more compelling than the mystery itself, where I felt a few plot devices could have been more smoothly rounded out. I thought the premise and character had potential but the author seemed to get in his own way on occasion, perhaps take the whole thing too seriously, more seriously perhaps than I preferred in a literary escape. I am undecided about following up, although I will probably read at least one more novel in the series to see how it develops.

I liked Joe Ide's IQ even more and I will be reading more of this series. Ide has created an interesting, complex, and compelling character in Isaiah Quintabe (IQ). The story was outlandish and filled with humor. Yes, there were a few stumbles here and there, but I was having too much fun to care. In short it is a good, light, escape of a novel and I am looking forward to the next installment.

To finish out the thrill ride I read the last two of Stuart Woods' Teddy Fay novels, Skin Game and Bombshell. I had picked up Teddy Fay at my mom's and I found the first two novels fast, mindless, and entertaining, in a kind of action-packed roller-coaster of a read kind of way. Of these last two, I felt Bombshell worked better than Skin Game, where it felt like Stuart Woods was trying to turn Teddy Fay into another Stone Barrington and it didn't work. The language is too elementary: The short, to the point sentences, probably written at a 4th or 5th grade level, work well for action, for people acting on impulse, for blowing things up and doing other stupid things, not so well for romance or espionage. Skin Game, set in Paris, tried to be too complex and it fell flat. Bombshell, which I read in two hours one evening when I was tired and both my internet and tv were out, provided the perfect distraction of mindless absurdity and action. I am probably done with this series, but it was the perfect read for its time. And I can see how it would be the perfect book for a visit to my mom, where fast light entertainment that can be easily interrupted is the order of the day.

Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age is a light, fun novel about a white-influencer-celebrity who hires a black nanny. It is occasionally uncomfortable, very often funny, and it unpacks everyday cultural angst and systemic racism in a very accessible way. A novel very much of the moment, although, not surprisingly, with very little to hold onto.

Bishop Michael Curry's memoir Love is the Way is beautiful, uplifting, and filled with hope and wisdom. I listened to the audiobook and I think this format works very well because Bishop Curry's inflections and soothing tone, his charming self-deprecation, his humor, add to the story he is trying to tell. There is nothing new here philosophically or theologically, except in Curry's profound understanding of human nature and acceptance of the idea that there are no flawless heroes. He invites the reader to step back and put anger and fear aside, and his faith is inspiring. Curry has a way of taking a life and crafting a story that reminds us of the things we are all supposed to know but which we somehow put aside, and he does it with honesty and without condemnation. I would say this a perfect book for those times when you are struggling to find a little hope in the world. I loved the book, not because I learned new things, but because I was reminded to open my eyes and see the things I knew a little more deeply.

Finally two entertaining and thought-provoking reads which were thoroughly enjoyable but not terribly profound. Malcolm Gladwell is always insightful, and I enjoyed reading Outliers, which has been out for a few years now. I already knew some of the information the author explores as much has been written about it, but I was surprised that the book itself still had the power to force me to examine and think about some of my assumptions in new ways. Gladwell has a gift for accessibility, and for packaging ideas in ways that sneak into the interstices of the mind.

Finally, I ended the month with Jess Walter's historical novel The Cold Millions, which takes place during the free-speech riots in Spokane during 1909-1910. Walter deftly intermingles history and a few historical characters with fiction, with "what might have been" but it is also a modern story, a story with many parallels to today, written by a modern author. I thought the author bridged this divide effectively and well for the most part, although at times I struggled with the many voices, the interruptions in thought. The story revolves around two brothers, Gig and Rye, and how the riots impact their lives. Both brothers are reading War and Peace, and War and Peace permeates this novel, with Walter employing the same structural format (and the same problem of the many characters). The novel is very much about "the cold millions" who never get ahead, and the men who keep opportunity from them, but even more so it is about how the forces of history exert a power outside of ourselves, how we get caught up into the flow despite ourselves, and how our choices make or break us. It is a good read but not a novel I will return to again and again (unlike War and Peace, which rewards the reader for each subsequent effort. I may have to pick it up yet again).

And there you have it. February is shorter, and I have picked up a couple of books I am reading very slowly, a few pages at a time, so the list may be shorter. Or not. In truth, it hardly matters.

On that note, I shall leave you with a few words from the young George Santayana, writing to his friend and former Harvard classmate, Henry Ward Abbot in January 1887:

Did you come into this world because you thought it was worth while? No more do you stay in it because you do. The idea of demanding that things should be worth doing is a human impertinence.

February 4, 2021
2020 in Review Part Two: Books and Changing Perspectives

The plan was always to write about books. The plan was to review last year and write about changes hopes and dreams. The plan was….the plan was…. the plan was…

Then Wednesday happened and 2021 no longer looked like the “happily ever after” coda of a fairy tale. The big bad wolf wasn’t dead. We weren’t tripping hand in hand down the lollipop trail. I was thrown into a sense of turmoil. I was not alone in that, but I did not know how to react. Continue with previous plans? Write something new? But the more I thought about what I would write the more I also realized I needed to write about what I had planned to write. Sometimes we can’t go forward without figuring out where we are. And although I was not the only one shocked by the events in Washington last week, the episode did not spring out of the ether without warnings, and its lasting effects will not simply disappear because we wish it so.

And so I find myself back at books. There is no reason to subject you to the tedious list of all the books I read in 2020; that list is available either by looking me up on goodreads or library thing. And I continue to either struggle or question with the idea of “best” lists. How do I compare nonfiction to fiction, and even within those broad categories? Does a really good mystery compare with a literary novel? Writing a book is hard, and although I do believe discernment is a necessary aspect of life, I can also say that everything I read satisfied the requirements or reasoning behind my choice. So once again, who is to judge?

What I am actually interested in this year is the idea of change. What changed me? In a year where so much of my interaction with the outside world was through books, are there books that profoundly affected the way I see myself and the world? To some extent all books do that, everything we read, see, do, affects who we are, how we see the world, and who we become. But in this year that truly challenged the assumptions of many of us, were there books that also rocked my basic understanding of the world and my place in that world?

Yes. Yes there were. They may not be the “best” books, and they may, in fact may not be the books brought about the greatest change, but they were books that opened a door if you will, and forced me to see something I might not have seen otherwise. They laid the foundations.

In order read:

Colson Whitehead’s novel The Nickel Boys shocked me in many ways. It is a beautiful and yet horrifying novel. The story flows, the characterizations are strong, and one is drawn in to a novel that breaks one’s heart, a novel that is simultaneously compelling and sickening. It is a novel that is difficult to write about without giving everything away, but then, as one is horrified and sad, and congratulating oneself on how much better everything is today, Whitehead throws in a surprise ending that works perfectly and hit me like a sucker-punch. In that moment I realized that everything I assumed and thought I knew was perfectly backward, that we think we see character clearly but what we actually see condemns us more than it tells us anything useful.

Then I moved on to The Underground Railroad. Initially, it came as a bit of a relief; even though it was intellectually more challenging and highly metaphoric, the novel felt a bit more distanced and removed from the highly personal and empathetic prose of The Nickel Boys. But then it got hold of me and hit me upside the head. We are often able to intellectualize the past, to protect ourselves from our discomfort. Our need to think of ourselves as “good” allows us to distance ourselves from the past, no matter how shocking and horrifying it may have been. But then the masterful way Whitehead uses allegory hit me. This is a novel that explores all of the ways of slavery, past and present, a novel that belies all the exceptions that we claim for own ancestors, that talks of the work and danger in seeking freedom, and it is a novel that simultaneously, while writing about the past, is writing about today. Every stop on this railroad, every experiences is its own bubble, as much of today as of yesterday. We haven’t changed, the world hasn’t changed. After reading this book I had to close my door for days. After reading this book I could no longer see myself or a world I had taken for granted, in the same way. I, in fact, could no longer be the person I had been a week previously. Who this person would become I didn’t know. I still don’t know, but we never understand change while we are going through it.

Then the world started to shut down. I shut my door, and in fact, although I thought I would read up a storm, I couldn’t. I slunk into the quiet. When I started reading again, I read Tayari Jones’ novel An American Marriage. I expected this novel to be more outraged, to kindle my own outrage, but I found instead was that its heavy, resigned, acceptance served to cement the changes that had begun in my heart. Yes it is a story of a marriage, a truly American marriage even, and it is meaningless to say that this is not “my America” because there can’t be “my” America and someone else’s America. America is not what I believed it to be. Knowing that in my head was one thing. Feeling it in the very core of my being was something else entirely.

I reread Milkman by Anna Burns for book club. Once again it rocked me. Burns has created a unique voice which allows the reader to experience a particular time and place and to feel both the physical and emotional constraints of that space in a very personal way. She allows the reader to do this without judgement. The first time I read this novel, I understood one thing in a way I had never understood it before. Reading it the second time I realized that this unique time and space is not unique at all, in its very specificity and distinction, it is simultaneously universal. This story is not so separate from my own life, from any story. The details change, but we are all shaped by understandings, by what is done and what is not done, what is said and what is not said, by who we can be, and who we cannot be.

This lead perfectly into Yoko Ogawa’s beautifully poetic novel The Memory Police. An island somewhere. Sometime in the future I suppose. Things disappear — words, objects, memory — one day they are there, the next they are gone, forgotten. The story begins when our protagonist is a small child. She worries that the disappearances will be frightening, but they are not. People accept. Eventually we learn they are complicit. But what happens when you give up the past, memory, self? What you agree to forget also takes away from yourself. What you accept, what you let go of, shapes who you become. We accept too easily, give in too readily. What do we lose?

These, these were my sucker-punch books. They shaped the foundation for three other books that have also profoundly affected me, my final triad. I list them as such not because they are not worthy, or because they do not stand alone, they do. But my reaction to them was indelibly shaped by my reaction to those previous books. Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste because it made me think about systemic racism differently, although Michelle Alexander had also talked about the American culture of racism as a caste system in The New Jim Crow, which I read in 2018, and picked up again at the end of December. I will read Caste again, probably later this year, and I suspect its impact will be more profound on the second reading, which was the case with Alexander’s book.

And then there is is Ta-Nehisi Coates novel The Water Dancer. I don’t know where to put it. I read and hear contrasts and comparisons to The Underground Railroad, but I think that is unfair. The only thing they have in common is that they are both allegorical, and that in an age that doesn’t really understand allegory. The Water Dancer is a profoundly human novel, and it is about what it means to be human. Yes it is also about slavery, and perhaps that confuses the issue. It also employs a lot of magical realism. But humanity itself is not so easily pinned down. Our essence is very metaphysical; we do not have the words to explore our metaphysical natures directly. Coates explores the way slavery shapes humanity on a very personal and humane level. Rather than discussing the horrors of racism as differentiated from the self, he shows us the way racism shapes and perverts the self. In doing this he writes a novel about a specific culture of slavery, about its broad ramifications on the essence of what it means to be human, and, through that, about the many many ways we are all enslaved. I say this not to make less of this book, or to make less of systematic racism or slavery, but because the simple truth that we are all harmed. We are all enslaved.

Where am I going with all of this? How should I know? Where is the US going? I don’t think we know that either. Last week while I, like many others, found myself watching something I never imagined could happen in my own country, a quote from The New Jim Crow kept running through my mind. Although Michelle Alexander is writing specifically about mass incarceration, the idea she expresses here relates to so much that is facing us today:

The question of how we do reform work is even more important than the specific reforms we seek. If the way we pursue reforms does not contribute to the building of a movement to dismantle the system of mass incarceration, and if our advocacy doe snot upset the prevailing public on senses that supports the new caste system, none of the reforms, even if won, will successfully disrupt the nation’s racial equilibrium. Challenges to the system will be easily ignored or deflected.

I do know what the world post 2020 will be. None of us knows. I do know that I do not want to return to the equilibrium of my former life. I don’t know the specific of my role, and yet I accept that I have a role to play. That is true of each of us. Each and every gift, each and every action is significant in shaping who we are and in shaping the world around us. I can easily sacrifice some of my comfort to bring more comfort to someone else, for what is my comfort if its price is someone else’s discomfort?

January 11, 2021
October Reading: The Good, The Bad, The Merely Curious

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November 3, 2020
Monday Miscellany

A little bit of this and that to start the week:

I picked up three books from the local library on Sunday. Those plus the two new books I purchased, and which both arrived last week, are shown above. I had planned to read both Open Season and Death In Her Hands over the weekend, but did not get that far. Open Season is turning out to be a rather wrenching read and I am, therefore, proceeding slowly. I am also simultaneously reading Mick Herron’s London Rules, which I have on digital download from the library and which is due back this week. Will I get through all six books this week? Who knows. Sometimes I finish a book a day, sometimes I struggle with a book a week.

The sauerkraut is happily bubbling away, on a shelf in the basement, where the temperature is currently averaging abut 65 degrees. I had originally packed the cabbage in the one-gallon jar shown, and it was doing nicely, but was really over-full, with cabbage almost to the top. As fermentation progressed, and gases escaped, the jar was constantly overflowing. So I had to drag up the large 3-gallon fermentation crock, wash and sanitize it, repack the cabbage and get it back downstairs. That thing is heavy, and crocks don’t really seem to come with useful handles. I figured out I could carry it up and down the stairs using the red trug tub shown. Even so it was a bit of a struggle.

The experience reminded me that I really like the using the water-sealed crock, although this one is too large for most of my ferments. It was the only crock I could find locally, and generally my sauerkraut batches have been the only thing made in a large enough quantity to use it. But, since I have now made about 6 batches of sauerkraut and even more batches of kimchi and other pickles, it is past time to start acquiring crocks in sizes more appropriate to my most common ferments. These will be my birthday gift to myself, although they will probably be acquired over a period of months. Should I need the 3 gallon crock in the future, I will pack it downstairs in the basement pantry. Of course, if I make a gallon or more of anything, I will also need larger mixing bowls…

The art museum is reopening to the public this week. It opened for members last week and I went once, in a timed slot. It felt like coming home in a way, and I was both calmed and overwhelmed just by being able to see the actual art, as opposed to just an image. I will be back in the coming week, and there will probably be a blog post, or posts.

I have driven 196 miles in June. Since I don’t plan on driving anywhere before Wednesday, that would be the final accounting. I actually didn’t drive much the first three months of this slow-down either, but I didn’t note monthly totals. Given that driving is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases, and Americans as a whole drive far more than anyone else, it has been one goal to cut my miles driven by at least one-third and I am well on my way, for this year at least. But I am hoping that this little interruption in the flow of normal life will actually lead to a reset, to reconsidering of priorities that will be more lasting. I know I will eventually drive more than I am now, but the process of questioning my underlying assumptions seems to be high on my mind at the moment. Who knows where the process will lead.

It looks like another partly overcast day, with more rain. The garden is not complaining, and it is good weather for letting the new plants establish themselves. As for me, the cloud cover means I can spend more time in the garden, so it promises to be a good day and a good beginning to the week. What good things are you hoping for this week?

June 29, 2020
A Miscellany

Although I seem to have no difficulty keeping myself busy and entertained, I continue to struggle with blogging. In fact I also struggle with keeping up with social media and that seems odd because of the social aspect and the fact that I am once again struggling with balance, albeit in a very different setting than my previous struggles. It seems that once I struggled with having enough creative time, alone time. I admitted to myself that I said yes to too many things, that it was time to let go of that youthful and erroneous idea, that I could only be liked if I was useful. I admitted to myself that sometimes I went out too often, that I was avoiding being home alone, especially at night.

Would that simply admitting to one’s self-perceived failings in an insecurities, to one’s loneliness even, could be enough to turn the world around. It seems like there is always something new to learn, something new to overcome. I do not believe that this life, this physical world and life that we all share is the be all and end all. Often it seems like a proving ground, a place where we get to be tested, to spread our wings, to find out who we really are.

I struggle with the idea that if I am not going somewhere, doing something, hopefully something interesting I have nothing to say. Perhaps then, I continue to struggle with the question of what is a worthwhile life.

On the one hand, I am content to putter about here at home, content for the most part to not wander far. I have been cooking, knitting, sewing, gardening, reading. I have been watching television. I have walked around my neighborhood. I sit and watch the birds in the yard. I love my field of long grass, in back, where the slope is too steep for me to mow easily, where birds and bunnies cavort and play, and where my grand-puppy loves to collapse when his family brings him over for a walk. I mostly walk in my own neighborhood, and am oddly content to see the changes in the same space, day after day. When Tikka loved to walk for miles every day we travelled around, walked the many parks around Knoxville, and part of me wishes to do that again, wonders if perhaps I should go to the Smokies, but my focus has always been on the small, the everyday. I would go if I had someone to go with, but for myself I am oddly content with wherever I can get on my own power.

I am reading, a lot, news and magazines, which I have been gradually shifting from paper to digital formats. I don’t want to be drowning in paper. But books also. I am currently reading the third volume of The Last Lion, William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill, as finished by Paul Reid, as well as Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool, which I am rereading for book club. I am thoroughly enjoying it; perhaps enjoying it more than I did with that first reading. But I tend to think of reading as an active intellectual pursuit, a conversation, and in a way a relationship that builds between the words and the reader, the author and the reader, not so much a relationship of people, but of ideas and awareness.

The birds get most of the blueberries, but I am not surprised at that. The crop is small this first year, and the bushes are too widely spaced, an issue that still has to be addressed. I do manage to grab a small handful of sugar snap peas every time I walk through the garden. None have made it in to the dinner table, but several handfuls of peas are consumed every day. I am reminded of a few essential truths: the sweetness of a pea freshly plucked, the subtle delicate life of freshly harvested lettuce, berries warmed in the sun, hands in the dirt, flowers you have grown yourself.

Some parts of the garden are doing well although there are a few failures. My bloody dock never germinated. I admit that I am moving slowly. I can only manage a couple of hours of garden work a day, and alas, in this stage of building and digging, progress sometimes seems slow. I started out all gung-ho in the vegetable garden, but then lost momentum as the spring remained chill. There are gaps in my planting. But I see little pockets of progress and they make me happy.

I made cilantro pesto yesterday and froze it in 2-tablespoon blocks for use later in the season. This was from the first planting, which is still going strong. I am about to put in the third cilantro planting, and i want some of the fleshy roots, but never having grown cilantro for the roots, I see that I will have to allow a patch to grow old and woody, to flower. Cilantro, when picked frequently for its tender green leaves, never develops a substantial foundation of thick roots. Once again, always learning.

I see I haven’t answered any of my questions, especially not my question of blogging. Does writing come out of some sense of discontent, of a need to express something intangible. What about comfort? Does one need to write when one is content, like Dash above, to stop and simply lie in the long grass? And does it matter? Perhaps there is time for all these things in this world. And then again, perhaps times of contentment, times of not rushing about can yield their own surprises. Only time will tell.

May 26, 2020
Six Things On A Saturday Morning

I missed Friday and a planned, well obviously only hoped-for, five-things post. I don’t know that six things on Saturday is a thing, but I will do my best.

1 — I finished the prayer shawl that I had been doggedly working on. There was a fair amount of ripping back and re-knitting, primarily due to the knitter’s state of mind and enthusiasm.

2 — This iris, Iris versicolor John Wood, was rescued from its temporary holding spot behind the garage and planted and has now rewarded my efforts by bursting into bloom. There is not much around it but an empty bed and weeds, but all of that will change with time, lots of time…

3 — I went through of nearly three weeks where I did not pick up a book, finding myself oddly unable to focus. And then, in one week, I needed to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for book club discussions. I enjoyed both books, although I also struggled with both in some ways and I realized near the end that I just needed to read something that would draw me in to the story, without the mental side show that I experienced with Kingsolver and Skloot. I ended up ripping through Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series over the course of about 10 days. It was what I needed, a gripping story, completely outside of my life. I can’t review each book individually, but as a whole I loved the way the series built on the characters through both the exploration of both the seriously dark and brutal side of human nature and our own need for, and fear of, vulnerability. In the beginning the characters are, in many ways, flat and stereotypical, but through the course of the books Slaughter adds layers of complexity, and the beginnings of insight, which often flat as characters return, time and time again, to their default modes. Much like all of us. This reader found the interweaving of character and story to become steadily more complex throughout the series. At times the characters walk a fine line between engagement and a shallow shadowiness, enough that the reader can read his or her own world-view into the experience. And well, I can relate to Sara Linton: smart, too much in her head, but also insecure when it comes to her emotions. In short, my reading of Slaughter might not be the same as yours.

Anyway Grant County suitably whetted my reading appetite, and I have pulled few books from the stacks and ordered a couple of more — got to use the May book allowance after all y’all. Shown above is the current stack. I am currently about 50 pages into The Splendid and the Vile and enjoying it very much. When I am done I will finally finish off the last volume of Manchester’s The Last Lion. Both books begin when Churchill becomes prime minister, and they should be an interesting pair to read together, although I tend to think of Manchester as a savoring slowly kind of book, whereas Larson writes more of a gripping read.

4 — There has been some sewing, although not yet really for me. Above are the results of one day’s worth of bias tape making. Those masks have all been sent out. Another 28 yard pile of bias tape has been created, and 14 more masks cut out, all waiting for assembly.

5 — Yesterday was a cold rainy day, and I suppose it would have been the perfect day to work in the studio, sewing those masks, but somehow I couldn’t drag myself out the door even for a short sheltered walk to the studio. Chalk it up to COVID unsettlement. Last month I binged on the Australian series “Offspring” and loved it. Really that series is what helped me get that prayer shawl finished and kept me somewhat sane. A couple of days ago I found the Norwegian series “Beforeigners” and I finished it off yesterday. It is a little gritty, and of course in Norwegian with subtitles, but fascinating. I love the way it explores the the idea of immigration with people immigrating through time, so the race question is obviated but in the end all the issues remain. It is a great reflection on otherness, on the seeking of safety and the disruption of chaos, and the way we define ourselves, and redefine our understanding of history through the lens of our current experience, as well as the shock of the reality of that history. I hope there is a second season.

6 — My TV day was also a knitting day. Finishing “Beforeigners” and watching a Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, yielded ample knitting opportunity. My current obsession is a sweater knitted holding two strands of lace weight linen. I started this last summer and then put it aside after finishing the first piece of four. I am now almost finished with the second piece, and I don’t want to stop knitting. Linen is not my favorite yarn to knit, although it is a favorite for wear, and yet, the changes in the colors holds my interest and drives me on. I will be wearing this sweater this year.

May 9, 2020
Five Things Friday

1. The first solitary fava bean is poking his head up through the earth. Hopefully he is merely one among many.

2. There is precedence for this hope, as the first solitary cherry blossom appeared a week ago now. She will probably fade before other blossoms fully emerge, but there are enough new buds that this fledgling tree will put up a small show; it is more than I expected in this, its first spring.

3. I also finally got the pea trellis up, just in the nick of time as the peas tendrils are long enough to start climbing. I ordered this trellis from Gardener’s Supply and it was not difficult to assemble, even though the directions did say it would be easier for two. It would have been. And, had I not been experiencing increasing back spasms as i worked on it, it would have been more symmetrical and perfectly balanced. But it works. And I am grateful.

Originally I hoped to build my own trellises, but I also realized — when I planted peas days before leaving, when I had a busy social calendar before we all began sheltering in place, before I fell and injured my back — that I would not have time. I picked this trellis primarily because it looks much like the trellises I made from copper plumbing pipe for my garden in Hyde Park. Those were all given away when I moved to Tennessee and a condo, as was my pipe cutter and my soldering equipment. Hopefully this will last at least a season, perhaps even two or more, and by then, if I have regained my gardening abilities, I will set up soldering shop again.

4. The peas will also need some thinning out, although not too much. I seem to remember that peas are more productive when they are not too widely spaced. Anyway, I did harvest a handful of shoots to add to my salad at lunch today.

5. I am recovering since my fall and am doing more, but am still working slowly. Yesterday, working on the trellis, I realized that although I am moving so much better, although still quite slowly, I cannot stretch, even my arm to anything beyond a casual reach. Any stretch, from any position really sends me into spasms, as did fastening clips anchoring netting to the trellis frame, if not very close to the body. Today I am taking it easy and not allowing myself in the garden even though it is a beautiful day and I keep telling myself I can just do a little bit. Instead I am working on short core-strengthening and light stretching workouts, interspersed through the day with rests and chores. And I have knitting and reading materials piled up by my comfy spot on the sofa. I do have other posts in mind, things I want to write about, but today is the first day I have been able to sit at a desk for more than 10 minutes or so, and somehow assembling longer thoughts into something coherent does not appear to be something I can do from a cozy corner of the sofa — I need the harder discipline of a desk and chair.

Stay safe….

March 27, 2020
An Update on Ongoing Projects

PINK SWEATER

There are many reasons it is not wise to knit when one has a sinus headache, especially the severe prolonged kind that lay one low for several days. The body of the sweater has been completed and assembled and I was pushing to finish the knitted-on cowl but I realized I had made a mistake, more than one mistake in fact, and somewhere I crossed the line bordering tolerable and unacceptable. First, I neglected to twist my knitting, allowing the cowl to lie properly, although it took me a few rows to see this, and my head hurt enough that I decided I could live with that. Until I noticed that in my pain-induced haze I was often failing to switch from knit to purl and back again at the row marker. Knitting garter stitch in the round is a bit of a pain, and apparently too much for my headache-addled brain. So much for mindlessness. Yesterday I ripped the cowl out and began again. This was sad because I was about half done with the cowl and ripped a full skein of yarn before starting again. On the other hand, the odds are high that I have missed this year’s window of wearing opportunity anyway.

GARDEN PLANNING

We are rapidly moving into spring and I have as yet to start playing with a rough plan on paper. I do not need to stick to said plan, but I do need it as a starting point just to sketch out some broad coherent form to the evolving garden, and to help stem my magpie instincts when in nurseries and browsing plant catalogs.

Admittedly my ability to plan was dependent on completion of certain bigger projects. The raised beds for what, at least at this point is planned as vegetables, or perhaps mixed vegetables and flowers were completed in late January. And at the moment I am having more fun thinking about what I can plant here than I am in terms of drawing up rough plans for the landscaping. Partly this is good because it is time to start planting early spring crops and start seeds, and bad because I also need to start thinking about perennials and shrubs, even though I know I will be able to completely finishing planting all the beds around the house this year.

In December the ornamental trees were planted, and the wattle fence was finished in the front yard, which helped me to start to imagine the space, although I am only now realizing that although this photo was posted to instagram, it never made it here.

The general plan was that January and February would be devoted to research and getting some plans on paper. To that end, I read two useful books, both of which have helped me refine amorphous ideas. The most useful of those, may well be Michael Dirr’s Hydrangeas for American Gardens. I adore hydrangeas, and loved the hydrangeas that were initially around the house, even as I acknowledged that they were too large to be situated as close to the house as they were. Now I have the opportunity to replant, and my goal is to have a variety of different hydrangeas in the front space making this book both a good source of inspiration and practical information. I am also reminded that planning is important and that it is sometimes better to work slowly with intention, than to quickly fill a space. Expect the front garden to develop over the course of a few years.

The other garden book is less focused on a single type of plant, but possibly more practical. I suspect Tracy Disabato-Aust’s 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants will end up being one of those books that I reach for again and again when I need to solve a problem, or feel at a loss for ideas. It actually sits on my garden shelf next to a book I’ve had for ages, Nicola Ferguson’s Right Plant, Right Place, a book that has proven its worth in my gardens. I hope this book does the same, but even in the short term, it is helping me with refining ideas. If this garden is going to work long term, I have to admit that the energy of the young gardener is long gone, and I must balance my love of pretty things and unusual plants with my actual ability to work in the garden. Low-maintenance plantings are also critical to success.

As February is coming to a close other projects are competing with garden and knitting. I have yet to do my taxes, and I my need for clothes will become critical once the weather warms up. I am also going on another sewing retreat, but although I have worked in the studio and done hand work and embroidery, I have not looked at garment sewing since the holiday evening pants. As usual, I haven’t even started and I am already behind. And so goes life, always fun, never dull.

February 25, 2020
A reading mash-up

I went to a book group meeting this week, one of a couple of book groups I have suddenly found myself attending after several years of famine, and that meeting as well as the book we read, reminded me that had I promised to subject you to another catch-up post, a discussion of books read in January, simply because I had, and unimaginatively at that, already consigned the books to some kind of mental dust-bin.

Fear not, for that is not exactly where I am going with this post. I will clean up some lose ends, and write about books, recent and past reading, but this will not, by any means be a full accounting.

But to start, what was I reading this week, and why? The book was At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight, who is local and who was attending our meeting in order to talk about his book. Truthfully, I would probably not have picked up this book had it not been a book club choice, and had I not wanted to hear what the author had to say. The marketing description of the novel read as more a coming-of-age story about a pregnant teenager at a girls school with the addition of a ghost and a planned Disney theme-park.

I was mistaken in my initial impressions and i am glad I read the book. The novel is well-written and well-plotted, and the prose is elegant and spare, with a lack of sentimentality that functions at a remove while still being sympathetic to its characters, all of its characters. Neither Disney nor the Ghost are the main points of this novel, except in that this is a novel about history, about how history flows around us — our own personal history, the personal histories of those we encounter and who influence us, often in ways we do not even recognize, and how even the greater historical currents of our particular time and place play out in the small details of our lives. Everyone in this novel is haunted. History is ever present, rippling outward, although rarely recognized. Knight does not shy away from the way pivotal changes often come in quiet, almost stealthy moments, easily missed.

All that said, I liked the book but did not love it. I must admit that I have enjoyed writing about this book, and meeting the author, more than I actually enjoyed reading the book. The novel appeals to more to my head than to my heart, and i am a reader who wants to engage both my head and my heart. For me it was a novel more of shallows than depths. That doesn’t mean it is not good, or that the person next to me at book group didn’t love it.

And this brings me to the catch up portion of my post. In writing about At Briarwood School for Girls, I found a way to write about the other novels I have read recently, the orphan novels, the novels that I don’t want to write about in and of themselves, or that do not tie into another theme, another potential post. Some of them I loved, others I enjoyed, and at least one not so much.

Why don’t we start there, with the not-so-beloved book. Ken Follett’s Jackdaws was another book club choice, different book club from the one above, about which I remain undecided. Apparently I am trying out book clubs.

Anyway, Jackdaws gripping and fast-paced. Follet is a master of his genre and his protagonist, Flick, is sharp and spunky enough for modern readers to project into while at the same time being bland and never fully developed as an independent character. But the plot was tenuous at best and the story forgettable.

Lisa Jewell’s I found You was a more tightly drawn story, and I thought Jewell managed the structure, alternating between three narrative voices, quite well. The story was engaging and entertaining, and quite well played. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, although once again it is quickly forgotten. No memorable characters but a great bit of occasional entertainment.

Then last week I also reread Stephen King’s novel Mr. Mercedes. It was the most satisfying of this group of novels. I read it a few years ago and picked it up again because I had been watching HBO’s series The Outsider while knitting. I know the HBO series is based on a novel of the same name, but Holly from this novel appears, and I wanted to reacquaint myself. Brady continues to give me the creeps and the sections written in his voice still make my stomach churn, Holly makes me smile, and reading this novel was more satisfying than a few episodes of The Outsider. King is a master of plot and suspense, of balancing intensity with moments of calm, even false calm, and I find his characterizations compelling, even in characters I dislike or find annoying.

Perhaps I will slowly work my way through this series before moving onto The Outsider as well.

February 15, 2020