I seem to be winning the battle against the ants, and therefore a small bit of calmness is taking hold.
I have also rearranged my office, moved this bookcase to the guestroom and put shelves up on the office wall. Unfortunately I made an error the first time and the shelves came down and had to be reassembled but all is in order now.
Posting shall resume shortly.
Sorry, no Friday post (yet again) and no YSL (yet).
I've been distracted. Although my trip away to Denver was a success for me and even went well for G, there were still a few problems. I came home to a really dirty house (what only 4 days?) and I am now fighting an ant invasion. I am dealing with it, and working on new routines and procedures for the caregivers as well.
In the meantime, inspired by Duchesse's post on Thursday about the exceptions to her "Wear Real" mantra, I thought I would do a quick post on the few pieces of plastic and acryllic jewelry that survived the pre-move purge, all of which I wear frequently.
I am often drawn to the colors of lucite jewelry in the summer. I am particularly attracted to the work of Alexis Bittar although I haven't actually purchased any. That doesn't mean I don't own a piece however. G gave me this bracelet 3 years ago for my 51st birthday, and although I actually had mixed feelings at the time, I can also admit that it has been heavily worn every summer since. In fact this bracelet started a new fascination with white and soft pastels in jewelry and I have slowly added to this collection in the time since. As you can see, the gold-tone metal is already scratched and does not have the kind of patina that real gold would acquire, but the bracelet is still lovely and I Iove wearing it, although I am not convinced it is going to be a piece for the long haul.
But you never really know what will survive the ravages of time and what will not. I purchased these little plastic disk earrings in the mid-80's. I think they were the first pair of earrings I purchased for myself after I had my ears pierced and I still wear them today. They are light and fun and make me happy. They also obviously need a good cleaning…
Last, but far from least is this bracelet which is made up of old plastic and bakelinte buttons from the early half of the 20th century, sewn on wide black elastic. Of my three plastic pieces, this is the one I have worn the most. However it is too dark and too hot to wear in the summer here, and it may become a seasonal piece, no less loved, but somewhat less frequently worn.
I find that the older I get the less I am interested in people and things that pretend to be things they are not. This applies to all kinds of things, "fake" antiques, imitation food, and even costume jewelry. I am not particularly attracted to gold-tone, or silver-tone metals in jewelry or plastics or glass that pretend to be something else. It is not that I object to the existence of costume jewelry, just that it does not fit my own interests or my own sense of what is important. That doesn't mean that I don't like inexpensive jewelry. I have and love pieces that incorporate river rocks, leather, silk, cotton and other inexpensive materials. But they don't pretend to be something they are not. I will admit that I wouldn't turn down a honkin-sized emerald or diamond studs the size of headlights, but there are a lot of less expensive options that fit much more seamlessly into my life. What makes me happy about these plastic pieces is that they are exactly themselves. They probably have no intrinsic value, but neither are they claiming to be anything more than what they are.
What are your feelings about jewelry? Is jewelry just another accessory to be indulged in at whim? Or is it something to treasure? Something that speaks to your authentic self or just a fun treat?
I managed to pack lightly and fairly minimally for the trip to Colorado, although not everything went together. I had a couple of mismatched colors, although my basics were fairly neutral. The theme was white, silver gray, aqua, and a few things along the theme of pinky-coral-strawberry. I had two skirts, two pairs of shoes, two tops and one sundress. If I had added two more tops, I would have come pretty close to the perfect endless-summer travel wardrobe.
One thing I quickly realized I had forgotten however was a hat. I love light but the sun and I are not friends. I get headaches in the sun. Luckily I was not the only hat lover in the group and so we went hat shopping.
I got this hat on sale for roughly $16 at Dillards. It goes perfectly with the tops I packed for the trip and several more I have at home. I think I will be wearing it a great deal. I really hit the hat jackpot as I actually bought two hats, another one in black, which went well with the aqua sundress. Both hats also survived the trip home unscathed. The one pictured had to go on the plane with me as it was too wide for my small suitcase, but it has the perfect combination of fabric and straw so that it is cool and still flexible. It came out of the overhead crushed up into a small banana-like shape and sprang back to life good as new. Although I was willing to sacrifice the money for a headache-free vacation, I am even happier to have another great hat in my closet.
Today dawned bright and sunny and I am filled with energy and resolve.
This could be because I took off to Denver over the weekend for a well needed break. Part of me couldn't believe that it had been six weeks since my previous trip, and another part of me was desperately ready to go and de-stress. That part had been ready for weeks.
The above photo is of the Denver Public Library. I love the shapes and proportions of the roof line. The photo was taken sitting outside the Denver Art Museum, you can see the overhang of its own interesting roof in the upper left corner, immediately following a nice slow viewing of the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit.
Seeing Yves Saint Laurent with friends who also sew and love clothes and fashion and pay attention to all the details was fun, fascinating, and exhausting. The weekend was not all work however and I came home more focused, refreshed, and oddly calm, as if a long-neglected corner of my psyche had been fed.
I will be sharing more as soon as I manage to pull my notes together (yes I took copious notes) and cross-reference them with the catalog while everything is fresh in my mind.
There have been days recently when introducing vegetables into my husband's diet has been a challenge. Sometimes he would curl his lower lip out and pout like a petulant toddler; other days he might eat his vegetables only if I was willing to categorize them by priority, at which point he would dutifully pick out the high priority vegetables and shun the rest.
Enter the vegetable soup. In this case I would call it "salad soup" but the recipe name is actually, or at least as I recorded it in my file, Tomato Avocado Soup. According to my notes the original recipe was from Anne Marshall, but I have no idea if it was from her book "The World's Healthiest Food" or if I picked it up from some magazine somewhere. The original consists of vegetables, unadorned. I added olive oil, salt, and vinegar, specifically Cuisine Perel's Late Harvest Riesling Vinegar, effectively dressing my salad as I pureed it. Since we are coming in to tomato season, this has become a standarrd part of the lunch repetoire depite its vile color. No it is not the photograph.
Tomato Avocado Soup
2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 avocado, sliced
4 scallions
2 celery stalks, sliced
1/2 lemon
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup basil leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil. I prefer extra virgin.
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 or 9 cherry tomatoes, chopped
Thickly slice 3 of the scallions. Mince the fourth scallion and set it aside with the chopped cherry tomatoes.
Combine the sliced scallions with all remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed. The blender will make a finer puree than the food processor.
Divide into bowls and serve topped with chopped cherry tomatoes and minced scallion.
The recipe states that this serves 4. I added the oil and vinegar, but otherwise the recipe is pretty close to the original, although with a bit less basil. Perhaps I use smaller tomatoes, but I get 3 1/2 cups of soup which would yield 4 very small servings which might be fine as a side dish but not as main, even at lunch. As a main dish it serves 2 to 3 depending on how hearty the appetites.
I resumed unpacking last week and came across one of the boxes containing photo albums. The particular albums I uncovered dated from a few of the years we traveled extensively and it was nice to go through them and remember all the good times we shared. At the time I found the box, we were experiencing a particularly rough week at home. G was not walking, or functioning very well and he required more help and even feeding at the table. I wasn't really ready for all of this and the gift of the photo albums came at the right time, when I needed to remember how things had been. Most of our photos were of places and things. G was the primary photographer, and he was much more interested in scenery or architecture than he was in pictures of people. As I look back on those photos now, I who was never really focused on the pictures when we travelled, still recognize the places, and can recall the associated feelings, memories and conversations. The albums are just another reminder of the many ways in which we formed such a good partnership.
This week however G is much better, much brighter, with a sparkle in his eye I haven't seen for a long time, much more reminiscent of the way he was here, in this photo taken outside Steiner's Tavern in Sonoma quite a few years ago.
That same summer we made a routine stop into one of my favorite yarn stops, Colorful Stitches, in Lennox Massachusetts. We had been there many times before, and G usually looked forward to wandering through the shop and looking at the yarns. He was particularly fond of Colorful Stitches, because they had a good selection of high quality yarns and many European fashion yarns, which he would encourage me to buy so he could take them to show his mother, who had been co-founder of Unger Yarns, and who was no longer able to travel or knit, although she still enjoyed looking at yarn and following my knitting projects. G would reminisce about the company employees and the summer(s) he spent worked in the Unger stockroom, and he obviously absorbed quite a bit about fiber and fabric from both his mother and Mr. Unger, who had been a master tailor before he had been forced to leave Vienna. I still credit G as the source of most of my knowledge about fiber, hand, and drape, and watching him shop for fabric, talk to salespeople, and compare goods was always fascinating.
But my mind is wandering.
G spent a fair amount of time with the button vendor that day, poring over the cards and displays, putting a few sheets aside, and sending me off to buy yarn for a sweater or two while negotiated his own purchase. A couple of months later, he presented me with his purchase, which had been converted into a necklace by our local jeweler.
The jeweler placed two loops on the back, to which two hooks attach, on either end of an oxidized silver chain. The pendant can also be worn as a brooch, but I much prefer wearing it as a pendant. It works well under shirts and open blouses, which is how I prefer to wear it, as one of the hooks, the one that is open in the above photo is a little looser than the other, and occasionally comes disconnected. Usually when this happens, the pendant just hangs a little askew and I tend to say that I can easily come a little unhinged as well, but we both pull ourselves back together easily enough. If it were tighter it would be difficult to fasten, and it never has actually fallen off. I suppose console myself with the thought that, should it actually fall, I might feel it if it fell inside a blouse, whereas over a tee, it might bounce away before I even noticed.
The pendant is a personal memento of better times, times when we explored the world together. G always wanted to protect me and take care of me. When I wear his lion, I feel like all the good memories are right there, enveloping me and protecting me.
During most of the past five weeks I stopped thinking about clothes. I stopped opening emails from online retailers. I stopped reading fashion and style blogs in particular, although I actually just spent precious little time in blogland.
This general sartorial stepping-back was not completely due to the chaos around me. It is not that I am not interested in clothes, jewelry, fashion and style, but increasingly I am interested in just going my own way. I observe but sometimes chose not to participate. Style is only a part of life, and I felt it was becoming too much of an obligation and an ordeal. I learned a lot but I had reached a crossroads.
I came to Knoxville without a summer wardrobe. I had a few tees. A skirt. A dress. Shoes. Otherwise not much. I knew I was moving. I survived last summer with a few throwaway pieces which barely survived the summer. Since I have arrived, the whole process of looking, trying-on, buying and wearing has been enlightening and has really helped me to refine the process of how I see myself and what I want to wear. It sounds like such a simple thing; but it wasn't. There was a mall near me before, but it did not have the kind of selection I have here. Selection required travel to a more distant mall. It required time away from home. That was something I really didn't have. It is much easier to say "just go" and "You have to live your life" than it is to find your way through the minefield of need and anger that is the mind of the husband who is falling into the bottomless pit of dementia.
I am not interested in writing a "what I bought" blog. I am not interested in writing a style blog, even though style is one of my interests. More exactly sometimes I think anti-style is one of my interests as well. Although I am interested in the whole fashion scenario, I am specifically interested in what it is about what women wear that makes them happy, what feels good to them, and how that makes them feel about the way they look. And what I am not interested in is the whole idea of dressing to look younger, richer, thinner, sexier…. not that I wouldn't fall prey to those pursuits on occasion. I too am a product of my culture and my upbringing.
Besides what I have learned is that I am not really an adventuresome dresser. I find coming up with new things to wear more of an ordeal than a joy. I don't particularly want to try new things on a daily basis. I certainly don't want to spend the time fussing with photographs, at least not most of the time. And I have a few rules, a few tried and true things that work for me. The list is still expanding and evolving. It may or may not be the same next month. I am really just at the beginning.
One of the things I have learned is that I like flats. I like being able to move quickly and with intent. Sneakers and flip flops have also become staples of my wardrobe. I even wear my sneakers with skirts, which is not really all that shocking except that I really haven't done it before. I was sad when I tossed out my Chuck Taylor's last year, but any shoe that makes your feet hurt for two days after wearing them is not worth keeping. I never wore them with skirts. I kept the plum SeaVees, which are so comfortable I wonder why I didn't wear them more. I didn't wear sneakers with skirts until I bought the navy Supergas last fall. Somehow the more open neck of the shoe works better with skirts and cropped pants. I liked them so much I bought the white version this spring. I was also looking for gray, but fell in love with the plaid sneaks instead. They seem to go with everything. They make me smile. And four pairs of sneakers seems like more than enough, a bit profligate really.
But of course I have more sneakers. There are also the athletic shoes. I started wearing the black Merrell barefoot models last summer. I promptly tossed all the more traditionally engineered versions. For the first time I found athletic shoes I could wear more than a few hours without wanting to rip them off my feet. I always marvelled at people who could spend the day in sneakers until I bought these. This spring, when I was walking and starting yoga and really thinking about gait and the mechanics of walking I got the gray toe-sneaks. I thought I would hate them. I don't. Rather than feeling constrained, I feel liberated, sure-footed, impish even. I won't go back.
I never intended this blogging break to get quite so far out of hand, far enough out of hand that I am having difficulty getting myself back to the things I actually want to do. So today I have to write a blog post. And I don't really have anything to write about except that life has not yet stabilized around here.
Frankly I don't want to write about that. So what is left? Books. I had every intention of writing reviews, but let my mind get sucked into some kind of chaotic vortex and now I can't settle down. A list, hopefully with a few observations thrown in, may be just the first step I need.
Isabel Wilkerson The Warmth of Other Suns. This is the only book I managed to read in April. It was an excellent book, quite scholarly, although it did not necessarily come across as scholarly. In fact one of the good points I would make about this book is that the scholarship and erudition are executed with a light hand. The author's technique of weaving the history in throughout the story of three unrelated participants was quite effective although I did, at first, find it difficult to remember the details. When I started reading the book I did not have time to really follow through quickly, and ended up rereading the book from the beginning at the end of the month. This proved a good technique as the many threads in the book started off seeming quite disparate and the author didn't really manage to tie them together well until near the middle of the book, after which everything became much clearer. The book shines a light on an often overlooked aspect of US history and is well-worth reading.
Carré Otis, Beauty Disrupted. I read this on the trip to NY. I had just finished the previous book and wanted something quick to read. I didn't expect much but was surprised. From self-absorbed beauty who refused to accept responsibility, Carre Otis managed to survive and grow up. Perhpas the point I appreciated most was when she wrote that yes, her childhood was messed up, and she was misunderstood, but her parents were doing the best they could and that all families are dysfunctional and everyone is misunderstood. Granted, some families are more messed up than others, but for most of us the question is wether we let our pasts bring us down or we manage to rise above them.
Alexandra Zissu; The Conscious Kitchen. I was on the waiting list for this book for six weeks. When I got it I found it mostly dissapointing. The information is basic, and good if you haven't thought about the source of your food and the implications therein, but there was nothing new I hadn't learned elsewhere.
Mark Walton; Boundless Potential. This book is not so much a step-by-step guide as it is inspirational. The author interviews people who have reinvented themselves in mid-life and beyond and created new, often more-fulfilling lives. In the process he starts a discussion about changes in society we are just beginning to face, namely an active, intelligent older population that still has much to offer but it is not necessarily welcomed in a business environment that continues to see middle aged and older people as "over the hill".
Suze Orman; Young, Fabulous and Broke and Women and Money. These books were given to me a while back and I hadn't read them. I wanted to get them off the stack. I'm basically a fan of Orman anyway, G and I used to enjoy watching her show, and I think she is fabulous. They were quick reads. Even though I would consider myself fairly fiscally savy, there were some points that made me think. Women and Money spends more time dealing with issues that keep women in particular from taking control of their money. Both books are easy to read and filled with good information.
Annabel Pitcher; My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is an excellent, powerful and astute novel written from the perspective of a 10 year old boy who is struggling to come to terms with the huge rent in his family following the death of his older sister five years previously. The book is charming and entertaining and deals with bullying, grief, alcoholism, broken families, muslim/non-muslim relations and coming of age in a way that is entertaining, sensitive, and at times heart-breaking. I highly recommend this book.
Tim Gunn; Shaken, not Stirred. Read in the airport. Short and sweet.
Diane Mott Davidson, Goldy Bear (Schultz) mysteries, complete set (16 novels). I'm not going to list these, the list is available. I have read/re-read them all over the last few weeks. They have been perfectly escapist enough to help me deal with the general turmoil of my life. I am all for allowing oneself time to escape and wallow a bit before pulling oneself together. At times they were maddening, and altough I have enjoyed the Goldy books over the years, reading Goldy's exploits all of a piece have reminded me of what a good-hearted but impossible nudge she is, and in many ways, how completely oblivious. Nonetheless, I will look forward to the next novel whenever it appears.
There has been an ongoing exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art called Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee. Each time I have visited the museum I have stopped in to look at the exhibit and to take time to revel in the presence of one painting in particular, Trees and Sky by Joanna Higgs Ross.
The first time I saw the painting, I was just stunned. I stood there and looked at it as G wandered around a corner to look at other paintings and wondered what happened to me. Each time I go back I do look at other things, but I always return here. This photo, downloaded from the internet, does not do it justice. The piece was inspired by a drive through the Smokey Mountains and I feel the paintings perfectly captures the way the mind collates and superimposes a collage-like panoply of bits of mountain and trees with fleeting impressions of sky and weather forming them into a memory that is visually and emotionally rich, capturing the essence of the thing in a way that is not constrained by static form the way a photograph freezes an image but instead overlays what we think we see with how our mind tries to interpret and capture the physical moment into the complex amalgam of sensory inputs we call experience.
On Wednesday I went to a talk at the museum, part of a series called Dine and Discover, where the artist giving the presentation happened to be Joanna Higgs Ross, the artist who painted this very painting. I didn't realize that when I went, I knew there was a talk, I knew the artist was female, the only female member of the Knoxville Seven, but I did not connect her to this painting that continues to draw me in, even as I went upstairs and looked at the painting before the talk.
As Ms. Higgs Ross showed us photo after photo and talked about her art I was awed and transported. I've seen retrospective's of artist's work before, and I have been overwhelmed and awed, but this was different. These paintings seemed personal to me, which is, I suppose the desired response, and I so wish I had photos to share.
When, for example, the artist talked about Mondrian's trees, and their increasing abstraction, and how students thought they always looked like trees I knew exactly what she was talking about. I have studied those trees. But when she said those same students did not think her trees looked like trees, as she showed a picture of a painting titled Red Oak, I was stunned. It looked exactly like a red oak to me, or like the essence of Red Oak, capturing the colors and textures with a subtle interweaving of the shape of a red oak. Perhaps my impression was more than just visual; the visual captured a sense of the thing that became almost palpable.
Another painting, a view of trees through a window was subtle in its colors and had circular shapes superimposed over the subtle verticle shapes of the trees. It reminded me of the wind blowing through the trees, and the motions of air and trees, a thouusand instances of wind and trees all captures in one moment and held forever in memory. I could feel my own memories of trees resurrected in my mind's eye, hear the rustle of the branches in the wind, see the movement, smell the air, the wood, the leaves and the earth. Phenomenal.
I felt like my breath had been pulled out of my body and I was just entranced. I wanted to see the actual paintings, to be able to sit there and absorb them and yes make them a part of myself. I have long felt I don't understand art, and I probably don't, but I enjoy looking at it. I have long loved looking at paintings, have often been stunned and changed by them. And yet I have rarely had such a profound reaction to an artist's retrospective. I have always felt that art should be in public spaces where it can be shared and enjoyed, but I admit that these paintings spoke so strongly to me that I wanted to se them all up close. I wanted to spend time getting to know them. I wanted greedly grab onto them and bring one home.
At the end of the talk Ms Higgs Ross said she would be around to talk during the afternoon. I wanted to stay and talk with her about how profoundly beautiful and moving I found her paintings. But I did not. I ran out. I was late. G had a new caregiver that day and I had promised to be home earlier. His memory is bad, but he often remembers when I am out and gets all caught up in his anger, gets caught up in a spiral of agittation. As much as I wanted to revel in art, I needed to get home. It was good I got home when I did. G had finally dozed off and I was there when he woke. Seeing me, he was content and calmer for the rest of the afternoon even though I had to go out again. I hoped I could go back to the museum following my afternoon appointment and talk with the artist, I hoped that she would still be there, but everything ran late and it was very late when I was finally free and it seemed unreasonable to think she would still be hanging around 5 hours later. Besides once again I was late and expected at home.
I never got back to the museum. But I will be there again. I will see the painting again. I thought I wanted to learn more about art but never found the time. Perhaps the time is here.
I have always assumed that in the ideal world there would always be time for all the things that are important to us, time for the people who are important to us yes, but also time to explore and learn and do all the things we think matter.
But of course we do not live in an ideal world, and I suspect that even the concept of ideal is highly subjective and even illusory, just as the imaginary "ideal mate" is only a shallow half truth, a list of the things we think we want which is never fully realized because we as humans tend to discount the importance of the mundane, the necessary, and especially the things we dislike. We tend to not think about how the characteristics of those we love are deeply intertwined in their psyches with other characteristics, perhaps even qualities that we find less than attractive. In the same way that our view of those we love is defined by our views of ourselves, so is our view of the "ideal" world. Our relationship to the "ideal" directly reflects our relationship to ourselves and our own self-judgement. The truth is there is no ideal, only me, how I chose to function in the world and what I chose to accept or not accept. This is something I struggle with every day, some days more successfully than others. The same is true for all of us to some degree or another, whether we chose to be aware of the struggle or not.
But where am I going with all this philosophizing? Is it really fair to disappear for two weeks and then reappear, spouting mumbo jumbo? To tell the truth, I am not quite sure, but I am willing to trust all the hypothetical posts that have been swirling around in my head during the past weeks are not completely lost, but have found some toehold in my mind and that something coherent will arise from the depths. In the end, this too may prove to be just another illusion.
Let's go back to that concept of "ideal". Nearly two weeks ago I was in Chicago. The trip was good for me, and although it had its ups and downs, it was clearly exactly what I needed. I would have preferred not to come home to the chaos that greeted me upon my return, and I would have said that in the ideal world what is good for me would also be good for G. The truth is that what is good for G probably is good for me and vise versa. But to make that work, I have to stop wishing for the ideal and start living with the actuality.
The simple story is that things fell to pieces on the home front while I was away. The scheduled night aide disappeared and the agency had to scramble to fill the slots. Yes we had help, but having someone new every night was not good for G, whose mind can no longer really comprehend or cope with the unexpected. Sunday night I returned to my hotel room to a flurry of texts that once again there was no aide, and I was on the phone, calling everyone, the angry hen defending her brood, even when that brood is one dementia-addled spouse. Perhaps I overreacted. It is true that I did not have all the information, and that I regretted some things when I returned home and learned more. But I also learned that I made the right decisions, that things could have been much worse.
But as I pondered the whole situation and went through the various stages of coming to terms with the state of my life I realized several things. It was not about me feeling guilty for going away. It was not about me at all. I had to accept that there are two forces at work here. Me, meaning what I think I want, what I think I don't want, my own self-judgements about these things, and what actually is happening around me to the person I love. I knew that we needed more help. That five full days and two half days a week with no night-time help was not good enough. But I was not ready to accept that G really needed 24 hour care. I thought there could be some transitionary period where I could prepare G for the eventual shift. But it wasn't really G who needed to be prepared; I was the one who needed to accept the inevitability of change and decline. I needed to see G with both my eyes and my heart, not looking for some ideal, but accepting what is and making the most of it.
It is not always easy.
The last two weeks have been a period of transition and changes. G was confused and tired. I was a trifle overextended. Nonetheless there were good moments. We went to the zoo. Grandpa held on to Owen's hat while we took a short break for ice cream and popsicles. Moments of silliness still exist.
On Monday we start 24 hour care. I expect the first week to be difficult, but it may not be as difficult as I imagine. G may in fact be more ready for this transition than I. Nonetheless I am planning for a light week, with no particular plans and a pile of frivolous, easily interruptable reading. I am giving myself permission to try not to define myself by what I do, but to just go with the flow and try to be present when needed. This may be the hardest task I've set for myself yet.
It may be a week of radio silence. It may not.