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What the Mannequins Taught Me

Meet Abigail and Matilda

Matilda is the older of the two; the one wearing the evening dress, and Abigail is the younger. But even she must be at least 15 years old.

Both Matilda and Abigail were in storage for essentially a couple of years, since I moved out of the condo and into this house. Their rediscovery has been revelatory. First of all, dressing them was a bit of a challenge. Then, when I looked at them across the room, for the first time really in a long long time, I noticed how long, small and willowy Matilda was. Both are my height. Both are wearing my old clothes, garments I have loved and worn again and again. But I never, in my entire life, considered myself willowy.

That seems sad.

I dubbed them Laurel and Hardy, for reasons I will now explain. Size and the perception of size are interesting things. Stan Laurel, for example was not particularly thin. He was of average size but looked small and thin compared to Oliver Hardy who was 6’1” and bulky. Matilda probably is slender but still curvaceous, as was I at that time, but her smallness, as compared to her height, surprised and almost shocked me. She is probably closest to an American size 6, if there is any standard. Abigail is probably closest to an American size 14 or 16, and she looks large compared to Matilda, but she is closer in size to the average American woman.

I named them Laurel and Hardy because of the shock factor, of the idea of the terms “skinny” and “fat” which I have come to realize more often than not have nothing to do with actual scientific data and relate more to cultural norms and biases. When most women say they feel skinny, they mean attractive, and this is triggered by a cultural bias in which women are supposed to be small, take up little space, to be insignificant. Of course many will argue with me. I know women who consider thinness and the ability to wear towering heels as a symbol of power; I may have been one of those women. Turning a symbol of weakness into supposed power is not new, but it may also not be helpful. The same is true of the word fat, at least as it applies to women’s appearance. When I say I am fat, I am basically saying I feel unhappy about myself, and more often than not, that has nothing to do with my actual weight. I am fairly confident that I am not alone. These words are the words of shaming. Matilda and Abigail reminded me of this, and reminded me to stop it. And we all should. But I don’t want to go into shaming and shaming words in this post.

When I wore that evening dress. I did not consider myself willowy. In fact I probably thought of myself as fat. I was probably a good 30 or 40 pounds heavier than I had been in college, but even then, I never thought of myself as thin. I did not have an eating disorder, but I was deeply conditioned into the way I thought about myself and if I had not been “fortunate” enough that I could eat anything and everything and still remain unusually thin, I might well have developed an eating disorder. But eating disorders are not really about weight. And despite the fact that we tell ourselves that “thin” is healthy and “fat” is not, this is belief is based only partially in fact and does not correlate in the way our biases assume. The obverse can just as easily true, and often is.

So, if I was shocked to see Matilda dressed, I was equally surprised by Abigail. I had always planned to pad Matilda out eventually and use her for fitting as I started to sew again. I knew I would never look like Matilda again. Discovering I was celiac (a malabsorption syndrome) and having an atrial septal defect (which made my heart work extra hard just to move my skinny self around) repaired, put a stop to that. But in my head I kept telling myself “if only I can get back to being as thin as Abigail again, I will be happy”. But there are no conditions on love, including self love. I remember telling my (step) children that there is no such thing as “I love you, but…” or “I will love you if….” But did I apply that to myself? to self-love? Obviously not.

So dressing Abigail was a shock. None of my current clothes fit her. In fact I could not get them on her. Abigail is bigger than I am, so why am I condemning myself? Yes, Abigail’s waist is smaller than mine, but Abigail is eternally in her early 40s and I most certainly am not. When I say I am fat, I don’t mean that I am obese. I am not. A little overweight yes. But really I am saying that I can’t walk as far as I want. I don’t have as much energy as I would like. I have trouble with the first 10 or 15 minutes I walk, and in fact may always as that is a residual effect stemming from my scoliosis. Some of those things I can change, some of them I cannot. I honestly don’t believe attractiveness has anything to do with weight. In fact I think almost every woman, or man, I meet is attractive. But Abigail and Matilda reminded me that I did not extend the same courtesy to myself. And this was in large part a big reason that I pulled inward and away from the blog for a while. Because I know my self-criticisms are not true, that the little girl who was shamed is grown up now, that I only have to please myself.

The plan was always to pad Matilda out eventually. I thought I would be padding Abigail out as well, but we will see. She has padding now, and she captures the curve of my spine well because she was made from a cast of my actual body. The dress Abigail is wearing is a dress I loved and plan to copy. I still plan to copy it even though it is a bit big now and I am less curvy.

Abigail and Matilda reminded me to stop fretting. I had several beloved things I had made but not worn for a while, things I would say that will look better when I am ……. Surprisingly, or not actually, they all fit better than I thought they would. I cannot wear them in the same way I did when I was 45, but who cares about that? I have been wearing the cashmere cardigan seen above, knit sometime before 2005, which is when I joined Ravelry. Yesterday I wore a sweater I knit in 2008. The photo below is from 2008. But I am just as happy with the sweater now as I was then.

But this is not really about wearing old things, or trying to regain lost youth. It is about settling into who I am now without burdens. This process of settling is physical, is mental, is emotional. It is time to let go. This is my space. This is my time. Here I am.

February 5, 2020
Monday Miscellaney
1. Candles lit at the end of the Celtic Service last night at Church of the Ascension.
2. I am still reading Churchill. Nothing else at the moment. Still impressed at the genius, the impetuousness, the naïveté. We forget this, that no one is brilliant at everything, that one can be wise and still a child, at any age. But then who is not complex? Brilliant people as much as the rest of us, except that perhaps their complexities seem more glaring simply because we fear what we do not understand. This is, was, and probably always will be true — this tendency of humans to judge “as through a glass darkly” without seeing or understanding what they are judging.

3. I went to a concert Wednesday night, not so much a formal concert, but a working-through of a piece the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra is commissioning from composer Michael Schachter, titled Cycle of Life The piece will premier in May and is based on a large scale work of the same title by Richard Jolley. This concert was very much a working through and it was fascinating. I sat very close, in the front row between the cello and bass and I loved being in the middle of the flow of the music, the working through. The musicians would play fragments of a work still very much in progress, with alternate selections, and one could hear the differences in the ways the music would take shape, hear and feel the difference in the playing between the musicians, a give and take, sometimes joyous, sometimes reserved, some things working for one musician but not for others, coming together and pulling apart.

I have no real musical ability or talent, merely ears, so this kind of experience was new to me. I had never been in anything quite like it, well except for that Phillip Glass premier nearly two years ago, that rehearsal and working-through of the final piece with composer and musicians. I wrote about that here. I loved it but it was also different than this as this work is still at least partially nebulous. I could hear and feel the tensions in the playing, and of course this is so because even though I do not play, one can hear, and sitting so closely, even feel at times the vibrations of the music, hear the difference in playing with passion or reserve. And of course this very give and take of conversation, of communion almost — meaning a communal sharing — combined with an antagonism, not meaning that in a negative way, this, this sound of coming together and pulling apart is what I always look for in chamber music concerts, this melding of the music with the person playing the music, structure, abstraction and humanity intertwined. It is an indescribable thing that one knows when one hears it, and misses when it is absent.

The entire evening took on the atmosphere of a great and exciting conversation, with moments of coalescence, and where even those elements that did not work added to the sense of excited tension in the room, the growing of something new and beautiful. I am very much looking forward to this work, filled with eager anticipation and excitement, like a good mystery, I do not know what is going to happen. But snippets remain dancing in my head, adding to that sense of fulfillment to come. Above the composer and KSO Music Director Aram Demirjian conferring about a section, the musicians briefly pausing.

4. From the sublime to the mundane. I have a large second-cut piece of brisket in the fridge which I hope to start curing/brining this afternoon with hopes of having a lovely piece of corned beef in a few weeks.

5. And now I am running, this post unedited, as the day is about to run away without me.
February 3, 2020
Closing out 2019 and A Goal

Yesterday afternoon, during a period of a brief slump, I collapsed in a chair in the living room, not the coziest chair, but the chair that was most convenient to my current state of energy drain.

There I stained at the doorknob on the French doors which open to the Living room, for a good 2 to 3 minutes, before realizing that this was going nowhere. I as mostly just fascinated with the patterns of light in the glass. But I also realized that I have been inconsistent in balancing competing priorities since my return from Texas and was feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed. Trips, even short trips, often do that, at least for those impulsive among us who are never bored and always find themselves pouring themselves into more projects and passions than can ever be accomplished.

Then I got up, made three passes up and down the hallway, practicing my lunges, drank a glass of water, and made an espresso. It seems I can either sink into lethargy or get moving. I opted for the latter. I had someplace to go. Owen’s school chorus was singing the national anthem at the basketball game that night.

But I also realize that at least a portion of my mental malaise was due to the dragging on of catch-up posts. So let’s close out 2019, at least in terms of books. Here is the full list, in order, with links where available, although in some cases the books are barely discussed. Highlighted books are my favorites for the year, although there are plenty of others worth reading.

Billy Collins, The Rain in Portugal. (poetry)

Michelle Obama, Becoming. (memoir)

Phillip Maffetone, The Maffetone Method. (health)

Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore. (fiction) also mentioned here, and here.

Tana French, The Witch Elm. (fiction)

Dan Brown, Origin. (fiction)(treadmill)

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility. (non-fiction)

Stuart Woods. Smooth Operator. (fiction) (treadmill)

Tara Westover, Educated. (memoir)

Stuart Woods, The Money Shot. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Sex, Lies, and Serious Money. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Below the Belt. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Fast and Loose. (fiction) (treadmill) I had forgotten what a struggle that first month on the treadmill really was, or realized how far I have come.

Sally Field, In Pieces. (memoir) better than I expected. One of the good books.

Lee Child, Past Tense. (fiction)

Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything. (food)

Reese Jones, Violent Borders. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Running Blind. (fiction)

Stuart Woods, Indecent Exposure. (fiction) (treadmill)

Stuart Woods, Quick and Dirty. (fiction) (treadmill)

Lisa Jewel, Then She Was Gone. (fiction)

B. A. Shapiro, The Art Forger. (fiction)

Michale Lewis, The Fifth Risk. (non-fiction)

A. L. Kennedy, Serious Sweet. (fiction)

Sally Rooney, Normal People (fiction)

Stuart Woods, Doing Hard Time. (fiction) (treadmill)

Mike McCormack, Solar Bones. (fiction)

Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose. (memoir)

Erika L. Sanchez, I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. (fiction)

Mikail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita. (fiction)

Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol. (fiction) Instagram

Kate Morton, the Lake House. (fiction) Instagram

Ruth Reichl, Comfort Me With Apples. (Memoir, food) Instagram

Bruno Monari, Design as Art. (art)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle. (memoir)

Mary Higgins Clark, You Don’t Own Me. (fiction).

Belinda Bauer, Snap. (fiction)

Leslie Bennett, The Beautiful Edible Garden. (garden)

Rafael Yglesias, A Beautiful Marriage. (fiction)

(by this point, I was still catching up, but perhaps starting to write more about the actual books)

Lee Child, Without Fail. (fiction)

Lee Child, Echo Burning. (fiction)

Lee Child, Persuader. (fiction).

Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy. (religion)

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge. (fiction)

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending. (fiction)

Stephanie Land, Maid. (memoir)

Linda Ronstadt, Simple Dreams. (memoir)

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance. (fiction)

David Brooks, The Road to Character. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Make Me. (fiction)

Georges Simenon, Pietr The Latvian. (fiction)

Alafair Burke, The Wife. (fiction)

Rosalind Creasy, Edible Landscaping. (garden) I’ve had this a long time. Still a favorite.

Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums. (memoir, food)

Lidia Bastianich, La Cucina di Lidia. (cookbook, food) Instagram here.

Steven Pressfield, the War of Art. (non-fiction, self-help)

Tana French, The Likeness. (fiction)

Rosalind Belben, Our Horses in Egypt. (fiction)

Michael Eades, the Six Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle. (health)

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer. (fiction) Instagram

Maria Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. (fiction)

Mary Gabriel, Ninth Street Women. (Art)

Liane Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers. (fiction)

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing. (fiction)

Michael Moss, Salt, Sugar, Fat. (food) also here.

David Graeber, Debt. (non-fiction) and here,

Rackstraw Downey, In Relation to the Whole. (art)

Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians. (fiction)

Elif Shafak, 10 minutes, 38 seconds in this Strange World. (fiction) Instagram

Meryn G. Callender, Why Dads Leave. (non-fiction)

Cid Corman, Tributary (Poems). (poetry)

James Baldwin, Gypsy and Other Poems. (poetry)

Kevin Kwan, China Rich Girlfriend. (fiction)

Louise Penney, A Better Man. (fiction)

Kevin Kwan, Rich People Problems. (fiction)

Tracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light. (memoir)

Katherine Eban, Bottle of Lies. (non-fiction)

Erik Larsen, the Devil in the White City. (non-fiction)

Salmon Rushdie, Quichotte. (fiction). Instagram post here.

Anne Thurston, Knowing Her Place: Gender and the Gospels. (religion)

Rachel Cusk, Kudos. (fiction)

Allison Pittman, Loving Luther. (fiction)

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs. (non-fiction)

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. (fiction)

David Brooks, The Second Mountain. (non-fiction)

Ann Patchett, The Dutch House. (fiction)

Deborah Levy, The Man Who Saw Everything. (fiction)

Marty Makary, The Price We Pay. (non-fiction)

Lee Child, Blue Moon. (fiction)

Rob Gieselmann, Irony and Jesus. (religion)

Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier. (fiction)

Stephen King, Elevation. (fiction)

Stephen King, Dr. Sleep. (fiction)

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon. (fiction) Rich tapestry of a story, best read as poetry.

Jonathan Haidt, the Coddling of the American Mind. (non-fiction) Interesting and thoughtful exploration of one aspect of American culture. Not as combative as the title implies

Ian McEwan, First Love, Last Rites. (fiction) beautiful and compelling stories about the more disturbing and perverse underbelly of the human psyche.

Earnest Cline, Ready Player One. (science fiction)

Patti Smith, Just Kids. (memoir) Fascinating, at times poignant, at other compelling. True to the artists voice, and about finding one’s path.

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Again. (fiction)I am not part of the Olive club, but I enjoyed this more than the first.

Thanhha Lai, Butterfly Yellow (fiction, young-adult) Beautiful novel about a young Vietnamese girl who escapes from Vietnam and comes to America to find her young brother who had been airlifted out, and away from his family years before. Pearlescent is how I described the language in my notes. But also difficult until one gets the hang of the speech. The author uses phonetic spellings to capture Vietnamese-inflected English, which takes a bit of getting used to but also adds power to the novel.

Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You. (fiction) I loved this story, and exploration of loss, of secrets gone awry and the way the things we do not say have an impact far greater than we would wish. Perhaps I also enjoyed it in conjunction with the two previous novels.

Done. Or almost. It suddenly seems important to stop littering my life with catch-up posts. There is nothing wrong with looking backward as a reflection. I will still do an annual book list, much like the one above. But, I am already behind simply because I believed, for most of January anyway, I would pull out an end of month book post and I see now that it is time to upset that cycle. I could have written a post about the last two novels of 2019. I will write a January post of some sort, but January will be the last month I allow this kind of round-up post. It seems that as I settle into my house, my place, I am settling my mind as well, coming more comfortably into myself, but that path is sometimes bumpy.

January 30, 2020
Monday Miscellaney

Life seems to have been quiet so far this January, but I do in fact grow weary of simply reporting on books past. Here is a round up of small things, alas with few pictures. It seems, in my general contentment, I have been remiss in snapping photographs.

1. Although it turned chill while I was in Texas early last week, they too had been having unseasonably warm weather. These roses were still in bloom in my mother’s garden.

2. Two concerts this week, both focusing on Beethoven. I missed my normal night at the Concertmaster Series as my flight was delayed returning from Dallas, but I managed tickets for the second night, which combined Haydn and Beethoven trios, a beautiful performance of the Violin Sonata #7, and Mason Bates’ Ford’s Farm for Violin and Piano. Then, yesterday, an all-Beethoven program, which concluded with a stunningly fabulous performance of Symphony 1; a performance which both acknowledged the classical legacy of Haydn, while also highlighting Beethoven’s own restless modernity. Beginning with that slightly off-center opening chord, the music danced and playing with expectation, shining light in corners sometimes forgotten in the fog of familiarity. I was particularly taken with the incredibly playful Scherzo, which could only make me smile, kittenish as it was: flirting, happy, withdrawing and coming forward again; but also almost kitten-like with its tumbling, rolling, falling, and leaping.

Sunday’s concert also featured the two Romances: one played in a classically European style, with a surface reserve that did not hide the depths within but revealed them subtly; the other in a lushly and emotionally melodic performance, that flowed straight to the heart, but also captured the head, subtly shining light on the mathematics of the inner structure. The two together provided the perfect counterpoint to the lushness, depth and complexity of the music, to its utter and complex humanity.

3. Saturday was the first time in 2020 that I made it to the winter Farmer’s market. I went in thinking I would pick up only a few things, but January warmth has led to a flowering of produce and I came home heavily laden. I have been happily cooking. Tiny carrots were roasted and their tender fluffy greens, young enough not to have the typical tinge of bitterness have danced through salads, and have been washed and saved for a future soup. Many baby greens came home with me, as did beets, although they were purchased mostly for their lush greens. Once I finish this post, and after I head to the gym, those beets will be transformed into Monday brunch in the form of red flannel hash.

4. Knoxville Symphony Music Director Aram Demirjian’s talk before the concert had me making new connections, perhaps a stretch, perhaps not. As Demirjian talked about the young Beethoven and his really rather revolutionary musical explorations I was struck by a similarity to the young Winston Churchill. Perhaps this is a stretch, but perhaps not. I am still working my way slowly through the first volume of William Manchester’s life of Churchill, and young Winston also happens to be much in mind of late. After the concert I spent time alternating knitting with more reading about young Churchill, his own process of thinking and reshaping that which came before and his own path. Probably not the most efficient way to either read or knit, especially as my mind kept wandering to questions about the nature of creativity and genius. Oh, and I also finished the front of my cardigan, something that had been neglected of late. Now onto the sleeves.

5. Listening. Inspired partly by this week’s bonanza of Beethoven, a jazz concert I missed because I was away, and the necessities of travel (there is no longer a tv at my mom’s house so I listened to music in the evening), it seems there is always time for music. Recordings are not the same as live music, but I cannot imagine a life completely devoid of either. In fact, live music inspires me to listen more at home. These three albums (two new, one not) have been in pretty heavy rotation this week:

Maciej Obara Quartet: Three Crowns

Bill Fay: Countless Branches

Jupiter Trio: Beethoven “Ghost” Trio and Shostakovich Trio #2

There may be a theme there, between the occasionally naked emotionality of Obara’s saxophone, Bill Fay’s liltingly vulnerable songs offset by spare piano, and the dynamic passion of the Jupiter trio’s performance on this album. I would love to hear all three live.

6. I am reminded of a book I read earlier in the month, a book that has been in my mind this week, as it addresses so much, including yearnings, both the yearnings for a future combined its impatience of childhood, and the yearnings and occasional regrets of adults, combined beautiful evocations of place and the struggle between mind and heart that makes art, or genius. The book is Peter Goldsworthy’s Maestro. And I am reminded of a quote from fairly early in the novel, in the opening pages, where the Maestro is describing the hand, specifically the hand of a pianist, but also employing it as a metaphor about the struggle between mind and muse, head and heart, the relationship that makes art. Specifically he is talking about the fingers, but his description also reminds me of the way a great quartet works (or perhaps a trio, see above)

”They are great friends. A circle of friends. But also great rivals.”

Strong-willed, compassionate, occasionally struggling, at times vulnerable, emotional, at others reserved. The give and take, the release and the holding back. This is what makes life, and art, what we yearn for, but also, sometimes, what we fear.

January 27, 2020
“the hurried I go the behinder I get” or more books…..

I am in the midst of rereading Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds. Which I read when it was first released in paperback. I figured it would be a good travel book, good for tired lonely nights, or airplanes and airports, and because it is the alternate novel selection for a group. In fact, I was not, at first, certain I wanted to reread the novel remembering nothing more than it was a saga of forbidden love, even though I remembered loving it at the time. I quickly realized that memory was playing tricks however, that my memories, and my doubts were based more on the mini-series based on the book than on the book itself, and I am finding it a very satisfactory read, a book I am not only happy to be reading again, but which I feel sustains the differences in perception I as reader bring to the novel after a 40 year absence, because there is more to this book than the story of Meggie and Ralph. In fact although they are the axle around which this story revolves, they become almost the least interesting characters in this drama of family, environment, love, and fate. In am thinking that hidden in this story is a rather complex meditation on the choices we as humans make and the consequences of said choices, both for ourselves and those around us.

I am reminded that the last time I took to the air, last November, I read Stephen King’s new novel Dr. Sleep, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. Dr. Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, which I read long long ago, and although this book picks up some years after the events of the first novel, and carries through on certain themes, it is very much its own book, its own story. King is a master of a genre that actually has a long history in American Literature, and I would not give him short-shrift. The story is very well told, but although The Shining is a great, terrifying, introspective horror, this novel is something else altogether. I do not think it is any less for that. We all evolve after all, even Danny, the little boy from The Shining. One of the things I enjoyed about this book is that Danny does evolve, he chooses to confront his demons, although the path that gets him to that choosing is not necessarily of his own making or his own desire. So it is for all of us. Although Danny seems to come very close to being sucked down by his past and never pulling out of his own internal morass, he manages to become something more than his hurts and terrors, more than his inner fears might allow. And this is the thing about King; yes, he writes horror stories, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as merely a writer of genre fiction. He writes psychological novels about the stranger that lives deep inside all of us, taking us on romps through the human psyche, guided romps where we know we may be frightened but where we also know we will come out relatively unscathed. There is always something more going on, more than just the terror; although just as in life, one may choose to see or not to see.

Which reminds me that I am still behind as concerns reporting about my reading list, so let’s take another stab at rounding out November.

Dr. Sleep was not the only deeply psychological novel I read that month. I also reread A Christmas Carol, and there are many similarities between the two and their authors. A Christmas Carol was dashed off because Dickens needed money to pay his bills, and i don’t think Dickens, in his day, was considered any more literary than King is today. He was a writer of mostly serialized popular fiction, and in many ways he was a cultural icon of his time, much as King is today. In fact, that he is still so esteemed may have been considered by some to be surprising. And yet A Christmas Carol is a deeply philosophical and psychological story, and this does not even include all the Christmas trappings. It is a story of redemption, of gaining wisdom, of what we currently popularly think of as the journey of the second half of life. And the very contradictions of it, that it was written to make money, yet it sharply criticizes the life spent in pursuit of avarice, the combined darkness and the glowingly define Christmas sparkle, make it into something both simple (Christmas yes!) and complex. In fact, Christmas, as we think of it today, owes more to Charles Dickens than to any religious sentiment, and I think my youthful self sometimes read the story with visions of movies and musical interpretations dancing in my my head. Or do I experience Scrooge’s journey more poignantly today because I have made my own track through the forest?

And then there was the Dutch House. The house is as much a character in this family drama as the members of the family themselves. Two children are booted from their family home after their father’s death by a stepmother who is more interested in the house than in human relationships, and the house takes on an outsize role in their yearnings for the happy family they lost. Except that it was never happy, and the house, and what it symbolizes for the various members of the family proves to be a great foundation for this exploration of family dynamics.

Patchett, as usual brings a keen understanding of human complexity to the story. I particularly like that the story is told from the perspective of a boy, who becomes a man, who himself is neither particularly introspective or observant, which makes him a great foil for this deft exploration of interpersonal dynamics. I also like the way the story is written around the house, the way the house itself, although inanimate, stands in the midst of all of them, both through its presence and its absence, a symbol of yearning, loss, love, isolation. This is a novel about the way people make assumptions — about places, people, their lovers, family, coworkers — that are more about the self than about opening a relationship. Everyone in this story knows everyone else, but for the most part they go through life never seeing each other.

Interesting to me, is how all these stories relate, in one way or another, to the novel I am currently reading, and will finish today. It is of course one of the grand themes of human existence, one deserving of much exploration and always benefitting from new insight and further explorations,

And that seems to get me about two-thirds through November, and I feel I am at a stopping point, which means alas there is more catching up to do, four more books from November, eight from December, and whatever is happening this month. So be it. Slowing down, no so much physically or mentally, although that does happen as we age, but more in terms of a reflective slowing seems to be one of the current themes of my life. I do not at the moment feel the need to rush through things, to accumulate experiences as if I am crossing off items in a list. Bear with me.

January 23, 2020
Musical Musings and Meanderings

There was a brief burst of spring-like warmth last week, followed by a return to more seasonal temperatures. The sunshine-yellow of forsythia acts as a beacon of promise throughout my neighborhood, the bulbs are beginning to shoot skyward, and the hellebores are blooming. I am not worried about them, they are all tough, and it is a joyous thing, always to see that little burst of spring promise, especially in my own garden which is remains filled more with hope and dreams rather than actual plants.

I have been suffering through a bit of rotator cuff tendinitis. This has limited my ability to do a surprising variety of things, not just take advantage of the warmth to dig in the garden, but also to type, write, and knit for more than very short stretches. I suppose I could have pushed through, but am rather hoping that enforced rest will result in healing and another kind of blossoming.

During this period of forced repose, I attended my first symphony concert of the new year, following a week of excited anticipation. My heightened expectations were at least partially fed by the experience of attending at least part of a rehearsal for the performance on Tuesday. Friday night the music filled me with joy.

The part of the rehearsal that I had attended was for the first half of the concert, the Mozart Piano concerto #23 played by the exciting new young pianist Aristo Sham. During the rehearsal I had felt that Sham was almost ethereally calm, the music flowed with speed and grace, although I wasn’t yet sure what I thought. Friday night, I was delighted. Sham’s performance was fascinating, outwardly still and calm, and yet the music flowed with a kind of sunny light sparkle. This was a young man’s mozart, filled with grace but also a kind of bubbling enthusiasm. Sham’s performance was quick and light, not at all ostentatious, skipping along like a conversation between vibrant young people who grew up together, almost instinctually anticipating each other’s moods and reactions. Sham provided a new insight to a familiar piece, making me realize that my favorite performers of the Mozart concertos, although quite different from each other share a more mature reflective sense, and that perhaps, although I too am inclined to more mature reflection, I also need to hear the light brought by music from new perspectives.

The Mozart was followed by Mahler’s first symphony. Although I adore Mozart, Mahler is particularly close to my heart and it was for the Mahler that my heart was yearning. It was fabulously done, with a tightly focused point of view — necessary in such a sprawling, overwhelmingly human work. The soft opening was breathtaking, evolving slowly into the lush theme of the first movement. The effervescence of the dance, the sadness of the slow movement, of familiarity tinged with despair and absurdity, and the thunderous ending. From the audience as well, that thunderous ending.

I have missed hearing Mahler in Knoxville. I do not think a Mahler symphony has been performed here since I moved to this city, whereas I heard at least one every year in New York. Judging from the excitement and applause surrounding me in the concert hall, i do not believe I am alone in wishing for more.

Admittedly, I came home wired and electrified, wishing to discuss the performance and the depth of the music. instead, I opted to hear it again. I watched the wonderful DVD of Claudio Abaddo leading the Lucerne Festival orchestra, (available on Amazon Prime Video) before collapsing into music filled dreams, comparing, contrasting, reveling. This is not a bad thing. Each performance brings its own particularly clarity of vision, its own point of view. A good thing in humanity and music, reminding me at least of both the complexity and the commonality of human experience.

Truthfully, the music still runs through my head, and I want to keep listening. Each of the 4 or 5 recordings i own of this work brings its own unique perspective and exploration, and right now my brain is too full to absorb even more voices; at the moment I want to just savor the memory of this performance, so close to home, and also close to my heart.

But of course nothing remains pure in memory, new experiences barge in, altering our perspective, and other, seemingly unrelated memories also wend their way through the thoughts. In my case this means that Mahler and Mozart are somehow picking their way through my thoughts joined by the musical musings of R. B. Morris, whose songs have also been in my mind and heart since hearing him perform the previous Friday. I somehow don’t think either one of them would mind; they were both, after fully aware of the musical idioms and traditions of their own times and cultures. And although I found the Morris concert to exert slightly less of a lightening-rod like shock to the easily bored and distracted nature of my own peripatetic brain, the songs themselves are no less satisfying, filled with the kind of wisdom and poetry and intelligence that haunts the memory, much like their forebears.

January 20, 2020
Readings past…

The best intentions…..

I have read three books already in 2020 and yesterday I spent some time catching up with my reading notes. I had been remiss concerning this task and I realized the omission felt significant. So too the missing book posts, and although I have decided to forgo catch-up blogging in general, this remains the exception: the one case in which I cannot move forward without first looking backward. The books I read always end up informing my thoughts, past reading informing future reading, the way our experiences, all our experiences, and all our acquaintances end up informing and shaping the people we are. The books I read can become either acquaintances of friends, certainly the books I keep become friends, and I think sometimes we humans are simultaneously too narrow and too broad in the way we define friendship. As to books, I am reminded this morning of this quote from William Churchill:

If you cannot read all your books at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them — peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances.

William Manchester: The Last Lion: Visions of Glory. page 31.

I hear Churchill’s voice in the quote, a voice that is familiar to all of us with a penchant for history at least, and it was a sweet discovery earlier this week, as my own view toward books is quite similar. I have begun the task of rereading the first two volumes of The Last Lion in the coming months, mostly as a refresher and prologue to the third volume, which I own but have not yet read.

But today I must deal with housekeeping. Beginning with November and working may way through to books read in December, I hope to finish up the 2019 reading list over the course of the next week or two. Notes or thoughts arising from current reading may, or may not be interleaved, depending on the whims of the muse.

Books that were just ok to good.

I have long loved Lee Child’s Reacher series, and of course I read the newest installment, Blue Moon. As usual, Child has an ability to capture, in spare but haunting words, the forgotten places, the places we don’t really think about, the places we ignore. This quote, from the opening lines of Blue Moon sticks with me, for all of its simplicity, reminding me of a lifelong fascination with maps, and with dreamy wonderings and imaginings of life, not just in exotic locales, but the places we both see and do not see.

The city looked like a small map of America. It was just a tiny polite dot, near a red threadlike road that ran across an otherwise empty half inch of paper. But up close and on the ground it had half a million people. It covered more than a hundred square miles. . .

Alas, that was the most memorable part of this book for me. As usual the storytelling was excellent but the body count got to me and aspects of the story seemed weak, geared more to provoking thrills or outrage rather than a coherent story. Alas, my own outrage was aimed more at the author than the injustices portrayed. I will read the next one and see if this development is the exception or a trend.

Allison Pittman’s Loving Luther was an engaging, easy-going, and entertaining read that placed no demands upon the reader. Told from the perspective of Katharina von Bora, the first half of the book, which revolved around Katharina’s life in the convent before she met Luther, was more engaging than the second half, which seemed to be trying too hard to turn the story into a conventional romance. Sometimes, light bits of fluff like this are just the thing, temporary amusements.

Likewise, Stephen King’s Elevation. I picked this up in an airport bookstall while I was waiting for a short, one-hour flight. It was the perfect entertainment at the end of a long day, and perfect for the duration of the flight. It is very well written, which is not at all surprising, and sweet; a different perspective from the kind of dark psychological exploration that we tend to expect from King. This novella is a rather pointed look at the kinds of issues that fill contemporary newscasts, but it is also a story of letting go of the things that weigh one down. In fact this dichotomy encapsulates its power. Although I have been accused too often of being cynical, I perhaps am also too easily satisfied by simple hopeful things. In retrospect the memory of this book has grown on me, and although I think the book may be dismissed as simple pandering to cultural unrest, or even blind hopefulness, it is actually a bit more than that. It has snuck up on me perhaps.

Last, in today’s discussion, but far from least, Marty Makary’s book, The Price We Pay, is about how the commodification of medicine has broken the health care system. It is a good book that I think more people should read.

Makary starts with stories, stories that are at times shocking, and then moves from there to the data behind those stories. This is where the strength of this book lies, in the naming and the call to action. Makary admits that he has been, through much of his career, ignorant of these very forces, forces that have created an unwinable game, despite the fact that he works from deep within the system. And yet it is this very fact, the fact that he is in the middle of the system, that has allowed him to reveal some of the inner workings, inner workings that appall him as much as they will outrage the reader.

The book is well-written and clear, and Makary takes the time not merely to expose the problems but to honor agents of change. Makary’s suggestions for fixing the problem are not enough, in and of themselves, but i agree with him that the first step toward healing is in the naming.

And it feels as if I have written more than enough for one post, even though I have discussed merely a third of the twelve books I read in November. This project may take more than a week, but I will get through it. Until next time….

January 10, 2020
What I Did Over My Christmas Vacation

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it felt wonderful.

That statement is, in fact, a bit of an exaggeration. I spent whole days knitting, well maybe 6 or 8 hours of a day. I think that counts. I reported that I had finished a sock, the second one of a pair. I have worn them frequently since. But I also spent a lot of time knitting my cozy, oversized, pink cardigan, a cardigan I dearly hope to finish and wear before the relatively short Knoxville winter comes to an end. Of course it may also work as a spring sweater as cool evenings and mornings often extend well into the Knoxville spring. Whether late frosts are actually a part of spring or an extension of winter seems to be semantically contentious here, although I do not think that the seasons are determined by temperature alone.

But I digress. As you can see, I was doing something. I finished the back and one front of this long sweater. The other front, the sleeves, assembly, and a knitted-on cowl remain. But this is where the something/nothing debate becomes important. I live in a culture where we admire people who do handwork, admire craft, music, art, but which also thinks of this activity as outside of the “normal” or “productive” part of life and culture. Increasingly think the opposite is true. It is the making and the makers that are truly living and the rest of the world that is spinning its wheels on a little hamster-wheel of our own creation. But this is not supposed to be a philosophical post.

What I really did not do was keep up with email, facebook, instagram, or social media in most forms. I could go whole days without connecting to the inter webs and it felt good. I saw people individually and socially, but otherwise I explored skills, skills that need significant amount of sharpening before I can achieve that happy place where idea and muscle memory join forces, where the idea is the spark, and one’s collection of tools (skills), as well as one’s ability to get out of one’s own way, can allow art to occur. I think this tool-building stage of life will take some time.

I did try my hand at some sewing, with mixed results. I made a pair of black silk evening pants which are quite wearable but which do not really live up to my former standards. There is a good bit of “happy hands at home” imperfection to the finished product.

I could have started with something easier and more practical. But I have never been one to take the measured, practical path. I had despaired of the fact that all my clothes were casual. I desperately wanted something dressy, hence the idea of evening pants; but it was a project was both perfect and foolhardy. Sewing silk, and silk chiffon is tricky under the best of circumstances, and I was starting with two deficits in that I neither had a well-fitting pant pattern or much in terms of recent sewing practice. Still, I managed to make the pants and the construction is decent, if not couture quality. I simply served the edges and did not bother making french seams. The problem came with the tiny hems. In fact I initially hoped to wear these pants to a Christmas party, but did not because I couldn’t manage the hems. My plan, and a perfectly logical one at that, was to put the pants aside until after the holiday, when I would make the narrow hems by hand. I am much more confident of my hand-sewing at the moment than my machine sewing. But the many edges to be turned under meant that I had several days of hemming ahead of me, so no party pants for the party season.

And then, on December 30th my foolish little inner demon reared her head. I decided I could wear the pants to a New Year’s Even party. There was not enough time for hand-hemming. so I just dove in, figuring that wearing something, and something I made, even if it was finished badly, was more appealing than not trying at all.

I worked in a variation on the normal procedure, doing the hems first, and then the side seams on the open chiffon panels, reasoning that the hems, being near the floor, would be less visibly wonky to others than the side seams. That worked. My hems look like a first year home-ec student did the sewing, but the narrow hems at the sides of the chiffon panels looked good, and I was happy wearing the pants, feeling festive and swishy. I paired the pants with a sweater I had finished a year ago, and not yet worn, knit in Artyarns Beaded Silk and Sequins and Merino Cloud. And yes, a bathroom selfie seems to be the best I can manage at the moment.

Also shown in this post are two photos of the bowl I made at the “pottery indulgence” workshop I attended, and wrote about, in November. It too is a bit rustic and far from perfect. In fact I think if I can learn to celebrate anything, I hope to celebrate the fruits of the process of making, imperfections and all. But then, I have always felt it is our imperfections that make us human, and therefore lovable.

January 6, 2020
Winter Solstice

December slips away, a time of busyness and reflection, of preparation, of waiting, of darkness and promise. Despite the fact that East Tennessee autumns are not as appealing as Hudson Valley autumns were, this time of year remains my favorite season. December, the culmination of that process of winding down, of preparing for darkness, for hibernation, for pulling inward to the center, is waning. Advent as well, the Christian period of waiting, of preparation, reminding us of the necessity of dark passages in life, of the necessity of rest, necessary sustenance to fuel the light. The solstice occurs tonight.

My new trees were planted Thursday. Even though they currently just look like sticks in a bare landscape, they are filled with promise.

Winter begins.

I too have been slowing down. It strikes me that I am increasingly out of sync with the cultural mania surrounding this season in particular. It is not that I don’t love parties, baking cookies, wrapping gifts, time with friends — all of that is a joy but only in so far as it doesn’t get wrapped up in the tangled threads of obligation.

The first part of December was extraordinarily busy. Intentionally then, I have left the end of the month fairly lightly scheduled. Even so, I have been a flake, missed appointments, cancelled obligations that felt more burden than joy, taken long naps.

But this too is part of this preparatory season. Much of what is important to me had been laid aside. This is my time of burrowing.

I cooked for the first time in weeks, making a Franco-Vietnamese beef stew from Andrea Nguyen, a dish that had once been a winter staple, but which I had temporarily forgotten about in all the hubbub over moving (again and again), construction, and settling. A little baking may have also occurred.

I spent most of Tuesday knitting a sock, the second of a pair, the sock I had ripped out before Thanksgiving, but had not yet begun again. Knitting from the top down, I got through the turn of the heel on Tuesday, perhaps staying up a tad past my preferred bedtime. Wednesday offered less time for knitting, and a little less ability to focus due to lack of sleep, so I finished up the toe early Thursday morning before heading off to the gym. Above is the completed pair, on the library carpet, just after closing the toe and before washing and blocking. The lines of slight laddering, from the divisions of my four double-pointed needles, have settled into the fabric now, and are no longer visible. I have tried other sock knitting techniques, magic loop, two circulars, even tiny little circulars, which I find difficult, but I keep returning to double points.

I wore the socks yesterday with ankle boots and rolled up jeans. I loved the slightly longer length, loved wearing new socks, socks I made. I believe these are my Christmas gift to myself. Or perhaps the gift is actually just this act of settling, of letting myself delve into process and just do whatever it is I am inspired to do.

No promises here. I shall write when the inspiration strikes. In the meantime I hope the waning of the year offers time with family and friends, times of love and warmth, but also times of quiet contemplation and burrowing-in. Our inner selves are the soil that feeds our lives. We need to give them time for nourishment.

December 21, 2019
Family Week

Spent a great Thanksgiving week in San Antonio.

The impetus for the trip was my aunt’s 89th birthday and it was a lovely celebration indeed.

But I also had time to walk along San Antonio’s River Walk and spend time with both of my brothers and their families.

I was back in Knoxville on Sunday; the first Sunday of the month is Altar Guild Sunday, at least for my team. It was the first Sunday of advent, the anniversary of my uncle’s death, and the kirkin’ o’ the tartans. Somehow I think Uncle Ted would have loved that. I sponsored the advent greenery, and although I played no role in the selection, I think it was perfect.

It amazes me sometimes how things sometimes all fall into place in unexpected, and unexpectedly perfect, ways.

December 2, 2019