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Restingmotion

In Which I Am Already Stressed and Still Manage to Get Myself Into Trouble

Trouble with my own tendency to throw myself into the inspiration of the moment that is, with little regard as to the repercussions with my own internal “should” monitor.

October always seems to be one of those months that gets too busy too fast and this October has been no exception: the beginning of the “arts” season, four trips, a Camp Grandma weekend. That would be excessive in and of itself, but somehow I failed to factor in the most critical thing of all, namely who I would be when I moved back into the house. And I have been caught somewhat by surprise.

Admittedly some miscalculations were made. I made plans assuming that I would be settled in the house by the end of the summer, but work on the house ended just before Labor Day, and I underestimated my ability to settle during the work. I also somehow underestimated the pull that creating this space would have on me. At the moment I want nothing more than to finish unpacking and settling, to disappear into creative pursuits and dreams. It feels like I have been putting this off too long, and now it is time to put off other things so I can do what my heart has been calling me to do.

But as I said, I underestimated that pull, and said yes to some things I should not have. And so here I am, writing a post in an airport, while I go off on my third trip of October, a trip I, in no way, regret. But when I was home I wanted nothing more really than for the world to disappear and to leave me to unpack, settle, nest, play with yarn and fiber and fabric, patterns and dreams, but obligation would raise its head, and it would leave a crack open for my stubborn inner critic, always ready to criticize my choices.

I did play though, although not in the studio.

I needed food and I went to the Farmer’s Market. Once there I was quickly inspired. I am not complaining. I had missed that inspiration to play in the kitchen. I do, however wonder why it had to arise at such an inconvenient time, in a short busy week between trips. Or perhaps therein lies the secret to happiness — pursuing your dreams when it is not easy to do so, much as the same way helping others when one is tired and wants nothing more than to be alone, is exactly what our souls need to soar the highest. P

One of the things I found at that farmer’s market, which was a week ago now, was fresh ginger root. I bought a couple of pounds, and proceeded to pickle it. There are a couple of jars of pickled ginger sitting in my refrigerator now, happily doing their thing while I am away. I also tried using the ginger stems to infuse some tea. The stems had a subtle flavor and although it was good, it was not a completely successful experiement. I ended up turning the tea into a green tea/ginger leaf syrup, which was an improvement, and I concentrated it and froze it for use upon my return.

I also discovered that the ginger leaves are quite edible and have a lovely, if subtle, ginger flavor. I stir fried a bunch with that large yellow oyster mushroom and a little chicken breast for dinner before tossing the remaining leaves into the infusion. In retrospect, I think the leaves also would have made a nice ginger-leaf kimchi, and I’ve put a note in my calendar for next year.

A bottle of wine that sat in my car for the extended trip home from sewing camp, was the basis for starting a batch of red wine vinegar, and I started a batch of malt vinegar as well, using some dark gluten-free beer. I suppose my vinegar will not be true malt vinegar as it contains no barley, but I hope something good comes from the experiement anyway.

The fermentation kick was partially inspired by all those red peppers I found at the market. The idea was to make a salt-brine fermented sriracha. I started by chopping all those hot peppers in the food processor but I was a little nervous, perhaps more so than I needed to be, or perhaps not, about burning my eyes, so I did it outside on the deck, wearing the goggles from my circular saw over my glasses while I worked. I may have been a sight to see, but I did not take a picture. Nor did I take a picture of the peppers either, which are happily bubbling away in a crock in my basement.

I discovered lovely carrots with beautiful greens, and bought two bunches. In fact the farmer from which I purchased the carrots was very happy to give me extra bunches of greens that he had trimmed for prior customers, enough that I made a batch of carrot-greens soup to get me through the week and still had extra to freeze for future, off-season, use.

As I write this, I remember how happy the time in the kitchen made me. Remember the wonderful meals: Curried chicken, Szechuan okra, various roasted vegetables, a fabulous cauliflower salad and am happy that I indulged in this creative outburst, even if it meant neglecting other creative pursuits. Winter will be here soon enough, the market will mostly continue to slow down and eventually end, and there will be long weeks when little inspires me to cook. Rather than beating myself up over the things I wasn’t doing — unpacking, cleaning the house, blogging, etc — I should have cut myself some slack. This is, in the end, exactly what I want to be able to do in this time of life, have time to indulge and even sometimes over-indulge in passions.

And of course the added benefit is that I will also get to eat well. Perhaps gratitude is best found in the most difficult corners, when one is too tired to look.

October 20, 2019
Music, Memory, Art(?): Where are We Now?

Last night I attended an incredibly beautiful chamber music concert, the first of the Knoxville Symphony's Concertmaster series for this year and was stunned by the skill, harmony, and emotional weight of the performance. I also allowed my mind to wander, as the minds of humans are won't to do, enjoying the music, experiencing the place, and allowing my thoughts to attempt to integrate the feelings of the now with the history that has led up to the now. It became a tangled mass of branching thoughts, which also seems to me to be a very human phenomenon. It is only when we cling too tightly to simplicity that we can be led astray.

The program consisted mostly of music of the baroque era, and mostly music of great emotional depth and weight. The exceptions are important here, as was the layout of the program, as the contrast added necessary tension, a tension that served to expand the listeners response, inspite of, or perhaps because of, the interruption in flow. This is harder to do than one might assume, this contrasting of what I will call style and substance, in a way that actually enhances all of the components, making something that felt whole out of disparate, but thematically related, pieces.

The basic format was along these lines: style, substance, style, substance.

But how did that take shape? First there was Corelli, with "La Folia for Violin, Harpsichord, and Continuo", a light vibrant piece that set the tone, a musical amuse-bouche of sorts. Corelli is important for shaping the tone of the baroque, but also because he insisted on a consistency in technique that changed the way music was performed, opening the way, perhaps, for modern orchestral performance. Corelli also, at least to this listener, seems to be incredibly balanced, lyrical, crisp, happy music, but a music of surfaces only, the depth held tightly at bay. The Corelli was followed by a longer work by Handel, the Sonata #4 in D Major for Violin and Harpsichord, which was richly resonant, imbued with an emotional sense that played harmoniously with the setting in the Knoxville museum of art. The lighter movements seeming to bounce playfully off the glass sculpture overhead, to dance through the texture of the cloud-filled sky seen just beyond the musicians, the contrast of baroque music and modern city in the moments before dusk. And then just that, dusk and the passion of the Scherzando, eternal, and yet also extremely specific to this communal experience in this time and space.

Then we began the second style-substance rotation. The Handel was followed by Martinu, by the "Promenades for Flute Violin and Harpsichord". It seems like an interesting choice on the surface, Martinu a very 20th-Century composer, a composer whose music seems perfectly in tune to his milieu between the wars that eternally changed human consciousness concerning who and what humans are and could become. Martinu was also attracted to the baroque, an interesting choice, but perhaps not surprising, an attempt to find a path forward while looking backward, looking for something in human history that softened the weight of the emotional moment. In this sense Martinu reminded me of Corelli — perhaps less formally polished and reserved, but also all style — except this was music for the jazz age, music of the 20's, music that was intentionally avoiding the inescapable emotional weight of the recent past.

I suspect that many in the audience did not love the Martinu as much as the Handel. I could say that I too might prefer to drift into Handel than Martinu, although I found it both shocking, and it is strange to say that about music that is over 80 years old, and charming in a way that had me considering Martinu differently than I had previously, probably mostly because I am only familiar with his symphonic output. But the Martinu also served to pull my thoughts together in a way that would have been different had the music not been included. I think placement was critical here, just before the intermission. If I were to maintain the food analogy, I would say it was a bit of a tart sorbet or palate cleanser, allowing our ears and minds to reset between two too-rich courses.

And the second half was rich. We were treated to two of the Brandenburg Concerti, and due to the considerations of the space, the audience and the larger group of musicians, the space itself began to feel as if we were all participating cells in a single body as the music unfolded, musicians and listeners as one. There was a very relational sense to this performance, one that is not always captured both between the musicians, and between the musicians and the audience, one where the listeners feel as if they are a part of the music surrounding them. It was a powerful and beautiful evening.

But this leads me to the other part of this performance, the places the music led my mind to wander, and my own questioning of history, experience, and humanity. These thoughts are my own, of course, and yet, much as we like to think ourselves unique, this is but a shadow truth. I am but a speck after all, and music reminds us of this, of the way we are transported into some common place even though our individual experiences of that place are different. We are all just cells in one giant living tree, twisted and overgrown perhaps, but an inexorably connected piece of the whole. It seems interesting, therefore, that though we live in a time when we prefer to think of ourselves as unique, we still thrill to music written in a time when the uniqueness of the individual was not a priority. This very dichotomy seems to connect us even more deeply. Even though we cannot experience anything in the same way as that previous cell did, its existence informs our existence.

As I listened to the Corelli, I was transported back to my 17- and 18- year old self, to the girl who loved Corelli, the girl would sit in her dorm room and lose herself in this music. I wondered what a young girl saw in Corelli and I am not surprised: the joy of it, yes, but also the harmony and cohesiveness. Perhaps it was that very lack of emotional weight that drew me in. At that age all I wanted was an escape from the burden of emotional strife, and as I listened to the music again, I reconnected with that sense last night, the was reminded of the way we yearn for peace today, yearn for escape from the sense of strife hammered into us every time we look at the news.

Corelli and Martinu, Handel and Bach. Baroque music connects us to some essential yearning. But we cannot have it, not in the way we think anyway. The way we listen to this music today is shaped by the way the world has been altered over the course of the last 120 years. It is in our DNA. The music we heard last night was unique to a particular time and place. We the listeners, and the musicians playing the music, are each completely who we are, and we are products world entirely different from the one in which Handel lived. That Handel could write music that transcended time and place is art. That is something unique to us, we humans, art and awareness — not just that we are aware, but that we are aware that we are aware, and this awareness changes us throughout subsequent generations, even, and oh the injustice of it, without our being aware that we are changed.

The music by Martinu reminded me of this, of my adolescent self loving Corelli, of the way we, the collective audience, loved the Handel, and that sense of universal yearning. The Martinu struck me because it made me think about the way many audiences of classical music today struggle with this period, struggle more I think with this "modern" period that occurred between the wars, the music where one world, one social structure, had been torn asunder and yet there was no stability, where another war was going to change our very understanding of humanity. We struggle because we cannot recapture that feeling experienced by generations before us, by people who were transformed into a different kind of awareness following WWII. We are inheritors of a different kind of world, but, in a way, like Martinu, we seek a more distant history, one less imbedded in our more recent DNA. Perhaps we too attempt to integrate old with new, dreams with the reality of the world in which we live, yearnings with experience.

I don't think we think of music, or art, in this way very often, and perhaps my own meandering reflections are shaped by new understandings, or misunderstandings, from recent readings. But it seems like something worth exploring. Or not.

This perhaps is just a beginning, an incoherent beginning at that.

October 10, 2019
A Weekend of Adventure

Late evening. A city in South Carolina. Back roads. That is all I know.

It has been a great weekend, the weekend of a sewing retreat with really six fabulous women, five of whom are now new friends (one has been a friend a long time). It has been a weekend filled with sewing yes, but also a weekend of great food, fellowship, laughter.

I didn't complete any garments, but I did not expect I would. My goal was simply to get started, to make some muslins of garments that actually fit — not as in this is good enough because it is what I can buy, but as in actually fit. And I made a good start, with lots of help. You can't tell much about the dress above, and truthfully I love the pattern of the light on the table as much as whatever I was trying to photograph.

I finished two muslins, two garments that will become basics. That I did not produce three muslins was completely my own fault. I am not one to pretend like life is perfect, or that I never mess up, and mess up is exactly what I did. I had traced off a favorite pair of pants, but stressed, distracted, and completely unthinking, I grabbed non-stretch fabric in order to muslin those stretch pants. It was not an abject failure however. I have a pretty good idea of where I need to go from here, and what I need to do next. As I worked, memories were reignited and I am looking forward to the process.

Then it was time to go home. I didn't get far — about ten miles. But first you need the back story. You see, I had a blow-out on the way to the retreat. It happened in Columbia, in heavy traffic, when I was in the far left lane passing a truck, in an area on the curve that was not very safe. I controlled the car, there was an exit right there, and I am grateful to the drivers who let me across traffic so I could exit to safety. I drove the rest of the way on the donut on back roads, arriving in the dark.

I found a tire dealer who could replace my tires with something in the right size and of similar quality. I suspected the rim was damaged, discussed this, both on the phone, and with the person who looked at my car, and was told they would look at the car and let me know if that was the case — if they could replace the tire or if I needed something more. But somehow, somewhere along the line, someone forgot, and they mounted a new tire. Less than 20 miles later, that tire was shredded and I was going nowhere. Luckily for me, my friend Marjorie was still in Myrtle Beach. I called the auto service, they found someone to tow my car to the Audi dealer in Charleston, and Marjorie kindly took me down as it was on her way.

My car is being repaired and I should be on the road again tomorrow. In the meantime, I had a glass of cabernet when I checked into my hotel, a lovely dinner, and a good night's sleep. Despite all the agitation, I am incredibly fortunate to be here, to be able to enjoy this very European-feeling American city.

October 7, 2019
A Slow Start, But A Start Nonetheless

It seems that a good part of my time last week was spent in the studio. Mostly I was simply unpacking, but I didn't want to leave. Now, back home, without the prospect of having to pack up and leave again soon, unpacking was not necessarily less tedious, but it was still somehow more enjoyable. I was already to starting to think about what I want to work on, where things should go, pulling projects. And also hitting walls. There are still things I have to do, some cubbies that have to be built because I haven't unpacked the components yet. I don't yet have a pressing table. That too still has to be built, but I am about half-way there. It remains a transitional space, but an increasingly functional one.

I worked on a few small projects for others. I am ready to get started sewing for myself, but some of that progress was hampered by the slow progress of unpacking, burnt fingers, and travel plans. I haven't made anything for myself in many years now, and I have no TNT patterns. So although I have materials and ideas, I feel very much like I am starting fresh, like I am diving into the deep end of the pool, rather than wading in from the shallows.

I threw some things in a suitcase and went to my mom's. We've been working in her sewing room. She is working on a few quilt blocks. I have commandeered her cutting table and am tracing. I traced a pattern for a dress. I know what basic alterations I used to make generally, but enough has changed during the transition into my 60s that I think a simple shift, and starting from scratch, is the way to go. I am, in fact looking forward to both making and wearing this dress, as I see much potential.

But I am also working on a few things which may yield more immediate success. I have a woven tank that I purchased from Lafayette 148NY some years ago and which I have since worn constantly. In fact I have another version of the same tank, with variations in hem and fabric. This piece is, and once I copy the basic shape, will continue to be, a staple in my wardrobe. There are a few minor fitting issues, but I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done to complete the transition from very good to favorite basic.

Or perhaps I don't. As I started to trace off the original tank, the first one I bought, I realized that I have worn it almost to death. The fabric is worn and fraying, stretched in places, threadbare in others. In fact I probably should have stopped wearing it months ago. Trying to trace the fragile, warped piece was proving to be difficult. In the end I realized I would never wear this iteration again, so I simply cut it apart to make a pattern.

In fact, when I first traced the front, I probably made a mistake. I traced it as it was, but then realized it had warped somewhat, actually following the same asymmetricalities as my own torso. I wonder if that is good or a mistake, I suspect the later, but I was tired already. It seems that reacquainting oneself with old skills is a process, and memory is sometimes slow to engage fully. I have straightened the piece out, and this morning I believe I need to trace another, straighter version before starting. Whichever piece proves to be the most useful, the experience itself will be educational.

I did a better job with the back pieces (above).

Lastly, I started tracing a pair of pants, a style I wear frequently and love, a pair that fits pretty well, but with a couple of significant but easily corrected flaws. I started tracing off the pants last night, only getting as far as the back yoke. I will hopefully finish up today. I am desperate for bottoms, assuming fall temperatures will arrive sometime.

In the meantime, do not expect much from me this week. I am traveling again. I am attending a sewing retreat, but I will mostly still be in pattern- and muslin-making mode. I'll have knitting and needlepoint with me as well, to sooth frayed fitting-nerves, if nothing else. And, as if there is not already enough on my plate, this morning I started coughing; my nose is running and my eyes are feeling heavy and tearing up. I am hoping that mom's cats, Scooter and Cat, have simply made an impression on my sinuses, hoping that this is not a cold. If it is the former, my upcoming exit will help; if not, all other plans are up in the air.

September 30, 2019
Flowers from My Mother’s Garden

I walked around my mother's neighborhood this morning, first out through the back yard in the early morning sunlight, then back. The sun was higher, the light different but not yet high. These photos are being shown in the order they were taken, as the sky brightens, as I leave and return.

Aside from the lushness of the flowers, the first thing I really noticed was the softness of the air, the relatively low humidity, at least as compared with Tennessee, the gentle caress of a steady soft breeze on my skin. It is unusual to go from Tennessee to Texas and find a kinder, gentler climate. And although this is not the fist time this has happened, I continue to be surprised when the world upsets my expectations.

As I walked, my senses began to experiences the differences between the neighborhood and the one I had walked a mere 24 hours earlier. Both of us live in neighborhood with manicured lawns, where homes have sprinkler systems, and yet nothing was the same. Of course the plants are different in Texas than in my Tennessee neighborhood, but there were other signs of difference as well. Garland Texas is not in the midst of a drought, and the air is rich with the smell of earth, of green leaves and continued growth. Autumn is not advancing as quickly here.

Even though I live in a neighborhood filled with sprinklers, we cannot water enough to counterbalance the continued heat and the lack of rain. Texas as well has suffered a heat wave, but the availability of water, and the plethora of more heat tolerant plants is evident. Walking in Knoxville I smell dry dusty earth, browning leaves, decay. Walking in Garland I smell flowers, freshly mowed grass that smells of new growth, wet earth. The scent of a freshly watered lawn still in the flush of growth is markedly different than a freshly watered lawn that is nonetheless struggling to survive.

I notice other things as well. The birdsong is different. I hear the sounds of the marching band coming from the nearby high school, although I would probably hear something similar if I lived near a high school in Tennessee. I am reminded that it is Friday, that there will be a pep rally, and I am carried back to my own high school days.

I think about the drive to Texas, the long ride into the extended Texas sunset, broad and wide and filling the sky with a different kind of light than I see in Tennessee, where one feels closer to the earth perhaps, and less dwarfed by the sky. I think about how I watched the motion of the grasses on the sides of the road in Arkansas, the movement of the air through the leaves, the changes in wave motion and velocity as different vehicles passed in close proximity. I wondered why I had never noticed this before. I wondered about how easy it is to pass through life without really paying attention.

Sometimes I struggle with travel, with the idea of travel on an intellectual level, not the desire for it. Sometimes I think of travel as going someplace exotic, and put visiting family in a different category, travel that is not really travel with a capital T. But that isn't really fair. All travel, all experiences outside the constraints of our normal boundaries can open our eyes, expand our horizons. I remain unconvinced that we really need to travel in order to learn to open our eyes, but perhaps we do, perhaps we need to be forced out of the boundaries of our normal habits. Perhaps it is the interruption that is as important as the location, the interruption that allows us to stop our internal monologue for just a moment, and see something a little differently.

September 27, 2019
Necessary Accounting

It seems I have been remiss in updating you regarding my reading habits. Odd as it may seem, given my own internal struggles with the idea of posting book lists, this was not intentional. Also not surprisingly, once I noticed that I had failed to make book posts, I was initially more than willing to just let them remain in the ether. Then I wanted to write about something I had read, and relate it to something I had read previously, except that a previous post only existed in my imagination.

So I suppose today's post is an attempt to rectify that situation, or at least insure that it does not happen again in the future.

May

May was packing month.

Three Reacher novels on the exercise bike, or when my back was sore from packing boxes.

Holy Envy was read twice, because I needed to read it twice to really get the gist of what Barbara Brown Taylor was saying. She manages to be accessible and deep and to subtly explore what we can learn from other's faith and traditions without either belittling them or ourselves, or falling prey to a kind of imperialism of belief.

Olive Kitteridge: I had intended to reread this for a long time, not having liked it much the first time around. I still found it interminably sad. A novel about the way we all hunger for intimacy and connection, but sometimes cannot allow ourselves to experience it. I am glad to have reread it but will not read it again.

The Sense of an Ending: This I loved. That same sense of yearning for intimacy, but deftly explored. A book that seems straightforward, but isn't. Life as we assume it to be, as we remember it, how we perceive it, and the vagaries of memory. You don't really the see the depth until the end, and then you wonder how you missed it all along. Much like life, that — if one is astute and observant. Barnes pulls off magic here.

Two lives: Linda Ronstadt's life in music with great insight into the process of making of music. Stephanie Land's astute social commentary from a perspective different from a majority of its readers. Maid pushes buttons, MANY buttons, alas.

June

June was moving month.

Lee Child, Alafair Burke and George Simenon offered distraction and easy entertainment on the bike and off.

Rosalind Creasy's Edible Landscaping filled my head with dreams and ideas and helped me refine my own desires.

I found The Road to Character both fascinating and simultaneously frustrating due to sense of whinging about the book that bordered on off-putting. I came close to abandoning it. With time, my feelings have softened because of the ways it has sparked connections between ideas in my head.

Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is an incredible, moving, and powerful novel. I loved it even though it is often dark, often distressing. Also tender. The majority of the story takes place in India in 1975, during the time of the great emergency, but for all the despair and horror in this book there is also hope and transformation. I emerged from reading it a different person than the one I had been going in. I wish I had written about it. It is worth reading again, not in order to write, but because it has more depths to plumb.

July

I don't really know what happened in July; unpacking perhaps and light reading.

Ruth Reichl reminded me of a time and place and a magazine I loved. Lidia Bastianich reminded me of my own path to becoming a cook and inspired me as I settled into a new kitchen.

The War of Art is about how we sabotage ourselves. It is repetitive, annoying and, as an audiobook, an effective tool to be wielded when one needs a bit of a push.

I found the horses more interesting than the people in Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt.

I am late to discovering Tana French, an author who seems to write murder mysteries that appeal to those who love literary fiction. The Likeness is enjoyable and thought provoking read that explores the way the choices we make shape the people we become.

August

The month of escapism perhaps. I was in the house, but not settled. I may be paying the price now for the things I could have done but did not. The books were good though.

Six Week Cure… is a good summary of information in the Eades previous books, with notes, but I decided not to keep it on the shelves. I like the links to primary sources. It is not difficult. I have no idea if the diet works as I haven't attempted it.

Salt, Sugar, Fat is a very good exploration of how corporate interests have altered the way we eat and imagine eating. Not necessarily a good study of the implications therein, but there are other books for that.

My Sister the Serial Killer captured my attention from the beginning and held it with smartly written spare prose which walks the perfect line, keeping the poignancy and absurdity in check, while simultaneously hiding and revealing. There is a lot of depth here, but it sneaks up on one from behind.

I read Where'd You Go Bernadette simply because I saw a trailer for the movie. It was a thoroughly enjoyable light read and the author uses humor and satire well in describing the absurdities of modern life as well as our lack of tolerance. Actually the aspect of this novel I enjoyed the most may be the way the author portrays the tyranny of those without imagination. I decided the movie would probably bore me and so haven't seen it.

I got through Nine Perfect Strangers on the bike, but wouldn't read it otherwise. Average.

I couldn't ride the bike reading Where the Crawdads Sing. The nature writing was too poetically beautiful. I enjoyed the novel, although it verged into sappy sentimentalism at times. This suited the story however so I can't consider it a flaw.

David Graeber's Debt is one of the most intellectually enjoyable and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time. Graeber encourages the reader to ask questions, to get beyond the blinders of one's own mind-set. You might not agree with him about everything, nor should you, but he will make you think.

Two books about art: Rackstraw Down's In Relation to the Whole, and Mary Gabriel's Ninth Street Women, which isn't so much about art as the artists and the cultural changes that shaped an art movement, have continued to crop up in my thoughts and understandings. Both are important because they have helped me to see in new ways.

Finis.

September 25, 2019
Monday Miscellany

A few highlights, diversions and meandering thoughts from last week…

Radish Greens Soup

I had purchased radishes, as much for their beautiful greens as for the radishes themselves at the farmer's market the Saturday before I burned my hand, and since I did not want those gorgeous greens to go to waste I managed to make soup, despite the burn, although it was a more time-consuming process than I might usually expect. I was using Béatrice Peltre's recipe from My French Family Table, which I had used a year and half ago, before the book was packed away. That first time I had noted that the soup was too redolent of potato for me, and needed more onion and so this time I halved the potato and added a leek to the shallot that was called for in the recipe, mostly because I had a leek on hand. I also sweated the leek, shallot, and celery slowly over very low heat, rather than sautéing them over medium heat as directed. Although I probably did not need to, I used homemade chicken stock in the soup, and given that I tend to make a rich bone-broth-type of stock, my final soup is really more of a green chicken soup than was intended. I probably didn't need the chicken stock at all, of perhaps only one cup of stock and three cups of water. The soup was delicious though, and a good thing to have on hand.

Downton Abbey

It will come as no surprise that I loved Downton Abbey and am ready to see it again anytime. I loved the series after all. Perhaps my mom would like to go see it, although I've had difficulty getting her out to movies in the recent past. At the same time perhaps my affection is surprising given that, aside from British literature, I am not an anglophile and care not a flip for the hoopla over royal weddings and babies, but there you are. I am nothing if not inconsistent, and although I love the costumes, I also love the story lines, and the idea of fine acting around smaller themes, the idea that one can float ideas without blowing things up, that one can participate in a system even while knowing it is doomed. Perhaps I just grow tired of darkness and harshness. Perhaps I too just want to look at a pretty dress and smile, relish the witty asides and 15-second references to all too human foibles, perhaps even a hint of nostalgia for something I am well aware was never really the way we imagine it have been.

Garden

General planting and landscaping is delayed by the continued heat and drought, the good news being that although I am surrounded by clay and dirt, at least I am not surrounded by mud. Nonetheless I was thrilled to look outside and see the that the two remaining lace cap hydrangeas are showing signs of budding. I shall enjoy the flowers and hope that this is not an all-out last ditch attempt at replicating themselves before giving up the ghost. Perhaps it is part of my concerted effort to water the existing shrubs, running slow trickles around the few surviving specimens, for long hours, hoping that the water will be absorbed rather than running off. I wonder that even this may not be enough, wonder if my attempts at watering are actually helping or prolonging the agony, although I take comfort in the fact that the plants that once looked peaked and weary seem to have perked up a good bit. Perhaps this is all worth the call from KUB informing me that my water usage has been high… yes, I know. If I had to give up showering in order to water the plants I would do so. I am tired of losing things, not that my own feelings will affect the outcome in any way. I only hope it is enough to keep everything going while I run off to Texas. I will have contractors in the house, but I can't expect them to water the garden.

The Planets

The symphony season opened Thursday with a performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets, which was accompanied by a video presentation of images compiled and collated from NASA. Admittedly I had mixed feelings going in, but felt it worked beautifully, the powerful images mostly playing well with the music and riffing off cultural references (such as Star Wars) that probably 80% of the audience, if not more, was simultaneously running through their heads. The concert hall was almost full on Thursday, when I went, and apparently sold out on Friday, and the music was powerfully and beautifully performed.

And despite all that, perhaps as much because of the pictures as due to the fact that I know the music so well, my mind did wander a little bit. Mostly I was thinking of the music and it's cultural associations, and not just because of Star Wars, and other film and television references. Themes and ideas from the Planets show up in religious music, school songs, popular music, so many places. And of course this is not unique to Holst. I always think that there is a world of educational opportunity out there, that although we have lost a certain degree of musical literacy, much of this strong tradition exists in our cultural memory, although it may be hidden and not overtly recognized. Much the same can be said for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, early polyphony…. but during the performance of the Holst, I was thrilling to the music and imagining the possibilities of uniting the world, the music of Holst, and Star Wars, Christian Hymns, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath all running through my head. The music has its own weight and presence, but all experience builds on previous experience, and a performance is never just itself, but always this fusion of all that has come before it with al that is happening in the present. A fine evening.

Science in Motion

The same evening that I attended the symphony I also went to an opening reception for a new exhibit at the McClung museum of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbot and Harold Edgerton. The exhibit was lovely and well worth attending. I was already familiar with most of the work by Muybridge and Abbot, less familiar with Edgerton, although some of the images are very well known. I found myself as fascinated by reading about the techniques and processes as in viewing the images themselves, thinking about the intersection of art and science, and the radical changes that the world has seen in the past 100 to 150 years. I was also taken with the camera cookies, even though I couldn't eat a one of them.

September 23, 2019
Break Time

The fountain by the small back patio is up and running, for the first time since I moved into this house. Already, I feel its calming vibes.

But you can expect a blog break, beginning today. Yesterday I burnt my right index finger, picking up a roasted eggplant by the stem. The eggplant itself had cooled; the stem had apparently been transformed into a still-burning piece of woody charcoal. I should have known better. Now I do.

Above is a picture of my index finger, all bandaged. Yes it is dirty. Friends drove me out to an Azalea nursery in Sevierville, where I purchased 17 azaleas, some of them good sized. I purchased 7 evergreens and 10 natives, 6 varieties in all. Despite the fact that I was trying to be careful, and I can't really do much with my right hand, certainly not with that index finger, the bandage did get dirty looking for tags on plants. It is OK, I was due for a cleaning and bandage change anyway, and my finger remained clean.

There are things one never things about until forced to do so, the importance of the index finger is one of those things. I can still walk and go to the gym. Salman Rushdie's new novel is waiting for me on the sofa. I may not manage to vacuum the floors.

And now that is all I can type for today. I won't tell you how long this brief post took. Have a good week and I will be back soon.

September 17, 2019
Weekend

Last night was spent with my favorite grandson, celebrating his 13th birthday and a lovely evening was had by all, with the exception perhaps of a certain one-year old grand puppy who was frustrated that all the people were having fun together and that he was not included. How can grandma come over, after all, and not include her grand-puppy in the festivities?

And this morning I was there at the Farmer's market bright and early, before one of the stands I tend to like to frequent even opened. In fact it was not open both times that I walked by, but there were plenty of other opportunities. I love spending early Saturday mornings at the farmer's market, when there is a full selection of produce, but mostly because there is time, time to wander amongst the stands, time to account for what you see, to make mental notes, to create fantasy dishes and menus, and to dream of what I might want to eat, might want to cook before heading back for a second round and settling into the business of actually shopping.

As I wandered back to my car, laden with two heavy bags I wondered if perhaps I had perhaps over-indulged. I always start with a list, I try to think while I shop, but I still occasionally get carried away and today I was rearranging my menus in my head as I walked back to the car. But as I was thinking about these small personal things I was also watching people at the market, wondering about my own excesses and also the simple pleasures of life, time with family, walking the dog, and a certain amount of focus on the personal and the small, as opposed to the outside world, knowing full well that we were all there, in downtown Knoxville, the morning before a football game, each in our own bubbles, some in bright orange bubbles, planning on a day celebrating a football game, me thinking of soup and homemade sriracha, perhaps some time curled up with a book, bumping up against each other, every bubble as worthy as any other.

And so it seems it has been a good Saturday, playing in the kitchen, taking a nap, reading the score and libretto to the fabulous opera performance I attended Thursday night, the US premier of City of Ashes by Evan Fein, with libretto by Knoxvillian Emily Anderson. In fact, I had read the libretto several times before attending the opera, and I wish I had had access to the score before the performance as well. But perhaps then, I would have known too much. Sometimes it is enough to be surprised by something new, to be carried away in the moment.

In fact, although I might have wished I could see the opera again the second night, I would have missed that 13th birthday for anything. I would not have missed wandering through the farmer's market. I would not miss curling up on the sofa with a book or a score or some knitting. I recognize that all of this is part of the process of settling back into my life, a small life really, a life shaped by my birth and race and education and fortunes in the world, but my life still.

September 14, 2019
Inside, Outside, InsideOut

Sunset at the Knoxville Museum of Art, the evening light reflecting on Richard Jolley's Cycle of Life. I was at the museum for a fund-raising event and the way the light reflected on the glass, particularly the light passing through the two pieces of the final stage, Contemplation, really stuck in my head that particular evening, seeming to draw attention to both inner and outer light, the balance, or lack of it that illuminates our humanity, needing both the interior and the exterior stimuli to feed our creativity and wholeness of self. As I enjoyed the evening, caught up in that externally extroverted sense of social hubbub, I was reminded of this inner light, and the way it sustains us, sometimes glowing from within, other times hidden.

The social season has begun again and the next two weeks will be filled with music and art, some literature, another play, as well as social interaction. I am reminded of how the external or the social also feeds our creativity, or at least, my own creativity — reminded that as much as I need the interior, and feel stressed and drawn when time for necessary quiet is not available, the same can be said for the social aspect of life as well. I need both for balance, and wonder if perhaps the summer was, in itself, perhaps a bit too isolating, a bit too deeply mired in the internal slough of excess introspection.

Or perhaps this is simply the story I tell myself. It increasingly seems to me that as much as well need our stories, both personal and cultural, in order to find our own place in the world, those same stories also have a tendency to mask truth, which always requires communication and a meeting of perspectives. As soon as one claims some hold on truth, "my truth", one is already on a slippery slope.

And yet I continue to feel unsettled, both exuberant, this sense of buzz and excitement fed by the social milieu, while simultaneously feeling overwhelmed. Like Tikka when she wanders around in circles, pawing at the carpet or a chair cushion trying to make just the right spot to settle in comfortably, I feel like I've not yet found that comfortable place where the inner and he outer can meet.

Look at this photo above, of a painting by Karla Wozniak called Synchronous Fireflies in the Knoxville Museum. I was at the museum again yesterday for another event, and I took this photo with an entirely different narrative in mind from the one in which I find myself this morning. I love the exuberance of the painting, the sense of light, of motion and also lushness. It. reminds me of the giddy interaction of social setting, of surprise connections, of this dance of interconnectedness. And yet the lushness, and perhaps this is just the way I am looking at this painting this morning, also holds a hint of danger. It reminds me of how light and perception can change, and the way something that can seem lush, rich, and exuberant in one moment can be transformed in an instant, suddenly becoming dark, dangerous, and overwhelming.

I am reminded of when I first moved to New York state from Texas, of the way I was enamored of the tall trees and the lush sense of greenness, but how at certain times in my yard, in the flush of rain and humidity and summer heat, I would dream that I was being devoured by that very excessive growth. I still feel that way sometimes in Tennessee, although not particularly this summer with my flat brown yard, which bare as it is, also holds a comforting sense of promise. And yet there is still that sense of celebration combined with the fear, (is it fear?) of being overwhelmed, of going too far in one direction or the other. And I wonder if this very feeling is something shared by others, or if I am just being presumptuous, attempting to project my own mistruth onto the world. I wonder if I am obsessing over "my story" or if there is some connection there to something more human and universal.

The flash of the fireflies, the light of the painting reminds me of how social interaction sparks creativity and pulls me out of the overgrowth, the strangling vines and deep much of self-indulgent introspection.

Two other pictures, also viewed yesterday, reminded me of the opposite extreme, at least for me. The photo above if of a print made from the cancelled plate of an engraving by Lester George Hornby called London Bridge. The crosshatched marks are added to the plate to prevent further prints from being made and passed off as originals. But I also find it interesting in and of itself. The pattern of the crosshatching seems to me to add a sense of distance, and even disengagement from the view seen in the print, as if one is standing behind a window with heavy leaded panes looking at the world. For me, this is the danger of too much extroversion, too much social engagement without the requisite private interior time. I feel like a fly trapped in some sticky surface atop the glass, unable to fully become a part of the scene, present but disengaged.

Here is the official print. Notice how we are much more deeply drawn in here, much more a part of the scene. I look at this print and feel palpably drawn into this world, into the detail. This print engenders a sense of connection, as opposed to the sense of separation in the previous print. Perhaps this is what I am trying to articulate, the struggle to find the balance that is needed in order to live in this world, to function on a daily basis in a world that is basically imposed upon me both externally and by my own psyche, and the ability to look beyond that, to be neither mired in the mud or trapped on the surface, to create the life I want, a life that in the end requires that I look beyond myself and into the whole of the community, a communion, in a sense, with the world.

September 11, 2019