Somehow December got away from me. No, this entire autumn got away from me, and although it is not the goal of this blog to vent and moan and carry on about the unfairness of life, it is also not my intention to pretend like everything is always hunky dory.
Of course, Thanksgiving was late this year, and although Advent is always the same number of days, the holiday season itself seemed compressed. Maybe that was just because I was still recovering from my fall in October, and various residual back and leg issues. The simple truth is I never fully recovered from the stress of trying to save this blog when typepad ceased hosting, and as you can tell, I never finished setting up this blog. I just hopped along from one mini-crisis to the next — stress, injury, a mid-December trip to Texas — all contributed to an Advent that felt not so much eagerly anticipatory but rather anxious and overwhelming. I used to avoid going to Texas in December, something I now see as wise.
And then there was Christmas itself, which brought a reversal of my mood. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, joy sparkled in the air, sparkled in my heart even though I was still a little too tired to let that joy trickle all the way down to my toes. Christmas always does this to me, even a tired and overwhelmed me, the symbolism of hope made real in the world around me. The world itself may not change but my perception of the world changes, always and consistently, year after year. And of course that is what the “spirit of Christmas” is all about whether you are religious or not, Christian or not. There is a reason that ritual surrounds the winter solstice; a reason we need a turning from darkness to light, the bright star of hope.
I rediscovered some misplaced aspect of myself this fall, although the process of digging through the rubble was indeed tedious. I missed my normal springtime bout of inner angst and growth, often correlating with lent and Easter, and got served a double dose for Advent. Although I can honestly call it an act of preparation, not an act of penance.
I am still behind on everything. Four months circling the slough will do that to a person. But it is not so much a burden at the moment as an organizational project. I always have loved me a good project.
I’m not going to make resolutions. I probably won’t even do a year in review post, although I may go back and catch up on some reading or cooking. What I do know is that whatever comes next cannot be worse than what came before, if only because I am no longer willing to allow despair to shape the terms of engagement. Yes things go wrong. No one was ever promised ease, or comfort, or safety. Accepting that truth slams the door on denial and opens the door to joy.
This is my week for sleep and rest, not just sleep as recovery, but sleep as healing, as strengthening. I choose to live with joy and I am stronger than I would have said I was a few short months ago. I choose forward motion. But in the meantime I am ready for another nap.
I’ve been skirting the edges of the slough of despond, dirtying the. tips of my shoes, but not quite falling in. I felt like my body had risen up against me again, and had become a battlefield of opposing wills. Things are getting better, but some days progress does not seem fast enough.
Sometimes however just getting out and doing something is a step in the right direction. The December concert for the Knoxville Symphony’s Q Series features the brass quintet. There is nothing like a little brass to brighten the holidays and chase away the blues.
The first half of the concert featured standards of the brass repertoire and the premier of a new work by Kevin Day, “Sing to the Moon”. This work was softer, and far more contemplative than I expected. It was both questioning, almost melancholic in places, and yet also uplifting. Perhaps just what I needed to listen to on that particular day.
In the introduction to the piece we were told that Kevin Day would have an opera premiering at the Cincinnati Opera next year. I liked this piece so much that I looked it up. The Opera, Lalovavi, will be performed next summer. The music is by Kevin Day and the Libretto by Tifara Brown, a poet whose work I also admire. I am seriously considering going. The picture above is from the CIncinatti Opera website and the link to the opera is here. I can hear the classic repertoire anytime, but opportunities to hear and see something new are special and I am intrigued to venture off into the unknown.
After the break the musicians returned in their Christmas Sweaters and the holiday music began. My spirits lifted higher and higher. I will admit however that I wanted to merengue around the room to Feliz Navidad.
Rather than dancing, I started writing Christmas cards, a kind of dance with words I suppose. I hadn’t written holiday cards, or letters in a decade or so. I lost the will after George died, and yet this year that spark was kindled.
I also laid out an embroidery project. I spent a good bit of time on Thursday working on that, and will work on it again today. I can’t show you newer pictures though.
And, in case all I really needed was to make some forward progress on one front or another, I finally got past the point in my mohair sweater where I had ripped back all the yarn. I have about two more inches on the body to knit. I am not sure I will have enough of the solid color yarn to knit the sleeves, but I will finish the body first, weigh the remaining yarn and then figure out my options.
But once again I am determined, and the slough is behind me now, fading into the distance.
I love the way the rosy tones of sunrise glisten off the fallen leaves, shades of orange and gold, colors that remind me of toast wrapped in a thin glaze of jam. Contrasted of course with the thin frost on the lambs ears and grass. It is all so delightful. Almost like a promise of Christmas glitter and bonbons to come.
I’ve been waiting for the cool weather to arrive. Temperatures in the 70s just don’t feel like autumn to me. Of course I know it is all relative, and each place has its own season, but this extended Indian Summer has been one of the hardest thing to adapt to since moving south, still a struggle after more than a decade.
I always want to cry out the we need repose. We need the dying of the light, the browning of the leaves, the starkness of winter. It is darkness, sleep, and rest that feeds all life, that gives us the strength to burst forth anew again and again.
It is the morning after Thanksgiving. I am having a doppio and a slice of pumpkin pie as I gaze out at the rising sun. I am wrapped in my heavy fleece robe because I forgot to turn on the heat last night and the house was a chilly 58 degrees when I awoke. I like a cool house, but that is a little chill, even for me.
I like cold weather. I do not like being cold. But I like being hot even less. I like a cool house because I like knitting and wearing sweaters. I love being cozily wrapped up as I absorb the stark grays and browns around me. But I do not want to be so chill that I need gloves while typing on my laptop.
Not that I am complaining, because I am not. I am rejoicing. And, with apologies to Ezra Pound, I think it is a good thing. I am almost as excited as if the spring flowers were beginning to burst forth. But then, without this quiet period, there would be no glorious spring to come.
I do hope all of you who are celebrating the American Thanksgiving holiday are all having a wonderful day, whether relatively quiet or filled with raucous crowds and/or wild and rambunctious children.
I am not hosting, and only doing minor cooking: a side, a pie (the expected things) and some rolls, which I am making because I am thrilled to be exploring bread-baking again.
Otherwise, despite the fact that I grumble about the annoying stumbling blocks life keeps throwing in my plans, I have much to be thankful for:
Friends
A roof over my head, granted a very special one. My home provides a sanctuary from the world. But so should every home. I could wish that everyone has a place that they call home, and that their home can also be their sanctuary. These itself is a luxury beyond anything I can imagine.
Garbo
Food security
Relative health.
A morning walk in the cool brisk air, kicking the fallen leaves.
So many bright and happy things. The simple truth is that I am surrounded by beauty, grace, and joy. Always have been, and always will be, even as the world might possibly fall apart around me. Because these things — beauty, grace, joy — have nothing to do with life on this earth as it occurs around me, but exist as much as I am willing to see them and embrace them.
We in the United States have been fortunate enough to believe we have built a protective fortress that grants us immunity to the ills of the world, and it is shocking to learn that we were wrong. Suffering is constant. Pain exists and we are not immune. Anything we see or read could indeed be us. That sounds like a strange statement about thanks.
But those things only defeat human kindness, grace, and beauty if we allow them to steal our worth and our joy from us. Every life is an intense joy that should be treasured, and for this we should give thanks. I should give thanks.
I cannot change the universe or the world. I cannot defeat evil alone. I cannot make any universe, even the tiny one surrounding me, bow to my will and desires. But I can embrace life, treasure life, give thanks for life. I hope I can be kind.
I hope everyone, everywhere, finds some joy today.
It has been a while since I updated you concerning my adventures with yarn and knitting. I have a project, but my progress at the moment is mostly in the negative direction.
I am knitting a V-neck mohair pullover, from the pattern “Cumulus Blouse” by PetitKnits. I am using two lace-weight mohairs held together — Mod Yarns Loopy de Loop and ArtYarns Silk Mohair. I’ve dubbed the project “Lavender Clouds” on my Ravelry Page.
It is a rather fun and simple knit. I didn’t have any trouble with the directions, or at least I didn’t believe I did when I started. I had, in fact, made a critical error which, which I compounded later due to simple lack of attention on my part. I might claim extenuating circumstances as it has not been the easiest of autumns, but that is just a copout.
Anyway, I struggled at the beginning of the sweater, not because the instructions were difficult but because I didn’t like making the increases using these two fine yarns with my relatively blunt KnitPro needles. I have Signature needles, which have pretty sharp tips, but couldn’t find the right size in my needle storage case, which means they are probably tied up in another project. (or at least I hope that is the case). So I soldiered on, but I really hated making the increases, enough so that I apparently skipped quite a few.
I did order some Hiya Hiya needles in the appropriate size, but by the time they arrived I was pretty much done with the increases. or so I thought. Did I try on the sweater to check? No.
Foolishly, I did not try on the sweater until I was fairly well along in the body length, and I was checking to see how much further I should have knit. As you can see, I have an asymmetrical v-neck, and a funny bulge over the right breast where the shoulder-shaping is badly misplaced. I like the idea of an asymmetrical neckline, but I don’t need room for a third breast.
I did finally admit to myself that I had known the sweater was wrong all along, but I was just pretending not to know, because I wanted to knit and not think. Always dangerous territory that. You would think I would know better by now, but the human capacity for self deception seems to be quite high. Or at least my capacity for such is pretty high if it means continuing along with something I enjoy as opposed to facing something I’d rather avoid.
I took the project with me to Chicago, where I ripped it all out and started over.
Luckily I started with sharp-tipped knitting needles on the second go-round, and therefore I have not struggled with the increases. I am also paying more attention. I have no excuse for that, am merely happy that my brain has returned to the fold after its brief wander.
This time around the sweater is progressing exactly as it should, and I am trying it on as I go. I have one more round of increases before I join the yoke and begin working in the round. I could stop here, but after fiddling with the sweater on my shoulders a bit, I do think I want just that little bit of extra depth at the v-neckline..
Anyway, I am really enjoying knitting this. It could have been done by now if I didn’t mess up. But I’d much rather rip and reknit than waste my time on something doomed to be a failure. The ArtYarns mohair is really nice; the quality of the Loopy de loop not nearly as fine, but I do love the fabric that the two yarns are making.
I feel like feel like I am making faster progress; perhaps I am just making happier progress. I am not knitting much, so I am not whipping this out. There are too many other distractions. It will be done in plenty of time to wear it this winter, especially given that winter really hasn’t even settled in yet. It has never been about speed for me anyway. Eventually I will have the sweater I want, and I will have enjoyed the process of creating it.
Last week I was in Chicago. This week? Well who knows what has happened to this week; it has been busy enough although I’m not sure I could actually tell you why. Not that the why is ever really important. Time flies. Life Happens.
My trip was not as ambitious as I might have preferred, but I was happy to be able to go at all. That first day, what with airports and travel and getting settled in the hotel, I overdid it a bit and my right ankle was swollen. Ice and elevation was my plan of action for Thursday morning.
Still, the first day was low-key but fun. Liana and I found a new to us restaurant near our hotel, The Gage, where we had a lovely midday-cocktail and lunch.
I had a sensational cauliflower cream soup made with coconut milk. The coconut flavor was not very prevalent, but the soup itself was subtly complex and satisfying, lovey intense and rich with the essence of cauliflower . I followed that with a salad of some sort, I recall it included sliced steak, but I took no further photographic evidence. Afterward, we took a meandering walk back to our hotel and I followed up with a mid-afternoon nap. We had both been on early morning flights, so I felt it was well deserved.
I was not ambitious that evening, so we had cocktails and shrimp in the hotel bar and called it a day. I had a simple Amaro spritz; the lovely pink cocktail was Liana’s.
We went our separate ways Thursday morning and met at Eataly for lunch. As mentioned previously, I had a hot date with a bag of ice.
I had a simple plate of carbonara on gluten-free pasta and a glass of Nebbiolo. I had arrived a little ahead of Liana, and had a lovely time wandering around the store perusing charcuterie and cheeses and foods I cannot get easily in Knoxville. I also sat and had an espresso and a piece of chocolate while I waited. I cannot think of a much happier way to while away a leisurely morning.
Suitably fortified for the rigors of shopping, we headed out to Salma’s fabrics, a place that was new to both of us. There was a wonderful collection of silks and cottons and trims.
We each purchased a couple of pieces and will happily return. I’m already thinking about my next trip to Salma’s. The initial visit was a little overwhelming and I had not known quite what to expect. I am very happy I went. Now I think there were things that deserved a more detailed perusal.
We ended the day with a burger. The burger looked and tasted delicious. Unfortunately we were both up in the middle of the night with a bit of food poisoning. It must have been the burger, because that was the only thing we both ate. Well, we both had an Amaro Spritz as well, but that seems an unlikely source of our distress, unless there was problem with the ice.
The burger was lovely, and deceptively delicious. When I saved this photo the next morning, I named it “death trap”. Perhaps a little extreme. Our third day in Chicago was perhaps a little more low key than it might have been.
We had made lunch reservations at Le Colonial (photo from Le Colonial’s website) so we gamely kept our reservation. We had a fabulous lunch, and I was thrilled to notice that Nicole Routhier created the menus and is the food coordinator for the restaurants. Nicole Routhier wrote the first Vietnamese cookbook I ever purchased; it still resides on my shelves and I was fondly thinking of my introduction to, and history of, eating Vietnamese food, as we enjoyed our time there,
We both had the green cocktail, which I had also enjoyed the last time I visited Chicago and dined and Le Colonial. Then we spent the afternoon wandering through boutiques and snoop shopping.
The evening ended with a trip to the symphony, the original impetus for our trip. We heard Vivaldi’s Four Seasons led by the symphony’s concertmaster, Robert Chen (photo from the CSO website). The musicians played beautifully, with elegant harmony and a quality that was both musically entrancing and conversational. This was the best chamber orchestra performance I have heard in a long long time.
The Vivaldi was also refreshingly luminous. I tend to think I know The Four Seasons, and I do; it is almost ubiquitous, but this performance brought new light to the piece. From the brightly chirping notes of “Spring” through the languor of summer and Chen’s brilliant playing in “Winter”, this was a fabulous concert, not soon to be forgotten.
We also heard Mahler’s orchestration of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor, Op 95, “Serioso” which I thought was fabulous and enlightening in many ways. I don’t believe I’d ever heard this version of the quartet before and I found it fascinating, thrilling both my heart and my head. It struck me how timely this was as merely a few weeks previously I had heard another Beethoven quartet in Knoxville, the performance of which also had me thinking about chamber music with new understandings. Here, in Chicago, I was once again revising long held presumptions and biases, coming to new a new appreciation of both Beethoven and Mahler, and the way that not only I, but we, in this historical and cultural moment, listen to music.
All in all a fabulous evening, and a grand finale to a fabulous adventure.
Last week I had the privilege of attending a program on the history of the stained glass windows at First Presbyterian Church Knoxville. The window above was designed by Flora Macdonald.
I like stained glass, but I don’t often think about stained glass. I used to own a little stained glass panel made by an early boyfriend. Somehow I don’t have that anymore; I hadn’t thought about it in years. George designed a custom door for our house in Hyde Park and it included stained glass windows inspired in part by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, but the window design was all George. That door was beautiful, but it was in a previous house, in a previous life. I wonder who owns that house now, if that door is still there.
I tend to think stained glass windows and churches go together. Certainly there is a long, strong history of putting stained glass in churches. My own church has many stained glass windows although truthfully I don’t think about them much.
Because this isn’t my church, because I was attending a specific program, I actually looked at, and thought about, these windows. The windows span the church’s history, and there is a variety of styles, which I do find interesting because one of the subjects I constantly find fascinating is the subject about the ways humans interact and worship the divine. Churches often are, and this seems to apply to stained glass windows in particular, as much about ego and hubris as they are about faith and submission to God’s divine plan. This may not be the lesson the tour was intending to plant in my mind.
But what has remained with me is not so much the windows themselves, although they are beautiful, but the light. If I were just looking at the windows as art, I can admit to being drawn to the windows by MacDonald (top) and Tiffany (second photo) and not so much to the window above. But when I am thinking about light and how the light shapes the space, it is these windows, the ones like the third photo that really capture my attention because they allow light into the space and the light that enters harmonizes with the space nicely.
I like light in places of worship. Not necessarily glaring light, but light. Light that shifts and glows and reveals itself in ways that reminds me of the shifting ways that creation is revealed. Not all stained glass windows do that. I can’t really say much about these windows, as I saw them on one overcast day. Usually I have been in that church at nighttime, where the light through stained glass is irrelevant. I do know that the window that sparkled the most that day, the window filled a space with a welcoming glow, was in an alcove but not in the sanctuary itself. I did not take a picture, but I do not need a picture to remember how that light invited one to sit and tarry, to share a moment or a conversation.
I am quite happy I went on this tour. It was both special and mundane: windows in an ordinary church; windows filled with the history of that church, a very human history. I think the tour itself will stay in my mind for a while, as seem obvious since I am still thinking about these windows ten days later. I’m not thinking about the windows themselves although the windows are integral to the thoughts they engendered. I am thinking about light and darkness, appropriate now as we head into winter. I am thinking about faith, and pride, honor and doubt. I am thinking about hopes, dreams, ambitions and the consequences of every little ripple. I am thinking that as vast and important as all of the ideas seem to me in this moment, in this day, in this month, in this year even, they are all but a spec, a tiny mote, inconsequential in the universe itself.
These windows. This Universe. All contained. Simultaneously hidden and yet revealed in each and every moment.
I’m still kind of figuring myself out here, once again, and it is obvious that I could be putting some time into finishing this site. But obviously that is not a high priority.
In October I read only three books, and two of those were cookbooks. Of course a lot was going on in October: two trips, a fall resulting in a badly sprained ankle, a general falling behind and piling up of backlog. All in all, I still think it was a good month,
Cookbooks were the interesting thing this month so I wills start there, although I really didn’t do that much cooking for reasons stated above. But I read two cookbooks, and they were fascinating.
The Kitchen Arts and Letters cookbook club was focusing on bread baking in October and we were working through two texts, although members need only choose one. I opted for both.
Although I have always loved reading cookbooks, loved reading the recipes as much as cooking, it is only within the past year that I have somehow delved more deeply into cookbook reading. Alas that now means that I want a cookbook that I love reading as much as I love cooking from it.
Or perhaps I am also content with a cookbook that I love reading but will probably rarely, if ever, use directly to cook, or in this case, bake bread. The Bread Baker’s Apprentice is a great bread book. it is very detailed, very technical, and perhaps more serious than the casual bread baker would want. I loved reading it, loved Reinhart’s storytelling as well as all the technical expertise. I learned a lot about bread reading this book, and I was once pretty serious about baking bread.
Of course that was before I discovered I was celiac, and I am afraid I have not been particularly devoted to gluten-free bread baking. Still Reinhart’s information on technique is excellent and there is actually a lot of information here that I believe would be helpful in any bread baking journey. Most of the recipes and techniques however are not going to translate directly. I am fine with that. Reading this book I feel I have gained a better understanding of bread.
There is one recipe in the book however that was not typical of the rest of the book, the one recipe for cornbread. Cornbread is not a yeasted bread, which makes it an anomaly here. But I loved the way Reinhart wrote about cornbread; he made me think about my own love of cornbread. And although Reinhart states outright that he likes sweet cornbread, and I normally do not, I wanted to make his cornbread. He also used an interesting technique, one I had not used previously, and I thought this would be a useful experiment. If successful this technique could expand my cornbread horizons beyond the simple traditional cornbread I most often make.
The cornbread was a success. I loved it. It is sweet, and although I might like the bread itself to be slightly less sweet, I loved the complexity of the way the three varieties of sugar played together, as well as the way they made the corn kernels in the bread pop with a glisteningly sweet, tender, fruity, almost candy-like bite. I The combination of cornbread, sweet corn and salty bacon was an addictive bite. The cornbread keeps well, surprisingly well, and even more surprisingly, made excellent toast. In fact toasting brought a bit of caramelization to the sugars, which was even more enticing to me than the cornbread fresh out of hte oven. I would not be inclined to mess with the sugar in this recipe because it contributes to all of these qualities I find attractive; it is simply a sweetly savory cornbread.
I had been looking forward to Aran Goyoaga’s baking book since before it was released, and I was very happy when it was chosen as an alternate book for the cookbook club. It too is a great read, and I loved the amount of detail Aran gives about gluten-free baking, her own personal history, and the recipes themselves. The fact that she also discusses how to make the same gluten-free breads either dairy free or egg free when possible, is an added bonus.
Unfortunately, because my time at home in October was also primarily “rest and elevate” and non-weight-bearing time, I did not get a lot of baking done. That is not a probelm, it simply means my use of this book has gotten delayed.
My first attempt at a sourdough starter failed. This could be because I hadn’t yet turned on the heat and my kitchen was at a chilly 62 degrees. It is also possible that I, addled by pain and pain meds, skipped a feeding. I’m not going to worry about that; there will be a sourdough starter in my future.
Early this month however, I did make Goyoaga’s recipe for soft and fluffy potato rolls. These are the best gluten-free soft rolls I have ever made, and probably the best or very close to the best gluten-free soft rolls I have ever eaten. That is high praise, and they are not difficult.
They certainly have the best texture I have achieved in a gluten-free yeasted bread. With such a success on my first attempt, I am even more excited about moving forward with this book.
But on to other things. The third book I read in October was a collection of short stories, Likes, by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum . This is atypical for me because I am really not a reader of short stories. There are short story collections I love; for example I reread Jumpha Lahiri’s collection, The Interpreter of Maladies earlier this year, and perhaps enjoyed them even more than I had the first time around.
I did not think Likes measured up to my favorite collections of short-stories, but it was a good collection of mostly well crafted short stories, of varied technique. I liked the variation in technique, although it did make the book feel somewhat like an exploration of style in short story writing. I thought the standout was the first story, “The Erlking”. I thought this was fairly well crafted, and the author used mythology in an interesting way to explore the differences between the reasoning and wishes of a child as compared to her mother. She did not fall too deeply into mythological allegory. Bynum also managed the perspective of two entirely different voices beautifully. This was the story in which I got the fullest sense of the characters, mother and daughter, of emotional yearning on both sides. It was also perhaps the most difficult story, the one with the most ambiguity and least clear-cut answers, which to me were its strengths.
The other stories were good, well written, but nothing special. I felt most of them were rather trite and unsurprising, and there were with some issues with pacing and flow. I felt they were also light on character development. Still the book was charming and enjoyable. Perhaps I am too harsh a critic; these were stories of this particular cultural moment. I found no enlightenment in them, nothing that will stay with me over time.
It has been a great autumn for classical music in Knoxville. Following the fabulous opening performances of the Knoxville symphony in September, the October concert, featuring the Elgar Cello Concerto was stunning. And the Knoxville opera put on a fabulous performance of Bizet’s Carmen. I didn’t write about either of those performances, not because I didn’t love them, but because other things, mostly having to do with my battered right foot were competing for my attention.
Last week however I was feeling a little more up to snuff, and I was lucky enough to attend two fabulous concerts on the same day.
In the morning I was lucky enough to attend one of the symphony’s “Young People’s Concerts” which are sponsored by my friend Sheena McCall. In the Knoxville Civic Auditorium, surrounded by a few thousand elementary school children, we took a musical road trip around the United States. The program was well chosen, diverse, and fabulously performed. When we were in New Orleans, we all got to stand up and march together to “When the Saints Go Marching In”. I couldn’t help but dance a little while I marched.
I liked that the screen alternated between showing scenes of the areas we were visiting and close ups of the musicians playing. As we turned back east from the west coast, we all sang “This Land is Your Land” together. The children weren’t the only ones’ having a great time. The song reminded me of my own childhood, and of life with George, who was a Woody Guthrie fan. I almost cried from joy while we sang.
The concert ended with a return to Knoxville, with a fabulous performance of “Rocky Top” and the sound of thousands of children singing the words with glee as they bounced in their seats, screaming with delight. What could be happier?
After that concert we went off to hear a chamber concert by the Knoxville Symphony’s Principal Quartet,
where we heard a fabulous program of Schubert and Beethoven. Both. pieces were beautifully performed and I love the way this concert series feels so close and personal. I love Beethoven’s middle quartets, and this one in particular. Once again, I was trying not to dance in my seat, not because dancing to the music is bad, but because I didn’t want to distract those behind me.
I did not take a very good photograph of the musicians, although I really wanted to do better. Next time. Kathryn Gawne gave a wonderful talk about the Beethoven before the performance and her talk had me thinking about the music, and what I adore about chamber music and how big of a role Beethoven played in the development of a type of sound I now take for granted.
It was a truly enjoyable performance. I often feel like Beethoven is part of my DNA, I grew up listening to it, and I know a huge swath of Beethoven’s repertoire by heart. This can sometimes be a problem because like most people I have preferences and biases, but I truly loved this performance — it both aligned with my expectations and was at the same time enlightening, allowing me to hear the music differently and make new musical and mental connections. For me that is the sign of a fabulous concert, when the listener comes out seeing something about music and the world differently.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon humming and thinking about music.
Things happen. Often they are random and there is nothing we can do but roll with the punches.
Sometimes we do something stupid and we simply have to roll with the consequences of our inattention.
The latter applies here.
I went out in the dark with Garbo for an early morning piddle break. I did not take my flashlight and I rolled off a curb into a neighbor’s patch of ivy, seriously spraining my foot and ankle in the process.
Once I discovered that I could indeed stand up, could indeed bear weight, I drove to Texas. The wisdom of this decision is not up for debate. What is done is done. That was over two weeks ago. My foot is still colorful but I am very lucky that I really didn’t break anything major and have mostly soft tissue injuries.
I never thought socks with Birkenstocks would be my look. But I am going with whatever works. For a couple of weeks these were the only shoes I could get my foot into, and the only shoe I could walk in. Now I can manage increasing distances in other shoes, but I still come back to my faithful birkenstocks.
I’m not up to full normal activity yet, and I’m writing this in bed with my foot elevated, which doesn’t seem to be the best position for actually getting anything done. Still I catch up a little more each day. Today I may finally finish unpacking from my trip, a mere 10 days after my return. I’ll catch up with everything else in time. Stubborn I am. I also consider myself extremely lucky not to have broken anything more serious.
