The creation of a meal ...

Christmas dinners past and present - are usually the same.  A turkey with stuffing, potatoes and gravy, and cranberry sauce, and, for the rest, the family who is coming over brings the salads, other vegetable dishes, and dessert. Dessert is usually cookies: molasses, sugar, cream, jam-jams - to name the most popular.  I imagine making everyone wait for the feast, while all the food is arranged in a setting similar to the one above. 
Or perhaps, like this picture, a pose before anything is prepared,only all the ingredients selected, all food placed so as to be in the natural sunlight, focusing the viewer's thoughts on the  moments before the feast begins to be prepared.  A still-life portrait of all Christmas dinners to come, as well as the one to be prepared in the almost-present.  With our patriarch (for he is the one who currently prepares the main dinner now)  sitting in his chair, beside the carefully arranged food.
The light in this picture,  like that of  a Vermeer painting, illuminates the still-quiet scene, capturing the moment before action takes place. It reveals to us that this  moment in time, just now stopped for us to consider, is however, bound to be repeated,over and over, with variations. The creator is ready to begin.

My Lips Are Shy

That title actually sounds like it should be part of a poem, doesn't it?  Actually, "shy" here is the name of a shade of lipstick I own. It's not a nude shade, although it is a colour that enhances the natural shade of my lips.  Many people who know me would not call me shy, but I am introverted and reserved, and yes, I am often shy, although I have tricks to not let it show so very  much.

 (Not quite a wallflower, though!)


I have had a busy week, what with working two days (with a Christmas Carnival and concert), a quick trip out to Grande Prairie for some shopping and a late movie, and now, a day spent wrapping presents and tidying the house.  Tomorrow will go by quickly, I'm sure, as will the day after.  Then, perhaps, some slow time, for reflecting and writing.

These katie smail illustations are so very whimsical and perfectly match my mood today.

Merry Christmas to all!

Never regret anything...

Now, what do I want?  To want something so much, but what if it passes?  I am surprised at many of the choices I have made in my life, but I do know that I made them because they were what I wanted at the time.  So maybe it is pointless to regret any of those choices.
I guess the only thing is that when you are part of a family unit, you also have to consider the wants of all. I know I regret, in retrospect those things that may have had a negative impact on my family.  To my credit, I do think that I have chosen with consideration for others.  We simply cannot predict any negative results, especially when choosing with the best of intentions. And certainly we forgive others in our lives if they make choices that do hurt us.
I guess a person can remain frozen with indecision, stuck in place, because the alternatives seem so hard to visualize.  Or you are waiting, waiting, waiting  ... for?

 

How often have I been across this bridge?  A few times as an adolescent, shopping trips as a young mother, as a mature student attending college and actually living on the other side, visiting sister and family later on, a nerve-wracking trip when spouse was in the hospital, visiting daughter when she was at college, more shopping and visiting trips with stops at the gardens down by the river.  

Perhaps it's that feeling of time finally beginning to flow by faster.  I thought it might be possible to choose a home, with a garden and settle there for good.  But now I'm not so sure of that anymore. However, it also doesn't feel like there are so many options out there as there were before, it's not possible for me to imagine just growing old in one place anymore. 

Are regrets really beginning to take the place of dreams, as someone has said?  

 

"Regrets"

I think we like to think that life can be safe, secure, and serene.  But life also encompasses dark times, uncertain times, sometimes despairing times.  What one needs to know is that the pendulum swings both ways, and to accept that. 

Much of what I most enjoy reading is the writing that delves into those darker feelings, that illuminates the courage that many of us must find to move forward back into the light. 

'What the Living Do" ...

                    

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been plugged for days, some

    utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the

    crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the

     everyday we spoke of.

 It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the

      sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high

     in here, and I can’t turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the

     street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.  And yesterday,

     hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee

     down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:

     This is it.

Parking.  Slamming the door shut in the cold.  What you

     called that yearning.

What you finally gave up.  We want the spring to come and

     winter to pass.   We want

someone to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -  we want more and

     more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of

     myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by

       a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat

     that I am speechless:

I am living.  I remember you.

Poem By Marie Howe

By Tom Keough

Silver bells....

These would be the two best words to describe the spirit meant to represent the Christmas season. Silver for tinsel, bells for music.  Silvery sounding chimes, bells ringing out.  But who hears bells anymore though? Do churches even have bells in their steeples anymore?  There are still Christmas carollers, and there are jingle bells, but what about the wonderful sound of the larger bells?

 Probably most of us sang this song at a Christmas concert during our school years.  Maybe you even got a little set of bells to jingle.
This year I am not going shopping in the city, so no crazy crowded malls for me.  Some of my shopping is happening online, and some at local stores.  I don't mind, as I have gotten tired of the crowds, and the impulse shopping. I dislike Boxing Day too.
So I guess it comes back to really beginning to think about what does make the holidays special. I am looking for simpler rituals.  There is too much hype leading up to the big day, and then it seems like such a letdown afterward.  It's time to focus on more meaningful experiences - not  office parties, overly expensive presents, and too much rich food.  So what can replace this?

 

Perhaps a quiet morning spent writing, a carefully prepared healthier meal without excess, and some other quiet activities, including a good movie?  Or save the movie for a late night event, and have a family game after supper.  Christmas should be a time of serenity.  Now if I could find a way to have silver bells ringing outside!

Christmas Fancies by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
And etched on vacant places,
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know –
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

 The magic of Christmas is what I think I am not able to find much anymore.  As a child it was so easy to enter into the wonder of the holiday season, but now that I'm older, it's much more difficult.  Sometimes you might think it not worth the effort to seek it out, but fortunately, that magic still does manage to sparkle, even if it's just for a few moments here and there. 

Sweetness

Isn't that an interesting word - sweetness.  Old-fashioned. I'm surprised it's still around, sounding so sentimental and all.

I want sweetness. I crave it.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight. 

You see it sounds quite wonderful in this quote from Shakespeare,
and also in this one by Browning:

How sad, and bad, and mad it was,
But then, how it was sweet.

But now I think we associate the word sweet with babies, and food, or we change it, bored with it, to slang.

I have had to go from sugar-sweet to honey-sweet.  It's a major change, and it's definitely hard to adjust. There is a fairy-tale I vaguely remember, where there are three princesses, one with sugar-sweet, one with syrup-sweet, and one with honey-sweet lips.  Guess which one the prince chose to marry.

                                Sweet idleness


My favourite word would be "bittersweet".

BRINGING THE GARDEN INSIDE . for now...

I have a fondness for yellow roses.   All roses, but especially yellow roses.  So if I am lucky enough to find them, I will buy them – to feed the soul, as they say.   I am also a lover of glassware, especially if it is pressed glass.  I usually can only afford the recently made glass , but much of that is actually  quite nice.  I love my spooner, which has a nice woodsy pattern on it, acorns and oak leaves, I believe.

In the picture below is my pitcher and tumbler set, which is made by Fenton or Mosser,  the color bing iridescent black amethyst, in the Dahlia pattern.  There are also two china vases by Franz, with purple dragonflies.  They all remind me of a garden  in full bloom, and also the gentle beauty of a garden meadow.

I like to put together these little vignettes? or still lifes? throughout my home, to remind me always of the summer season, even though the snow is falling gently outside.  I have no white rooms in my home, because it just seems much too sterile and harsh.  And there are no pictures depicting winter either.  However, I am not a traveller to warmer climates in the winter -  I am like Mole, enjoying the cosiness of my home, dreaming, until spring comes round again.

What does it take to become undone?

Remember that song, “She’s Come Undone”, by the Guess Who?  Really, who uses that word anymore? The only other instance of hearing this word is when actor Johnny Depp uses it in the movie “Chocolate”:  “I am undone.”  He makes it sound like a wonderful thing.   “Undone”.  I like it.

 The reason I am thinking about the word, and its meaning is because I have recently finished reading Helen Humphrey’s The Reinvention of Love.   

                Who we are is not just determined not just by the choices we make , by how we sew events together into

narrative.  What gives us the true measure of ourselves is how undone we can become by a single moment.

This is the reflection of Charles Saint-Beuve, who was Adele Hugo’s lover for a brief moment of time.  It is that moment which defines his life – but this is hidden from the world, not visible to observers of his exterior life.  It is an interior event which transcends linear time. He falls in love with Adele when her hair falls down out of her combs.

                All I know is that I could not roll my feelings back up, twist them into position and secure them into a

                place of propriety.  I was undone.   Nothing would ever be the same.

Adele’s daughter is not just undone; she is unraveled. Unrequited love.  But it determines what her life becomes.  Victor has her committed.

Romantic love.  The reinvention of love?  It was the time of the romantics. I wonder what our time says about love.  How do we define love now?  Do we still become undone? 

Humphreys gives us a fictional biography that shows us a man's richly detailed personal thoughts and feelings, more about his inner life than his accomplishments. Real-life biographies never seem capable of this, which is why I am usually dissatisfied with them. I will keep this book in my library. 

 
Undone 

 

Blackbird House

Wild sweet peas are mentioned often in this "novel" by Alice Hoffman.  I know it's called a novel, but to me it's a series of short stories, which I love reading anyway.  I read the novel in one day, following the connected stories right to the conclusion.  Lost children, white blackbirds, witches - these stories read like fairy tales.  Each interconnected story mentions sweet peas at least once.
This brought to mind memories of my mother, who faithfully grew her annual sweet peas every year.  The current garden I have allows only for shade plants, but this book brought back the strong scent of a bouquet of sweet peas picked from her garden.  There is no other scent like it - the smell of a gentle summer wind, I think. I loved to have a vase full of the white blooms, (wrapped in wet paper towels, and taken home to set beside my bed), filling me with a calmness and serenity that I often  haven't had enough of in my daily life. I must remember to plant some this coming spring at the other house. No, not just some - many, in every colour.


I love this book cover, (Amazon.com)  which is the one that I have.  Red shoes - just the perfect pair for a witch, or other ethereal being, don't you think? I would love to own a pair of old-fashioned red shoes like these.  A field of wild sweet peas would have done just as well, I think, for the cover, but I do covet that pair of shoes.



The wild sweet peas seem to be magenta in colour.



Here are the white sweet peas I remember.  Sweet peas are April's flower, and my birthday is in September, which is the month of the aster.




Asters are beautiful, and they are a shade of my favourite colour, but their scent cannot compare to that of the sweet pea.


I found this clip art, and I think it rather captures the melancholy mood meant to be evoked by the novel.  Apparently there is a children's story called "The White Blackbird". I will have to find it and read it.

Blackbird House was a good book, although the stories did start to run together.  . The mood of melancholy became almost too much when the stories were read all together at once; rather like having not just one, but hundreds of vases of sweet peas in one room.  Maybe I will reread this book again with that goal in mind.  I will read each one separately and reflect on each, so as to make a good thing last longer.

Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, by Stephen King

I found this photo on another blog, while trying to find the title of this short story, written by Stephen King.  I love short stories, and to me,  one of the ways to tell if a short story is a good one is how well and how long you remember it.  I remember this one in the summer, especially when driving down quiet country roads, although I had forgotten the title.  I think the character and the setting stand out particularly in this story.  I never really found it too frightening, more magical than anything else.  I myself don't take roads to create shortcuts, but to see where they do go. Maybe I could find myself in much more danger than Mrs. Todd.  Hmmm.

 I also like going for walks at twilight. The road in this picture is very inviting. The atmosphere evoked by this photograph really is perfect for the story, don't you think?
Stephen King's characters are so very real.  I think he has created some of the best out there.  Mrs. Todd is a mystery however.  I don't know if I could be brave enough to travel with her.  
Out where I live, there are many, many rough roads, created for the pipelines.  I am pretty sure I would end up completely lost, should I attempt to find a short cut from one home to the other.  Still, on a beautiful summer afternoon, it tempts me sometimes.  So far, I resist.  I tell myself all that I would find would be the pipelines and their monitoring systems, or hunters looking for moose.  The old spirits no longer wander. Or  do they?

"The real things in life are not houses, bank accounts, prizes, or promotions..."

..."love it is which wins the day.On this burning road, fenced with barbed wire to keep the goats from straying, I find for a minute what I came here for, which is a sure sign that I will lose it again instantly.  I felt whole. "

from lighthousekeeping, by Jeanette Winterson

In the novel by Winterson, the narrator steals a parrot because it speaks her name.  It says her name and she must own the parrot and listen to it say her name.  Eventually she is found out, and is sent to a psychologist.  As she explains to him, she was not talking to the bird - the bird was talking to her.  The bird reminded her who she was.  Which doesn't help him understand.  He asks her if she feels she has more than one life, to which she replies in the affirmative.  Robert Louis Stevenson, who figures as a character in this book, is who she looks to to help her explain:
"Do you know the story of Jekyll and Hyde?"
"Of course."
"Well then - to avoid either extreme it is necessary to find all the lives in between." 

A trio of bird cages ...

This photo, which I took this summer is currently one of my favourites.  They look so much better empty.
If one were to own a cage, maybe one would feel obligated to keep a bird in it? I think I would only want an enchanted nightingale. Or one that knew my name?
How many cages do we ourselves live in, unaware that we are inside?  What are those real things in life?

Winterson's character, Silver, says it is love.  "I think of love as a force of nature  - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving."
However, "my little orbit circles love. I daren't get any closer. I am not a mystic seeking  final communion.  I don't go out without SPF 15.  I protect myself."
The real thing is love.  But love does not equate only with happiness.  It has value, "the highest value", but it is not the "answer or solution".  It simply is.  Meaning is found through searching, through wonder, and if one is lucky, it can be found through love (love defined as communion and not just with people), which will make us whole.

"This intimate gift of silence which we know" ...

Bascove's Paris

I do not care to talk to you although
Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies,
And all my being's silent harmonies
Wake trembling into music. When you go
It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow
Had severed all the strings with savage ease.
No, do not talk; but let us rather seize
This intimate gift of silence which we know.
Others may guess your thoughts from what you say,
As storms are guessed from clouds where darkness broods.
To me the very essence of the day
Reveals its inner purpose and its moods;
As poplars feel the rain and then straightway
Reverse their leaves and shimmer through the woods. 

"Dreams"  by AMY LOWELL

 

 

Places ...Buildings at the U of A,

 

Quite a while ago now, when I was getting my first degree, I liked to walk through the buildings on campus, especially the ones where I had no reason to be, like the Business? building, or rather the huge corrider connecting the Tory and the Business building.  One of my favourite places was the Chemistry building, despite the chemical smells, which actually became familiar after a while. I can still smell this place.  There was a place to eat, a little lower down, outside, if you wanted a little privacy.  And I loved the old Physics wing, with its alternating little study rooms and small lecture rooms. I wish I had had a chance to take pictures of it, as well as what I called the hidden pool, which was situated in a little corner outside this area. Some places can remain fixed in your mind the way they were, despite the changes.  I also remember the old student cafeteria area in the student union building, before the renovations.  I guess I should go back and see what else has changed.

Now, here is a place where I spent a lot of time. I wonder if it still has the flags hanging from the ceiling inside. I remember sitting in a class once, and the prof was lecturing, and stopped, and said, "It's snowing!" in mid-lecture.  So we all turned and looked, and sure enough, there was the first snow of the season.  I remember that, but I don't remember what the lecture was about, although I do know that when we turned back around, the prof, I think, had been watching us.  Funny, the things that remain in our heads.  I was glad we had that room, with a window for a wall, where we could have the light stream in from the outside, rather than a bleak room down in the basement of the Tory building.

"Swan Lake"

Fall afternoons, so short and haunting. A serene sight this past weekend...trumpeter swans enjoying a leisurely outing.

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

 W.B.Yeats

Listening to Billy Collins' poem "Forgetfulness"

Teaching - doesn't that take place in the classroom, with the students?

Sometimes...actually a lot of the time it is not easy to be a teacher.  If what we did in the classroom was our only responsibility, how good life would be.  But now more and more time is taken up with additional tasks.  Too much paperwork and not enough student interaction time.  September, my favourite month of the year, usually passes by in a blur, a flurry of activity.  We race ahead, trying to get somewhere, but often I feel like Alice Through the Looking Glass, running but getting nowhere, while expending all of my energy.

September flies by...

It is the autumn, in which a new year should be said to start. Summer is over now, the fall equinox was yesterday.  It is the time when I always think of making major changes, and of new things I want to try.  Spring brings thoughts of new ideas for the garden, and summer of holiday getaways from the real world.  But autumn is the time to truly broaden one's horizons in a life-changing way, or at least to start planning.
It's probably best to not make a very sudden decision. I think of the Water Rat, from The Wind in the Willows, and his strong urge to leave everything familiar, and to sail away for new lands and adventures.  In the end, he stays where he has always been.  But where could the wind have taken him, I wonder?


There is nothing like a fall day, for feeling uplifted and alive.

When gas was cheap ....

While in Calgary, I went for a walk in time in this very cool car museum! (As you may recall, I have been thinking about what it would have been like to do a road trip back in the 50's, or 40's, or 30's.)

 

I think to myself, wouldn't it be great to pull up to pumps like these! I wonder, how much for a fill-up back then?

I just think that it might be a little easier to have to pay the price of today's fill-up if we could still be gassing up from these bright, shiny pumps. These were the days where there were gas station attendants. No self-serve.

I also would have liked the drive-in movie theatres.  A  big old car, a pair of loudspeakers, and the privacy of one's vehicle. Out, but in.  Very nice!  Someone should set up a giant theme park, where you could have all of these experiences: a road trip, gas-up service, a motel with outside pool, and a drive-in movie, all with a 50's theme.  Guess this is as close to the real thing as I'm ever going to get!

The Dorothy Harvie Garden at the Calgary Zoo

 Planning a new garden is so much work.  Where to start? Well, I look back to the trip to the Calgary Zoo, with its beautiful garden. lSo, once you are wandering through the gardens, it may become difficult to remember what your favourite colour even is!   I know I love purple, but strolling through the gardens, I change my mind with each flower bed I see. 

Gorgeous red poppies. A world of red is easily contemplated.  Red is so vibrant and alive.

What about pastels?  Yellows and pinks create a  very cheerful setting.

Blue, blue, blue - this is a cold colour?  It certainly livens up this bed!

Red again. Red is beginning to seem like a wonderful choice.

Golden flowers for a golden afternoon.

And blue again, glowing in the sunlight.

Finally, a magnificent purple.  Now what could this be? It's truly marvelous.

Silver foliage adds a magical touch.

Competing with the sun to epitomize the colour yellow.  Oh, ligularia!

 

 

 Too many choices! I don't know if I can do a monochromatic garden!

Coral - a colour not so often seen, but well worth considering!