Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

Get Out Your Super-Spy Gear: the Future is Inscrutable Yet Inviting

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graphite drawingWhen my sisters and I were kids, the Cold War was still chilling the spines of two cranky paranoid continents to pretty much the polar-offset temperature of today’s heated heights regarding relations between, say, anywhere in the middle east and the US. So we regularly crouched under our little school desks in Cold War air-raid drill positions that would’ve made us a whole new and much more crouch-y Herculaneum if Da Bomb had ever actually been dropped on our noggins. The fact that my early heartthrob Morgan M [name redacted to protect his dignity, if any] had vomited all over our shared desk when the Hong Kong flu swept through our school might’ve made my particular spot-de-crouch that much more stalactite-covered and sculptural, had I dared to look upward, but really, there was no greater sense of danger in those classrooms than the one that some teacher might decide my huddling wasn’t taken seriously enough, so crouch I did.

I also, along with my sisters, considered playing cowboys-and-Indians pretty generally passe, so 1950s, don’t you know, and eschewed that popular pastime for the much better use of our coolness in playing Secret Agents. That we never actually spied on anything more exotic than our own basement Rec Room or went on any mission more hair-raising than to demand a pitcher of green Kool-Aid from Mom to take out to the backyard where we would guzzle it until we were bursting and then run around in sugar-high mania having our Spy-vs-Spy battles (only slightly less ludicrous than those in Mad Magazine) was irrelevant; being Secret Agents was cool, was jazzy, was scintillating and ever so grown up. Naturally, we didn’t have the remotest idea what a spy was or what secret agents of any sort did for a living/dying.

What we did have was a whole lot of green-sugar-water-fueled shrimpy persons’ fun. And then, on a really good day, we’d come inside and have nuclear-orange macaroni and cheese for dinner and some outstanding stories from Dr Seuss or perhaps the infinite child-rearing wisdom of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to top it all off. We were surrounded by the unspeakable dangers not only of the Cold War but of playground equipment made of heavy steel pipes and undergirded by solid concrete; by houses full of asbestos insulation and lead paint, foods crammed with deadly cyclamates and Red Dye No. 2; and of freely roaming streets full of unlocked houses with total strangers living in them and packs of mainly-unsupervised neighborhood kids playing Kick the Can on the same roads where cars full of seatbelt-repellant maniacs tore around smoking unfiltered cigarettes and spewing plumes of black exhaust every which way.

In my current glorious old age, I am quite delighted that I never had to be rescued from the depredations of cigarettes on either lungs or bank account, that I have a car with seatbelts and airbags and GPS (not a chance in the universe that I’d find my way around the old neighborhood without that), and that I have apparently lived to this advanced vintage with my teeth and internal organs basically intact and not even artificially dyed red. I’m pretty darn delighted to be, let alone to be healthy, well off, surrounded by wonderful people, and even able to remember some of those youthful dangers. But I’m still amazed by the will of modern, educated people to believe in all sorts of dangerous fictions. (I will leave my political commentary at that for today!)

Can’t say whether my love of more benign–designed for entertainment– forms of fiction, fantasy and mystery stemmed from that wilderness of seen and unseen ‘hazards’ menacing my youth, but all of that inherent excitement surely must have had some influence, on the whole. So I thank my parents for not over-protecting me from woodland fort-building and steel-wheel roller skating and river inner-tubing and from meeting the neighbors and all of that reckless craziness. And I thank my lucky stars and guardian angels and many random strangers that I have come through all of it so remarkably well that I look forward quite enthusiastically to the second of my half-centuries from here. No matter how completely that entire range of years is wrapped in mystery at this point.

So for my self-gifting and self-congratulating (I’m very good at both, as you know) on this my 51st birthday, I’m posting a couple of self-indulgent (also a talent of mine) fond and foolish reminiscences and a couple of my mystery story drawings. And wishing all of YOU a very happy day and a marvelous, surprisingly excellent year to follow: I’ll share my day with you if you promise to make it a grand year too, as best you can!

graphite drawing

No doubt the clues are all there, but there's something to be said for just continuing to go along on the adventure and seeing what happens . . .

Something Rare

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Mies van der Rohe‘s dictum that ‘less is more‘ certainly holds true in many places and times. It’s clearly wise to apply it judiciously to the design and construction of many a lean and studied piece of art, architecture or cabinetry, for example. That chef is wise who learns restraint in concocting foods not meant to overwhelm but to grace the palate with subtle or purist readings of ingredients’ beauty. My own betters have long written poetry and prose whose clarity and brilliance stems from a pared-down aesthetic, from refusal to let excess verbiage gnaw away at the edges of refined excellence.BW photo

But when it comes to kindness and generosity of the heart, I think perhaps there should be no limit in sight. One ought to find ways to multiply and continuously add on to the volumes of hospitality and compassion and gentleness and humor. One of our dear friends was apt to find any dessert, no matter how excellent on its own, yet better ‘mit schlag‘–that is, with a generous application of whipped cream–and I feel the same about kind-heartedness. I have been privileged to know a number of people who embody that principle wonderfully.

One of them died this week, and among other things I must say that I saw her as a veritable avatar of the more-is-more way of sharing. My brother-in-law’s mother is no longer in our company in the physical plane, but thanks to this inner light she cultivated, she will be present and continue her influence well past her time in our midst.digitally doctored photo The first time I met her, when my sister married into her family, I was encouraged to call her Mor (Mother) along with the rest of the bunch. Somehow calling her by her first name would have seemed far too formal and distancing, of all things. And if you gave her the slightest indication you were willing, she would adopt you. I felt such ease and happiness at the table with Mor and the whole family that I never doubted my assimilation, even when I couldn’t follow the [Norwegian] conversation particularly well. All that was required of me in return was that I be contented in the company, eat heartily when presented with all of the good food in front of me (as if I could resist), and laugh often–as if that weren’t the most irresistible of all in Mor’s company.

What I’m thinking of most of all now after hearing of Mor’s passing is that high, musically un-selfconscious laugh of hers, something heard often in the times I was privileged to spend in her sweet company. She was hardly a ‘lightweight’, cheery because she had no understanding of darker things; Mor had reserves of strength and will built on hardships and trials that were her harsh tutors from early in her life and shaped a woman mainly undaunted by everyday tribulations that would make others crumble. Part of her will was the determination to see and enjoy the simple beauties and funny foibles of the world around her with full appreciation. That, to me, is one great talent to cultivate.

She made delectable things in the kitchen. The creamiest cauliflower soup imaginable. The most succulent and perfectly seasoned venison chops–I salivate involuntarily every time I even think of those incomparable chops. In perfect keeping with the whole over-the-top generosity with which she viewed and lived life, Mor’s bløtkake [cream cake] was spectacular, as was the cream she served more simply topped with fresh multer [cloudberries] when they came into their seconds-long peak season.

She knitted me an exquisite genser [Norwegian cardigan]. I knew that she had a couple of friends known for knitting the beautiful sweaters for hire, and since I had been hunting unsuccessfully for one myself I asked if she’d connect me with one of those friends. Next thing I knew, she was picking out yarn and patterns with me and made my one-of-a-kind genser herself, altering a pattern to customize it for her American-Norwegian extra kid. “I couldn’t let someone else make yours, you know.” So mine was unique not only in appearance but in being suffused with Mor’s inimitable warmth.

She made perfectly ridiculous puns and told silly stories, primarily with herself as the hapless heroine bumbling innocently through the wide world. Or through her own house: there was the time when, mid sewing project, she lost the shoulder pads destined for a jacket and only found them much later: they were tucked away neatly in the refrigerator freezer where she had apparently exchanged them for a food item she’d also been hunting to thaw for supper whilst en route to the sewing machine.

She took me to see some of the family property and showed me a little hidden spot where some sort of very delicate primrose-like pale flowers bloomed, though they were nearly impossible to find anywhere else. It was as though nature itself had planted a secret garden just for the elfin Mor to find and love, and so touching in its prettiness and Mor’s affection for it that I wrote her an illustrated poem about it. I called it Something Rare, and she liked it enough to hang it on her wall at the time, but I think she probably thought it was named for the uncommon flowers she’d shared with me when of course the poem was really named for her.

So whenever I get bogged down in petty everyday grimness or humorless attitudes, I shall endeavor to remember that I owe much better to the memory of a person who was gifted at piling the whipped cream on top of life. Mor is more.BW photo

A Broad in the Great Wide World

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photoIt’s so easy to forget my place. Oh, yes, you know full well that I am uppity and contrary by nature and will drag my heels at the slightest hint of insistence that I should do a particular thing or be a particular way, even if by the pseudo-polite stealth of passive-aggression. I’m just not that naturally Appropriate. A broad, rather than a lady.

I am well enough educated and naturally prissy enough to know the difference. On top of that, I’m smart and cultured and experienced enough to know a whole slew of ways in which I could and possibly should be a better person. I’m also self-aware and honest enough to recognize that the vast majority of those things are just never gonna happen. What you see is mostly what you get, now and forevermore.

But I’m an optimist, presumably quite the cockeyed one indeed.

So while I have openly confessed to you my many excessive loves–gastronomic outrageousness, all things intense and overblown in color and form and bejeweled wildness, baroque language, hardware store binges–I still believe in my own willfully naive way that I might moderate my urges when absolutely necessary. It’s in this hope, however vain or misguided, that I think I might at least periodically overcome my natural state of inertia, of fixity so granite-like on this planet earth that the mere thought of exercise tends to cause me hyperventilation and require smelling salts.

Yesterday, the sun smiled brilliance on me at such an opportune juncture that I broke stasis. The perfect confluence of a gloriously blue-sky cool day with a lunch date with friends a manageable distance away conspired to lure me upright from my characteristic hunched position at the desk and right out into the world.

How quickly one forgets that said world is rather alluring and full of wonders! How quickly I forget that, along with whatever position(s) I occupy in the world of my narrow influence and contact, I also live in the beautiful, messy, unpredictable, constantly shifting world that is my neighborhood, this town, this part of an entire planet.photo

The whole walk wasn’t necessarily impressive in and of itself. Recent longed-for and welcome rains have left the Texas clay in many areas (lacking sidewalks) converted to rust-colored mucilage, so I spent more of my focus on not being sucked ankle-deep or doing a banana-peel slide in those spots than on looking around me with interest. Fortunately, most of those zones are alongside the duller and dirtier of the main roads, where there mightn’t be much more than an onrush of traffic to engage the senses anyway. But in about seven miles round trip there’s a whole lot to awaken those dormant senses, too, and to remind me that while the sedentary state may have become my default position it isn’t necessarily the best or even the most desirable one.

Yesterday I saw the sun again, really saw it; felt it brush my cheek like a tender hand. Felt the breeze tug the hem of my coat and run its fingers sloppily through my hair. I heard birds whistling and chattering in their treetop congregations. Saw the wintry silver seed-heads of prairie grasses blink their brightness on-off, on-off as they swayed in and out of shade, and trees whose leaves have finally burnished to the exact same shade of red as the bricks on the facade behind them.

And I stopped partway home to have a walk through the cemetery, where I chanced on the headstone of a soldier killed at Pearl Harbor to remind me that it was the very anniversary of the attack that left him and many others dead and launched the US fully into World War II and the loss of millions more. The cemetery is old enough to serve as resting place too for a generation whose family plots often contain two, three, four children’s graves, as many in those days died in infancy or barely beyond youth. There are graves for those who lived long and fully, too. The thing is, I was the only person in this particular cemetery at the moment that wasn’t dead.photo

Which pleases me a great deal, I’ll tell you.

And it was an incredibly fitting reminder to me that while I was busy patting myself on the back over having been such an outstanding and exemplary being as to take a measly fair-weather walk, I too will join the hordes of the dead soon enough. So I’d jolly well better get out and about in this wide wonder of a world a whole lot more if I want to see the ravens tumble and leap among the tombstones, smell chimney smoke as it drifts between the sweet gums and cedars, and see that twenty-four-karat sun glittering in the enamel-blue sky like there’s no tomorrow. There can’t be an endless number of tomorrows, to be sure.

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Death comes to us all, sooner or later. In case I needed a reminder, I came across this grave of a young lady who died on her own twenty-eighth birthday. A birthday I happen to share. The End!

Swimming Against the Current

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If there is a universal lament among the bloggers whose work I follow, it would seem they share with me the age-old refrain of mourning societal trends away from ‘the old graces’, if you will. We all bewail the lessening of everyday efforts toward gentleness, hospitality, patience and willingness to listen respectfully to another person’s story–especially if that story happens to differ from our own preferred version. As far as I can see, this longing for a simply more peaceful world at every level transcends the boundaries of any geography, religion, politics, biological condition I’ve ever encountered. Is it really so hard to “play nicely together”?

pastel on paper Clearly not, if a bunch of people as drastically different in background and taste and philosophical attitudes and personality as my ever-widening shoal of acquaintance and friendship in the online ocean can share so much good conversation, support, humor, wisdom and mutual delights. There surely can’t be any insurmountable barrier unless we build it ourselves. And that fills me with hope and optimism.

I’d say we are quite the shining school ourselves, constantly making our deliberate and sometimes very merry way, zigzagging across the supposed mainstream, even powering right straight ahead against all tides, obstacles and currents. I’m no great swimmer when it comes to pressing headlong against an undesirable norm, but the company of all my gleaming cohort–family, friends, and fellow wanderers of the web–carries me through even the chilliest and deepest of waters.mixed media drawing/graphite and acrylic on canvasboard

Peace is apparently attainable, if enough of us swim determinedly toward it. Whether we get there by means of a mutual journey, a shared song, a meal at the same table, or a conversation across the miles by any ethereal means doesn’t matter as much as that we’re moving in that direction. And that we carry each other along to share the strength and intelligence and compassion and hope that it takes to get there.

Age Becomes Beauty

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photos x2Ingrained

The salt and oil of his hand

are torment and life’s-blood both

to the volutes of the instrument

and to

the curving, sinuous surfaces of that

deep-burnished ancient bass—its sigh

at the mindful, guiding touch

of the hand

steady with certainty, knowing

the way from note to note,

from phrase to

singing phrase, without

reference anymore

to intent because

the thought, the meaning, the joy

and the intensity are all

as deep as heartwood in

the ancient tree that was

the bass’s former self.

Those days,

no bird

set in the boughs of the

grandfather tree

had sweeter voice

than the breezes piping softly

through its leaves, no, even than

the tiny song

humming through

the tree’s own heart, minute

and pale yet, sub-sonically, a hint

—a whisper—in

the lyric capillary rise

of tree’s-elixir every spring

of the string-bass sound

far-off, unborn,

lying cradled

until called out

by generations, ‘til,

goaded with salt,

soothed with oil,

called

to speak again as its

nature insists,

under a musician’s hand.

photos x3
Well Worn

There is a dignity

And elegance to being worn

Beyond recognition as

The thing-that-was:

Once pretty, fully functional,

Well designed—It’s by

The fineness of this apropos

Well-suitedness for use

That things that might

Have been quite simple and

Quite plain become

The hard-used favorites

That by this aging then

As Beautiful

Become defined


Favorite Boots

Hard to imagine how much wear

It takes to soften down

The tough old boots I loved the best

And burnish their deep brown

Thick skin until it’s almost black

In places by the heel

And worn by stirrups near the shank—

But I know how they feelphotos x2
The King is Sleeping

Don’t go in—the king is sleeping;

Don’t barge in, disturb his rest—

All the bodyguards were keeping

Such good care at his behest

Up until a couple decades

Turned to several centuries

And the stalwart guardians made

A heap of dust fine as the breeze

And the palace came to crumble

And the country to decay

And the sands of time to tumble

To eternity, away—

Let the king sleep on in silence;

There’s no reason to awake

Anymore, to stir and rile and

See destruction come and take

From him all his kingdom’s treasures,

All he held and fought to own,

All his onetime loves and pleasures

Turned to silicates and stone—

Don’t go in—the king is sleeping;

History cries ‘let him sleep!’

While the passing age is creeping,

Peace is all he gets to keep

Skipping thro’ the Birchen Wood, I Thought I Spied a Whale

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acrylic on canvas

Here in the forests of my imagination . . .

What wondrous light through yonder branches gleams? Would that it were the opalescent glow of glimmering brilliance coming to infiltrate my idle brain. Or perhaps, an itinerant faerie spirit heading my way, jeweled sceptre alit with inspirational powers to be bestowed on my waiting brow with only the lightest of touches. Even the wan incandescent light that flickers in welcome warmth when someone stops by and drawls, ‘Whooooa, cool poem, dude!‘ is an apparition that I welcome in these woods.

But left to my own devices, I am often content to play hide-and-seek with the absurd and ridiculous denizens with whom I myself people the copses and clearings. It’s hard to be bored when in the world of my imaginings I might just as well see a party of rhinoceri dining daintily on macarons and sipping mimosas as find the standard woodland chirpy-birds and curly-tailed possums. And of course I can find plenty of entertainment in the latter, should my rare white rhino friends fail to materialize on the occasion.

The who-what-when-where-why approach of old-time journalism is hardly limited, but so often is put to service in creating dull worlds that have no scintillation or silver-lined possibility of their own. Why should I merely recount the facts, if my friends and compatriots have the same at their own fingertips or floating in the ether encircling their own fevered brows? I feel much more compelled, drawn (and quartered) by the fantastical and unreal, and that doesn’t mean that I must limit my contact with the quotidian. In my view, the real world and everyday experience are both bursting with nonsense and bizarre occurrences that would challenge the sanity of anyone willing to look just slightly under the surface, a tiny bit off of the center of the frame. It’s this singing netherworld of oddity and mystery, of hilarity and not-yet-discovered realms of the heart and mind, that pulls me into its mystical swirl and mesmerizes me.

I am astounded when I hear tell of people admonishing artists and creative folk to give up their wastrel ways and do something Productive. Where these same critics expect inventions or discoveries of import, let alone life-enhancing pleasures and spiritual inspirations, to emerge if not from creative work and play I am unable to guess.

I’ve long since left it to others to describe what they tout as Fact and confirmed Truth. There are endless phalanxes of politicians and scientists and religious leaders, hover-parents and bosses, dictators and dullards, all of whom readily offer their convictions of reality whether I ask them to or not, so I learned that I’d much rather stick to my own version of reality and just see where it takes me.

Does this approach expose me to ridicule and censure? Of course it does. Anything anyone else tells you ought to be taken with an entire inland sea of salt, if it keeps you from swallowing nonsense wholesale. I certainly don’t believe everything I say!

But I did learn, when I bundled up my outsized cravings for outside affirmation in the dense wrappings of uneasy reality and flung them all out the casement, that any reality is somewhat overrated. That the lilac scented porpoises leaping in my own candy-colored seas were not only good company but sometimes took me along to actual places of learning and wholesome connection with genuine people willing to dive into alternate worlds too. And that I grew more deeply convinced that nobody is in such dire need of the strictly factual that their lives can’t be enriched, like mine, by the meandering, iridescent, depthless, deathless joys of curiosity and invention and hope.

acrylic on canvas

. . . and away I swam, bathing in the limpid phosphorescence of wonderment . . .

Do What You Love and Love What You Do

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photoDear Me:

Flee specious “requirements” in your life. Think about what is honestly mandatory, absolutely required for survival, health, sanity, legal purposes or whatever. Don’t be dragged into what other people say is right without considering whether it’s right for you and for the world as well, or influenced into doing and being things that have nothing to do with your own real values and needs. Decide what does make sense for your efforts, and do the work that it requires.

Especially, find the most palatable, preferably appealing, ways you can to accomplish those ends. If you’re to spend any of your time and labor and energies on doing Necessary stuff, you really ought to be doing it by the most pleasurable means possible. Life offers enough pokes in the eye that can’t be avoided, so why subject ourselves to any we can sidestep? Rather nicer to seek out the ways in which we can accomplish our goals, meet our needs, achieve the desired ends, by doing things we enjoy and surrounding ourselves with good people and environments. The more enjoyable the compulsory and obligatory parts of life are, the more quickly and happily we complete them. The more swiftly we cover those bases, the more time we have for doing and being the things we prefer and desire most. Follow the example of those greats whose accomplishments are or were shaped by both their pursuit of natural abilities and inclinations and their will to open new doors and find new loves. It’s my belief that work is one of the most egregious four-letter words ever invented, that minimizing the work I absolutely have to do in life and, further, converting any so-called work I can’t avoid doing into something I like doing anyway are highly honorable goals. Paradoxically, I suppose, that’s something I’m willing to work at constantly.

Love, your constant friend and co-worker, Myself

photo

Imaginary Friends in High Places

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I never made a secret of being less-than-optimally mature and having an imagination that makes Attention Deficit look laser focused. Let’s be honest, keeping that reality quiet was a non-starter idea anyway; that particular cat shot right out of the bag before I even escaped my own play-pen, and, well, I was an early climber.

And speaking of climbing, I was a social climber from the beginning. I kinda think I’m better than I probably actually am, if you take my meaning. No, I never gave a serious fig for name-dropping (though, boy-howdy, the stories I could tell you!) or for impressing people with my associations with prestige. Not only do I find overt fawning generally an embarrassment except between actual friends, I’ve always been too poor, too cheap, or both when it came to buying Name merchandise. Not to mention that I think rich retailers should pay me to advertise their products, not vice-versa, and so on those rare occasions when object-lust converged with mega-sale, I am the person who instantly took said objet home and blacked out the corporate logo or sat and snipped it off the clothing, stitch by stitch.

All of this information is not as off-topic as you might think. My theme, you see, is that I think pretty highly of myself just as-is. Now, no doubt there are those detractors that might hasten to add that “it’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it.” I’ll leave them to fester in their own frightful fallacies. If indeed my fine self image is problematic, there might be some other persons fit to share a portion of the blame with me: parents who subscribed to that bizarre notion, unconditional love; teachers (not counting my third grade ogress) who actually taught and encouraged me. Family and friends, too, who still unfailingly clothe me in the cape-and-tights raiment of someone admittedly far better than I am but for whom I am quite willing to be mistaken while I’m yet busily aspiring to become them.digital photo illustrationMeanwhile, I can tell you that I’ve always had a pretty good sense of this being surrounded by earthly and supernal cheerleaders to assist and enhance my sense of personal privilege and well-being in the world. It keeps me on a relatively even keel.

Now, if you happened to be on board here when I’ve previously mentioned coping with anxiety, clinical depression, phobias (yes, I’m a veteran of all of those), nerd-hood, weirdness and being 17 (I’ve survived all of those too), it should be as obvious as the strings carrying Ed Wood’s flying saucers that I am neither perfect nor so deluded as to think myself so, let alone be immune to self-doubt and those temporary bouts of dis-ease that rate various positions on the inadequate-to-self-loathing slide rule.

But thanks to this even more deeply ingrained, however fanciful, liking of myself, I have always eventually recovered and returned to my standard state of cheery self-hugging enthusiasm. I think I’m a little like those boxers’ training dummies, taking a righteous smack to the schnoz from time to time that floors me, but always eventually sproinging back upright with my vapid but genuine grin on my face, just happy to be here. Because, by golly, I really do think I’m kind of swell.photo

A Little Autumnal Magic

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I can’t help it: autumn brings out the nostalgia in me. Something about the solemnity of nature’s visible procession from summer’s excesses into a more profound state, one clearly aware of death yet always moving through its dormancy toward the revival of spring–it all calls forth recollections of seasons past, of holidays I’ve floated through without being quite conscious of how few of those loved ones around the room and around the table will be there at the next or the next one after that . . . .

photo

The emptying-out that comes with the end of a season is in preparation for newness yet to come . . .

But the loveliness in this is that that knowledge of what lies ahead is not only the foundation, the underpinning, of awareness at the end of the year, it is indeed the purpose of this cooling down, going to ground, this tempering of high spirits. In part, it’s what adds piquancy and sharpens the joys of the winter holidays, whatever they are in one’s culture or part of the world. For us in the northern hemisphere, the descent into winter has begun and brings with it the knowledge of our mortality–but those of us among the truly fortunate know that it’s precisely that gift that leads us to live more vividly in the present. So we sing and dance and feast and laugh a little more wildly, and it brings out the imaginative child in us all.

Thanksgiving has always been a welcome celebration to me. I come from a family that counts its riches and revels in its blessings very readily, and certainly not just on the Official date designated by the state but with perhaps renewed vigor on that day. But sixteen years ago on Thanksgiving weekend I was gifted with a particular reason for deep thanks, and so the whole festivity took on a yet more personal tone. That was when the man who would become my beloved asked me out on our first date.

You all know by now that I am not very quick on the uptake, so I’ll just say right off that I didn’t even know we were going on a date. I just thought this interesting person was being wonderfully collegial. He’d asked me to collaborate on a project at the university; we’d had a meeting or two with other colleagues to begin the planning, and I’d already started work on my part of the process and was only very dimly aware that when he’d check in on my progress his questions were less germane than personal. I was delighted to go along with the plot when he invited me to go with him on Thanksgiving weekend and have dinner and then attend a performance of the Mark Morris Dance Company’s production of ‘Dido and Aeneas‘. What’s not to like! We had a fabulous salmon dinner at a local bastion of Northwest seafood excellence and discussed, among other things, whether either of us intended to have children; you will begin to understand the true depth of my obtuseness when I tell you that I have no idea how that topic arose on a first dinner outing, let alone did I twig to it that it might indicate the dinner as something more than collegial.

So there we were, eating and chattering and–oh yes–almost being late to the performance. For which Mr. Smooth Operator had in fact prepared the pit choir. His choral group was singing along with the orchestra for the program, and I came that-close to making him late. And found out we were sitting in the front row, center, of the sort of theatre where you can not sneak in surreptitiously. I was in a mild panic. I also had no clue at the time that a conductor might prepare the singers but not conduct the performance (as in this case, where the orchestra’s conductor took the helm), so I was both worried and mystified that my companion was calmly clambering over knees right alongside me to the middle of the stage-apron row. But suddenly there was a tiny, sneaking thought that this person was intending to sit with me throughout the performance and therefore might–just possibly–not have invited me strictly out of co-worker friendliness.

Well, I’ll just cut to the chase and end your suspense. Oh, that’s right, I already told you the fairytale ending! Opaque as my love-goggles are, and slow as I am to order my facts and realize the truly obvious, once I got the hang of all of this I wasn’t particularly behindhand in taking advantage of the situation. I may be silly, but I ain’t stupid!

So I got this ethereal dance/concert date under my belt and wandered a little foggily through the Christmas holidays, dodging my fears of the unknown rather handily for such a big scaredy-cat if I do say so myself, and by the beginning of the year was engaged to build a lifetime of ridiculously happy adventure with Mr Sparkly. And I call him that not just because of our shared last name but because, dang it, he brought and brings enormous amounts of sparkle to my every day. I can’t think of anything for which a person could be more thankful, at this or any time of year.

Now, I’ve been all mushy and reminiscent on you, and I owe it to you to say that it’s entirely the fault of the season. HAH! Of course that’s pure nonsense. But I must reiterate my thesis that Fall encourages such things in me. It brings out with its chill and darkening the contrasting warmth and light of home, hearth, holidays, and hope, with all of their spices and sweetness, their inviting doorways and gates to adventure, and all of the beauty that living in a time of Thanksgiving can bring. I wish for you all the same!

digital photocollage

Can't wait to see what newness and graces lie on the other side . . .

Foodie Tuesday: Nothing Sexier than Proper Mise en Place

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Ready for mirepoix-making?

Let’s face it, I’m as predictable as romantic comedies when it comes to many things, not least of all, choosing the path of least resistance when fixing food. If there’s a shortcut to the shortbread, lemme at it. If there’s a snappier way to trim snap peas, I’m on board with that. But if there’s one thing I know is worth any amount of trouble, it’s prep. It’s not glamorous, I’ll grant you, and sometimes gets mighty tedious, especially when there’s a sizable party or elaborate meal on the horizon. But there is nothing that makes the rest of the time in the kitchen more tolerable, even enjoyable, than having the best of mise en place at my fingertips.

I did my time as a house painter, back in the misty distance, and I learned tout de suite that there was no substitute for careful first steps when it came to a fine finished product; I spent some time laboring backstage and behind the scenes in theatres and found that what’s seen when the curtain’s rung up is about a thousandth of what’s been and being done for the production. Of course, my conductor husband works in a discipline where the inexperienced concert-attendee would be wildly off base to think that all performers do is get up onstage and wave arms or pipe on musical contraptions or flap tongues. Even if they have an inkling that rehearsals are necessary, they haven’t imagined the tiniest increment of blood, sweat and tears that went into a performance. And I’m fairly certain I haven’t come across any other field in which that doesn’t generally hold true. What goes on before-hand is such an essential and formative part of what comes out of the proscenium or oven that sometimes I think we’re guilty of assuming everyone would just plain intuit that. We need to tell the inexperienced what a beautiful thing is that dull seeming preparatory work, what glorious jewels are the salt-cellar and oil bottle and dishes of neatly diced Tasso and shredded Reggiano and chiffonaded basil.

Even the finished dish may not look particularly artistic, unless it’s something generally far more designer-iffic than what I’m likely to produce at my board, but it is an infinitely greater pleasure to prepare and serve food that was made easier to prepare and serve by having arranged for good mise en place in good time. There’s both the initial set of ingredients and tools that ought to be at the ready, and then there’s the lineup of Parts that precedes the final plating for presentation, and both serve to wonderfully streamline the efforts.

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The cranberry-mandarin-maple relish that will add a note of piquancy to the Thanksgiving plate is nothing much to look at, but will add its own essential character to the plate . . .

Part of the effectiveness and pleasure of mise en place for a visual obsessive like me is that it allows me to ‘paint’ with the food, whether in creating the individual dishes or in building the presentation, modest though it might be, by considering not only all of the flavors and practical characteristics of the ingredients but also their colors, shapes, visual textures and other attributes that can contribute to the integrity and–God willing–deliciousness of the whole.

So this is why, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I’ve been brewing broth for gravy, concocting relishes and garnishes, butterflying the turkey and brining it (tomorrow it bathes sous vide, Thursday gets its high-roast crunch on!), roasting potatoes so that they will make heavenly light mash despite the added gallons of cream and pounds of butter, and all of that other ‘peripheral’ stuff. It’s not much to look at, to be sure, but I think I’ll manage to get a pretty fair showing out of it all eventually, because I’m laying the groundwork and setting the foundations first. Amen, let’s eat!

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That's it for today's sage advice.