Light in Dark Places

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photoWhat possible purpose can Daylight Savings Time serve in this day and age except perhaps the most mercenary sort? I really dislike the artificial shifting of the daily schedule (time itself being quite independent of our constructs meant to explain and regulate it), with one small but significant exception. That little thing?

Knowledge of the power of the tiniest speck of light against the dark.

When the days become naturally short, night long, because of the turning of the earth on its axis and the change of the seasons, the sense of being trapped in almost-perpetual darkness inevitably begins to creep upon me; add to that the government-mandated spin of the clock to steal yet another hour of sunlight, and I begin to wither and feel a little like sorrow and solemnity, gravity and groaning will also steal my sense of belonging to the day at all. This spell of coldness and heartless eternal night could certainly drive a person mad.

And yet, the smallest spark renews my will and hope. One little star piercing the indigo sky becomes a beacon bright and powerful enough to pull me from the dark and back to day. That winter’s also the season when so many cultures, faiths and kinds of people find new reason to light more than a candle, more than a fire, and call upon the grandest graces of their inner best is no mistake or accident. The contrast with that terrible beauty that is felt and seen in lightless space is something far beyond the sun of day–against the coal mine dark, a pinpoint is all it takes to seem a seam has opened into warmth and goodness once again. And in my little heart, I do believe that any one of us determined enough can learn to be that tiny, so-essential fleck of light.photo

The Time is Out of Joint

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digital illustrationDo you ever feel like something unnatural or supernatural has taken hold and everything around you is suddenly unfamiliar and not what you’d always known it to be? That chaos reigns and confusion is dimming the lights and obscuring everything useful and meaningful from your sight? Do you have those times, too, when you may be quite sure that this will all pass and the atoms of your universe will subtly shift back into the places where you expect them to dwell but that for the moment, what should seem normal and clear and knowable to you is utterly inscrutable and bizarre and impossibly at odds?

Have you noticed, as I do remember to notice eventually, how often this happens around holidays and tax time?

Yeah, I thought so.

The Curvature of the Earth

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You know, and I know, that if one can see far enough to and across the horizon, one can see the curvature of the earth. It’s also common knowledge that this is a perspective hard for the ordinary earthling to achieve.

photoWhat is perhaps a little less often considered is how difficult it can be to find and maintain the smaller perspective of the magical and beautiful in our world and our lives. I think I am fortunate both to realize how incredibly beyond-microscopic I am relative to the broad arc of my home planet and, oddly, how this same unfathomably huge place can hold me in the crook of its metaphorical arm, embracing me with such delicate kindness and comfort and generosity.photoWhen I think on this, I begin to see echoes of the vast rim of the third planet from the sun in smaller and smaller graces curving up right in the heart of the everyday.

Abundance and Gratitude

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graphite drawingAmong the essentials for a happy life, I consider the above named items some of the most meaningful. But I am often, rightly, reminded that these are as much matters of attitude as anything. Much easier, both of them, to qualify than to quantify.

Abundance, as experienced and demonstrated by many people I’ve known and seen who would be considered below a desirable economic level, is seen as having enough to survive, and just a touch to bring a guest to the table as well. That this means the main family’s subsistence is so much the sparser while a guest is on hand means little, except that the gift is commensurately so much the more generous.

For those of us with more considerable resources, I think the same attitude is worth the attempt. I should think through the difference between my actual needs and my wants, live within my means, and delight in the ability to share what I have with others. I’m not always nearly as good at this as I’d like, but think it a practice worth pursuing and improving over a lifetime.

Gratitude needn’t be limited to feeling I’m in the center of abundance, anyway. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be thankful for any and every good thing in my existence, even when the tenor of the times is set in a sparer and more trying mode. This, too, is simply a survival tactic on my part, as giving in to my dark instincts at bad times has no logical outcome but that I’d lie down and die. By choosing to actively and attentively seek out and recognize whatever kernels there are of goodness and light, I take away my focus from what lessens me and give myself a chance of relief. Better, I may see the glint of otherwise forgotten abundance, and that always makes me more grateful.digital illustration

Hey! Over Here!

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My skills of salesmanship are nothing to crow about. If I try to show off too much I’m far more likely to end up eating crow.

Self promotion is a gift. Some people are born wheeling and dealing or have inborn salesmanship, and others are born artists. Okay, that’s an unfair generalization, to be sure, but as an artist myself, and one admittedly devoid of any sort of business acumen or PR skills, I also know a ton of other artists of all stripes who, left to their own devices, would or will forever work, then die, in obscurity. I am glad and relieved that there are people for whom the promotion of others is an interest, skill set and/or gift.

If it weren’t for the practitioners of good business, whether as active promoters of artists’ work or more indirectly as patrons (buyers or spouses, for example), lots of us in the arts would either have to give up our artistic vocations or starve in the legendary garrets of the unsuccessful, regardless of talent or commitment.

There’s no obvious solution to this perennial artists’ dilemma, since being self-promotion-challenged so often includes being confused and intimidated by even knowing how to find and secure an able and supportive agent to carry the weight. What a conundrum.

This post, as you would naturally guess, is not a how-to. If I had the answers, any of them, I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you or even cognizant of this puzzle at all. This is, instead, a note on my own perpetual wrestling with the questions of what to do with my creative impulses besides rambling around with them towing me by the heartstrings. I may forever stand in mystified awe and envy of those who know how to crow.photo

Foodie Tuesday: Pie Eyed

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photoSince we don’t always make a big deal out of holidays, my husband and I, and even when we do get the urge to celebrate we’re not huge sticklers for partying on the officially designated day or with the popularly traditional foods and events. This year we’re being a little more predictable, perhaps, by having a Thanksgiving gathering with eight musician friends. We’re doing our dinner on Wednesday rather than Thursday to accommodate schedules, but otherwise we’re being more predictable than not. There’s a big pastured turkey, spatchcocked and dry-brining, in the fridge and it’ll be accompanied by plenty of at least somewhat traditional sides and garnish treats, and most fittingly of all for this particular American holiday, we’ll have US-dwelling friends from the Netherlands, Estonia, Austria, Hungary, Puerto Rico, Canada and yes, stateside gracing our celebration with their presence. A great way to remember part of what’s best about this country and what I’m most thankful for–and not just on this holiday.

I’m going with pies for dessert. That’s the real reason for today’s post title, not that I’m planning on getting plastered to celebrate, if that’s what you were wondering. Ahem!

Apple pie, as any of you who’ve been around here for any length of time know, is not just a supremely suitable dish for the season but my spouse’s first choice for dessert any time there’s the slightest possibility of having it. Easy choice, clearly. Another thing that’s wonderfully fitting for the season and my tastebuds is maple syrup, and since we have a jug of gorgeous dark Grade-B-heaven maple syrup, a gift from another friend, just beaming at us with its heavenly come-hither look from the pantry, I deemed it a sign that I should get around to trying my hand at another pie I’ve long wanted to make, Tarte au Sucre. Here goes!

Meanwhile, there’s other stuff to get ready. Spiced apple cider is in a big pot, infusing at room temperature overnight until I heat it tomorrow. Potatoes are [literally] half-baked and will get finished on the day as well, smashed with cream and butter and a little salt before going to table next to the chicken-white wine gravy I put up last week and am storing. The appetizers of Gouda, homemade beef pate and crackers, nuts (including some Marcona almonds I set a-swim in olive oil a couple of weeks ago) and pickles–homemade beetroot pickles along with southern style pickled okra, green beans and green tomatoes–are all ready to set out as we sip some bubbly and cider for a start. Since the turkey’s ready to roast all I have to do is take that big, handsome bird out of the fridge and bring it up to room temperature right in the pan it’s in now and roast it on the rack of celery, carrots, apple chunks, cinnamon sticks and lemon pieces it’s been resting on overnight.photo

I’m using store-bought bread but will hope to have time to make our friend Jim’s southern corn bread and sausage dressing, so ridiculously tasty that when he made it for me the first time we two ate most of the batch which I later learned from the written recipe is meant to serve twelve. Not kidding you.

I’m keeping the vegetable sides exceedingly simple, serving steamed green beans with bacon I crisped up and froze earlier, plus sweet coleslaw, so those will practically make themselves, being so easy and quick. What the others bring, if anything, will be entirely a surprise, with the exception of one person saying she was likely to bring some pureed squash and cranberry sauce, either or both of which would be deliciously appropriate. All of this, regardless of whether anyone does bring more, means that we will very likely have heaps of leftovers, one of the true treasures of the occasion and certainly one of the reasons we give thanks!

I will share pictures after the fact–not much to show for the process that will thrill or impress you for now–but first I would like to share with you my wish that whether you are planning to celebrate this American holiday this week or not, you will all be blessed with immeasurable reasons yourselves to be thankful. As I am, indeed, thankful not only for my many other privileges and joys, but most of all for the wonderful people filling every corner of my life, including you, my friends in Bloglandia. Thank You!photo montage

Self-Annihilation

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P&I drawingWhat does it mean to repress or suppress others? We humans have found so many awful and horrific ways to abuse and torment each other, to subjugate and enslave, belittle and diminish and depersonalize them, that homicide and genocide seem afterthoughts, if not almost a mercy at times.

What do we demean or demolish when we do so to other people? Community. Diversity. Complexity. All of those things that enrich our own lives. Things, indeed, that make our survival possible. We become trees hacking at our own roots and branches, all the while drinking toxic rain and poisonous streams.

If we lessen or lose one life, the whole tribe hangs in the balance. If we lose one tribe, we risk the loss of all humanity.

Stained Glass Windows

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photo montageUnexpected Illumination
Whenever day’s grown dark and grim
And life, obscured behind a scrim,
Surprisingly, the welcome light
Through colored windows seems less dim–
Though blue and red may look less bright
By day, and screen the moon by night,
What rays come through and lumens pass
These panes set inner bleakness right–
No sorrow ends its storms, alas,
Merely because the beams amass,
But something blest descends on him
Whose heart is lit by colored glass.

Canoeing in the Slough of Despair

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pen and inkBeing up the proverbial creek without a paddle is just too common a state for most of us mortals. What’s remarkable is not the frequency of its occurrence, though, but how often we paddled up there our very own selves and even quite willfully pitched out the paddle on arrival. Having gotten ourselves into the trouble in the first place doesn’t make it any more tolerable, let alone palatable, but if we learn to pay better attention, there might be a hope of return from the brink after all.

Retracing my footsteps to find where I went astray, maybe even to undo some of the damage, isn’t always possible even when the place where I’ve gotten myself in dire straits isn’t literally a trackless stream. But if I keep my eyes open and engage my wits and will, I might at least remember the way next time I start to veer in that direction, and learn not to step in that same river twice.

I’m fallible enough, but perhaps not irremediably so. Still, I’ll always welcome a good rescue. Throw me that life jacket, won’t you?

This is My Brain on Endorphins

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photoOthers may be motivated by such things as the thirst for wisdom, the pursuit of creature comforts, altruism, or a craving for adventure. Me? What floods my being with happiness is letting my imagination run wild.

The minute that the busyness of everyday life keeps me too occupied to simply luxuriate in fantasy and creative play, I feel my soul shriveling. When I do get to enjoy my favorite state of dreaminess, my inner happiness unfurls, expands and explodes. If you must know, it really doesn’t take much to make me happy.photo