my word nest

nostalgia

2011-11-07T17:42:00.002-05:00

I can somewhat remember receiving the Scholastic book catalogue...its flimsy, newspaper-like pages...sitting at my desk slowly perusing and filling out the little order form at the back with my choices. Money was involved, I suppose, but I can't remember that part at all. Were there envelopes involved? That would be nice. But oh! I remember very clearly sitting at my desk, tingling with anticipation as I watched my teacher lift out little piles of books, each with the long skinny order form tucked in the top book of each child's bundle. Our very own stack of books, carefully chosen, waited for patiently, about to be put in our hands!

Do you remember?

Seven months...I surely didn't mean to be away so long. I suppose I have been writing elsewhere...and I have mostly been reading old and familiar things for the past many months. Not alot to share as I've shared them before (Wise Child, Juniper, Rosamunde Pilcher). I've been wanting familiar, cosy, easy...but none-the-less nourishing, interesting, enlightening. I've actually found many beautiful, domestic things in my reading, but am gathering them up to share at The Bower and in the new place I am preparing for the New Year.

I've found, finally settling down into caregiving, that I can't go terribly deep with books in this season of my life. I never know when my train of thought will be interrupted, day and night. I can't read anything dark or very challenging, because daily life has those at its edges now, and that is enough of that for me. I went on a real Rosamunde Pilcher bender all the late Summer and early Autumn, but had come to the end of them and had to find something else and found my old copy of The Girl Who Ran Away on the upstairs bookshelves (in my sons' rooms, where all the childrens' books-mine and theirs-reside) and plunged in. My goodness...it deserves a whole post and I hope that I will actually get to that post one day soon, but suffice it to say I recognized myself in its pages, realized that it was one of the books that helped to make me who I am, that allowed me to be a more authentic version of me than I might have been otherwise.

It led to a short Scholastic Book fest...but I petered out after Little Plum and The Shy One. Some books hold up and some don't. Little Plum did (I was so glad to get reacquainted with Miss Happiness and Miss Flower...in fact, a Rumer Godden bender may be next on the agenda), the Shy One didn't and I am now back to "grown up" books, in search of my next Rosamunde Pilcher.

Life is so good when there is a book to take from the shelf over my bed, where I tucked it late the night before, to the kitchen sofa in the quiet afternoon, or to toss in my bag on town days just in case there is a peaceful hour or two, and then fish out and bring back to bed in the evening....a thread through my days and nights.

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth-A Life

2011-04-04T00:50:00.001-04:00

by Frances Wilson

I believe I have been skirting around the writing of this post. For I don't know at all what I feel about

this book...about Dorothy Wordsworth...about William Wordsworth...about the author....

There is always a danger when reading a biography, that one's illusions will be shattered. I still, at first, shy away from the shattering, and have been doing so with this book. But after a few weeks away from it I am glad I read it and open to reading other interpretations of Dorothy's life (and all those around her-what an interesting time it was!). This one left me confused and depressed, tho' I was engrossed with the book, especially the first half.

Before I read this biography, Dorothy's journals were something I valued for the simple and observational beauty they hold and the way of life they seem to express. Long, long walks in the Lake District, the planting and tending of the kitchen garden, the baking and cooking in the cottage, the everyday trials of illness and moods, the reading and writing...

Now, all of that is overlaid with the mysterious events, complicated and often disappointing relationships and choices made by Dorothy, William, Coleridge and the very real hardships described in the book (Dorothy's dementia for the last twenty years of her life being the hardest for me to learn of-too close to home).

I was also sometimes visited with frustration by the hypothesizing and speculation about Dorothy's writings, feelings, relationships....it is natural, I suppose, in a biography with only so much actual fact to go on. But it leaves me with the same feeling that I used to get in high school when we would "analyze" a poem. Sometimes the heart of something is lost when you pick it apart or plumb too deeply.

Of course, the true heart is the truth that we cannot entirely know. So I will probably keep revisiting Dorothy's writings and her brother's and friend's to find glimpses of it....will probably read other biographies, too, in the hopes of understanding just a little bit more.

In the meantime, here are a few passages I marked:

"Dorothy implores her "dear, dear Mary," who William says has become too thin and weak, to

seek quiet or rather amusing thoughts. Study the flowers, the birds and all the common things that are about you. O Mary, my dear Sister! Be quiet and happy. Take care of yourself-keep yourself employed without fatigue, and do not make loving us your business, but let your love of us make up

the spirit of all the business you have."

"The money would enable her to pay her own way in the household, buy a few books, and take a journey now and then, things which, "though they do not come under the article of absolute necessities, you will easily perceive that it is highly desirable for a person of my age and with my education should occasionally have in her power."

"Put on with speed your woodland dress," William had written for Dorothy on the first fine day of Spring in 1798...

Folly by Laurie King

2011-03-24T22:42:00.000-04:00

Folly

by Laurie King

Folly turned out to be neither scary nor depressing....just wonderfully engrossing and satisfying.

I learned so much from it....about depression and mental illness and inner strength. It was rather profound for me, actually, for the symptoms that Rae described in the book at times-hearing voices, images of too-large things in her mind-brought back a time in my life that I had actually forgotten about. A time when I would hear voices now and then and see those too-large things in my mind...it was a period of twenty years or so and was only very occasional, but disturbing and meaningful, none-the-less.

I am just grateful that those experiences faded away as my life and marriage grew deeper and stronger.

I was lucky.

A very worthwhile read...weeks later I can still feel myself on that earthy island in the San Juans

off the coast of Washington State....still see all the things that Rae crafted with her skillful hands and the

wonderful characters that peopled the book....

I will return here soon with my thoughts on the Dorothy Wordsworth book.

It has rather consumed me the past few weeks.

February's armful

2011-02-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

One of the pleasures of town days each week are the small armfuls of books I gather and bring home from the library. I usually bring home more than I can actually get to....but it is inspiring and comforting to have them nearby. Sometimes the chosen books are concrete evidence of the wispy seedlings of ideas or interests that pass through my mind. If the books are near to hand when the time comes to explore a little further, it is worth all the choosing and carrying home, you know?

This is actually two armfuls from the last two weeks, and I have only looked at three or four thus far. I have been putting off starting the Laurie King, as might be scary and/or depressing. But it is Laurie King, and the heroine is just my age and the story may be very worthwhile, so tonight I began it and will give it a go.

I think I am rambling and it is time for bed, so I will leave with thanks to Julie for the Flavia recommendation. The first book of the series is checked out of the library, but it sounds wonderful and I will add it to my next armful just as soon as possible.

hmmm.....

2011-02-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

I've not been doing very well with my reading choices lately, it would seem.

After Barbara Pym I tried a book that I bought at the library sale corner for one dollar-Hello to the Cannibals by Richard Bausch. From what I read on the dust jacket, it looked very interesting....how the lives of a modern young woman and the explorer and writer Mary Henrietta Kingsley converge with some found letters written by MHK in the 1800s. I gave it a good try for 150 pages or so, but had to give it up in the end as I began to feel caught in an inauthentic, sludgy, unhappy world and had no fortitude to continue on in it. This is a common experience for me with modern novels...so much unhappiness in them.

I am not sure what it says about me...that I don't like to spend time with books filled with harsh reality...but there it is.

I did, however, mark just two passages before I gave it up:

"Sitting in Ronda Seiver's living room, she experiences a terrible dread of the particulars of existence: the world outside, with its glitter of ice and roar of wind, is too big, too immense, a darkness she can't get her mind around."

Tho' this isn't pleasant, it did strike a chord within me and describes rather well the huge bodies of water that frighten me in my dreams and life with dementia and other "particulars of existence". But not the whole of existence, thank goodness.

And this I like just because I didn't know it before, but it is lovely...

"She begins telling him about her love of books and music and her excitement at getting to see her parents onstage, all her enthusiasms. She explains that her father told her about the Greek root for the word entheos, "the God within"...

On to The Brontes Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson. I would be so interested to hear someone else's opinion of it. I started in great hope, finding lines like this:

"A woman at one of mother's parties once said to me, 'Do you like reading?' which smote us all to silence, for how could one tell her that books are like having a bath or sleeping or eating bread-absolute necessities which one never thinks of in terms of appreciation."

"It's lovely to have a London house with a schoolroom, and somebody in it of schoolroom age. To go upstairs and find Sheil sweating over the War of the Roses is like stepping into a new world. It takes one's disillusions away like magic."

"...and the tea is tawny and heartening..."

"...and my sympathy is going out to her quite against my will, in streamers, like seaweed..."

"...and even then my heart will hear it and beat when I'm earth in an earthy bed."

"Being Saturday, Katrine was at lunch too, and, suddenly, as I began to eat, deadly depression engulfed me. It sometimes does, and often quite irrationally, and one drifts with it because fighting it is no good. Father used to be the same, and would often say how he started a day meaning to love every minute of it, but in a moment 'along comes this cursed black pudding out of the blue, and destroys me root and branch.'

"We certainly have two servants, but they don't do their bit, and always have Legs that have to be Remembered, and Hearts which have to be Considered..."

"We love walking at night: one feels so light and fresh, and passing faces are shadowed and can't tire one, or sadden, or set one thinking. We go hatless, with walking-sticks, and wear what we like, which is restful, and find ourselves in strange streets and squares, and something they abruptly conduct one to eminent localities, as in a dream, and I once found myself outside Buckingham Palace in my dressing slippers. We call these walks 'gutter-perchings' and they are wonderful, if you are happy."

Delightful, witty, old-fashioned....but, in the end, too up in the air for me. After a while with it, my mind was tired from not being able to tell what was real and what was not. I began to feel more bemused than amused and was rather relieved when I finished it. If you saw the recent film The Black Swan, I can tell you that this is a like a light-hearted lavender version, in the sense that you never know if what you are seeing/reading is psychosis/fancy or the truth.

Until the next book....

No Fond Return of Love

2011-02-06T16:29:00.001-05:00

by Barbara Pym

So, trying to catch up, as I do want this place to be a record of my reading this year, as well as a place to capture wonderful words and sentences.

After The Shell Seekers (a few days later as I can never just jump into a new book unless the last one was a complete disappointment!), I gave another Barbara Pym a try. I found it on the "recommended" shelf at our library and decided that I ought to give her one more chance...perhaps one book is not enough to judge by.

And I certainly enjoyed this one more than the last, for the main character-Dulcie-was atleast sympathetic. I did appreciate the glimpse into the neat, affluent-enough-to-order-whole-cases-of-wine-to-be-delivered-sort-of-society in mid-century London, but again, it all just left me rather cold. No one in the novel appears to have fun or experience anything deeply and the setting and story and characters seem to have had a grey veil thrown over them. And I felt rather dull myself when reading it.

So that is it for Barbara Pym and me...unless someone can convince me otherwise.

The Shell Seekers

2011-01-15T16:42:00.003-05:00

by Rosamunde Pilcher

I read this when it first came out in 1987...it introduced me to Agas and scrubbed pine kitchen tables and so many other things that we are fortunate enough to see often now in British magazines and movies. But it was rarer back then.

It was very, very good....tho' not as good as her later books, I think. I marked just a very few passages this reading:

"You couldn't say "I can't bear it" because if you didn't bear it, the only other thing to do was to stop the world and get off, and there did not seem to be any practical way to do this. To fill the void and occupy her hands and mind, she did what women, under stress and in times of anxiety, have been doing for centuries: immersed herself in domesticity and family life. Physical activity proved a mundane but comforting therapy. She cleaned the house from attic to cellar, washed blankets, dug the garden. It did not stop her from wanting Richard, but at least, at the end of it, she had a shining, sweet-smelling house and two rows of freshly planted young cabbages."

"I lived with sadness for so long. And a loneliness that nothing and no one could assuage. But, over the years, I came to terms with what had happened. I learned to live within myself, to grow flowers, to watch my children grow, to look at painting and listen to music. The gentle powers. They are quite amazingly sustaining."

The gentle powers...isn't that thought-provoking? There is a book or a blog or something that might be made of that idea...when the time is right.

And lastly...

September has come, it is here

Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,

Whose nature prefers

Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.

So I gave her this month and the next

Though the whole of my year should be hers who has

rendered already

so many of its days intolerable or perplexed

But so many more so happy.

Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls

Dancing over and over with her shadow

Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls

And all of London littered with remembered kisses.

-Louis MacNeice

fresh

2011-01-10T00:14:00.002-05:00

I have been re-decorating a bit around here, and hope it looks nice to your eyes (I haven't checked it on my studio computer yet and hope it isn't too bright....my old laptop has a rather dim screen!).

I will be back soon with a few posts. As the year is so fresh and new, and I am only on my second book, it feels like a good time to start again. This year will feel that much richer at the end of it if I have taken the time to collect some beauty and meaning from my reading as I go along.

See you very soon.

a grand thing

2010-10-27T17:25:00.003-04:00

I finished The Language of the Bees several days ago and soon discovered that our library's copies of the next book in the series were all checked out.....with a waiting list. So I made the rare decision to order a new copy from Amazon. It was just what I needed to qualify an order of home-schooling books for free shipping. (So you see the wonderful rightness and logic of my decision, don't you?)

While I waited for the book to arrive, I started Agatha Christie's autobiography. I can tell that it is going to be interesting and delightful.

From the introduction:

"To be part of something one doesn't in the least understand is, I think, one of the most refreshing things about life.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

But poor Agatha is going to have to wait now.....I received a package from Amazon this afternoon....I am tired and aching from uncluttering and cleaning....and now the rain has begun to fall....so I am taking The God of the Hive and heading to the porch sofa!

solitude

2010-10-19T16:02:00.004-04:00

From chapters 9-12 of The Language of Bees....the latest (for me!) Mary Russell novel by Laurie King.
Utterly enjoyable.

"I set the wine to cool while I closed up the house against the creatures of the night, then put together a plate of strong cheese, oat biscuits, and summer fruit. I spread some cushions and a travelling rug on the warm stones of the terrace and dined in solitary splendour while the colours came into the sky. I lay with the soft rug around me, watching the azure slip into indigo, and spotted the first meteors.

I fell asleep watching them, no doubt assisted by the better part of a bottle of wine."

"I spent the morning settling into the quiet, amiable house..."

"I spent the rest of the day walking up; up to my own farm, where I looked from a distance and decided I did not wish to spend any more of the day in conversation, and then west towards the Cuckmere."

"Birds sang, despite the lateness of the season, and the lush countryside soothed my parched skin and my thin-stretched spirit."

"I bathed and put on a silk robe I had bought in Japan, and while the kettle boiled, I went to the library in search of a congenial book."

"I was pleased to find a portion of meat pie in the back of the icebox, stale but still smelling good, and ripe tomatoes from the garden outside the door, into which I chopped some onions and cheese. A bottle of cider from the pantry, a slice of stale bread and fresh butter, and I was content in my small and no doubt temporary island of tranquillity. I ate at the scrubbed wood table in the kitchen, and left my dishes in the sink until morning."

garments

2010-09-29T16:13:00.004-04:00

I thought I would continue the "g" theme, tho' there was actually no calculation involved in doing so. Laurie King's writing has simply sent me to the computer again to record:

When he first saw our conjuring and magic, Bindra was apprehensive, but once he had witnessed the similar reaction of the rustics, he immediately took on the garments of sophistication and scorned to gape, other than secretly.

"took on the garments of sophistication"

So pleasing.

I am rather timid in saying this (as a homeschooling mother), but I have never been very good at remembering what various literary devices are called (or grammar either, for that matter). But I do know what I love, what speaks to me, what "conjures" up evocative images in my mind as I read certain words strung together...and Laurie King seems to string words together in ways that make me very happy.

One day I will move on to another author, but I am still intrigued by Mary and Holmes, and their adventures are especially satisfying on these rainy days we are enjoying. A log fire and a scalding cup of tea would make for perfection.

gleanings

2010-09-23T19:47:00.003-04:00

(from Laurie King's Mary Russell books-still gladly in the midst of them!)

I love this for its aptness:

"Badger Old Place welcomed us with all its run-down, shaggy magnificence, like and old friend shifting to make room on a bench."

And I love this because it is wonderful to spend time with a friend in the way the last six words describe, and because this is illustrative of the abundance of comforting drinks and cosy places in which to drink them that happily dot Laurie King's novels.

"Mary! What are you doing here? Looking for me? But why in heaven's name didn't you come and find me--you must be in an advanced stage of ice cube-ism. come along; we'll find a warm corner with drinks in it and bemoan the state of the world."

There was also a lovely sentence with something about "grasping the nettle" along with Holmes' hand or some such....but I had to return the book to the library before I could find the beloved sentence. I have since looked up "grasp the nettle" online and it seems to mean forging ahead with something difficult or unpleasant, tho' you know there will be a sting. On my first visit to England in the early 1980s I was thrilled to come across a patch of nettles in Cornwall and proceeded to swish my forearm across the leaves. The resulting tingling accompanied me for quite a while as my friend and I walked to the sea, but I was foolishly glad to have at last experienced what I had read about so often in my books!

glorious

2010-08-21T18:08:00.007-04:00

"A brief hour's tramp through wet woods brought us to the village of Lydford, nestled along a river at the very edge of the moor's rising slopes. There we succumbed to the temptations of the flesh and spent a glorious thirty minutes in front of an inn's blazing fireplace, drinking coffee and steaming our boots."

-Laurie King

Tho' I had only just reclined upon my sofa and begun the first paragraph of Chapter Four in The Moor by Laurie R. King....I made myself go to the computer to place those few sentences into my word nest....because they capture some of what I have so been enjoying in the reading of the Mary Russell series (I am on book four with many more to go-thank goodness!). The wonderful detail, the intelligence, the utterly satisfying and lovely writing that leads you on and on, the fascinating cases and settings, the intriguing relationship between Mary and Holmes....I highly recommend them.

And I thank whoever it was that recommended them to me (Barry? One of my readers at the Bower when I asked for ideas for a good read?).

They are making for delightful reading this Summer and will take me contentedly into the Autumn.

A Year by the Sea

2010-07-06T14:07:00.003-04:00

I have begun a book by Joan Anderson, one of the books I brought home from the library
last week....biographies, of women, to help me in my search to find the wellspring (there is a lovely word! def. "Original and bountiful source of something") of my current life.

I am going to record the passages that speak to me here...perhaps they will speak to someone else, as well.

All quotations are © Joan Anderson, italics are mine.

"Circling my head is a Monarch butterfly, which long ago should have been on its way to Brazil. "Perhaps you, too, need some extra time by the sea," I say, as it flaps it wings and settles on my shoulder. I eventually wander down from the bluff to the calm surf, where the water is not going anywhere, neither coming in nor going out, ebb tide, I suppose-the sea at a standstill, as am I. It was always the nothingness of ebb tide that drove me to distraction--when the wind stopped breathing and the water was still--when there wasn't enough depth to have a good swim and not enough current to make it a challenge."

"My soul is as drab as the September beach upon which I sit. I must be still and listen to the primitive squawk of birds and breathe, breathe deeply of the moist, clean air and be open to whatever comes my way."

"My instinct tells me to lie low, to process the grief that is the partner of change, but I am also aware that I should begin to do something."

"I was utterly entranced by one such child at the beach whose mother kept calling to her, "Victoria do this...Victoria do that." Victoria would have none of it; she was simply too immersed in her environment to eat or take a nap or be part of her family group. No, Victoria was in her wond world--breaking all the rules, naked to the waist, hair caked with salt and sand--the embodiment of bliss."

"Woman must come of age by herself. She must find her true center alone." Anne Morrow Lindbergh-Gift from the Sea (A chapter heading in this book....it takes me back to when we had a summer reading club a few years ago and read GFTS. Reading this book seems almost a continuation of reading that one. )

"But every time I replay the phone call of the other night I feel relieved, even privileged, to be apart from those who for so long looked to me to make everything work, to be without duty or schedule. Instead I stand here and dream and wonder and watch as the empties and fills itself up again."

"I am deep into my time-out season of life, where it seems best to be actively passive, involved in little, aware of much."

"...continuing on my private pilgrimage as I grapple with darkness, in hopes of seeing the light."

"I am beginning to grasp some idea of what I want. For starters, I want to take no action,"pursue that which is not meddlesome," says the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. Having taken myself away, I am in a frame of mind to wait and see rather than manipulate and direct. Living with nature had taught me the dignity of being without motive. Occupying this tiny cottage with no clutter, only barren essentials, has served to help me find more in less."

"I read somewhere that the Frenchwoman's role is to please others, but to please herself in the process!"

sound fruit

2010-06-12T15:39:00.005-04:00

I am under the weather today, just a little touch of something, leaving just enough energy after hanging out the wash to choose a D.E. Stevenson novel from the book basket and retire to the couch. If you ever want and easy and interesting read, full of wholesome things like fresh-baked scones and country holidays and gentle romance, do find anything by D.E. Stevenson.

I am reading _Bel Lamington_ and took myself to the computer to share this interesting thought:

"It was surprising to find that Louise was so capable for Bel had always thought her a butterfly-she had seemed a butterfly at school-but Bel had a theory that people don't change, they merely develop. Who would think that the lovely fragile blossom upon an apple-tree would develop into apples? It was almost incredible when you thought about it-but so it was. The germ of the apple was there from the very beginning...and the same with Louise who had been fragile fairy-like blossom and was now sound fruit, sweet and juicy."

At Louise and Bel's age, I would have only wanted to be the "fairy-like blossom"...but at fifty-one, I am deeply happy to be "sound fruit-sweet and juicy".

hush

2010-05-24T19:36:00.003-04:00

It has been a long time since I last posted here.....a few months of mostly reading
non-fiction to help me along my way with my mother. I have read a few very pleasant novels over March and April, but no lines or words begged to be captured here, so all has remained quiet.

But a few days ago, a rainy day I do believe, I was filled with an overwhelming urge to read
a good story. I didn't have any from the library and it was late at night, so I was in our temporary bedroom (my eldest son's-who is away at college). The bookshelves lining one wall are, therefore, filled with children's books....from picture books to Star Wars novels....all the years of his reading. My eyes were drawn to the top shelf and the little yellow spine of a book I bought to read myself many years ago, but that my sons also enjoyed.

Wise Child by Monica Furlong, has been the perfect companion for me over the past few days. Within its pages I found so much to share, mostly at The Bower, for the passages I marked are thought-provoking and perfect for musing upon. But one line I marked just because it made me smile with its beauty and perfection.

"It was very quiet in the wood, and the bright light of the sky filtered through the leaves and made patterns on the forest floor. We moved, slowly, silently as if the quiet of the place put a finger on our lips."

I hope it will not be so silent here in the months to come.

a glass of blessings

2010-02-10T14:44:00.003-05:00

I scooped this book off the shelf during my last flying-visit to the library. I have always wanted to try Barbara Pym and this one had the prettiest cover, so....

It was a pleasant read and I found several lines that brought me here to set them down...but on the whole, I couldn't get close to it. The characters seemed so detached and sophisticated that I could never warm up to them.

But here are some delightful, sometimes picturesque snippets:

"...I came to the conclusion that people who went to evening classes were all more or less odd. It was unnatural to want to acquire knowledge after working hours."

"Some graves were very old, their headstones broken and overgrown with ivy, reminding me of tumbled unmade beds."

"I really cannot wait in the queue. I am Miss Daunt,' I heard her say in a loud ringing tone. 'My blood is Rhesus negative, the most valuable kind. I have a letter from the Regional Director. This precious blood,' she read,'that is the phrase used.'

'This precious blood,' she murmured, and began muttering to herself, first about her blood and then about irrelevant things which I could only half hear-a quarrel with somebody about a broken milk bottle and what they had said to each other. It seemed like a 'stream of consciousness' novel, but i was relieved when she stopped talking for I had been afraid that she might address me. Virginia Woolf might have brought something away from the experience, I thought; perhaps writers always do this, from situations that merely shock and embarrass ordinary people."

This scene caught my attention because I have Rh negative blood and then just made me laugh. Now when I give blood it will be hard not to dramatically refer to my "precious blood"!

"But in the meantime there was the excitement, which I still felt, of the Christmas post arriving two or three times a day in the week before Christmas Day."

*sigh* Imagine a world where that still happened!

"There is another little parcel you seem to have forgotten,' said Sybil, pointing to a little soft square package wrapped in holly paper. 'Oh dear, it's two handkerchiefs from Mary,' I said, 'and I didn't give her anything."

I liked this because I could imagine the soft little package with two hand-embroidered handkerchiefs inside, folded many times into a small bundle, something that seems a sweet and satisfying gift to make and give.

"But there was hardly time to consider whether we should ring or not, for the moment we set foot on the doorstep I noticed a curtain at the ground floor window being flicked aside and heard footsteps within. Evidently Mr. Bason had been watching for our arrival in a rather Cranfordian way.

I finally discovered Cranford this Winter (not the book yet, just the Masterpiece Theatre) so I could truly appreciate this.

'No, I despise women who are always knitting,' said Sybil. 'Buti it can be a useful occupation-the kind of thing one can do when talking.'

'I wonder if women brought their knitting when Oscar Wilde talked,' said Piers.

'I daresay not,' said Sybil calmly, 'but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have liked to.'

twosomes

2009-11-09T19:15:00.006-05:00

....I read Maisie Dobbs a few weeks ago, and tho' it
interested me enough to finish it to the end, in the end,
I was not won over. How disappointing. I just didn't
believe in her or some of her actions. And the writing
didn't move or delight me. So I will not be putting the
rest of the series on hold at the library, but will soon
try another book on the list of possibilities.

In the meantime, I did glean these two two-somes
from my reading...

small hours

&

bed socks

The first is just so evocative and comforting, somehow.
And the second sparks my curiosity, for what, exactly,
are "bed socks"? I do often wear socks to bed in the cold
weather, but they are just everyday socks that I also wear
out of bed (and usually toe-off sometime in the night!).
Were bed socks kept specifically for that purpose and,
perhaps, thicker than socks one would wear with shoes?
Did women not really wear socks in the days of mostly
dresses? Mysterious...but a comforting twosome, as well.

julia

2009-10-15T19:12:00.002-04:00

It is becoming a theme that I haven't much time for reading, but it remains sadly true. The last time I curled up with a book was on the train home from my art retreat in New Hampshire-Sept. 22! But on that peaceful train ride I spent a few hours with Julia Child, reading her book My Life in France-a perfectly delightful read.

Here are some of the words and passages that brought me pleasure or recognition...

p. 24

"We sat outside, on wicker seats, munching our croissants and watching the morning sun illuminate the chimney pots."

p. 32

"Yet she glistened like an old hand-polished copper fire-hood. It gave me great pleasure to see someone as fully mature and mellow but also as lively and aglow as she was. Madam Perrier became the model for how I wanted to look in my dotage." (Me, too.)

p. 33

"...and stored them in an empty room upstairs that we named the oubliette (forgettery)."

p. 104

"frigorification" (referring to her very cold apartment during a Paris winter)

....and that is all for the moment. I still have more than half the book to read, but am plunged into the making of things for shows and for the imminent re-opening of my online shop, and immersing myself in a book hasn't been happening-but I am every hopeful!

"live in ink"

2009-09-04T01:19:00.003-04:00

Posts have been scarce here, as scarce as the moments I have spent reading novels this past month.

Most all of my reading time has been spent with books of a practical nature as I research various interests and endeavors....and tho' much of it has been helpful, it has not been exactly beautiful or noteworthy.

But I came across this in an old Williamsburg engagement calendar. It comes from a poem anonymously contributed to the Virginia Gazette in the mid 1700's in praise of the editor of the paper who had opened a paper mill.

"The Substances of what we think,
Tho' born in Thought, must live in Ink."

This will be the "motto" of the planner I am designing....for I have learned too late that

"Whilst willing Mem'ry lends her Aid,
She finds herself by Time betray'd"

Let us remember to give our valuable thoughts a chance to "live in ink" or, atleast, the virtual
ink of blog and web.

peaceful heart

2009-07-26T14:28:00.003-04:00

I have been amongst my books for the past few days, sorting and dusting and making piles. It is grubby work, and rather melancholy, as I decide what to keep and what to give up.

This afternoon I came across a lovely (inside and out!) Henry Van Dyke book (have you met him yet?) called The Friendly Year. It has an excerpt from his writings, one for each day of the year, and my edition is from 1912. For today:

July 26th

"Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few scenes of the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor? That is what in-dolence means, and there are no better teachers of it than light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the wisest of all masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more pleasant pedagogue to lead us to their school than a small, merry brook."

A timely reminder in the fast-slipping summer days and also the gift of a new word to roll around my mouth.....dolor (meaning a state of sorrow or distress). And to find that the meaning I knew for "indolence" is only a recent one (18th century : ), and that it previously meant simply the absence of "dolor". Something I will be seeking as I remember to more often be a spectator of this world...with a peaceful heart.

a trio

2009-07-11T21:49:00.004-04:00

There has been little time for reading in the past month, tho' even as I typed those words I realized that is is not quite true (and what a dreadful reality it would be to truly have no time to read!).

My life has been so full and demanding that those hours without responsibilities were filled with sleep or movies. There was one book (chosen for its very undemanding-ness) which also meant there was nothing in it to share here.

But the past few nights, I have treated myself to a little bit of reading from the charming essays in Abbie Graham's _Vain Pomp and Glory_ 1927. Abbie Graham's books are some of my most favorite books in the world. Someday (in a project I am beginning work on) I will share her writings on a regular basis, but tonight I just want to jot down three lovely and satisfying words:

forsythia

sparrow

farthing

...I was still glowing from the beauty of "forsythia" on page 48 when I read "sparrow" on page 49 (a word that has always beguiled me), quickly followed on page 50 with "farthing" (quickly climbing the charts).

And on page 56, a whole passage I must copy out here:

"A home-going sense pervaded the dusk. All the traffic was homeward-bound, flashing red tail-lights of departure. I could but envy the automobiles as they went, for even the meanest of these sent forth a joyous signal that the day was ended and evening was at hand. Yet I stood in the greyness of the twilight a dull figure, hardly distinguishable from the drab pavement. Was there no way by which home-going pedestrians might grow luminous, haloed with joy, radiating the tidings that they, too, were going home, that in some small corner of the apartmented air candle-lighted dinner tables awaited them, and books, and good company? Must we leave this glowing expression to taxis, trucks and limousines?" -AG

Do you have your own trios to share, I hope?

ruth

2009-06-12T05:03:00.000-04:00

I am reading A Son of Hagar by Hall Caine. I bought if for a dollar at our library, because I liked the cover, which is brownish and has an Arts and Craftsy look to it.
I began it about six weeks ago and found it very melodramatic-enough to make me roll my eyes at times. But it is set in Cumbria, so I have perservered with it.

Tonight I came across this line...

"Without pity, without remorse, with a will that was relentless and a heart that never knew ruth..."

Gosh! My whole life knowing the word "ruthless", but never stopping to think that if there is a ruthless, of course there must be a ruth (a feeling of pity, distress or grief). Wonderful.

Also this...

"He rolled over, face to the wall, and began to pay nasal tribute to sleep." : )

And this...

"Greta's heart beat high that night. Her spirit was full of a new alacrity. Every inch of the way, as they flew over the busy streets, seemed to awake in her soul some fresh sensibility."

I love the two words, but also that Mr. Caine has described a rare but glorious mood so evocatively.

Dawn is coming here, with the birds singing in the dark outside my door. I hope that I may soon find sleep, tho' without the 'nasal tribute'.

Good night!