sunday laundry :: cranberry bread :: a journey of a thousand miles :: maple leaves
what did you do this weekend?
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
what's in a white shelf?
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| {book case + baby gym} |
This is my favorite part of our house. And I love the fact that these bookshelves are white. I grew up around solid oak book cases, and I've always had some faux wood shelves in my own places. But why be tied to wood coloring when it's not even real wood? Sure, IKEA's stuff is wooden, but I wouldn't really call it wood; it's more like molten woodstuffs.
Maybe I wanted the bookshelves to match the two pieces of furniture I've never gotten rid of. First, my mother's hope chest, which has been moving with me since I was 17. I must have transported that thing at least a full handful of times with what few other belongings in the back seat of my sedan. (You're talkin' to a girl who has moved more than 20 times in as many years and who has lightened her load [read: gifted and goodwilled maniacally] more times than she cares to remember.) Second, my grandpa's solid heavy desk. But you know what? Fake wood will never match real wood, and one wood usually doesn't match another wood either.
After living through a long Patagonian winter--half of it spent in a low-ceilinged, dark icebox--I dreamed of living in white place with white, clean lines. Everything around me would be some shade of white. However when we arrived to the States and finally moved into our apartment taking stock of the things I did still own, white just didn't seem in my future. So when we went to IKEA, I imagined purchasing something black. Or maybe even red. But white matches everything; or it doesn't beg to match anything. Happily (after hours walking through a weekday IKEA with little R in the carrier) we banked on white.
As I unpacked the boxes of books and haphazardly organized them a la heather, I saw how they tell a loose history of me. Aside from family furniture, books are the one thing I never let go. That is, until I left for South America. I sold about three boxes of me to a used bookshop right before I skedaddled. But the remainder still creates a complete-enough history. Even if I'm the only one who knows the story. The classes I've taken, papers I've written, where certain books were acquired or read, how used Elizabeth Bishop's Letters reeked of stale cigarette smoke when I sliced open the box in my cubicle at work.
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| {go toward the white} |
What I love most about the whiteness of our shelves is the context they offer. Stuff pops off each shelf in splishes of color. They signal a beginning. Baby books and family magazines. Arrows to our ourness.
friday present: from dreaming to loving.
Again, just a wee late as we jetted off to the Park to camp in the frozen clear night. It's been a pretty eventful week. I plan to keep my list simple and short, but we'll see what happens. This week's gratitude list unfolds a little like this...
vivid dreams of old friends.
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| {photo : unknown : please let me know if it's yours} |
Beautiful friends from the past have been visiting my dreams. We're talking folks I haven't seen in a while, not the people I see daily here. Last time I was home for a visit was in October (not long, yet long enough), and I couldn't see everybody I wanted to hug. But I've seen everybody in the last two weeks. Wouldn't it be great to have a tea party with all the people you dream about in a week? I guess some weeks it might then be a party of one. Other weeks maybe even a nightmarish affair. But maybe tea parties are the answer for facing our lonelinesses and fears.
windless calm.
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| {torres del paine, reflected} |
Don't get me wrong. Icy cold still tenses our muscles considerably. Two nights ago the water in our Nalgene started to freeze while inside the tent. Every place has its characters. Were you to read or write a story about Patagonia, you'd find wind is always the main character. But, thankfully, winter gives us a wind reprieve. The lakes and lagoons, like glass, reflect the mountains, clouds and stars. Well, that is if said water isn't sheeted with ice or frozen straight through. There's a time for the exhilaration and fight contra el viento, and a time for deep breathing and peace. I'm diggin' the latter. Without the thrash of wind, birdsong and creek-trickle sing.
morning's lonesome grebe ebing for his lover.
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| {swans, not grebes} |
One of the pretty things you can wake up to here on calm days. Yesterday morning, one grebe V'd near the shore of a blue lagoon. I wondered where his mate was, and I'm pretty sure he was wondering the same thing. As we prepared our breakfast, a back and forth conversation quickened. Lonesome grebe found his mate, and they noisily chattered and sped the pace of their paddling. Where were you last night? I was worried sick.
warm sleeping beneath two down comforters.
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| {photo} |
This is especially wonderful after a cold fitful night's rest with muscles locked cold. I love backpacking, camping and being gone, disconnected. But I also love that hot shower, delicious food and warm bed waiting for me upon my return. This is turning into a calm post with a sleepy focus. So I'll leave you with this bedtime story...
guess how much I love you?
We ordered some stuff from Amazon and sent it to my aunt, because they wouldn't ship it here directly. We have to do this fairly often, and I am so thankful that I have loving family and friends to mail us things! (THANK YOU!)
She added this beautiful book to the package. Our first baby book. And still a bedtime favorite of her grandbabies, who are now all double-digit old now! (when did that happen!?) It's basically a conversation between Little Nutbrown Bear and Big Nutbrown Bear about how much they love one another. When LNB is so sleepy with measuring all the possibilities, he tells BNB: I love you to the moon. BNB tucks in sleeping LNB, and whispers. I love you to the moon and back. Jeez, it tears me up just to write this.
And why would she be sending us baby books? You guessed it! We're going to be first-time parents around mid-January. While I did eat a lot of cheesecake this week, it's baby Yalin who is really making his presence more and more obvious.
Wish you all a restful weekend, full of big dreams and sweet ones!
{photos 2 +3 by serkan}
On Seymour...
So, back to Salinger. I’ve only ever read The Catcher in the Rye, famously formerly banned high school required reading. But it’s been ages, and I can’t say I ever revisited Catcher. In fact, even though I got good grades, loved to be around books, had an inclination toward English classes, edited the HS literary magazine, ended up an English Major in college and edited the university lit mag, I truly only remember reading maybe three books throughout all four years of high school.
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t read the books. I also don’t readily remember character names or story endings for books I may have read last year, but I remember reading them. The tactile experience: place, smells, weather, excitement, sadness, sudden lit light bulbs and so forth. If I flip through the pages, the memories rush back.
But for so many HS books, I can’t even remember picking them up. Call it PTSD or what you will; my memory of that era is shot full of holes. I do know for a fact that I never finished Huck Finn, though I always did want to go back to it, in theory. Other novels—such as Beloved, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine—I can probably thank these books for my (poor) choice of university study.
So, how did this get to be about high school reading anyway? I wanted to say what I loved about Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.
While Seymour did start to get a little old with the narrator, Buddy’s, description of his older suicided brother, Seymour, I love the tone, the voice, the undercurrent throughout. And what Salinger was trying to do: keep Buddy’s older role model brother young alive and still a model, someone who Buddy can continue learning from. In that way Buddy is able to deal (or not deal) with his grief. Or more accurately, he starts to reminisce and to grieve. We bear witness to this as writing about Seymour’s eyes and nose becomes excruciating reason for naps.
While the entire novella reads self-consciously as a writer writing a book, the “transcription” of Seymour’s letter to Buddy after Seymour stayed up all night reading one of Buddy’s short stories (in the story) is a beautiful collection of tips for writers. “Don’t make me proud of you,” Seymour writes. “If only you’d never keep me up again out of pride. Give me a story that makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up again till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.”
Seymour isn’t not praising the Buddy’s story. It kept him up till 5 a.m., but he’s warning him against perfection. As “trite” as it sounds, Seymour mainly wants to tell Buddy: “Please follow your heart, win or lose.” Don’t get carried away by what others want or by what you think others want. (Oh, this is so often when we miss the shot.) Essentially Seymour advises Buddy: don’t aim. Let accident happen.
This ties in with Buddy feeling it necessary to drop poetry entirely if one is to settle and stop seeking… well, perfection. I puzzled over this passage for some time. If one is able to loosen up, as it were, and accept things as they are, why is that a call to “drop poetry altogether?” I reread this passage several times, thinking what does it mean… exactly? At the end of the novella, Seymour re-utters his no-aim refrain, suggesting that Buddy stop trying so hard while playing marbles. Sure, Buddy always hits the target, but there’s no fun in it, no adventure. No serendipity. Nothing learned.
Which brings me back to what does it mean exactly…
As I write this I realize that as a reader, too, I’m shouldering my perfectionist tendencies. Part of me, what I will call my intuitive and more intelligent side, wants to accept this line of thought as somehow profound; it’s certainly interesting. Another (rational, bogarting analytical) part is saying, what the heck do you mean by that? I want an answer. I want my target to be hit. But the fact that such a passage stops me in my tracks means my target was bullseyed. Go figure. I didn’t even know I had a target. So, perfectionism aside, my target, which might not have even existed before someone struck it, was indeed struck by accident, without aiming. Aiming for what? Exactly…
It’s funny that I’ve written all about Seymour, when during the read it was Raise High that I enjoyed most. But it seems I’ve run out of time. I’m hungry, and it’s time for breakfast, coffee and phone calls.
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t read the books. I also don’t readily remember character names or story endings for books I may have read last year, but I remember reading them. The tactile experience: place, smells, weather, excitement, sadness, sudden lit light bulbs and so forth. If I flip through the pages, the memories rush back.
But for so many HS books, I can’t even remember picking them up. Call it PTSD or what you will; my memory of that era is shot full of holes. I do know for a fact that I never finished Huck Finn, though I always did want to go back to it, in theory. Other novels—such as Beloved, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine—I can probably thank these books for my (poor) choice of university study.
So, how did this get to be about high school reading anyway? I wanted to say what I loved about Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.
While Seymour did start to get a little old with the narrator, Buddy’s, description of his older suicided brother, Seymour, I love the tone, the voice, the undercurrent throughout. And what Salinger was trying to do: keep Buddy’s older role model brother young alive and still a model, someone who Buddy can continue learning from. In that way Buddy is able to deal (or not deal) with his grief. Or more accurately, he starts to reminisce and to grieve. We bear witness to this as writing about Seymour’s eyes and nose becomes excruciating reason for naps.
While the entire novella reads self-consciously as a writer writing a book, the “transcription” of Seymour’s letter to Buddy after Seymour stayed up all night reading one of Buddy’s short stories (in the story) is a beautiful collection of tips for writers. “Don’t make me proud of you,” Seymour writes. “If only you’d never keep me up again out of pride. Give me a story that makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up again till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.”
Seymour isn’t not praising the Buddy’s story. It kept him up till 5 a.m., but he’s warning him against perfection. As “trite” as it sounds, Seymour mainly wants to tell Buddy: “Please follow your heart, win or lose.” Don’t get carried away by what others want or by what you think others want. (Oh, this is so often when we miss the shot.) Essentially Seymour advises Buddy: don’t aim. Let accident happen.
This ties in with Buddy feeling it necessary to drop poetry entirely if one is to settle and stop seeking… well, perfection. I puzzled over this passage for some time. If one is able to loosen up, as it were, and accept things as they are, why is that a call to “drop poetry altogether?” I reread this passage several times, thinking what does it mean… exactly? At the end of the novella, Seymour re-utters his no-aim refrain, suggesting that Buddy stop trying so hard while playing marbles. Sure, Buddy always hits the target, but there’s no fun in it, no adventure. No serendipity. Nothing learned.
Which brings me back to what does it mean exactly…
As I write this I realize that as a reader, too, I’m shouldering my perfectionist tendencies. Part of me, what I will call my intuitive and more intelligent side, wants to accept this line of thought as somehow profound; it’s certainly interesting. Another (rational, bogarting analytical) part is saying, what the heck do you mean by that? I want an answer. I want my target to be hit. But the fact that such a passage stops me in my tracks means my target was bullseyed. Go figure. I didn’t even know I had a target. So, perfectionism aside, my target, which might not have even existed before someone struck it, was indeed struck by accident, without aiming. Aiming for what? Exactly…
It’s funny that I’ve written all about Seymour, when during the read it was Raise High that I enjoyed most. But it seems I’ve run out of time. I’m hungry, and it’s time for breakfast, coffee and phone calls.
Earwig Bookmarks
Today, in a rare stint of warm weather, I hurried through some burnt piles of books, which Isabel, my landlady, was just going to throw away!!! In fact, they did dump about 3/4 of the books INTO THE GARBAGE before I said STOP!
Basically the books are from Isabel's late father, who was one of the first doctors on Tierra del Fuego. Sentimental for Isabel, right? Her house burned down a couple of years ago and these books are one of the few remnants of the house and of her dad. Books not in great condition, charred black on the spines and fore edges, and completely out of order. Which is bad for an encyclopedia whose whole existence is based on order--good ole alpha order.
They were awesome hard-bound encyclopedia type books with stellar pictures, examples, photos, glossy thick paper, quality stuff. And really, truly: they just don't make 'em like that anymore. I went through some of the pictures and craziness that is encyclopedianess when I first arrived here from my travels to Ecuador in August. They were stacked high on a desk buried in my bedroom before I shoveled all the clutter out of it. (You should have seen this place when I first got here, but that's a different story.) In August I asked Isabel what she planned to do with the books. She told me their story and said that she was going to take them to a specialist to have them reassembled.
After two months, they were shoved inside a doorless cabinet and tossed outside, in the Patagonian wind-rain-sun-wind-weather-120 km wind-vertical rain-street dogs and street cats-patagonia elements for christsake-weather. Then the earwigs moved in. Nests of them. Thousands of the creepy scissoring insects creeping and scissoring in and out of the loose blackened hinges. I put a plastic shopping bag over my hand and shook the tijeretas (earwigs in spanish) off of the remaining encyclopedic pieces, flipping through the pages again and missing something that I cannot remember. A series of pages with fruits and WWII and Gauguin and Ghana. One page in particular I nearly nabbed back in August. But I didn't because that one page would be integral in the remaking of the book. Part of me is still rapt in my first experience of those pages, but I can't remember exactly what lured me and I can't say with any certainty that if I saw it again, I would recognize it.
There is so much in this about non-attachment. Losing a parent (even at a 'natural' age), losing your home and all your belongings to fire, then throwing out what's left. I have gotten rid of everything and started over more times than I have fingers. But here I am packratting away the burned leftovers of another packrat. Incidentally, Isabel never would have taken the initiative to throw the papers out herself. It was the cleaning lady, who is also named Ysabel but with a Y, who couldn't handle all the earwigs inside the kitchen, so she started to clean up the mess that was in the backyard in hopes of slowing the swarms spiraling up through the drain in the kitchen sink.
I don't know what I will do with the books. A series of poems maybe, because the idea of ordering the world alphabetically fascinates me endlessly. Or just cutting up the pages and doing collages. So... maybe it isn't just a love of books, especially if I cut them up. But it pained me too much to see them bagged up and hefted to the side of the road to await the dump truck!
Basically the books are from Isabel's late father, who was one of the first doctors on Tierra del Fuego. Sentimental for Isabel, right? Her house burned down a couple of years ago and these books are one of the few remnants of the house and of her dad. Books not in great condition, charred black on the spines and fore edges, and completely out of order. Which is bad for an encyclopedia whose whole existence is based on order--good ole alpha order.
They were awesome hard-bound encyclopedia type books with stellar pictures, examples, photos, glossy thick paper, quality stuff. And really, truly: they just don't make 'em like that anymore. I went through some of the pictures and craziness that is encyclopedianess when I first arrived here from my travels to Ecuador in August. They were stacked high on a desk buried in my bedroom before I shoveled all the clutter out of it. (You should have seen this place when I first got here, but that's a different story.) In August I asked Isabel what she planned to do with the books. She told me their story and said that she was going to take them to a specialist to have them reassembled.
After two months, they were shoved inside a doorless cabinet and tossed outside, in the Patagonian wind-rain-sun-wind-weather-120 km wind-vertical rain-street dogs and street cats-patagonia elements for christsake-weather. Then the earwigs moved in. Nests of them. Thousands of the creepy scissoring insects creeping and scissoring in and out of the loose blackened hinges. I put a plastic shopping bag over my hand and shook the tijeretas (earwigs in spanish) off of the remaining encyclopedic pieces, flipping through the pages again and missing something that I cannot remember. A series of pages with fruits and WWII and Gauguin and Ghana. One page in particular I nearly nabbed back in August. But I didn't because that one page would be integral in the remaking of the book. Part of me is still rapt in my first experience of those pages, but I can't remember exactly what lured me and I can't say with any certainty that if I saw it again, I would recognize it.
There is so much in this about non-attachment. Losing a parent (even at a 'natural' age), losing your home and all your belongings to fire, then throwing out what's left. I have gotten rid of everything and started over more times than I have fingers. But here I am packratting away the burned leftovers of another packrat. Incidentally, Isabel never would have taken the initiative to throw the papers out herself. It was the cleaning lady, who is also named Ysabel but with a Y, who couldn't handle all the earwigs inside the kitchen, so she started to clean up the mess that was in the backyard in hopes of slowing the swarms spiraling up through the drain in the kitchen sink.
I don't know what I will do with the books. A series of poems maybe, because the idea of ordering the world alphabetically fascinates me endlessly. Or just cutting up the pages and doing collages. So... maybe it isn't just a love of books, especially if I cut them up. But it pained me too much to see them bagged up and hefted to the side of the road to await the dump truck!
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