Afternoon Light

A Mixed Bag of Books

In the never-ending battle to de-clutter and de-accession, I found myself pulling books from our living room shelves in order to make room for some big coffee table books that are no longer safe on the coffee table when Josie is rambling about.

And though most are elderly and crumbling paperbacks that even the library book sale probably doesn't want, I have trouble just throwing them out. So I've set myself the task of reading them first. Or reading the first chapter, at least. If I really am bored, I won't continue.

The Sea Wolf  and Captains Courageous are books I taught to First or Second Form classes (7th or 8th grade) when I taught at Berkeley Prep about fifty years ago. Death in Venice, Barabbas, and The Rise of Silas Lapham are from my undergraduate studies -- even longer ago. As I recall, I liked the first two and disliked Silas. But maybe my tastes have changed. 

I think the other books came from John's father and I've never read them, except for The Constant Nymph of which I have a hazy (and positive) memory.

When I picked up Christ Stopped at Eboli , I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't, as I'd always supposed from the title, a soppy book about a miraculous visit. Instead, it's the story of a man's year as a political prisoner in a remote town in southern Italy. The title's meaning is that Christ never got to Eboli "which means, in effect, that they (the people of Eboli) have been bypassed by Christianity, by morality, by history itself." 

As they say, you can't judge a book by its cover.

On Riddle Farm Road

Crock Potting

On the days I keep Josie, using a crock pot means I can put something together in the morning before Josie's driver delivers her and then have dinner ready soon after her driver calls for her in the evening.

Yesterday I made turkey thighs with beer and onions. We could smell it for most of the day and when we finally ate it, it was excellent. The gravy is rich and delicious and doesn't really taste like beer. I served it over rice but I think I'll use the leftover half as the base for a cottage pie.

The recipe I used is HERE at Dad Cooks Dinner. (For once, I followed it exactly -- given a choice of amber lager, brown ale, oAr porter, I used porter.)

A few days ago I made a kind of Pork Chili Verde/Posole --

We had the remnants of a pork tenderloin in the freezer and I cubed it up and browned the cubes in olive oil. Tossed the meat into the slow cooker, along with some salt, and in the same pan, sautéed a couple of chopped onions, some cut -up peppers (the mini red, yellow, and orange ones -- if I'd had some jalapenos, I'd have added them,) and some chopped garlic.

When the onion was translucent, I added the vegetables to the meat in the slow cooker, dumped in a jar of salsa verde, a little cayenne, and some cumin, and some chicken broth because it seemed to need more liquid. I let it cook all day on low. About a half an hour before dinner, I stirred in a can of hominy for the Posole effect.

We had this with a green salad with mango slices and corn tortilla quesadillas on the side. (Note: the tenderloin I used was fattier than most -- which was a good thing in this recipe. Pork shoulder would also work well.)

I have a feeling there's more crock potting in my future.

At the Very Crack of Dawn

I must admit that John took these pictures while I was still buried under the covers.

Josie's Big News

Fashion -- A Rambling Trip Down Memory Lane

As I sifted through my closet yet again, I came upon a few items I’ll never wear but have saved for what can only be called sentimental reasons. A long white dress that I wore when I was pregnant with my first child – and afterwards; it also made an appearance (on someone else) as a Jane Austen costume in a skit a few years ago at Wildacres. There were a pair of green chunky-heeled sandals – which I’ll never wear again but am unable to toss as they were my favorite ‘nice’ shoes of all time for color and comfort.

They accompanied a dress that lies at the bottom of a cedar chest – another favorite and very Sixties. Black voile with pink and green and white flowers splashed over it, above the knee A-line with long flaring sleeves. Maybe Josie can use it for a costume some day

And this got me to musing on my relationship with fashion over the years . . . I don’t have strong memories of any garment except my Girl Scout uniform (of which I was quite proud) before 1953 -- sixth grade. I suspect my mother bought it and I wore it, not caring much about clothes. This would change as my friends and I became aware of Fashion.

 

6^th grade 

The go-to look was full skirts (three yards of fabric gathered to a waist band) and blouses. Worn with as many heavily starched crinolines as possible. I had a classmate who owned five skirts and wore them all at once, moving a fresh one to the outer layer each day. I suggested to my mother that I might do the same, but she squelched the idea.

There was also a pink and green plaid organdy shirtwaist from Best and Co in NY (my mother loved their catalogue.) It was probably an Easter dress, but I remember it because I was wearing it when, waiting outside Morrison’s cafeteria with my grandparents, two boys whistled at me – a first.

And I remember fondly a pair of flannel lined blue jeans from the summer after sixth grade. At Camp Junaluska I wore them daily them till a counselor forced me to send them to the laundry to remove the smell of horse

Junior High

Fashion turned to circle skirts (some with poodles) and cinch belts. And little silk scarves tied around your neck. I didn’t have a poodle skirt but did have a white felt  circle skirt adorned with a big pink and red felt rose. Also, a somewhat iridescent navy taffeta circle skirt, worn with a see through blouse (over a slip) with elbow length puffed sleeves and dotted with tiny gold stars – tres elegant – or so I thought at the time -- worn with an slightly iridescent navy blue taffeta circle skirt.

High school

Now Fashion became sadly crucial. Suddenly crinolines disappeared. One of my favorites was this white Easter dress (actually a full skirt and blouse) I wore it (probably against my mother’s advice) because it made me feel beautiful to the train station to meet a visiting aunt and got flecks of soot all over the outfit, ruining it forever

This was when my mother (hoping to make me glamorous and, ultimately, marriageable – yes, that was the goal back then -- how Jane Austen!) really took an interest in what I wore, and I was the beneficiary of quite few shopping trips. Notable acquisitions include:

Black suede flats with a toe decoration of dull gold keys that jangled as I walked, worn (to parties) with a spaghetti strapped red plaid dress with another circle skirt.

A luxurious heavy red cashmere sweater that was more like a pet than a garment. I had to take good care of it and I couldn’t stop stroking its softness.

A special shopping trip across Tampa Bay to a little boutique in St. Petersburg yielded a skirt ad blouse of beautiful impressionistic autumnal print on cream background and dull yellow flats in buttery leather – with a little rosette of yellow and cream leaves on the toes.

Maas Brothers was, I think, Tampa’s largest department store and at certain times of the years they were awash in beautiful clothes. I remember a special selection of woven wool skirts from somewhere like Czechoslovakia in gorgeous colors and I wanted them all. I ended up with a peasanty- type skirt in turquoise wool with purple border pattern, paired with a thin purple wool blouse.

At about the same time I was captivated by a display of what I guess were called cocktail suits – velvet slim skirt and jackets, paired with satin blouses to match the jackets’ satin lining. The color combinations were all delightful – claret red velvet with pale pink, black with white, deep blue with light green, and brown with pink are some that I remember. I couldn’t make up my mind which I liked best, but it didn’t matter – as a seventeen-year-old, I had no need for a cocktail suit. But I still remember (obviously) the lust they inspired.

College '60-'63

 My mother put together my college wardrobe for my freshman year at Emory with all the intensity of planning a military campaign. As I recall, there was a lot of black and white with some red. And a classic camel-hair coat that I wish I still had. After I transferred to University of Florida, things got a good bit more casual -- Villager shirtwaists, madras (the kind that really fades) bermudas, a-line skirts  -- I lived just a short walk from Donegan’s, the local purveyor of college fashion and spent far too much of my time and allowance there.

Wedding '63

I got married and that was another occasion for my mother’s strategizing as a suitable trousseau was assembled. (When it was complete, she had her friends come over to view it – another time in a galaxy far away.) The star of the show was my going away outfit -- a Chanel/Jackie Kennedy type suit in cream wool boucle, worn with a periwinkle blue silk blouse and cream colored lizard skin heels.

And then I was spending our money, not my parents' and I learned to sew and made little A-line shifts out of linen that got me through some years of teaching at a prep school where I had to wear a dress, heels, and (argh) pantyhose.

But relief was coming. After our motorcycle tour of Europe where I wore jeans most of the time, I begn teaching at a school with relaxed dress standards – i.e. blue jeans. And that was the beginning of the end. Once we moved to the farm, I was in a place where it truly didn’t matter what one wore. And it still doesn’t.

After forty-some years without worrying about Fashion, revisiting the time before that is almost like looking back at someone else’s life. Hard to believe that if something hadn't changed, I might have gone on to dress like the lady in the picture below . . .

But probably not.

Missing Kay

 Kathryn Stripling Byer (NC Poet Laureate 2005- 2009) has been gone since last June but her poetry is as powerfully present as ever.  She and I shared a love for the strong women of these mountains.

Wildwood Flower

I hoe thawed ground
with a vengeance. Winter has left
my house empty of dried beans
and meat. I am hungry

and now that a few buds appear
on the sycamore, I watch the road
winding down this dark mountain
not even the mule can climb
without a struggle. Long daylight

and nobody comes while my husband
traps rabbits, chops firewood, or
walks away into the thicket. Abandoned
to hoot owls and copperheads,

I begin to fear sickness. I wait
for pneumonia and lockjaw. Each month
I brew squaw tea for pain.
In the stream where I scrub my own blood
from rags, I see all things flow
down from me into the valley.

Once I climbed the ridge
to the place where the sky
comes. Beyond me the mountains continued
like God. Is there no place to hide
from His silence? A woman must work

else she thinks too much. I hoe
this earth until I think of nothing
but the beans I will string,
the sweet corn I will grind into meal.

We must eat. I will learn
to be grateful for whatever comes to me.

Kathryn Stripling Byer

Take Everything Out of the Closet,They Said

This time of year I usually try to sift through my closet and retire things I haven't worn in years. But I know that in the past I just scratched the surface. So, taking my cue from de-clutter experts, I began hauling EVERTHING out of my closet.

I confess that halfway through I was feeling whelmed -- not overwhelmed but teetering on the brink.  The bed was piled high with a strange miscellany of stuff and I'd already forgotten what was on the bottom layer. So I decided to deal with just one side of the closet at a time.

After vacuuming the empty space (and annoying many spiders,) the next step was supposed to be holding each item in my hand and asking myself if it sparked joy. And tossing it if it didn't.

Ummm . . . not working for me. Those bleach -spattered stretch pants don't inspire much of anything except embarrassment but they are useful for housecleaning. And so it went, with many of the garments being saved for utility, not joy. 

An old jewelry box took a good hour of my time -- what does one do with sorority and fraternity pins? And monogrammed things? Some very odd odds and ends from my family and from John's -- I may talk about them another day. 

There were some, but not many, clothes to get rid of. But there were other things that evidently I'd shoved in because I didn't know where else to put them -- a elderly set of sheets, a heavy old denim bedspread, and an inordinate number of freebie type carry-alls.

It took pretty much all day but I've reminded myself of various garments I'd forgotten about and it's all in some sort of order.

And, aside from a industrial size garbage bag of trash, I have a nice little collection of things to go to My Sister's Attic, a local thrift store that benefits battered women, or the annual Madison Has Heart flea market that provides assistance with heating costs to needy local families.

Now that sparks joy!

John C. Campbell Again!

Once again I'll be teaching A Practical Guide to Writing Popular Fiction at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

A stay at JCC puts you amidst creative people of every persuasion -- the surroundings are inspirational and the food and accommodations are excellent. (You do have to make your own bed.)

My class runs from Sunday, June 10 to Saturday June 16. 

As the catalogue says: Your novel starts here with instruction and practice in writing realistic dialogue and creating characters that move through and interact with a fully realized setting. Study different approaches to plotting, and learn tricks for building suspense, ensuring continuity, and avoiding info dumps. We'll discuss forming or joining critique groups, the ins and outs of self-editing, how to query agents, and the many publishing alternatives available today. All levels welcome. 

This is an excellent class for anyone who wants to begin a novel (or has one underway.)  I try to cram a lot into this week but several completed novels have been published that were begun in this same class in past years. 

 

Plus it's a most pleasant way to spend a vacation -- especially if you have a friend or partner (all rooms are double occupancy) who might be interested this class or any of the many craft offerings.

There's complete information about John C. Campbell, this class, and how to register HERE. And, of course, I'm happy to answer questions

A Heartbeat in the Sky . . .

Male Cardinals punctuate the drab winter landscape with exclamation points of bright red. They're here year round but are probably most appreciated just now.

There seem to be at least a dozen in regular attendance at our bird feeders.

In summer they'll just be a grace note amidst the colors of the flowers and butterflies, but, now, how thankful I am for their presence.