Stately, plump …

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve been thinking about Ireland’s greatest author, James Joyce. Those who have read Joyce’s Ulysses fall into two camps; they either hate him or love him. I fall in the latter group. Ulysses was voted by the Modern Library as number one on the list of 100 important books of the 20th century, and if you’ve read this stream-of-consciousness book, you understand how radically different this was from all other literature in 1920, and for several decades to follow.

If you have never picked up Ulysses, there are a few things you might want to know. Joyce based his story on the ancient Homeric poem, The Odyssey. Joyce’s protagonist is a man named Leopold Bloom; we follow him through a single day in his travels through the streets of Dublin. As in Homer’s poem, he meets with the same obstacles, temptations and moral dilemmas as Odysseus. Well, not the very same, but symbolically similar.

I first read Ulysses when I was in my twenties. I found myself often losing the thread of the plot easily and getting swept up in the textures, colors, smells and sounds. This is perhaps what troubles so many readers; Ulysses resembles life more than literature, or what we conventionally think of as literature. In real life, sights, sounds, smells, colors and textures all come at us randomly. I would like to tell you that in Ulysses the sensory experiences have no meaning and do not contribute to the story – but that would be untrue. Joyce has packed his book with hundreds of little complex enigmas. Did I perceive and understand every reference … no. But that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the colorful day of one man’s life.

For example, as Dedalus is walking along the shore talking to himself, he reflects upon the ‘ineluctable modality of the visible.’ Roughly translated, the visible world informs his understanding of life; he is Odysseus facing the irresistible call of the Sirens.

For me, the most poignant part of the book is the very end where Bloom’s wife recalls an intimate moment with him.
O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

The Art of Nature

Georgia O’Keefe was one of my first artistic crushes. Her larger-than-life flowers were unapologetically sensual; her colors and shapes defied convention.

So when my friend Leann showed me this article from the British editiion of Country Living on the work of this London artist, Sarah Graham, I was newly smitten. Her work doesn’t technically resemble O’Keefe’s, except perhaps in subject matter. She uses charcoal or pencil on brown butcher’s paper, or white paper.

Like her mother, my mother is a voracious gardener. This madness for flowers is the sort of thing that sinks into your psyche whether you see it coming or not. It was only in my thirties that I was able to embrace this enthusiasm I inherited from my mother; either in the garden or in my work.

With my renewed interest in representing nature in its raw, noble uniqueness in my home, this approach holds endless possibilities for me. So, with all due respect, I’m going to borrow Sarah’s approach. I already have something in mind … to go above the mantle and compliment the new chair.

A Home in Harmony

There's nothing like a visit to American Furnishings to make you rethink your entire decor. Walking in, you immediately sense the nobility of raw, natural materials. Their mainstay is Stickley furniture; that nice, chunky furniture made famous by Gustav Stickley over a century ago. Stickley created a uniquely American style of furniture with exquisite craftsmanship and the promise that the owner of one of his pieces could enjoy it and pass it on to his children and grandchildren. His detractors, old-school philistines, described his work as, “severely plain and rectilinear.” But he launched a movement in architecture and furniture design that came to be known as the Arts and Crafts Movement, which influenced architectural greats of the time such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

The first tenet of the Arts & Crafts Movement was ‘A house ought to be constructed in harmony with its landscape, with special attention paid to selecting local materials.’ While such ideas are noble enough, today’s housing market and building codes prove to make it more of a challenge than ever. But my husband and I live in a house that was built in 1924, and in our effort to respect its history, we try to honor the spirit in which it was built.

We’re considering one of these Stickley chairs.


























And I’d also like to redo the guest bedroom in this industrial prairie style.













Thoughts?

Sunday Morning

One of my favorite poets, Wallace Stevens, experienced profound regret towards the end of his life for his lack of spiritual commitment. I give you a fragment of his poem, Sunday Morning, as an illustration of his poignant reflections.

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

(photo by me.)

Nina Simone, Feeling Good

Feeling Good, Nina Simone
Uploaded by mrfnk

Wow, I wish I had made this. Just in time for Spring.

20 Little Things to Look Forward to in Spring

I just got my Spring catalog from Smith & Hawken and, I confess, I’ve been rubbing my face all over the pages of pots spilling over with basil and coleus. So, in no particular order …

1. Getting my hands dirty with potting soil, and putting my mother’s bulbs in the dirt.
2. Saturday morning coffee on the patio with a magazine.
3. The arrival of migratory song birds. We live near a ravine that attracts them.
4. The upcoming neighborhood yard sale when I’m going to move out everything we don’t love or need.
5. Putting away my heavy, winter clothes and making room for linens and cottons. But my shawls stay.
6. Opening the windows.
7. Sandals and bare arms.
8. Letting the cat out into “the big green room.”
9. Taking a bike ride with my jeans rolled up.
10. Evening rain showers.
11. Talking with neighbors on their front porches.
12. Hearing the squeals of neighborhood children playing outside.
13. A trip to the nursery with a cup of strong coffee.
14. Reading in bed at night with the window open.
15. A total Spring cleaning overhaul.
16. My husband firing up the grill, and making homemade pizza on it.
17. Refinishing the teak patio furniture.
18. The way smells are carried on the lightest breeze.
19. Buying fresh, local produce at the farmer’s market.
20. The cobalt color of the sky when day moves into night.
What would you add? Visit The Inspired Room and see what others are looking forward to.

My Antonia

I don’t know what took me so long to get to Willa Cather; she was a vast, unknown entity to me, much like the landscape she writes about. But I became addicted to My Antonia from the first lines and came to fall in love with Antonia as much as the hard, cruel land of the Great Plains in which we meet her as a little Bohemian girl with bare feet and tattered skirts.

My Antonia is a poignant love story, but not a traditional one. (Sorry to spoil it, but) The boy doesn’t get the girl, though the whole story points to his deep and lasting affection for her and their shared childhood. On meeting her much later in life, our protagonist, Jim Burden, remarks that, “I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered – about her teeth, for instance. I know many women who have kept all the things she had lost, but whose inner glow has faded. Whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life.”

Perhaps we all have someone in our past for whom we still see only beauty where the world does not. Or, should we be so lucky, someone who sees in us only the spark of life that won't be smothered.

But as Jim says, “Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.”

Guest Blogger: Courtney

I met my friend Courtney in the sixth grade. As she was the new kid, I found her endlessly fascinating at the time, and still do. We were on the track team together in high school, and she ran like a gazelle; and still does. If the category had existed, you would have voted her "The person I want most to be like." She is creative, funny, and has a endless reserve of kindness. Without further ado, get to know a new face that you'll be seeing around here from time to time. Enjoy! - Rita25 Random Things about Me (Courtney)

1. I grew up in rural Vermont, but always felt more like a city girl. A very hearty city girl who liked to play in the woods. That remains unchanged.

2. I have vivid memories from the age of two - I can very accurately describe the floor plans, furniture, windows, etc. of our apartments/houses, etc. - even my clothing. My parents are amazed - and a little freaked out.

3. I was three when I saw my mother spill coffee on her lap. I have a large birthmark on my thigh and until the age of 5, I was quite convinced it was a "coffee stain".

4. Growing up, I read MANY inspirational books about people who had been paralyzed, disfigured by fire, over-dosed on drugs, etc. before becoming real Christians. I was always very fearful deep down that I wouldn't be a good Christian until something equally bad happened to me.

5. I love the quiet and stillness that comes with heavy snowfall - especially in the middle of the night.

6. I love to run outside - winter or summer - dark or light.

7. I can be a clever problem-solver, to the point that sometimes my friends reference "MacGyver" with me - as in "Courtney will MacGyver that".

8. My grandmother, Gigi, taught me that knowing how to be alone is a skill. She also helped me understand that when we have been truly loved - we are never really alone.

9. I find jealousy and envy illogical. Another person's happiness or good fortune does not mean that there is less in the world for you.

10. I know what it means to be forgiven - and I am forever thankful.

11. I also understand that true forgiveness can heal us - whether we are on the giving or receiving end of it.

12. I take insanely long showers.

13. Making my husband laugh is one of my greatest pleasures.

14. The decisions I've made out of fear are the ones I regret most.

15. Friends have asked me if working with "beautiful people" is hard on my self-esteem. On the contrary, it has only reinforced my understanding that NO ONE is perfect. And believe me, "beauty" fades very quickly without "smart, funny and kind".

16. When it was time to choose an instrument, I wanted to play drums. My mother thought the flute would be more "appropriate". I neither loved nor hated the flute - but I'm still thinking about the drums.

17. I am a reformed slob.

18. I love to find ways to use things beyond their intended purpose. (I'll make a halter top out of a silk pillow case or turn an umbrella stand into a table.)

19. When I saw my now-husband across a crowded room - I thought "A guy like that would never like a girl like me."

20. When my now-husband saw me across that same crowded room - he thought "She's probably a total snob." Thank God we were both wrong.

21. Growing up in the country, I still have what I call "bunker mentality". I think in terms of "stocking up on provisions". While this is practical - it did not serve me well while living in a tiny apartment in Harvard Square.

22. I have never expected one person to be my "everything".

23. I'm extremely independent and despite being very social - I really need time to myself.

24. My job is essentially an extension of all the things I loved to do as a kid - how lucky am I?

25. I've grown to be a relentless optimist. If someone is a glass half-empty type - they probably prefer me in small doses. And I them.

A Little Friday Night Music

It's been a busy week at work, and when I'm trying to focus and meet a deadline, I put in my plugs and enjoy some mood-setting music. Pink Martini makes me wish we could still get dressed up and go out to dinner clubs and dance halls. Perhaps they still have them in Naples? If you'd like to see what she's singing about, go here.