New Year, New Traditions

Happy New Year.

I'm just now sitting down to address a few post-Christmas New Year cards. I've recently been inspired by a magazine called ReadyMade, so in lieu of store bought gifts I dared to make a few homemade things, namely a scarf (not yet delivered), pints of preserved lemons, and holiday cards. The knitting is not new, but something I used to do years ago in Oxford. Carlyle Wolfe, a local artist there would come into the bookstore with her yarn and needles and I was curious. One day, she showed me how to do it and I spent the weekend holed up listening to books on tapes until my friend Lauren came over and I taught her how to do it. She excelled, far more than I did, and tore through several skeins to my one. Then something else interested me and I moved on, forgetting how to cast on and the simple knit stitch until Chris' mom showed me on Christmas.

The cards were an entirely different matter. I've long made handmade cards, never being able to find designs or sentiments that resonate with me. After seeing an interesting collection of rubber stamps in the above mentioned magazine, I embarked on making my own stamp, in this case a bird. Simple and a nod to peace. I stamped out a handful before the holiday, adding some bits of paper for flair, and then Christmas hit, followed by snow and the arrival of my family, and the cards sat on my desk forgotten. Until today...

The preserved lemons are old news and constant pastime, only unusually engaged in during the first few weeks of spring. But after seeing some lemons in the grocery store and thinking how cheery they would be in the coming gray months of winter, I thought I'd make a few pints of lemons to give away. My own stash is down to a quarter piece, but I like knowing other people will have a chance to be creative with this surprisingly bright condiment. And I feel good knowing I'm continuing a tradition of preserving fruit, even if it isn't the same way (or even the same type of fruit) my grandma did.

If the World Were a Catalog

I love public radio's Marketplace and today, while I was working from home, I heard the lovely voice of Molly Erdman. Molly started a clever blog called Catalog Living on which she posts pictures from all the catalogs that clutter our bedside tables along with tongue-in-cheek captions.

I'm not a catalog collector, but I like that Molly spoke about the anxiety we have because of fantasy home imagery. I believe it's akin to looking too much at fashion magazines and wondering why, after steady dieting and exercise, we still can't recreate the look of the D&G model. We actually live.

My pained attempts at perfection in our home (everything has a place I always say) is an ideal and ideals tend to live in books and the imagination of their creators, not in the real, hard surfaced world where 14 hour work days coupled with pinched budgets result in something more akin to a Rauschenburg work, artful but definitely messy.

Something to think about this time of year when out of town guests and catalogs will surely collide...

Now, in the spirit of tidying things up, I've freshened up the look of Blueprint. Let me know what you think. It's an homage to the Delta, where I learned how to properly set a table whilst making a "spaghetti cake", with a big city, modern day feel.

She Sleeps and Her Writing Does Too

(Mississippi Delta, Sunflower County, Mississippi by Maude Schuyler Clay)

I swear this post was only going to say. "Mary is sleeping. Come back soon." But then I thought how unfortunate it would be not to share a few things:

1) I'm feeling the miss in Mississippi. I've been driving back and forth from the bright lights to quaint mountain foothills for work. You'd think the natural landscape would be comforting, and in some distant way it is. Still, North Mississippi and north Georgia country are the same but different. Equally beautiful in different ways: stark and flat vs. thick and rolling. In my mind I see Maude Clay's black and white photographs of the Delta so rich with earth, but it's her conversation -or the gallery director where her work hangs from time to time - that I crave.

2) Found this old post that made me glad I'm still writing. I posted just before I headed off to Asheville. (Little did I know that trip would alter the next moves my little Queen was making.) The post reminded me that it's good to take out our journals or old letters from time to time and reflect at where we were and think about where we are going.

Now, if you are wondering why there is no mention of wedding plans, remember, I didn't want this to be an update. Rather, I think when the prospect of marriage occurs, it's ok and maybe even a good thing to dig a little dipper into our souls. And that, my friends, is what I'm doing...

The Language of Plants

(Solomon's Seal- Clearly an appreciation for Judaism even in the garden.)

It's been raining the last few days, so I haven't had a chance to get out and take a photograph of the progress. Chris made headway with an uplifting (literally) set of stairs that encircle a willowy crepe myrtle.

I did run out and get some plants for the patio, including: Solomon's Seal, Japanese Painted Fern, Autumn Fern, Coral Bells, and hardy begonia. For outside of the patio, a few azaleas, white ones in particular that remind me of the bush that create outside my bedroom window as a girl. We'll see how they take to our little space. I need to get some humus to enrich and lighten the heavy clay soil. If only I were born with a green thumb, this wouldn't be Chinese.

Afterglow of a Patio

(Hardly hopscotch, more like a game of chess.)

It's funny to think about, but I lived in a space the size of this 500 sf patio in London. I was 23 and things like lumpy beds, shared kitchens, and cubbyhole-sized bathrooms did not phase me. I was too busy reading Oscar Wilde, feeling so glamorous in his words that I never noticed the shabbiness around me.

Five hundred square feet is a lot of space to fill with stone though. In this case, we hauled stone, shoveled dirt, and set stones with the help of three friends over the course of a weekend. Then on Sunday, when our shaky arms and legs could take no more, we declared the patio part of the project complete. It happened fast.

As I hunched over the earth collecting small stones to fill the gaps between larger ones, a rush of warmth, the kind I'd feel when my sister would brush my hair, came over me. On this very ground, all our closest friends and family would be gathering to celebrate our partnership.

I also thought, too, of the patio that inspired the patio I was standing on. The other I never had the opportunity to experience completed. When I left, it was only partially finished, surrounded with summer blooms and long grasses. It became a quiet metaphor for unrequited love and left a heavy mark on my heart and aspirations. I moved on, but still I dreamed of that patio.

Whether it is a job in a museum (got it) or bookstore (got it) or a piece of chocolate (got it many times over), my heart gets what it wants. I've always believed this and I believe it now even more than ever. It's the same with the patio, and although it took a little inspiration and cajoling on my part, Chris and I can stand on it at the end of the day and commend our work together.

Oddly, I have never addressed the patio space in the course of BPFASH, and I believe some background information on their history would be helpful. However, for now, I'm still soaking in the aftermath of completing something we set out to do, and recovering -- I'll admit -- from it.

A Gift For You, Dear Reader

Sadly, I put all of my poetry collection in a place only accessible with a chair. Perhaps, a most egregious error.

Fall always makes me think of Jack Gilbert and his earth-scented poems that recall the past. He often writes to his wife Michiko, who is now dead; but in particular, it is his poems about partnership, the kind driven by romance, that I adore.

So here, for a Thursday in fall is his poem, "The Great Fires":

The Great Fires

Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at first. Passion is clearly the path
but does not bring us to love.
It opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find the love which is
a mystery hidden there.
Love is one of many great fires.
Passion is a fire made of many woods,
each of which gives off its special odor
so we can know the many kinds
that are not love. Passion is the paper
and twigs that kindle the flames
but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes
because it tries to be love.
Love is eaten away by appetite.
Love does not last, but it is different
from the passions that do not last.
Love lasts by not lasting.
Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire
for his sins. Love allows us to walk
in the sweet music of our particular heart.

Jack Gilbert

New Paths on Old Property

We retraced our steps from last summer, only this time there are less weeds and more dog paths twisting around the trees. (And there are more holes thanks to a pretty lemon beagle that likes to dig.) I spent the morning picking flag and stack stone to begin the first phase of the landscaping project. We decided on a mix of gray and brown to pick up the natural granite on the property and the red Georgia clay.


We want to create a few terraces throughout the property and envision our nuptials in the backmost part of the lot, in a grove that forms an almost perfect rectangle. I think we'll mulch the area just for the wedding, but that's a way off. We spent all afternoon a few months ago mulching the front lawn, and I ended up with blistered hands and a bright red sunburn. Trenching for the patio begins this weekend. I'll be wearing gloves.