the problem pastry
sometimes you can get hung up on something. like the god damn french donuts at the bakery up the street. i guess it started about a year ago when i noticed a sign in the window proclaiming 'french donuts for sale'. having no idea what a french donut was but assuming them to be worth the effort of advertising, i went inside to make my purchase.
"oh no, those have been sold out since 9," the girl said, almost incredulously, "you have to get here really early to get one."
and so began an increasingly determined quest for the elusive donut. one time i was too early ("they're still in the oven"), one time i was too late (9:05am), and one time i got there before the bakery had even opened. that time, (and i confess this in the hopes you'll understand how defeat, even of the pastry variety, can sometimes get the best of us) - i cried all the way home.
i've since enjoyed plenty of french donuts. i remember that first successful trip vividly when i was neither too early nor too late and i saw them sitting neatly in their paper and wicker basket holdings and i waited patiently in line for my turn to say, "i'll have one of those, please."
it was delicious.
airy and sweet and warm - you could tell the thing was made with skill and love in equal parts.
this morning i met mel for one that we shared over coffee and i laughed to myself thinking how something once so mysterious, can be made familiar with persistence and patience, (and an early bird constitution).
"oh no, those have been sold out since 9," the girl said, almost incredulously, "you have to get here really early to get one."
and so began an increasingly determined quest for the elusive donut. one time i was too early ("they're still in the oven"), one time i was too late (9:05am), and one time i got there before the bakery had even opened. that time, (and i confess this in the hopes you'll understand how defeat, even of the pastry variety, can sometimes get the best of us) - i cried all the way home.
i've since enjoyed plenty of french donuts. i remember that first successful trip vividly when i was neither too early nor too late and i saw them sitting neatly in their paper and wicker basket holdings and i waited patiently in line for my turn to say, "i'll have one of those, please."
it was delicious.
airy and sweet and warm - you could tell the thing was made with skill and love in equal parts.
this morning i met mel for one that we shared over coffee and i laughed to myself thinking how something once so mysterious, can be made familiar with persistence and patience, (and an early bird constitution).
letter writing (a protest on progress)
inspired by mel's letter writing marathon, i am going to write and mail a handwritten note for each day in the month of march. i started a list of intended recipients - people i love, people i admire, people i've never met - but left the list incomplete on purpose.
email correspondence is alluring in its instant gratification. we send an email, we get an email back. there is no waiting, no wondering, no need to travel to the mailbox to spy, as if by magic, an envelope addressed in ink to us.
when i sat down to write my first letter last night i thought about all the people i wanted to include on my list but couldn't as they'd passed on. imagine the comfort to be gained if letter writing were possible across the great divide? hello, i miss you, it's unimaginably beautiful here - something like that.
i can hear a bird outside the window right now. i might include that in today's letter. all writing should seek to convey the total sphere of state that the writer was in whilst writing. the bird's song, the smell of cold air through the open window, the grey/blue sky, almost purple near the horizon.
show me your world. write it on paper with pen.
jar of words
collected on thin strips of paper,
cursive fireflies, happy to be caught.
in a jar by the window, folded neatly, folded sweetly,
ink and meaning safe from fading, safe from time.
sunday morning diary
i woke up at 8:30 and for me, that is a sleep in. i can't remember the last time my eyes opened in the morning and the sun had beat me to it. i moved slowly to the kitchen, honouring the drowsy cocoon that'd kept me safe and rejuvenated my cells these last eight (twelve) hours. i tackled not the mountain of dishes, but each individual dish. soaping scrubbing rinsing, paying special attention to the sunshine on the counter and the pleasing (if deceptive) appearance of clean. i listened to the whitehorse album and the emerald isle song on repeat. i thought my headphones to be a nice and respectful touch for the benefit of my sleeping husband but remembered that my singing is out loud. i concluded it must be nice to wake up to your wife singing in the sunday sun and tried especially hard to make it sound beautiful. that's a mistake though, things are always way more beautiful when they're unintentional.
living on the daytime side of mercury
did you know that one half of the planet mercury is perpetually day and the other perpetually night? how poetic. someone should write a book about two people who fall in love, one from the day side and the other from the night and they meet in the middle where it's always the afternoon.
i like to yell out the window to the stray cats that walk by. they stop and look my way as though they're listening. they continue on unmoved.
i know it's nuts and it's just february but it's starting to feel like spring. or like the time that comes just before spring. the spring pre-show. the air smells different and the daylight's stretching longer and i can't stop daydreaming of thawed, rich dirt.
i'm reading norwegian wood. it's beautiful and heartbreaking and simple and complex, like everything i've read by murakami so far.
do you know the saying "for every language that is learned, you gain another soul" - that's the best marketing for linguistics i've ever heard. i want five souls! and i want one of them to be russian!
although completely arbitrary and without any of its own meaning but that which we ascribe it, saturday is my all time favourite day of the week.
i like to yell out the window to the stray cats that walk by. they stop and look my way as though they're listening. they continue on unmoved.
i know it's nuts and it's just february but it's starting to feel like spring. or like the time that comes just before spring. the spring pre-show. the air smells different and the daylight's stretching longer and i can't stop daydreaming of thawed, rich dirt.
i'm reading norwegian wood. it's beautiful and heartbreaking and simple and complex, like everything i've read by murakami so far.
do you know the saying "for every language that is learned, you gain another soul" - that's the best marketing for linguistics i've ever heard. i want five souls! and i want one of them to be russian!
although completely arbitrary and without any of its own meaning but that which we ascribe it, saturday is my all time favourite day of the week.
i do my loving all year round
valentine's day seems to me, a silly occasion. what are we doing to celebrate february 14th that we aren't doing all the other days? professing our love a little louder? purchasing heart shaped confections as proof of our emotions?
maybe the point of a tradition is the tradition itself. we engage in things knowing we're part of a community that's doing the same. we feel connected through our giving and receiving of sentiments and flowers. we are human beings and we are in love! and we are showing each other by buying things!
yeah i just don't get it. i plan to show jeremy how much i love him and i plan to spend zero dollars doing it. after all, the very best gifts are free and come from the heart. they also come from the inside of a bottle of champagne and we have a gift certificate.
happy loving.
x
maybe the point of a tradition is the tradition itself. we engage in things knowing we're part of a community that's doing the same. we feel connected through our giving and receiving of sentiments and flowers. we are human beings and we are in love! and we are showing each other by buying things!
yeah i just don't get it. i plan to show jeremy how much i love him and i plan to spend zero dollars doing it. after all, the very best gifts are free and come from the heart. they also come from the inside of a bottle of champagne and we have a gift certificate.
happy loving.
x
saturday morning (on snow)
i seem to have developed a writing pattern. saturday morning, no matter what time we crawled into bed the night before, i get up with the sun and make myself a pot of coffee. i say i'll make the whole pot for us to share but i know that if i let him, he'll sleep in long after its gone cold.
i slip on the couch and under the quilt, i look out the window and think of the things i want to say. they're never far off and are much more likely to show themselves in these quiet mornings of solitude. i am absolutely a morning person.
we went to a friends for dinner last night, good food and good company and the lovely kind of reflection that follows on the long way home when you miss the last bus and have to walk, hand in hand, to your doorstep. i like to be the first footprints on freshly fallen snow.
it's interesting to get a glimpse into the lives of others. the books they've read the art they've chosen the placement of artifacts, some here some there, that tell a story of a life being lived. that give clues of every day choices. i look around at our clues and wonder what they say that we can't see. objectivity is impossible.
the wind makes the snow appear more intense, we see the swirls and squalls and are confused into thinking it's a blizzard. i'll go outside to meet it and deduce it's nothing more than single flakes meeting and parting, meeting and parting, looking frantically for one other snowflake that's just the same.
i slip on the couch and under the quilt, i look out the window and think of the things i want to say. they're never far off and are much more likely to show themselves in these quiet mornings of solitude. i am absolutely a morning person.
we went to a friends for dinner last night, good food and good company and the lovely kind of reflection that follows on the long way home when you miss the last bus and have to walk, hand in hand, to your doorstep. i like to be the first footprints on freshly fallen snow.
it's interesting to get a glimpse into the lives of others. the books they've read the art they've chosen the placement of artifacts, some here some there, that tell a story of a life being lived. that give clues of every day choices. i look around at our clues and wonder what they say that we can't see. objectivity is impossible.
the wind makes the snow appear more intense, we see the swirls and squalls and are confused into thinking it's a blizzard. i'll go outside to meet it and deduce it's nothing more than single flakes meeting and parting, meeting and parting, looking frantically for one other snowflake that's just the same.
the unbearable weight of unknowing
sometimes i think of the seeming infinity of possible knowledge, (war, art, philosophy, politics, environment, poetry, religion, the intricacies of our human relationships), and it feels impossible for a lifetime.
it seems insurmountable that someone so small and mortal could get anywhere beyond the surface.
it seems insurmountable that someone so small and mortal could get anywhere beyond the surface.
the life we're currently having
it's a funny thing that we have to learn to be present in our own lives. and humbling how difficult it is to remember. jeremy and i are doing a really good job this year at kicking the winter blues in the nards and it's definately thanks in part to my concentrated efforts in staying presently aware.
this is easier now that i exercise, and exercise is easier now that's it habit, and healthy habits are easier to apply to everything else (food, drinking) when you see their obvious benefits seeping across all aspects of your being like a pleasant, pervasive ooze. maybe more like a fruit smoothie spill.
i do ballet, we do yoga, i walk 10 kilometres every day. i lift weights, i run full tilt for short distances, i dance modern interpretive numbers in the living room. if a day goes by and i don't do any assortment of these things i can actually feel the difference in my body. my head longs to be upside down and my legs long to be stretched forward and backward in some combined motion of dance and circus performance. movement, i think, is one of the secrets of the good life.
stillness is harder but the pathway might be the same. isn't that the point of yoga? inner calm through body connection? something like that? you could say that anything that engages your body and your mind together is something endangered in this life and wholly good and important. i saw pina with jessica on wednesday, that film about the modern dance composer pina bausch, and thought what a worthwhile and noble challenge - to express one's self fully through dance. i can close my eyes and recall the viewing experience, still.
when we aren't pumping iron or practicing our shoulder stand, we're listening to new ideas on TED talks or radiolab. we like our CBC app for iPad - quirks and quarks, stuart mclean, canada reads. classical music on radio 2 because julie nesrallah makes the experience approachable and enjoyable even if you understand only shining bits of what she's saying. mountains of books from the library - right now on our learning table we have a van gogh picture book, walton ford's pancha tantra and the stargazers galaxy atlas.
we paint and sculpt and look for truths in non-fiction books, we write down big ideas on big paper and the chalk door in the kitchen. we're learning the art of massage.
last night we watched mary and max and i highly recommend that you do the same. the story of a young australian girl and her middle aged new york city pen pal balances whimsy with deeply dark truthfulness. that's my favourite blend. i cried in jeremy's lap as the credits rolled and thought about how my tears of sadness carried chemicals of release from my body. leaving me both lighter and heavier with emotion and truth.
this is easier now that i exercise, and exercise is easier now that's it habit, and healthy habits are easier to apply to everything else (food, drinking) when you see their obvious benefits seeping across all aspects of your being like a pleasant, pervasive ooze. maybe more like a fruit smoothie spill.
i do ballet, we do yoga, i walk 10 kilometres every day. i lift weights, i run full tilt for short distances, i dance modern interpretive numbers in the living room. if a day goes by and i don't do any assortment of these things i can actually feel the difference in my body. my head longs to be upside down and my legs long to be stretched forward and backward in some combined motion of dance and circus performance. movement, i think, is one of the secrets of the good life.
stillness is harder but the pathway might be the same. isn't that the point of yoga? inner calm through body connection? something like that? you could say that anything that engages your body and your mind together is something endangered in this life and wholly good and important. i saw pina with jessica on wednesday, that film about the modern dance composer pina bausch, and thought what a worthwhile and noble challenge - to express one's self fully through dance. i can close my eyes and recall the viewing experience, still.
when we aren't pumping iron or practicing our shoulder stand, we're listening to new ideas on TED talks or radiolab. we like our CBC app for iPad - quirks and quarks, stuart mclean, canada reads. classical music on radio 2 because julie nesrallah makes the experience approachable and enjoyable even if you understand only shining bits of what she's saying. mountains of books from the library - right now on our learning table we have a van gogh picture book, walton ford's pancha tantra and the stargazers galaxy atlas.
we paint and sculpt and look for truths in non-fiction books, we write down big ideas on big paper and the chalk door in the kitchen. we're learning the art of massage.
last night we watched mary and max and i highly recommend that you do the same. the story of a young australian girl and her middle aged new york city pen pal balances whimsy with deeply dark truthfulness. that's my favourite blend. i cried in jeremy's lap as the credits rolled and thought about how my tears of sadness carried chemicals of release from my body. leaving me both lighter and heavier with emotion and truth.
that's right, you won.
it's good to pretend you're winning some races!
this is actually a dramatic reenactment, the first time i won jeremy was busy photographing nature.
a worthy distraction, to be sure.
citrus stills in sunshine
unbeknownst to each other we both managed to photograph the oranges this morning.
good thing we're together! good thing for oranges too!
getting their glamour shots taken and all.
learnings and findings
lately we’ve been interested in art. i got jeremy acrylic paints for christmas and it turned out to be a gift for both of us as our new favourite weekend activity is sitting side by each in the art room, trying out different paint techniques. jeremy likes the group of seven or their modern day contemporaries like david grieve. i like impressionism and fauvism and especially the bright bold colours of kees van dongen.
coco chanel is a fascinating character. the particularly juicy bits are her humble beginnings and her love affairs with boy capel and igor stravinsky. although there is something unsettling about her willingness to engage in relationships with married men, the times she lived in were different, her lack of family status a very real obstacle to marriage, and marriage itself much more of a social convention than the standard of equality and partnership it is today. she loved, she created, she lived – and all outside of what society had in store for women of that time period. plus hello beautiful clothing!
in our outdoor adventures we’ve been taking weekend hikes in corruthers woods. it’s a section of the don valley that is directly behind our apartment and can entertain one (or two!) for hours with its meandering trails and riverside ambles. it’s really remarkable how much green space toronto has and how easily accessible it is from so many places in the city. this weekend we’re doing a hike from the lakeshore, all the way up to the brick works on the lower don trail. we're meeting mel and alan in the distillery district then we'll hop on the trail from the lakeshore, meandering our way slowly north, stopping to sight-see and share sandwiches.
wheatberries are a remarkable grain. they have an almost ground-meat-like texture which jeremy noticed and i capitalized on by suggesting we season them with spices and use them for veggie tacos - delicious! we've also used them to make stuffing (wheatberry and cranberry) and to add a little crunch to our salads. they're used to make an eastern european porridge called kutya by cooking them slowly over a period of days. how alluring is something that takes that much time? in a world where everything is instant or quicker? very i'd say. i'd like to fill my bowl up with slowness please and savour every. single. drop.
coco chanel is a fascinating character. the particularly juicy bits are her humble beginnings and her love affairs with boy capel and igor stravinsky. although there is something unsettling about her willingness to engage in relationships with married men, the times she lived in were different, her lack of family status a very real obstacle to marriage, and marriage itself much more of a social convention than the standard of equality and partnership it is today. she loved, she created, she lived – and all outside of what society had in store for women of that time period. plus hello beautiful clothing!
in our outdoor adventures we’ve been taking weekend hikes in corruthers woods. it’s a section of the don valley that is directly behind our apartment and can entertain one (or two!) for hours with its meandering trails and riverside ambles. it’s really remarkable how much green space toronto has and how easily accessible it is from so many places in the city. this weekend we’re doing a hike from the lakeshore, all the way up to the brick works on the lower don trail. we're meeting mel and alan in the distillery district then we'll hop on the trail from the lakeshore, meandering our way slowly north, stopping to sight-see and share sandwiches.
wheatberries are a remarkable grain. they have an almost ground-meat-like texture which jeremy noticed and i capitalized on by suggesting we season them with spices and use them for veggie tacos - delicious! we've also used them to make stuffing (wheatberry and cranberry) and to add a little crunch to our salads. they're used to make an eastern european porridge called kutya by cooking them slowly over a period of days. how alluring is something that takes that much time? in a world where everything is instant or quicker? very i'd say. i'd like to fill my bowl up with slowness please and savour every. single. drop.
pretty things
"the dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. it must accompany its wearer and when a woman smiles the dress must smile with her."
madeleine vionnet
"the best accessory for any frock, is jeremy and a lip lock."
jennifer sorrell
skeleton
i wish there was a way to know my own bones. to observe their unique valleys and curves and ask them philosophical questions about the roles that strength and silence have played on their success. i wonder if they’ll feel lonely, in the end, without the weight of the rest of me – layers of tissues and ribbons of complex tubes – all gone and melted back to some organic state.
or if they’ll feel light and oddly free. as you do in that moment when you’ve longed for silence and finally it’s come and instead of feeling alone, you feel at one with almost everything.
or if they’ll feel light and oddly free. as you do in that moment when you’ve longed for silence and finally it’s come and instead of feeling alone, you feel at one with almost everything.
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