dual personalities

Did you see the exciting publishing news this week? The final installment in Hilary Mantel’s peerless Wolf Hall trilogy comes out next Tuesday! It’s 784 pages long but getting rave reviews.

The length and the critics’ enthusiasm make me a little wary. It is my experience that the quality of editing is inversely related to book length; long books tend to be flabby. Similarly, rave reviews often reflect internet contagion more than an author’s artistic brilliance as reviewers generally follow the pack. Still, I have faith in Ms. Mantel, who really is a genius, and when I can steel myself to face the terrible ending that awaits our beloved Thomas Cromwell, I will read the book. I pre-ordered it!

In literary news of a more domestic sort, my DH bought me another gift this week (isn’t he sweet?). Knowing how stressed I’ve been lately, he thought that some gentle reading from a bygone era would be just the ticket, and his choice was spot on. I am now reading Elizabeth Goudge’s The Rosemary Tree.

Set in Devon, England just after WWII, it is a far cry from campus politics, panicked pandemic plans (in my case, how to finish the semester if we have to close the school!), and “faculty development initiatives” (aka political indoctrination). The book offers a pleasant antidote to what ails me and it also contains much thoughtful advice. If Goudge’s deceptively simple prose is slightly dated, well, so am I.

“There was a happy chirping in the cloakroom as the children put on their walking shoes. Mary, standing at the door, thought they might have been sparrows, so loud was the chirping and so fulfilled with satisfaction. Perhaps the purpose of sparrows, as of children let out of school, was just to remark loudly and with repetition that in spite of any appearance to the contrary everything is quite all right.”

It’s good to be reminded that no matter how awful the world seems everything is quite all right! We must not give in to crankiness.

I’d better wrap this up because I have a lot of baking to do today. Tomorrow is “Gifts of Women Sunday” at church, so the women are doing the entire service. I volunteered to host coffee hour with the DH and we’ll probably be stuck in the kitchen the whole time. One contributes according to one’s abilities.

Cheer up, cheer up! Spring cannot be far away, right?

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe

Last weekend, I watched a Netflix teen romcom in which the male protagonist writes a Valentine’s Day card that plagiarizes Poe and replaces “Annabel Lee” with his girlfriend’s name, to great effect on the girlfriend. (“For the moon never beams…”) I screamed internally and then posted on Instagram about it, for two reasons: at first, I wasn’t sure if the guy would get away with it, but also, THIS POEM IS ABOUT DEATH? THE LOVER IS DEAD? IN A SEPULCHRE? BY THE SEA? It’s never seemed all that romantic to me.

But here’s the real anecdote: I know this poem well because in eighth grade, I memorized and recited it to my English class. Everyone had to choose a poem to recite, and I believe the requirement was that the poem had to be at least 8 lines long. Naturally, I went overboard, opting for Poe over Shel Silverstein and reciting something 5 times longer than required. I really can’t imagine what my teacher (or fellow students) must have thought while I recited lines about highborn kinsmen and envious angels and severed souls. But I remember feeling very proud of myself and truly loving the poem. It’s funny how certain memories are so persistent, and reciting this poem is one of those standouts.

Painting is “Moonlight” (1892) by Childe Hassam

Mostly, I think we’d all agree the internet is a terrible place–but sometimes it does produce something that amuses me. Often, when I’m scrolling through my instagram explore tab, I’ll save things that are funny or that I want to remember later. Since my mother dearest did such a swell job recapping our fun weekend and I haven’t had any good work stories (other than visiting a school named “Rivendale” on “Elfindale Ave” in Springfield), I decided to screengrab some of my favorite saved things from the internet. As you’ll see below, I’m a person of many layers. Or maybe just two…

The sexy Ned Flanders will never not make me laugh.

One final thing, last week, I heard this song on the radio–I’d never heard it before–but it really spoke to me (insert the crying laughing emoji).

After a rather hellish week at work, this weekend provided a welcome refresh. A long chat with my mom, a delicious dinner (crab cakes!) at DN’s parents’, a mani-pedi with a friend… topped off by sheet-pan nachos on Sunday afternoon. Sometimes, simple pleasures go a very long way!

We also managed to complete some small tasks that make a big difference in the apartment.

DN framed this oddly-sized poster that we got from the Ryman on our trip to Nashville in December — one of those projects that takes a long while because there are lots of pesky steps along the way. Ordering custom wood pieces, getting glass cut, MacGyvering a back… he got it done! We love it. As always, it’s very hard to photograph all the beige interiors in this apartment, but I provided the hallway shot for some perspective. And if you look really closely, you can see that DN also successfully anchored our stick vacuum’s wall mount. This feels surprisingly life-changing.

I have also been meaning to shoutout my father-in-law, who has finished a number of projects for us recently. We often take something over to his workshop so that DN can work on it, but then the task will be completed before we know it! This happened with the doors of my secretary, which needed new glass installed. And then this weekend, he revealed a bookshelf of mine that had been in desperate need of stripping and re-painting.

The bookshelf was a hand-me-down that I brought with me when I moved out here after college, and I had already DIY’d it once with spray-painted turquoise interiors (a very 2012 project). Well, with a fresh coat of glossy gray from the workshop’s surplus paint stash, it can withstand the elements and will be dressed up with plants and whatnot later this spring. A functional piece for our balcony deck!

Now, to embrace another Monday!