dual personalities

This week made me feel very old and decidedly dotty. Here’s why. My DP asked me to send her a certain family document, but of course I could not find it. I looked in every drawer, on every shelf and in every closet in my house. The DH even helped me search through our UHaul storage unit. We found nothing. Having eliminated all these possibilities, I reasoned that the elusive document must be in the attic in a storage tub. I was absolutely certain that it was in a BRIGHT BLUE three-ring binder, and I vaguely remembered that the binder must be in a large GREEN plastic tub, in which I store letters and other mementos. Reader, I searched the attic for that green tub but found nothing. Just as I was about to give up, I opened a BLUE tub and found what I was looking for in a DARK RED three-ring binder. Hmmm….

Either I missed that stage of my life or I passed through it without realizing.

Well, I can still drive a car, so today I am off to Williston, Vermont to fetch this pretty little 18^th century Chippendale chest that I won last Friday at auction.

No one else wanted it because some foolish soul refinished the three lower drawers and replaced the hardware. The changes are old, though, and I don’t mind them. It has good lines and being quite small will fit nicely into one of our bedrooms.

I’m looking forward to the trip. Although we got a couple inches of snow last night and today’s high will be in the single digits, the road to Vermont winds through mysterious north country towns (who lives in these out of the way places?), and the ice on Lake Champlain makes this ferry passenger feel like Washington crossing the Delaware. Quelle adventure. I’ll listen to music or a book, or just drive and think. If I have time, I’ll stop at a couple of antique stores en route. Wish me luck!

UPDATE: I made it there and back again. It was a cold, blustery day! Here’s the view from the Champlain ferry.

And another of snow blowing over the Hero Island causeway.

The chest turned out to be extremely heavy, but the auction house owner was helpful, and after we took the drawers out, we could move it. The only problem was that we couldn’t put them back in, so I had to fit four drawers into various corners of the car. I had brought a blanket to use as padding but needed more, so ended up using my coat. Good thing the car has heated seats and a good heater! Everything went well if you don’t count running out of windshield wiper fluid (a disaster in winter) or the fact that the tire pressure light came on just after I got to Vermont. The tires looked fine to me, so I put it down to the cold temperature and drove on. The trip was definitely an adventure, but the next time I think about acquiring something that will require a 7 hr. car trip in the depths of winter, I hope someone will talk me out of it!

*Blanco White “Colder Heavens”

Hi from daughter #2! What are you reading?

While Katie continues to read such favorites as Peekaboo Farm and Pat the Bunny, I started off the new year with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I had been meaning to re-read it for a long time, with the vague memory that it had been my favorite of Austen’s novels in college. I will admit that liking something in college is not always the best indicator that something is good, but I was in the mood for a classic (and relatively easy) read.

I’m pleased to report that Persuasion has been wholly enjoyable. I was correct in recalling that it isn’t exactly the most romantic novel, but I can appreciate how it is more reasonable and realistic in its setup. Jane Austen, I realized, does the best job of plotting social dynamics without devices — no lying (unless someone is an actual liar), no outrageous mishaps, no long lost something-or-others. Sure, one of the side characters falls and gets a concussion and falls in love with [redacted] because he’s nearby while her brain heals, but I’ll take that over a car (or carriage) accident any day. In Persuasion, the only thing that gets in the way of love is people being the worst. Believable stuff!

Anne Elliot has sisters and friends who don’t appreciate her, and some of these characters are unnecessarily rude, but I like how Anne, through her quiet understanding of the people and places around her, ends up with a good amount of control over her world. (Also, apparently she’s secretly very pretty? My favorite scene is when Austen describes exactly the degree to which Anne stops someone in their tracks, just, like, to look at her. No really, reader, just because he wanted to look at her face.) Perhaps most importantly, though, Anne is more humble than the others. And that’s why she ends up happy.

I only have a few pages left of Persuasion, and I think next I will turn to some Margaret Fuller, as I continue to be in the mood for nineteenth-century womanhood. I used to think about nineteenth-century womanhood all the time and I believe it made me feel a lot more sane about how I view my own womanhood now. Plus, while unpacking the final touches for shelves and dresser tops in our new house, I remembered this:

“The world was free to her, and she lived freely in it. Outward adversity came, and inward conflict, but that faith and self-respect had early been awakened which must always lead at last, to an outward serenity and an inward peace.”

Margaret Fuller

*Mrs. Croft, speaking of ladies aboard warships in Persuasion

P.S. There are two forthcoming film adaptations of Persuasion, one starring Dakota Johnson and one starring Sarah Snook. (Those are…choices.) Was I unwittingly on trend, or what?

It’s a frosty –24 here this morning. Although I have offered to drive the DH to work, my very own Shackleton insists that he will walk as usual. I hope he doesn’t get frostbite.

While my husband ventures out into the frozen north, I will be keeping track of an auction in Williston, VT. There are things about the internet that I find wonderful, and online auctions are right at the top of the list. Williston is within driving distance if I buy something, although I doubt I will. It’s just fun to watch.

On that same internet, while looking for illustrations for a lecture, I ran across Panini’s capriccios, his wildly imaginative paintings of Roman ruins. Here’s one featuring the Pantheon, an Egyptian obelisk, a statue and some nice architectural ruins.

This next one features the Arch of Constantine amidst a jumble of unidentifiable statues and architectural debris.

Finally, here is the Colosseum near more ruins and a working Roman fountain.

Viewed singly they are extremely pleasing and invite the viewer into a historical dreamworld. Were one to view them packed together on walls, the effect would be very different and much less inviting, as in this next painting. Obviously, minimalism wasn’t the fashion in the early 18th century.

Panini had quite an imagination, and even if he did lack restraint, most of his paintings beautifully capture the melancholy aspect of time’s passage. Roman ruins particularly evoke such a feeling because they represent what was once great and powerful and they make us wonder how anyone so mighty could collapse so thoroughly. To the Anglo-Saxons left behind after the Romans left Britain, it seemed that only giants could have built the deteriorating temples, baths, and aqueducts. Certainly, no human could have made them!  Take a look at one of my favorite Anglo-Saxon poems:

The Ruin

Wondrous is this stone-wall, wrecked by fate;
the city-buildings crumble, the works of the
giants decay. Roofs have caved in, towers collapsed,
barred gates are broken, hoar frost clings to
mortar, houses are gaping, tottering and fallen,
undermined by age. The earth’s embrace,
its fierce grip, holds the mighty craftsmen;
they are perished and gone. A hundred
generations have passed away since then.

This wall, grey with lichen and red of hue,

outlives kingdom after kingdom,
withstands tempests; its tall gate succumbed.
The city still moulders, gashed by storms…
A man’s mind quickened with a plan;
subtle and strong-willed, he bound
the foundations with metal rods – a marvel.
Bright were the city halls, many the bath-
houses, lofty all the gables, great the martial clamor,
many a mead hall was full of delights
until fate the mighty altered it. Slaughtered
men fell far and wide, the plague-days came,
death removed every brave man.
Their ramparts became abandoned places,
the city decayed; warriors and builders
fell to the earth. Thus these courts crumble,

And this redstone arch sheds tiles.

The place falls to ruin, shattered
into mounds of stone, where once many a
man, joyous and gold-bright, dressed in splendor,
proud and flushed with wine, gleamed in his
armor; he gazed on his treasure – silver, precious
stones, jewelry and wealth, all that he owned –
and on this bright city in the broad kingdom.
Stone houses stood here; a hot spring
gushed in a wide stream; a stone wall
enclosed the bright interior; the baths
were there, the heated water; that was convenient.
They allowed the scalding water to pour
over the grey stone into the circular pool.
Hot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . where the baths were
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . that is a noble thing,
how the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the city.

[Trans. By Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Anglo Saxon World, An Anthology. Oxford University Press, 2009.]

I do love a good ruin, don’t you? When it’s too cold to go outside, it’s fun to bundle up with a mug of tea, look at some beautiful paintings and read poetry, but right now I’ve got ready for my auction. Have a great weekend!

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