How was your weekend? I kept remembering where I was last weekend and what I was doing. (Last Saturday I was in Brooklyn having a bagel and coffee–you know how it goes.) Sigh. My response was to get busy.
I got my hair cut, went to an estate sale, checked out one of my favorite antique malls, caught up with my far-flung family members on the phone, scrubbed a shower, opened windows to let in the wonderful fresh air, went to Target, washed the kick plate on the refrigerator, changed sheets and did laundry, trimmed the ivy in front of the house, took a couple of walks, and finished the Anne Tyler book I was re-reading.
You get the idea. I find that the best thing for when you are sad or depressed is to clean and/or organize. Even if you don’t feel better afterward, you have a clean(er) house!
The Anne Tyler book, by the way, was Earthly Possessions, an early novel written in 1977, which is not (in my opinion) one of her best. But you know, any Anne Tyler book is much better than most, so I still enjoyed it. She always supplies a few golden nuggets. Here is one of them:
“Sometimes,” he said, “I believe we’re given the same lessons to learn, over and over, exactly the same experiences, till we get them right. Things keep circling past us.”
Just about a year ago my sister (and dual personality) and I began this blog. The year skied by, and 341 posts later, I feel more connected than ever before to my far-flung siblings, children, niece, nephews, and friends. It has been wonderful to read their comments and those from complete strangers.
I admit, we mostly amuse ourselves, but occasionally we hear from the wide world. We have even received comments from Pigtown*Design’s own Meg Fairfax Fielding–a rock star in the blogging world.
So here’s to another year of books, movies, estate sale finds, family reminiscences, Episcopal Church marginalia, music, poetry, Frederick Buechner, Raymond Chandler, embarrassing picture Mondays, and fat baby Fridays! And a big shout-out to our 36 (!) followers–we appreciate you all!
*Traditionally the Royal Navy toasts to “ourselves” on Wednesdays.
Bob Dylan, who just released a new album titled “The Tempest,” is taking aim at critics who think he is taking too much artistic liberty by incorporating the work of others into his own. Reportedly, some of the lines on Dylan’s 2006 album “Modern Times” bore a resemblance to lines written by Henry Timrod, who was considered the poet laureate of the Confederacy and died in 1867. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the 71-year-old Dylan declared, “…in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It’s true for everybody, but me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who’s been reading him lately? And who’s pushed him to the forefront? Who’s been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it’s so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and p#$sies complain about that stuff. It’s an old thing – it’s part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherf*&kers can rot in hell.” 71-years-old and going strong!
By God, I do love him. And for the record, I totally agree: All those evil motherf*&kers can rot in hell. Oh that felt good.
M. H. Abrams, founding editor emeritus of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, answered this way: “Ha — Why live? Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable. There’s no end to the response you can make to that question Why study literature…”
Henry Beetle Hough, the celebrated editor of the Vineyard Gazette, put it this way: “Any one person’s life is inexperienced and narrow, straight through to the end–poorly informed, too. Books are the only hope.”
And then, as we’ve mentioned before, there’s C.S. Lewis, who said, “We read in order to know we are not alone.” We are always looking for spiritual kin. And the amazing thing is, we find them, don’t you?
Since daughter #2 left and took with her a large bookcase, leaving a large empty space in her room and a large amount of unwanted books, I have been busy packing up her books. I decided to bring up a bookcase from the basement and fill it with my own books. This meant going through more books and separating them into give-away and keep piles. In this complicated process I have re-discovered some good books that were down in the basement. One of them is the Parables of Kierkegaard, which my sister (and dual personality) gave me back in 1980 for my birthday.
Stuck inside this book was a card with the above picture on it. Inside she wrote:
Happy Birthday Darling Adorable Sister!
Here is a little something just pour vous that I know you will really relate to. I confess that I stole a few peaks at it and I could become quite interested. You must tell me all about it.
I apologize for the recycled Easter paper but you know about deprived school children.
Doesn’t this card remind you of mommy? I think it looks just like her.
Have a happy B-day–don’t get too drunk but just think–next year at this time you’ll be a married woman and I’ll have to send you cookbooks and kitchen utensils!
Well, I must away–the fairy coach is awaiting and fizzy fuzz, Pompey, Pete and Robert Preston are getting restless.
I can’t wait to see your face and sparkling ring-finger again!
Love and Theologians,
YS
How perfect is that? The Kierkegaard is pretty good too. (But I don’t recall getting any cookbooks and/or kitchen utensils.)
It’s been a stressful summer. One way I have dealt with it is by re-reading some of my old favorites. Right now I am reading Out to Canaan, 4th in Jan Karon’s Mitford series, having just read These High Green Hills (#3).
These books are not for everyone (although they have been perennial bestsellers), but for me, these simple stories of the adventures of an Episcopal priest in a small town in North Carolina peopled by wonderful and endearing characters, are the only kind of fantasy I enjoy.
They had a good life in Mitford, no doubt about it. Visitors were often amazed at its seeming charm and simplicity, wanting it for themselves, seeing in it, perhaps the life they’d once had, or had missed entirely.
Yet there were Mitfords everywhere. He’d lived in them, preached in them, they were still out there, away from the fray, still containing something of innocence and dreaming, something of the past that other towns had freely let go, or allowed to be taken from them.
The books are also very funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. And they are filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, and Karon quotes the likes of Bonhoeffer and Pascal and Wordsworth (freely)–all right up my alley.
I also enjoy the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith about a wonderful lady detective in Botswana. These books, like the Mitford books, seemingly simple and straightforward, are full of truth.
The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them–wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which could make even the reading of a newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not think of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears–and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own little life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their solution?
And, as you know, when in doubt, it’s always a good time to re-read Raymond Chandler. But, look, someone seems to have “borrowed” my Chandler volume 1. (Ahem.)
Recently I was re-reading the wonderful If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by the wonderful Brenda Ueland, written back in 1937. She was a journalist, editor, freelance writer, and teacher of writing.
She graduated from Barnard College in 1913–I wonder if she knew our grandmother Mira Sargent, who graduated in 1914? Hmm. Another layer to the story.
Anyway, her book about writing is wonderful. Even the footnotes are great.
Yes, I am all against anxiety, worry. There are many people, you can see, who consider worry a kind of duty. Back of this I think it is the subconscious feeling that Fate or God is mean or resentful or tetchy and that if we do not worry enough we will certainly catch it from Him.
But they should remember that Christ said that we should cast off anxiety so that we could “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness” (i.e., live creatively, greatly, in the present) “and all these things” (beauty, happiness, goodness, talent, food and clothing) “will be added unto you.” Of course He is right.
That “Of course He is right” tells you a lot. Even if you are not interested in writing, you should check out this book.
But at last I understood from William Blake and Van Gogh and other great men, and from myself–from the truth that is in me (and for which I have at last learned to declare and stand up for, as I am trying to persuade you to stand up for your inner truth)–at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it. If they did not–fine. They did not need to listen. That was all right too.
“Brother I sit here all day on my fanny and I don’t look as if I had a brain in my head. But you’d be surprised what I hear…”
(The Big Sleep)
BTW, I heard from a couple of people at the wedding festivities that they were reading Moby Dick after reading our blog. Also someone told me she had gone out and bought Matterhorn and read it after reading about it on the blog. This warms my heart. Keep up the good work, readers! And let us know what you are reading.
Well, we have survived the wedding festivities. Beloved family members and dear old friends found their way into town (sometimes delayed overnight in places like Syracuse and Newark–bah–but eventually intact). The rehearsal dinner, my main concern, went smoothly and was lovely. The wedding service was beautiful and went off without a hitch. The bride and her bridal party were lovely and rocked the long walk like super-models. The groom and his men were stalwart and stood up straight and true. The reception was wonderful. Everyone is still speaking to each other. More pictures to follow. For now a few wise words from Madeleine L’Engle:
“No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.”
I am a New Englander by birthright and a Midwesterner by acclimation. My ancestors were all Yankee-bred.
Chamberlins from Vermont, Sargents and Putnams from Massachusetts, Rands from New Hampshire, Wheelers from Connecticut, Tukeys from Maine. The Houghs and Carnahans from Pennsylvania are the farthest south we go.
We boast no southerners in this family, but nevertheless, I feel drawn to the South. Some of its culture repels me: the pseudo aristocracy-Gone-With-the-Wind delusions, their misguided Robert E. Lee-sense of honor, slavery. But like I said, there is much to recommend it as well.
For one thing, there is the grand literary tradition exemplified by Faulkner, Welty, Capote, Harper Lee, Reynolds Price et al. They do not romantisize, even here:
It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world’s roaring rim.
Intruder in the Dust (1948)
And, of course, there is the gospel-enriched music: from Hank Williams to Dolly Parton and Lyle Lovett—almost all of my favorites and some of my soul mates.
Yes, I love the American South. I even subscribe to Garden & Gun magazine, which purports to reflect “the Soul of the South.” Well, I will say they have interesting articles about the likes of Padgett Powell and Wendell Berry and Olivia Manning.
And I dream of a Tennessee Mountain Home, don’t you?
Here is Dolly singing about her Tennessee Mountain Home. (Listening to this song on an old compilation CD of “Mom’s Favorites” made by daughter #1 back in the day prompted this post.)
Have I mentioned that I really want a Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) tree?
dual personalities 