I am the Audience

Doing art

May 19, 2022

a day in this life, art, dancing in the field of dreams

Poet and novelist Margaret Atwood on the universal nature of writing:

“Everyone writes in a way; that is, each person has a “story,” a personal narrative which is constantly being replayed, revised, taken apart, and put together again. The significant points in this narrative change as a person ages—what may have been tragedy at twenty is seen as comedy or nostalgia at forty. All children write. (And paint, and sing.) I suppose the real question is why do so many people give it up?”

I don’t think we do. I think a lot of us just change mediums.

When we were dating, I commented to my husband that I don’t “do” art. I just enjoy it and collect a little. He said he thinks my home and garden is my art. I can get behind that.

There was a Georgia O’Keefe exhibition at Reynolda House a few years ago that was absolutely stunning. In addition to paintings by her, there were photos of her and several pieces of her clothing that she had made for herself before off-the-rack became the standard for how we dress ourselves. Those functional objects were also beautiful. And there’s a lot to be said for creating the life you want. For making things just so because that’s what makes your heart sing. (See also the clothes of Frida Kahlo.)
Bleeding Heart redux

April 19, 2022

a day in this life

‘Valentine’

I had a thriving pink bleeding heart that I tried to transplant. That was not successful. But, this seems to be a good choice.
Butter beans

February 25, 2022

a day in this life, family, music

When I was little, my dad taught himself to play the guitar. When he was actually able to play songs, we would sing along with him. He played for decades and tended to choose old country music, Hank, Patsy, Waylon and Willie.

One of our favorite songs to sing with him was Butter Beans by Little Jimmy Dickens.

In the Episcopal church, the service on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is frequently when babies are christened. The service starts with no lights and no music and as it progresses. Candles are lit and music is added during the collection, which happens around the middle of the service. Eventually, everyone leaves the church to exuberant hymns with candles and lights everywhere, in anticipation of the joy of Easter.

For 3 or 4 years (if I recall correctly, I wasn’t always there) some of the members of my parents’ church were in a jazz band and they offered to do the Easter Saturday music, giving the choir a break from singing before all the action on Easter. The music was always good and the recessional was a kind of Dixieland parade into the parish hall where there was a party for the newly christened, their families and the rest of the congregation.

The year my youngest nephew was christened, they played Just a Closer Walk With Thee. Just the music; no voices. And my younger sister and I got tickled. In the middle of the service. We tried really hard to stifle the giggles. But, we weren’t as subtle as we hoped and our youngest sister, the mother of the candidate, leaned up and asked us what was so funny. And we told her. So, there were all the daughters of the rector snickering in the middle of the christening of his youngest grandchild. We did manage to pull ourselves together by the end of the hymn and finish the service behaving like adults.

Later, in the parish hall, my father sidled up to me and said. “What had you all giggling during the Offertory?”

And I said, “Because, they were playing ‘Butter Beans’ in church.”

The beginning of the service, before we all processed in, silently.

Click through and listen. Then, tell me we were wrong.

He couldn’t.
Picking a nit

February 22, 2022

a day in this life, food & drink

I wish restaurants wouldn’t call any random salad they want to fancy up a Caesar salad.

Kale & Radicchio, with creamy sunflower dressing, grilled onion, nori, and whatever “crumble” is, is NOT remotely a Caesar salad.

They aren’t even cousins.
Language of my child

February 18, 2022

family

My sister had some friends who thought that the mispronunciations of their child were cute and adopted them into the language of their family. The kid had to go to speech therapy for several months to learn to talk once he began school. I have never been inclined to use baby talk anyway. But, that definitely inspired me to talk to my child as I wished them to speak.

That said, sometimes the way my child learned language often amused me.

We used to love to get the large Entenmann’s Danish pastry to keep around for breakfast or snacks. One morning, I asked C what they wanted for breakfast. “Breakfast.” “Well, yeah. But, what? Cheesey eggs? Grits?” “I want Breakfast.” and pointed to the box. Apparently, I had offered for breakfast often enough that C thought that was the word for it. And we did call it that from then on.

I was never sure how the confusion about the difference between cookies and crackers happened. But, I do recall how mad they got when they asked me for a cracker and got exactly that. They wanted a cookie and it took us a minute to work out where the confusion lay. It only took one explanation of “If you want the sweet one say ‘cookie’ and if you want the not-sweet one say ‘cracker’.” for them to always be accurate after that.

When they were learning to read, they came home from school and told me their teacher didn’t know how to spell juice. “She thinks it’s spelled JUICE.” I asked how they thought it was spelled. “DJOOS” I said “Actually, she’s correct. But, I can see why you thought it was the other way. It does have kind of weird spelling.” C said, “Well, dang. I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all along.”

It’s been fun discussing language with this person for 30 years.

Doing art

Bleeding Heart redux

Butter beans

Picking a nit

Language of my child