Peg Duthie's Blog, page 23

tameless, and swift, and proud

[Today's subject line comes from Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."]

Earlier this evening, my department head and I stood at my office window, watching a strong wind bend the trees and menace the panels of the Gala tent. It appeared to peel a sheet of metal from its moorings, knocked over stanchions in the parking lot and, at home, flipped open all the lids of the giant roller-bins. But the rain also eventually lightened up enough for me to don a wide-brimmed hat and scrape at some of the weeds attempting to strangle my mint patch.

Last Saturday I danced for seven hours -- two two-hour workshops, plus the Playford Ball, of which there are videos, including this one. I am thinking of splurging on a blue + green +/- dark gray tartan sash for next year, which is the sort of thing that happens when I try to figure out what should happen during a Dunant House Waltz and somehow end up studying Viking's Sheepskin moves. (The Duthies are part of Clan Ross, but I'll likely go with one of the universal patterns, like Highland Granit, or maybe wear Montgomerie in honor of Alexander, seeing how "What Mightie Motion" haunted me on first hearing for the better part of several years (to the point that I wrote to the Scottish Poetry Library to obtain the full set of verses).

Speaking of poetry, it is April, and thus there are goings-on. At Vary the Line, Mary, Joanne, and I have written and/or collected responses to the question "What is a poem?", with my friend Lisa Dordal starting the series. Over at Pretty Terrible, Natalie Luhrs analyzes and links to some of my poems as part of her own monthlong poetry project.

It is still too soon to put out plants that cannot withstand frost. I am edgy and eager to get them resettled, even though there is plenty of prep that still needs to be done. I can hear and see my impatience reflected among my colleagues and acquaintances: Whennnnnnnnnn? one whimpered. Whennnnnnnnnn indeed.

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running out of bras before knives

Some months, the spreadsheets and social commitments and sundry other obligations outstrip one's ability to answer the call of laundry and le laver la vaisselle. One resorts to the strapless stick-ons and thanks Providence for the quick-sale Anaheim peppers staying fresh for several weeks, plodding on and picking one's way through mud and cement slicks...



I am not thrilled about PDF-wrangling and number-crunching cutting into time for sleeping. It'll likely hoover up swimming and dancing and socializing time as well, and I might be kicking myself right now for choosing to spend most of Saturday away from my laptop. But part of that day was spent riding around Lewis State Forest on a quarter horse named Question Mark, with a shepherd mix named Zeba happily galloping along, with the sky bright blue above pines and saplings and sprinklers, and then there were turnip cakes and bubble tea back in Nashville, and then I scraped and snipped and lugged and tugged thises and thatses around the yard, and that was a pleasure too.



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space

An ongoing challenge here -- both with plants and with people -- is gauging how much space is in order. The pepper plants are particularly perplexing this year: in the past, they have flourished only when I got around to transplanting them into larger pots, but this year some of them seem happier and healthier in tight quarters. There are, of course, numerous other variables I haven't tracked -- soil, light, tea and coffee dregs, floor vs. table -- but that hasn't stopped me from marveling and dithering over the if-whens and what-nexts.

This batch seems happy crowded together:


This batch, not so much:


An upstairs daughter plant is doing really well right now:


Over at Vary the Line, I dwell on light and astronomers. As I was closing windows after posting that entry, I clicked on a link to John Brashear's obituary. This sentence stood out:

Often, in the evening after his mill labors were over, Mrs. Brashear held a lantern, giving light to her husband while he sawed and hammered on their house.

So many possible directions one could pursue with that. Some other night.

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with lifted head singing

City of the Big Shoulders, how I love you tonight.

Last Sunday we sang Ella's Song.

First Class Lit published Token today.

Music to learn. Mud to scrape. Papers to plow through. Onward.

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all this beauty here

This morning's subject line comes from The Paper Raincoat's "Brooklyn Blurs," which Alex Wong introduced last night as being about a 4 a.m. ride through Brooklyn, during last night's concert.

Everyone who performed = legit chops. Charlotte, the dog, was adorable, affectionate, attentive, and amusing ("It's OK, Char, they already donated," Alex said to her, when she started barking at folks re-entering the room.) Megan Slankard and Kristen Ford complimented my hair, which I had re-tealed before work.

I was able to fit in two walks yesterday -- one during my lunch hour, and one late at night with my sweetie.

The radishes in my front yard have germinated. There is a new sliver of leaf on the hollyhock seedling I'd feared was a goner.

Nothing was stolen when some jackass rifled through the BYM's truck.

I've already won a fantasy tennis medal this year, which does take the sting out of missing out on the current awards by three points. (Picking Alize Cornet was a fatal error.)

The dry shampoo I tried out this morning is doing its job.

I am wearing the filigree chai pendant I purchased at a Jewish museum sixteen years ago; my duties today include attending the media preview for a photography show from another Jewish museum that I've been working on during the past year.

The dance card includes dancing. Also two recitals as an audience member and a recording session + two concerts as a performer. Also, an ice cream date with a friend.

There's a Vary the Line project to get moving on as well, along with this month's post. I pulled together a sub last night; being at Angelhouse South was lovely in itself, but it did also stir up the gotta-get-my-own-stuff-out-there groove. Which is good. It'd be nice to make some new things as well (Megan praised her Patreon fans last night for allowing her to choose writing over having to play not-so-nice gigs) but I'll carve out that space again eventually. For now, it's time to pick up some dog biscuits with my breakfast and then beat the lane-clogging trucks (and SEC tournament trappings) to my day-destination.

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dealing

My poem "What's in the Cards" has been posted online by Kind of a Hurricane's editors.

Over at Dawn Potter's, Tu Fu readers are musing on writing while (pretending to be) a lush/slacker and (not) using color in poems/translations.

I am enjoying the tiny flowers around and in my house: little blue weeds amid the rocks of a border; little white flowers on the mama pepper plant; little yellow flowers on a tomato cutting.

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what came out of the cookie

I found this among some other things-to-file-or-glue-somedays. While I agree with the observation, something about it emerging from a long-ago splurge on kung pao beef or sesame balls gives me the giggles.

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pace

by Cyrus Kabiru

From the March 2016 issue of ELLE (page 410):

Adrift and Apathetic: How do I spark a desire to improve? How do I rekindle my career fire? How do I keep up with the pack?

E. Jean: Adrift, Darling: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Keep up with the pack? Nobody keeps up with the pack. Hell, the pack can't keep up with the pack. Even Kylie Jenner (Miss Kylie Jenner with her 45 million -- repeat, million -- Instagram followers) says she wakes up "every morning with the worst anxiety." Your primate brain -- and its precuneus, concerned with conscious and reflections upon self; and its temporoparietal junction, where thought processing and perceptions lie -- centers your attention on people above you in the pecking order. Ergo, you always feel behind.

Weirdly, you don't even register the 97 percent of the world that's trying to keep up with you and your razzle-dazzle education and art projects.

Lately I was glued to an article in the Wall Street Journal by the primatologist and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky (I had no choice -- I'm so behind this guy in the pecking order that I'm an amoeba on the backside of a flea on the buttocks of one of his baboons) called "Brain Reflexes That Monitor the Pecking Order." Read it and you'll never fret about the pack again.

From Laura Brown's interview of Drew Barrymore, in the March 2016 issue of Harper's Bazaar:

"I don't think I'm hot right now necessarily, because I have all my irons in a bunch of different fires," Barrymore says, amused at the heavy-handedness of the metaphor. "I'm writing. I'm doing makeup. I'm doing design. I'm expanding Flower into different categories." She adds, "I think it's a huge mistake to think you have to burn bright for your whole life. You cannot sustain it. It's exhausting, and it's not very realistic."

Winemaker Jason Lett, in a 2008 interview at the Splendid Table that was rebroadcast on WPLN today:

Grape vines are a bit like human beings. As they age, the quality of what they produce goes up and the quantity goes down. These vines will continue to produce fruit for probably past their 100th year. What we're going to continue to see as that process happens is an increase in quality and a decrease in quantity.

We're already starting to see this. This vineyard is giving us maybe a ton-and-a-half to the acre every year. But the flavors are concentrated and gorgeous, so we'll keep farming this long past the time an accountant would tell me to pull it out.

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scale

I am actually in the thick of replacing a rotting deck with more house, but this quote in the March issue of Southern Living spoke to me anyway:

People get caught up in grandeur, forgetting that the best times they ever had in their lives were in tiny spaces with low ceilings and the best things ever said to them were whispered. When I design a house, I start with the site to figure out what elements you want to engage with emotionally and spiritually. Then I consider the communion of people and objects and create containment around them. My consideration is always what it's going to feel like together. Only lastly do I concern myself with what a house looks like. The only real value of building a house is to increase the territory of your own heart. The only real truth is to create something that will settle your spirit.

-- Bobby McAlpine

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hidden time

One of yesterday's pleasures: suddenly discovering that the locket I was wearing (inherited from an aunt) contained a watch:



Also, sipping some Est! Est!! Est!!!, a white wine a friend had given to me in December. Preparing squash casserole and a bison steak with some seasoned salt, another gift from another friend, and having it in the oven by the time the BYM got home, in spite of weariness-induced dawdling. Doing this while wearing a thick shawl from another friend.

Also satsifying: filing a tax schedule. Writing letters. Seeing tiny new flowers on the mama pepper plant and one of the tomato-cutting transplants. Freezing sale donuts for future noshing. Listening to Richter play Beethoven. Patting the dog, even though I'll be cleaning her mess out of a tulip bed this weekend. I have three Acapulco semifinalists on my fantasy tennis team, which does make me feel better about finishing dead last the previous week.

The chores are many. So are the rejections. And I missed a dance class this week because my gut was acting up. But I discussed with the BYM how to get my bike rideable again, and my yoga studio has just moved to a larger space, and I can sleep all damn weekend long if that's what my body ends up needing. True luxury, that.

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