Lost recipes

Last year in my neighborhood we lost two longtime residents. My next-door neighbor who had lived within this two-block radius for all of her 89 years moved to Florida to be near her family. The woman across the street, who never married and lived in the same house that she was born in 85 years ago, had heart trouble and other ailments and moved to senior housing about 10 minutes away. The odd thing is that these two women, who couldn't have been more different, both left in the span of about 10 days last September. It still makes me teary.

When the 85-year-old neighbor's nephew (got that?) was cleaning out her house last month, a piece of paper blew across the street as I was working on my flower beds. Thinking it was trash, I picked it up and headed for the recycling bin. Then I took a closer look. It was a recipe for Sugar-Crusted Rhubarb Squares. I've never been partial to rhubarb, but I felt that I needed to rescue this recipe in honor of lost neighbors. It was moist and delicious, and the rhubarb came from a friend's garden which I felt made the recipe more meaningful.

The new neighbors move in next month and they just had their first child. It seems like the perfect fit for a house with history.

Westward Ho, Part II

The second half of our glorious Saturday was spent at The Clark a.k.a. The Sterling and Francine Art Institute. I like to pride myself on being up on the museum scene, but I had never heard of The Clark, which meant I had absolutely no expectations of what we would find there. It was like a hidden jewel in the forest, loaded with beautiful, classic works of art. I loved its size as well. One floor with wide corridors leading from room to room around the perimeter. I definitely want to return, especially after its renovation. I had hoped to see its library, but it was closed.

My favorite pieces were "Hanging Figure" by Juan Munoz and "Women with Dog" by Pierre Bonnard. The Munoz piece was so strange in the midst of the Degas sculptures and Renoir paintings, it couldn't help but draw your attention. The Bonnard was one I hadn't seen before, and I loved the perspective.





I especially liked the paintings of the knitters by Jean-Francois Millet. Women hard at work shepherding, yet still getting in their knitting time.

Westward Ho, Part I

Every since I first saw the article in Country Living about The Porches Inn I've dreamed of going for a stay. There was never enough free time or money to go, and frankly there still isn't but we went anyway. It was one of the best weekends I have had in years since it combined all of my favorite things: my true love, museums, a nice hotel, a foreign flick and a road trip.

Even though I spent my college years in Western Massachusetts at Hampshire College, I never ventured as far west as the Berkshires. It was a beautiful drive there, even though the town of North Adams felt like the land that time forgot. It was my first time at MASS MoCA, which was an absolutely incredible space created from 19th century mill buildings.



We didn't see all of the exhibits, but we did see the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Retrospective. What floored me about his drawings were the LeWitt's instructions for creating each drawing. ("Within a circle draw 10,000 black straight lines and 10,000 black not straight lines. All lines are randomly spaced and evenly distributed.") We also saw Petah Coyne's upcoming show being installed, which will entice me to North Adams for another visit...


...coming up in Westward Ho, Part II...The Clark...

Contradictions

I always have a hard time with making a decision, any decision, since I was a child. My mom tells me that she used to refuse to help me with decisions when I was younger with the hope that making a decision would become less traumatic for me as time went on. It didn't really work, I still waffle over the smallest decisions, and change my mind constantly.

So I placed this quote underneath my monitor, with the hope that it would help me focus on the small picture, instead of being overwhelmed by the big picture. It's by Maira Kalman, one of my favorite illustrators.

"'Think small' is my new motto. It helps me handle the complicated too-muchness of it all."



Strangely enough, six months later I (unintentionally) put a postcard of a lithograph by Roni Horn next to the quote. The lithograph is titled "Brink of Infinity".

Get it? It took me a while, but now I think it perfectly captures my permanent state of mind. I am moving on from denial to acceptance.

The Baktus is done...just in time for spring

Here is the Baktus neck scarf kerchief thingy just in time for spring. This is me wearing it in the burning sun with about 8 carpenter bees zooming around my head, trying to get get me out of THEIR YARD. But you can't tell, right? That's right, because I am unfazed by this kind of backlash by nature if I can just take one nice photo of my knitted neck warmer. (Did I mention it was hot? It was hot.)

To answer your question, it's called a Baktus after a Norwegian "tooth troll" who lives inside of a young boy's cavity. The pattern came from Strikkelise on ravelry. The yarn is Pulse from Spunky Eclectic. And now I am on to other things, like finishing the Norah Gaughan Flow tank that I started last summer, because right now I am all about finishing what I've started.


This is Skylar and her friend Skunky, taking a breather.

On writing

There weren't many showers in April, but the flowers arrived anyway. Tulip Orange Princess paired with Tulip Spring Green.

Now that I'm done for the moment with my grad school work, I'm allowing myself to lift my head up and breathe. To work on what I love without guilt or some nagging feeling that I'm stealing time from some beast that will track me down and punish me for being the irresponsible student that I am.

I just finished Illuminating Fiction by Sherry Ellis. Ellis has collected 19 of her interviews with poetry and prose writers into a tidy little book that inspires and informs at the same time. She does a great job balancing questions about the writer's habits with questions about character, plot and story inspiration. She interviews some of my favorite authors like Amy Bloom and Margot Livesy, and introduced me to Matthew Sharpe. The Sleeping Father is on my "to read" shelf.

I am now jumping around Zadie Smith's Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays. I had forgotten how much I loved essay collections, where I can pick and choose depending on my mood. I loved"That Crafty Feeling" where she really exposes her own neuroses as a writer. I feel that her description of writing a novel could really be applied to writing any length piece. The nerves leading up to the writing, getting in the groove, then the slow fall back into self doubt. It's nice to know I'm not the only one out there feeling this way.