Remembering:
In the night, I woke to see a little rectangle of moonlight on the Turkish carpet by my bed. An entrance, a window into mystery. I stood on the carpet and dipped my toe into the light, watching the moon in its waxing gibbous phase, spilling through the curtains. I thought of Rumi, via Coleman Barks:
“The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.”
An hour later, the moon had set over the mountain beyond my house. (Saturday, March 28)
Eating:
For lunch today, slices of ripe beefsteak tomatoes (from a BC greenhouse, not mine), with flaky Maldon salt, a few leaves of basil (from someone else’s greenhouse), some toasted pinenuts, and a drizzle of my favourite olive oil, Frantoia. It felt like a bowl of summer, even though it’s March.
Listening:
Yesterday we went to the Pender Harbour Music School in the old Forestry building, the site of 15 summers of our chamber music festival (which came to a graceful conclusion in the year before the pandemic), anyway, we went to hear Morgan Toney, a Mi’kmaq folk singer-songwriter and fiddler from Nova Scotia, folk singer-songwriter and fiddler from Nova Scotia, and Ryan Roberts, his sidekick guitarist, a lovely duo, so friendly and welcoming, and we sat in the lovely room listening to Morgan’s blend of Celtic fiddle and Mi’kmaq traditional song, and is it any wonder his album Heal the Divide won a Juno the night before for Traditional Roots Album of the Year? Listen to this and see if you can keep your feet still…
Appreciating:
It seems that every day brings a new review of my forthcoming book! I am pinching myself, bruised with gratitude!
https://transactionswithbeauty.com/home/threebooks
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/theresa-kishkan/the-art-of-looking-back
Hoping…
…that the little tomato seedlings I’ve been transplanting will thrive in new soil and the greenhouse where they will receive light from every direction. Pruden’s Purple, Brandywine, Cuore di Bui, a new one (to me) whose name I couldn’t resist: Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, a few types of paste, and when we go to Ottawa in May, I’ll bring back a few tiny plants of the Portuguese Ox=Heart, grown from seeds I bought at the Bolhao Market in Porto. (I sent Forrest a package of seeds for Christmas and hadn’t realized that my own big package had been depleted over the past two years. But honestly they are the most delicious tomatoes.)
Reading:
Sanna Marin’s memoir, a few novels, including the latest Louise Penny, and on my bedside table, Rebecca Solnit’s The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, because I need to feel that the world is not going to hell in a handbag, although sitting in our friends’ sunny kitchen on Oyster Bay this morning after our swim, looking out at serene water, various water fowl gliding and dipping, I thought, Yes, this. This is also happening as that American president talks about obliterating Iran.
