Enjoying: My fall swims. After a warm and sunny weekend, today is grey and cool. I will swim later this morning, knowing that this might be the final week. (I’ll be away for five days later in the week until next Tuesday and the break might serve as the volta.) Yesterday the water was so clear and green that I hardly noticed the temperature, until I came out and couldn’t get warm. But what luxury to swim in clean water under a blue and cloudless sky.
Watching: I almost never watch television. Somehow I never got the trick of it — sitting still, etc. But last Wednesday, I asked John if he could find the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice for me to rewatch. (I loved it the first time around!) And he joined me in sitting still for an hour each morning until yesterday when we watched the last two episodes because we couldn’t wait another day, even though we knew the ending. I loved every minute. Perfectly plotted, beautifully filmed, a glance carrying more information than most long speeches, tiny devices — the delicate needlework and attention to clothing detail that open each episode, for instance — doing so much to delineate time and place. I’ve read several Austen biographies, most recently Claire Tomalin’s, and I think I’ll find my copy on our shelves.
Appreciating: Yesterday I drove to Egmont to take boxes of stuff to the thrift store. I was expecting a quiet drive and it was, until the posse of motorcyclists caught up with me and shadowed me. I pulled over so they could pass, which they did with great roaring of engines. And Egmont itself was busy! The parking lot for the Skookumchuck trail was full. Two guys on the roof of the post office, which has been under plastic tarps for some time, repairing it. A crowd of cars and vans outside the hall. When I returned to my car after taking the boxes to the thrift store (it’s in the lower level of the hall), a woman said to me, We have flowers left over from a wedding last night. Come and help yourself.
Remembering: 4 months ago tomorrow my book The Art of Looking Back: A painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze was published. Apart from the reviews (you can read them here), so many people have written or called to talk about it with me. They’ve shared stories as well as praise. Every word of both is appreciated. Sometimes I’ll be doing something else and I’ll remember a phrase that reminds me that yes, I did publish a book, and yes, people have read it. (It’s the time of year when literary festivals occur almost every weekend and I’m reminded that I wasn’t invited to a single one, alas.)
Cooking: As well as taking stock, I’ll be making soup today, though not stock. (I have some in the freezer to use.) Double-smoked bacon and mixed pulses. And maybe soda bread or biscuits to have with it for supper. (I have some soured cream in a bottle to use up too.)
Making: I am stitching a horizontal strip quilt, using blue sashiko thread to follow a meandering line. I wish I could put into words how it feels to have my hands filled with soft cotton and linen and another dimension developing as I sew, a flat surface taking on the topography of rivers, trails, roads leading into the unknown.
Hoping: As cold weather comes, I am hoping against hope that Russia stops its senseless violence against Ukraine.
Thinking: I have in mind a textile work, using some of my indigo-dyed ramie, to explore the textured dimensions of water and how it feels to be held in it. I am not a visual artist and have no idea how to work this way but I have the image in my mind and I’ve been turning it over, looking at it from various perspectives, and maybe I’ll find in my hands the skill to begin.
Loving: Getting out of bed last night to pee and seeing the moon, the waning gibbous, rising over the high shoulder of Mount Hallowell, and going out onto the deck off the sunroom to stand for a minute in its silver light. I wasn’t awake to see it set but no matter, there’s Sappho (in Anne Carson’s translation):
Moon has set
and Pleiades: middle
night, the hour goes by,
alone I lie.
