Sunday, February 26, 2012

Sunday Reverie




I’m undone as usual by the prose poetry of the farmers’ market, and come away with my canvas bags bulging with
. a rotisserie chicken with roasted rosemary potatoes
. one spinach croissant and one pistachio
. a little bag of blood oranges with rosy skins
. mixed greens for braising, and and unruly bunch of dandelion greens
. a jar of my favorite olallieberry preserves
. a ceramic cup of meyer lemon Saint Benoît yogurt (loving the accent with the little hat)
. sausage and apple ravioli

Then just across the street, I see as I’m leaving, is a Bolivian café (named for three sisters and their three daughters), offering warm salteñas, yucca cheese bread, peanut or quinoa soup, Bolivian coffee.

I feel ashamed to find such delight in these worldly things when at the other end of things are women who have no desire to go on with shabby and diminished lives, are widowed, sick, without friends or resources or even the memory of joy.

My pleasure is a kind of prayer as well, for them and me.



image:  cucumber selling by an old women, Tracksigndeva

Friday, February 24, 2012

I've Been Tagged


I’ve been tagged by Jay Paolini, Actor.
What a fun way to get to meet other bloggers out there in the ether, and express my appreciation publicly for the pleasure their blogs give me, the stealthy, unnamed pilgrim traveling their narrative and visual byways (as on the public footpaths of England and Wales), without acknowledging it in most cases—until now.
Thank you, fellow bloggers, for brightening so many of my days!

The Rules Are:
1. You must post the rules.
2. Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.
4. Tag eleven bloggers; however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
5. Let them know you've tagged them!
6. Have fun!

My Answers to Jay’s Questions:
1) Which is your favorite movie/novel character?
Diane, played by Sinéad Cusack, in Oliver’s Travels.

2) How long does it normally take you to read a novel?
In my everyday life, two weeks.  When travelling, six to eight hours.

3) Can you watch a movie more than ten times?
Of course—though I’m not sure I’d admit which!

4) Do you ever listen to music while working on a character/writing?
Sadly, I can’t; I need quiet (or non-engaging sounds) around me to hear the voices/rhythms of the written words in my head.

5) Which movie role would you pay to be cast for?
The female lead in a Tom Stoppard sequel to Shakespeare in Love.

6) What's your favorite dish?
This week, Torta di Verdura Genovese (in Crete, hortopita—or wild greens pie).

7) Which book/movie made you run out of tears?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (movie).

8) Have you ever prepared/created a character based on a friend or a family member?
I often steal bits and pieces of people I know.

9) Have you ever had to improvise during a show?
Thankfully, no.  Just on paper during writing class.

10) Which is the best city you visited so far?
Not fair!  I guess I’ll have to say Venice.  (But then I feel more than a little sad for slighting Rome and Paris, York—both old and New—and Palma de Mallorca . . . )

11) Were you ever introduced to a famous actor/writer?
I’ve ridden in an elevator with Michael Ondaatje; held a door open for Umberto Eco; and had Peter Matthiessen tell me how we can know whether something we’ve written is any good.

My Tagged Bloggers:












My 11 questions for those tagged are:

1)  What would be the soundtrack to the movie of your life?
2)  Which actor/actress would you choose to play you?
3)  Who would write the script?
4)  If you could change the ending of one book or movie, what would it be?
5)  If you could take only one food or recipe with you to a desert island, what would it be?
6)  What fictional character would you most like to be stuck with on a desert island?
7)  If you could have only three possessions, what would they be?
8)  What fictional family would you like to belong to?
9)  If you could start a restaurant or shop, what and where would it be?
10)  What’s your favorite comfort food or drink?
11)  If you were to open a museum, what would you have in it?

If you have any questions regarding any of this, please let me know.

Bon voyage!


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Mimosa and Acacia




I’m thinking again of the differences between acacia and mimosa, since the acacia is blooming in the driveway—in fact beginning to fade.

I see I forgot to mention the celebratory mimosa two years ago when I was mulling on the name.  Why not make some now, to celebrate the weekend, to belatedly celebrate Mardi Gras?


image:  Pierre Bonnard, Mimosa

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Abstractions



I'm feeling rather abstracted today,  thinking about the poems I'm writing about the power of poetry (or other writing) to transform us, to give us things we can't otherwise have, or be.

And along with this I'm wondering, as I often have, about Prospero, in The Tempest, and why he chose to drown his books, give up his spells, go back to the everyday world.  Some say it was Shakespeare himself laying down his pen, giving up the magic of the theater and the enchanted worlds he created on stage and on paper, and if so that makes me doubly sad, to think of losing the ability to conjure what one needs beyond the here and now.

Or does there come a time when one gives up needing to conjure, write, dream?  I can't imagine it, if so.


image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Berries and Sweet Peas


Monday, February 20, 2012

Places I Would Rather Be



Bamburgh, Northumbria.

(Home of Lancelot's castle, and the crab stottie.)




image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Bamburgh wall

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Thought for the Day




We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.
—Carlos Castaneda






image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Annecy, France

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Midwinter Color



And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light and a striving evermore for these . . .
—Julian Grenfell

Let us strive for Nasturtiums, this weekend.  One interesting idea in that regard would be to make  Lobster with Chervil, Nasturtium, and Sherry Cream (from Plating Up).  Easier done, of course, if it were summer and one lived in Maine.






image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Nasturtiums

Friday, February 17, 2012

Friday Calm



WAS IT LIGHT?
Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

—Theodore Roethke


I’ll propose that the lively understandable spirit which will come again, if we can just be still and wait, is the radiance of the stained glass, the Tiffany window or something in a distant hushed cathedral, with the sun behind it.  I always feel bereft when stained glass is drained of its light and color.



image:  Tiffany, Hollyhocks

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Triptych



I’ve been reminded about how we find alluring similarities between distant places we’ve never seen before and others we might have seen often and thought nothing about back home—how in one amazed moment the two connect, ignite.

This whitewashed monastery on Santorini (right) which has the same organic shape and feel as Ranchos de Taos, the church Georgia O’Keeffe painted (two on the left; in black and white I almost can’t tell them apart).  The bread ovens—fornos—at Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port, which remind me of the hornos where the Pueblo Indians bake bread back in northern New Mexico.  The piñon sap with which the Navajos glaze their pottery, the way the Greeks did their amphoras—why retsina tastes of pine.

These psychic hauntings are part of the pleasure of travel, of going out into the world to find the part of ourselves that we didn’t know we were missing.  A charged component of our writing and art.



image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Triptych

Tuesday, February 14, 2012