Random Thoughts

I saw the moon tonight over Superlo grocery store and am thinking how the moon really does look super when she is low in the sky....

And it just struck me that "super" comes from the word meaning "above," so Superlo is somewhat oxymoronic if you take it etymologically literally....

I saw forsythia blooming on Wednesday, and daffodils coming up today, which concerns me, because it's very, very early. We've had so many ups and downs with the temperatures!

We went for a walk in the Botanic Garden today and spoke to a little blonde boy who was playing near a small pond. His immediate response was, "Do you have a GPS?" When we said no, he said, "It's too bad. You shoulda buyed one," and went on to tell us that his dad's GPS was helping him find dew cats. I asked what a dew cat was, and he led us to a small black plastic box near the edge of the wooden bridge. He opened it excitedly and showed us what it contained--a few small plastic toys, a paper (which looked perhaps like a map?) in a plastic bag, a pencil....He showed us how his dad and he hid it under the bridge. He told us how the GPS would help you find dew cats anywhere! In Japan, Australia, anywhere!

As we walked on we encountered the dad, who said the Japan bit (all he'd heard) was a stretch. A bit later I realized that the boy must have been thinking of ducats and had been on a treasure hunt with his dad. It was wonderful to witness such imagination (on the part of both father and son) and to meet a child so trusting and eager to share his excitement and his hidden treasure with perfect strangers. I wish all young people could do that.

"Lessemployment" looms ever nearer. I can't call it unemployment, because I will continue with my piano students, no matter what. I've had interesting possibilities come up here and there and am still waiting to hear from my chief hoped-for possibility.

Perhaps the most interesting thing has been having a call from a new piano student's parent, who got my name from the music store where I shop. It turns out they live right next door to a former student of mine, and this father is a surgeon at Drazen's clinic. But he knew none of that, just got my name from the music store. It almost feels as if invisible forces were at work! This is a city of thousands of people, after all, and I am not the only piano teacher in this zip code, I know for a fact.

Finally, reflecting on Lucy's comment about my shoe photo from the previous post, I was looking at it and thinking, "What does this say about me?" And realized that the shoes are lined up on one of the wool rugs from Grandmother's house, a rug that was part of my life for sure by age 4 (I remember those rugs from that age and have also seen photos), and probably from the time before I wore shoes.

And I wonder if only English majors think about such things and the symbolism of it all. I have no standing in this world without the foundation that I came from, the people who gave me a place to stand....My shoes alone can't take me anywhere that someone else didn't make possible.

And now you know why people write poetry. Because such thoughts about the moon and grocery stores, or shoes and rugs, just sound a bit odd when you say it in non-poetic form!

Christmas Twelfth Night

Thankfully, when Christmas ends, there is Epiphany to look forward to....I have the hardest time taking down the decorations, which I must go and do now.

I got brave and bought another rosemary "treecic" and have manged to keep it alive thus far. It was wonderful today snipping little "branches" and using them in some potatoes. I think if I ever have an office with windows, I may try growing one to use during that afternoon, afterlunch time, when I get so sleepy. That pungent scent might just make a difference in the quality of service my clients get from me at the 2:00 and 3:00 appointments!


An unexpected Christmas gift was Drazen's decision to have me line up all my shoes so he could clean and polish them. (This is the lineup before the work began.)


A candle from Grandmother's table, and a beautiful box of biscotti with the Florentine stationery pattern, purchased during our adventures in Texas. I never knew I could love orange as much as I do in this square foot of life.


I think this looks so nice, I may just leave it up until winter is over....


Card that arrived today from Fric and Lidija in Slovenija. I love it.


And love the stamps, too! Not to mention the people who live in Slovenske Konjice and somehow manage to remember their faraway friends.

Happy New Year, Buon Anno, and Sretna Nova Godina, to all my friends who read this here (and for the most part never comment!) I hope your 2009 has had as lovely a start as ours and that we will all grow in loving all of God's creation this year, "the whole and every grain of sand in it."

Addendum: I just realized that likely no one reading this, except those bilingual in English/Croatian, which would mean a grand sum of two regular readers, will have any idea what a "treecic" is. It's not a word. It's "tree" with the Croatian diminutive suffix added...something like a "tree-ette," I guess.

Christmas Seventh Day

Here are the pansies, those cold-defying, hope-inspiring cheerer-uppers. This photo was taken after two overnight freezes, in which they shriveled up and looked quite pitiful--and then came to life again with a warmer day. Our weather has been extremely variable lately. One morning when I checked, it was 31 degrees, with an expected high of 59, which it did reach by afternoon.

Maybe the weather has affected us.

We leave tomorrow for a rather impromptu trip to the Dallas area, to visit friends, and possibly on to Abilene.

In a way it feels like a bigger trip than flying to Europe does! We've been to Europe several times since the last time we went to Texas, so Texas seems farther away.

If we can finally be making this long-promised trip to Texas, then anything is possible.

Happy New Year!

Christmas from Our House to Yours

As you can see, my blog supports the traditional twelve days of Christmas. As does my house decor, which will be up until January 6. Here's a little tour....Six photos for the sixth day....


The cotton boll on the left is from a field on the way to Grandmother's house. The roses in the photo behind it are some she gave me many years ago when we had been to visit. The photo on the right is us at Zadar a couple of years ago.


The tiny tree has been with us since our first Christmas in America, fourteen years ago. One of my favorite ornaments is the clay cutout with the white ribbon, made by our friend Andreja in Croatia.


"Glory to God in the highest!" He's really singing with gusto. This is from the presepio...how do we say it...creche?....given to us by our friends Karen and Rich, made by a sculptor friend of theirs. Maybe I can do some more photos of it for another post. This guy is about two inches high.


A Santa container that belonged to Grandmother, which I remember being there when I was a child. To me this was the real face of Santa Claus. I don't recall ever "believing in Santa Claus," but I remember thinking this is what he ought to look like if he did exist in the way the tales told.


Front wooden door.


Front outer door.


Merry Christmas!

Christmas Gift

Look what my sweet husband gave me for Christmas!

Here is the Andy Warhol version:



And here is a more palatable version:



It is a bracelet (I think that much is obvious) that I found months and months ago and showed to him. And he remembered. Or maybe he got it way back then, I don't know because I haven't asked. But he remembered and gave it to me. And I just love it.

And I just love him, too.

(You can't quite tell, but it has the entire first part of the "prayer of St. Francis," a slightly abridged version, inscribed on it. And it is in the form of a Mobius/Moebius strip, which means there are not two "sides" to the circle, it continues continually, a symbol of infinity. I first learned about this form from Parker Palmer when he spoke at Rhodes College a few years ago, about community....anyway, it's a special gift, for many reasons.)

Christmas Clouds

On Christmas Day, I spent a few hours in the kitchen making my most-authentic-I-have-ever-found, i.e., most-closely-resembling-what-I've-eaten-in-Florence, recipe for lasagne pasticciate. It takes between three and four hours, and, no, that doesn't include making your own pasta. I don't do it often, but it had been a very long time since I made it, so that's what we took to my parent's house for Christmas dinner with family. Along with a crostata di mele, something like apple pie, but not so sweet, and the crust is unlike any pie crust I've had here.

We left around 3, which meant we were driving into the sun.

And the road to Searcy does not have many trees along much of it. It's those huge fields, which I wrote about last Christmas, when I witnessed the angels in the form of geese ascending and descending....

So, that meant I was wearing two pair of sunglasses for much of the trip. (I have very sensitive eyes, perhaps fodder for a post unto itself.) Here I was trying to get a picture of that, though I'm not sure you can tell, unless perhaps you enlarge and look very closely, but I don't know that it's worth the effort if you're willing to just take my word for it.


But once the sun eased a little closer to the horizon, I was able to remove the outer pair of glasses, and eventually the other pair as well.

And it was really quite lovely. These photos are taken through the window, of course, but I think they turned out pretty well. Perhaps someday I'll learn to use Photoshop or something, but for now I enjoy taking my best shot and letting it be. I think that's actually a combination of wanting things to stay simple, and also being lazy....

You can see some of the wide fields here, and mostly the clouds, which made me feel I was witnessing an impressionistic artist at work. It made me wish we could listen to Respighi's "Clouds" while we were driving, but, alas, it was not to be found. (I don't think we even have a copy in the house.)

Christmas all' Arancia

Oh, the joys of non-traditional grocery stores, which make it possible in a big city to find the sort of thing one might find on the side of the road in less urban areas. These oranges not only looked lovely, but tasted sweet and wonderful. (But I confess, I bought them just because they looked lovely with their stems and leaves still attached.)


One of the biggest surprises for me this Christmas was finding in another store, without even looking for it, this box of Pandoro, the traditional Italian cake I like so much. "Pandoro" means "bread of gold." It's a simple, buttery, Christmas-tree-shaped cake that you coat with powdered sugar by shaking it in the plastic bag it comes in. At least that's the way the boxed version is done. I've now found a recipe for it that I think I'll try, so probably won't include the plastic bag part.

The first time I came home from Italy while living there, I tied a big box--bigger than this one, probably about 12x8x8--to my backpack and carried that cake all the way home for Christmas. It wasn't easy! That was before planes were so space-conscious, though, so aside from the awkwardness, it wasn't really a problem.

Most years I try to remember to look for these at a small store called Mantia's. If I don't think of it early on, they are sold out by the time I get there, and all they have is Panettone, which I've never cared for because of the candied fruit it has.

This year I was so distracted by the job situation and various weekend activities, that I completely forgot to go by Mantia's until I knew it was too late, and there was no point.

And then, standing in line at Fresh Market, I looked and beheld these beautiful boxes! And of course brought one home. And it was delicious. But as with the oranges, as you see, the visual treat was just as fulfilling as the treat for the tongue:

Merry Christmas!

Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, the scorned, the lowly,
lived on earth our Savior holy.

For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that Child who seemed so helpless
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.

Not in that poor lowly stable,
with the oxen standing round,
we shall see him; but in heaven,
set at God's right hand on high;
Christ revealed to faithful eye,
set at God's right hand on high.

Just as in King's College, Cambridge, this is the way we begin our Lessons and Carols here with the boychoir. It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm singing it while processing into St. John's church, or listening to it on the radio in my kitchen--I always end up with tears in my eyes. It's a combination of text, music, tradition, little boys' voices joined by adults' and then those of the whole congregation, the simplest words describing the most amazing story ever told--and the fact that I believe what the song is saying--and I think glorious descants have something to do with it, also!

This little stained glass piece, attached to a votive candle holder, was Grandmother's. For a long time she kept it on her kitchen windowsill; that's where I always remember seeing it. I wonder where it came from. Maybe a friend gave it to her? Maybe she found it herself and bought it? Maybe she got it in Bethelehem when they were there in the early 70's? (I still wear the cross she brought me from that trip.)

I suppose I'll never know. And I don't know if she ever heard or sang "Once in Royal David's City." But this year I decided that sitting looking at this candle was the best way to listen to the song while it played on the radio.

Merry Christmas.

Winter Window

This was on our window yesterday morning, bringing in a day even colder than the one before, I think. I love the contrast between the cold frost and the sunshine on the trees across the way.

Winter seems to me lately to be a time of contrasts. I've had unexpected contrast-type moments lately when shopping, especially.

Saturday I was out and had four separate stops. I tend not to shop on Saturdays in general for the reason that many other people do shop on that day! I don't enjoy the crowds and the lines. So of course the Saturday before Christmas is about the worst time to go, and I was not disapointed. Traffic was crazy and stressful. Parking lots were full. People were not at their friendliest.

Even so, I had three unexpected contrasts on Saturday. I was third in line at the post office, of all places! Hardly had to wait a bit.

Then I went to buy Christmas cards in a little Catholic bookshop, and it was not crowded at all, and they still had plenty of cards remaining. (I was afraid I would find only the dregs, so to speak, or that they would all be gone.)

And then, when I was walking from my car across the grocery store parking lot, it was all getting to me. I was tired, and hungry, and thinking all kinds of thoughts about what a mess our culture is, with the commercialization and the inequity among people, the rudeness, etc.

I looked up at just the right time and saw a hawk riding the thermals. I just stopped and watched for as long as I could, until he disappeared into the thick clouds. Three minutes at the most, I suppose it was. But three minutes that changed my interior landscape, as three minutes can often do.

That hawk soaring up above the commercialized chaos down below was a powerful reminder of how short-sighted we can be. It's largely my not looking far enough that leads me to feeling stressed, or seeing only the bleaker parts of the scene. There's always more, whether I see it or not. Like the sunlight beyond the frost. Which I didn't see when I took the photo, only later as I was putting it here on my blog.

It's always worth looking up, and remembering, remembering, remembering, that our immediate experience is only that. There is always more that we don't, and often can't, see in the moment.

After Barbizon

This afternoon we went to the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, where they are showing paintings from the Barbizon painters, predecessors to the full-blown impressionists. I loved it. Lots of landscapes, amazing light effects. Not being a painter, I am just amazed by what people can do with paint.

And then we went outside for our own view of the landscape and light. Today was a welcome sunny day, freezing cold, but with a very blue sky. The Dixon Gardens are one of my favorite places in Memphis. Maybe with my new work schedule, I'll be able to spend more time there, but until now it has mostly been on weekends.

These camelias were about the only thing surviving the cold. They always surprise me with their gentle beauty in the harshness of winter weather.


A view of the south side of the museum, which was originally a residence. I'm dying to come in warmer weather and sit on that porch and read a book.


I understand that some of the oldest trees in Memphis are in this area. Some of them are very, very tall!


Here is Drazen with Ceres in the background. He is pretty tall himself!



In warmer weather, these archways are covered in several varieties of clematis and remind me of gardens in Europe. As you see by the coats both of us are wearing, it really is cold here right now. By this time my ears were really feeling the cold.


But it was warm in the greenhouses, and fun to see little green things thriving there with their bamboo support system.


Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky....

If you're interested, you can see lovely things on the museum/garden website, www.dixon.org. I'm still not doing links, and I'll explain why in a later post, so you'll have to copy and paste that. Or be old-fashioned and just remember it and type it; it isn't long!