There must be many exciting properties of matter that we cannot know because we have no way to know them. Yet, with what we have, what wealth!

 

The Living Mountain

By Nan Shepherd

Still here and still reading. 

Recently, I read The Living Mountain in preparation for a trip to Scotland. My third visit and I decided this trip I’d take some time to get a taste of the Highlands. 

Nan’s novel was written during World War II but not published until 1977—and it was interesting to note how much still felt relatable and similar. 

"As I stand there in the silence, I become aware that the silence is not complete. Water is speaking. I go towards it and almost at once the view is lost: for the plateau has its own hollows, and this one slopes widely down to one of the great inward fissures, the Garbh Choire. It lies like a broad leaf veined with watercourses, that converge on the lip of the precipice to drop down in a cataract for 500 feet. This is the River Dee. Astonishingly, up here at 4000 feet, it is already a considerable stream. The immense leaf that it drains is bare, surfaced with stones, gravel, sometimes sand, and in places moss and grass grow on it. Here and there in the moss a few white stones have been piled together. I go to them, and water is welling up, strong and copious, pure cold water that flows away in rivulets and drops over the rock. These are the Wells of Dee. This is the river. Water, that strong white stuff, one of the four elemental mysteries, can here be seen at its origins. Like all profound mysteries, it is so simple that it frightens me. It wells from the rock, and flows away. For unnumbered years, it has welled from the rock, and flowed away. It does nothing, absolutely nothing, but be itself."

(p. 23, Chapter 4: Water)

This reminded me of all of the fawn videos I saw on Threads this spring, people discovering does leaving their babies unattended in backyards while they spent the day foraging for food.

"I have never had the incredible fortune, as a young doctor I know once had, of seeing a hind give birth; but I have found very young fawns, left by their mothers beside a stone on heather. Once I had gone off the track to visit a small tarn. Something impelled me to walk round the back of the tarn, scrambling between the rock and the water, and then to continue downwards over a heathery slope that is not very often crossed. From the corner of my eye I noticed two or three hinds making off; and a moment later I came on a tiny fawn lying crouched into the heather near a stone. It lay in an oddly rigid way, the limbs contorted in unnatural positions. Could it be dead? I bent over it - very gently touched it. It was warm. The contorted limbs were fluid as water in my hands. The little creature gave no sign of life. The neck was stretched, stiff and ungainly, the head almost hidden; the eyes stared, undeviating. Only the flanks pulsated. Nothing moved but the pulsing flanks. There was no voluntary movement whatsoever, no smallest twitch or flicker. I had never before seen a fawn shamming dead, as young birds do."

(p. 73,  Chapter 8: Life: Birds, Animals, Insects)

visited Scotland in time to catch the heather paint the hills purple;
our tour guide said we were about 2 weeks away from missing the season

"In these crannies of the mountains, the mode of supplying elemental needs is still slow, laborious and personal. To draw your water from the well, not even a pump between you and its sparkling transparency, to break the sticks you have gathered from the wood and build your fire and set your pot upon it - there is a deep pervasive satisfaction in these simple acts. Whether you give it conscious thought or not, you are touching life, and something within you knows it. A sense of profound contentment floods me as I stoop to dip the pail. But I am aware all the same that by so living I am slowing down the tempo of life; if I had to do these things every day and all the time I should be shutting the door on other activities and interests; and I can understand why the young people resent it." 

(p. 105 Chapter 12: Being)

"So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central core of fire from which was thrust this grumbling grinding mass of plutonic rock, over me blue air, and between the fire of the rock and the fire of the sun, scree, soil and water, moss, grass, flower and tree, insect, bird and beast, wind, rain and snow - the total mountain. Slowly I have found my way in. If I had other senses, there are other things I should know. It is nonsense to suppose, when I have perceived the exquisite division of running water, or a flower, that my separate senses can make, that there would be nothing more to perceive were we but endowed with other modes of perception. How could we imagine flavor, or perfume, without the senses of taste and smell? They are completely unimaginable. There must be many exciting properties of matter that we cannot know because we have no way to know them. Yet, with what we have, what wealth!"

(p. 82, Chapter 9: Life: Man) 

In her hands were 10,000 yesterdays.

My Broken Language: A Theater Jawn (A play based on the memoir)

By Quiara Alegría Hudes

I loved everything about this lyrical coming-of-age tribute to childhood, memory, and the women Quiara grew up with and loved. I zipped through this in a day a few weeks ago. But in the spring of 2024, I saw Quiara and a cast read an excerpt at The Center for Fiction. And afterwards, instead of doing a traditional Q&A as planned, she changed her mind and led a manifestation healing ceremony with her bruja plant, descendant of the one from her grandfather's farm in Puerto Rico. Anyone who wanted to participate got in line and pulled a leaf from the perennial succulent themselves. Though the plant is known to be resilient mine, never grew into something more (though it tried for weeks!)—and I still think about that 'failure' a lot. What it means.

Anyway. Loved it. Loved the recommended song choices (including one below) that enhanced my reading. Short, fierce, soulful, devastating, true. 

"In her hands were 10,000 yesterdays." - From Abuela's rice recipe

(p. 33)

"Those books were definitive experiences. Their impact on me felt unquantifiable yet real as Abuela's palm cupping dry rice. They were recipes for my life's inner feast."

(p. 38)

All intimacy was exchanged as if in a foreign language, via gestures and quick, mistaken glances on the train.

Sonora 

By Hannah Lillith Assadi

I've wondered if I'd ever write here again and it doesn't make any sense to—I'd imagined by this point I would've translated this effort to another, more modern medium as Blogspot becomes more and more irrelevant.

Now that I am in a months-long spree of clearing out my apartment and donating many of my books (only deciding to keep what I love or is useful longterm), I'm returning to the marked pages and words I meant to note before I make my donation to the neighborhood free library stand.

Sonora made me quite sad, actually. And while by this point I don't really remember much of it, I do remember that. Still, there were a few descriptors that stood out.

"Laura turned to me. She had amber eyes. They alighted from her deeply tanned face like a beautiful curse. Her hair was streaked magenta. "I'm Laura," she said. She pronounced it the Spanish way, though no one else ever did. We sat there quietly observing the others. Laura hummed a tune dreamily as if I weren't there at all."

(p. 11)

"Like faces, the smell of a person cannot be replicated. The smell of a fire in my hair from a particular party, the smell of a friend's perfume rubbed into my shirt. The smell of lipstick and chalk soaking the dressing rooms at dance rehearsals. The smell of a lover in your fingernails the morning after. The smell of my mother: orange peel, suntan lotion, faint vanilla. The smell of Laura: lavender laundry detergent, danger, linger of red wine, sweat, cigarette. The smell of Eli: the smell of seventeen, of the beach at night, coconut, white blossom, salt, stars. The smell of Dylan: vodka, fire, dirt in autumn, February in the desert. The smell of my father: Ralph Lauren Safari, cumin, tobacco, spearmint, musk, red meat. Home." 

(p. 64)

"I felt happiest in my exchanges at bodegas over the purchase of a coffee or cigarettes or when observing the break-dancers twirl and the mariachis croon. All intimacy was exchanged as if in a foreign language, via gestures and quick, mistaken glances on the train."
(p. 102)

What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself.

wild, sweet child

Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner

I've spent the first weeks of the new year loving on myself, nurturing all parts, including the parts I find hard to accept and/or want to change (think less rose woman, more thorn). Repeating "I forgive myself" over and over for what's found in the abyss.

My 2023 reflections are a jumble of words and phrases building in a note, waiting to be organized into coherent sentences, and in an ideal world I'd share them soon.

I spent the holidays in Houston immersed in lots of quiet, in familiar love and also in the discomfort of feeling out of place in a space that's been my go-to for 10 years. Reclaiming objects and mementos that are mine for safekeeping, and leaving behind something intangible. Thinking about what happens when home shifts. When I shift. How I've grown immensely and how sometimes that means widening a gap. Feeling some guilt and sadness.

Going through old photos, I experienced pangs, but what was hurting me? The love lost that existed in the taking of the photographs? The little girl in the photos, so spunky and radiant (who I am trying to get back to)? Saying goodbye to a "home"? Probably all of the above. And yesterday I remembered I went through this exercise nearly 10 years ago when I was moving out on my own for the first time. But now I have a decade's worth of layered memories and losses to compound the ache.

I read "Crying in H Mart" in the fall. She was so honest and flawed and brave. I knew Michelle Zauner as Japanese Breakfast first, and I played "Paprika" during my 33rd birthday photoshoot to feel more dreamy. I saw her perform at Radio City on October 4, where she announced she would be moving to Korea for 2024. I love that her journey has culminated to her current reality, despite a devastating loss. I'm so stoked for her year and the subsequent second book.

--- 

She was my champion, she was my archive. She had taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my existence and growth, capturing me in images, saving all my documents and possessions. She had all knowledge of my being memorized.  The time I was born, my unborn cravings, the first book I read. The formation of every characteristic. Every ailment and little victory. She observed me with unparalleled interest, inexhaustible devotion.

Now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. The knowledge left unrecorded died with her. What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind. How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist. 

I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of cabbage molds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its color and texture transmute. Its flavor becomes tarter, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death, because it enjoys a new life altogether. 

The memories I had stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.

(pp. 223-4, "Kimchi Fridge")

Lucidity came slowly 

I awoke from dreams of untying a great knot 

It unraveled like a braid Into what seemed were 

Thousands of separate strands of fishing line 

Attached to coarse behavior it flowed 

A calm it urged, what else is here? 

How's it feel to be at the center of magic 

To linger in tones and words? 

I opened the floodgates 

And found no water, no current, no river, no rush 

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers 

To captivate every heart? 

Projecting your visions to strangers who feel it 

Who listen, who linger on every word 

Oh, it's a rush 

Oh, it's a rush 

But alone it feels like dying 

All alone I feel so much

I want my offering to woo, to calm, to clear, to solve 

But the only offering that comes 

It calls, it screams, there's nothing here 

How's it feel to be at the center of magic 

To linger in tones and words? 

I opened the floodgates 

And found no water, no current, no river, no rush 

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers 

To captivate every heart? 

Projecting your visions to strangers who feel it 

Who listen, who linger on every word 

Oh, it's a rush 

Oh, it's a rush

I want to be a rose woman.

Grimoire Girl

By Hilarie Burton Morgan

Towards the end of the summer, I found the most delicious, luscious, fragrant pink roses. I have been searching for roses as fragrant since to no avail. In an unexpected turn of events, I discovered the same potent fragrance today...via a Yankee Candle in a Houston, TX mall. It'll do for now. 

In searching for photos of the original bouquet, I remembered my friend gave me Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "Con Un Sogno in Testa" (which I have yet to read but can't wait to) and this excerpt from Hilarie Burton Morgan's "Grimoire Girl," whose magic spells and stories I devoured on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic. In it, she describes cutting roses from her garden and discovering a dying bee in one—admiring the flower like the Little Prince did his rose till its death—while she reflected on passing of her dear friend, life cycles, being your softest self.

August is a sunset, a Sunday, the last hour of the best party.

Plump and sultry summer August night featuring the Chrysler and the full moon

My Inner Sky: On Embracing Day, Night, and All the Times in Between

By Mari Andrew

Sweet & perfect summer 2023; feverishly nodding 'yes' to Mari's ode to August.

For many creative people, regret and longing is what we live for. We love limitations, especially the wistful ones. August is a three-week foreign love affair that you can't bring back home. August is a beautiful person who just got off the subway, or a tomato whose prime you may miss by a couple of hours. August is a sunset, a Sunday, the last hour of the best party.

It is one of my favorite months. Every year, like clockwork, I begin to see summer's charms when its days are numbered. I get preemptively nostalgic for the nights that feel as plump and sultry as an overripe plum, and I begin to miss the sundresses I haven't even worn yet. It's like living the last days of a relationship you know is about to end, and there's magic in that ache.

When we create this space within ourselves—a space of calmness that is undisturbed by the storm—the storm tends to pass more quickly.

Inward

By Yung Pueblo

A few reminders from Yung Pueblo.

Changes in the external world can cause great misery when we do not know how to engage and heal ourselves. Moments of pain and discomfort, or encounters with ideas that may break the mental images we have created of the world, are normally things we not only run away from but also things we build walls to defend ourselves from. These walls we build in our minds and hearts make sense when we don't know any better. We all have the right to protect ourselves from pain, but be aware that these walls can turn from protection into prison—the more walls we build around ourselves, the less space we have to grow and be free. We have a harder time releasing the habits that cause misery when we are surrounded by the psychological walls we have constructed, causing us to stagnate and fall into a rhythm where we are always running within a space that is slowly growing smaller.

(p. 15)

There is an important difference between dwelling in misery and understanding that on the path of healing things will come up that sometimes cause us to feel the old emotions and patterns that we are working on letting go. There is great power in honoring the reality of our current emotions—not feeding them or making them worse but simply recognizing that this is what has arisen in this present moment and that this will also change. When we create this space within ourselves—a space of calmness that is undisturbed by the storm—the storm tends to pass more quickly.

Practicing such profound honesty within ourselves helps in all facets of internal and external life—there is no real freedom without honesty, and without honesty, there can be no peace of mind. Healing ourselves isn't about constantly feeling bliss; being attached to bliss is a bondage of its own. Trying to force ourselves to be happy is counterproductive, because it suppresses the sometimes tough reality of the moment, pushing it back within our depths of our being, instead of allowing it to arise and release.

(p. 81)