Just time for a meme

As you can imagine, I’m rushing around like a maniac, trying to tie up loose ends and get everything in order before I’m off to Paris tomorrow. But I see that Pete at Couchtrip tagged me for a fun meme and I just have time for it. It’s called the Five Habits Meme and I’ve tagged five people (see below) and, unless you’ve already done it or don’t do memes, all of you who have wished me well on my Paris adventure are also hereby tagged: Ann, Dorothy W., qugrainne, Becca, Courtney, bloglily, yogamum, verbivore, Eva. Here goes.

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:

As you can guess from my garden passions and food politics, I usually eat healthily; but I do have a few weaknesses, most of which involve salty (not sweet) foods:

1. Mixed nuts
2. rippled potato chips
3. chili dogs
4. jalapeno poppers
5. and (the lone sweet) oatmeal raisin cookies

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

1. fruit, especially berries
2. almonds
3. guacamole
4. olives
5. dark chocolate

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Buy property and donate it to the local arts organization.
2. Donate money to the local arts organization—enough to build a state-of-the-art performing arts center on said property.
3. Endow my favorite choral group with permanent funds to pay its conductor and singers so they can all give up their day jobs and sing the world into light, and health and peace.
4. Buy enough wind turbines to supply my community with energy into perpetuity.
5. Donate enough money to the local school district so they never have to suffer another failed referendum and the consequent devastations to staff and programs.

Five (non-academic) jobs that I have had:

1. Babysitter
2. Laundromat attendant
3. Singing waiter
4. Executive Director of a non-profit
5. Chef

Five habits:

1. Having two espressos and a square of dark chocolate at the same time every day.
2. Vocalizing at least twenty minutes daily.
3. Interrupting people (aargh…I’m really working on this!)
4. Watching baseball.
5. Writing two or three long-hand letters each week.

Five places I have lived:

1. Minneapolis, Minnesota
2. Paris, France
3. Southeastern, Ohio
4. Charleston, South Carolina
5. Halifax, Nova Scotia

Five people I want to get to know better:

Only five?? In addition to all of the bloggers I named above (and those I haven’t–you know I love you!), I’d also like to know these people better, so they should consider themselves tagged:

1. openpalm
2. fiona
3. peri
4. seachanges
5. ted

Well…that was fun. Thanks Pete! And now back to packing. By the way, I’ve got some great reading for the plane: Atonement (finally) and Botton’s The Art of Travel. More to come…from Paris! sheesh!

Checking In

Hello Friends–

Thanks, everyone, for your best wishes for my travels. My trip to so many places was exhausting but very gratifying. I’m not sure any more activity could have been packed into the last couple of weeks. And I found everything in perfect order upon my return, thanks to Mrs. L’s grandson, Nick, who house-pet-garden sits for me when I travel.

There were a few storms while I was gone, but in general the weather has settled down. Eggplant and pepper seedlings are probably permanently dwarfed and I see some varmint chewed all of the collards and broccoli down to nubs, but otherwise the garden looks to have rebounded quite handsomely after such a slow and frustrating start.

As you must have guessed, I did not take my laptop along on my trip. It was the right decision. I was much too occupied with activity and with the company of great friends old and new to use it. But how daunting to come home to over 400 posts queued up on google reader. For heaven’s sake, Eva-of-the-1000-reviews contributed 42 all by herself!

I’d like to say I’m going to bear down and get through the backlog, and also get down to business on the Loving Iris blog, and also crank out some posts on Toujours Jacques. But that won’t be the case. I’ve arranged for Nick to stay on at the house through July and I’m off to Paris. My sister lives there and she’s always after me to come for Bastille Day, which I’ve never done because, well…summer is for lake living and not for traveling to Paris or anywhere else. And I’ve already been gone 2-1/2 weeks, so normally I wouldn’t…

But here’s the deal. I met someone on my little cross country jaunt. A friend of a very good friend. And she lives in Paris. And so I said I was thinking of visiting my sister in Paris in July. And she said oh yes, I must. And she listed a dozen fun things we could do together there. And so I’m going. I have to go. I want to go.

So, I’ve made the arrangements and I’m off again on Thursday. Gulp.

I’m bringing my laptop. You’ll be hearing from me. I’ll be counting on you all to assure me I haven’t lost my marbles.

Your friend,

Jacques

Summer Travel

I leave Sunday for a two-and-a-half-week trip that will span both coasts (Maine and Oregon) and hit the Savannah / Charleston area as well as Montana; it includes a wedding, a reunion, and many long overdue re-connections with good friends.

I would normally be loathe to leave the lake even for a few days in the summer. (And I don’t have to. People are generally more than happy to come hang out with me here in nice weather!) But this year I can’t say I mind. The lake is nothing but white caps lately anyway. I really can’t even take the boat out. What I believe to be ‘god’s country’ (at least in the summer) has this year been plagued by absolutely horrible weather: cold, wind, very severe storms, rain, rain, rain.

It’s been among the worst Junes on record. Even gardening…no especially gardening… is depressing. Young plants can only take so much pounding. They’re crying uncle to no avail. Yet every day brings more nastiness. Yes, even a buoyant fellow such as myself is feeling the undertow.

So…a change of scenery (several changes of scenery) is most welcome. I’ve not decided whether I’ll take the laptop, so you may not hear from me for awhile. But I am taking books along, of course—ones that I’ve been collecting just for this purpose, ones I don’t mind leaving behind. (I try to keep a little stash of cheap copies just for traveling, so I can lighten my load as I wend my way…and load up with more books for the way back ) Here’s what I’m bringing (sorry about the flash).

All are re-reads except Twain’s Letters from the Earth and the issue of Poetry magazine I picked up at a library sale for 25 cents. The Return of the Native is my favorite Hardy, so I’m especially looking forward to it. And Melville is an old standby. Apparently I favor the classics when I travel. How about you? What sorts of books do you bring along?

In the meantime, enjoy your summer reading everyone. Your lists are so inspiring! And I hope where you are the weather is fine and life is very good indeed! Warm regards,

Jacques

Montaigne, Mrs. L., and Sunday Salon

Joy and Rapture! Wellness returns! Is there anything quite as wonderful as feeling great after feeling so miserable? But don’t take my words for it. Here are Montaigne’s:

But is there anything so sweet as that sudden change, when from extreme pain, by the voiding of my stone, I come to recover as if by lightning the beautiful light of health, so free and so full, as happens in our sudden and sharpest attacks of colic? Is there anything in this pain we suffer that can be said to counterbalance the pleasure of such sudden improvement? How much more beautiful health seems to me after illness, when they are so near and contiguous that I can recognize them in each other’s presence in their proudest array, when they vie with each other, as if to oppose each other squarely! Just as the Stoics say that vices are brought into the world usefully to give value to virtue and assist it, we can say, with better reason and less bold conjecture, that nature has lent us pain for the honor and service of pleasure and painlessness. (from On Experience)

The momentous event (”the voiding of my stone” to quote Montaigne) occurred late Saturday morning, and at the very moment that Mrs. L let herself in the door. In the fog of the last couple of days, you see, I had forgotten to call off my elderly neighbor, who insists on helping me clean my house every week. She arrives Saturday mornings precisely at 10:30.

The groans and howls that greeted her from my master bath gave her quite a fright. And I’m sure the joyful hooting that followed was equally unnerving. I came out of my bathroom, looking like Hell I am sure after such miserable days and nights, but grinning from ear to ear. Her face, on the other hand, wore a look of shock and was quite drained of color. So I hurried to explain, blurting out “kidney stone!”

What relief and happiness! But I was, as Mrs L. insisted, in no condition for housekeeping. She fluffed my pillows, smoothed out my bed, directed me to it, took away all the detritus of the ordeal—my tray full of used tea bags, empty cups, saltine wrappers, water glasses—and even confiscated my laptop. A few minutes later she returned with a fresh cup of tea and toast spread with her own rhubarb conserve. As if on guard, she sat in the chair next to my bed, making small talk interspersed with admonishments (for not having called upon her sooner) until I was nodding off. She took away the breakfast tray, closed the door, and when I woke up it was 6:30 p.m. I thought I had dreamt it all except that my kitchen was sparkling clean and my kidney stone had, indeed, passed and been duly collected at the doctor’s request.

If there are angels, Mrs. L is one of them. I told you (here) that a couple of years ago I was finally able to return to more or less permanent residence in the home my wife and I had so long shared. It took a good while for me to be able to face it without her. The first week after I had settled back in, Mrs. L. (a long time fixture of our little lake community) dropped by, as she had many times in the past, with a basket of homemade breads and jams. Over tea, I apologized that I wasn’t half the housekeeper my wife Jeanne-Marie had been. Mrs. L. assured me I did a very fine job indeed, for a man, but that cleaning was always more fun with two, so could she come by Saturday to help me out?

And here we are, two years later, still cleaning and tidying together on a regular basis. She brings the bread and jam and I make the tea. It’s one of the highlights of my week. In return, I check up on her regularly, help her with her yard work, and, if I’m gone in the winter, I make sure a friend snow blows her driveway and salts her sidewalks. It is a lovely and sustaining relationship.

* * *

I’ve taken Ted’s advice to allow myself a little amusement before plunging back into normal occupations. I’ve got a pile of books (with Montaigne on top) next to the easy chair, a tray with tea and more of Mrs. L’s bread and jam, pets who seem thrilled to have me out of bed, and light rain drumming the window pane. A perfect Sunday Salon.

Isn’t life grand?

Group Hug & a Meme

Thank you, thank you, thank you! to all who sent good wishes for a speedy recovery with your kind comments on my Wednesday Woes. I am tempted to paraphrase Tennessee Williams and say something about “the kindness of strangers,” except that you, my new blogging friends, don’t feel at all like strangers. I hope you will pardon this blanket response to your comments and accept a group cyber-hug, offered in sincere appreciation. I do want to offer a special thanks to Amateur Reader for the reminder about Montaigne (a fellow-sufferer); and to assure AR there is no wrong time to read Montaigne. (More on this, I hope, in a later more lucid post.) Sadly, I am still waiting, shall we say, for things to come to pass.

I will count Wednesday’s post (wherein I whined about not being able to concentrate on writing) as my ‘Fess Up Friday contribution; and while that is still, alas, the case, I will not repeat my lament here.

Instead, I’ll share a meme, the completion of which has served as a pleasant diversion from matters at hand. This oversharing meme, seen most recently at Couchtrip (pete’s), has been making the rounds for a while. Here are my answers.

1. Name the singer/band/performer you are most embarrassed to admit you actually paid good money to see in concert.

While I’ve been to countless classical and choral performances (a handful of which were embarrassingly bad), I’ve only attended three live pop/rock style concerts in my entire life; and I can’t say I was embarrassed to have paid money for any of them. I saw Jim Croce, Elton John and Melissa Etheridge. The last was by far the best.

2. Which reality TV show have you watched more than once (come on. I don’t believe you if you say “none,” unless you don’t own a TV)?

I think Dancing with the Stars counts as reality TV, doesn’t it? I am hopelessly hooked. I even took out a few extra free email accounts so I can cast more votes for my favorites. It’s only one of two shows I watch anymore on commercial television (the other is Ugly Betty). The only problem with Dancing with the Stars is that it occupies two nights in a row: one for the competition, the next for the results show. In order to take an entire hour to divulge the results, the 2nd night is peppered with wonderful entertainment including a children’s ballroom dance competition and special guests. River Dance was perhaps the most thrilling special performance so far.

3. Which complete trash novelist have you not only read but enjoyed enough to read more than one book of his/hers?

I am really wracking my brain here. I grew up so valuing quality books. My parents only owned a few and all of those were keepers (including the above mentioned Essays of Montaigne). I was never really tempted to read “trash” (however that’s defined). I did once read a Harlequin romance to see what the appeal was, or to try to see. I wonder if comic books count? I spent a while (as an adult!) enamored with superhero comics (Incredible Hulk, etc.). I have no idea what that was about!

4. What sappy musical could you watch over and over and over again?

There are very few musicals, sappy or otherwise, that I couldn’t watch over and over again. Perhaps the one with Doris Day and (was it Rock Hudson?), where she sings “Don’t Eat the Daisy’s” would qualify as the sappiest. I love musicals, especially the classics, and have some entirely memorized (the songs anyway), down to the last lyric and note. Among these: The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, The Man of LaMancha, Westside Story, Oklahoma, The King and I.

5. Who was your first celebrity crush?

Glenda the Good Witch. Then Yul Brynner in The King and I, Kim Novak in Vertigo, Tippi Hedren in The Birds, Audrey Hepburn in Charade. How many do I get? More recently? Renee Russo. You’ll think this is contradictory, since I’m not much of a movie goer/watcher; but there is no limit to how often I could watch RR in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (even though the movie has little else to redeem it). Finally, and perhaps the biggest, most serious, undying-devotional crush—Helen Mirrin.

6. Who is the most embarrassing celebrity on whom you have a slight crush today?

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow…Martha Stewart.

7. What movie that everyone else and his cousin and even his dog has seen have you never seen?

This is too easy since I don’t see many movies. I’ll list a few: The Godfather (all); Dumb and Dumber: Wayne’s World; Basic Instinct, Atonement.

8. What were you drinking the first time you ever got drunk?

Mogen David Blackberry Wine. You can imagine the hangover from such sickly sweet stuff (I shudder to call it wine).

9. Which old re-run will you still pause to watch if you’re flicking through the channels and see that it’s on?

Are You Being Served? (a brit comedy that used to be on PBS). I think I’ve seen every episode many times over and they still make me roar.

10. What book/movie/t.v. show that only a fifteen-year-old would think is funny makes you laugh?

I’m not sure about the age group, but I have always found The Simpsons simultaneously stupid and hilarious, and also quite satisfying as cultural criticism.

—

Thanks for indulging me in this little exercise. Soon, hopefully, something more substantial from this quarter. Keep your fingers crossed!

Wednesday woes…but some great books!

Well Darn. Your friend Jacques (moi) took himself to the ER yesterday to discover, gasp, a kidney stone. I’m not one who takes medications, but I’m no martyr either. So I’m taking 1/2 doses of whatever they sent home with me, even though it makes me sleepy and fuzzy. The dog, the cats, and I (along with a large jug of water, the plug-in tea kettle, a pile of books, and the laptop) are toughing it out in bed, until the little devil makes his exit.

Sorry to go on about my malady, but I’m frustrated. Not about the garden so much. There are another ten days of rain in the forecast; so not much can be done on that front anyway. But I did have a long list of writing I wanted to accomplish this week, none of which I can concentrate on at present, at least not for very long at a time.

So here, instead, is a picture I took last week of some great recent book finds. Just thinking about them cheers me up. And I’ve dipped into one or two already (instead of the things I’m supposed to be reading and writing about of course). A few indulgences are perhaps allowed when one is a bit under the weather?

The first five books came from BookMooch (I’m really starting to get the hang of this mooching thing!):

• Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid (which I used to own and gave away). I’m so happy to have it back again, and in almost perfect condition!
• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day. I have seen the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, but I’ve not read the book…or any Ishiguro (who seems to be well respected among blogging friends; so here goes).
• Tony Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. I used to know this book pretty well, but forgot about it until AndiLit mentioned it after a post I wrote a while back on Morrison’s Nobel Lecture. Thanks, Andi! And Thanks BookMooch!
• Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order: Stories from the South. The back cover says these are Porter’s finest stories: six from The Leaning Tower, three from Flowering Judas (including “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”), and the short novel, “Old Mortality” from Pale Horse, Pale Rider. I’ve already been into this one a bit; and I already know I’ll enjoy Porter’s writing style. (I think I read “Granny Weatherall” as a teen but can’t remember a word of it. Otherwise I’ve not read any Porter that I can recall).
• Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel. You know I love de Botton. Enough said.

The next seven books are ones I picked up at garage or yard sales, for anywhere from .25 to $1 each.

• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled. I read about 40 pages of this one already. Very bizarre, but strangely compelling. With the little I’ve read so far I’m thinking shades of Kafka, Pinter/Beckett, and Alfred Hitchcock, with perhaps some hints of Robbe-Grillet thrown into the mix. (Of course this could be the pain medication speaking).
• Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Hooray! For $1 I’ve got my next book for The Southern Reading Challenge.
• Elie Wiesel, Night. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve not read this. I’ve read lots of stuff about the Holocaust and I’ve visited the concentration camps. Perhaps it’s one of the books you hear about, think you know how you’ll respond, and brace yourself for the right moment (and the fortitude) to read it. Now is not the time.
• Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan. Loved, loved, loved the Gnostic Gospels and, more recently, Reading Judas so I fully expect to enjoy this one.
• Harvey Levenstein, The Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America. I’ve never even heard of this book, but given my interest in the food scene and food politics, I liked the sound of it.
• Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time. This little 25¢ volume and the next (also 25¢) will go in my bag in a few weeks when I city-hop across the country to visit a few friends (and attend a wedding). When I fly, I only pack books I don’t mind leaving behind; that leaves room in the bag for any I might purchase!
• Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey. A re-read. I’m not a big fan of Jane Austen. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’m not as big a fan as many book bloggers seem to be. But I do like this particular Austen novel very much.

There you have it. And now if I can get this 75 pound dog off my shins, I’ll try to sleep for a while.

The Sunday Salon

It will be a lazy Sunday here. And I don’t apologize. Yesterday’s fair weather lasted much longer than the forecast suggested, so I spent about 8 hours in the garden and I’m still feeling it. I got the rest of my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant seedlings in the ground as well as three kinds of basil and seven varieties of nasturtiums. I planted two more short rows of haricots verts (slim and delicious green beans). I like to plant bean seeds every two weeks so I have a good supply until frost. And I moved all of the borage plants to their proper places between tomatoes. (Borage isn’t a perennial, but it reseeds itself so it returns annually—not necessarily where you’d like, however.) Here’s a picture of borage from last year’s garden.

I first grew borage because it’s a great companion to tomatoes; it’s roots allegedly do something to enhance the tomato plant’s growth. I can’t remember what exactly, but I don’t argue with results. It seems to work. But I’d grow it regardless. The flowers are edible and so very adorable. And the bees are just crazy for them.

In any case, yesterday’s gardening accomplishments mean there’s no guilt whatsoever involved in lolling about today. Here’s what’s in my Salon pile for Sunday, June 1st:

Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying. I finished this book last night. I woke up around 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I picked it up to read a few pages and ended up finishing it an hour and a half later. It is a lovely book with a very unlovely premise and some down right ugly parts. But its a very well told story and deeply moving. Today I need to gather my thoughts, make a few notes, and start putting together a post about it. A Lesson Before Dying is the first of the books I’m reading for the Southern Reading Challenge. Next up for that Challenge is Carson McCullers. I had originally chosen Ballad of the Sad Cafe, but decided not to do a reread; so The Heart is a Lonely Hunter it is. (Plus I just picked it up for $1 at a yard sale!)

Maxine Kaiser Russell’s poetry volume, Searching for Star Trillium, (which I wrote about here, is certainly worth a little more time. I can’t describe what’s so appealing in these poems published in 1997 by a then octegenarian who is now 92 and, I’ve heard, is still hard at it. The poems are like gifts, like delicious bits of what matters, lessons each one. And the lesson may be as simple as this: that the world belongs to those who seek it.

Agates in the Sand
Maxine Kaiser Russell, from Searching for Star Trillium

I no longer swim midstream,
the undertow too strong.
Wading in the cove
Is better for exploring.
At times I stoop
for agates in the sand,
watch beetles bounce on water.
Sheltered from the sweep of waves
I wait in faded sedge
until my strength returns.
Slowness is my way
of holding on to life.

↔ ↔ ↔ ↔ ↔

Today I’d also like to make some progress toward finishing Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness, which has been on my “ongoing” list for quite some time now. I’ve loved lingering over this book. But I just mooched de Botton’s The Art of Travel; and a quick glimpse is enough to know I want to dive right in. What’s not enticing about a book with paragraphs like this:

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all its ardour and paradoxes—than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are [our travels] considered to present philosophical problems—that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are inundated with advice on where to travel to;we here little of why and how we should go—though the art of travel seem naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia or human flourishing. (9)

(A sidenote: This is the second time in 24 hours I’ve come across this Greek word. I followed a link at Fiona’s to eudaemonia and to my own sheer delight discovered a very fine blog indeed. I’ve added it to my blogroll. Check it out!)

The rest of today’s reading, browsing, thinking, note-taking, and writing will relate to the Iris Murdoch project, Loving Iris. I’m almost ready to post again on that subject. Promise! And thanks to all who contributed to the lively discussion in response to the questions I raised over at the Loving Iris blog about your own most beloved writer(s). Please visit Dorothy W. at Of Books and Bicycles for a related (and fabulous!) post (here) in which she picks up and runs with a thread she began in those comments— a thread about a certain adoring way of writing about literature. And do weigh in on her site with your suggestions about naming this new genre as well as any titles you think should be included.

Finally, (in case you didn’t see this in the Saturday post) Tim over at Prairie Progressive posted a reminder that today (June 1) marks the official start of Reading the World 2008, which aims to introduce American readers to more literature in translation.

Have a great Sunday everyone!
TJ

Saturday Check In

What a crazy week chez TJ! But I thought I’d check in with a very brief post.

I was up at 5:00 a.m. today (yes, on Saturday!), in hopes of getting a bunch of “to do’s” off my list before heading out to the garden. I have a window of opportunity to get the rest of my tomato, pepper, and eggplants in today—between 9:30 or so when it will be warm enough and 1:30 or so when the thunderstorms are forecast to return.

What a slow spring for gardening this has been! I can only hope these heat-loving plants will yet make it to their maturity. It’s not only that their planting out is over a week behind. It’s also the setback to their growth spurt caused by an overextended “hardening off” stage. Last week we had two nights in a row of temps in the low thirties followed by several warmer but seriously rainy days. The upshot is this: plants that require two or three transitional days from indoor lights to garden, have had to endure almost three times that many. They are past readiness for real dirt in real garden beds. And so, I’ll grab that window.

And I’ll save more substantial thoughts for Sunday Salon.

One bookish heads up. Tim over at Prairie Progressive posted a reminder that tomorrow (June 1) marks the official start of Reading the World 2008, which aims to introduce American readers to literature in translation. You can also read more about it at Three Percent (the link is on my sidebar).

Searching for Star Trillium

More inspiration. Here is a patch of Trillium that I visit on the way to and from my mailbox each day.

Trillium are exquisite and delicate woodland flowers which have been—like the Lady Slipper and the Jack-in-the-Pulpit—so ravaged by commercial sale, there are now laws protecting them against harvesting and transplanting in many parts of the United States and Canada, including my own neck of the woods. I learned online that transplanting (or even picking the flowers) can seriously injure the plant. This is because the three leaves (or bracts) below the flower are the plant’s only ability to produce food stores and a picked or damaged Trillium can take many years to recover. So while I have been sorely tempted over the years to dig up one or two and move them closer to the house where I can have a closer view, I have, of course, refused to do so. Besides, isn’t it the Trillium’s rarity and the annual search for it a good portion of its pleasure?

This search for the exquisite, the sublime in the rare and delicate, is the subject of a volume of poetry I picked up at my local used bookshop last week. It’s a pretty (actually pretty substantial) volume of poems by a local nonegenarian, Maxine Russell, who has made just such a search her lifelong quest. Her 1997 collection, Searching for Star Trillium, is comprised of poems written over a lifetime. They are not arranged in chronological order, but grouped according to that which was sought — beautiful and meaningful, elusive things worth the efforts of the serious seeker. (There is no ’star’ trillium by the way. Using the modifier “star” before “trillium” is Russell’s way of heightening the value of the already valuable things trillium represents, of seeking that which is “over the top,” as we say.)

I make no critical assessment of these poems. It’s not the poems that inspire (though some of them do); it’s Russell herself. I’m told at 92 she is still clacking away at the typewriter several hours a day, still taking woodland walks, still searching for star trillium. How inspiring is that!

At Lake Mille Lacs
Maxine Kaiser Russell, from Searching for Star Trillium (1997)

This moraine is too steep for climbing,
Like love, you quip, no turning back.
The trail is blocked by demented bees
wild rose thorns gash, boulders threaten.
A bird jet-streams to the peak.

Breathless we reach the skygarden
of star trillium whose beauty
there is no forgetting–
white on white earthflowers flow.
The air is warm with Indian legend.
Upon this Archean summit
grows the burning wahoo bush
in bonemeal soil of buried centuries.

Plum pollen dusts our lips
hair of nettle stings
glacial rocks glare warnings.
The helium ball of sun
bounces on the water of Mille Lacs
a thousand lakes in one basin.

The skygarden of star trillium
is our secret love breathing in
damp and fragrant air.
With clinging hands fearlessly
we grope along moss rocks
down the thorny glacial trail.

* * * * *

Deep Portage Orchid

Wild moccasin, stay free
within this musky wilderness
pink-veined pouch held by a star,
you’ve settled here in this community
a century or more.

Why would I transplant you now?
Be grave digger to a flower?
I’ll leave you in this bog
just as you are,
a speckled eye that sees
more than it says.

* * * * *

Inspiration and Sunday Salon

La Cathédrale, Auguste Rodin (Museé Rodin, Paris)

I’ve been thinking this week about Inspiration, in relation to writing, in relation to blogging, but also in relation to living. The word inspiration comes from the old French inspiration and the Late Latin inspirationem and from Latin inspirare, “inspire, inflame, blow into” from in-”in” + spirare “breathe”.

It’s evidently the preposition “in” which, when connected with a verb of motion like “breathe”, conveys the idea of direction or inclination into a place or thing. And when you stop to think about or to visualize being “inspired” you do sense movement, it is like being visited by something (spirit perhaps? a word whose roots are likewise in spirare “to breath” and even “to blow into”).

I’m not a churchgoer—unless my garden bench, dock chair, and backyard swing count as church pews (and they should!). But I am very much inspired by cathedrals. They breathe in and out; they are full of spirit. Cathedrals at once aspire and contain. They make a great big place where thoughts, sounds, prayers, voices, dreams go up and up and up, resonate fully, and then are returned to you and breathed back in.

For singers cathedrals take on special significance. They are acoustically beautiful, morphing the human voice into something quite otherworldly, taking it to places its never been, to heights it could never reach on its own. Every singer, every choir is forever changed by hearing their own voice come back to them in such a space. Yet singers and whole choirs are also humbled there. The cathedral calls the shots. It has its own rules. The reverb will have the last word about tempo, about diction, even about which music must be cut from the program and which will work in that space.

Here is a photo of my cathedral-driveway. The trees are not quite fully leafed out yet, but I think you get the picture. It’s an inspirational walk (every day to the mailbox). My cathedral, like it’s bricks and mortar brother, also calls the shots, sets the tone—a very holy tone I think (can driveways be holy?). This cathedral will inspire me, but on it’s own terms. It does the breathing. I receive its breath. I give it my thoughts, sometimes my prayers. It takes them up, lets them resonate, fills them with spirit, and returns them to me. I am humble before this miracle, this power, this generosity of space.

An Inspired Sunday Salon: This week has been a very inspiring one. (If you like, you can read back through a post or two to find out why). My entire Sunday Salon pile for today is related to Iris Murdoch, the subject of my new auxiliary blog. Loving Iris is now up and running. My first post there asks some general questions about favorite writers that you might have a good time answering. So go on over and check it out.

Today I’ll start rereading Murdoch’s first novel, Under the Net, and also dip in and out of her book on Sartre. There’s also a lengthy essay on Murdoch by Joyce Carol Oates that I want to have a look at. (I find I no longer have too much interest in what critics and academics have to say about Murdoch, but I do enjoy hearing about her from the perspective of other writers.) What great occupations for a rainy day!