I made it back to the gym today. I’ve always been a sporadic gym person at best, but last fall I had been back in the gym about six weeks, and was really enjoying it, when Patrick died. Afterwards, I tried a couple of times, but I just couldn’t do it. The treadmill seemed like a terrible analogy for my life, there were too many people, I couldn’t face having to see people. But, now it’s spring again, and my garden is coming back to life, and I’ve found myself the last few days getting cranky in that way that…
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I splurged and bought Goodbye Babylon from Dust to Digital — an outfit who is, as their website says dedicated to re-issuing music from old 78’s. This five-cd set (six if you count the bonus cd of sermons) is SO fabulous — there’s everything from shape-note singing to holiness string bands to jubliee gospel quartets to just wonderful weird singing about Jesus (or as I like to think of him, Jeeee-sus). I slugged all five cds into the player and have been listening to it nonstop for about a week — I don’t know what the deal is — I…
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Yesterday I went to see the documentary about Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides. It was extraordinary. I’ve known about Goldsworthy’s work for a long time — when I was a bookseller, I loved Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature, but I’d never seen his work in motion. In the movie, there are these extraordinary images of his art floating out to sea, or a long sinuous chain of bright-green leaves working it’s way out of a pool and flowing downriver. Goldsworthy himself was also inspiring. I’ve been having a terrible time getting any work done these past weeks — my…
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Well, it’s going to be getting lighter every day from now on, which is a good thing. This has been a very dark winter solstice here at LivingSmall. Everyone warned me that the holidays would be hard, and they were right. I’m off today for Colorado, to spend the holidays with friends. I’ll be back next week.
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Just a quick entry before I take off for California (to deal with Patrick’s two storage units). The Birthday Party was a wild success — everyone came, they ate almost all of the Ham As Big As Montana, they drank everything, and fun was had by all. Robert-the-Painter made three cakes — a tray of carrot cake cupcakes, a flourless chocolate cake, and a lovely lemon curd and blueberry tart. Jim and Geri and Tim and Linnea gave me a rhinestone tiara, which I may never take off. There was champagne. And then there was Julie, who I have known…
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Literally, that is. It’s quarter to eight in the morning and we’ve only just attained the grey light of early dawn. Of course, overcast skies don’t help with that, but just as in the summer we wallow in the glorious light and the endless evenings, most of which seem to be spent around barbecues and on back decks, when winter settles in here, it sits down upon us like a broody hen, fluffing it’s feathers down around us, plopping us into darkness for these weeks on either side of the solstice. While Patrick was really affected by the lack of…
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A weekend spent with new friends and old — people who allow me to be in exactly the space I’m in, whether that’s having a good time at a party, or getting the thousand-mile stare at the Bar and Grill because we’re sitting right where I last saw Patrick. People who say “how are you” and don’t mean it as code for “are you over it yet.” People who when I say that I currently feel like a house that’s had all the windows and doors blown out, just nod and hug me and we all keep going. Eating delicious…
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I got an email from a reader of this blog this morning, taking me to task for being angry and unkind in The Anger Problem. Oh, and for writing beautifully about being angry and unkind. Well duh folks. I’m angry right now. I’m trying to work through it, but anger isn’t kind, anger isn’t pretty, and unfortunately Patrick’s death has, as I warned it probably would, significantly changed the tone of LivingSmall … so if you were one of those people stopping by for another nice dispatch about my happy life in my little Montana town, and what was growing…
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This is in the pot-roast family of foods that are good for times when, shall we say, one’s energy levels might be uneven. When you’re having an up afternoon, you can do the cooking, then those other times of the week when you’re not feeling so swell, you can simply reheat. I adapted this from Nina Simonds book Asian Noodles — her recipe is for Cinnamon Beef Noodles, and what I wanted was something more pot-roasty. So, here’s what I did: I chopped up a handful of scallions, a thumb-sized hunk of ginger, a handful of garlic cloves and sauteed…
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“Anger is one of the most difficult defilements to overcome … When I was a young monk I gave many sermons on anger and how to control it even as my own anger caused me to lose my temper repeatedly. I’m calling it ‘my’ anger, but that isn’t quite right. Anger would invade my mind and overwhelm me, and I let it do that despite the fact that inevitably made me feel miserable. When I was angry, I felt pain in my chest and burning in my stomach. My eyesight blurred, my reasoning was unclear, and ugly, harsh words came…