the immortal soul...

From the perspective of the classic Children's novel The Secret Garden:

"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out."Mary! Dickon! I shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!"

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun-- which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

-Francis Hodgson Burnett

the story tellers

They constitute a major chunk of every culture, religion, socioeconomic class, era and corner of the world.

"Story Teller" by Eunice LaFate

"Give me a subject. Everything depends on that.

Once the subject is given, it is easy to embroider."

-from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

"The Boyhood of Raleigh" by Sir John Everett Millais

An excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath:

"The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement. Sometimes amusement lay in speech, and they climbed up their their lives with jokes.

Image via here

"And it came about in the camps along the roads, on the ditch banks beside the streams, under the sycamores, that the story teller grew into being, so that the people gathered in low firelight to hear the gifted ones.

"And they listened while the tales were told, and their participation made the stories great [...] and their faces were quiet with listening. The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners were great through them."
-John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

"Jesus the Story Teller" from Angel Studio

I work with a little boy whose very being generates too much energy for his small body to handle. The energy has nowhere to go but out, and so he is always moving, touching, squirming, running, destroying, laughing, yelling, crying, talking and engaged in full-fledged acrobatics every possible moment.

Until a picture book is brought forth, the pages opened, and the story begun.
Then, he suddenly becomes very still and quiet like a nesting bird, chin in hands, eyes locked on the page, aware of nothing but the story unfolding before him.

The story enraptures and transforms.

Some Related Sites:

The National Storytelling Network
A listing of Storytelling Festivals, these are mostly USA festivals but there is one listing in Graz, Austria

even whitman asks, do I contradict myself?

I've been told, real men don't eat quiche.

But real men also don't turn down

a.) food their wife has been slaving over when so many men covet a cooking wife

or

b.) a classic Julia Child dish. Especially

if southern Gulf White Shrimp

have been added

to a recipe already infused with chunks of butter and foot-long stretches of bacon.

In that case, the question is: Would a real man turn down this Quiche?

And Husband is a real man. So together we ate the whole quiche in one sitting.

I swore I'd never fall prey in my Julia Child endeavors to my tendency to creatively alter every recipe that comes through my kitchen. I swore I would never ever alter a Julia Child dish until I had made the pure, authentic version first.

Because quite frankly, I'm just learning to cook. I'm still in my first decade of informal culinary exploration. I need to follow recipes not arrogantly abandon their origins to my own creative bliss. I need to respect the structure and the science of a thing before abstracting it...

you know, follow the rules.

Yet just three recipes into (arguably) the cookbook of the century, I've done it. I added shrimp to the Quiche Lorraine. (Am I being a bit hard on myself?)

Absolutely not. Because it was a raging success.

And because I followed Julia's guidelines for Quiche Aux Fruits De Mer, or Shrimp, Crab or Lobster Quiche to add the little crustaceans.

Now, you might ask, Why didn't you just make Quiche Aux Fruits De Mer? Well, the Quiche Lorraine sounded so tempting with its heavy cream, bacon, and nutmeg that I already had my heart set on it. Plus, I decided the shrimp would compliment since so many shrimp dishes call for bacon, and the nutmeg/cream combo reminded me of the most wonderful Seafood Newburg I had in Maine on our honeymoon.

And what is good food for but to bring back wonderful memories and warm, cozy feelings through its artistry and flavors?

Just watch Anton Ego in his life-altering nostalgic experience in Ratatouille.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself.

(I am large. I contain multitudes.)

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

a woman's guide to raising a family

Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly.

Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding.

She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken.

And since Old Tom and the children could not know hurt of fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself.

And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.

But better than joy was calm.

Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean, calm beauty.

From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess.

She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.

text: quoted from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
images: from Eudora Welty's Depression Era collection

Be Careful What You Blog For

My gift from my parents for helping with the party was:

I can't deny that I blogged about it two times in hopes that someone would catch on to my vision of hanging it in my future library. However, my immediate thoughts as I opened it were, Whoa. You mean that actually worked? And , I better not blog about anything I don't want to get stuck with!

But I am so happy to be stuck with you, Pottery Barn Pencil. And, at least I know my Mother reads my blog regularly...