Where I Live

I am not a fan of the city we live in. It just doesn't do much for me (except of course house our jobs and home). But, in my continuing quest to be thankful and contented with the many blessings in my life--no matter how small--I do try to look around and acknowledge particulars that I appreciate about said living location.

Today, I stepped out of my super cute apartment and set out in the May sun to walk to the farmer's market. It's a year-round farmer's market and only a mile away! Crazily enough, this was my first trip there on foot, but certainly won't be my last. I breathed in the fresh spring air as the sun dried my recently washed hair. I walked along the river (which is very high right now!), listening to it gently lap the bank. I bought local eggs, popcorn, and asparagus, and peppers and zucchini (which may not be local, but they're fresh!). And I got in a two-mile walk.

I would say that's a definite perk of where I live!

April Reading List

I felt like April was a slow reading month. It wasn't exactly, but I did read some shorter books, as well as a couple re-reads, so it was slower overall. I did, however, mark another goal off my reading list: poetry. I read three volumes of poetry by Ted Kooser (commented on in previous posts).

I also re-listened to Michael Pollan's enlightening and interesting book, In Defense of Food. If you haven't read or listened to this book before, I highly recommend it! You won't think about food the same way again (I guess there are pros and cons to that, aren't there?). :) I started Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma this month, but only completed about a third. As I understand it In Defense of Food is a practical response to The Omnivore's Dilemma. Have you read either?

I want to briefly highlight my reading of Howard's End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home by Susan Hill. This bookish book is by a British author who, while looking for a particular book in her collection, realizes that she has many unread books in her personal library and sets out to explore them. Her reading traverses many authors I'm not familiar with or haven't read yet. I enjoyed her rambling essay-esque style that sipped from authors and genres, piquing my interest.

I love this paragraph about a children's alphabet book Hill flips through near the end of her reading year:
True, the alphabet book had coloured letters and beside them pictures of objects. Apple. Bear. Cherry. Dog. And the book had them in lines and repeated patterns, some with curves and curls, some with thick strokes, some with thin, some with flourishes, some plain. Still, it boiled down in the end to just those twenty-six letters. Out of these few marks, plus some small dots and curves of punctuation, every book in this house has grown, every meaning been inserted and extracted, every character created and poem balanced, every lesson taught and learned. All of it packed into and expanding out of twenty-six letters. 'It makes your hair catch fired,' as Charles Causley said.

I'll leave you with that thought and give you my completed April reading list.


The Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Rescue by Kathryn Lasky (children's, read for work)
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (audio)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (poetry)
Valentines by Ted Kooser (poetry)
Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser (poetry)
Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss
The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Howard's End in on the Landing by Susan Hill

Spring for real, right?

May, thank you for arriving and bringing with you sunshine and warm temperatures. Stick around for awhile, okay?!

Finally Poetry Installment

I promise not to keep posting poems, but as part of my reading this year I purposed to read a volume of poetry and in April I've read three.

Ted Kooser was the Poet Laureate of the United States. Last year he wrote a wonderful picture book, Bag in the Wind, about recycling (gorgeous artwork as well!). After reading that book I decided to spend some time reading his poetry and checked out the three volumes my library owned (sadly I was the first or second person to them out, even though they've been in the system for years).

This last volume I read, Delights & Shadows, had several beautiful poems in it and I thought I'd share three I particularly liked.


A BOX OF PASTELS

I once held on my knees a simple wooden box
in which a rainbow lay dusty and broken.
It was a set of pastels that had years before
belonged to the painter Mary Cassatt,
and all of the colors she'd used in her work
lay open before me. Those hues she'd most used,
the peaches and pinks, were worn down to stubs,
while the cool colors--violet, ultramarine--
had been set, scarcely touched, to one side.
She'd had little patience with darkness, and her heart
held only a measure of shadow. I touched
the warm dust of those colors, her tools,
and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.


THE EARLY BIRD

Still dark, and raining hard
on a cold May morning

and yet the early bird
is out there chirping,

chirping its sweet-sour
wooden-pulley notes,

pleased, it would seem,
to be given work,

hauling the heavy
bucket of dawn

up from the darkness,
note over note,

and letting us drink.


TECTONICS

In only a few months
there begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.

Sometimes it's the little things...

I was pretty excited yesterday to see pristine copies of the past year's back issues of Food Network Magazine donated to the library book sale. I snagged 8 issues for only $1.50.

I hit up a $1 day sale at a local thrift store last weekend and scored 3 shirts for Jeremy, 2 skirts and 2 shirts for me all for $7. Plus 2 pairs of brand-new looking shoes for $5. I call that a good deal!

I am so thankful to have inexpensive and well-taught yoga classes just across the street from me.

Another Poem

Splitting An Order

I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.

from Valentines by Ted Kooser

True Story

The other day I
nearly stepped out my door
for work wearing
my green with purple flowers flip-flop
slippers

I reason, the soles are hard