The Very Definition of Summer

If summer could be defined without words, if its very essence could be gathered up enmasse - from a Provencal orchard in August, a Corfu seaside in June ... a bit of a taste of strawberries and cream in St. James Park, or one perfect peach eaten on a screened porch in Georgia - and if that essence could be crystalized into one single all encompassing moment, then this must certainly be it.
For surely, this is the very definition of summer.......

I am wading, chin deep, in a saffron sea, with the drone of honeybees filling the air, a multitude of tiny violinists tuning up for their daily noontime symphony. Beneath a cloudless ocean of sky, I stand at the heart of ten acres of sunflowers, a mere dot of white linen on a canvas of gold. True to their nature, for they are always the friendliest of flowers, they have made me most welcome, nodding and waving as I have passed deeper and deeper into their midst until now they are all that I see. I feel almost one of them, a living, breathing representative of the very epitome of summer.

To choose which ones to take home to my vases is a task more difficult than I had imagined, for each is unique in its beauty and grace and each seems to wish for an adventure, a journey away to places unknown. Feeling richer than Midas, I fill my green bucket with gold and marvel at my bounty. Eventually, I make my way back through the smiling rows, back to where Edward and Apple wait with the Songwriter under the cool damp shade of an oak tree.

And now....
there are vases and vases of butter-yellow faces wherever I choose to look.
My rooms are filled with summer.

Walking Home On A Night In Midsummer

A firefly followed me home last night.
Bobbing and bouncing like a fairy’s torch, it appeared at my shoulder and remained there all the way to my door, a tiny glowing escort, perhaps sent to guide me through the mystery of the twilight. Past the tall poppies holding court in the garden on the corner.... was it my imagination, or did they cease conversation at our approach? On down the side lane where the precocious nicotiana breaches her borders and lolls about in the pathway, scenting the warm air with a heavy perfume that makes it quite difficult to think of a serious thought. I wonder, did I hear a hint of a throaty giggle just as we passed? And behind the weeping willow tree, or beneath the white gardenias.... could those have been scores of green eyes, widening and narrowing as we went by?
It was not yet dark, but not quite light, as if the daytime had lingered a bit to flirt with the night before traipsing off to sleep in her silent bed of violets. The magical hour of an ordinary day when cabbage leaves turn to velvet and the glow of a rose paints the air all around us with the pink gauze of a dream.
We made our way, all alone in the lane, Edward and I, with our own blithe spirit aglow just beside us - our very own Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Cobweb or Moth - and as we opened our gate, the firefly nodded and wove his way off in the dream of a midsummer’s night.

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats, spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In their freckles live our savours.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
My queen and all her elves come here anon!

Act II, Scene I

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

I Like Americans
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I like Americans.
You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.
They sleep with their windows open.
Their bathtubs are never dry.
They are not grown up yet. They still believe in Santa Claus.

They are terribly in earnest.
But they laugh at everything…

I like Americans.
They give the matches free…

I like Americans.
They are the only men in the world, the sight of whom in their shirt-sleeves is not rumpled, embryonic and agonizing…

I like Americans.
They carry such pretty umbrellas.
The Avenue de l’Opera on a rainy day is just an avenue on a rainy day.
But Fifth Avenue on a rainy day is an old-fashioned garden under a shower…

They are always rocking the boat.
I like Americans.
They either shoot the whole nickel, or give up the bones.
You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.

Happy 4th of July to All

Photograph of Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy
Hyannisport, Mass.
By Mark Shaw

Fireworks

This is the week I think of the owls, for this is the week when the fireworks come.
On a night very soon, on the heels of a faintly heard march by Sousa, the black sky shall split under salvos of colour, the heavens recast as bomb shattered stained glass. Umbrellas of red, blue and green, opening and closing, then opening again, each jewel tone joined by concussions of sound that tromp through the woodlands like the footfalls of giants.
I have always wondered. What must the owls think? Those silent night gliders with their secretive lives, who normally have the darkness all to themselves. Do they lose their way with reliable Orion now obliterated by this strange detonation of rainbows? Do their orange eyes widen in fear of this technicolour end of the world?
Or perhaps, given their wisdom, do they have this night circled on their woody kitchen calendars, to remind themselves that this is the way the people below express their patriotism every Fourth of July?


"The day will be the most memorable in America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival...it ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade...bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this day forward, forevermore."

John Adams, in a letter to his wife, Abigail,
after the Continental Congress decided to proclaim the American colonies
independent from Britain.

Painting above: Fireworks, by James Lynch

Lions and Supermodels

Like the bright golden ring on a carousel, fame is a most attractive thing to a lot of people; they stretch out their arms, grasping for it if ever it comes round their way. They never seem to consider that this elusive goal, once attained, can never be returned. For myself, immense fame has always seemed like a nightmare of sickening proportions; the worst sort of situation in which to be stuck. I feel this way for many reasons, the chief of which is that fame would snatch away one of the more delightful activities I know of: the observation of other humans. For when you are the one constantly being watched, it is impossible to indulge in the study of others.

While sitting with a mug of tea at a sidewalk cafe, peering over a magazine in a crowded airport lounge, or from behind dark glasses on a north-bound train, I am often happily fascinated just considering the people around me. There are few more interesting ways to past the time than contemplating the behaviour of one’s fellow humans when they are unaware they are being watched. I imagine them standing in their closets deciding on the clothes they are wearing, I mark the books they are reading, I study the way they interact with one another. It is so entertaining to conjure up their fictional backstories in my head, often populating entire Agatha Christie novels with the unsuspecting souls around me.

Sometimes, after an afternoon of this sort of observation, I begin to think that being human in this day and age just seems like so much work, especially when compared with those creatures residing in the animal kingdom. Let’s face it, forget the latest cellphone or laptop, disregard the hairstyle or the shoes - whether fat or thin, short or tall, no one is ever going to be as impressive as a Lion no matter what one does. A Polar Bear will always trump a supermodel for sheer beauty and magnificence. Animals just are. They have no need of embroidered clothing or bejeweled stilettos, they require no make-up, wish for no ornament - they could care less about twittering, and no amount of air-brushing or photoshop could ever improve on the purity of their splendid, individual beauty.
Perhaps animals are on earth for more that the whims of man.
Perhaps they have much to teach us.

I must go now and attempt to pretty myself for the day.
Edward, of course, woke up pretty.


"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will teach you: or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind."

Job 12: 7-10

Summer Reading

Whenever I find a cartoon particularly funny, it is usually because I recognize a bit of myself within it. For instance, I have always loved an old New Yorker magazine cartoon of a fellow reading at the beach. Clad in the requisite attire of shorts and flip-flops, he is squinting up at a stern policeman standing over him who says, “I’m sorry, sir, but Dostoyevsky is not considered summer reading. I’ll have to ask you to come with me.” This in turn reminds me of the afternoon I was approached by an overly gregarious chap as I myself sat seaside, reading Edith Wharton. “Whatcha readin’?”, he inquired, displaying a rather alarmingly white smile aimed in my direction. “The House of Mirth”, I replied. With a crestfallen change in expression he said, “Oh. A real book”.

Both of these examples, one imaginary and one quite real, pretty much sum up my difficulty with what is often called,“summer reading”. Time spent with those books generally considered to sit squarely in that category is, to me, rather like being stranded in the shallow end of the pool, with no waves and no challenges. Pleasant enough, but rather uninspiring.

Books are like people in a way. You spend time with them - sometimes an afternoon, sometimes a week - and some even accompany you on your summer holiday. Occasionally, some books become so beloved, they are invited to reside in your library or on your bedside table, never far from reach, a veritable part of the family. Not unlike people, books have definite personalities. Some are secretive, as if reluctant to reveal their deeper meanings until one gets to know them a bit better - some are witty, some are strange, some whisk the reader away to another country, another world. Some change your mood. Some change your mind.

Every year, I greedily await the summer reading suggestions published in newspapers and magazines. I listen eagerly for every summertime book review broadcast on NPR. While I may not be reading textbooks in summertime, I still long to be dazzled by unique imaginations and to occasionally paddle around in the deep end of the pool. From under my sun hat, I still look for stimulating conversations with the books I chose to read, even if those conversations take place in a hammock in the garden, or on a beach chair with the sound of the surf in my ears.

Here is my list, a baker’s dozen of my favourite summer books, each one read during the summertime of a year past and each one more than worthy to be tucked in with the Vogues and Verandas on the way to the beach.
Oh, and don’t be shy....please share one of yours!!

1. My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
2. How To Make An American Quilt by Whitney Otto
3. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
4. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
6. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
7. Harry Potter by JK Rowling
.... every summer, by tradition, I would leave for the beach on the very day the latest HP was released, just to sit by the sea and escape all alone to Hogwarts. I do so miss those new Potter books!
8. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9. Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
10. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
11. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger
12. The Prince Of Tides by Pat Conroy
13. And, I am currently reading Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson.
How about you?

Another Summer

Darkness came late last night, as though the entire hemisphere was too excited to sleep. The skies stayed awake in celebration of another infant summer, with its happy row of terracotta days stretched out as far as the eye could see. Morning’s pink and glistening dawns, lemonade dew shimmering on the garden floor and towhees splashing in the warm stone baths. Noontimes of warm breezes, long hours spent beside an open window with a beguiling book, hopelessly lost in the words on the page. Chinese lantern evenings, honeydew melons on tuberose tables and strains of Gilberto on the honeysuckle air. And the beach. Forever the beach, with its tropical zephyrs known to whisk away all serious thought leaving only the sweet repetition of wave after wave of smiling joy.
May we all make it to the beach this summer.

Beach Sand
by Raymond A. Foss

Maybe it is the memories
the change of pace that brings us there
the sense of vacation
maybe the smell of the place
the sights of the gulls, the dunes, the grasses
but oh it is the feel of it,
the crunch and slide of it
the feeling of beach sand
so different from dirt, soil, loam
no, not earthy, moist, rich,
but oh so granular and gritty
even when wet,
moveable paper spreading under toes
sliding beneath the soles
smoothing my skin
clearing my mind
unburdening me of the rest
drawing me to the tactile, the feel
of beach sand



Painting at top, The Beach by Peder Severin Kroyer

The Influence of Gardenias

They are the creamy conjurers of memory, summoning lazy walks in white linen dresses beneath trees hung heavy with moss. They call forth the night gardens of childhood, all dark velvet and sprinkled with the winking orange of fireflies. They lead back to the sound of cicadas, nature’s discordant orchestra, on hot evenings in June. Their fragrance, sweeter than the other flowers, so sweet it is almost gothic, fills the room, floods the senses and brings with it the extravagance of dreams. They are imbued with mystery, they are beautiful, they are the most enchanting of all the summer flowers.
They are Gardenias.
I have kept bowls of Gardenias on my bedside table all this week and my dreams have echoed the influence of their sorcery.

If you wish to escape to air castles far above the clouds or visit empyrean forests made of moonbeams and sand, then sleep with Gardenias beside your bed. If you desire to remember who you once were or to observe your future self, clad in feathers and white roses in a weathered cottage by the sea, then sleep with Gardenias beside your bed. If you have ever wondered how it would feel to follow a silver bear down a pathway of emeralds, or converse with a impeccably dressed tiger on a rooftop in Greece; if you want to know where the butterflies go when the wind is high...then by all means, sleep with Gardenias beside your bed.

Cut Gardenias only last a couple of days so their effect will be limited, which is probably best.
If they lasted any longer one might be tempted to live in one’s dreams.

Edward ... Inside On A Hot Afternoon

Toadlike, almost sinister, the hot day squatted atop the ivy-covered cottage, claiming the afternoon for its own and bringing with it a muggy June air thick enough to grab up by the fistfuls. The blue flowers bowed their heads low, in prayer for a cooler hour. The old trees napped. Like the singing steam from a tea kettle, the sultry heat pressed in against the windowpanes and inprisioned the big white dog in the coolness of the sleepy shady rooms of the house.

All during the many crisp delights of the other seasons, the big dog knew this day would come. Summer days like this one made his fur feel heavy. He glanced over at his people, still placidly reading in their favourite chairs. He sighed, louder this time, but all he got in return was a smile. Well after all, he thought, what could they do?

Turning back to the window, the dog noticed the long-fingered shadow of the fir tree in the garden had now disappeared. Looking up, he saw charcoal skies beginning to gather overhead, advancing from the west, as though a cavalry of windgusts had been sent from on high to blow this still unpleasantness to the sweltering hinterlands. He listened. Yes, he could just hear it, far off in the distance - the booming sound of their hoofbeats of thunder. It was time to take cover. He hopped up next to the lady, circled a few times and lay down with a satisfied plop. She patted his head absentmindedly. The rain began to fall, weighty wet drops that hit the ground with a sizzle, slowly at first, then in a torrent of silver streamers that washed away even the memory of the oppressive afternoon.

The big white dog laid his head on the lady’s knee.

He was happy now.

Rydal Mount

Come with me.....

It is an enthusiastic Virginia Creeper that encircles the house like a necklace of fire, its royal gemstones of flaming leaves set aglow by the crystal clear September sun. Though inside all is still, and hushed, one can yet sense the vivacity of ideas that once played through these rooms. Was it not just yesterday? It seems as though the great poet himself has only just retreated to the garden, jealous of his privacy.

Shadows waltz at the peak of the house, where his study shimmers in the gold of the afternoon. A gathering of bluebottles convenes on the wide windowsill, arranging and rearranging themselves like floating calligraphy; mere ghosts of the letters he once captured to paint his exalted stanzas of light. They beat against the glass in their desire to be released - to fly past the garden, over the lake and out into the world once more.

Peace floats on the very breeze that wends its way through his garden - one follows it down shaded pathways, past romantic vistas of green and blue, to the tiny stone Summer House where an ever open window frames an unequaled view of Eden. One can only imagine the courage it took to create verses of beauty in the presence of such abounding competition from Nature herself. Artists both, perhaps they chose to work in tandem, Nature’s splendour inspiring the words that served to describe Nature’s splendour, each one magnifying the magnificence of the other, each one enriching the bounty of the known world.

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:
it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”
William Wordsworth

My late afternoon view from the Summer House window
at Rydal Mount, Cumbria
Home of poet William Wordsworth

Painting above: View From Rydal Park, by Francis Towne

Umbrellas and Bumbershoots

To walk down the street, under an umbrella, in the rain, is a decidedly pleasant activity for a human being. There are few more satisfying sounds than the pop and the patter of raindrops on a sheltering umbrella. Of course the choice of umbrella is vital to the enjoyment of a such a walk. No puny popup thing will do. A capacious, old-fashioned creation is required for the ultimate experience and I am indeed fortunate to have the most perfect one imaginable. A gift from the Songwriter years ago, it is big, black and British-crafted, with a carved wooden rabbit head for a handle. Mary Poppins’ talking parrot umbrella would be my sole competition. The only trouble is, I nearly always leave it at home, sedentary and dry, in the umbrella stand in my entry hall. For much like Marianne Dashwood, I always think it won’t rain, and then it always does.

So as usual, I left the house one day last week without my rabbit head umbrella. And, as usual, it rained. All day. Not a deluge, but a soft and constant shower, warm wet silky drops that seemed to melt into the pavement with nary a splatter. It was actually quite refreshing and on more than one occasion as I made my way to and from various shop doors, I lifted my face to the grey sky above just to feel a touch of the falling elixir on my skin.

It is always amusing to watch Americans in the rain, and that day was no exception. There they were, huddled in ovine fashion under store awnings, peering up with furrowed brows, anxious for any sign that this wicked substance descending from the unfriendly sky was subsiding. Women held their handbags over their heads and ran squealing for their cars, while men simply hunched their shoulders, lowered their heads and quick-marched along with a martyred air. One would think battery acid was falling from the sky instead of innocent droplets of water.

One of the many reasons I love to travel in Scotland is the mercurial nature of the weather. While a sunny day is lovely, I do not in the least mind the rain, and I adore the wind, which is ideal because in Scotland one often experiences all of these conditions in the short span of an afternoon. I once sat in my car on Portree square taking in the scene around me as a gentle rain began to fall. There was a fellow perched on a nearby bench reading the newspaper. Hatless, and with no umbrella or raincoat, he calmly continued to read as the rain gathered strength, the wind blew and the skies darkened . Only when his newspaper became so wet that the pages began to shred did he fold it up under his arm and saunter off at a casual pace through the storm.

Of course I once visited Glenfinnan during rain that was akin to being shot full in the face with a fire hose. I was laughing so hard at my predicament that I wasn’t able to run properly for shelter, and of course I had left my umbrella, once again, at home. Which was just as well, for no umbrella would have been up to the task that day.

Perhaps a bumbershoot??

One Whole Year!

I can hardly believe it, but the calendar does not lie. Today is the one year anniversary
of From the House of Edward! Amazing. I actually planned this blog to focus more on my design work, but instead found it to be a welcome diversion from my design work. So much so in fact, that I have come to relish my writing here on an equal level. Life is certainly not a straight line. It curves and spirals and surprises.
I send my most sincere thanks to all of you who visit here. I am constantly grateful for your sweet comments and e-mails of encouragement. You are most generous and I am tickled beyond measure to know you enjoy your little holidays here.

So, I invite you to join Edward and I in our celebration of one whole year! Raise a glass or pick up a favourite book, eat some ice cream or fill a vase with flowers, listen to - or sing - your favourite song. Or just give a dog a hug!
And Happy Anniversary!!

The Fifth Element

It was a linen shirt, long sleeved and whisper pink, and I stood in Macy’s considering it on a quiet Thursday afternoon. Gradually, almost unconsciously, I became aware that I was swaying ever so slightly to music. Then I heard, pouring from the store speakers like rivulets of honey, the familiar strains of Aretha Franklin’s, Baby I Love You. I looked around me and observed the delightful spell being cast from this marvelous sound. A flawlessly coiffed elderly lady in a St. John suit was strolling through the handbag department, her steps in perfect time with the song. The young woman behind the counter was casually bobbing her head back and forth to the rhythm, while a delivery man entered from outside and immediately fell into leisurely step with the seductive beat as he made his way up the store aisle. It was incredibly entertaining to watch, as everyone in sight was reacting to this infectious old classic without even being aware of it. Such is the power of music.

Music is as much a part of our lives as breathing, even though we hardly know it most of the time. Every one of us has a personal soundtrack that has accompanied our days; a musical fingerprint of our lives, unique and specific. Like magic, whenever I hear Dionne Warwick’s, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, I am once again in the back seat of my family’s leaf green Pontiac during a sunny morning on my way to school. Joni Mitchell’s, Carey, always sends me to the beach and I am a little girl desirous of my very own Mary Quant lipstick every time I hear Donovan sing Jennifer, Juniper. Coldplay’s, Speed of Sound, whisks me off to Regent Street in London. Astrid Gilberto means summer and, of course, Christmas just doesn’t exist without Perry Como or Nat King Cole. For me, James Taylor is high school afternoons and Leonard Cohen’s, Sisters of Mercy, is newlywed bliss. And incidentally, if you ever wished to know what a childhood summer felt like in the southern United States, then pour a glass of sweet tea and listen to the soundtrack of To Kill A Mockingbird by Elmer Bernstein. You couldn’t get closer with a time machine.

There can be no denying the remarkable ability of music to communicate more profoundly, and often with more clarity, than words could ever hope to do. Music seems divinely capable of reaching that inarticulate part of the soul where only the deepest feelings and most heartfelt memories are found. The unscaleable majesty in Saint-Saens Organ Symphony #3, or the near visible beauty of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The visceral grief in Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings or the sheer happiness of The Beatles I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
It is almost as if God himself intended music to be the fifth element, -surely as basic as air or water, fire or earth- for after all, did the angels not announce the birth of Christ with song?

June Is Bustin’ Out All Over

March went out like a lion
Awakin' up the water in the bay;
Then April cried and stepped aside,
And along came pretty little May!
May was full of promises
But she didn't keep 'em quick enough for some.
And the crowd of doubtin' Thomases
Was predictin' that the summer'd never come

But it's comin' by dawn,
We can feel it come,
You can feel it in your heart
You can see it in the ground
You can see it in the trees
You can smell it in the breeze
Look around! Look around! Look around!

Lyric by Oscar Hammerstein


“I love my life!”

Sentiment by Edward

Apple and the Rose

Coming home from an late evening walk, a neighbour called to me from his garden.
He had snipped a fat orange rose from the cloud of blowsy blossoms that dangled like ripe tangerines from his wrought iron arbor, and he handed it to me over the fence as I passed. Such a lovely gift, I thought as I placed it in a vase by my bed. By midnight, the ambrosial fragrance from this lone flower had drifted into every corner of the room as if entire bouquets of roses had fallen from the sky.

When I slipped between the crisp sheets to sleep, both Edward and Apple jumped up to say goodnight, as is their habit. As I patted their furry heads, I lifted the vase to my nose again to drink in the delicious smell of the rose and I noticed Apple watching me with interest, no doubt wondering if I had sneaked a “treat” to bed with me. So I held the flower to her face and she bent close to investigate. As the sweet perfume of the orange rose reached her, her dark eyes grew wide and she backed up to look at me. “Smells good, doesn’t it”, I asked. She got the funniest little look on her face and bent down once again to sniff.
And then, I swear, she smiled.
Ah, every girl loves roses.

Apple wearing her favourite outfit during a neighbourhood festival.
Like any girly girl, she would wear this every single day if she could, whilst Edward will not tolerate it for two seconds.

A Happy Mistake

For the past two Sunday nights, I have been lost in Sweden. Not serenely strolling through the softly sunwashed colours of artist Carl Larsson, but stranded amidst the harsh landscape of writer Henning Mankell, as his Wallander detective series has now come to television via the new BBC production starring Kenneth Branagh. Set in Ystad, it is a Sweden unfamiliar to me, with a midnight sun that pierces the summer night like the half closed eye of Apollo, never resting, always watching, and a noonday sun that enflames the colours of the landscape - all school bus yellow and chlorine blue - with such vividness they almost sting the eye. These bleakly haunting stories match the intensity of their setting with starkness and weblike intricacy. They are completely engrossing.

So engrossing in fact, that last Sunday after knitting my way through the second episode, I looked down and observed ...yikes.... a mistake. I had changed skeins right after the show had begun and neglected to notice an infinitesimal difference in dyelot. Now here I was, eight inches knitted, and the colours were off course a bit. The yarn I am using is a variegated cotton, sublime in texture and delicious in shades of watery greens, blues and lavenders, but now, about a third of the way into the scarf the colours were a tiny bit more blue than green. I sat stock still as I pondered my next move. As it was a fairly intricate pattern, the thought of ripping out my work was distasteful to say the least. But amazingly, the longer I looked, the more I liked what I saw.... the more I really, really liked what I saw. I am now completely thrilled with this new creation; one I never would have imagined myself. When the scarf is wound around my neck, the subtle change in colour is divine, and looks expertly planned. A happy mistake. The Songwriter says they happen in recording all the time.

It is amusing to think how we humans so often rigidly map out our lives, schedule our days, presuming we know best how things should proceed. Sometimes, if we can manage to let go of the reins a bit, it seems that circumstances may just hand us a better way, present us with a more wondrous idea than we ever could have imagined on our own. The holiday that was planned, the school that was counted on, the career always hoped for, the pattern so dilligently followed. When kismet laughingly shuts the door, that open window across the room just might lead to Neverland.

Or at the very least, there might be a fabulous scarf sitting on the windowsill.


Painting above by Carl Larsson

A Quiet Day

I was presented with a quiet day.
A freshly wrapped candy box of calm and peaceful hours, each one nothing less than a divine morsel of indulgence. For it is rare to partake of an entire box of hours such as these all in one day, rather more likely to sneak a taste every now and then.... a bite of a nap here, a nibble of a garden stroll there. To have an entire day to myself, a glistening pathway of time stretched out before me, with no roadblocks, no detours, was practically an engraved invitation to happiness. Every unplanned hour, a confection, and I intended to feast on the complete collection.

So I savored a butter creme morning festooning the house with freshly cut oakleaf hydrangeas and lemon scented magnolia blossoms. A truffle of an hour was spent finishing a book and then another lazily perusing my library shelves as I considered my next literary destination, with a newly manicured finger running along the colourful spines as if they were travel brochures to exotic locales, which indeed they are. Then, a caramel of an hour baking a coconut cake and licking the beaters myself. I whiled away a totally decadent chocolate bonbon of time dozing in the big red chair as a rainy breeze blew through the cottage windows and ruffled the fur of the white dog beside me. A butterscotch stroll down the lane with Edward and Apple followed by high tea in my favourite cup. A toffee of a hot bath with jasmine bubbles galore.

No phone, no radio, no television.
Just bird song and breezes, wind chimes and sighs.


"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Fun

A couple of nights ago I found myself in a car with three world class wits as we all returned home from a rather extravagantly overacted play. While we had managed to exhibit impeccable adult decorum during the performance, our facade cracked, then shattered, inside that car as we each offered up our increasingly hilarious reviews of the night. I laughed so hard that my sides literally ached; the kind of ache I remember from the belly laughs of childhood fun. As I reflected on the evening later that night, I had to admit that even while I find so much in this world to be amusing - even downright funny - real side-splitting laughter, real fun, is a bit of a rare thing.

To be certain, being an adult has its undeniable advantages. I can stay up as late as I want, and frequently do so. I can eat dessert first if I choose, even though I rarely do. However, along with the grand freedoms that come with all the costumes of adulthood, there is also the somber coloured, conservatively cut cloak of responsibility that we all must wear. An often itchy and uncomfortable garment, it is a cloak tailored for each of us individually, and sometimes, it seems, unfairly. Its powers are such that, strangely, it seems that if one never takes it off.... for a weekend, or even just an hour.... the more cumbersome it becomes, the scratchier its fabric, the heavier its weight, until it begins to alter the very posture of the spirit - the very lightness of the heart.

I can remember being a little girl and going outside every day, “to play”. It seems as if we adults could benefit from such an activity today. To run through a field, or bicycle through an afternoon, for reasons having more to do with joy than with exercise. To take a turn on the swingset, or a swing on the dance floor. To ride the carousel, sing along with the radio, play on the seesaw..... or just take the long way home.
To remember how to play and how to laugh till your sides ache.

So if you will excuse me, I think I shall go and play hide and seek with Edward. It is his favourite game.
And perhaps, I shall eat my dessert first tonight.


"What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul."
Yiddish Proverb

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

So many times, whenever a friend is embarking on a first trip to Britain, the inevitable question arises...”what about the food??”. It seems to be an untruth universally acknowledged that all British food is somehow lacking - in taste, nutrition and style. Perhaps that thought held some validity in decades past, but I can certainly argue empirically against it now. Some of the most deliciously satisfying meals of my memory were enjoyed in the UK.

Walking into Loch Bay Seafood, an unassuming whitewashed building by the sea on the Isle of Skye one windy day, I sat down to the best fish soup I had ever tasted. The incredibly delicious breakfast at Holbeck Ghyll high in the Lake District, which was served with a side of achingly beautiful view from my sunlit table. Lunch at The Witchery in Edinburgh, where I do have to admit I paid much more attention to the wickedly creative decor than to the dining, but which remains a indelible and most charming luncheon memory.

One of the best meals of my whole life was created by the proprietress of Ladyburn, an idyllic Bed and Breakfast on a greenly picturesque estate outside Maybole, Scotland. In a candlelit dining room of graceful proportions, with playful strains of Mozart coming from the kitchen, I sat beside a flickering fire and enjoyed the most delicate cheese souffle ever conceived - cooked to perfection, freshly caught Scottish salmon, sweet seasonal vegetables straight from the house garden, and a blissfully decadent chocolate torte. True culinary bliss. Afterwards we sat by a roaring library fire, with Bertie, the family’s warmth seeking Jack Russell, and slowly sipped a warm brandy before making our way to bed, where a piping hot water bottle had been thoughtfully tucked between our crisp cotton sheets. No hobbit could have been more fat and happy.

The bracing tea we had after a windblown hike around Buttermere, the savory dinner brought to our room at The Torridon, the inviting little Italian cafe we found one misty night near Harrods, the opulent dinner at Inverlochy Castle, the luscious grilled salmon at a friendly restaurant beside Loch Linnhe, even the quintessential fish and chips we enjoyed near Covent Garden.... all mouth-watering memories to treasure, and not a fried Mars Bar or blood pudding to be found! If you’re planning a trip across the pond, feel free to look forward to the food, you’re sure to enjoy it.

However, um...well...you will perhaps notice I did not mention Haggis!

John Romain Changed My Life

There are people who dwell in the rooms of my memory and I try to visit them often. Strangely, some begin to disappear after a year or so, fading slowly into shadow. No doubt, a malady due to lack of attention on my part. But the others who remain, colourful and complete, are all there for the very same reason - they have helped to create, in bits and in bobs, the person that is me.

See the elderly lady in the shirtwaist dress, watering the ferns at the window? She has lived here for decades for she long ago gave me my love of flowers. And the smiling chap sitting at the piano? A fairly new arrival, he taught me that happiness is a choice one makes every day. No doubt some in this crowd are recognizable to you. The two ladies in the library? Yes, that is indeed Virginia Woolf discussing Bloomsbury’s Charleston farmhouse with Sister Parish. I also have it on quite good authority that Walt Disney walks my childhood dogs every afternoon at four. But, look. See the gentleman over there in the tufted leather chair by the fire? The one flipping through an old copy of Country Life? That is John Romain. He was a handbag designer and he has dwelt here for ages. For you see, when I was eight years old, John Romain changed my life.

When I entered third grade, it seemed every girl I knew was longing for a John Romain handbag. Nut brown, tweedy creations, with butter soft leather trim, they were the ultimate acquisition and a sure symbol of fashionable acceptance. Although an admittedly unnecessary accessory, parents soon began to acquiesce to the pleas and the whines of their daughters, and one by one, these objects of pre-teen desire began to show up on the little arms of my saddle-shoed classmates. As a happily only child, I was always amused by competition. It seemed such a quizzical activity to me. Keeping up with other people was an alien notion to a little girl whose favourite confidant was her dog. But oh, how I wanted one of those bags. It came over me like the flu and I was introduced to my first chilled feeling of envy.

Then, on a cold Christmas morning, I opened an elaborately wrapped present and... there it lay. My very own John Romain bag. And wonder of wonders, my parents had ordered one with a horsehead clasp! The Ultimate. I was beside myself with joy and could hardly wait for the holidays to be over when I would join the ranks of those sartorially in vogue. But a funny thing happened when I walked into class, proudly carrying my celebrated bag like the trophy it was.
I was now just like everyone else.
And, I hated it.
Oh, I loved the handbag. But I hated being part of the herd.

So yes, John Romain remains anchored in my memory for having taught me a priceless lesson about myself; a lesson I am most grateful to have learned early: I am happiest following my own path. Utterly skeptical of trends, I much prefer to trust my own eye. Preserving my individuality is vital to me and through the years I have found such joy in aiding my clients in the discovery of their own unique voices and enabling them to express those personal voices in the design and decoration of their homes.

So if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just sit here with Mr. Romain for a bit. I am curious for his opinion on a couple of articles I have just read in the latest Elle Decor.
I am sure you can find your way out.
Just don’t let Mr. Disney con you into walking those dogs.
That’s his job.

The Flower Moon

In icy fullness he sits aloft, enthroned in the blue-black January sky, a lambent wizard whose incantation of frozen light is cast down over snow covered hills for the wolves to find their way home. He does his best throughout the year to live up to the names he’s been given and the first month knows him, by legend and lore, as the Wolf Moon.

He’s christened Pink in the month of April, as he gently drapes the glow of a rose petal over the luminous newness of a Spring night, while the chill of October finds him clad in the orange robes of a Harvest Moon, illuminating the autumnal gold that is sprinkled across the dark fields of the world.

But as all lovers of his magical light can easily agree, he achieves the full height of his powers in May. For this month, this very night in fact, he becomes the Flower Moon, when the spirits of beauty flock to the gardens to drink in the sight of May flowers aglow. They stroll down moss pathways in clear star-strewn dresses, beneath radiant rose arbors he has lit so divinely, they look as though all the world’s fireflies have come there to pose. Indeed every flower, from the aristocratic white orchid on the manor house windowsill to the happy brotherhood of bluebells that holds court on the forest floor - like gemstones from Heaven, all shall bedazzle tonight.

So, look to the flowers when the warm sun sets. For no candle, no kleig, no footlight or floodlight could ever compare to the pure, perennial splendour
that is the Flower Moon of May.


FLY NOT YET

Fly not yet; 'tis just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon.
'Twas but to bless these hours of shade
That beauty and the moon were made;
'Tis then their soft attractions glowing
Set the tides and goblets flowing
Oh ! stay, oh ! stay,
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that, oh! 'tis pain
To break it's links so soon.

by Thomas Moore

The Ghost in Love

Every Friday , the New York Times publishes a special section in their newspaper entitled Escapes. Different from the Travel section, Escapes showcases second home locales or places just perfect for the perfect, well..... escape. I both look forward to, and slightly dread, dipping into these weekly pages, for I know I shall find myself sorely tempted by the words I read and the pictures I see. Faded seaside towns with steep cobbled streets where I might just find the weathered beach cottage I keep in my treasure chest of secret longings. Or green mountain villages where people of a lilting language could point me in the direction of that stone cottage with the diamond paned windows that often haunts my daydreams. Every Friday morning with paper and coffee, I pore over this section and my mind begins to roam. Soon I am perusing real estate websites and visualizing paint colours. By no means am I disenchanted with my current place in the world, but there is something that, to me at least, is so deliciously tempting about the idea of escape.

Fortunately for me, there are all sorts of definitions for escape. And one of the best, and certainly most cost efficient, is within the pages of a book. I have just returned from such an escape and am still unpacking all my shiny souvenirs. What a time I had! Generally, when I pick up a new book, I have some sort of hint as to what to expect. Either I have read a review, been given a recommendation, or perhaps I am already acquainted with the author and have returned to sample more delights from their literary table.

But I had no idea where I was headed when I cracked open The Ghost In Love by Jonathan Carroll and began my journey through its pages late one stormy evening last week. I settled back into my pillow and just held on for dear life. All the dependable touchstones and signposts were thrown out the window pretty soon after page one and I was left as giddy as a buttoned-up passenger on a runaway train of ideas.

With talking dogs, reincarnations, and angels of death, not to mention time travels, picnics in the rain with all one’s former selves...and yes, even a ghost in love, this surreal book may not be for everyone. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if it was for me. But I soon discovered it felt quite refreshing to read something that stretched out my mind like a difficult yoga pose. I was entranced by the sheer scope of the writing and I relished my escape into this author’s expansive imagination.
True, The Ghost in Love may not equal that stone cottage in the faraway trees, but it will more than suffice as my escape for this week.

Painting above: On Top Of The World by James Hill

A Dozen of My Favourite Things for May

1.
The Imaginative Art of Gretel Parker
Illustrator and Toy Maker Extraordinaire
Her painting featured above, and below are a few of her latest toy creations:



2.
Charles Dickens on PBS

3.
The resurgence of wonderful wallpapers, as evidenced by
Grow, House, Grow...
a most creative company after my own heart...glorious wallpaper designs - each with its very own narrative!
I can just see a elegant entry hall... with this on the wall above glossy white panelling...


and dark antique furniture, sunburst mirrors, cut crystal vases of orange parrot tulips and a West Highland Terrier sitting on a black and white marble floor waiting patiently for the postman to put today’s mail through the bronze slot in the forest green front door.

4.
Listening to Astrid Gilberto with the windows open while I make a pie and the dogs sleep on the floor at my feet.

5.
This blog that I discovered just as its writer was on holiday in London.
It has now become a regular morning coffee stop for me.

6.
Sharp cheddar cheese melted on toasted sourdough bread

7.
Planting flowers, flowers, flowers!

8.
Lemon Ice Cream

9.
My collection of cotton pajamas from The Cat’s Pajamas

10.
SPF 90 and sun hats by Kokin

11.
This wonderful, wonderful rug:


I can just see it, lying on a polished wood floor in a room painted the palest shade of citron, with a magnificent stone fireplace, weathered leather chairs with tapestry cushions, the complete works of Simenon and Conan Doyle bound in red leather in French Deco bookcases, and leaded glass casement windows that open out onto a peony garden where a vaguely surly bulldog is waiting to be let back inside before it rains.

12.
And finally, this poem by Mary Oliver.
If only you could read it with your eyes closed.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts,her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Green Gardens

The recent airing of the remarkable production of HBO's Grey Gardens has precipitated quite a lot of conversation in my circles on the subject of eccentricity. Is it a singular characteristic; one to be celebrated and encouraged? Or is it simply the more fanciful relative of insanity? In regards to the ladies from Grey Gardens, one might certainly argue that eccentricity veers solidly into madness when squalor, stench and raccoon roommates enter the picture.
I do feel qualified to say that I can recognize the difference, for I am from the South.
Though our gardens may be green, we are well acquainted with eccentricity here.

There are those who have read John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and believed it to be a wonderfully imaginative tale. For us, it was totally non-fiction. The colourful characters that populate the works of Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor and Pat Conroy...not to mention Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote? I could introduce you to their prototypes any day of the week. In fact, more that a few of them are nesting quite comfortably in my family tree.

We have swimmers in our gene pool who have broken limbs as the result of ill-considered efforts to fly. While a few of these painfully hopeful attempts employed the aid of umbrellas, at least one depended solely on the flapping of arms. There is the uncle who named his truck, painted that moniker on the side of the door, bought a police radio and spent his days waiting to hear of any and all disturbances at which point he would jump in the christened vehicle and head to the scene. Needless to say, he was a bit famous in law enforcement circles. There is the neighbor who swears he witnessed a group of houseguests levitate in another neighbor’s back garden and of course, there is the gentlemen who frequently strolls out to get the morning newspaper in a short baby blue negligee.

Maybe it’s the heat. Or the humidity. Perhaps the moss that hangs from the trees somehow finds its way inside our heads. But here in the South we dwell within a veritable petri dish of eccentricity. It permeates our literature, our music, our humour, and it is often the prism through which we view the world. To be sure, it does make life interesting and, I suppose, as long as the raccoons remain on the other side of the doors, we’re safe.

“We are all mad here”
The Cheshire Cat,
from Alice in Wonderland


For those of you interested in reading the definitive post on the house that was, and remains, Grey Gardens, do check out Joni Webb's exhaustive entry on her blog Cote de Texas!

Ever Smiling

Her beauty, while intoxicating, never overpowers as does that of her summertime sisters. She has never been as reserved, nor as wise, as her brothers of autumn. Ever smiling, she drifts in the doorway as a fragrance, trailing lilacs all over the floor, and a bit of her lingers, in the secret corners of the soul, long after her departure.

She flirts, she entices, she weaves flowers in my hair and puts ideas in my head. She turns my chair towards the window and makes me think of picnics. She lays out my linen blazer and finds a gardenia for my lapel. She wants me to wear white shoes.

She recites poetry at the oddest times, stanzas awash with chimerical gardens and follies of stone. Pale rooms with tall windows and blue nights full of stars.
She erases years and fills my plate with strawberries. She dances a waltz in an arbor at midnight and begs me to follow her down to the sea.
I am helpless in her presence.

She is May.
Open the windows.
She is almost here.


"The month of May was come,
when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom,
and to bring forth fruit;
for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May,
in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover,
springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds.
For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May."

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur

The First Few Notes of a Song

In recent days I, like so many others, have struggled to hold back tears as I sat in front of my computer screen mesmerized by the video of Scotland’s Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. An ordinary woman with an extraordinary gift, she accomplished a feat I would not have dreamed possible. In the first few notes of a song, her lovely voice effectively silenced the snarky, arrogant attitude that seems to permeate the culture of fame. In the first few notes of a song, she drew a technicolour line between talent and celebrity, placing both in sharp contrast and illustrating clearly how rarely the two intersect. Just why was everyone in that audience so certain this woman was incapable of such a performance?
Simple answer, really. She didn’t look the part.

So often these days it seems appearance trumps everything else. In Hollywood, apparently, there is such a sparse folder of acceptable definitions for beauty that people are willing to do just about anything to make certain their visage falls within the corporately validated range. True individuality, and the courage to retain it, seems rather thin on the ground at the moment. A naturally aging face or a bit of a crooked nose, both of which I happily own, are often difficult to find in the halls of celebrity.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that dear Susan Boyle has so transfixed the world. She has challenged the current, paperthin definition of beauty and has, just perhaps, made us wonder how many others just like her are out there in the crowd. How many talented, brilliant, remarkable souls are casually dismissed for appearance sake, and just how much wonder has our culture been denied as a result? I have often heard it said that Abraham Lincoln could never have been elected president in this media driven day. He just would not look the part.
A shudder worthy thought, to be sure.

It is quite impossible to fathom the white hot glare of the lights now focused on Ms. Boyle or what effect that glare will have. Indeed, I have recently read that she has undergone a makeover of sorts.
I do hope those blazing lights do her no harm.
And I hope she gets to sing for the Queen.


Painting above: The Mirror of Venus by Edward Burne-Jones

Our Friends

The morning had just awakened, stretching out her graceful arms in painterly strokes of pink and blue as she yawned with sweet breezes that sailed in from the east and made the windchimes sing in rounds of tenor voices.
The poplar noticed first.
Down below, the big white dog was tearing cross the garden, fur flying out behind him as he bore down on a fat grey rabbit whose spatula feet fast forwarded it... always just a bit out of reach... till it scooted under the wooden fence like a vapour. Stunned, the white dog watched the cottontail disappear with barks of frustration. The old poplar tree laughed, his lemonlime leaves fluttering in their Spring-born fuzziness, and soon, one by ever larger one, they were all awake to share in this comedy unfolding far beneath them on the garden floor.

They are the guardians of the ivy covered cottage that nestles beneath their greenly benevolent gaze. From their tip top branches where the Great Horned Owl surveys the midnight landscape, all the way down, down to their horrible-muddy, long-fingered roots clasping hands with one another far below the surface of the soil. They have stood their ground for decades. These venerable oaks and mischievous, cone-throwing pines. These girlish pink dogwoods and quietly handsome maples. Through winter snow and summer storm, they dance in the wind and lift their leafy faces to the rain, while mockingbirds nest in the crooks of their arms and squirrels chase squirrels on the tightropes of their high-wire branches.
Occasionally, especially in April, their bashful new leaves shyly brush the windows to say hello.

They are our friends. They are our trees.
And tis too true, no poem could be lovelier.

Sheep

I have always had a thing for sheep. How well I remember the perfectly delicious feeling of having a chubby white ewe take treats from my little flattened palm under a cavernous tent at the state fair when I was a child. What a treat it was to enjoy a personal encounter with an animal that I had only met on the pages of story books. I have sat amused in my car on isolated, one-lane tracks in Scotland, patiently waiting for the flock of woolly wanderers gazing in my windows to deem me worthy of passage by moving out from the center of the road. And once, I sat on a windy hill by the sea and watched in fascination as a flock of sheep suddenly turned from the hillside and began to make their way, single-file and sure, out to the steep, winding road, over a small stone wall, and down to the beach below.
What an enchanting sight to see.... sheep enjoying a day out at the beach.

Maybe it is my new found love of knitting that has caused me to appreciate these remarkable creatures anew. I walk into my favourite knitting shop and stand there happily tempted by the myriad of colour and variety of texture they are capable of producing. Shall I choose Black Welsh or Jacob? Suffolk or Bluefaced Leister? I feel in partnership with them somehow, as together we team up to create such lovely things and Lord knows, I could not do it without them. Knitting is such a tactile activity, and as I sit for hours watching as a simple ball of delicate wool is transformed under my own ten fingers, I cannot help but wonder about the sturdy hillside fellow that sent it my way.

There are those who say the only thing that exists inside the mind of the sheep is a dial tone. But I don’t believe it for a minute. Especially after reading this truly wonderful new book by Leonie Swann. It is entitled Three Bags Full and I most highly recommend it, even for those who might not be as besotted with sheep as I. It is the story of a certain flock of sheep who were read to every evening by their shepherd and consequently developed a higher, albeit quirky, intelligence than might otherwise have been afforded them. When their shepherd is murdered...in the first few pages...they take it upon themselves to solve the crime. Witty, original, and delightfully sheepy, I looked forward to my time spent inside its covers and I would be the first in line to purchase a sequel if one appeared.

Imprisoned

Like most interior designers, I am a total showhouse addict. I love to see what other designers are thinking and how those thoughts are translating into new ideas for the decoration of houses. Generally speaking, showhouse rooms are not created for any specific client; a designer is totally unfettered when it comes to interpreting the images swimming in the forefront of his imagination. Thus, these houses are of unfailing interest to me because I can discover a bit of the current inspirations of my peers. Are they looking backwards, into historical interiors with document fabrics and aubusson rugs? Are they totally immersed in the current moment with clean lines, farmhouse sinks and blue grey walls? Or perhaps, are they off roaming the landscape of the future and, if so, just how do they see it?

As I read about New York City’s Kips bay Showhouse today, I must consider that, at least for a few of these artists, the future has become the present. Kips Bay has the reputation of being the creme de la creme of showhouses, consistently presenting top designers pulling out all the stops available. It is revered and highly publicized. And this year, it features a Panic Room. Windowless, with walls the colour of charcoal, it contains a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, a stainless steel toilet and a bearskin rug. I found this comically ironic and assumed it was meant to be so until I read the quote from the designer, William T. Georgis. When asked why we need a panic room Mr. Georgis replied, ”Do you read the papers? Economic mayhem, global warfare, take your pick. We have to hunker down, and where we do so has to be chic and comfortable”.

I shall set aside the question about this room being either chic or comfortable and consider this supposed need for mankind to “hunker down” . Really? Have we traveled that far full circle? How long till it is back to blood over the door and a necklace of garlic? Once, glowering gargoyles perched on rooftops to ward off evil spirits and moats encircled the manor house. Are we now to believe that those antediluvian fears have returned with such thunder as to force our retreat into prisons within our own houses? I am no Pollyanna - I read the same papers as those now altered by fear. I just refuse to bow to those headlines of doom. I much prefer to station round my home the safeguards of hope and faith, optimism and love. Strong guardians all, who will not allow panic into my house, let alone give him his own room.

Panic room? I am off to open my windows.

“I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival”

from “The Future” by Leonard Cohen

Painting above: Princess Elizabeth in Prison by Sir John Everett Millais

The Storm

The full moon covered his eyes with clouds, not daring to look as the boiling darkness filled the skies above our cottage. Suddenly, like the flash of silver light when a sword is unsheathed, the room was lit like a momentary noon, while off in the distance we could hear the thunder, coming ever nearer, as a herd of black riders galloping over the heavenly plains.

Silent and still we lay there and counted.....one....two....then whoomp - Edward landed with conviction atop the bed, only to be followed, a short second later, by Apple. In possession of entirely too much dignity to act frightened, they both merely appeared to be checking to see if we were alright. Then agreeing together that we might be just a wee bit nervous, they resolved to stay and keep us company. Edward settled himself with his big white head on the Songwriter’s chest, while Apple cozied up against my knees. The windowpanes rattled and shook with the force of the tempest outside, while the four of us snuggled down and listened. The wind howled and the trees cracked and the rain pelted the windows like slingshot stones. But we lay warm and dry, safe and sound, together. A picture perfect illustration of the sweet eccentricity of family.
For surely as the Windsors or the Waltons, we four are a family .

Sharing one’s life with animals is such a delightful way to live. Having two bright souls around who love without prejudice or condition is a bounding and abiding joy.
Whenever I shudder at the horrors of the world, pain that I am incapable of erasing or evils I can only fight with prayer, I look at my dogs lying contentedly by my chair - with their tummies full, their coats brushed, and their paws dry - and I feel comforted. Here are two kind creatures who were rescued from potential disaster and who are now happy, loved and cared for. Perhaps that is a small thing, but somehow it always makes me feel just a bit better.

My favourite quote remains:

“Man with dog closes a gap in the universe.”
C.S. Lewis


Edward and I are so tickled to see the charming photographs
of Bo Obama, or BoBama as we like to call him, the handsome new addition to America’s first family. May he bring them much joy and happiness as they begin their new life as a family of five.

I Have Seen the Bunny, and He Is Me

Unusually large and unnaturally bipedal, they are outsized versions of the storybook characters and cartoon creatures of old, most prevalent in the land of parties and Magic Kingdoms. They count chipmunks and tigers, hound dogs and ducks in their numbers, these anthropomorphic animals adored by children everywhere who entertain no doubt of their living, breathing reality.

Every Spring at Eastertime, one of the more heralded members of this fraternity of fake fur ventures outside the confines of play to the gardens of the everyday world. Perhaps you saw one yourself this weekend, his stitched-on smile never fading as he awkwardly stood in a neighbor’s yard, surrounded by awestruck toddlers anxious for their one special moment with this mysterious annual visitor, this giant rabbit, this Easter Bunny.

I have always been a sucker for the Easter Bunny, and for all of his compadres. Donald Duck, Tigger, Goofy and Pooh Bear - for years I bought the illusion completely, gleefully posing for pictures with these charming fellows whenever the opportunity arose, never thinking, not once considering, the poor suffering wretch hiding inside his suit of stifling polyester. And then, it happened.

One lovely Spring, I helped to plan our neighborhood’s first Easter Egg hunt. Being the sort of person who never likes to ask others to do something I am perfectly capable of doing myself, I decided to play the Bunny. How hard could it be? Rent a furry suit and climb inside. Right? Oh, the naivete.

Tickled with my sartorial choice - for I had chosen a Bunny suit that I found quite fetching, complete with a colourful little vest, bright blue bow tie, and requisite cottontail - I had actually begun to look forward to the event. I mean it is not everyday when one is, without question, destined to be the star of the show. So when the big day arrived I happily bounced out of bed in anticipation.
My confidence began to ebb ever so slightly when I slipped on my rabbit feet. As large as cross country skis, I could see that these newly acquired appendages would make getting around unaided almost impossible. But a touch of real gloom descended when I pulled on my gargantuan rabbit head. Ostensibly, these costumes are meant to fit everyone, but it was quite clear that no one of my exact proportions had been considered during the creation of this particular cranium. If I was ever going to suffer from claustrophobia, this was going to be the day.
Barely able to breath, I could see out the darkly screened eye holes only when I stood as ramrod straight as a palace guard, and achieving this particular posture made my chin jut out at a rather irritating angle. It was at this exact point that I noticed the smell...an overwhelming sweet scent of fabric softener, which made me consider for the first time how many other human heads had been stuffed inside this rabbit skull before my own. And as I am a person who would never dream of renting a pair of bowling shoes because I find the thought of wearing “public” footwear more that a little distasteful, well..... imagining all those previous tenants of my big rabbit head began to make me feel just a wee bit woozy.
But, in for a penny , in for a pound, and besides...my public was waiting, so off to the car I went. I could tell by the none too subtle way The Songwriter was doubled over in laughter that this was destined to be an afternoon I would remember for a long, long while.

I lumbered into the grassy garden filled to bursting with children of all shapes and sizes and I must say that that I played my part to perfection all afternoon. Never saying a word, I shook my basket full of eggs, I hugged giggling toddlers, I bounced babies on my knee, all the while being gazed up at by these happy, shining faces with total adoration. Funnily, it took me hours before I stopped smiling when a camera was pointed my way and now whenever I think of myself grinning like a cat inside my giant rabbit head, I have to laugh. Once I figured it out, the freedom of actually sticking out my tongue or making a monkey face whenever someone said “smile”, was quite delicious.

It was an experience everyone should have at least once in their lifetime, although I am glad to say that other neighbors have been enlisted for this Easter duty in recent years. But as we gain empathy through experience, I am now unfailingly kind to those Disney ducks and Pooh Bears whenever I happen to be in their presence.
For I know that inside that festive attire there lurks a silent sufferer; a hot, nearly blind soul, standing tall, and balancing on feet that are way too big to count for much.


"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.....

From the poem by Dylan Thomas

Painting - Why Seek Ye the Living Among the Dead
by Howard Pyle

A Most Happy Easter to Everyone!!
From Both of Us!

Andalusia

Her writing was oft considered somewhat strange, so it seemed only fitting that I embarked on my birthday pilgrimage to her farm just as a somewhat strange April snow was falling all around me. And I fell with it, back decades in time, to a day when this enigmatic writer lived and wrote in this white wooden farmhouse with its red tin roof and wide screened porch.
She kept a flock of fifty peacocks.
And she died too young.

Whispers of her stories are everywhere here, one can hear them on the very wind that rustles through the towering oak trees above, soft echoes caught in corners of the unchanged rooms - snippets of stories that gently point to all those colourful symbols she once used to paint her shining paragraphs. Her inspirations are still manifest everywhere I look.

Sanctification floats on the quiet waters of the pond at the bottom of the hill, grace flutters through the hundreds of white lilies that line the trail by the meadow, suffering sits with the cold metal crutches that still silently lean against her writing desk, and dark humour glints the eye of a crotchety old mule as he stares down a large, white, rather flabbergasted, dog.

My words would be inadequate to say what it means to
stand at her bedroom door; to see where she worked, where she slept, where she met the day.
I left with that memory and one perfect peacock feather.



Andalusia is the home of American writer, Flannery O'Connor.
She wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories and was the first fiction writer born in the twentieth century to have her works collected and published by the Library of America.
She died of lupus at age thirty-nine.

William and Me

“We have within ourselves
Enough to fill the present day with joy,
And overspread the future years with hope.”

William Wordsworth
born April 7th

I have always been proud to share my birthday with Mr. Wordsworth and have always thought this old postcard to be one of the most delightful illustrations of pure happiness I have ever seen.
Like the pair in the picture, Edward and I are off to have a happy day!

No Lovelier Spot

As usual, his dark eyes were hidden in the mist, but I could still sense him gazing down on me from his place so high above as I made my way along the path to the garden. The tallest of his kind, for years he had kept a benevolent watch on the divinely turreted manor nestled below him. Floating islands of cloud cast giant navy blue shadows on the grass; shadows that moved over the hunter green lawn like ball gowns waltzing in the wind. I followed their dance to the stone gate hidden amid the towering firs. Once behind the garden wall, cabbage leaves and dahlias painted tableaus in deep purple, while sun orange pumpkins sat serenely waiting to be turned into midnight fairytale coaches. The air smelled like holidays. Plump raindrops began to fall at my feet, those slow, wet drops that herald downpours, so I started back. Off in the distance, I could see the old stone tower of the great house, stately and mysterious, standing proudly impassive, with stories to tell but with no intention of doing so. The majestic lady, for whom an entire age was named, once wrote in her diary of this very place declaring, “I never saw a lovelier or more romantic spot”.
I would have been foolish to doubt her.
I pulled my hat brim lower, my pace quickened with the raindrops. I knew, inside that tower, wood fires were burning, my name was remembered and my tea was waiting.


For the first person to correctly guess this location, I shall be happy to send
an Easter Keepsake Box!

(Congratulations to Martha from Lines From Linderhof!!!
She was the first to guess correctly!)

Bits of Simple Paper

With the back of a gloved hand, I wiped away a crescent of fog from the taxi window and gazed up at the enigmatic old building rising solidly before me in the steel coloured sky. The British Museum. Home to more enchantment than the mind could fathom. Paying the driver, I joined the muffled throng ascending the stone steps and soon found myself inside. There, in the glowing cavernous room to my right, within ancient wooden cases with heavy glass tops, lay the wonders I had come to see.

Inside the first, lying there open, was a small notebook containing all the magical words that made up the novel, Jane Eyre, the very words written by Charlotte Bronte herself, in her very own tiny, perfect script. There it was, the book that I had read at the age of thirteen, under the blankets with a flashlight - the book that left me with an abiding thirst for all that literature could offer. I could scarcely breathe as I stared at this original manuscript. Then I noticed, over to the side of the room, a crowd was gathered around another case. Walking over slowly, I could see that inside rested the handwritten, iconic lyrics of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Words that defined a generation; words that had changed the culture. I stood a bit off to the side and watched as people of all nationalities approached these bits of simple paper with near reverence, some of them softly singing the songs to themselves in a melange of exotic accents. Tears stung my eyes as I witnessed the astounding power of the written word. Whether book, poem or lyric, when the very words that have been instrumental in shaping your life and your heart, words that have influenced the way in which you see the world or helped you find your way in it....when the original incarnation of those words is right before your very eyes, well... it is an overwhelming experience.

I think back often to that drizzly afternoon in the British Museum. I have never lost the awestruck feeling of gazing down at those wondrous written treasures. And these days, I have to confess, I fear for the written word. There does not seem to be a day that passes without reports of another newspaper switching over to online availability only, while I myself find it utterly impossible to imagine a morning without a pot of hot coffee and the Times spread out on the kitchen table. Now, I am no Luddite. I use technology almost as much as anyone, with the possible exception of a teenager. I find email a valuable tool for handling business and for staying in contact with people one might otherwise lose track of, and I am writing these words on a blog, for goodness sake. But I do wonder what sort of legacy is being left and what sort of environment is being fashioned when so much of what is written and read exists only in the digital realm.

When I look into the eyes of Vincent Van Gogh as they stare out at me from one of his many haunting self-portraits, the experience is infinitely more powerful because I have read the moving letters that exist between the artist and his beloved brother, Theo. Indeed, the letters of E.B. White or C.S. Lewis, Virginia Woolf or Beatrix Potter are so inspiring, so enlightening, it grieves me to think of the scarcity of such correspondence in the current age. The love letters I have tied up with a velvet ribbon in the box under my bed? Somehow I cannot imagine retaining the same sweet fondness for a folder full of emails. And it seems, with the current text and tweet phenomenon, the infinite glory of the English language is constantly being whittled to an ever more insignificant series of nonsensical acronyms, dashes and dots.

I realize I am perilously close to the edge of a rant and I hasten to say that I am fresh out of answers. Perhaps the ship has sailed. But I for one shall go down swinging. And who knows, maybe one day I myself shall be in a museum, sitting upright in a mahogany display case with a hat on my head.

No doubt my label shall declare me to be ...
The Last Surviving Letter Writing, Newspaper Subscribing, Hardback Reading,
Old Crank on the Planet!

Painting: Self-Portrait With Straw Hat, 1887 by Vincent van Gogh

Wide Open Windows

Too cool to be hot, to warm to be cold, it was a day for which Spring is justly famous. A day for Aaron Copland’s celebratory composition of the season, and we listened to his melodic photograph at full volume, with windchimes and honeybees keeping rhythm by the wide open windows. The curtains blew in, welcoming the sweet fragrance of Carolina Jessamine as it shyly crept inside our winter weary rooms, drifting past the big white dog dozing on a dark wood floor and wafting out to the back garden where a New Dawn rose was just beginning to remember how to bloom. It was a day when the bluebirds were out in perfectly matched pairs, shopping for new houses as seriously as any newlywed couple with a down payment from Daddy. A day when a gamboling March wind sprinkled showers of bridal white blossoms onto our pathway as we strolled to a park of rolling hills newly covered in daffodils. A day to look to the trees above, now engaged in their yearly celebration of verdant individuality as they busily don wardrobes worthy of Oz... chartreuse and lime, kelly and citrine...so many colours of green. A day for taking deep, deep breaths of gratitude, for the cloudless sky high above our heads, the warmth of the Spring sun on our shoulders, the soft, fresh carpet beneath our feet.
Too early to plant, to late to harvest, this was a day made only to enjoy.
And, oh how we did.








Special note:... Edward would like to announce that he has been assisting in the creation of lots and lots of Easter Keepsake boxes over the past week. Most are already spoken for, but a few have been placed in our etsy shoppe!

Vintage Bunny Box sold!

Unawares

With a black fedora cocked to one side of his head and a plaid scarf knotted round his neck, he sat by the side of the road, playing a trumpet. Years of laughter were crosshatched round his closed eyes and his espresso hands held the glowing gold trumpet with the easy familiarity of one who had long ago mastered his art. No pedestrians on this stretch of road, no coins to be thrown his way, he played full out for no one but himself. Red changed to green and I drove away, but the sight of him wove ribbons of wonder through my thoughts all afternoon, tying up a memory of this favourite poem.

Angels

Who are without mercy,
Who confide in trumpet flowers,
Who carry loose change in their pockets,
Who dress in black velvet,
Who wince and fidget like bats,
Who balance their haloes on hatracks,
Who watch reruns of famine,
Who powder their noses with pollen,
Who laugh and unleash earthquakes,
Who sidle in and out of our dreams
Like magicians, like childhood friends,
Who practice their smiles like pirates,
Who exercise by walking to Zion,
Who live on the edge of doubt,
Who cause vertigo but ease migraines,
Who weep milky tears when troubled,
Whose night sweats engender the plague,
Who pinion their arms to chandeliers,
Who speak in riddles and slant rhymes,
Who love the weak and foolhardy,
Who lust for unripe persimmons,
Who scavenge the fields for lost souls,
Who hover near lighthouses,
Who pray at railroad crossings,
Who supervise the study of rainbows,
Who cannot blush but try,
Who curl their hair with corkscrews,
Who honeymoon with Orion,
Who are not wise but pure,
Who behave with impious propriety,
Who hourly scour our faces with hope,
Whose own faces glow like radium,
Whom we've created in our own form,
Who are without mercy, seek and yearn
To return us like fossilized roses
To the wholeness of our original bloom.
by Maurya Simon

A Pink Hydrangea

There are fifty-two hydrangeas that surround our cottage. They are a delightful source of beauty during the spring and summer months when they are in full blue, pink, or white bloom, and in the autumn when their flowers turn an amazing shade of green, they are perfect for creating ravishing wreaths and arrangements that last the long winter through. With fifty-two of these gracious ladies around me, I rarely feel the need to purchase fresh flowers once they decide to commence their seasonal show. However, there used to be fifty-three of them.

Our very first hydrangea was planted by my father. It was a vivid pink mophead and he placed it directly beside the front stairs. Being a methodical perfectionist with his own unique set of ideas and techniques, the planting process took a bit of a while. Peat moss was brought in, along with cottonseed meal, the hole was dug and re-dug to a specific depth, fertilizer was added, lime was sprinkled into the mix, mulch carefully placed round the plant like a stole. Wiping his hands on his trousers when finally done, he declared it to be planted “just perfect”. His efforts were amply rewarded as that pink hydrangea continued to thrive year after year, growing ever larger each season, its dinner plate size blooms drooping low over the front porch stairs and shining a fuschia light in the summer sun. Indeed, its beauty was so seductive, it enticed us to continue planting hydrangeas in the garden each and every spring until every spot was taken and we were known as the Hydrangea House.

Daddy passed away a year and a half ago and, in a tale worthy of the fairies, his pink hydrangea, our very first one, the one standing strong and tall for so many years, left with him. I thought last season it might have just been damaged a bit by a early spring frost, but this year it is clear that the lovely old lady is no more. As I plant a new pink one in the same place this year, I shall think of Daddy in his heavenly home, his resplendent garden adorned with a familiar, ever-blooming, pink hydrangea by the front door.
I know it will have been planted just perfect.

The Best of Friends

It was an wayward baseball, launched, no doubt, from the bat of a too-eager Little Leaguer, up high over the fence and out into the wild world where it rolled and it rolled till it came to a stop on a bed of lenten roses in the garden of an elderly neighbor. And there it lay, unnoticed and undisturbed, till the sunny afternoon last week when Edward came by, nonchalantly prancing along in the midst of his lunchtime walk. Pulling up short, he sniffed the air, looked down to his left, and spied the ball. An unexpected treasure ... the very best kind! Gingerly, he picked it up and carried it with him, all the way back to his own drive, up the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door, with Apple on his heels. What a treat! What a find! The two friends could not wait to see what this round leather thing could do!

Edward rolled it to Apple, she rolled it back. He batted it with his polar bear paws across the lawn in true Beckham fashion. She impishly stole it and ran teasingly over the stone wall and through the hydrangea border. He bent low by the climbing rose, patiently waiting to pounce when she emerged from the other side of the birdbath. And pounce he did, igniting a rolling, tumbling festival that continued all over the garden till they both became so tickled with themselves there was nothing left but to run full out, cutting figure eights all through the trees. When they couldn’t run a minute more, they flopped, out of breath and grinning as only the best of friends can grin on a sunny day after playing with a baseball for the very first time. I watched them from the window, laughing, and wondered what dogless people do in the middle of the afternoon for entertainment.

Painting above: Best of Friends by Abel Hold


Best of Friends in the Flesh

Wild Life

Today marks the end of National Wildlife Week. Therefore, I thought it timely to relate a rather heart-stopping wildlife adventure Edward escorted me on last Spring.

It was a year ago this month, a perfectly ordinary evening at the end of a perfectly ordinary week. The Songwriter had just returned from out of town and was in the process of bringing in his bags. I was preparing dinner and had opened the back door for Edward and Apple to go outside for a run in the garden whilst the Songwriter unloaded the car. The dogs ran out but, per usual, immediately ran back in so as not to miss out on any homecoming activities of potential grand interest. Both sat down just behind me as I stood chopping carrots at the kitchen counter, the three of us forming a classic contented picture of quiet domesticity.

All of a sudden our quiet was shattered as I heard the Songwriter scream out in piercing notes of a most unnatural pitch. I wheeled around to see Edward, sitting calmly at my feet, holding on to an extremely large opossum, its horrid, hairless tail reaching almost to the floor. I asked no question, I made no sound. I simply threw carrots into the air and ran like a girl for the door. Edward, of course, sensed a game was afoot and had no intention of being left out of the fun. He followed me full stop, but not before setting down his magnificent prize in the middle of the kitchen floor. Apple retreated fast on Edward’s heels, leaving the Songwriter all alone, holding his bags and staring down in horror at the full grown opossum lying supine at his feet.

Now the wonderful thing about a possum is that he is genetically programmed to play dead whenever he is in a precarious situation, and that was just what our dreadful little friend was doing now - on his side like a corpse in my kitchen. As I paced the back garden chanting ohnoohnoohno like a mantra with Edward following my every step as if to ask, what? what? what?.... man and beast were left together in paralyzed silence for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly, the door flew open and I saw the Songwriter sprinting for the back of the garden. In the darkness, I couldn’t see what he was doing and wondered briefly if he had jumped the fence and was making for the airport on foot. But no, soon he came running back, muttering unintelligibly, with a shovel in one hand and a bucket in the other. His unknown, and hastily crafted, plan did not bear thinking about.

Upon his return to the kitchen he could see that our creepy wee visitor, realizing that his clever genetic coping mechanism had once again rescued him from certain disaster, was now sitting bolt upright, comfortably surveying his new circumstance. Fortunately, one nudge with the aforementioned shovel, and he flopped over “dead” once more which rendered him, most mercifully for all concerned, quite easy to maneuver into the bucket and out to the car where, luckily for him, he was taken on a short drive and eventually set free in a densely wooded park where, no doubt, he lives happily to this very day.

Given the unrealistic calm they both exhibited during this harrowing encounter, I do believe neither Edward nor Apple realized exactly what they had. Edward has several large stuffed toys that he frequently carries around, the same size and roughly the same colour as our hairy little houseguest. I truly think he simply walked out onto the porch in the dark, and picked up the opossum who was lying limp in the overwhelming presence of a large dog, and carried him inside as one of his stuffed toys.

Needless to say, it was a wildlife encounter none of us shall ever forget and one I fervently hope will never occur again.

Painting above: Noah's Ark by Francis Hamel


Note: It seems as if the opossum has neglected to travel to other parts of the globe and therefore some of you are unaware of exactly what he looks like. I thought this photo might be of help.

Some Of My Favourite Things This Week Before Spring

The scent of white lilies in vases all over the house
Planting Candytuft and Rosemary bushes

The Songwriter’s new CD......so proud!


The taste of Organic Strawberries, perfectly, sweetly, in season
Shepherd’s Pie on a rainy Saturday night
The pink and white striped cotton shirt I stole from the Songwriter
Mario Badescu products, just the best stuff ever
Fleet Foxes singing White Winter Hymnal
Reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
Watching Driving Lessons - wonderful, quirky film with Julie Walters and Rupert Grint

This cake stand by William Yeoward...


The colour of Edward’s fur and the hat I knitted to match it
The scent of my hands after planting rosemary bushes
Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea by Stash

This gorgeous new silk from Designers Guild....


This outfit....


This verse:

"For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise my love, my fair one,
and come away."

The Song of Solomon, 2:11-13


...And I have a late addition to my list of early Spring favourites....
just today I received some lovely notecards from Karen, the charming artist at
Moonlight and Hares! Do pop over and see her beautiful work!! Thank you, Karen!

Two Emerald Celebrations

The Isle Of Innisfree

I’ve met some folks who say that I’m a dreamer
And I’ve no doubt there’s truth in what they say
But sure a body’s bound to be a dreamer
When all the things he loves are far away.
And precious things are dreams onto an exile
They take him o’er the land across the sea
Especially when it happens he’s an exile
From that dear lovely Isle of Innisfree.

And when the moonlight peeps across the rooftops
Of this great city wondrous tho’ it be
I scarcely feel its wonder or its laughter
I’m once again back home in Innisfree.

I wander o’er green hills thro’ dreamy valleys
And find a peace no other land could know
I hear the birds make music fit for angels
And watch the rivers laughing as they flow.
And then into a humble shack I wander
My dear old home, and tenderly behold
The folks I love around the turf fire gathered
On bended knees their rosary is told.

But dreams don’t last
Tho’ dreams are not forgotten
And soon I’m back to stern reality
But tho’ they paved the footways here with gold dust
I still would choose the Isle of Innisfree.

by Richard Farrelly



and.... Happy Birthday, PVE!

Not only is this emerald green day a celebration for the Irish, but it is also the birthday of the delightful Patricia van Essche of PVE Design. A wonderful painter and illustrator, Patricia is also a kind and generous soul who has surprised many a fortunate blogger with art done specifically with them in mind. I was never so tickled as the morning I awoke to find this lovely portrait of Edward up on her blog. And then, she actually sent it to me! It now presides proudly over my library and is a true treasure to us all. On this St. Patrick’s Day, do join Edward and me as we travel over to PVE Design and wish lovely Patricia a most Happy Birthday!!

Pure Fiction

It may sound contradictory, but I find such truth in fiction. In noting last week’s passing of one of America’s most truthful dramatists, Horton Foote, NY Times columnist Frank Rich compared his work to that of Faulkner “in its ability to make his own corner of America stand for the whole.” So true. Mr. Foote called out characters from the cloud of witnesses that populated his life, shone a golden light on them and rendered them wholly recognizable to human beings everywhere.

That is the enormous challenge as well as the invaluable gift of fiction, to illuminate the human condition in such a way as to give the reader a glimpse into his or her own soul. When successful, such fiction can plant the seed of wisdom, it can provide a visceral recognition of oneself in the feelings and experiences of others, a holy realization that we are all the same, we are all valuable, we are all human.

One can read reams about the Gilded Age in history books, but the words of Edith Wharton can take one’s hand and lead the way right inside it. Read The Age Of Innocence or The House of Mirth and see what I mean. Or dig beneath the surface of Flannery O’Connor’s outrageous stories to find the grace cleverly hidden within. Feast at the banquet of glorious words concocted by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway; words that resonate in the deepest parts of the soul, providing vital nourishment to those who did not even realize they were hungry. Or perhaps, try an amazingly lucid book I’ve just recently finished, Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout. Creative in its very form, it is a series of stories that consider the quiet existence of a few people in a coastal Maine village as the prickly character of Olive moves through their individual lives, sometimes directly, often on the periphery. I found it both compassionate and wise, a remarkable two way mirror allowing insight into the lives of others and into myself as well.

By the way, the late Horton Foote also penned the screenplay for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. And really, I have always felt that pretty much everything worth knowing can be found between the covers of that wondrous book.

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Five Needles at Once

On a warm evening a few summers ago, the Songwriter and I stood talking outside our favourite Mexican restaurant whilst we waited for our table. My eyes kept wandering over to young girl seated nearby who happened to be knitting. With five needles at once. Now, I am no stranger to needlework - my needlepoint pillows adorn our upholstery and we sleep every night under quilts handmade by yours truly - but this seemed the most outrageously medieval activity I had ever witnessed at close range. Standing there, I progressed from furtive glances to outright stares, but could make no sense out of what she was doing. And once again, I kicked myself for never really learning to knit, and once again, I resolved afresh to learn.
Well, as I reported a few postings ago, after some expert teaching I have discovered that knitting with five needles is neither outrageous nor medieval. In fact... it’s downright fun. I have now conquered hats and cabled scarves and these days my head is often swimming with rainbows of cashmere, mohair, merino, cotton and silk, all for creations yet to be.
I can highly recommend learning something new.

As the photo shows, Edward agreed to model one of my first creations. He seems to like this particular chapeau quite a lot, but has just a bit of difficulty keeping it on!

To Pay Attention

“That big dog looks so happy”, the man called out over his shoulder as he cycled past and out of sight. Edward paid him no mind as he continued his jaunty pace through the trees.
The winding forest pathway, snowcovered only days before, was now lined with the chartreuse velvet of new moss, transformed as a greystone bridge over leprechaun seas that flowed all the way to the clearing. Edward stopped to listen. The old forest fairly crackled with the expectation of Spring. How long now? Days? Minutes?

The March sun, happily unhindered by cloud, took full afternoon dominion and draped sheets of tinsel across the lake; such shimmering silver, it hurt the eyes. Edward flopped down to rest on a grass carpet which still remained reluctant to remove its winter coat of gold, not yet ready to unveil the lemon emerald dress of Spring. Ancient windchimes performed nonchalant overhead tunes and a clumsy bumblebee tested out his new Spring wings for the very first time. The big dog dozed while the wind gently played with his fur.

To pay attention at the arrival of a new season. To spend a quiet extra hour in the perfection that is Nature. These are the halcyon moments.
That big dog was indeed happy.

"One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in."
Henry David Thoreau

A Birthday Memory

I had come to Britain some years back to observe the occasion of my fortieth birthday with the half hearted hope that by not being in the actual country of my birth on the actual date, perhaps it wouldn’t really count, or even, by some magical quirk in the time- space continuum, the numbers attributed to my age account might happily begin to reverse. I was not exactly certain what I was supposed to be feeling. It seemed as though this particular age I was facing was meant to serve as a milestone of sorts, especially for a woman. After all, there were specialized magazines for “women over forty”, women in the public eye seemed to have careers divided into before - and after - forty, and it seemed as though everything from fashion to health care moved into separate categories at this advanced age, categories heretofore uncharted and not exactly welcoming. Was I supposed to feel differently now? Was a cultural shroud being fashioned for me at this very moment; my very own cloak of invisibility that was the requisite uniform for antediluvian women like myself? I had never before defined myself by any sort of category. Would I be forced to now?

I sat in a cafe in Bath pondering all this one damp and chilly afternoon, when the door suddenly blew open and I turned to see a quite beautiful lady of a certain age enter. She was an exquisite creature, clad in an exotic ensemble of black and grey, complete with a most fetching hat worn over enviable blonde hair, and followed closely by a tweedy gentleman, obviously younger, and obviously besotted. She arranged herself at the table next to mine thereby providing me with a observation point that I took full advantage of. Indeed it was difficult to take my eyes off her. Laughing frequently, with twinkling eyes, she seemed both enormously interesting and interested at the same time. I wanted nothing more than to scoot my chair up to her table and l talk to her all afternoon. I wanted to follow her home. As I watched her I realized, that although obviously older than myself, I could not begin to pinpoint her exact age, nor was that even remotely of interest where this woman was concerned.

And, as I sat there sipping Darjeeling and studying her, I began to feel like myself again, realizing afresh that age is of no matter in the true world. Life was a gift, pure and simple; a sublime journey of learning, giving and love, and it was meant to be lived, full tilt, for as long we are blessed to be here. In short, I got over myself, and went on to enjoy quite a jolly holiday.

I have often wondered who that lady was and where she might be now. She gave me quite a marvelous birthday present that day.
I can still hear her laughter.

Foretelling

I heard the owl at midnight. Not the fairy trill of the Screech, but the oracular notes of the Great Horned that frequently spends his evenings in the invisible branches of the nighttime trees. He often calls to us of other worlds; his low, mysterious voice imparting wisdom we mere humans cannot yet comprehend. But in the morning, upon looking out the window at breakfast time, I understood the message he had perhaps been foretelling. For there outside, falling slowly from the skies like heavenly cotton... Snow. For the first time this year. Each delicious flake drifting down so casually, one’s eye could pick one out and follow it all the long way from grey sky to brown earth, never losing it in the crowd of its ivory brethren. Within an hour our world was iced like a birthday cake by the wizardry of a snowfall and our little cottage now sat squarely on the pages of a storybook. Winter laughed at Spring as we pulled on newly knitted hats and scarves and rushed out to play our parts in this pageantry of snow.

For after all, no one enjoys snow more than Apple!

The True Herald of Spring

He was the legendary harbinger of Springtime. everything a Robin should be, sitting fat and cocky atop my back garden gate, fully aware of his beauty as he turned his perfect head this way and that as if to give God Himself the opportunity to appreciate him in his best light. Impressive, yes.... a handsome creature to be sure, but alas, he could tell me nothing.

I look up, up and notice how the ancient oaks and poplars now appear pale-green, dandelion-fuzzy in the penthouse levels of their skyscraper dizziness. I have seen the smiling saffron faces of the daffodils as they wave to me each morning when I tie back the lace curtains over the windowseat. I have even spied a bunny in the moonlight. But delightful as they are, and try as they might, they have no real news to give.

The Arthur Rackham calendar on my office wall quite confidently declares that Spring will arrive during the month that begins tomorrow, but it is laughable to believe it. For the seasons pay no heed to the calendars of men; give no credence to his schedules or his expectations. They run a celestial relay all their own, handing over armloads of lovely hours to their successors when they alone decide the time is right. It is pure folly to think it will be on the same day each year.

One must watch carefully, must always pay attention, for the true herald of Spring is found in neither flora nor fauna but rather in a certain ephemeral, almost invisible, quality of light. It can appear on the coldest hour of a March afternoon, or as late as an April dawn, but if one is watching closely, one will see. The sharpness of the clean winter light will have melted round the edges, become more watery somehow, more suitable for the quiet illumination of a rose. Then and only then will Spring be here.

I once returned in April from a ten day trip out of the country. As I sat down my bags and walked into the kitchen, I could see it clearly. The light had changed. It was a languid light now that floated through the house like an etude, no longer the crisp light of Winter that had pierced my windowpanes just the week before. Spring had arrived and I had missed it. I resolved to never let that happen again.
So, I am watching.
Are you?

A Light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That silence cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

Painting: Spring, 1913
by Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson

New Inventions

Over the past week I have received three emails from friends who have just lost their jobs. Serious jobs, too, jobs that seemed secure. Being self-employed, I suppose I cannot really lose my job - I sort of am my job. But when those who once hired me are now contacting me for leads themselves, I know something troublesome is afoot. While I am truly encouraged to see the way our new president has grasped hold of the reins of this runaway coach, I know it will take a while to pull it up to a comfortable pace for all the rattled passengers inside. Indeed, even when this downhill ride has reached level ground, the economic landscape seen outside the windows might look a bit unfamiliar to us all.

All this has led me to think about reinvention. I was speaking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, a woman full of optimism and industry who thinks this is the perfect time to start a new career, to take a chance on an idea that might have been simmering on the back burner of one’s mind for ages. Her enthusiasm was infectious. It made me think anew of the old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Perhaps, for some of us, this financially fitful time represents the impetus we have waited for. Too many people of my acquaintance work away everyday at jobs they truly despise. They look wistfully at the Songwriter and myself and say if only they could get up every morning and love what they do. Of course, we hasten to tell them that self-employment is quite often far from a bed of roses, but they are difficult to convince. Perhaps this current situation, though worrisome and rocky, may serve as a bit of a reshuffling of ideas and goals, of priorities and dreams. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are people like my friend, who will see this time as the fabled fork in the road they have longed for, a magic moment to reinvent their lives, to create a new venture, to realize a long held dream.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted,
does not consist of creating out of void, but out of chaos”
Mary Shelley

The Alchemist

Watching the Academy Awards is a tradition for me. Popcorn, comfy pajamas, fire in the fireplace....all the necessary accoutrements for a long and entertaining evening. I usually make an attempt to catch most of the nominated films, but this year I fell woefully behind and shall try to catch up over the next couple of weeks. One I did see, however, and found to be amazing, was Doubt. Engrossing, with blistering authenticity and truth, it contained four peerless performances. Of course, I am unabashedly a fan of Meryl Streep.

I well remember being in Paris in 1981, walking down the street past a newsstand and seeing her on the cover of Time magazine. It was a winsome photograph, but I don’t know why it stands out in my memory. Funny, but I can still see the sunlight that dappled the road that day. I have followed her through the years from a farm in Africa, to a hilly seaside town in Greece, from Auschwitz to Oklahoma, Lyme Regis to Madison County, from a courtroom in Australia to an editor’s desk in New York City. She possesses the ability to create another person so completely one would expect even her fingerprints to have changed in the process. She brings people to life in such a transcendent fashion as to give one a real glimpse into the inner workings of other minds, other souls. In doing so, she enables us to understand our collective humanity just a wee bit better.
How does that happen? I am grateful for the mystery. I don’t want to know the secret to how it’s done. I am just grateful Meryl Streep does it.

Pure Magic

I sat in traffic on a rainy day, absorbed in browsing through my treasured album of mental pictures, searching wistfully for a fair and carefree place, a moment in time or imagination to pluck from my memory and disappear inside, far away from the gloom of the unfolding afternoon. Lost in thought and miles away, I slowly turned to my left and... I saw him. Standing alone in the middle of the asphalt ocean of a bleakly empty car park, like a perfect pearl pendant on a cashmere grey sweater. A Seagull. Hundreds of miles from the sea. As astonishing a sight as a kelpie in the supermarket or a unicorn on Main Street. He calmly held my gaze for a moment or two before stretching out his grey white wings, lifting up in the air and flying away through the mist. I watched him go in open-mouthed amazement. No one else seemed to notice and I wondered for a moment if indeed, only I had seen him, if he had popped through some enchanted portal as a feathered epistle, a reminder to me alone. If so, I am grateful he took the time. For the sight of him was a lovely gesture and served as an admonishment to me to always remember the pure magic that is in floating about in the world for those with eyes to see, that even though a dismal rain may be falling all around, somewhere a warm wind is blowing and sea gulls are calling out to each other over glittering blue- green waters.
How could I have allowed the gloom of the day to overtake me?

A Favourite Chair

This photo is on my desk at all times, within an easy gaze of my eye. To me it is a therapeutic talisman. When I am on the phone, or with my head bent over a particularly exacting piece of work, it is such the welcome distraction and certain antidote to any stressful emotion I could possibly conjure forth. I simply stop, put down my work, and stare. Slowly, softly, I begin to remember the smell of the moist, salty air rising up the hill from the sea, on the wind I hear the bleating of the ewes just past the fence and I sit down for a moment in that little chair, tilt back my head and let the sun shine its golden light onto my face while that remarkable wind blows every care I could ever have far, far away. If I have the time, I just might venture inside. Oh, I know the magical interior of this modest stone building isn’t visible in the photograph, but it is there in technicolour in my memory. Like walking inside a fluffy kaleidoscope, I see the wooden shelves, floor to ceiling, stuffed with rainbows and colour wheels of hand-dyed yarns. The sheep outside have a distinct right to sing out loudly, for it is their own wool that helps to supply this wonderland, wool whose colours are dyed from the flowers and herbs that grow along the old wooden fence. I have knitted a scarf or two from these fabulous yarns, but this past autumn I decided to add a few more arrows to my quiver and enrolled in a couple of serious, no fooling around knitting classes. Two of them. It had been one of those annual resolutions that never seemed to get done, until this year, and what a grand time I’ve been having. Who knew knitting was so much fun? I now find myself looking forward to evenings spent by the fire with needles ablaze. So the next time I walk through this magic little door I will be ready for much grander things.
And believe me, I cannot wait for the next time.

Shilasdair
Waternish, Isle of Skye

On A Night Last Week

Was I really supposed to sleep? With a moon like that one dangling up in the sky above my window? A moon that sang out to me in a silver aria from behind a wispy veil of winter cloud that draped across its face like the tissue-thin lampshade of a glowing Chinese lantern. This moon lantern that radiated a cool light, that illuminated every surface of my room as if midday in a ghostly story of old. Was I really supposed to pull the covers up under my chin, fold my hands, close my eyes? Not to get up and sit in the window seat to watch? If so, I should have missed seeing the shadows dance a graceful ballet around the poplar trees. Missed hearing the mockingbird as he eerily sang half a stanza of his favourite tune before realizing he’d been fooled by this trickster of a moon into believing the dawn had come early. I would not have noticed the cavernous quiet that dwelt underneath this abalone moon, an absence of sound found only deep inside the dead of a moonlit night. Oh no, I had to be a witness to this moon this night. Had to sit enraptured beneath his gaze and confide a few tiny secrets to him alone, and eventually to drift away to sleep, grateful he was keeping watch.

In all of spangled space, but I
To stare moon-struck into the sky;
Of billion beings I alone
To praise the Moon as still as stone.

And seal a bond between us two,
Closer than mortal ever knew;
For as mute masses I intone
The Moon is mine and mine alone.

From the poem Moon-Lover by Robert Service

"Love.....
If you have it, you don't need to have anything else.
And if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have."
J.M. Barrie

"Ain't it the truth!"
Edward


Happy Valentine's Day to All!!

Designing Thoughts

I have an unabashed love of exuberant rooms; those creative and colourful interiors that speak such engrossing volumes about the individuals who live within them. To me, there is nothing more enticing than a home filled to pop with books, collections, patterns, textures, antiques, paintings, flowers and dogs... rooms artfully arranged - a bit dramatic, and eminently comfortable. The English Country House style, although admittedly fictionalized a bit, has always made my heart sing and it is a style certainly reflected in my own home. This of course does not mean that I cannot appreciate other avenues and other approaches to design. Indeed, one of the more enjoyable challenges of my profession are the projects that require a jump or two outside my personal taste and total immersion in another. I have created many varied interiors for my clients, from all white romantic country to sleek sophisticated urban, but no one could ever call me a minimalist. The straight lines and stark colours of the minimalist style leave me a bit chilled. It appears I have a kindred spirit in the British furniture designer, Mark Wilkinson. Known best for his gorgeous kitchens, Mr. Wilkinson has a rollicking interview in the latest issue of The English Home; an interview that left me nodding and chuckling a bit. Here is his quote on the reason why he is not a fan of minimalism. While I would not express myself quite as stridently as he on the subject - especially in that first sentence - I do think he has a wonderful philosophy on the importance of interior design as the vital art form that I feel it is.

“...Minimalism is a kind of emotional bankruptcy...a refuge for those who do not understand the grammar of ornamentation or the symbolism of colour. I can see and make an argument for design being the most profound and enlightening of art forms. A play or piece of literature by Shakespeare is very effective, a painting by Monet or Van Gogh especially is shudderingly expressive, a piece of music by Rachmaninoff, by Elgar, by John Lee Hooker, whomever, can be very effective, but you don’t live with the piece of music playing in your ear. The voice of design is softer. It doesn’t have the same volume of other artistic mediums but it is all-powerful and all-persuasive by virtue of the fact that it is there subliminally all the time that your eyes are open. If we put people in surroundings of wonder, they express that sense of wonder, of beauty, of joy and that’s what you should be doing with design. Why create an environment that says, “I’m not here to look nice cluttered.” I want to walk into an environment that says, “hello mate, been working hard all day? Take off your shoes, that’s ok...”

The photo above is of the famed Yellow Room of Nancy Lancaster and is often referenced as the definitive example of English Country House Style.

A Warm Day

It was a gift unexpected, but a gift to be sure. It arrived on our doorstep unwrapped but so welcome that, to our eyes, it appeared swathed in a gossamer silk, festooned with a garland of pearl. After the four coldest days of the winter, a tiny, sweet gift of Spring. Adorned with a cloudless azure sky , it was warm and still - a hint, a mere glimmer, of May. No matter our plans for the day, it was a gift we could not wait to open, for who knew when it would come again? We threw down the usual and made for the trees, where we spent the afternoon roaming though forests and meadows still deep in their winter sleep, still robed in cloaks of muted grey, for they were wise enough to know this gift was only meant for one day. The winter air which had only yesterday slapped our cheeks with icy fingers, now floated placidly round us as we walked, too tame to trouble even the tiniest leaf left on the tiniest tree. There were no flowers, no green, no fragrance of Spring, and the light that sliced through the bare oaks all around us still bore the sharp slant of a February sun. No matter. For just when we had begun to think that Mother Nature had abandoned colour and warmth for good, she bestowed a gift of a few warm winter hours to let us know that, no, she has not forgotten Spring. Her gift was but a sweet reminder that no matter how frozen the world around us might appear, warm days will soon arrive. So, we ran and we ran, and Edward was difficult to hold back as he tugged at his lead in excitement and pulled me along through the fair afternoon.
It was a delightful gift, and how happy were we to open it.

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing robin, sing:
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

Christina Rossetti

Crystal Clear Memories

A client once told me that I had “a photogenic memory”. This declaration was made funnier by the fact that she was totally unaware of her slip of the tongue. I do possess, I suppose, I bit of a photographic memory, which makes me a bit wary of the things I choose to watch or read. For instance, gossipy television shows can be a nightmare. Who wants to remember the hangdog hearthrob some obscure starlet was pining over months, even years, after the fact? Old bank account numbers, old phone numbers, long discontinued fabric patterns and paint colours... these are rooted in my head like English Ivy, despite my fervent wish that they vacate to make room for higher cogitation. But memory is one thing impossible for me to harness with any degree of success. Indeed, I often ponder the crystal clear memories I have of places that do not exist at all. Let me explain.

For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of a much longed for holiday is found in the anticipation before the fact. Given my ardent love of houses, where we choose to stay is a seriously vital part of any trip we plan. The time I spend reading and considering the history, the location and decor, of a particular country house or inn is incredibly fun. When I finally light on my choice, and make my reservation, I can “see” the place in my head... down to the last detail of the bouillon fringe on a curtain pelmet or the muted pattern in an inherited Aubusson. I can follow the path of the early morning light as it falls through the diamond patterned windows in my bedroom, see the delicate blush on the loosely arranged garden roses in the blue majolica vase atop the piecrust table - I can hear the tune the wind plays as it breezes through the ancient elms that line the winding drive. The only thing is... these enchanted places do not exist. They are figments, technicolour and photographically detailed to be sure, but pure imaginings created in the paisley patterned maze of my own mind.

Happily, when the anticipation is over and the date of my departure finally rolls around, I arrive at these longed for destinations to find that their realities rarely pale in comparison to my dreamed up versions. I am always quite happy with what I find existing here in the real world. But, funnily enough, my conjured rooms and hallways, my imagined gardens and green-tinged aspects, still remain; vividly so. I can call them to mind at will, even now, like the faces of old friends. This causes me to wonder if, someday, on some other side of a veil, I might, just perhaps, visit one of these places. Perchance, I may one day stroll over a pink-hued hill and gaze down upon a familiar view. It is possible that I may enter through an oft-seen stone archway, climb a well-remembered stair and follow a known hallway into a room I call my very own. And I just might stay awhile. Who knows?

“I shut my eyes in order to see.”
Paul Gauguin

King Winter

From the coldest caverns and the bleakest hills he has summoned them. They have journeyed from the twelfth month through the first and finally they are all assembled, ready to do his bidding. At the King’s midnight signal, they shall advance unchallenged across the landscape, warriors older than time, shouldering weapons tried and true; weapons that never fail to hit their mark. Ice and snow and freezing rain, with artillery fashioned to make moods fall as low as temperatures, trailing melancholy and lethargy in their wake. Knowing this to be his last stand, King Winter enters into no mere frigid skirmish. Oh no, this is his February; this is his war. We know it is useless to fight, for we have lived through this before. So, snug in our wool and our fleece, we hunker down, with our beaks under our wings, and we wait. Well supplied, secure in our hope and our imagination, we know we can hold out for the twenty eight day siege, even longer if need be. For soon, we remember too well to doubt, the cavalry shall come. Little green troops of Spring shall awaken - a bit here, a bit there - until whole verdant armies appear on the hillsides and swarm through the valleys, warming and lightening both our spirits and our skies, and driving King Winter into exile once more.
Oh yes, we can wait. We are ready.

Outside

King Winter sat in his Hall one day,
And he said to himself, said he,
“I must admit I’ve had some fun,
I’ve chilled the Earth and cooled the Sun,
And not a flower or tree
But wishes that my reign were done,
And as long as Time and Tide shall run,
I’ll go on making everyone
As cold as cold can be.”

There came a knock at the outer door:
“Who’s there?” King Winter cried;
“Open your Palace Gate,” said Spring
“For you can reign no more as King,
Nor longer here abide;
This message from the Sun I bring,
‘The trees are green, the birds do sing;
The hills with joy are echoing’:
So pray, Sir - step outside!”

Hugh Chesterman
19th Century

Painting by NC Wyeth

Midwinter Fog

We awoke to a veiled world, a world transformed by the silvery cloak of a midwinter fog that had wrapped itself around us in the silence of the dawn. Almost theatrical, as if handknit for sheer effect, it seemed but an ingenious set design crafted to hide life’s more ephemeral players; those rarely seen in sunlight, but much too timid for the dark. Pointillistic halos encircled the streetlamps, creating unblinking golden eyes that stared out in straightlined, ironbacked attention all the way up the slate grey hill. The old trees, with their bare black bones so completely enshrouded, found they had no more need of the children, but could now play hide and seek with one another instead, counting to one hundred in arcane, deep-voiced words of their own. Through the magic gauze of the morning, the big white dog moved about the garden like a Dickensian spectre, casting no shadow, making no sound, as he made his way through the mist, up the stairs and back inside the cozy house to his fat, paisley covered bed where, he was quite certain, mysterious mornings such as these were best spent.
And there he would wait for the sun to return.

Our Anniversary

Outside it was dead of winter, all grey blues, shadow, and chill. But past glowing windows that twinkled with whispered sonnets to the light of Arthurian candles - snow white, ruby red, and roses. So many roses. It was a beginning, a golden circle of serenity, certainty, grace, laughter. A moment in time that continues even today, to warm, to cheer - to shower more roses, even more, through winter shadows, with every passing year until all we know is beauty.
It was a winter wedding. And today we celebrate.


My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

by Christina Rosetti

Milo

Edward has a deal with the Blue Jays. I cannot say when it was struck, nor how, but I am certain it exists. It seems the Blue Jays are forever on the lookout for Milo, the neighborhood cat - a cat in possession of a copious amount of chutzpah; a cat for whom boundaries hold no meaning, a cat who knows no fear. When Milo is spotted by the Blue Jay sentry on duty, the sentry immediately signals an alarm to his compatriots in other outposts of tree and limb. They all proceed to convene within our old magnolia tree, like a squawking blue-uniformed battalion. I have become convinced they are merely shouting the name of Edward in Blue Jay-ese. For whatever he is doing, wherever he happens to be - napping in his spot under the piano or exploring the furthermost points of the far back garden - Edward comes dashing. Running the gauntlet twixt table, chair and lamp, sliding across the hardwood floors, like an armored bear of old, he leaps into the chair by the window to let loose his most threatening, ear-splitting bark - a sound designed to strike terror in the heart of any self-respecting feline. Any feline that is, but Milo. For Milo, impassively lounging atop the dining table that sits outside under the magnolia tree, is calmly waiting for any feathered bit of blue that happens to lose its footing from one of the limbs above, and cares not a whit for anything Edward happens to say. Naturally, this nonchalance infuriates Edward all the more and the cycle of Blue Jay squawks and ferocious barks will continue unabated until either the Songwriter or I takes it upon ourselves to venture out and remind Milo of the nature of things. Milo will saunter off eventually, with head held high, his bottlebrush tail a furry flag of dignity, utterly convinced it was his own idea to leave in the first place, as if reminded only that he has an appointment elsewhere. Edward goes for a drink of water to settle his nerves, and soon, one by one, all the tiny bits of blue leave the big tree winter-green once more.
Until the next time Milo happens to visit.

The Naming Of Cats

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

by T.S. Eliot

Elgol

I wrote her a long letter today and remembered....

“You really should go down to the bottom of the hill before you leave”, she said. “I know you’re tired and you have a long drive back to the hotel, but it’s one of the most famous views in the country and you should see it”.

She was right, we were tired. Windblown, a bit damp, and now, following her most resplendent and generous gift of high tea, quite full and quite sleepy. The day was fast departing. Already the sky colours were deepening, moody grey clouds were boiling up across the horizon, and we never liked to travel the narrow road around the sea loch in darkness, always being too afraid we’d accidentally hit one of the sheep who preferred to doze just a wee bit too close to the side. But she seemed adamant - she of the gentle and soft-spoken spirit who never seemed adamant about anything - so we thought we should obey. Pulling out of the drive, we headed down the hill, unprepared for the steepness and sharpness of the curve ahead. Finally reaching the bottom we turned behind us to see a view straight out of literature, at once as forbidding as Mordor and as enchanted as Avalon. We looked around - no one else in sight. We could have been the only two people left on the planet. We could have been spirited backward a thousand years or more, perhaps invisible, mere spirits ourselves, with nothing real and solid on earth but those immortal black mountains rising above that churning black sea. Standing where we stood, with the howl of the sea wind in our ears, any scenario could have easily been imagined possible.

It wasn’t until many months later that I noticed the slight similarities between the photograph taken on that day and the Waterhouse painting shown above. Perhaps she had long ago warned him not to miss the view as well.

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!

There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow,
There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow,
The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,
And it looks like it’s climbing clear up to the sky.....

Oh, what a beautiful morning!
Oh, what a beautiful day!
I got a beautiful feeling,
Everything’s going my way.....


Lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II
Painting by Childe Hassam
Sentiments shared by Pamela and Edward!

Farewell

"I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape - the loneliness of it - the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show. I think anything like that - which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone - people always feel is sad. Is it because we’ve lost the art of being alone?"

Andrew Wyeth
1917 - 2009

Surely You Jest

Last night I dreamed I gave up swimming for Lent. Now, before someone pauses in admiration of my saintliness, let me hasten to explain that I cannot swim. This dream of mine, therefore, caused a bit of entertainment over morning toast and clementines when I related it to the Songwriter, who wryly commented, ”Wow, what a sacrifice for you”. He is well-versed in irony. My parents tried to interest me in swimming with lessons which I truly dreaded like medicine. The sensation of being under water consistently failed to charm me, and no number of ear plugs or nose clips could ever elevate the experience to an enjoyable level. Needless to say, I did not excel in those lessons. However, as I suspected at the time, much like high school frog dissection, I have never once found swimming to be a necessary skill in my adult life. Decorators are not usually required to work in bathing suits and if they are, they should probably re-evaluate the project.

The only sport I have ever participated in willingly was riding. I did love that with a passion, but seriously suspect it had much more to do with the requisite close relationship with a horse than with my actual enjoyment of any sort of activity that could perhaps have been deemed athletic. No to softball, no to tennis, no gymnastics and no track. Football? Please. Bowling? In rental shoes? Golf? Surely you jest. Watch any of these things on television? What?..... Why? To tell the truth, I just never got the point of competitive sports. The only two sporting events I am ever even aware of during the year are The Kentucky Derby and The Iditirod. (To be honest, I did drive a dog sled team in Alaska once. In a frigid January, no less. And actually, I was quite good at that, but that is another story entirely.) I do walk and run and bike and hike, but that’s about it. Fortunately for me, The Songwriter and I share in this disinterest of the wide, wide world of sports, which makes for quite a happy little life. To best illustrate this, some years back, The Songwriter had one of his songs performed during the halftime show at the Super Bowl. True to form, we were totally unaware of the game and were actually returning home on a flight from Disney World, of all places, while it was played. When we arrived home, our phone was ringing like mad with friends from all over the country calling with congratulations. We had missed the whole thing.

So, all this is to say that, regardless of my dream, I do not think swearing off swimming will actually accomplish much for my soul during this season of Lent.
Why do I think it’s going to have to be chocolate?

Something Shiny

Years ago, my neighborhood was carved out of a forest. Nowadays its ancient oaks and leafy poplars provide a canopy over land that is paradise for wildlife of all sorts, and that includes the Crows. An almost sinister looking bird, the Crow is rarely spotted on his own, but usually descends upon the garden as a member of a loud and discordant flock. A rather gloomy congregation, they swoop and assemble in a winter-bare oak, filling the naked limbs like scores of blue black leaves, creating a haunted tree worthy of an Edward Gorey painting. Make a sudden movement at the window, and whoosh, these changeling leaves are blown upward, enmasse, into the blue sky like an angry storm cloud on its way to rain down on another garden a couple of streets away, leaving their momentary roost January bare once more.

Not long ago, I discovered that the Crows have more than a passing interest in my very own front garden. For down near the edge of the drive, there is a bed of green clover in which I keep a modest collection of glass blue stones. Like a tiny sea lapping the shores of Lilliput, this circle of glimmering blue glass is a delight to my eye each time I see it. And, apparently, the Crows share in that delight. You see, the Crow cannot spot anything shiny without wanting to possess it. He is, quite simply, the shopaholic of the avian world and my little glass ocean is completely irresistible to his sharply acquisitive eye. The daily walkers who stroll by my garden, those who no doubt once viewed my collection of blue with bemused curiosity, now find themselves participants in its care and maintenance. For the Crows steal the stones, and the walkers bring them back. I have been told that they are found all over the neighborhood, and the walkers seem to take a certain pleasure in finding one, pocketing it and returning it to its rightful place by the clover shoreline at the edge of my garden. I find this such a charming game played between bird and man. Both of them out in the fresh clean winter air, looking for something shiny.

Painting above by Arthur Rackham

Edward Looks At Rain

From the late afternoon on there had been something of a drenched, warm feeling to the early January air; an odd soddeness, expected at other times of the year, but most unusual for a winter month. The big white dog had noticed. He knew the rain was purported to be arriving as a dramatic escort to a much colder tomorrow, and for that he was glad. But, still. Rain. His least favourite sort of weather. No walk tonight. For even though his lady had received the black wellies she had asked for at Christmas, he knew she cared far too much for him to take him on an outing in the pouring rain. He would have to get his paws wet, and that was the one thing in life he really, really hated. He hopped up on the window seat to watch the skies and ponder the miserable sensation of wet paws.

The rain was preceded by chariots of wind that galloped through the tops of the tall trees at breakneck speed, occasionally reaching down to the garden floor with a gust that would vacuum up the leftover, paperthin leaves in a tornadic whirl of brown and grey. The big dog watched it all at the window and thought about his paws. Then finally, around midnight, just as they all were heading down the hallway to bed, it came. Rain. He could hear it... blitzing the roof above him, racing down the gutters, pounding its drowned wetness deep into the ground - ground that, tomorrow, he would have to trod on, walk through - ground that would probably get his paws wet. Bother. He sighed. But then his lady smiled and told him not to worry. She reminded him that being snug and dry inside on a stormy night was really a very good thing. Effortlessly, he leaped up to take his normal place atop the downy bed and laid his big white head on her feet as she opened another of those books of which she is so fond. He sighed again. He had to admit, the sound of the rain was pleasing. His large almond eyes felt so heavy, so he closed them. His lady patted his head and told him that the rain would be over before he awoke in the morning - that it would be a much colder, sunnier day tomorrow, and that he would love it, and they would go for a long afternoon walk and .... but he never heard her. He was asleep.

Edward sets off for his walk on the sunnier tomorrow

Painting above: The Thunderstorm by Vincent Van Gogh

A Thing With Feathers

Whilst perusing the online news sites on the first morning of this new year, an opinion poll happened to catch my eye. There it sat, on the right hand side of the home page of CNN, sandwiched between the grimmest sort of headlines, one simple question: How do you feel about the coming year? Only two answers were available: Hopeful? , or Hopeless? After clicking my choice, I was curious to see the results of everyone else’s answers, and smiled in amazement at what I saw. Overwhelmingly, and in spite of the surrounding sirens of tangible woe, almost everyone had cast their vote for Hope. I nodded at the resiliency of the human race; at our never ending belief that we can achieve a better day - that we are nobler, kinder, smarter than our present circumstances might suggest. We remain ever hopeful that we can, and shall, rise above and even, dare we say, soar. And truly, what greatness has ever been achieved without that thing called Hope?

I have thought a great deal over the past year about the man Martin Luther King. What would he be feeling in this first month of the year 2009, as America stands proudly poised to inaugurate her first African-American president? He who had been insulted, jailed, jeered, then murdered, for daring to hope in the better natures of the American people. He who had dared to dream. It brings tears to the eyes and indeed, shame to the soul for the one who chooses to set down the precious burden of hope when the weight becomes too heavy.

For some of us, hope is a lyrical embroidery that flows through the tapestry of our very natures. We are sewn together with its shimmering threads. For others, Hope is much more of a conscious choice, and sometimes a difficult one. As we all set off through this year late in the first decade of a new century, our journey is not unlike any adventurous expedition of old. Like explorers before us, we never know what might lie just around the bend. But, where there is an end, may we all see a beginning, may we turn our challenges into opportunities, make the choice to replace doubt with faith, and when there is death, may the Hope of new life be made real.

Emily Dickinson so eloquently described Hope as “a thing with feathers”. As I write this, fat little birds are watching me just outside my window, fluffy and cheerful. Despite the remarkably cold afternoon, there they sit, tiny and serene on my windowsill, occasionally lifting up a tune; not the least bit bothered or fretful. I can easily see the basis for Dickinson’s poetic description. For in the midst of the world’s current gales, this perennial presence of hope is a most sweetly feathered thing indeed.

Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

by Emily Dickinson

Blessed With Books at Christmas

I count myself fortunate, for people seem to like to give me books, especially at Christmas. A fine thing, and much appreciated, for it is difficult for me to fathom a better gift to receive than a book chosen specifically with me in mind. I am spending a delicious amount of time this week getting acquainted with some of these new bound treasures and as I do, I know I am sharing the experience with countless readers all over the world; readers who, like me, were blessed with books at Christmas.
Perhaps your favourite aunt, the one who suffers cruelly with wanderlust, received a Bruce Chatwin or Evelyn Waugh, a Michael Palin or Gerald Durrell, and is currently curled in her favorite armchair, with her tea going cold, snow falling quietly out in her garden, while she travels the dusty streets of Cairo or roams the hillsides of Corfu. Your ten year old niece, the one with all the fetching freckles, who practically lives in jodhpurs and hacking jackets? It is after midnight and she is under the blankets reading her very first copy of Black Beauty by the dim glow of a pink flashlight. At this very moment, in town and country, there are cooks devouring all the latest recipes from the inspired kitchens of Ina Garten or Nigella Lawson - gardeners carefully underlining passages of Elizabeth Lawrence or Gertrude Jekyll - oh, so lucky novice readers embarking on maiden voyages inside the world of Harry Potter - mystery lovers unravelling the just released P.D. James or the classic Wilkie Collins - babies with their imaginations aglow from the magical illustrations of Chris Van Allsburg or Beatrix Potter, or from the unique artistry of Robert Sabuda.
Count me in with these voracious page turners, for this first week of January commences my month of serious hibernation.... reading, planning, sketching out the year ahead..... but mostly, reading. For while lounging beachside with a book nestled on one’s lap in July is certainly sublime, there is not much better than a cold January afternoon spent fireside, snug in a fat nest of a chair, cracking open a brand new book for the very first time.

Here are a few newly added to my library:

John Fowler: Prince of Decorators by Martin Wood
Michael S. Smith Houses by Michael Smith and Christine Pittel
Charlotte Moss: A Flair for Living by Charlotte Moss and Pieter Estersohn

The Drawings of Gustave Dore by George Davidson
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
Shaggy Muses by Maureen Adams

I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson.... a fabulous hardback copy of this
vintage classic in its fabulous zebra cover

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling...I was unbelievably fortunate to receive this one in the hardback, collector’s edition!!!

A Peek Through the Opening Door

A bit of a new look here at The House of Edward as the old door opens on the fresh green day of the infant year.
With more than the usual challenges to face in every corner of the planet, but with reasons aplenty to hope for a brighter year and lighter hearts, I am filled with admiration and gratitude for the many charming and creative new friends I have encountered through this little blog effort of mine. Having really started this as an entry for my Etsy shoppe, I found that I enjoyed writing so much the shoppe sort of took a back seat. I have always loved words, and writing, but had previously only written via long letters to certain souls during my travels. I really feel as if that is what I have continued to do through this site. Thank you all for reading my letters to you. Your comments and emails have been incredibly enjoyable, interesting and kind. I do appreciate them greatly.
And just now, as I peek through the opening door at the grand mystery of a pristine new year, this particular quotation of William Ellery Channing resonates like music with the desires of my soul.

"I will seek elegance rather than luxury, refinement rather than fashion. I will seek to be worthy more than respectable, wealthy and not rich. I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. I will listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with an open heart. I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely, await occasions and hurry never. In a word I will let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common."

Edward and I wish you all a most Happy New Year.

Sleep At All Hours

The three big Christmas trees continue to sparkle. The music, gauzy and classical, drifts through the old house like a mist. The sheets are linen and the blankets, wool. Down pillows are fluffed like marshmallows and clothing is warm and rather eccentric. The books, oh the books.... all crisp, all new...massive, slipcased and magically illustrated or small and utterly engrossing..... are stacked in teetering towers beside me. The drinks are hot and the food.... is pie. All responsibility has been banished - flown with a whoosh out the shuttered window, not to return for at least one week. I shall venture outside my wooden door for only two good reasons..... long, bracing walks with a furry dog in the cloudy cold, or a comfortable seat in a darkened movie theatre. And I shall sleep at all hours, whenever I wish.
One of the best weeks of the year!


.....Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr
Is lined within with the finest fur,
So the stoney-walled, snow-roofed house
Of every squirrel and mole and mouse
Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather,
Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together
With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,
Sweeter than anything else in the world.

O what a warm and darksome nest
Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!
It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep,
Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!

From the Poem, Winter Sleep by Elinor Wylie

Listen

Edward is a creature in possession of a myriad of magical qualities- qualities which draw people to him, friends and strangers alike, wherever we happen to go. They gather round him in outdoor cafes, follow us on our walks, roll down their windows at traffic lights to say hello to him, they get out of their cars to come squat down in front of him, they even allow their toddlers to kiss him smack on the mouth. Edward, ever patient, is consistently tolerant of these advances. So much so in fact, that last Halloween, when friends dressed their three adorable stairstep daughters as characters from Peter Pan, they asked if Edward would be willing to play Nana for a photo. He was honored, although a bit reticent about the bonnet he was supposed to wear. I realize I may be slightly prejudiced, but he really is an extraordinary dog. However, tonight and only tonight, he just may share one very special gift with every other animal on the planet. He just may speak. For tonight is Christmas Eve, and it is a tale well told that on this night of nights, the animals speak at midnight.

For those of you fortunate enough to live on a farm, take a stroll past your barn at that hour. Stop. Listen. Do you hear the whispered conversations of those enchanted creatures within? The tabby cat on the windowsill, gazing out at the frozen garden....what is he saying? Did you catch it? The Lioness on the moonlit plain, the Mountain Gorilla beneath Rwandan trees - from the Great Horned Owls at the bottom of our garden, to the ice white Polar Bear sitting alone on the top of the world, what words will they choose to speak for this, their once a year soliloquy. Words of despair, or words of hope? Of recrimination, or of praise? While I would certainly never deign to speak for Edward, I can only imagine his statement to the holy darkness will be the simple, pure words of gratitude.
On this night, what more is there to say?


Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!!

The Journey

Pull on the woolen mittens, wrap the shawl tightly. It is time for the journey into winter.
For six months now, the iridescent curtains of the earth have been slowly closing. The unseen, pale blue hand has moved them, bit by bit, an infinitesimal distance towards the center, shutting out the light in minute amounts each and every evening since the month of June. On this very weekend he stands back to admire his handiwork. With wizened hands on hips, he smiles his ancient silver smile as he observes the many hours of darkness, the iced moon hanging in a starry sky, taking up its lofty post earlier this weekend than at any other - the fewest hours of the sun - the shortest day of the year. It is complete, and he is most pleased, for he has once again fashioned Winter. White grey, silver blue, Winter.
And yet, he does not trouble us. As we make our way into his boreal creation, our provisions are sufficient. For even in the piercing cold of the bleakest of mid-winters, there is such warmth to be found. True friends, glowing fireplaces, fuzzy slippers, furry faces. Cinnamon toast, spiced tea. Days spent in cozy kitchens where copper kettles sing and savory soups simmer atop cherry red stoves - with nights burrowed snug under tartan blankets, lost inside the crisp pages of adventurous books.
Oh yes, we are quite prepared for this journey, for we have taken it before. And well we know, even now, as the old man takes his leave, rightly satisfied with his design, a smooth and tiny hand, the colour of peridot, is reaching for those curtains, ready now to pull them, bit by bit, every so slightly, open.

Painting above: Atkinson Grimshaw

In a Snow Globe

Long after midnight, when the silence is a sound unto itself, a soft blue blanket wrapped tightly around the house, enveloping all in the deepest quiet, I slipped out of bed. Lifting a woolen throw from off the chaise, I made my way to the biggest Christmas tree in the house and switched on the lights. Fairyland descended gently on the usual. What is it about this season that lends itself so readily to magic? Everything, it seems, conspires to wonder and amaze. The long-fingered frost on the windowpanes, the winter aroma of fir trees and hot chocolate, the ornamental colour - bells and carols, secret whispers and stolen kisses. I think of our little cottage here in the trees, bathed in moonlight and fairyglow and it almost seems as if we four are dwelling within a snow globe of our very own. A little wonderland separated from roving darkness by the clear glass dome of Christmas. It is said that Christmas is for children, but I don’t think that’s necessarily so. As the years go by and I see more of the sadness and trouble this world can parcel out, Christmas seems more of a mystery to me than ever. To think that no matter what occurs, it still settles joyously into my heart every year, retaining its full power to amaze and delight, to liberally sprinkle the enchantment of hope into every room. Merry Christmas, indeed.
I could have sat by the glimmering tree for hours, but soon I heard a soft yawn behind me and turned to see Edward, the fur atop his head mussed and askew from sleep, his thoughts nearly audible...”Come. Back. To. Bed.”... So, I did.