CreativeSpace

Recovering a sense of abundance

This is the title of the chapter we're reading this week for The Artist's Way. The author writes: "In order to thrive as artists--and, one could argue, as people--we need to be available to the universal flow. When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the large gifts as well."

I was heartily reminded of this wisdom when I brought muffins to my friend, Kitty, earlier this week. Kitty has been feeling poorly lately, so I do what I always do when someone is ailing; I bake. (Now that I think about it, I really don't need an excuse. I bake all the freaking time.) I chose these blueberry muffins, operating on the philosophy that everyone's life can be improved with the presence of blueberries. (A glass of farm-fresh milk wouldn't hurt either.) Oddly, the first dozen muffins disappeared mysteriously from the counter top despite the protestations of The Husband claiming that he doesn't even like blueberries and the physical fact that Little Bear can't reach the back of the counter. I don't believe it was the dog...yet the mystery remains. I guarded the second batch with my life and managed to get them to the intended recipient.

Kitty and his partner live roughly four blocks from us, and I love them dearly. So I had to ask myself why is it that I see them so rarely? It's one of life's simple pleasures to have good friends living close by, so why aren't we taking advantage of it? It brought to mind this week's chapter in The Artist's Way, and I think the author actually used an example of denying yourself time with friends as a sign of living "anorectically." Well, I felt sheepish. Then the lesson continued.

Kitty tried to tempt me into taking some of his cast-off cookbooks, none of which interested me in the slightest. Mostly because I had cleaned out my pantry a few months ago, and I wasn't about to bring anything else back into it. OK, maybe just one. (I wanted to make bread pudding, and it had a gorgeous picture featuring said pudding. I needed it, I tell you!) But then Kitty began digging through his vintage cookbook collection, and the gloves came off.

Admittedly, I'm a late-comer to the vintage cooking scene. My Dear Sim has been a vintage collector for as long as I can remember, cookbooks being one of them, and several years ago she introduced me to Mrs. Beeton. Now Mrs. Beeton, for the uninitiated, was THE expert on all things domestic. Sort of like the Martha Stewart for the Victorian Era. Mrs. B published pamphlets for the ladies of the house, instructing them on the proper handling of servants, the proper way to clean, and gave them menus and recipes. She was the end-all-be-all on the domestic scene. I was so impressed by her that I purchased a re-printed paperback of her domestic advice to give to Sim as a thank you for the introduction.

Fast forward several years, and you found me sitting on Kitty's couch holding an original Mrs. Beeton's cookbook, circa 1890, with the front and back leaflets intact, advertising face liniment and pudding pots. (I'm almost convinced that I need one of those.) I cannot begin to describe the fit of rapture that descended upon me. I probably drooled too, not on the sacred red cover mind you, but down my chin. I gingerly paged through it, marveling at the illustrations of pigeon pie and dressed tongue (and no, My Dear Sim, there was no lacy collar attached) and memorizing the recipe for starch. Just kidding, but it was in there.

It was like being given a key of translation to a bygone era, and being a fan of Regency romance *cough* literature, I was delighted by the food descriptions and the advice for keeping your cook happy in a clean kitchen. I would have continued reading if I hadn't been obligated to keep up my side of the conversation. I mean, beef gelatin. What's more fascinating than that? So I returned home with a new found sense of excitement for my research and the new novel that I'm beginning. Set in Regency England, of course. It didn't take a lot of money or an elaborate trip somewhere to ignite my passion for my project, just a good friend and a special book; the "small gifts of life" that gave me such joy.

Thank you, Kitty! (And I solemnly promise that if I borrow your Mrs. Beeton book, I will return it. Even if I might think about keeping it a long time and then forgetting that I have it. Or keeping it until you forget that you have it. You are on medication, you know. Just teasing, Kitty darling.)

I forgot one little thing

I realized at 3:00 a.m., a very convenient time, especially when you're lying in bed in the sweltering heat trying very hard to fall asleep, that I should have included a blurb about what The Help is about. So here is my two-cents worth (liberally aided by the book jacket): The Help is narrated by three women, Skeeter, Minny, and Aibileen who live in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. Skeeter has just graduated from Ole Miss and returns home to a marriage-minded mama and the mystery that her beloved maid, Constantine, has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her with the death of her only son, and she can no longer ignore the nagging feeling that things should change. And that she may have the power to make those changes.

Minny is Aibileen's best friend and the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook better than anyone, but she can't keep a civil tongue in her head which is why she is often fired. She's looking for a new position when she discovers the newest addition to town, a woman from the wrong side of the tracks with many secrets.

(Now I'm going to directly quote the book jacket.) "Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed."

So go out and buy/borrow this book already. It's worth your time.

That old transition

Returning home from Pennsylvania is always bittersweet. Sweet, because it's good to see the Husband and the Hound and sleep in our own beds again. Bitter, because I hate leaving my family and returning to loads of dirty laundry, not to mention the dishes waiting in the sink. (Or resuming our usual schedule, i.e. naps at regular intervals. Baby Bear, I wish you could read this.) I had just enough fortitude to haul everything inside from the car, (Driving up, it's called "being prepared." Coming home it's called "over-packing".) but that's as far as I got. Monday morning is wash day, and in honor of the beginning of the new week, I managed to drag the suitcase and tote bags to the bottom of the stairs. That was as close to my goal as I could manage.

Truthfully, the only thing I wanted to do was read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Have you read it? Have you, huh, huh? You should. Just drop everything, grab a mug of coffee, and read, read, read. And don't give me any excuses about children, careers, carpooling, yada, yada. I was adamantly ignoring mine, so you can ignore yours too. 

The Help is the kind of book that puts you smack in the middle of a story that you can smell, taste, and feel. The words flow off the page to wrap around you so that you feel like you're living the story right beside the characters. I loved every sweet, sad, and bite-your-nails-with-worry minute of it. So you can guess how enthusiastic I was about tackling the household chores. Yup, that much. Luckily, the air conditioner heard my grumbling and decided to go on sabbatical. We're calling it a sabbatical, because hopefully the AC men will arrive tomorrow to give it a tune up, and it will wake up refreshed and renewed.

The air is working downstairs, but upstairs it feels like a sauna. It's only early May, and today is overcast, so it's not unbearable. But I feel bad for the Husband who's office is populated by computers that give off a lot of heat. We called a temporary ban on all appliance use upstairs to keep the Husband's head from catching on fire, and that meant that I couldn't use the washer. So sad. And since he used my kitchen sponge for the clean-up of a painting project over the weekend, doing the dishes was out of the question as well. (How could I possibly go to the grocery store with an enthralling book to read?) With my chores out of the way temporarily, the only thing to do was read. And before you think I set the Baby Bear free in the park while I read, my definition of reading these days is five minutes here, ten minutes there, with breaks for extricating the Bear from whatever piece of furniture she has decided to climb.

And now, creative dearies, I have to return to The Help and finish the last two chapters. This book is so good that after I'm done, I'll have a mini-book-depression for a day or so where I lament that it had to end. Sigh. I hate it when they end.