4 December 2011

So more than four months have passed since I wrote to you (August-September-October-November-and yes, now it is December!).  What happened?  Life. 

It is worth noting here that life, as in my Life, should always be capitalized.  And maybe it should be in all caps, because it is BIG.  And it is complex - more like a city than a farm, more like a corporation than a small business. And inside the complexity there are categories. I sometimes think of them as silos in a field...very tall and very full.  And this fall, everyone of them - each for a different reason - filled up and overflowed and left me with more questions than answers, more work than there was time in which to do it, more obligations than opportunities, and more to do than any one person can possibly accomplish.  In other words, it really was a fall - and in many ways, as I think about it, I let myself fall behind on some of the things that matter most. Like you. . 

It started with the annual fundraising gala at the Museum.  Now it is true that I can plan a small party without too much trouble, but a party with tickets for 250 people, that's another thing all together.  We did it - a team of volunteers, my staff, and I, but WOW, it left me tired (and grateful, and pleased, etc. etc. [all those truisms]) and tired. I am not complaining, because I do love the Museum, but I met the tent people at 8 am and left with my team at almost 2 am the next morning after cleaning up the catering tent and breaking down the decorations. Its my job.  But, it was a lot of work.

Five days after that, my mother fell and broke her arm - in two places.  I was in Atlanta, in a meeting with a potential donor, when my phone started to ping.  Three, then four, then five times.  When the meeting was over and I checked my texts to find that Kirsten (who is an amazing texter!) had sent me messages...one after another...and one not meant for me at all.  Message 1: Your mom fell. Everything is okay. Call me when you can. Message 2: At the hospital now, an ambulance came for her.  Message 3: Amanda's mom fell...and then a blow by blow description of when, where, how, etc. (clearly this was not meant for me).  Message 4: Please ignore that last message, baby, I was writing to my sister. Message 5: Please call. 

So I did, and then I rearranged my flights and headed back to Durham and straight to the hospital.  We waited for another five hours - Mom had been there for five hours before I got there - as the doctors took X-rays, then a CAT scan - to make sure there was no concussion and no sign of stroke.  Then a specialist was concerned about something compromised in her wrist, something he saw in the X-rays - "She might need surgery" - then an MRI to make sure that there was no deeper damage.  By the time I got there her black eye was a true shiner and I noticed that she wasn't really sure how long she had been there, wasn't really tracking that I had been in Atlanta, thought that she could just go home.  Can I go home now?  And asked me about my day at least five times.

Between the mild concussion and the serious break and the fact that she claimed that she had not tripped over anything, "I just fell - you know, one minute you are standing up and the next minute you are on the floor. It happens to everyone."  Between all of this - the doctors determined that she should not be living alone until her arm healed.  "If you fall again, Ms. Bradford, you could do serious damage."

And of course, she didn't remember that she had fallen already.  Three times in the last six months.  So, I agreed to let her and the dog come to stay with us.  I agreed is a little more active and directive than I was, actually.  In truth the sentence should read:  So Mom and Tasha (the dog) moved into our Life.  And with them, all the strains you can imagine.

At the same time, the workmen arrived - and over the same seven or eight weeks, we got a new roof, new skylights in the studio, new windows, new gutters, a door and new windows from the dining room to a new deck, the goats came and cleared out the back yard, six pine trees were removed, the goats came again. The front steps were repaired, new posts and railings, and we went to doctor and physical therapy appointments and stopped to get M&Ms every day (one of my mother's secret passions) and I worked full time (although mostly remotely). 

Is it Halloween yet? Not quite. 

At work: a board meeting and grants and a major publication to complete. A team to manage and a million dollars to raise. 

The final weeks with Mom were the hardest.  I helped her get her bills under control and we talked endlessly about what "assisted living" actually means.  We cleared out and cleaned her house a bit - not enough for my needs, but enough for hers, I guess. We took her car in to be repaired - the brakes were nearly gone and all the fluids were down, then got it inspected and the tags renewed. Carted her back and forth to her part time job.  Bought her walker and cane - not that she will use them with any regularity, but the doctor's insist and she says she understands, but then wanders off without either one.

Is it Thanksgiving yet?  Almost. 



All of this and more work, more grants, more deadlines, major and minor doctors' appointments for Kirsten, the grandchildren on the weekends, another trip to Atlanta, and another to NYC.  And Christmas is coming.

It is hard to imagine doing anything more than I have done - but I should have called you.  and I should have called others, too.  You know, I have a really bad habit of turning inward during hard times.  Of focusing down, making lists, and just trying to get through.  You are not the only one I haven't called.  I have been in that survival mode that I think I learned in my childhood - when there was almost always a crisis in motion or one looming on the horizon. I pull in. Close ranks.  Try to get through. I have hardly seen anyone who hasn't come to see me.  And I have hardly picked up the phone except to answer it when it rings.  One can only do so much....or at least that is what I tell myself.

No excuses. 

This is what I wanted to tell you - I miss you.  And I will come to see you...and I hope you are okay, despite my ridiculous silence.  When shall we talk?  Might I come and spend my birthday with you?  I think that is what I would like to do...  Oh there is so much to tell..about the fall and all that fell through the cracks when my mother fell.  It is almost Christmas, and I find myself remembering times in Connecticut, in the little house on Walker Brook when you were there and Mother and Dad. When I was young and you were my age now...oh how fondly I hold those memories.  

I love you, Miss Kelly - and I am so sorry for my silence. If you could only hear how often I think of you - daily...quietly...quickly and then some new distraction or demand. 

No excuses. 
Only true apologies and abiding affection.   

Amanda

 .   

7 August 2011

It took almost a month for this letter to arrive from India.  Over land and by air, it moved from one side of the world to the other - from India to America, from a monastery to a museum, then home to our little house in Durham.  

I have always loved letters, correspondence that comes by what is now called "snail mail."  I like the time it takes to travel distances, the time it takes to tear open the envelope, notice the post date, and wonder about its contents.  I like the way it all feels in my hand - and increasingly, given that we live in an age of virtual and virtually instant communications, these letters are more precious than ever.

Lately, as part of some ill-defined on-going art project, I find myself illustrating envelopes.  This is not new.  I have been doing it for a very long time...now and then.  It started (I think) with a letter I sent to an author I admired and has continued over the years.  Most of the time I illuminate letters sent to me - but once in a while I will add a mini painting to a letter I will send.  It slows down the mailing...but it gives me a little time to think, to consider, and to send (I hope) a blessing.  When I find myself painting an envelope I have received, whether a letter or junk mail, I think about the sender - saying a prayer, and asking a blessing for every hand that touched it - from the sender to the mail carrier.  Each has a life.  Each has a set of joys and sorrows to carry.

It doesn't take long to make these illuminations - but in those few minutes, I have a chance to remember. To bless.  To say yes and thank you.

I wish I were more faithful in my correspondence and my illustrated envelopes because when I practice this process and make another illuminated envelope, I realize again how connected we are.  A string of lives, hand to hand, like one long relay race passing the letter/baton from one to another until it reaches the finish line. 

When I was younger, I used to say that when I was (finally) an old woman, I would be one of those little old ladies who writes letters every day.  I imagined writing thank you notes to local heroes, letters to my senators and our president and the young person who bags my groceries at the Kroger.  I write a lot of thank you notes at work. But I no longer write the long letters I once wrote - and even this blog lags for weeks at a time.  Why?  The instant gratification of Facebook?  Cellphones?  Email?  Maybe. I worry about this - at least a little. There is no paper archive for my Facebook account...no written records for the way Emily and Will can make me laugh.  Oh, the times they are a changing...

But when I got my thank you from India, when I finished illuminating the envelope, I wondered when I would write the next letter...when would I take the time?  And the weeks pass... I wonder, without letters, what archive will exist for each of us?  Oh, I know, every tweet is archived in the Library of Congress. And, I have heard it said that once you post something on the web it lives forever.  But, I know it isn't true.  Pages are lost, links are broken, and then what?

Just this month, Kirsten and her sisters are pouring through a series of letters written by their father and mother in the early stages of their courtship and marriage. More than 60 years later they are transported to another time and place. They hear in these letters the voice of the father they knew so well - and the suggestion of the man they could never have known.

Without "hard copy," what will be lost?  I keep thinking about 8-track tapes and reel to reel,  VHS and Blu-Ray.  Are we catching it all? Sure. Of course we are.  But you know, I still hope I will become the little old lady who writes letters.  And I hope that I will paint the envelopes and add sufficient postage and send them off into the relay of blessings.

Thinking of you more than you can know...
And, of course, loving you even more.
Amanda

 


  

20 June 2011

 Art Card #70

Wow!  Nothing like the first heat waves of summer in the Carolinas to make you forget every good thought you ever had - every good intention - every high and lofty ideal!  When suddenly it is a 100 degrees, nothing matters much but survival.

I think this was the first real insight I had about life in the South. In the first couple of years that I lived here, friends would come to visit from New England and wonder aloud and with fairly palpable disdain why everyone in the South is so slow! Slow moving, slow talking, and slow. In the same time period, when I went back up north to visit, I watched everyone and wondered why they were all moving so fast!  And that's when it hit me.  In the North, in the frozen cold, you will die if you don't scurry and hurry and bustle through the cold. In the South, in the blazing heat, you will die if you don't slow down!  And sure enough, when this heat hit, I slowed down, way down.  It probably doesn't help that the AC in my car is out, and I cannot bring myself to pay more than $1000 dollars to have it fixed.  On the 12 mile drive home from work, I say things like:  this heat is good for you, Amanda.  Just drink a little more water.  All this while the temperature gauge tells me it is 98 at 5:50 p.m. I tell myself these things, but I am not convinced.  By the time I get home, I am totally, as they say, fried!

I generally write to you in the evenings or on soft Sundays.  But for the past six weeks, I have been so busy at work and at home (ridiculously busy) and knowing that if I don't slow down, I will die in the heat, I made the decision to do less...more a consequence of my heat fatigue than a true decision.  But still, worth noting. So the evenings have included a lot more television than normal:  you would be amazed at what I know about America's next Top Chef, America's next Top Model, and the inner life of the characters on Glee.  Oh, and of course, I balance all this out with a little Masterpiece Theater once a week and a few movies....

Did you see The King's Speech!?! Loved it. 

This heat, this fatigue, and this stimulating array of TV shows have combined with the end of the fiscal year demands at work, impending budget woes for the coming year, and a million other slow motion things to leave me stymied, or sullen, or something. If nothing else...embarrassingly silent, I am barely keeping my journal...or rather, my journal has turned into a long list of what I will do when fall comes! But today, I am turning over a new leaf.  A summer leaf on the eve of summer....

According to Examiner.com:  "This year the summer solstice occurs on June 21 at 17 hours 16 minutes coordinated universal time (1:16 PM EDT)." 

Only 20 hours of spring left and it will be official - Summer. And yes, I promise, I will continue to write to you during the hot three months ahead.

All is well here. The grand-babies are amazing, children seem to be thriving - although I imagine Emily and Will without air conditioning during heat waves in NYC and I nearly swoon (Do I sound as much like an old southern matriarch as I think I do?) - Kirsten is hanging in there, managing her pain as best she can.  We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary a few days ago.  Time flies.  Maybe the summer will fly by too.

You know, its funny, but among all my memories of childhood summers, I hold the ones in Michigan most dear.  The lakes and the river, the air, how late the sun sets, and even the crazy May Flies (or were they June bugs? swirling around the street lights). In all these memories, Belle Isle is there...the Greenhouse, the horses, my father in his MG.  The day my mom, my sister, and I rode our bikes over the long hot bridge. This was when I was very small - I hadn't even learned how to coast! We moved so much that there are other summer places to recall, but I remember Detroit.  I remember the long steps up to the front door of the Detroit Institute of Art.  I remember the color of the sky before it rained.  That strange blush of green across the clouds.  Here, when it is really hot in June, July, and August, the blue sky turns white with nary a cloud in sight. But I remember the clouds, high and bright white.

Hope you are well, and bright, and fair.. I will write more very soon (this silence has been too long - and too deep). And I will do my best (dammit) to enjoy the summer.  

I love you, Miss Kelly - so much.
Amanda

7 May 2011

Art Card 110

First, I posted this little art card on my tumblr.  

That prompted a fairly amazing post by our Emily on her tumblr site in which she said:

So funny to see my mother’s latest entry in her #artcards series, when just this week I’ve had the strange, sudden and poignantly real urge to uproot my life in Brooklyn and move to Detroit. Bloomberg cheapened the feeling with his unthinking comments earlier this week, but it did make me think about what could happen if white folks like me with financial means and a well-intentioned analysis (and commitment to do the work of transformative justice) did move to Detroit. Would it just be gentrification all over again, despite all our best efforts? Does that risk mean I shouldn’t do it — or does the very real economic and governmental value of my white face and money sufficiently mitigate that risk? How do you make that choice?

I admit, there is something touching for me lately in thinking of living in the place where my parents and grandparents lived… that is, at least lived for a while. I’d wager we also have always been a bit nomadic at heart, these bloodlines of mine. But place, this romantic question of place, it comes back to me. What would it feel like to live in the place where my (recent) ancestors lived and struggled and grew up and loved — to not live in diaspora, as I often feel like I do now? It’s been an interesting urge to chew on, new and unexpected. It’ll be 10 years in Brooklyn for me come this Fall. Maybe this urge for Detroit is just another manifestation of my restless heart, draped in longings for a stability I’ve already worked hard to make happen? And if I was going to move away from Brooklyn to, ostensibly, have this feeling of connection with the other generations of my family, why wouldn’t I move back to North Carolina where my living family currently is? But there, that option feels completely different — the romance of the notion is more clearly delimited by the familiar, unromantic work I know would await me there.

Funny that. Maybe that’s what romance is about — the mystery of a compelling other, and all the things you don’t know (yet). It’s a dangerous, if occasionally useful, sentiment. I’m not packing my bags for my mother’s Michigan tonight… but, yes, I still might dream about it.

With some surprise, I read Mayor Bloomberg's statement about Immigration Law and the future of Detroit.  He said, and I quote directly from http://www.nbcnewyork.com:  

"If I were the federal government ... assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together," Bloomberg said, "you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit 

and live there for five or 10 years."

Detroit has lost 25 percent of its citizens since the last census and 

Bloomberg said his immigration idea can revive the city 

where they would "start businesses, take jobs, whatever."

"You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here ... 

You can use something like immigration policy

-- at no cost to the federal government -- 

to fix a lot of the problems that we have." 

Wow! 

What makes all of this interesting is that I looked at job postings the other day - no intention at all of moving, but more to see what the market for museum professionals looks like around the country - and one of the interesting positions was at the Detroit Contemporary Art Museum.  I was, to say the least, smitten.  A part of me wanted to apply, to get the job, to pack my bags and my little (actually not so little) family and move back to Michigan.  Or rather, to move back to Detroit, which, at least in my memory, is its own country.  

I started thinking - remembering - our home on Parker Street in Indian Village, walking to the A & P, playing down by the Detroit River.  A frenzied flight of ideas took me round Woodward and down Jefferson and over the Belle Isle Bridge, into the greenhouse, up the steps of the Detroit Institute of Art, back down to the Ambassador Bridge...all over and around the seat of my childhood.   I know that I will never come back to Detroit to live.  But, I do swirl around her in my dreams.  There is something about that childhood vista: the land of my opportunity and my loss that still calls to me.  

This morning, I looked online at properties for sale in that old neighborhood, and it made my heart ache a bit.  One crazy fantasy was a vacation home back in the middle of it all...but my life is not arranged for such things. 

I think what touched me, or astounded and surprised me, about Bloomberg's comment is only this:  Detroit will rise again, one way or the other, I am certain.  And in my heart, I suspect it may well be what he blithely calls immigrants - speaking of these "others" from around the world and around the nation. That makes sense for Detroit and for America for that matter. That is how we started, that is how we will continue. Immigration and migration have shaped our national history from the beginning, bringing ideas and innovation, arts and industry, small businesses and backyard gardens. The ebb and flow of people is precisely what made Detroit such a fabulous city for so long.  Love and hope rooted in the possibility of economic opportunity, affordable housing, outstanding public schools, and shared values, dreams of realizing the American dream of life, liberty, and that elusive pursuit of happiness.  

If I were a younger woman, if I were not so tied to this place now, if I were able to move my whole family, if, if, if only...then maybe I would declare myself an immigrant and move back to my homeland. For now, I will stay here and invest in this foreign Southern landscape...be the immigrant from the North, from Michigan, from Detroit.  

And as I told Emily - maybe it is time for a road trip this summer....

Always loving you (and always loving Detroit)

Amanda 

 

17 April 2011

It's Palm Sunday.

This morning, I found myself thinking about all those Hosannas at the entrance to Jerusalem.  Once you let these gospel stories into your heart, they have a tendency to stay for a long time. They shift in meaning; they sharpen and fade. But the basic image remains: Jesus and his disciples, donkey and palm fronds, singing and shouting praise at the "triumphal entry."  I remember too, in at least one of the gospel accounts, there is a strange little text in which Jesus says that even if the crowds were silent, the rocks and stones would begin to shout.

But today, I find myself wondering what would the stones say? What are the stones saying if I stop to listen? 

The crowds were shouting out their expectation of victory -  Jesus as legal King of Jerusalem, Jesus as a just ruler in a time of corruption...shouting their affirmation of hope. But every hope would be dashed.  Jesus would not overthrow the government; he would not assume political leadership. In fact, after the triumphal entry, more than at any other moment in the gospels, he just seems annoyed. He overturns the money-changers tables in the temple.  He curses a fig tree for not having a ripe fig for him as he passes by. He all but  picks a fight with the chief priest and the elders when they question his authority. And he preaches these strange metaphors - trying, I suspect, one more time to tell people what he knew...and, knowing that they wold misunderstand him no matter what. He speaks in riddles about vineyard owners, tax collectors, wedding servants, and coins.  He seems bored by questions of whether people will marry in heaven and in something that must have sounded like a rant, he lists off the seven woes - woe to the blind guides, woe to the teachers of the law, woe to hypocrites.  He rattles off the signs of the end of the age, and before you know it, he appears to have offended everyone around him so completely - except perhaps the woman with the expensive oil that she poured on his head - so completely alienated everyone that the betrayal of Judas  comes as no surprise, Peter's denial seems predictable, and sure enough it all goes downhill so fast - in a few short days.

So why were they shouting Hosanna? These are the same ones, we are taught, who seven days later shout "Crucify him."  This morning, it seemed to me that maybe this propensity we have to shout is part of the problem.  Maybe we should be a little less willing to jump on in there and say Yea or Nay...Maybe we should just shut up and move on.  But, then, as the day wore on, and I finished my taxes (rendering unto Caesar...), I started to think about how tenderly God must love us - if God is love after all.  We are so easily charmed, so quick to speak up, so wrong, so in need of a little divine intervention. How could you not love us, even if we are annoying and blind?

I found this little triptych in an old pile of postcards - the title: The Annunciation with Saint Joseph and kneeling donors.  It is in the collection of the Metropolitan.  I looked at it for a long time before I thought to post it here. (I don't think I am violating any 15th century copyrights; if I am, I will pull the image down.) The longer I looked, the more fond I became of the two donors in the left panel - look at those faces - kneeling and hoping to see in through the open door, across the frames of time, to see Mary and the angel, Joseph and his tools.  I like them...these two. I like they way they hope.

Another Palm Sunday, another year of anticipation, another shout of hopeful longing for the coming of whatever comes.  Maybe that is what the stones would cry out...bring it on - more time, more life, more death, more of all of it - and save us, help us...one and all, in our ignorance, in our hopeful longing....

Hosanna means:  "strictly, a cry expressing an appeal for divine help "save! Help, we pray!"  According to Wikipedia (the non-definitive source!). I ought to say it every day. And, if I tell the truth, I do. No matter what I hope for, or long for, or think I know or understand - at center...Hosanna.  

Love you - and miss you. 
Amanda

4 April 2010

Journal Doodle

colored pencil on graph paper 

Because it is suddenly spring, I am cleaning the house, or at least trying to.  It seems like a funny thing to do in the midst of the pine dusting that accompanies the blossoming of daffodils, but it is essential!  Sudden sunny days make the windows look especially dreary and in need of Windex. And the closets are stuffed with sweaters and long-sleeved tee shirts...I missed the memo about the heat today - all the way up to 86 degrees!  So my all black outfit, pants and turtleneck made me feel ridiculous on the drive home.  Windows down, sun on my skin, oh how I love this time of year.  But tomorrow will be much the same if I don't do something about these closets!

It is time for light colors and haircuts and "happy clothes."  Enough of the black on black with a jewel tone scarf! Time for patterns and prints, for linens instead of wools.  But none of that is possible if I don't clear and clean out my closet! So here are my closet insights for Spring 2011:


1. Black is not the only serious color!  
I have this funny feeling that informs a lot of my wardrobe: if I wear serious clothes, people will take me seriously.  More and more I know this is delusional or at least dubious - mostly because I am a serious person and everyone knows it.  But old habits, and especially old mental habits, die hard. It will take an act of extraordinary will to shed some of the black for more color.

Note to self:  Black in North Carolina in the summer months is not a wise choice...it communicates a lack of awareness of the world around you. In other words, I may hope to be taken seriously, but I do not want to look seriously hot!


2. Happy clothes are best purchased when you are happy!
I tend to shop in a kind of quiet desperation - some event to attend, some last minute need, always bargain hunting.  This is not how you build a wardrobe!  It is how you jam your closet full of impulse purchases!  I think happy shopping could change my life. No emergency, no sad mood I am trying to fend off.  Just joy shopping.  Life is good...clothes should reflect that.

Another note to self:  This all sounds so good in theory, but in practice it is more difficult.  Most of my happy time is spent in what I lovingly call "yoga wear" (also mostly black), super-soft and baggy with bare feet and no interest whatsoever in going clothes shopping!  


3. Pay attention to the young and learn from the old! 
I watch with some interest what my younger colleagues wear - how easily their clothes fit, how light and comfortable they appear.  But, this is balanced by watching those marvelous older women with their serious jewelry and so little makeup.  Being as I am - so fully ensconced in midlife - I hope to take something from both of them: ease and style; comfort and panache.  

And yes, yet another note to self:  This is precisely the issue!  Style is such a marvelous thing...but not if it is singular and written in concrete!  I find as a face down my closet that I see so many "selves" in there.  The serious minded young writer, the ambitious artist, the administrator, and the Oma (Grandbabies do give you a completely new identity!).  The funny part about midlife is that you are all these things at once and need a wardrobe that supports a profound "mutliple personality disorder"!   

4. Less is more - but only if the less is better!
I suspect this is a fundamental truth and one that I should take to my closet and to my beloved Ross. Yes, I admit that most of what I wear comes from one of three places:  "hand me overs" from Kirsten's sister - she has a natural eye for happy clothes and loves to shop!; the GoodWill - I just love the feeling that I am benefiting from the closets of the wealthy; and, my beloved Ross!  This chain of stores (do they have these in Michigan?) has supported my need for the perfect suit, sweaters, etc...all at discount prices for years.  But sometimes, I think it would be smart to set a budget and actually buy "better" clothes!  You know, the ones with the french seams and the perfect topstitching....

Final note to self:  Its spring - and what I really want to do is hang out in my "yoga wear" and watch the sky....doodle in my sketchbook...imagine a complete and perfect wardrobe from my perch on the porch swing...

This is no way to clean a closet!  
Love you,
Amanda  

PS  Check out deadfleurette. A fashion blog written by a 20 year old in Oslo Norway!  Hop around her site.  She is amazing...and writes like a dream.  Plus, if you join me in this folly, we can skew her reader statistics in our favor...very few over the age of 50 are reading this wise young woman.

21 March 2011

when I cannot...

colored pencil, ink, paint on wrapping paper

Amanda Millay Hughes

Spring fever has set in with a vengence!  Sorry for the long silence, and thank you for the email and comment...it helps to know you are there, listening.  

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of work and life activity - every day, evening, and weekend...and all pressed forward by the real wind of the seasons changing.  The daffodils are up, the pollen count is up, the temperature is up, and on Saturday night, the full moon looked larger in the sky than it has in 18 years...no wonder I am longing for a trip to anywhere, a month of Sundays, a little time to look at the sky, to stand, to lie down with nothing to do but be there. . . wherever there is. 

My antidote for this fever (since a month of Sundays is simply not possible and ibuprofen doesn't touch it): a little reading.  I have gone back to some of the books that I have loved in the past - learned from - listened to and heeded.  A little bit of Edna St. Vincent Millay (particularly Poems for Children); a little bit of Gift from the Sea (Anne Morrow Lindberg), and finally, last night, I pulled down one of the collections of writings by MFK Fisher, The Art of Eating.  My God, the woman could write! I found myself reading though some of her essays in An Alphabet for Gourmets - in particular the section on spaghetti.  She says: 

Have a bowl of grated Parmesan, genuine and sandy, and unadulterated by domestic packaged stuff; a large pat of sweet butter; a good salt shaker and a freshly filled pepper-mill; as many hot plates as there are people, and a big, hot casserole with a lump of butter in the bottom.  

Just reading it makes me hungry - and in fact, it is precisely what I intend to cook as soon as I finish this post.  I was reading well after 10 pm last night, so I had already eaten and couldn't imagine it wise to start a second dinner at 10:45! There is something extraordinary about the way she co-mingles her personal experience of herself and the landscape of her life with the universal touch of a great big dish of pasta.  The writing inspires me and despite my genuine effort to find someone who speaks this way today, despite all the cookbooks in my personal collection, and my love for Judith Jones, my respect (albeit with a bit of suspect questioning) for Mark Bittman and How to Cook Everything - MFK Fisher was, as a friend of mine says, "A One-er."  There is no one quite like her when it comes to the art of eating, loving food, and offering inspiration to get you organized and started cooking! 

I find it interesting that both she and Judith Jones describe in some detail their decisions to cook for themselves (a table for one), and in both cases organization of time (and shopping) are key.  Organization - when applied to anything other than my silverware drawer - is not a natural tendency.  And organized shopping seems like an oxymoron!  But Fisher says: 

I rearranged my schedule, so that I could market on my way to the studio each morning....I grew deliberately fastidious about eggs and butter; the biggest, brownest, eggs were none too good, nor could any butter be too clover-fresh and sweet.  I laid in a case or two of "unpretentious but delightful" little wines.

She is a miracle.  

So, perhaps, with the itchiness of my spring fever, the wanderlust, and the ache, I will find a new motivation to these organized intentions.  

Dinner at the table 

A little glass of wine 

A pat of butter 

an end of day ritual that might make everything more sensible.  

I don't know...

For now, I will just go ahead and put the water on - and hope for a long Spring...

Thinking of you, more often than you know...

All love

Amanda

27 February 2011

 Untitled, watercolor and pencil 

Amanda Millay Hughes

I am worried about Judith Jones. 

Starting with The Tenth Muse and arriving home from Borders today - my Border's is closing and all books were on sale 20 - 40 % off - with The Pleasures of Cooking for One, I have become a fan.  How can you resist a woman writer and editor and a home chef extraordinaire even on the first beautiful Sunday of the year?  I know that I could be, perhaps should be out in the sun, sweeping the front porch or walking the dog.  Instead, I am inside reading.  

Judith Jones was born in 1924 and started working at Knopf in 1957 - yes, the year I was born.  She has been the editor of so many I admire, annotating their manuscripts and sending thoughtful commentary. From John Updike to Julia Child, Anne Tyler to William Maxwell (although I know Maxwell only from his fame as fiction editor at The New Yorker during the golden years) - she has been the last reader before all the others line up to purchase a book. And yes, she saved The Diary of Anne Frank from the reject pile and she is singlehandedly responsible for the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.   It must be a grace and a charm to have this intimate role with great manuscripts and their authors. When I imagine her, I place her in a tiny apartment in New York City or in an old house in Vermont and I see a life that makes so much imaginary sense to me that I could simply cry with delight: oh, to be a reader and writer, an editor and a serious-minded home cook.

But, I am worried about her. 

Her last blog post on judithjonescooks.com is dated months ago.  There are no touring dates on her Random House/Knopf page (publisher of The Pleasures of...). At 87, perhaps she has finally, truly retired. 

I hope not. 

The world needs good, strong women making their mark in publishing and in the kitchen, living well and living long enough to have time to tell us about it. I think Jones is right when she says that "the food industry has for more than a century been selling the idea that it is demeaning for women to cook and a waste of time when they can buy ready made products instead" (Introduction, The Pleasures of Cooking for One). I never really gave this much thought until I found myself buying the steam-in-bag pre-seasoned microwavable vegetables (you know the kind, the butter and salt are added because, why?  Because that would be hard and a waste of my time?).  They are tasty and convenient, but they are also a bit of an insult to the part of me that knows - or at least knew, once upon a time - how to cook peas on the stove top. Knowing how to cook is not a waste of time.  Knowing how to cook is an investment in life. And living is the thing that matters.  Living well and openly, with curiosity, intellectual rigor, and commitment.  This is what I see in Judith Jones.  It is what I want to see in myself. 

I suspect that my old friend and teacher, Andre Dubus was right when he told me not to worry too much about writing for a while - he said, "You write well, Amanda, and you always will.  For now, you must live. Your best work will come a little later in the day." 

Andre is gone, and Dad, and so many others that I have admired and learned from - both close and far away, in person and through books.  So many who offered such unbridled enthusiasm for their craft and their creed, such generosity to me - student, daughter, reader.  In Judith Jones, I thought perhaps I had found a new teacher, but just when I recognize her, I fear she has stopped writing.  And with that fear, another feeling...or at least another kind of knowing emerges.

It is a little later in the day.  It is time to think about dinner, a Sunday supper of chicken salad and warm slices of pumpernickel bread, a little glass of wine and an evening watching the Oscars and snippets of Carolina Basketball.  But, it is also "a little later in the day."  Just as Andre said it would be. 

I wonder.  If Andre were here, would he tell me that now is the time?  Would he caution me that yes, sure enough, it is later in the day and time to write?

Wish you were here. 
All love,
Amanda

PS  It is well over 70 degrees outside today - spring is entirely here. 

4 February 2011

Image Courtesy of Will Hughes Haddad Photography

I am watching the news reports of this endless winter.  The constant swirling of white and pink on enhanced Dopplar Radar maps.  Pictures on William's Facebook page and postings of waiting in airports and delayed flights.  It is cold here today - but not the bitter cold of New England or Michigan, New York or Ohio. 

I am thinking of you in the bitter cold.

Every year in the South we hope and pray for a few snow days - knowing full well that it will take next to nothing to make everything stop.  I was in the grocery store a few weeks ago and said something to the checkout girl about snow coming over the next week.  She frowned, pursed her lips, pointed her finger at me and said with a sneer, "Don't use that word in a grocery store."  "Snow," I asked.  "You did it again," she said.  "Don't do that." And she meant it with a little grin.  I know what she means.  I have been at my Kroger on the evening before a storm.  It is like watching preparation for Armageddon!   People have more bread than they could eat in a month and strange non-perishables (Beenie-Weenies????) that no one really wants when heated on the electric stove, let alone ice cold from the can! What are they thinking? 

They are thinking ICE.  Because here, it is rarely snow that causes real problems or damange.  It is ice.  There is something about our geography - where we are in the middle of the Piedmont wedged between the Sandhills and Foothills of North Carolina - that makes us particularly susceptible to ice. Ice on powerlines never intended to support ice.  Ice on roadways. Ice on bridges and sidewalks.  Ice is the real concern. 

But for us, this concern is almost over for another year.  In a few weeks the first crocuses and daffodils will appear.  The warmer, longer days will begin and before you know it we will be in the first heat wave and worrying about a long hot summer.  Complaining about the weather may be pointless - complaining about the obvious is never a good idea - but it is a healthy pastime.  I spoke with three people in New York City today - and every one of them talked about the weather!  Who can blame them? 

I will let you know on the first day we hit 70 degrees.  You should keep me posted on when you hit 50! I remember those magical first "warm" days in New England, opening every window in the house on one such day...after all, it was 52! 

Thinking of you - with only warm thoughts. 
Amanda

31 January 2011

Gather quickly
Out of darkness
All the songs you know
And throw them at the sun
Before they melt
Like snow

Bouquet

Langston Hughes

Yesterday, we went to a memorial service for Georgia Carroll Kyser -  widow of Kay Kyser (and his College of Musical Knowledge).  There was no minister and there were no prayers.  Only the memories of family and close friends. The service was held in one of my favorite buildings on the campus - Gerrard Hall - built in 1837.  It was a chapel and is now a concert/lecture hall - three major renovations later. Langston Hughes spoke and read poetry there in 1931.  It is a strong building, with a high, steep balcony that wraps around the single room on three sides.  The walls are painted a warm pink that can only be justified by history, white wood trim, polished wood floors; white plantation shutters line the windows. Two of her daughters spoke, and one of her grandchildren read a posthumous thank you note, written to honor the lessons learned. Friends, neighbors, extended family described her influence on their lives and the life of the community. She was a fixture in Chapel Hill society for more than fifty years. Reels of old film and interviews were edited down into a beautiful video - she was magnificently beautiful - so the end of the service was marked by her voice and her image. 

As we drove home, I found myself thinking about the lives we live...the way we open and close our door to friends and family, to strangers and guests.  I found myself thinking about the conversations at the dinner table, the color of candlelight when it drifts across the faces of family. How we remember one another, where and when.

I have never been to a memorial service quite like this before.  Without the constraints of liturgy or the insistence on an altar call to remind us of the frailty of bodies and the promise of eternal life, what remained was a song without melody, sung by the next generations, composed from memory, placed in stanzas, and like the Langston Hughes poem suggests, thrown toward the sun. 

I woke up thinking about their memorial song - the song her family threw toward the sun yesterday.  One stanza for beauty - for creating a home, a place in the world where beauty can rest for a moment.  One stanza for hospitality - letting students live in her home, widening the table for suppers with friends all speaking at once. One stanza for politics and opposition to the war in Vietnam.  One stanza for life, rewritten in North Carolina.

I only met her once - at a party at the Chancellors house at Carolina. But I know her granddaughter, and like her very much. Her loss is what made me attend and listen. She was, like Mother, that perfect configuration of great bones and posture, of elegance and fun.  She was strong, opinionated, and dedicated to beauty. A transplant to North Carolina,  as I sometimes say about myself, she was neither Tar Heel born, nor Tar Heel bred, but by God, when the day comes, I hope I will be Tar Heel dead.

When you take away the prayers and the preaching, the sermons and the dogma, the rituals of generations, all you are left with is what one offered during the one life they lived.  And, I have to say, it was as inspirational as any service for the dead I have ever attended.  I left with the sense that yes, she was marvelous, and yes, she was exacting, demanding, elegant - but also, I left with a new appreciation for living: doing what can be done and what must be done.  Surrounding your self with the people and things and ideas that you value.  Giving a little back whenever you can.  Being known for life...your own life and the lives you touch.

So, of course, because I am my father's daughter and because I am named for her, I am also thinking of Edna St. Vincent Millay - Dirge without Music - and how long it takes to begin to understand.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. 

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

It is cold again this morning, after a warm weekend.  A meeting at 9 am.  Another at 11:00. The dog sleeps on the floor beside me.  On we go...

Love you,
Amanda



.

24 January 2011

Sometimes I doodle. 

I don't think is any great news to anyone - anyone who has ever spent any time with me in a meeting, or at a lecture, or . . .well, maybe it is safe to say - anyone who knows me at all.  

Lately, I have been looking at some of these doodles as I clear off my desks (at home and at work). In truth, there is nothing there but some inner symbol set.  I suspect that little houses mean I am bored and want to go home.  Little stars mean action steps; little arrows mean connections...and sometimes, as in the little bowls above, I doodle the topic of the lecture - Ben Owen III and his wonderful North Carolina pots. But, in the last few months a new doodle has emerged: the beloved ampersand!  I like the balance; I like the different styles: I like the curves and the shapes and the meaning.

&  &  &  

These three are the only ones available to me in the font choices for this blog - and even there you can see it - subtle changes, design possibilities! For a doodler, this is perfect! 

Because of my own compulsions, all this ampersand doodling sent me to "my google" - I do have a personal, possessive relationship with google! - only to discover more about ampersands than most would care to know.  

I am loving it.  The styles are endless.  The wiki page,  a wonder!  Who knew?  I encourage you to take a peek. The history is a riot and I love that I am 54 and never knew all this until just a few days ago. 

In fact, I am thinking a little about writing a children's book called Mr Amper & His Ampersand!  Learning is all about the "and" it seems to me - learning how to know this & that & the next thing, too.  And, of course, it is one more idea, one more thing to do, and that is precisely my point.  Maybe I doodle ampersands at this moment in my life because it is a short hand symbol, my own marginalia for the demands of life.  

This and that and then the next thing on my list and then the car to the shop and the dog to the vet and the bills to be paid and the wine to pour and did you send that email and did you call the doctor for your annual check up and stop at the grocery store and remember to get half and half, and, and, &, &, &.  It's almost like the ellipsis on the end of a sentence, only instead of being dots, in my life, it is a string of ampersands.  

I am not complaining - it's just a little insight into the way I think and the time of life I inhabit. 

So tonight, in the remaining 21 minutes before House begins (& I do love House), I will:

print the picture of Edison dancing in his work room that you sent - how marvelous! 

&

finish the last of the left over spaghetti, wondering all the while why it is so much better on the second day

& 

check facebook for the latest post from my wise friend Mark Bozutti-Jones 

&

send the three emails that should have gone today

& 

make the morning coffee 

& 

wash my little dish 

& 

wish you were here! 

Love you 

More along the way & & & 
Always yours, 

Amanda 

19 January 2011

Dear Miss Kelly,

You will have to forgive the silence - the weeks are flying by as we enter the new year in earnest.  Work demands are many, and little by little all the normal rhythms of life are settling back in.  It is mid-winter, the long season. 

I have been thinking a lot about sayings the last few days - how useful or useless they are. Dad used to have so many that he used all the time, and today, at work, I actually said one in a meeting: "Well," I said, "My dad used to say you should never underestimate the Dumb Factor."  In my memory, he used this in discussions of politics.  Politicians have to accommodate the "dumb."  That's why they can't really discuss the issues - too many people wouldn't understand them and they need the votes.  I suppose, at least in part, it is a true saying. 

He used to say "You've got to dance with the guy that brought you...."  Modernized, I might say, "You have to dance with the one..." and of course, "Lie down with dogs - Get up with fleas" and "Live prospectively, understand retrospectively."  The litany of his sayings is long. 

But he also told that wonderful story about his Aunt Esther and her little poem, her little saying:

Habit is a cord

You weave a thread each day 

Until it is so strong

You cannot break away

I think it is my favorite - particularly as I get older and realize that we are, in fact, more or less, the sum total of our habits. And, as I get older, I realize that old habits die hard and new habits are born (at least in me) out of two things:  happenstance and passion.  Suddenly, it seems, I notice that I have a new habit - maybe its as simple as the cup of decaf tea I seem to make every single night now - decaf English breakfast equals the end of the day.  Or maybe its coming in through the back door instead of the front. When did that start?  Happenstance habits.  But the others, the ones that really change a life are passionate...and I can only think about a few of those hard-won, enduring, central, essential habits:

Time alone in the studio every morning no matter what

Saying thank you in that hour - letting worries fall into God's column on the to-do list

Paying attention, every day, to the mystery and the mercy 

I find myself thinking a lot about mercy - a quality that seems so missing from public discourse - so missing from so many sayings.  And yet, it is one of those habits that I want to cultivate in myself...is there a saying that will help with that?

About two years ago, I made a piece of art with two birds - and included in it, the saying on this art card:

Two birds No stone Only mercy 

It stays with me.  I remember it, even if I am still not very good at it.  When I am cross over the conduct of crazy drivers in the parking lot at Kroger - this happened just yesterday! - or when I am in a meeting and I think the Dumb Factor has invaded every body in the room (including my own), I do find it helpful to pause and think: "Well, you know what I always say:  Two birds. No stone. Only mercy."  It makes me pause.  Think again.  Pay attention.  

As I settle into the New Year - I think this is one of my resolutions:  Only Mercy.  And as much as I can,  I mean to live it out.   

Time to finish my tea. 

I am thinking so much about you and these last days of your sister's life....

My every prayer for her comes from Compline in the Book of Common Prayer.  

May God grant a perfect night and a peaceful end.

Only mercy

I love you

Amanda 

.  

 

7 January 2011

It seems impossible, but here I am...fifty four years old. 

The time passes more quickly, just like everyone said it would. And, sure enough, I still feel the same way inside that I have felt since - well, when, exactly?  I am not sure.  When do we become who we are?  I don't think it happens overnight.  I think it happens little by little - as we change the story.  The story of our mothers and fathers falls away a little, time passes, wounds heal - and little by little we become who we are. 

I know, for me, changing the story was important.  My poor dad, so smart and so wrong so much of the time.  So alone - in so many ways.  And of course, this year, like so many before and so many yet to come, my mother seems to have forgotten it is my birthday... 

I just got in from my birthday party.  We went to a little local restaurant - a true hole in the wall - with fabulous food!  Meelos at the Loehmann's Plaza.  I will take you there if you come for a visit.  Mr. Meelos (that is not his name) is perfect - and if you close your eyes and only take in the smells and the sounds - you could easily be in Italia - in Tuscany...or even Roma. 

I had the house salad  - lobster ravioli - and a little plate of his spinach (with pancetta and cranberries) - but that is only what I ate.  What I had was time with this family and friends - with Fran and Dusty, Margie and Charlie, Ande and Jimmy, Sam and Cathy (I do not think that you have met them), dear David, and sweet Kirsten.  All celebrating with me - all celebrating that somehow, by luck and pluck, I am still alive and here.  Pour another little glass of Malbec - yes, of course a little carry out box - yes, and thank you and thank you and thanks so much. Mr. Meelos kisses me on my cheek.   

It is my birthday - number 54.  And oh how I wish you were here with us....

Always
Amanda

30 December 2010

Written on the 30th of December - but posted today.  Sorry for the delay. 

Beauty is everywhere!

I must be in a very good mood this morning, as all I can see is delight and beauty.  This is not my normal way - tending as I do to a touch of melancholy and a long list of serious endeavors.  But, yesterday, Emily and I spent a record eight hours shopping.  We tried on clothes and shoes and hats and scarves - ogled and giggled over colors and prices and people - and at the end of the day, realized that perhaps, with a little loving attention, we could learn to see beauty even in the 7x lighted magnifying mirrors we bought for our homes!  We thought, maybe, we had been wrong about a great many things - and that we could enter the land of the beautiful.

So as I mark the end of the year, I find myself thinking about the ways in which beauty lives right here with me and in me - and in all that I love.  I remember my friend Ray saying one time that the one common thread he could see in all of his friends was their beauty - he went on to say that it was not always the physical beauty that drew him in.  I know what he means - there is a tension between the images of pop culture - rolling in unrelenting tidal waves, tsunami's of style drowning us all - and that singularity, that uniqueness, that light in the eyes, openness in the heart, aspirations of kindness and excellence that move you from awe to delight, and maybe even devotion.

Now that the house is empty and all are home, or at least headed for home, I clean the house and prepare for the high holy day of New Years Day. Put away the Christmas presents, sweep and dust and mop the floors. Run the vacuum, wash the bed linens and bathrooms. And if I can hold the mood - I will stay close to this sense of beauty for a little longer.