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