Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Hemingway Saturday

Early this morning while cream was heating for that first miraculous cup of coffee, I walked to our sun-dappled front room to grab a book of poetry. (It was a bit too early for Stephen King.) A moment later, book and perfect coffee in hand, I found my way to the secret garden to wake myself up with swirls of words and sips of sweet, hot caffeine.

Then I realized I’d grabbed the wrong book. Instead of poetry I sat there holding A Moveable Feastby Ernest Hemingway. Specifically, a restored edition with foreword and introduction written by his son and grandson. I cracked it open and was transfixed. I’ve always wanted to love Hemingway but have so far felt it stiff and stale. This, though? Already mouthwatering.

Just the title transported me, or perhaps the discussion of the title, pointing us to Paris and Hemingway’s love for the city.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

I’ve never been to Paris, but it’s no secret how much I love New Orleans. How impactful that city (the French Quarter, really, just the village there) has been to my heart and mind, my imagination and best intentions. Does everyone have a place sacred like this? I hope so. This has been such a surprise to me… On one hand it makes me want to travel more widely, to see what other treasures are available for discovery. On the other hand, I’m so partial to the Quarter already.

So I’m reading A Moveable Feast today and thoroughly enjoying it. After that, the tail end of that thick King novel then some brand new historical fiction by Jen Luitweiler. What are you reading? How are you spending your Saturday?

XOXOXO

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Saturday With Cervantes

   Every passionate reader has his or her own favorite way to get lost with a good book. Most of us are happy to do so under almost any circumstances, really, but we all have that certain place to sit, those special conditions and that exact mood, that make reading a true escape. Sensory transportation into the papery world offered.

   Knowing this personality detail about my friends is cool. I like to find out how they read best. Some of them prefer reading on dark, story days with the fireplace blazing. Others like to read curled up on the couch, blanketed by adoring felines. Some people read en route to work, by necessity, like on a train or even using audio books (something I have yet to try). Some people read in the bathtub with a deep glass of wine.

   Well, today, quite by surprise, I enjoyed the year’s first taste of my own favorite way to read. 
   The sun was not just golden but toasty. Hot, even. The clouds were lightweight and shed a few drops of easy moisture now and then. True sun-showers. I was free to lounge outside and luxuriate with sweet iced tea, apples and cheese, and a soft green yard full of clucking, puttering geese and chickens. 
   Weren’t we huddled against a final winter blow just three days ago? Not today. Today we enjoyed a preview of summer.
   
   No television, no cell phone unless I wanted it, and no hurry. Chanta, our big paint horse, was roaming free and kept sneaking up on me to nibble my toes or snuffle my bare back. Mia, my ever faithful gander, kept vigil of course. He honked and whined and smacked his muddy beak at the pages of my current haunt. Jealous of the attention being lavished to Miguel de Cervantes, I’m sure.
   Reading like this always puts me on the brink of a deep sleep, but if the book is good enough then my grip on reality is traded for full immersion to the story’s setting. Today was that good, that magical.

“Tranquility, a peaceful place, the pleasant countryside, serene skies, murmuring fountains, a calm spirit, are a great motivation for the most barren muses to prove themselves fertile and produce offspring that fill the world with wonder and joy.” ~Cervantes

   Here’s wishing you a few hours of your favorite reading conditions, friends! Soak up the best of whatever is offered you, and get lost in some paper.
“So many books, 
  so little time.”
~Frank Zappa
xoxoxoxo

Turning the Page to Springtime

   Ah, early March…Right now I am resting in a pleasant reading lull following the big book club project Bonhoeffer. This is good timing, too, because the seasons are changing and I have more and more gardening tasks to consume my negotiable hours. Hallelujah!!!

    For a couple of weeks I’ll be indulging my paper-thirsty soul in three books. First is Typee, a tantalizing Herman Melville novel set in the South Pacific, which transports me to heat, sand, eroticism, and cannibalism. Next is Barbara Kingsolver’s fantastic one-year memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I’m actually exploring this for the second time. Don Quixote is the next book club selection, and while I won’t dive into the text until later this month, it has lots of pre-reading worth doing. Sometimes this just helps revv up your engine, which is often helpful we reading an old, old, old book like this. The pre-reading for a classic is like a well planned appetizer; it primes your mind and your soul for the literary feast that is coming. This translation in particular has tons of yummy things to offer, and I’m grooving it.

Also, when the house is otherwise quiet, Pacino likes for me to read 
the introductions and author notes and such aloud to him.
His is a very bossy and snobby bird who fancies himself an intellectual.
But he’s really not. He just likes to hear people talk. Especially Momma.

Don’t even get me started on Romulus.
Something tells me this llama expects me 
to read him Don Quixote en Espanol.
No va a suceder, hombre. 

   Anyway, were you here at the digital Lazy W last spring? Do you remember the rantings and ravings I issued forth about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? I basically could not shut up about it:

   Well, this time around I am pretty much just reading what I marked from last February (which is only every other sentence), because the Kingsolver family’s locavorism story has already been imprinted on my heart. Now I can afford to just reread the tenets, the quotes, and the light bulb paragraphs. What last year suddenly became my gardening manifesto is this spring proving its staying power. I feel a February reading tradition growing here, you guys.

   My early mornings lately have been perfumed with sentences like this…

“Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best.” ~Barbara Kingsolver

and…

“That’s the sublime paradox of a food culture: restraint equals indulgence.” ~Barbara Kingsolver

   These only inspire me further towards a more loving, deliberate approach to our food growing efforts here at the W. Then a few days ago I saw this quote floating around cyberspace as the rain was falling hard and cold on our thirsty fields…

“I said to the almond tree ‘Speak to me of God’ and the almond tree bloomed.” ~Niko Kazantzakis*

   Isn’t that true and beautiful?? I cannot think of any sphere of life where God proves His creative, redemptive power more consistently or with more poetry than in nature.

   In Oklahoma we are starting oregano seeds indoors and scattering poppy and cilantro seeds outdoors, where the chickens can’t see. Obviously. We are scooping up natural fertilizers and digging new beds. We are counting the weeks, the days, and the hours till the first fresh little verdant harvest bowl. Springtime is arriving with lots of much needed moisture, proving the almanac right once more. Ladybugs are swarming, honey bees are foraging, and the wide blue skies are thawing. One prayer after another is being answered gently, too. We are excited.

   I feel so thankful to have a comfortable place in my life for reading. I am really enjoying these books so far, and I also really really love this rich inspiration for the new gardening season. Last year was good, but this year is going to be amazing…. Can’t you feel it??

   What are you reading right now? Have you started anything in your garden yet? Have you noticed any prayers being answered?

“They must often change,
who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.”
~Confucius
xoxoxoxo

*Twentieth century Greek philosopher and writer

A Yummy Book Combination

   I realized something last night that sort of bears mentioning: At present I am reading two books, each a personal memoir and each thoroughly engrossing and completely worth the time to read. Together they form the most unusual and delicious reading combination in recent memory. Like a swirl margarita, if you’re into that. Together they are revealing insight into all kinds of life experiences I will probably never have, and they display two completely unique writing styles, yet they seem to be aiming at incredibly similar themes.It’s almost like the two books were written separately but as part of a grand design. They are:

…and…
Do you know Jenny yet? Get addicted over at  http://thebloggess.com/.

   This is kinda fun. I am accustomed to reading two wildly different books at once, to keep all of my muscles dancing and warm. I’ll often be reading, say, something instructional or maybe a bit of spiritual writing against a piece of purely indulgent adventure fiction. But this? This is a unique pairing. These two books are actually more alike than you might think, even if the two authors may appear to be apples and oranges. I can’t wait to finish them both and write proper reviews.

   In addition to the fact that they are both recently written memoirs, I discovered last night that the life stories of both our forty third President and the wildly popular Bloggess intersect in the town of Midland, Texas. Two richly textured personalities, two lives that have affected untold others in the last two decades, both sprung up from the hard, dry, earth of Midland, that oil crust that apparently breeds fascinating people.
   I really am having a hard time every day deciding which one to pick up first, they are both so good in their own ways. And I am accumulating a bevvy of notes comparing and contrasting George W with Jenny Lawson, a mental exercise that probably seems pointless to you. But you try to read these side by side and not see the parallels!
   Okay, gotta go. I am off to either be inspired by the bloom of a political career or laugh my tummy flat at the way Lawson tells her sad stories. I promise to write completely useless reviews of both books soon. 
People Are People So Why Should It Be…
You and I Should Get Along So Awfully?
xoxoxo

Reviewing My New Manifesto

   Well, it happened again. I finished a book and am awash in mixed feelings. It reminds me of the last day of a school year when you loved your teacher so much, so deeply, that you can barely stand to say goodbye, yet the teaching is done and summer awaits. Tonight I am equal parts numb from the vigorous grooming and tingling with motivation to put this new knowledge into action.
   Studying Barbara Kingsolver’s memoir of her family’s twelve-month foray into strict locavorism has been a spiritual experience for me. No kidding. She offers us in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a literary gumbo of earth science, animal husbandry, human cultural history, religion & morality (yep, I think those are different), politics, economics, and philosophy. With a hefty dash of humor. I read it on multiple high recommendations from trusted people, and now I suppose I’m offering my own:
   Buy this book. It is an inexpensive purchase (I spent less that seven bucks on my hardback copy, albeit second hand). Don’t check it out, because I predict you’ll be marking and dog-earing and highlighting yours a lot. I sure did. One way or another, if you love food, read this wonderful book. 
   If you have the gardening sickness or a penchant for raising your own edible animals, study these pages. I found them to be endlessly inspirational this week between monotonous chores. When I thought that the wheel-barrowing of dried manure would never end and the glorious day to plant my broccoli starts would never come, much less the clipping of fragrant basil, I just sat down with a glass of water and soaked up half a chapter of the book. And my bones found the energy they needed for a few more circuits of shoveling and  bed filling. Her words helped me to visualize my summer garden.
   Even if the mission of eating locally is not that appealing to you, it’s an incredible family story and raises a plethora of tantalizing debate topics for your smarmy dinner parties. 
   And yes, I know what a plethora is.
   There are so many things I could tell you about this book. Let me just try to tempt you a little rather than  rewrite her masterpiece:
Some of the Juicy Topics That Beg Further Discussion:
  • Environmental overdraft
  • Demand side management
  • Illusion of top soil
  • Realignment with the food chain
  • Food Culture, or lack thereof
  • Knowing the provenance of your food
  • Self sufficiency as an act of patriotism, pointing back to Thomas Jefferson
  • Amish values and the beauty of boundaries
  • Agricultural agnostic
  • Xantolo
  • Culture being the property of a species, not just of the wealthy
  • Growing pizza
  • Life as a zero-sum equation (time management comment)
  • The draw to garden again and again and again, despite hardship
  • Economics of growing it yourself and the intrinsic rewards that overshadow this
  • The differences between harvesting and killing
  • The religion of time saving
  • Food Security
…And so much more. I need to find a few other people who have read this book in order to bounce some things around. Julia assures me that contacting the author would not be stalker-ish, but I have my doubts. 

How about a few quotes that glowed most brightly to my eyes?
“A lifetime is what I’m after.” Me too. Enough with the instant gratification business. We’re missing so much by rushing.
“From the ground up, everything about nourishment steadies my soul.” She spoke at length here about everything from soil preparation to harvesting and cooking from scratch for your family and friends.
“I decided my poultry patient could use a mental health day.” Amen, sister! This was from a particularly excellent chapter about heirloom turkey reproduction.
“Perfect is not the currency of farming.” Perfect is much less beautiful anyway.
“Cooking is 80% confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice.” This made me cry. My girls started cooking when they could barely stand steady on a chair at the kitchen counter, and a half aprons looked like ball gowns on their beautiful, skinny little bodies.
“One of the best things gardens can teach students is respect: for themselves, for others, and the environment.” How exciting, by the way, that school systems around the country are adopting curricula that get their students dirty and happy! 
“Some things you learn by having to work around the word no.” Brilliant.
“For one thing, hogs are intelligent enough to become unharvestable.” Perhaps you have noticed a conspicuous absence of hogs at the Lazy W.
and finally…
“Nothing is more therapeutic than to walk up there 
and disappear into the yellow-green smell of the tomato rows 
for an hour to address the concerns of quieter, 
more manageable colleagues. Holding the soft, viny limbs 
as tender as babies’ wrists, I train them to their trellises, 
tidy the mulch at their feet, inhale the oxygen of their thanks.”

   Are you sighing along with me? And I promise you that Kingsolver retains her sense of wonder and poetry in every single chapter. I have never read so many cold, hard facts written this lyrically.
   Speaking of chapters, there are twenty. The story begins with some background about the family’s motivation for this journey and ends just after their year of locavorism concludes. Every chapter is an adventure, and the author shares the papery stage with her husband and teenage daughter. 

   I have to admit a smidge of relief to understand that they viewed the year long experience as a singular one, but still one that would precipitate change in their lives. I personally am just not energetic or reliable enough to be a fanatical about anything, so it grooves me to approach the ideas herein gently, with slowness and a bit of caution. In other words, the Lazy W will be supplementing our groceries more heavily this year than ever before, but I do not predict we will place a buying freeze on all things non local or inorganic.
   
   Have you read this book? Do you want to chat it up with me? Do you want to borrow my copy? Do you need some manure for your compost heap? We have plenty, so bring your shovels.
We Have a Paradise at our Disposal.
xoxoxo


Mama's Losin' It