That Marie Kondo thing, how you’re supposed to declutter by going through your possessions one by one and asking yourself in each case, “Does it spark joy?” I thought about that as I rummaged through my “leggings” drawer and fished out a pair of thick grey microfleece ones. I held them up to scrutiny (mostly to determine front/back orientation). I dunno about sparking joy, but they are fuzzy, warm, and machine washable/dryable, and that’s good enough for yrs trly.
I’m in the process of eating our dining hall’s latest offering of a shredded beef sandwich with pickles and onions served on the side as optional inclusions. There is a certain amount of “jus” as well as a liberal drizzle of barbecue sauce on the meat, which means the bun is at the “any minute the lower bun will completely disintegrate and drop half of this mess in your lap” stage, so I’m eating it with a knife and fork off an actual ceramic plate instead of out of the Styrofoam clamshell it came in.
For a week and more, every sinus in my head and both inner ears have been packed tight, with nothing going anywhere; not mucus, not air, not nothing. But I have now reached that stage of the “upper respiratory infection” song and dance where my eustachian tubes and sinuses are just beginning to open back up again.
(The little iris dish to left is a memento of a friend I wish I’d gotten to know better.)
The drainage causes periodic attempts to cough up my toenails, and every time I blow my nose, my sinuses squeak and groan like a mighty oak about to topple. Now and again, my right ear will “pop” when I swallow. It’s like the point in the Arctic spring when the pack ice is just beginning to break up. But what’s been weird about it is that my nose was never stuffed up and I could always breathe freely. And thank goodness it has stayed out of my lungs. If this #$@%!*& had gotten down into my lungs, I’d have been one sick puppy.
Yesterday, I had the last of the cough drops. In desperation, I opened a package of gummy bears. I may be onto something . . .
Earlier I was puttering through my little windowsill jungle, cooing over the Christmas cactus which is now sporting multiple spots of bright fuchsia. The anthurium is going nuts with its Christmas red blooms, and the arrowhead plant is unwadding leaves fit to kill. The peace lily desperately needs repotting. And Orchid the 4th. The bloom spikes on Orchid the 2nd and Orchid the 3rd are about to the point where I need to get the little sticks out and stake them. No indication of a bloom spike on the other two. There’s some way the commercial greenhouses play games with them so that there’s always a bunch in bloom to ship to the stores, but I’m not sure if that’s related to the length of day and night. I wonder how long it takes them to sync up, or whether they just bloom when the spirit moves them. The seasonal lengths of days and nights doesn’t vary that much in the tropics so that may not be so important to when they bloom. Mr. Ball didn’t put out a flower spike until January and it took him until March to finally open up the blooms.
I had to open up another box of Stash Tea’s Breakfast in Paris blend this afternoon. If you like a London Fog (or would like Earl Grey better without the bergamot), try this. Especially with vanilla almond milk in. I’ve been sucking it down like the nectar of the gods it is. I usually drink it in pots of 2 BIP bags and one bag of Twinings Darjeeling, just to make a box of BIP go farther.
(The snowman the friend I lost to breast cancer made for me several years ago. I miss her so much.)
I am not a green tea fan nor an herbal tea fan. I go for the gunpowder (black) teas. I like plenty of bang for my buck. Breakfast in Paris is a nice gunpowder with vanilla and lavender. Twining’s Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) tea is nice, too. Smoother and lighter than Earl Grey and without the bergamot.
While we’re passing out free advertising, Stash Teas has some lovely herbal teas and a ginger peach green tea for those who lean in that direction.
I have a statue of Quanyin in my bedroom (which needs dusting!) that I’ve had for a while. It has resonated with me since I first beheld her. She watches over my bed, and wanders through my dreams, turning up in strange places with strange companions.
A lot of my prettiest little pictures I’ve gotten off greeting cards, like the Iris above.
I suppose I have (honestly come by) Victorian tendencies to clutter up every surface and every inch of wall space with things that are a delight to the eye and to the hand, and thence to the spirit. My mom’s oldest sister’s house in Houston was a treasure trove of such, both acquired by her and inherited and it loomed large in my childhood legend. A friend once commented that my apartment was like Tut’s tomb — full of wonderful things (all with a tale of some kind attached). I suppose it’s a function of working on computers for thirty five years (!) intersecting with my strong magpie tendencies to collect tchotchkes. I can take a break from the computer screen and direct my eyes to anywhere around me and see something delightful to look at, at a variety of focal distances, to rest my eyes and soothe my spirit.
I think COVID pulled a lot of people up short and made them take stock of the places they were living in, and re-evaluate their personal aesthetic. Home should be something more than a box where you eat, sleep and keep your stuff. It should be a refuge, a sanctuary, a place of refreshment and renewal. It should contain things that spark joy.
It should be full of wonderful things deliberately brought into your world not because some influencer or style maven told you that you should have them, but because they delight your eye and lift your spirit. FONFI (fear of not fitting in) is the biggest spirit killer in the world. It’s your house. The style maven doesn’t live there; you do.
The picture above was taken in Notre Dame de Paris cathedral — the one that nearly burned down — with the 35 mm Argus C3 camera my dad bought when I was born. The day was bright and sunny, the cathedral was dark, the famous stained glass was a choir of color pouring in. I slowed the shutter down as far as it would go, opened the lens as wide as it would go, braced my hands on the prie-dieu and said a little prayer. I was using the Argus because I didn’t have a decent camera at the time. I didn’t have a light meter or exposure meter or any of that other camera gear you were supposed to need. I just ballparked and winged it and I think out of 16 rolls of film I had only two or three duds. I was stationed in West Berlin at the time. I had saved up a month’s leave. My mom and dad flew out to meet me and we toured Europe together with Eurail passes. We had no plans or reservations except my parent’s flight home. It was a glorious adventure. My mom spent her 50th birthday in Paris. We went to Vienna and Salzburg, my dad and I sat on a park bench in Bern and made up limericks while my mom shopped. We had picknick lunches on the trains. We saw the University of Heidelberg, where my mother’s great grandfather went to school. Wonderful things.
The Owl Underground 