Patterns

The comfort in patterns is universal. Routine tasks nowadays take on an oversized importance. A psychology person might say that by doing the same thing the same way every time we obtain the satisfaction of predictability. What the heck is more important than that now? Whether it’s the way we brush our teeth, add milk to coffee, sanitize the door knobs, dry our hair or butter our toast, we gain some control or at least the illusion of it. The expected outcome is mostly assured. I say mostly because there are intervening moments which may upset our expectations: as in running out of butter or spilling milk.

These are the small and brief patterns of everyday existence. They are the comforting routines. Any disruption or alteration adds to the frustration and stress that we already feel. Who would have guessed that the direction of the bathroom tissue roll could be so crucial to mental health? Edgy is what we are. See if you don’t recognize some recent repetitive behavior patterns:

Order on line, order more on line – listen for the delivery truck (if you are suburban) - eat more snack food – eat more cookies, not as a snack – rearrange the furniture – rearrange the rugs – bake – tidy up the storage spaces - leave the tv on all day – clean up contact lists on your phone – organize your streaming schedule – order take away as a special occasion – eat more cookies – appreciate pasta.

The point of all this is that these are patterns of the whole and that they are part of our modern living now. If you recognize some of these tendencies then you are not alone and there is some comfort in that by itself. “Human, all too human” as Fred Nietzsche would have said and did say. Maybe he wasn’t referring to too many doughnuts but you get the idea.

The pattern may occur in the task or in its timing. You might like to do certain things at a certain time of day or in a certain sequence. You check the mail and then rub down the door knobs. You might as well as long as you are standing there with the sanitizer close at hand (remember that I counselled that strategy to put some near each entry). Chaos is not our friend even though the philosophers declare that it is the nature of the universe. Who gives a fig about that speculation? Some of us are down in the dirty bog of daily mud wrestling. Ivory tower intellectualizing has a place but not so much in the every day existence of most people. As with most emotions there are degrees of desperation. It is good to remember that most of us in this favored land are not suffering what those in the Sahel may be enduring.

Which reminds me to mention that this period of strain is what we have been training for all our lives. All that schooling and socialization and good will we have exchanged is the well spring from which we draw power to endure adversity. Patterns help us deflect the short-term disappointment but it is our molded character which will see us through. Can I get an Amen to that?  Sit with your loved ones at table or at computer and share a laugh. Those are still remedial routines in the long term.

I owe you many hugs,

Celeste

Another Day

Another day! Or as my Wallace says, “Another chance to get it right!” Some of us don’t get up in the morning and that is not from sheer lassitude. It may be because the night shift does not allow it. For those who do get up, whether with the rising sun or not, the traditional English greeting of “Good Morning”, abbreviated to “Morning” or its lazier version “Mornin’” is heard in that early time all across the world. As a matter of interest, you may be intrigued by how other languages speak this simple greeting. In Lithuania: “Labas Rytas”; in Italy: “Buongiorno”; in Holland: “Goedmorgen”; in Hawai: “Aloha Kakahiaka”; in Sweden: “God Morgon”; in Uzbekistan: “Xayrlitong”; in Scotland: “Maidam Mhath” and in Wales: “Bora Da”. I leave the pronunciation to the expert speakers. This short list illustrates a couple of things. First, the Welsh are not revenging themselves on the English in all their phrases and second, it is universally accepted as a greeting of good will, a beginning. The word “Hello” is also universal but it carries a neutral connotation. It does not express the hint of bonhomie conveyed by “Good Morning”. A song in the movie “Singing in the Rain” may be an apotheosis of that sentiment.

I think about things like that. In solar sequence around the world these murmurs occur each day in every language in a common ritual. Almost all of us are stimulated to this address whether encouraged by temple bells, a partner stirring, bird song, the blasted alarm clock or the even more hated leaf blower. Sirens have lately become a more common provocation. I like to think of them as help on the way rather than as a shout that something terrible has happened. In any case a greeting is forthcoming.

Where sunny days are the rule, the charm of sunrise may not be so welcoming. When it is 115° F by nine o’clock in the morning day after day, the experience of a sunrise may be completely different than that in a garden above the sea from a redwood deck beneath a wisteria pergola in California. It is pretty easy to embrace a yogic attitude to that. Sometimes a cloudy day is a relief where the sun shines so unrelentingly. Can excessive vitamin D be a threat? UV rays are a different story.

Try to describe a sunrise. There are so many. Some are definitely memorable and they often include another person, on a mountaintop, in a tent, down on the dock, from the bedroom, from a plane or shipboard. Something about the new day promotes a momentary and genial lapse into cordiality. The colors in the clouds may be fiery or fierce, a mist may obscure definition or the foreground outline may be dramatic. When all is said and done, sunrise is a feeling. What it says is I am here. The breathing life we are living is worthy of shared acknowledgement. It’s a privilege to exchange greetings on the occasion. Sign language or gesture suffices. To say “Good Morning” is a celebration of something so ordinary that we can forget how meaningful and symbolic it is. It contains all we are. Together we can try to get it right.

For memoirists

 Let's talk memoirs. Some of you may have undertaken this exercise. We usually think of famous persons whose memoirs we read for their truth and their scandals and their gossip, most of which are all absent from the ultimate version. Apart from the concept that it is ipso facto a point-of-view retelling, and subject to all the misimpressions, misapprehensions and mistakes inherent in such an effort, there is some value in the memoir as gospel according to the narrator. Where would we be without that New Testament? We leave that to the theologians to debate.
 Anyhoo, the memoir writer has a singular and difficult road to travel, trying to be fair and trying to be truthful, two objectives which are often in diametric conflict when it comes to recounting events. Of course it is not just about events. Those could just as easily be cataloged in a simple chronology. Instead, the memoir is expected to be an insightful account of forces, intentional and not, and personalities which shaped the pathway of a life; hence, the common thread is the effect on the teller of the tale from people and events, and there is plenty of room for interpretation there! As someone who kept a diary as a youth, I can say that immediate expression of these complex interactions may be entertaining but entirely unreadable if not unreliable, sort of like eyewitness testimony which is famously so. That is where the stretch of time and the perspective of years may add some leavening to the batter and produce a richer reading experience.
One of my friends Nancy Pants (not her real name) kept a daily journal well into her college years and may even have been doing so since then in a marathon of self-expression. As a creative writer she was tops but I can't imagine the drone of daily events having any coherence except as a highly condensed memoir. That I might find fascinating. It seems to me that in a memoir the writer ought not simply recount but also comment and here is where the going gets sticky. It doesn't have to have the sweep of history to it but I think it ought to have a narrative flow that offers perspective and context to all the twists and turns of a life story and, if one is talking about a family member, a friend or an acquaintance, then there may well be some judgment offered about them, in a most loving way, bless their hearts. 
An elderly person of my acquaintance led an extraordinarily privileged life and undertook an oral history delivered to a professional transcriber/editor. After it was completed she had it suppressed because on reflection she felt that she might have ill-treated some of the still living characters. Sometimes the facts get in the way I suppose. That's a pity because if you don't tell your story, who will? If I were to undertake such a project I think I would be inclined to treat the whole affair as a graphic novel, had I the skill as an illustrator. For one thing I think that is the wave of the future in literature. Perhaps in a hundred years people will rediscover the pleasures of written linear expression in all its quaint detail, but for now it is not headed that way. There is no sense moaning about the dumbing down of reading. One can only soldier on as a scribbler and hope that the product may have enough inspiration to catch and hold a youthful eye. Pass it on, say I.
 Forever, Celeste

A modest reminder

         The harp is such a melodious instrument. Combined with a fiddle accompaniment, it can express wonderful feeling. Three cheers for Celtic sounds. So what is all the rumpus about my harping anyway? Where does harping get its reputation as repetitious and nattering harassment? Well it looks like we can thank the usual patriarchal impulses to demonize the feminine. Boy oh boy it goes back a long way, this inclination, all the way to Greek mythology with the mission of the harpies. (One wonders if that name should be capitalized since they did have a rank in the celestial hierarchy though not individually.) As you well know, they were tasked with bringing miscreants before the court of judgement in sort of a feathered drone delivery system. Fantasized as a woman with wings and nasty talons, these creatures evidently had a superior on time rating, so much so that they were considered inescapable. Talk about logistics!

        There’s nothing unique about the use of this pathetic harpy cliché. There are plenty of synonyms or approximations such as: shrew, virago, beldame, scold, termagant, battleaxe, harridan, nag, scold, fury and on and on. They are all dedicated to maligning women. Some of these unflattering names are quaint and I do love old words, but really. Can we get beyond this petty condemnation just because a gentle reminder is offered? “Please be home by ten o’clock.” “And don’t come home drunk.” “Don’t forget the milk.” “Did you lock the door?” “Have you got the key?” “Did you send my mother a birthday card?” These phrases are all calculated to maintain domestic tranquility. Sometimes repetition is the only way to teach…and learn.

        You can accuse me of plenty of failings in this line, only please keep in mind that always I have your best interests at heart. In these parlous times it might not be a matter of survival but it may be a matter of health. Normally my counsel is intended to smooth the course of your well ordered and gracious life so that you endure as few foreseeable upsets as possible. This applies to everything from table settings, to design décor, to menus, to shopping experience, to environmental awareness (that sounds rather grand but not so grand as mindfulness), to hospitality in general. As with every effort toward excellence, it is the details which matter and, if I offer a reminder, it is only because a small tidbit may have escaped your notice within this whirlwind of unexpected events. Black swan anyone?

        Now allow me to harp on some simple measures. If you have any antiseptic wipes, leave a container inside every door to the house. That way guests may avail themselves and you can conveniently sanitize the hardware between the comings or goings (to-ings and fro-ings). Some smart marketer will certainly soon have a designer container that at least slightly disguises the crass commercial look of those things. That’s one of the virtues of capitalism at work, the attempt to distinguish one product from all the others. If you live in a house where shoes are removed then you are way ahead of the contagion game. If not, then keep in mind that anything on the floors like clothing, pillows or toys will mingle freely with whatever is brought in on the bottoms of shoes. That’s such a yucky thought I don’t want to explore that any further. In the mean time buckle up for the long road to Wellville. See you there!

         With huge hugs,      Celeste

Parlous Times

           These are parlous times. What does that mean? One might gather from the apparent root of the word parlous that it derives from the French parler but according to etymology scholars that would be a mistake. Parler is said to derive from parabola or parabola when one refers to speech but parlous truly means perilous or dangerous and has its own separate line of ancestry.

          So these are dangerous times no matter how you slice it. Sanitation is of the utmost importance and more than a little worrisome for those who are vulnerable and those who love them. Thank goodness pets are not afflicted. I shudder to think what the consequence might be if they were.

Anyhoo, the recipe for good sanitation is as old as Moses. Really. I don’t cite the Bible very often but it is authoritative about the proper way to maintain healthy conditions both in and out of the kitchen. Moses, the first public health sanitarian, delivered more than moral guidance for human conduct. Hygiene in spirit was meant to accompany hygiene in practical quotidian duties. One notes that this could get a little severe when men, women and child prisoners were summarily executed to prevent the spread of disease, though virgins were spared in a pragmatic demonstration of moderation.

           The good old books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy lay out a pretty comprehensive list of allowable animal food on the basis of cleanliness as well as the procedures for preparation and storage in order to ensure healthy living. That’s basic sanitation but there were also prescriptions for waste management and water protection which makes a pretty good case for public health as a priority. Coming out of the desert there needed to be some guiding principles for what might otherwise have turned into an unruly and unclean mob. Timing is everything.

           In response to the arrival of the medieval plague in Italy, the state mandated quarantine, a forty day sequestration. Today we have a pretty good idea how to cope with a pandemic without the pandemonium, but people are people and so the inevitable strays will require convincing if not corralling. Luckily we have extremely wide and instant communication so that, if we are able to filter out the misleading and patently false junky bits, we’ll be okay at the other end of this episode.

Every Irish household knows that shoes on a table bring bad luck. Isn’t this a sensible extension of the Biblical health laws? That means when you bring home your grocery bag whose bottom has rested on the floor in the supermarket you ought to remember not to place it on any food preparation surface. That would be tantamount to walking on the counter! That’s simple common sense and just one example of preventive hygiene, praise Moses!

           Stay healthy. Stay aware. Stay in attendance of the ones you love.

                    With hugs,

                                        Celeste

Just smell that!

Newly mown hay. Balsam Fir needles. Lilacs. Ocean air. Eucalyptus groves. These are some of the aromas you may love. Who doesn’t? After all they are freely available, although the decline in agriculture has deprived many people of the sweet scent of timothy grass hay. There are lots of naturally occurring smells which evoke positive responses. It is a very long list. It gives credence to the effectiveness of aromatherapy, the application of aromas to enhance or even induce a mood.

Then there are the cooking smells. They are in a class by themselves as conduits to rich memory experiences. There are the holiday sub-types such as roasting turkey, sand tarts and schmaltz. I’ll let you read about the latter on your own time if you need familiarization. That’s also where you will meet the fascinating world of gribenes. Then too there are the more ordinary aromas often associated with home baking. Grandmother used to set aside a singular day of the week to do all her baking. Her house and its environs were enveloped for the duration in the most deliciously attractive essence. As a result, baking bread of any flavor is a sure trigger for me. The point is that the power of certain cooking aromas has the potential to transport your imagination instantly to a place and time of distant reckoning where you were imprinted by a complete experience.

It is amusing and a little sad to see the attempts to commercialize this all too human association. What self-respecting candle store doesn’t carry some permutation of cinnamon fragrance? Every realtor knows that apple pie and cinnamon are attractants to nesting home buyers. Most open house showings include some element of aroma manipulation, calculated to soften up the prospects if not to mask some unpleasantness. Speaking of which, the lengths to which one can go to mask offensive smells has been taken to silly extremes. It is reminiscent of the preciosité of the seventeenth century French aristocracy who fairly fainted at the hint of a scent of anything untoward, not to mention the stench of the streets which were ripe enough. There is a town in Illinois, I think, where certain chewing gum flavors inescapably scent the air as a part of the manufacturing process. This may be preferable to living down-wind of a paper mill and it is no doubt taken in the same stride by the citizens as a fact of life.

The acceptance of this artificiality is a testament to olfactory tolerance.

The crowning extremes of this pre-occupation with aroma are the dizzying array of candles and electrified room fresheners which attempt to particularize the atmosphere with an ambient fragrance which someone somewhere somehow has determined to be essentially pleasant and positive. Are we becoming a culture of aroma addicts who require all sensory experiences to carry the generic heft of clothes dryer sheets? An occasional lavender sachet or a bar of scented soap is about all I require. That kind of refreshment is a wonderful complement to those beautifully folded linens and intimates that you so enjoy. It’s nice to evoke a feeling of calm and order with a subtle fragrance from time to time and to experience a peaceful harmony.

Still,

Celeste

Love-Hate

        Hyperbole is alive and well. We are in the midst of inflated discourse in the most ordinary exchanges from the political ring to the talk radio echo chamber to ordinary conversation. When I say “I simply love that blouse on you!” or “I adore that shoe, glove and purse combination!”, what I am really saying is that I agree with and admire your sense of style! From my point of view you are doing something right and I am not going to be shy about complimenting you. We all know that this exaggeration is for effect and an expression of exuberance. These enthusiasms deserve to be shared and they can act as much as a tonic for a blue mood as for chronic depression. We ought to be encouraging one another, don't you think? Consider it a figure of speech if it goes a little bit overboard. It's the spirit of the remark that really counts.

       I hope it brightens your day and heightens your confidence to hear, “That color is divine for you and really makes your gorgeous eye color even more attractive!” Most of us have enough self-awareness, especially at a certain age, to know all about our physical faults and defects that don't quite measure up to the highest standards of glamour stardom. This self-imposed critical judgment we may feel keenly or not, depending on our innate sensitivity and tolerance for social (dis)approval. Some people wear their confidence outwardly and appear to be models of self-assurance and may never reveal their own inner insecurity. That doesn't mean a well-aimed compliment isn't welcomed. Often it is desperately needed; to err on the side of hyperbole does no harm and can in fact be very beneficial.

      This lively expressiveness can have a dark side however when we announce displeasure. Bald statements such as “I hate blue” or ”I hate parsnips” leave no allowance for shades of meaning and are potent pronouncements which, as hyperbole, are not so lightly dismissed. For some reason, that word “hate” has insinuated itself into our discussions as commonly acceptable speech. My feeling is that the word ought to be reserved within our inner well of dark matter and be dispensed with some stinginess. Reserve your hate for racism, Nazism and starvation. Save that hyperbole for things that really matter and not just for sports opponents or people with Massachusetts license plates or strip mall developers. The power of this word has infected our discourse to such a degree that it actually stirs up totally misplaced animosity and encourages divisiveness. Hate puts you solidly in one intractable camp with all those who don't agree on the other side. Its casual use has promoted distrust, disbelief and wariness of the “Other” - that person outside your group of association. This cannot be good for civilization when the word “hate” is so generously dispensed. The unintended consequence of it its overuse cannot bode well and gives permission to others to use it freely as well.

       I love my hyperbole and my metaphors sunny side up.

Kisses forever, Celeste