Between the wars.

It's now a trope, to talk about the cascade of the worst possible things--Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, the violence in Dallas and in Baton Rouge--plus the ongoing misery that is American politics right about now, how all of it renders everything else absurd. For me, writing here, in this space, the kinds of things I usually write seemed--as it has seemed from time to time in the past--spectacularly beside the point.

I don't know what to say about it, except I'm trying, like many other people, not to let the fire die down, not to let myself off the hook. As they say, to stay woke. To have courage and to add my actions to those of others.

Also: I know there is no 'between' in the wars we're living in. They are unrelenting and have been with us from the beginning.

I guess I also want to say that we, chez megastore, have been laying pretty low--the historian's surgery and recovery have meant that we're conserving our energy, looking for the healing sign, trying to keep a good thought. Also, still eating pancakes and baking pies and watching television and listening to music. Writing poems, as you do. No matter what.

Cherry preserves.

Everyone has at least one, a plan for a humble dinner, the thing you know you can make when you just need something to eat and it doesn't need to be fancy: you know you can throw it together (or in dire circumstances, you can open a can and heat it). (Don't tell me you don't do this. It will depress me beyond measure if you don't.)

For me, there are several potential humble dinners. (I'll set the can opener dinners to the side. Those are the desperate dinners, and they're worth predicting and planning for. Like, laying in a case or so of those cans. But I digress.)

The humble dinner! It often involves eggs and often cheese. There is the savory version--in my house, the green chile quiche, for which you want to have a can of green chiles on hand. My mother made this dish, and when I became a woman, I put aside childish things and embraced it for what it so excellently was: a savory cheese pudding with chiles in it that would warm the heart of humankind and nourish the starving. Many's the day when I've made this, weary in well-doing and what not, and like charity, it never faileth. (You can sort of approximate the recipe from this post.)

[parenthentical note: if Google tries to correct my Biblical spellings one. more. time. I will freak out. that is all.]

these are actually David Lebovitz's cherry preserves
--it's pretty close to how I made them, except I just
used a sharp knife and not a cherry pitter. I had a
cherry pitter once, but then it broke. 

On the less savory side of the humble dinner,  there is the cottage cheese pancake. Also involving eggs and also involving cheese, it takes to all sorts of sweet garnishes, such as jam and cut up fruit. (Here is the recipe.) But tonight in the very vortex of our hunger, I remembered that I had a little pint of cherry preserves that I had laid by like a pioneer or a Boy Scout, so that in the depths, yea! the very depths of winter, I would be able to pull it out of my freezer, kiss it on the lips  (totally figurative) and eat it with pancakes.

The people, that is what we did: we made cottage cheese pancakes, we opened a half pint of apricot jam and thawed a pint of cherry preserves, and we ate it up.

And lo, it was very good. Very good indeed.

Today while drifting through the winter smog

I talked to Scotland, made some crepes, read the Times, wrote a couple of drafts and revised another poem, listened to Sufjan Stevens and Glenn Gould, ate leftover enchiladas, walked the dog, watched a movie with my daughter, thought about my life, wished I had Christmas lights up, thought about John Clare and getting lost, sent some worky e-mails, corresponded with students, and wished I had a piece of pie. And now I am in my dressing gown and shall read and do a crossword and dream about next week.

That is all.

A tiny dollop of joy.

My oldest and very dear friend sent me this link yesterday, from Jeanette Winterson, about making mince pies whilst listening to audiobooks:

If you want Poetic Pies, drop in a sensitive amount of mincemeat, then get a star-shaped cutter. Think pie in the sky - a little vision, like Dante gazing at Beatrice, (though I do not mean to compare Beatrice to a mince pie). If you want Post-Modern Pies, then dollop in quite a lot of mince-meat, perhaps audaciously slopping it over the edge of the case, and just cut out two provocative strips of pastry and cross them over the top – self-consciously artificial, but revealing all, like Michel Houllebeq. If you want a Bestseller Pie, then fill generously, but make a thick lid and seal the edges with fingertips of brandy. Dust with icing sugar.

I am not necessarily a fan of mince pies, but I am a fan of Jeanette Winterson, and her website is a treasure.  Roam around.

The filth and the fury.

Even though Dublin is kind of a dirty city (I hope you aren't reading this, Dublin, but if you are, no offense!), I came home and now I feel that my house is even dirtier. My god. My mom asked if this was because of the teenage boys who stayed at our house with Bruiser and I was forced to admit that no, it was pretty much me, who spent the hours before leaving the country sending poetry out to the void.

In these dark times, one is forced to get it together and at least think about vacuuming up a dust bunny or five hundred, do the dishes, and start a load of laundry or ten. In these dark times, one must fend off the rising panic one feels when one is confronted with one's own . . . oh, hell, I just feel overwhelmed by it all and I have to make a dent in it or else feel like fleeing my own house. And that will not do, not in these dark times.

However, in such dark times, I have taken inspiration from W.B. Yeats, and not just because he wrote a poem that began "Things fall apart." That line is one of my many mottos (others: how hard can that be?, what the hell?, and I've had just about enough of your shenanigans.) (also, I am considering, Bitch, you trippin'! Does anyone have any thoughts on this as a motto? Let me know.). However, I am mainly inspired these days by W.B. Yeats because he was tirelessly making stuff and taking inspiration from the most amazingly dubious stuff, including crazy spiritualism of all sorts. In other words, his mind was full of nonsense and he still made beautiful, sublime art just about until the end of his life. In the collection of his papers exhibited at the National Gallery of Ireland, they had all sorts of his notebooks (comforting to me, a notebook keeper of the most random kind), including notebooks that showed some of the automatic writing done by his longsuffering and beautiful wife. It was a wonderful exhibit that you can get a sense of by looking here.

I am also currently taking inspiration from Francis Bacon's studio, which was originally located at 7 Reece Mews in South Kensington in London, but which, after his death, was moved, part and parcel, and then reassembled just as he worked in it, at a gallery in Dublin on Parnell Square, the Hugh Lane Gallery. The most polite word--in fact, the word Bacon himself used--for this gallery is chaos. When I saw this space, I saw my very own soul, and it was (for once) one of the most comforting things I ever saw: so messy! so much stuff! Bacon was not a minimalist. Not! a minimalist, and an extraordinarily productive and powerful artist. Voilá:














And finally, some more pictures from our Ireland trip, for those of you still interested: