Of the stars above you, which one heals your eye?
Some years there are elaborate birthday plans with or without my knowledge, but this year I had a small and low-key birthday with my parents and my brother and my husbands and it was lovely. For getting out of doors, there was a walk in the late afternoon through a hitherto unexplored trail of the Great Meadows, branching through stands of yellow-leaved shivering birches and silver-topped walls of common reed and cattails and eventually an open field backed by a low drystone wall where a man was clearing brambles with hedge clippers, his sweatshirt and the knees of his jeans showing that the brambles had been clipping back. He had an older boyish face and silver-streaked dark hair and a discernible old-school Boston accent and was surprised and pleased when I asked if we had right of way, since we didn't want to crash through his back yard; it turned out that he was maintaining a track which had been opened up decades ago by a neighbor who had since died. "Where do you want to go?" he asked us. My folklorically unwise and honest answer was "Anywhere," since we had been walking the meadows all summer. He gestured toward the line of the trees where the well-trodden path wound off and said, "Well, you can go that way or the other way," and partly because he was standing in the middle of a late-lit autumn field, my brain instinctively supplied, "Of course, some people do go both ways." We went the other way and came out onto a familiar trail by which we returned home in time for dinner. We'll have to go that way next time.
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spatch called this one my next author photo. I will have to write something marsh-oriented.
In which the mistake is made of giving me a book in the middle of a social occasion.
Our oven has been defunct for weeks; I remain impressed at my mother's ability to bake a two-layered almond-flour cake in a toaster oven and then to drape it in marzipan and decorate it with sour cherry sauce, whipped cream, and a Halloween-pointing arrangement of ghosts and cats from Burdick's. I can eat just about as much chocolate as most of a cat minus its plumy cashew tail and it was worth it. There are tragically no pictures.
My brother had found me an extraordinary present, which he had been holding onto for the last six months: a locket of gilt metal in the shape of a book, decorated with a dolphin and a harp and inlays of blue ground sea glass. The tiny accordion of flash fiction folded inside is called "Sea Tea." All of that is thoughtful enough in its own right, but I recognized it at once as the work of an artist named Raelinda Woad, who has been making these little jewelry stories since the 1990's. I had one in high school; it was silver and purple, decorated with a dragon. I never wore it, but it was talismanically precious to me. It was stolen in the break-in of my parents' house in 2013. My brother remembered. He was as stunned as I would have been to discover the artist at a craft fair in Vermont earlier this year and he chose the most ocean-themed of her pieces on offer. I wore it for the rest of the night.
Otherwise I was given to understand that my major gift this year was to be assistance with a piece of necessary bureaucracy and now I have several books including James Ivory's Autobiography of a Princess, Also Being the Adventures of an American Film Director in the Land of the Maharajas (1975) and Estel Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (2013), which I had to be discouraged from disappearing into: it looks as though I may disagree with some of her film criticism, but her attention to his biography and screen persona is exactly the sort of thing that interests me and she is entirely right to make a centerpiece of Pimpernel Smith (1941). I have also some IOUs. It is 2022. God forbid anything arrive in the mail.
The stars are very crisp and clear: telescope weather. I am tired of the future being such a tough proposition, but this was a good day to have been here for.
spatch called this one my next author photo. I will have to write something marsh-oriented.
In which the mistake is made of giving me a book in the middle of a social occasion.
Our oven has been defunct for weeks; I remain impressed at my mother's ability to bake a two-layered almond-flour cake in a toaster oven and then to drape it in marzipan and decorate it with sour cherry sauce, whipped cream, and a Halloween-pointing arrangement of ghosts and cats from Burdick's. I can eat just about as much chocolate as most of a cat minus its plumy cashew tail and it was worth it. There are tragically no pictures.
My brother had found me an extraordinary present, which he had been holding onto for the last six months: a locket of gilt metal in the shape of a book, decorated with a dolphin and a harp and inlays of blue ground sea glass. The tiny accordion of flash fiction folded inside is called "Sea Tea." All of that is thoughtful enough in its own right, but I recognized it at once as the work of an artist named Raelinda Woad, who has been making these little jewelry stories since the 1990's. I had one in high school; it was silver and purple, decorated with a dragon. I never wore it, but it was talismanically precious to me. It was stolen in the break-in of my parents' house in 2013. My brother remembered. He was as stunned as I would have been to discover the artist at a craft fair in Vermont earlier this year and he chose the most ocean-themed of her pieces on offer. I wore it for the rest of the night.
Otherwise I was given to understand that my major gift this year was to be assistance with a piece of necessary bureaucracy and now I have several books including James Ivory's Autobiography of a Princess, Also Being the Adventures of an American Film Director in the Land of the Maharajas (1975) and Estel Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (2013), which I had to be discouraged from disappearing into: it looks as though I may disagree with some of her film criticism, but her attention to his biography and screen persona is exactly the sort of thing that interests me and she is entirely right to make a centerpiece of Pimpernel Smith (1941). I have also some IOUs. It is 2022. God forbid anything arrive in the mail.
The stars are very crisp and clear: telescope weather. I am tired of the future being such a tough proposition, but this was a good day to have been here for.
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Love,
Nine
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And all the rest, also wonderful.
P.
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*hugs*
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What a beautiful present!
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And that all sounds marvelous, minus the stove part. I'm glad the day was good.
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folklorically unwise --INDEED. But the magic worked in a good way for you--this time--so it's all good.
I have a belated gift for you: it's a piece of music that the healing angel's significant other shared with me the other night. "Blessed Motion". (You may already know it, but in case not!)
The locket sounds perfect--as does the CAKE, omg, and the books. The photos are great too.
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Also, love the corduroy jacket in the first pic. (Though maybe I only say that because I have one that's very similar, haha.)
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I was amazed by it.
Also, love the corduroy jacket in the first pic. (Though maybe I only say that because I have one that's very similar, haha.)
Thank you! I have had it since 2015, when it replaced a similar jacket I had worn three seasons out of four over the previous eleven years to the point that I could no longer restitch its pockets so to avoid losing my keys in the lining. This one has been worn similarly and now also requires some repairs, but I adore it.
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It really was nice.
*hugs*
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I was amazed. If anything, I had imagined the artist was some kind of mid-'90's local phenomenon.
I look forward to hearing more about the Leslie Howard book.
I will try to report back properly! Some of it so far is information I had known, but in more detail, and some of it is actually new to me.
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Thank you. It was a good autumnal day.
And all the rest, also wonderful.
*hugs*
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Your IOU is named and counted and not pressured for! It's 2022. See also the bureaucracy.
But your brother’s gift clearly came to him at the moment it was intended.
It was a great thing.
*hugs*
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Thank you! They are very important.
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It was incredible!
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
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I should tell him!
And that all sounds marvelous, minus the stove part. I'm glad the day was good.
Thank you.
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Thank you!
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We had a nice interaction with the stranger in the field! We asked about crossing his land! He wished me a happy birthday when I explained the occasion of the ramble! And we enjoyed the way we went, so it all worked out.
I have a belated gift for you: it's a piece of music that the healing angel's significant other shared with me the other night. "Blessed Motion". (You may already know it, but in case not!)
I do not! Thank you so much.
The locket sounds perfect--as does the CAKE, omg, and the books. The photos are great too.
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
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Also, hug.
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Yes, I meant about the unanimous approval of my friend group, for which there was no occasion on the night because I hadn't told the internet!
*hugs*
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Thank you! I do need to convey to him that everyone else is also impressed.
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Thank you! I think that would be very nice.
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I really like him.