Category: Beauty

Almanac Calendar

AlmanacCalendarI went into the hardware store to get a tiny set screw (to keep the GD TP holder from flying off the wall every.time. from the simple force of tearing a square TMI?). I love the hardware store. It smells like birdseed and leather oil and they have classic rock radio on and the dudes that work there are true dudes and will listen to any strange explanation of a problem and try and help you fix it (remember my camo tarp?). It is one of those places that feels unchanged in at least 50 years and I hope that by not just heading over the mountain and going to Lowes that hopefully it can remain unchanged for another 50. Sigh. After the dudes settled on the correct size screw and were ringing me up, I saw, next to the ancient zagnuts and mary janes and nabs by the register they had a stack of 2013 almanac calendars, $1. No brainer impulse buy.AmericanWeathervanesAlmanacThe almanac calendar is full of all kinds of brilliant and random information, useful in a glorious but somehow achingly old-fashioned way. Each day tells you when the sun will rise and set, what the moon is up to, whether there’s going to be any significant change in the weather, if you need to watch out for any Leos in your life, and (of course) how good the fishing’s going to be that day. Red days are days of rest, big woodcut white-faced moons are full and bright in the sky, and any extra space dictated by the length of the month is filled in with information in varying degrees of usefulness: upcoming eclipses, birthstones, how much paint it takes to cover a given surface, animal gestation times, how much of different crop seeds you need to cover a given size plot of land, the vagaries of astrological signs, how to clean windows etc. etc. etc… AlmanacCalendarCleaningToday, smack in the middle of primrose February is, indeed, cold after Saturday’s blustery rolling-pin-wielding storms and yesterday’s general mellowness, and the fishing is terrible so I’ll stay inside, avoid any battling Geminis that might cross my path otherwise, and wait with watchful eyes as the days get longer. This can be a life where this information still matters, where the moon and stars are not distant and unseeable, but players on a timeless stage, dictating a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to dance, a time to mourn, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together. It’s where the almanac hangs by the marvelous stove. So, for general thoughtfulness on this bone-chilled day, Time to plant tears, says the almanac:

Sestina

Elizabeth Bishop

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It’s time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

 

Infinite Possibilities

Country-Women-30-Before-CreationThis little bit of strange ancient seeming wisdom feels just about right as I roll up my sleeves and begin to work around the cold earth, planning the infinite possibilities of land and seed and creation. We are the alchemists and some of us remember and others (me) are beginning to be reminded. Amen and what a way to start the week.

This and a million other awesomenesses over at Gravel & Gold.

Roadside Snack

MexicoBananasThe best places are always on the side of the road. Like the infinite honey-charred stick-meat shacks of so many Caribbean islands, the baskets of cactus flower fruits of Morocco, the boiled peanuts in styrofoam cups of the American South. Just pull over, make a u-ey, turn a little dust, get your perfect bananas. Your local honeys that taste like sweet sage flower and smoke. Your steaming tamales cooked over wood fires. Carry a small knife, ask for spice or pickled anything or sauce, and definitely eat whatever they give you. MexicoHoneysMexicoTamales

Para Comer: El Pez Gigantesco!

MexicoFishingBoatYou know it’s a good sign when you pull into the roadside pescaderia and see a boat. Still dripping from the briny waves, towed by an extremely muddy jeep (begging questions about just how and where this particular barco puts out to sea), with an iron handed fisherman transferring gigantic long fish into a bucket to be transferred directly into your lap to be transferred directly onto the flames of an open fire to be transferred directly into your mouth. It’s certainly a good way to cut out the middle man.MexicoCodFishMexicoFishEyeTwo things. Firstly, the color of the interior of this fish case. I might move in. Then, LOOK at that fish-eye! Now that is a fresh fish. A fresh 16 pounder plucked from the waters that very afternoon. How much? 200 pesos. $15. You’ll scale it and clean it for us? Um, ok, sure, that sounds good (inside we’re saying: OHMYGODTHISISPARADISEANDWEBOUGHTALLTHEWHITEWINETHEYHADATTHEFUNNYGROCERY!!!). We’ll take it, after all, we’re having seated dinner for 19 in the Weekend at Bernie’s dreamhouse.PhillyKHelmsTheGrillSweet Philly K (my favorite, pictured here as an ancient fisherman-scientist, “The Old Man and the COBE“) dressed her up in spangles of orange, lime baubles, onion bracelets, and strange dark peppers, we rolled her like a 10 cent Havana cigar, and roasted her over the open flames for an hour. Para Comer, El Pez Gigantesco!

thanks again to E.B.P. for the last photo.

Que Suerte

MexicoBorderAnd then we drove down to Mexico. Heading through the border gates, past the towering, glittering white granite and steel monolithic wall on our side and the ten feet of corrugated rust just south, looping down along the coast, on a road that makes the highway up near Big Sur look like a dowdy dowager aunt. And then, we ended up here. BajaEnsanadaA deserted stretch of beach, lined with abandoned “Weekend at Bernies” style bungalows and dotted with black-gold sand and mysterious mother of pearl and bone jewels. In short, total paradise. More on adventures and treasures tomorrow…BajaHouseEnsanada

infinite thanks and lasers to Mr. Egon Brainparts for the last two stunning photos. Like what you see? Listen too: E. Brainparts noise to be found here.

Manifest Destiny aka I love LA

HollywoodIn this year of 30th birthdays, it seems as if all bets are off. I mean, sure, for 28 you should schlep yourself to the local bar and toast a few, and for 29 you should meet up for the big dinner, but for THIRTY, well, that’s a whole new ballgame. We’re talking major celebrations, we’re talking islands, we’re talking oysters, we’re talking serious left-coast roadstripping down into Mexico hoping to pick up a beater accordion for >$25 on the way making sure to eat strange meats and lush fruits and, of course, the old head-scarves-and-jewels-and-jean-shorts-song-and-dance. So. I remain faithfully yours, off the grid in California, please follow our adventures over on Instagram (@featherbyfeather) to return next week very sunburnt and full of beans.

ps. I wish you were here.

Winter Trees, Again

TwilitTreesIn reflecting on this, my dear friend Kitty (sweet town mouse and brilliant list-maker) tells me what should perhaps be obvious to us (lest we be blinded by the plumage of Autumn in some May-December leaf romance), that trees laid bare are at their most beautiful in the winter because then you can see their true structure, like sculptures, or like drawing nudes. They show you their bones, their secret tight blossoms, their adorning nests, the passage of the moon. Which, in turn, brings to mind this spare verse from William Carlos Williams:

Winter Trees

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Winter Trees

I’ve become obsessed with this band, The Staves, this video, and this song. It feels like the absolutely perfect song for right now. One of the things that the wilds of Brooklyn and the wilderness of the country south share are these bare branches of January. At once melancholy and redemptive and full of possibilities. And today, we drive south.

Quietly Blooming

PussyWillowsHello dears, just checking in to let you all know we’re laying low around here this week, taking some time in the chill and damp of dark January to regenerate a little. Gathering our resources, pooling our energy so that we can emerge, soft and new, just like these sweet gentle pussy willow branches my Mama brought me. Back next week with more adventures. Like Meags says, hearts need to rest. xx.

Found: Deer Bed!

KatherineWolkoffDeerBedI fell in love with this incredible Katherine Wolkoff photograph of a deer bed after seeing it in Abbey Nova’s house tour (loving, lurking), and actually went so far as to contact her gallery and inquire after prices (as they say, if you have to ask…). The whole series of photographs is stunning, but it’s the idea of the deer beds themselves that I find so compelling. To make their beds the deer press down tall grasses to create a little room, grass walls shield them from predators, grass-over-brush makes a soft place to curl up. Something from nothing, softness and sleep. Imagine my joy when on walkabout the other day in the backyard, trying to figure out where to start digging for the firepit, I noticed my very own deer bed amidst the grasses being kept long for winter, to be turned under when spring comes*, but in the meantime, satin sheets for sweet does.DeerBed

*also when spring comes, and this deer bed comes with a “free continental breakfast from my tender garden shoots” I’ll probably change my tune as to how sweet these does are, but for the time being, they are welcome to lay their winter bones here.