Last week I was basically housebound, going nowhere and seeing no one but the Greek. I cancelled the majority of my commitments, I settled into the couch to read books that had long stood on my bookshelves ignored and I ate lots of oranges and soup. And then, in the midst of this monotonous desert,…
I was really, really excited about participating in the SF bake sale this year, but April has been full of surprises. This just goes to show you that, while planning is never a bad thing, you sometimes just can't predict what you're going to be doing tomorrow, let alone next month; had I known a…
But there is great dignity in allowing oneself to keep clear about what is good, and it is what I think of when I hear the term "good taste." Whether things were ever simpler than they are now, or better if they were, we can't know. We do know that people have always found ways…
Under the plane tree, near the water, among laurelsleep moved you and scattered youaround me, near me, without my being able to touch the whole of you...-George Seferis (Quid πλατανών opacissimus?)You could say that I spent the weekend feeling much like the lyrical subject of this poem. From the window by my desk, I've watched…
So this was what artists did: Tamara looked up, looked down, moved her hand, looked up again. Choosing among the many slender, long-handled brushes she kept in a green glass bowl, Tamara dabbed a sheet of white wood with a dozen different shades of an earthy yellow she called ochre. When she hit on a…
A little fartherwe will see the almond trees blossomingthe marble gleaming in the sunthe sea breaking into wavesa little farther, let us rise a little higher. -George SeferisThis is the point in the semester when energy levels start to wane. Each task begins to feel Herculean. The sun makes its presence known and begins to compete with…
When we cook things, we transform them. And any small acts of transformation are among the most human things we do. Whether it's nudging dried leaves around a patch of cement, or salting a tomato, we feel, when we exert tiny bits of our human preference in the universe, more alive. -Tamar Adler (An Everlasting Meal)My…
The living know that, at daybreak, the soul will leave them and make its way to the places of its past--the schools and dormitories of its youth, army barracks and tenements, houses razed to the ground and rebuilt, places that recall love and guilt, difficulties and unbridled happiness, optimism and ecstasy, memories of grace meaningless…
It's hard to believe, but my European archival adventure is quickly coming to an end. In a way, it seems like much more than 5 weeks have gone by. I don't know if that's because so many of my days started to blend together thanks to the whirl and click of microfiche (a surreal experience…
Dining with Dostoevsky 