more fabric fun

I’ve got a ton of sewing projects ahead of me. Above, I just finished Amy Butler’s Swing Bag as a birthday present for my baby sister, this time making the pockets larger and two instead of three. The pockets sag a bit, so I added some velcro to keep the outside looking clean. Like mine, this one’s reversible. One side’s a wonderful linen blue pattern, and inside a cotton orange/yellow paisley.

I also whipped up my first Hourglass pillow, one of Amy Butler’s free patterns. The contrasting fabrics—the red aloha fern pattern with a more traditional Asian floral pattern—might seem like a strange combination, but I’m hoping they’ll serve as diplomats among the warring pinks/reds and blues of my living room. In Hawaii, I decided that patterns make me feel at home. The homes of my grandmother and both my aunts use patterns in abundance. No more of this blank, modern palate. Patterns on patterns on patterns. Maybe it’s the buk-buk in me, but I love it.

One down, three more to go.

summer reading

“The first sentence of every novel should be: ‘Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.’ Meander if you want to get to town.” — Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion

My summer reading, which I had looked forward to all spring, is over. Today I opened Three Cups of Tea, which I’ll be teaching in the fall and which promises to be wonderful, but summer reading has the allure of being completely my own. So begins lesson planning and required reading.

I had wanted to read page-turning, feel good stories such as Water for Elephants, with a few classics thrown in to make me feel less like I’ve been schlepping through my reading life. But between writing, working, and Anna Karenina, I only made it through Joyce’s Dubliners, Fugard’s Skinner’s Drift, Moore’s Sleeping Beauties, Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion, Choi’s Foreign Student, and the massive Anna.

People with English degrees continue to tell me that I must read the classics so that I can understand what’s come before me. And I can say, from this limited sample, that I preferred the contemporary stories to the classic ones. Granted, I chose them because they touched on things I’m interested in right now, mostly self-exile. I loved Fugard, Moore, Ondaatje and Choi, and I learned a great deal about technique from Joyce and Tolstoy. Making this distinction, reading for pleasure versus reading for form, makes me feel as if I’m growing as a reader.

This is not to say that I did not learn from the contemporary writers as well, it’s just they had the added bonus of being hard to put down. I inhaled, as always, Moore’s work; I seriously pondered Choi’s characters, I reveled at the brilliant POV shifts of Fugard, and felt lost in the beautiful poetry of Ondaatje’s novel.

Also (since the Tolstoy read deserves a mention), what’s wonderful about Anna Karenina is it’s breadth; it’s wonderful, intersecting story lines that have the pace of real life. Things take time. His characters are distinct, three-dimensional, with wonderful interior monologue. His humor and tragedy is spot on. I’m sure I’ll return to it again and again as its student.

In all, it was a wonderful summer of reading. Francine Prose, in her Reading Like a Writer, states that we read for courage. I believe that. There’s a world full of books that break the rules, that show us how it can be done and it’s sometimes more beneficial than a classroom full of people to tell you how it can’t.

simple abundance

To keep me company on the long commutes to North County, where I work, I’ve been on a podcast frenzy. I listen to a slew of NPR podcasts, from the phenomenal “This I Believe,” “StoryCorps” (of which I’ve used several in my class) to the hour-long “Hearing Voices.” NPR also had wonderful readings by Tobias Wolff and Jhumpa Lahiri from their new books on Book Tour. Then, I exhausted the entire New Yorker Fiction podcast archive, particularly relishing the stories of John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, and Mavis Gallant. And after I exhausted all my usual resources, I turned to Oprah’s Soul Series.

I had come across the podcasts after searching for audio by Eckhart Tolle (author of the much-revered The Power of Now). Several people had recommended the book to me this summer, and Oprah has several interviews of him on podcast.

But I’m backing into the story the wrong way. Those podcasts are phenomenal, and I’m getting through them, and looking forward to reading the book. What happened is, Tolle’s voice is far too gentle for my rumbling car on the I-5, and so at first I listened instead to Oprah’s interview with Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance.

The book’s been around for more than a decade, but it’s the first I heard of it. What struck me most in the interview was the need to be grateful in your life, and that gratitude is a path to grace. How many times in these last weeks have I complained instead of being grateful? Oh, I lost my voice. I can’t believe so-and-so did or didn’t or say or didn’t say this or that. Getting pulled into others’ drama. Reliving my mistakes. Wringing my hands over my future. Worrying about where I’ll be next summer. Feeling like there’s so little time for me in my own life. What I needed, if anything, was a reminder of all the good there was in my life.

So I went out and borrowed the book from the library. I immediately felt a kinship with it. The book details six creative and spiritual principles: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy. These are discussed in mini-essays, one for each day of the year. Last year, I sought guidance in The Artist’s Way, cementing my decision to follow a creative path. Perhaps Simple Abundance will help guide me this year. I feel I just need a little push.

The Jan. 1 essay begins with a quote from Zora Neale Hurston, “There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.” I’m not sure which the last has been, but it has been challenging: career change, major move, death, life. I know I wouldn’t change my life for anything, but the stress consumes me. How could gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy NOT help me, or anyone, for that matter?

On this journey, you keep a Gratitude Journal, in which you write down five things you are grateful for that day just before you sleep. You should try it, too. I’ll begin.

Today, I’m grateful for…
1. Half time off from work so my body can heal and rest.
2. The comfort of my home, particularly my kitchen that feeds me and my bed that cradles me.
3. The “new” kitchen shelving that fits perfectly between the oven and the counter. I’ve been looking for such a thing for a year and found it today on the side of the road. I’m such a dumpster diver!
4. The sweet text message from B, still out of town on work.
5. My sewing machine that has produced a cute—albeit imperfect—blouse for me.

With happy thoughts, good night.

sew fun

So I’ve been crazy with the new job, and have a feeling I’ll be out of sorts until I end next month. But I have been wishing that I had more time to sew, since I finally took the old machine out of the closet.

My first, and really, only project this summer has been Amy Butler’s swing bag. This may be the first truly usable thing I’ve made from scratch, and I added nifty little pockets to suit myself. The pockets don’t make it as pretty, but I no longer have to guess where everything is. Anybody who’s ever seen me try to open my door (”Keys, keys, come out wherever you are”), or find my ringing phone (”Damn you, I know you’re in here”) will rejoice.

I can’t wait to try more of her patterns, they’re all stunning! Stylish but laid back, just my thing.

hello, slush pile!

So after a hiatus, I’m back. To be honest, I went from having too little time on my hands during the school year, to having too much. My goal was to use the time to begin the novel, read a bunch of literary magazines, send out stories, and read some Russians.

I don’t do well with lots of time, and I’m gladly returning to work next week. But I’ve made a decent dent in the novel, and sent out my first batch of submissions last night. I’ve read that it takes an average of 20 rejections before a magazine accepts a piece, so I’m reminding myself to persevere. Of course, in my rush to finish things before work begins, I forgot to stamp my self-addressed envelopes. Many of these magazines state that they’ll outright reject manuscripts without them. So I panicked, called the man at the post office depot at midnight. The store had just closed. It’s okay, he said. No problem. Come now.

So I’m running across the street, braless in Hillcrest. He opened the envelopes, I stamped the ones nestled inside with my mss., and he taped them up again. We were an assembly line. He said next time I come after midnight I have to bring him tequila. I love this man.

He reminds me of the proprietor of my favorite Middle Eastern deli in San Jose. Kindness and playfulness behind his gruff demeanor, single-handedly running a business. He works endlessly. I used to give him the vegetables in my garden, and he would share his recipes with me. I always felt humbled by his work ethic, warmed by his honesty. The last time I saw him, his father had died that morning. He was oceans and continents away, tied to his business, and couldn’t return for the funeral. He hugged me, anyway, told me to come back.

And here’s this man in San Diego, telling me, Sleep is for losers. Hearty laugh. I like to work, he says. But not for other people. Just for myself, I work.

So the stories were sent. Anna Karenina’s next on the book queue. Then Fathers and Sons.

gordimer

Not a good day, so I returned to the books.

I recently finished Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People, and while it was not a page turner, it was so beautifully written that I’ve just ordered her The Pickup. Some criticism of her is that she’s a (gasp!) unconventional writer. I like that, her sentences are so poetic, her observations razor-sharp. The story follows the Smales family in South Africa, who escape terror in the city by returning to the village of their servant, July. The book is full of the subtleties of race and marriage relations, and how those weak links break. These don’t make much sense out of context, but they’re my favorite sentences in the book.

…

The subtlety of it was nothing new. People in the relation they had been in are used to have to interpret what is never said, between them.

…

–African people like money.– The insult of refusing to meet her on any but the lowest category of understanding.

…

She told him the truth, which is always disloyal.

…

when life gives you lemons…

Today, I received an email from my cousin up north:

Hello there! It’s lemon season again. What’s your limoncello recipe?

I was delighted she remembered my limoncello adventure. Last year, while still living in the Bay Area, I had taken Meyer lemons from her father’s tree, and regular lemons from my boss’s tree. And, of course, when life gives you lemons …

Buggah and I got ambitious. We wanted to give away little bottles of limoncello as presents, though mostly we found we hoarded it to ourselves. There’s a million ways to to do it, but this is the very loose way I did it. Thanks to the Sicilian couple who first passed on the recipe.

You’ll need

-A bottle of grain alcohol/vodka (about 40 proof)
-A few quart jars
-Lemons, of course
-Sugar syrup (made by heating 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water and let it cool)
-Bottles to store the goodness in
-Patience

For one quart:

-Peel 2-6 lemons (I used more than less). I preferred peeling with a vegetable peeler than a zester. Put the peels in the jar. Use the lemons however you want.
-Fill jar with booze, leave about an inch at the top. Seal and store in a dark place.
-Leave it there for no less than two weeks, no more than 40 days. Take it out sometimes, and shake, shake, shake.
-When you can’t wait any longer, strain the peels out and add the cold or room temperature sugar syrup to the alcohol (if it’s hot, the drink will turn cloudy)
-You may pour it into decorative bottles, or drink it straight from the jar. We bought the four-pack individual wine bottles to double the fun. Drink the wine, then fill it with limoncello, then drink the limoncello.
-Store in the freezer, it’s a lovely digestivo.

Notes:

-It may be obvious, but I should mention that the number of lemon peels you use and the amount of time will make the flavor weaker or stronger.
-Meyer lemons will be sweeter (and will give the liquor a darker color) than regular lemons, so you can decrease the sugar syrup.
-Also, I’ve seen one recipe where you only need to let the peels steep for a 2-3 days if you shake the jar several times a day.

you don’t actually have to read the books

The New York Times‘ Sunday Magazine interviewed University of Paris French Literature professor Pierre Bayard about his book How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. The interview is great, but here’s a tickler.

Q. Then why are you so willing to devalue the experience of close reading in favor of skimming? You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately.

A. I think a great reader is able to read from the first line to the last line; if you want to do that with some books, it’s necessary to skim other books. If you want to fall in love with someone, it’s necessary to meet many people. You see what I mean?

Q. You suggest in your book that schools destroy a love of literature, in part because they don’t allow skimming.

A. Yes. Sometimes I help my son write book reports. Guillaume — he’s 14. It’s terrible. The questions are so specific about the names of characters, dates and towns where the heroes went that I am unable to answer the questions. It is the model of reading in France. A kind of scientific reading, which prevents people from inventing another kind of reading, which should be a form of wandering, as in a garden.

becoming un-stuck

With school canceled for the week due to the fires, I was a very lazy girl. Well, at least in that productive write-your-research-paper way. I did start writing my next short story, however, since my last story was workshopped a few weeks ago. I found myself stalking my characters, trying to get to know them. I wandered around the apartment thinking of what they would say to each other, and then, questioning their decisions. I fretted over structure, told myself something has to happen (action’s not my strong suit) and more or less banged my head against the wall for a few days. Godammit, why won’t they just tell me what they want?

At the same time, I started reading for myself, finally putting a dent into Granta’s Best Young Novelists 2, beginning Kaui Hemmings Hart’s House of Thieves, and slowly plodding away at One Hundred Years of Solitude (again) for class. It was there, in those pages, rather than the blank ones on my computer screen, that prompted me to keep going. While my stories begin with germ of an idea—a dream, an image—these texts inspired me by breaking up a the traditional narrative, by offering that one telling detail, by showing me worlds beyond my own, a lens in which to see my characters. And of course, they’re just so damn good.

And so I finished the first full draft a few days ago. Of course, now I’ve got the emotional lull because it’s not really mine anymore. Not exclusively. But mostly, I hope this is a lesson: When stuck, go back to the books. Keep reading.

It reminded me of something I read from Julia Glass, after I read her novel, Three Junes. Here’s what she had to say (the truncated version) about reading while writing.

But inspiration, that’s a kinder, gentler matter — and if I turn a less covetous eye on my list, I could say it’s a list of writers who inspire me: amplify my senses of the physical world, my joy in language, my faith in the power of make-believe. The only impediment to reading their books is the urge — the almost literal itch — they sometimes give me to heave them aside like burning coals and get to work on mine.

I have heard writers claim that while they’re working on a new book, they won’t read anything contemporary, won’t read anything they haven’t read before, or simply won’t read at all. They’re too impressionable, they claim. I find such restrictions as absurd as protesting that you can’t eat out if you’re the household cook or can’t give birth if you’re an obstetrician. And when, after all, is a writer not working? In my head at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters’ lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams…all arrive unbidden when I’m getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape — affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark. This kind of inspiration struck, perfectly timed, when I was about two-thirds of the way through writing Three Junes. … I went right out and bought a collection of Cameron’s stories and his previous novel, The Weekend, a book that would prove fortuitous to the completion of mine.

I was also facing down the true challenge of writing a novel: ending it. I knew who the characters were in the final third of the book, I knew the present action would take place over a weekend at that house on Long Island, I knew the alliances as they would stand at the end and that the end would be hopeful, but I did not know quite how the characters would get there. In The Weekend, I was surprised (and a little unnerved) to encounter a cast of characters from the very same world, even (as in Three Junes) a man still mourning the loss of another man to AIDS and a mother preoccupied with the fate of a small child. More remarkably, the novel ended, as I knew mine would, with the main character’s return to New York City. I might have been depressed at the similarities, but I was energized.

I felt as if I had traveled abroad and run into next-door neighbors I’d never met at home or as if my characters, drifting about in my head, had discovered a gang of soul mates — souls who seemed not frivolous but tragically weighted. I was heartened by this kinship, even though Cameron’s writing has a conciseness I could only envy. And now I confess to an act of theft.

what makes a woman beautiful?

Health magazine did a stellar job in this beauty layout last year. They traveled the country to speak with real women about beauty, rather than the ungodly women who grace most magazines. I’m falling in love with this magazine, it upholds everything I believe in, and it doesn’t make me feel shitty about myself, like Vogue or Cosmo. In a society where age and weight are frowned upon, and women range from harboring shame of their bodies to flaunting all the goodies, this was a refreshing perspective.

Since I have to return the magazine, I’ve scanned my favorites to tack up for inspiration and thought I’d share.

See the whole spread here.

We live in a world of stick-figure celebrities, deprivation diets, and surgeons ready to overhaul almost any body part you can think of. And yet, many women are saying “enough.” Enough of the pressure from men, from the media—from our own mothers, sisters, friends—to measure beauty by the height of our cheekbones or size of our jeans. We are beautiful because of who we are, how we think, and what we do with our lives—not merely how we look.