January 20, 2007 

The bluebirds are house-hunting this morning. I had to call Philip and tell him, describe the way one female in particular kept poking about the hole of the house on the side of the water oak outside the kitchen window, nosing in and out as if unsure, tilting her head in examination, while her brightly-colored husband waited patiently on the roof for her to make up her mind.

“He’s probably thinking about all he’ll have to do to make it suit her tastes,” Philip laughed, in obvious sympathy.

She flew away, and in a flurry of indecision came back again. Then together they were off, no doubt spurred by the lengthy list of potential properties about this place, the crisp blue of the male’s feathers a flying spot of joy on the morning air. 

We do try to make the bluebirds as welcome as possible around here. There are at least half-a dozen houses for them perched on fence posts and nailed to trees. They had always been a longed-for sight for me before I came to live in our dear old farmhouse—I could count on three fingers how many times I had caught a glimpse of a bluebird up until that first summer when we were married. Then I felt positively giddy at the abundance of them—flocking in the yard or along the drive by the dozens, flitting back and forth from fence rails or lower branches of the walnut trees, always their lovely blue an absolute miracle of beauty.

It’s no wonder to me that from ages long past bluebirds have poetically represented happiness. My heart literally leaps up with it each time they flash by. And there’s a particular little pleasure of my own in the fact that we’re so liberally endowed with them. They are—always have been—a small emblem, a living image, of the happiness we’ve known here.  

We realized last night that it was eight years ago today that Philip asked me if I wanted to live here—he had proposed the night before. :) I didn’t have to think about my answer—despite the fact that this house had been a confirmed bachelor pad for the previous eight years, bearing all the marks of such. I wouldn’t answer any differently now. Truly, ‘my boundaries enclose a pleasant land’.

Philip said he’s going to stop on the way home and pick up some cedar for more bluebird houses. It looks like the housing market’s going to be booming this spring.  

One of the books on my current reading list (I’ve usually got at least three going at any given time, sometimes more!) is E.M. Forster’s classic on writing, Aspects of the Novel. Here’s a passage I simply had to share:

Pseudo-scholarship is, on its good side, the homage paid by ignorance to learning…Books have to be read (worse luck, for it takes a long time); it is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the west. The reader must sit down alone and struggle with the writer, and this the psuedo-scholar will not do. He would rather relate a book to the history of its time, to events in the life of its author, to the events it describes, above all to some tendency. As soon as he can use the word ‘tendency’ his spirits rise, and though those of his audience may sink, they often pull out their pencils at this point and make a note, under the belief that a tendency is portable.

~E.M. Forster

It gives me a lift to think that even ‘the greats’ had to struggle with books at times. But, oh, what a glorious tousle it is! And how dreary and flat life would be without it!

In the film Miss Potter, Beatrix’s character has a conversation with her parents in which her mother makes a rather disagreeable reference to her age. Her reply has been in my heart ever since: 

“At my age, mother, every day matters.”

She was thirty-two.

Every day matters too much not to spend it on—or at least working towards—that which we love!

Every day matters too much to squander it in fretting and hurry…

…to center our thoughts—and consequently our lives—upon anything but the True, the Good, and the Beautiful!

…to fill our minds, our mouths, our homes with anything that is ugly or unnecessary!

Every day matters too much to waste a second of it worrying about what ‘they’ think…(in his great treatise on ‘Economy’, Thoreau directs one of his most pointed barbs at the notion of pleasing anyone but oneself in the matter of dress. When confronted with his seamstress’ dismay at the requested cut of his suit and her subsequent—and inevitable—remark that ‘They do not make them so now’, he ponders what is a puzzle to him in his inimitable style: “…That I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery…‘It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now.’”)

Each day is too precious to parcel ourselves off in ‘principles’ and ‘priorities’, to live in anything but a glad abandon of our whole selves—with all our fears, longings, desires and joys—to the God who gave us life. He knows it all.

He’s the reason it matters.      

Well, my mother and I spent yesterday afternoon in the Lake District–via the delightful new film, Miss Potter, which chronicles the literary journey of our beloved Beatrix. It was so enchanting–so altogether lovely–that we were walking on air when we came out of the theatre. That hasn’t happened to me in a long, long time! And instead of the traffic and noise of one of the (ugliest) parts of town, my eyes were filled with visions of sweeping vistas of mountains and lakes, peaceful pastoral vignettes and cozy rooms–treasures themselves preserved by Beatrix Potter’s conservation efforts.

I thought that the movie captured the flavor of a staid but beauty-filled era. The trappings that hampered Beatrix’s personal freedoms seemed almost whimsical, even for one as old-fashioned as I! But the seriousness and courage with which the most popular author of children’s books of all time pursued what she loved was treated with a genteel respect–richly deserved, in my opinion. I’ve always loved Beatrix Potter–from the pre-Amazon days when some of the first books of hers I ever laid eyes on were the ones my grandparents brought back to me from England in the early 80’s. And now, as an adult with dreams of my own, her story, interpreted through this film, has inspired me afresh to live passionately in all that I love.

It’s rare to see a movie that is simply lovely fron start to finish, but that’s what Miss Potter is. Renee Zellweger’s adorably frumpy and un-selfconscious Beatrix is a breath of fresh air in such a glamor-obsessed age. She made me want to pull on my Wellies, plunge my hands in the pockets of a long wool cardigan, and set off for a ramble over the hills. My own dear pastures will have to suffice, but that’s alright. This is where I belong…

And I have my life back!

But wasn’t it fun! This time last year I was wondering if I could get my act together enough to do something as absurd as writing a novel in thirty days–the month before Christmas, no less. But few things I have ever done have been so rewarding. On this side of NaNoWriMo, I not only have a novel under my belt. I have the carefree and intensly personal satisfaction in my writing that I experienced as a teenager when I wrote like the wind and never thought of anyone else reading it. I have the joy of recapturing those ‘first, fine careless raptures’. And I have a pile of closely-typed pages that no one will ever lay eyes on but my husband and myself–and a month’s worth of happy memories of playing Jo March.

My (wonderful, supportive, encouraging…) husband came home with a bottle of champagne and took me out to dinner to celebrate. And yesterday I stashed my manuscript in a pretty flowered file folder and spent my spare time that afternoon scribbling madly in my journal. After all, I had a whole month’s worth of news to catch up on!

After a gentle nudge from my sister-in-law, I realized it had been three weeks since I’d shown my face around here! It has been a delightful and busy November, and apart from keeping house and preparing for the holidays, my spare time has been predominately employed in a most ridiculous scheme…Not to mention the fact that I have temporarily assumed the moderation of the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship…

Rathen than attempting to describe the splendors of this lovely autumn we’ve been enjoying, I thought I’d just post a few pictures that my husband took:

 Along the eastern fence

 Looking towards the carriage house

My favorite bit of our morning walk

   The hickories have been beyond breath-taking this year

And just a few technical notes in closing–

~I’m sorry for any difficulties with the ‘Contact Lanier’ box. It’s never really worked properly!!

~I’ve actually updated my Links page and I’ve *thought* about updating the Gallery…but no promises…

~And for those of you experiencing a long space with lots of arrows before the text shows up, this site is best viewed in the Firefox browser…

I hope that everyone is having as gorgeous an autumn as we are in the Great Southland!

October 13, 2006 

This was a day of doors flung wide; of windows lifted like a toast to autumn gusts and sunlight shimmering through sparkling wavy glass. Of shaking rugs in the open air and polishing old wood till it shone a deep amber. It was a day of housecleaning—the kind that only occurs once a year—and of deep satisfaction in my happy lot.

When we were first married and all my long-held and much-cherished ideals of homemaking were finally realized in a house to keep and a husband to love and look after, I approached the great undertaking of a yearly cleaning with relish. I regarded it with much the same energy as that displayed by my sister and me in our annual attack upon our little playhouse in my parent’s backyard: we would drag everything out into the first warm sunshine of the spring, scrub down our ‘Little Tykes’ refrigerator and sink and the small wooden chairs and table, wipe the two tiny four-over-four windows, and scour the six-by-eight floor with a zeal that would have made Cinderella blush. Then we would fill a #2 washtub with good soapy water and fling in our tin and plastic kitchen accouterments with abandon. After everything was dry—just about the time the sun had lowered behind the trees in our neighbor’s yard and the breeze turned suddenly chill and the aromas of supper were wafting out to us from the house—we’d give the floor a last sweep and put it all back in, satisfied that the sanitary standards were up to par for another season.    

But it’s a big jump from keeper of a one-room playhouse to chatelaine of a rambling old farmhouse, and I must confess, that first spring I found myself rather daunted by the magnitude of the task that lay before me. And I didn’t even have my sister to help wash the windows. But I had good examples in the way of books and friends, not to mention those of my mother and my mother-in-law. (Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield was a great boon that spring.)

In the years since I have honed my own principles of keeping house; I have learned to simplify my task list and I’ve had it out with my perfectionism (over and over and over again…). And I have discovered that spring cleaning is a chore in the spring. But it’s a delight in the autumn. In the spring I am all about garden beds and sprouting seedlings. I just want to be outside with my growing things. But in the autumn it is an absolute joy to prepare my home for the coming cold weather and inside days with a furious spree of cleaning. Every task carries for me its own sense of celebration, the glorious energy of October mornings and the fluttering joy of the coming holidays. The very smell of Scott’s Liquid Gold can make my heart beat faster…

I’ve also learned that I don’t like to do all of my cleaning in one big block like I used to. It’s just a breeding ground for perfectionism if I think that I have to finish it all within a given (and arbitrary) slot on the calendar. This year I tried something new: the Friday mornings of September and October have been given to the big once a year onslaught, and the tasks themselves have been broken up into reasonable chunks, divided over seven weeks or so. Each Friday I consult my master list and decide what I’m in the mood for that day, which only enhances the sense of pleasure in the work of my hands. And it also silences the clamor of other jobs which will get my attention on the next Friday…or the next…

One of the main points that Deniece makes in her book is that forethought is our greatest ally in the management of our homes, and I am only beginning to realize how true that is. Ten minutes of planning this year saved me hours of wearisome labor; the very act of limiting myself has, inexplicably, made for a joyful and productive autumn. I don’t think I’ll ever do my spring cleaning in the spring again.       

Of anyone, the great ‘St. Francis of Aberdeen’ ought to know…

“…Those you call fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flower fairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick people, as they call you; for, like most children, they like fun better than anything else."

"Why do you have flowers so near you then? Do they not annoy you?"

"Oh, no, they are very amusing, with their mimicries of grown people, and mock solemnities. Sometimes they will act a whole play through before my eyes, with perfect composure and assurance, for they are not afraid of me. Only, as soon as they have done, they burst into peals of tiny laughter, as if it was such a joke to have been serious over anything. These I speak of, however, are the fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated than those of the fields and woods. Of course they have near relations amongst the wild flowers, but they patronize them, and treat them as country cousins, who know nothing of life, and very little of manners. Now and then, however, they are compelled to envy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers."

"Do they live in the flowers?" I said.

"I cannot tell," she replied. "There is something in it I do not understand. Sometimes they disappear altogether, even from me, though I know they are near. They seem to die always with the flowers they resemble, and by whose names they are called; but whether they return to life with the fresh flowers, or, whether it be new flowers, new fairies, I cannot tell. They have as many sorts of dispositions as men and women, while their moods are yet more variable; twenty different expressions will cross their little faces in half a minute. I often amuse myself with watching them, but I have never been able to make personal acquaintance with any of them. If I speak to one, he or she looks up in my face, as if I were not worth heeding, gives a little laugh, and runs away."

I may as well mention here, that the conclusion I arrived at from the observations I was afterwards able to make, was, that the flowers die because the fairies go away; not that the fairies disappear because the flowers die. The flowers seem a sort of house for them, or outer bodies, which they can put on or off when they please. Just as you could form some idea of the nature of a man from the kind of house he built, if he followed his own taste, so you could, without seeing the fairies, tell what any one of them is like, by looking at the flower till you feel that you understand it. For just what the flower says to you, would the face and form of the fairy say; only so much more plainly as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For the house or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer, cannot be wrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would see a strange resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy, which you could not describe, but which described itself to you. Whether all the flowers have fairies, I cannot determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men and women have souls.

George MacDonald, Phantastes

Philip and I have just recently returned from a New England adventure, consisting of a blissful week in a cottage in Maine and a mad-cap weekend in Boston with my sister and her husband.

Ten days becomes an eternity when there’s nothing to do but feast your eyes on gorgeous scenery and your mind on good books. How wonderful it was to flee for a while to a distant spot on the map, to entrust our home and our animals to dear friends, to be out of range of the tentacles of modern ‘connectivity’ and to be completely quiet. There were days in our little cottage that neither of us would speak a word for hours on end, so engrossed were we in our respective reading and writing and musing. And there were lovely escapades, as well: forays into the breathtaking country-side and the drama of Acadia National Park. Crystalline days and famous Maine fog…

I prayed fervently before we left that God would refresh me while we were away. That He would literally restore my soul, dimly realizing that the restoration Psalm 23 speaks of entails repentance as well as rejuvenation, a sort of reinstatement in grace. It’s so easy to lose our footing, even on the firm, sure ground provided for us, and sometimes the only way to see things clearly as they are is to be uprooted from our physical surroundings and familiarities. To wake up in the morning and gaze with wondering eyes on country we’ve never seen before; to sit long on a shore hitherto unknown and drink deep of a breeze scented strangely with evergreen and salt. Some of the most distinctive and clear-sighted moments in my life have been while traveling, and though my affectionate soul will probably always hold that ‘home-keeping hearts are happiest’, I cherish the opportunities I’ve had to see more of the world than the blessed corner of it I call my own.

Late in the week I made a pan of gingerbread for breakfast and as the sweet spice wafted through our little cottage I felt a fleeting stab of homesickness. I welcomed it with a thrill, glad to be refreshed enough for a wistful thought of all that I had left behind; glad, too, that my retreat had yet a fine stretch of days ahead, and that what lay at its end was so inescapably dear to me. A happiness beyond my happiness.

The re-entry was admittedly rough; there were tears shed leaving the cottage, leaving my sister in Boston, leaving the ground in the airplane. The morning that Philip went back to work was very blue indeed. But there was Caspian tripping me up all day in his delight at our return. There were four cats to be won over again and nine chickens who all came bundling towards me when they spotted me in the yard. There was my beloved brown teapot and my piano and my sun-splashed kitchen. And there was my view from the windows, one I’d not exchange for anything.

So, it was a marvelous trip and I am brimming with thoughts to ponder and process, for I knew instinctively even while I was there that I wouldn’t fully receive it all till I was home again. And more than likely some of it will spill over here.

Sunday, September 17

We’ve spent the weekend getting ready for our housepainters, who will arrive with the sun Monday morning; Philip has been polishing up the details on our newly converted porch. We’ve called it so many things since the project began back in the spring: summer kitchen, mud room, sun room, keeping room. And the vision has evolved with the name. What began on paper as a utilitarian space has become yet another concession to beauty and peaceful reflection. It’s facing west, commanding a splendid sunset view—in summer down across the pasture to the north, and in winter kindling behind the thick pines on the southern end. And so, instead of a washing machine and dryer, it will contain a deep window seat, cushioned wicker chairs and a sea grass rug. There will be shelves for Wellies and garden tools, a sink for washing vegetables and eggs. But the primary pursuit in this room will be dreaming. Drinking tea and reading. Good conversation. Rest. Of that I am sure.

We’re so pleased with how it’s coming. We replaced the screens with wonderful old salvaged windows from a lost building downtown, eight-over-eight with wavy glass and great big pulls. (The actual tale of how they came to be in our possession is a story in itself, and one I’m not sure I’d like to revisit! If anyone is familiar with the notion of ‘dumpster-diving’ they will get a pretty good idea of what we went through to get them.) And yesterday, Philip and his dad finished setting in the old French doors we found for a song. It’s so exciting to see a project come together like this. I never cease to be amazed at what my husband can do! He is a true craftsman and I love what he fashions with his mind and his hands. When it’s all finished, inside and out, I will have to post pictures just to brag on him a bit.        

And so, the weekend winds to a close tonight with a gentle sunset under brooding clouds. The hens have wandered home to roost and have been shut up tight for the night in Fort Poulet. Four cats are prowling about giving me the eye and a hungry dog is awaiting his dinner. Philip is making the final rounds as the dusk gathers, making certain that all is in readiness for tomorrow. (Long-time readers and friends will remember that this house-painting venture has been a saga of almost two years’ duration…)

It is the calm before the storm. In the morning the peace of our farm-in-the-city will be temporarily shattered. But it’s happy to think how beautiful this old lady will be when they’re done with her. A regular face-lift. My painter told me she’d look like Gone With the Wind. I feel quite certain that he is referring to the book and not the film, for while the latter is admirable in itself, it bears but occasional resemblance to Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece. And nowhere does it diverge more seriously than with Tara itself, perhaps the central character of the book. What Mitchell portrayed as a typical Georgia plantation, modest, sprawling, almost spartan in many respects, was represented in the movie as one of those flamboyant belles along the Natchez trace. Gorgeous in her own right. But not Tara. So, of course, I may assume that my painter has no intention of adding Corinthian pillars and wrap-around verandahs. No frills and furbelows here. Just simple, honest lines, unpretentious contentment with herself and with her surroundings. That’s what I first loved about this place from the moment I saw it. Which is another story, too…   

Such a rambling post! But I am glad to be back, and glad to hear from so many of you dear folk in the past few weeks who are kind enough to drop in to see what I’m thinking about…thank you for your beautiful words and comments.

God bless you all this week!