"I Seen the Little Lamp"

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

artwork by Jan Donley
A year ago today, my fortnightly post was a series of connections drawn from the autumnal writing and photography of my friend Jan Donley.* At the same time that I was posting "There on the Edge of Autumn," Jan was writing another leaf story in her journal. How timely!

The rain fell on yellow leaves / 14 November 12
She remembered a place. It might have been a place in a dream. There were there no trees, and there was no sky. She had looked out of eyes that did not belong to her. And then she remembered, there was no ground either. No dirt. No grass. No branches or trunks or leaves. Just air. There may have been light. Yes. She remembered light coming from some distance—maybe a star or a moon or a lamp. She wanted it to be a lamp. And she heard a voice—a voice that whispered and whistled. That was the language of this place: whispers and whistles. [emphasis added]

When she awoke from the dream or what may have been a dream, she looked across her room to the window. The window was open, and a breeze blew in. She saw leaves on the ground. Through the window, she saw the yellow leaves. And the rain fell on them.

It should have been a familiar sight. But ever since the dream, her eyes were not her own. And ever since the dream, she knew the sky and the trees and the ground could disappear. She knew that familiar languages could suddenly become unfamiliar.

It unsettled her, the way a dream can do.

And it must have been a dream; otherwise, why would she wake to look out a window and see rain falling on yellow leaves?

She could not be sure.

The yellow leaves whistled in the wind. The rain that fell on them whispered.

~ photo by Jan Donley ~

Jan's entry provided an immediate connection to one of my favorite stories by Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923), "The Doll's House," in which the two little poor sisters, Lil and Else Kelvey, are lucky enough to get a quick look at the elaborate dollhouse of the wealthy Burnell sisters, Isabel, Lottie, and Kezia. But their viewing lasts only for a few seconds, before the prejudiced cranky aunt shoos them away. Instead of being embarrassed by their poverty or disappointed in not getting to admire the dollhouse, the younger sister internalizes the reward of her adventure: "I seen the little lamp!" That was enough for her! A sign of comfort, hope, stability -- the same reasons that Jan's dream girl in "yellow leaves" hopes that the distant light is coming from a lamp!

If you're interested in reading more about Mansfield's story, I have written about it in my book -- Created in Our Image: The Miniature Body of the Doll. I was inspired by On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, a fascinating theoretical study by poet and professor of folklore Susan Stewart, who calls the dollhouse "a materialized secret; what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority" (61).

The Burnell sisters are certainly anxious to share the secret of their new possession, the "perfect, perfect little house!" (318). They are instructed that they may bring their friends from school, two at a time, to view the splendid toy. These visits are to be allowed, however, with the specific condition that the visitors are "not to stay to tea, of course, or to come traipsing through the house" (320). That is, the girls may share with outsiders the secrets of the miniature house but not those of the life - size house. The privacy and the sanctity (and the secrets) of the home are to be protected from intrusion and idle curiosity. Nor are the guests invited to actually play with the dollhouse; they are asked merely to admire it, "to stand quietly in the courtyard while Isabel pointed out the beauties and Lottie and Kezia looked pleased" (320).

"The whole house - front swung back, and -- there you were, gazing at one and the same moment into the drawing - room and dining - room, the kitchen and two bedrooms" (319; see comment below). The girls are enchanted by the small furniture, the stove complete with oven door, the table set with tiny plates, the wallpaper, the carpeting, and the miniature gold - framed pictures. Of all the charming details, for Kezia, it is the little lamp that represents the "promise of an infinitely profound interiority":

"But what Kezia liked more than anything, what she liked frightfully, was the lamp. It stood in the middle of the dining - room table, an exquisite little amber lamp with a white globe. It was even filled all ready for lighting, though, of course, you couldn't light it. But there was something inside that looked like oil, and that moved when you shook it. . . . [T]he lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile at Kezia, to say 'I live here.' The lamp was real" (319).

Choosing which playmates may or may not see the remarkable exhibition, the children are in a position to impose the same social class barriers observed by their elders. The two girls who are excluded from the joy of viewing the dollhouse are "the two who were always outside, the little Kelveys. They knew better than to come anywhere near the Burnells" (320). Lil and Else Kelvey are shunned because their mother is a "washerwoman" who works in other people's homes, their father is rumored to be in prison, their wardrobe is made up of hand - me - downs from their mother's various employers, and their lunches consist of messy jam sandwiches wrapped in old newspaper. They are thin, quiet, shy, and strange - looking to the other children, who taunt them mercilessly. Their one strength seems to be that they "never failed to understand each other" (320 - 21). Lil and Else know, of course, about the magical dollhouse, and they accept without question the fact that, though all the other girls have been to see it, they will not be invited.

Kezia, however, decides to question the unwritten and sometimes unspoken social code by which the Kelveys are ostracized. Any class snobbery that she harbors is vanquished when the opportunity arises to treat the Kelveys to a view of the dollhouse. They, on the other hand, long accustomed to perceiving themselves in the despised position, are doubtful -- astounded even-- when Kezia extends to them the privilege of an invitation: "'You can come see our doll's house if you want to.'" Lil, the older of the two sisters, is hardly bold enough to defy convention; she flushes, gasps, and murmurs her refusal: "'Your ma told our ma you wasn't to speak to us."" Kezia is initially at a loss for words at this abrupt rejoinder but soon decides to brush the warning aside: "'It doesn't matter. You can come and see our doll's house all the same. Come on. Nobody's looking'" (324).

Finally, to placate little Else, Lil is persuaded to give in. When Kezia opens the hinge and the interior of the house swings into view, Lil and Else are overwhelmed by the marvelous despair that first swept over the Burnell children. Kezia points out "'the drawing - room and the dining - room, and that's the -- '" (325). The unfinished thought was undoubtedly to be "and that's the little lamp." But before Kezia can finish the tour of the house or even her sentence, the cold furious voice of reprimand is heard in the doorway.

It is not Kezia's mother but her stern Aunt Beryl who issues the demand that Lil and Else leave at once: "'How dare you ask the little Kelveys into the courtyard? . . . You know as well as I do, you're not allowed to talk to them. Run away, children, run away at once. And don't come back again. . . . Off you go immediately!'" As the doors slam shut, Lil and Else are not surprised that their glimpse inside of Kezia's dollhouse has been so brief. They shrink away from the courtyard, not stopping to rest alongside the road until they are well away from the scene of their humiliation. Lil, who is described as "like her mother," still feels the shame burning in her cheeks, but Else soon forgets "the cross lady," remembering only the privilege of the moment. The narrator attempts to read their thoughts as they look "dreamily" into the distance, but Lil's remain private. Beryl's unkindness has struck her as a much deeper rejection than Else can perceive. Not only are they denied a view of the dollhouse, they are also barred from the vision that it represents -- the comfort and security of a middle - class home. No four walls protect them from the instability, the randomness, and the vulgarity of life.

Else, on the other hand, smiles "her rare smile." Even if only for a moment, she has been illuminated by that infinite promise of profound interiority that resides within the dollhouse. Kezia's admonitions on the playground that everyone pay attention to the lamp were not wasted on Else, who remembered every word and, in the few seconds give her, witnessed the symbolic object. Now, softly, she says to her sister Lil, "'I seen the little lamp'" (325 - 26).
I seen the little lamp!

To see many more miniature lamps, go to Ruby Lane,
where they also have a stunning collection of big lamps
and a vast collection of dolls!
Another Darling Dollhouse
Illustration by Beatrix Potter, 1866 - 1943

for her story The Tale of Two Bad Mice, 1904

"Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's-house;
it was red brick with white windows, and it had
real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney."

* Previous Jan Donley
Posts on My Blogs
Lucky Rock
Lost & Found
9 / 11 Retrospective [also on Quotidian Kit]
Dagmar's Birthday [also on Quotidian Kit]
Everyone Loves Stories
There On the Edge of Autumn

Scales
Sleight of Hand
The Little Door
Savor September!
Happy Birthday Coyote!

Another Lovely Little Lamp by Jan ~ January 2014

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

There on the Edge of Autumn

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"I am a leaf!"
All of today's connections are drawn from the writing and photography of my friend Jan Donley. References to her work have appeared several times on this blog (and The Quotidian Kit) right from the very beginning.* It was Jan who said, "September always smelled different from August. It just did." Likewise, October smells different from September; and November from October. As my son Sam said earlier today, "It smells good out here; it smells cold!" Yes -- it smells like November!

Excerpts from Jan's Journal

Gray / 21 November 2010
The bare trees covered the hillside, and from a distance, it looked as if the hill was covered in fur. Funny that way—how hard branches soften. . . .

The sun shone down from the western sky and pieces of light through the branches made stripes along the shaded ground.

[Out for a walk with her dog Gray] She could see her breath and Gray’s too as he panted along. They stopped at the edge of a drop, too steep to walk down. The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and the air turned colder. She grabbed Gray up into her arms and took in the warmth of his coat against her bare face. He squirmed to be set free. So she put him back down and squatted next to him—there on the edge of autumn looking out toward winter.

Alone / 21 October 2010
Opal looked out the window. A gray overcast filled the sky. Leaves hung on trees—orange, yellow, red. She watched one fall. It twirled and almost seemed to shine against the dark day.

She put on her red jacket and her brown shoes.

“I’m going outside!” she called, knowing that Aunt Frances may or may not hear her. Aunt Frances had her own worries, and sometimes Opal felt alone.

She opened the front door and ventured down the stoop steps and onto the grass, covered with leaves that rattled under her feet.

She made her way onto the sidewalk—also leaf-covered. She shuffled through the leaves and watched as their colors tumbled over her shoes. They crackled and popped. The sound made Opal laugh.

Some leaves fell from limbs and other swirled up from the ground.

It was just a fall day. Opal knew that. Days come and go, Opal thought.

But something in the swirling and the falling made her stop.

She twirled herself one, two, three times.

“I am a leaf,” she called to the sky, to the trees, to the day.

She ran along the sidewalk, her red coat glimmering on that gray day.

She chanted, “I am a leaf” down the block and across the wide street to the park with the pond and the ducks and the caw cawing crows.

It was enough for the moment, to be one of many swirling through the day.

(Look closely! See the bench?)
And now some excerpts from Jan's short story "Blind"
Not necessarily an autumnal story,
but a back - to - school story,
so it must be Fall!
Sometimes you look up at the sun and you get blinded. You put your hand up as a shield, and you have sight again, but it’s kind of awkward to keep your hand there like that. And sometimes, you meet someone who blinds you, and even when you try to really see that person, it’s awkward. So you put your head down or look the other way. That’s how it was with Caroline.

She blinded me. . . .

The narrator here is Franny, trying to understand the complicated feelings she has for her classmate Caroline. One of my favorite elements of the story is their homework session:

“You really get these poems, don’t you?” And the truth was, I did. I could read a poem and figure out the puzzle of it faster than my mom could do the Daily Jumble in the Gazette.

For homework, we had to read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. Mr. Zellner, our English teacher, got all teary-eyed when he talked to us about it. He carried the book around the classroom and read parts aloud:

“For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.”
I looked around and most everyone, including Caroline, was yawning or staring out the window. Me, I was listening.

Mr. Zellner asked, “What do you think Eliot is trying to convey when he writes the line, ‘It is impossible to say just what I mean?’”

I raised my hand. . . .

“Well.” I looked down at the words in the poem. “He has all these memories bottled up. He wants them to mean something, but he’s not sure they mean anything at all.”
“You got all of that out of one line?” Caroline asked.

“It’s poetry,” Mr. Zellner said, as if that answered everything. He read some more of the poem:

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”
"Mermaids . . . .” Caroline stared at the page, and then she looked up at me. “Why mermaids?”

“It’s a metaphor,” I said.

Mr. Zellner smiled really big. “Yes! Yes! That’s right. Did everyone hear Frances?”

I wished he would call me Franny; but for some reason, teachers liked to use full names.

Mr. Zellner continued, “Our poet, Mr. Eliot, is using the mermaid’s song as a metaphor for missed opportunities, for loss, for—” Mr. Zellner stopped. He looked around the room— “what we wish we had done. Haven’t you all had moments when you wished you had done something different? The poem is about regret.”

“Yeah,” Caroline said. “I think I get it. Thanks to Franny.”

*****************
I love the way Jan has incorporated literary analysis right into the body of the story. Everything she says here about "Prufrock" is exactly what I've tried to tell my students in the past and what I told Ben & Sam when (luckily!) they were each assigned to read this poem in high school. [Click to hear T. S. Eliot himself recite.]

I also like the way that when it comes to poetry, Franny just knows. I earned a similar credential when discussing Jane Hamilton's novel A Map of the World in one of my long ago book groups. There is a sad, sad scene in the book when Alice's family kind of accidentally (not maliciously but simply because they don't understand what it is or how important) throw away her map of the world. When I asked my fellow readers if they had reached that scene yet, they weren't sure, so I pointed it out to them, since to me it was such a crucial turning point, not to mention that it totally illuminates the title of the book. Upon a second reading, I had to admit that no where is it specifically stated: "No! Wait! Stop! The family is throwing her map away!" Yet, when the group asked me, how I knew -- well, I just know!

Playing on the theme of "Blind," Jan writes that even Mr. Zellner "squinted a little" not to mention that he gets "all teary-eyed" when reading "Prufrock!" Franny at first averts her eyes out of shyness but later "nodded into the bright sun" of Caroline; and Caroline takes a moment just to look at the sky, nothing more, nothing less. The story concludes with the two young women sitting on a park bench in the late afternoon autumn sun, discussing the difficulty of making direct eye contact, the varying degrees of vegetarianism, and their upcoming Emily Dickinson assignment. Then, as Emily would surely have it:

"We stayed on the bench till the sun dropped.

In the dark it was so much easier to see."

View from the Bench
A few more Connections:

1. Jan enjoyed it awhile back when I told her that Franny's literary expertise reminded me -- in a good way of course! -- of Velma in Scooby-Doo. You know, that episode in which Daphne asks her, "Velma, do you have a book for every occasion?" And Velma replies, "Actually, yes." Which, in turn, brings to mind the question I was asked in college when I worked on the literary magazine: "Do you have a poem for every poem?" And, like Velma, I just had to say, "Actually, yes." Jan wrote back to me: "I am especially happy about your Scooby-Doo Reference. Diane loves her Scooby-Doo, and it's so much fun to have that allusion in the midst of Eliot and Hamilton, etc."

Scooby and the Gang
2. In other popular culture, Jan's description of Franny and Caroline sitting at the park reminds me of the leafy, sunny scene in the movie Harriet the Spy when the best friends all roll down the hill in the park:

Harriet and Friends
3. Franny puzzles over a comment that Caroline makes about various boys in their class -- "He wants me" -- and asks her to explain, “What does that feel like?”
“What does what feel like?” Caroline asked.
“Being wanted. What does it feel like to be wanted?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” . . .
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m kidding.” But I wasn’t.

This exchange made me think of a "fun fact" about the casting of The Graduate: Robert Redford was considered for the role of Benjamin before Dustin Hoffman. But Redford disqualified himself when the directors told him that the character had to portray a sense of defeat -- like being turned down for a date on a Friday night. And Redford said something like, "Huh? What do you mean?"

Similarly in the musical Jersey Boys the three macho Seasons don't want to sing the song "Walk Like a Man," written by the fourth, more "emo" Season (Bob Gaudio, in real life). The three dudes are complaining that it makes no sense -- "What do you mean, like a man instead of a woman? Walk like a girl?" Gaudio says, "No, like a man instead of boy. It's about growing up, standing up for yourself, not being twisted around someone else's little finger." The others just gawk at him uncomprehending. What? Apparently they're just not the type to ever have been twisted around anyone's little finger. What does that feel like?

4. Additional Favorite Journal Entries that I would recommend:
House
Washington Street (see text below, in "Comments")
The rain fell on yellow leaves

* 5. Previous Jan Donley Posts on my blogs:
Lucky Rock
Lost & Found
9 / 11 Retrospective [also on Quotidian Kit]
Dagmar's Birthday [also on Quotidian Kit]
Everyone Loves Stories

Scales
Sleight of Hand
The Little Door
Savor September!
Happy Birthday Coyote!

6. A bit more "Prufrock"

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

The Leaves Conferred (Imprints #2)

AUTUMN LEAVES ON THE SIDEWALK
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~ PRAGUE 2019

"If you go looking, you will find sidewalk squares to measure.
You will find steep concrete steps leading to stoops and into houses.
They are everywhere. . . .

. . . home is fragile and varied and elusive.
Just the word 'home' can bring a smile or a tear.

I suppose I write and draw in an attempt to locate home,
some center point that grounds me."

~ Jan Donley ~
[See also: Safe Home & Picture of Home]

Bright Soul ~ Edinburgh, 2018

**************
I didn't realize, until my last post, how many leaves and sidewalk imprints I had collected over the years! Searching through my files, I realized that it was going to take more than one post to make all the connections. I think it all began when my friend Jan sent this mesmerizing picture, nearly a decade ago:

I responded with this one,
taken in Dallas on New Year's Eve 2012:

My son Ben was with me that day, walking around Dallas,
in the pouring rain, and he thought it would be funny
to take a picture of me taking a picture of a wet leaf:

Additional wintry variations on the theme include snowy leaves --

Instead of looking down at the sidewalk,
this one is taken from a different perspective:
looking up, from inside, at the glass ceiling of my sunroom!
First, the leaf fell against the skylight; then, the snow fell!

-- and some unexpected Jack ~ Frost
on the floor of the garage!
[See also: facebook & brainpickings]

This icy manifestation from Jan
New Year's Day ~ 2017

And later that year in Astana, Kazakhstan
First Signs of Autumn ~ 2017

I have been a collector of leaves from way back!
Let us leave it (yes, pun intended!) to Emily Dickinson
to explain why we love them so:

To my quick ear the Leaves — conferred —
The Bushes — they were Bells —
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels —

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls — begun to tell —
Creation seemed a mighty Crack —
To make me visible —

The Leaves like Women interchange
Exclusive Confidence –
Somewhat of nods and somewhat
Portentous inference.

The Parties in both cases
Enjoining secrecy –
Inviolable compact
To notoriety. [additonal ~ posts]

both poems by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

From my saved files but not sure from when, where, whom?
Possibly shared by my friend Terry Menard,
back in the earlier days of facebook.
Sure do wish I could recall!
[Note to self: take better notes!]

**************

Thanks to my friend, artist Susan Blubaugh
for sharing the following:

"So here are my 'imprints.' The first is a big leaf maple
on the hill across from my house.

The second is an oak leaf impression from leaves
that I picked up in Rome at the Borghese Palace.
Mary Firestone at Artists’ Own
incorporated the impression in a ceramic dish."

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Imprints"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Everyone Loves Stories -- Even Jesus, Even God

A SCHOOLHOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My son Sam with his 5th grade classmates, twins, Michael & Geoffrey
St. Peter's School ~ Philadelphia ~ 2004

*******************

“There is something deeply built into us that needs story itself.
Story is a source of nurture . . .
we cannot become really true human beings
for ourselves and for each other without story.”
Vincent Harding (b 1931)
Civil Rights Veteran
{Thanks to Jan Donley for first posting this quotation}
Tell me a story! Tell me about the day I was born. Tell me about that time. Once upon a time. In the beginning. Long ago and faraway. Long ago, in someone else's story. Be the hero of your own story. The Never-ending Story. Just So Stories. So many stories, so little time, so much time -- sprawling and interminable (see Buechner, below). I like Harding's assertion (above) that we need these stories to be "really true human beings" and Myerson's conclusion (below) that we "just want to connect." In fact, that's one of the founding premises of this blog:
Only connect!

Out of the vast number of stories about stories, I've picked Harding, Myerson, Buechner, and Myerhoff for this short post. These authors share the observation that our humanizing stories are never disconnected. The narratives may sprawl across time and space, but only say the word, write the letter, make the call, turn on the searchlights, sit in the chair, and tell the story!

Julie Myerson (b 1960)
Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House
"These letters and phone messages are peculiarly and unexpectedly touching. I realize that actually they're a part of what I'm trying to explore: the fact that all of us badly want to be part of a story, to be the Right Person, the One someone's looking for. Don't we all, at the end of the day, just want to connect our lives with the lives of others and experience that satisfying symmetry of time and place that comes from being notified, written to, called to account" (78 - 79; for more on Myerson's book, see "Our Island Home" on my Book List).

by Jessie Willcox Smith
Frederick Buechner (b 1926)
Listening to Your Life: "The Truth of Our Stories"
"In the long run the stories all overlap and mingle like searchlights in the dark. the stories Jesus tells are part of the story Jesus is, and the other way round. . . . And my story and your story are all part of each other too if only because we have sung together and prayed together and seen each other's faces so that we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other's stories.

"In other words all our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here. Does the story point beyond itself? Does it mean something? What is the truth of this interminable, sprawling story we all of us are? Or is it as absurd to ask about the truth of it as it is to ask about the truth of the wind howling through a crack under the door?" (305)

Storytelling
Barbara Myerhoff (1935 - 1985)
"The Story of the Forest"
"There is a Hasidic story, repeated to me by Shmuel [a member of the Israel Levin Senior Center, the subject of much of Myerhoff's work] before he died, that sums up my feelings about nine years of work with the...Center people....

"When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple...had occasion...to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say 'Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.' Again the miracle would be accomplished.

"Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Lieb of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: 'I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.' It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

"Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: 'I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.'

"And it was sufficient." *

Why? Because God Loves Stories!

{Thanks to Melinda Stolz for sharing this story with me.}

*Myerhoff's Notes:
1. Quote from Mark Leviton, "Numbering Their Days," University of Southern California Chronicle Oct. 1980, 26.

2. This story of the forest is also told in Elie Wiesel,
Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters,
trans. Marion Wiesel (New York: The Bibliophile Library, c1972).

"If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors, or mounted policemen." ~~ Dashiell Hammett ~~

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Only Collect a Few (Imprints #3)

SAND & CONCRETE
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to my friend Jan Donley
for this gift from the sea.

Excerpts from Gift from the Sea (1955)
by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 – 2001)

“One never knows what chance treasures . . . may turn up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind . . . The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea” (16 - 17).

“I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere" (32).

“The one-and-only moments are justified. The return to them, even if temporarily, is valid. The moment over the marmalade and muffins is valid; the moment feeding the child at the breast is valid; the moment racing with him at the beach is valid. Finding shells together, polishing chestnuts, sharing one’s treasures: all these moments of together-aloneness are valid, but not permanent” (73).

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky” (114).

March 2016 ~ Amelia Island

*******************
I have long been a fan of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, especially Bring Me A Unicorn but not until a recent re-reading of Gift from the Sea, did I fully appreciate how ahead of her time she was on issues such as environmentalism, de-cluttering, mindfulness, and self - care. For all her gentlness, only a person with a built in shit detector could pinpoint the awesome truth that "The most exhausting thing in life . . . is being insincere." We have all felt it; but, on our behalf, Lindbergh declares it.

Likewise, she declares for personal time and space: "remaining whole in the midst of the distractions of life," "practicing the art of solitude," "being inwardly attentive." These contemplative disciplines -- "even day - dreaming" -- she says, are so rare as to be revolutionary (29, 41, 42, 48, 56 - 57). And this was decades before Facebook and social media started gnawing away at our attention spans.

The ever - elusive work - life balance is prominent on Lindbergh's agenda: "The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls. . . this constant tangle of household chores, errands, and fragments of human relationships . . . endless distractions, always at hand -- unnecessary errands, compulsive duties, social niceties . . . to little purpose" (29, 47 - 48). Using the imagery of seashells, Lindbergh offers suggestions for maintaing a creative identity alongside the whorling omnipresence of housekeeping and childcare and making one's way in the world.

As staunchly as Virginia Woolf (51, 54), Lindbergh advocates for a room of one's own. Or, if not a room, at least an hour to oneself:

“It is a difficult lesson to learn today -- to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week. . . .

The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone.

How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. . . . Actually these are among the most important times in one's life -- when one is alone” (42, 49 - 50).

These gifts of introspection came to Lindbergh at the beach. Yet, never fear, such gifts are also widely available on dry land, even upon mundane concrete . . .
August 2017 ~ North Carolina

June 2020 ~ Indiana

April 2021 ~ Indiana

August 2021 ~ South Carolina

"I couldn't even walk head up . . . for fear
of missing something precious at my feet." (114)

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Imprints"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ "More Gifts From the Sea"
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

9 / 11 Retrospective: Not A Normal Day

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Small American Flag Made out of Legos
Ben and Sam's Original Idea for a
9 / 11 Tribute in September 2001
See the Little Flag in the Window? ~ November 2001
Back in 2003, on the second anniversary of 9 / 11, French high wire artist, Philippe Petit (b. 1949), wrote a sad and beautiful tribute, "My Towers, Our Towers," in which he tells the story of his daring high-wire walk between the Twin Towers, on the morning of August 7, 1974, when high above the ground he crossed eight (8!) times between the two towers.

Petit had been in love with these towers even before they were built, awaiting the moment when he could trespass on their air space, and now he had witnessed their collapse: "Where had they gone? Who besides me knew that, despite 200,000 tons of steel, glass, concrete, and aluminum, the towers were made mostly of air . . . air to air . . . ashes to ashes?" (Wall Street Journal, Thursday, September 11, 2003).

Along with his memories of the earlier days of the towers, Petit includes the sad story of the sudden death of his 9 1/2 - year - old daughter, Gypsy, in 1982. In his grief, he was advised by a priest: "Speak of her in the present tense." This advice stayed with him, and he applies it now to the tragedy of the World Trade Center:

"I close my eyes, I remember, I pay my respect to the victims and their families. That dreadful morning, my towers became your towers, our towers.

". . . gone, yet still standing tall, made of thin air, yet gloriously defying the sunset on this warm late summer evening.

Look at them!"
Look at them!
For connections and coincidences, following Petit's eloquent observations, I have decided to simply re-post the essay that I wrote last year on my daily blog for September 11. I am guessing that some did not see it a year ago, and that others won't mind reading it again. The fact is, these very same recollections will always be my story of that shattering day:

NOT A NORMAL DAY







A moment of silence and retrospection on this saddest of anniversaries. As with the assassination of JFK, we all remember where we were. I was in my kitchen, working on some scrapbooks for my children. The new school year had just started, and I was sorting through the previous year's memorabilia. Such a simple pleasure, so mundane. But many days are like that.

Just a few days before, on Sunday the 9th, my husband Gerry had flown to California for a meeting. Monday night, he had taken the redeye home, arriving back in Philadelphia very early Tuesday morning and, naturally, going in to work a couple hours later, after walking our sons across the street to school. He hadn't been on campus very long before calling to ask me if I needed to drive anywhere that day.

"Only to the boys' piano lessons after school."

"Why don't you call and cancel, okay?"

"Okay?"

"Some strange things are happening in New York and Washington."

"You mean the stock market?" Not that finance is my specialty, but that's what came to mind: desperate History Channel images of the Great Crash.

"No," he said. "Some planes have crashed in both cities."

"Are we at war?"

"I don't know. Just don't turn on the TV."

So I called our piano teacher (remember from the other day, scales & Bach). She was fine with the cancellations, as she herself was worried sick, having just heard from her sister who worked in Washington, DC, in a building that was currently locked down with everyone inside until further notice.

Then I called my sister, who also worked in DC. No answer anywhere, but as the day went on, I learned that rather than being locked into her building for the day, she and her husband had been turned away from their parking garage upon arrival that morning and instructed to return home. They spent the long hours in traffic on I-70, very frustrated but safe.

Then I turned on the TV. Then I turned it off again and thought of what to do next. Get milk.

2nd Street, Philadelphia
I opened the front door into the irony of one of the most beautiful days on earth: high of 72, low of 72, not a cloud in the sky. Wondering how it could be true, I walked the few blocks to the nearest 7-Eleven (on 2nd Street). Actually, in Philadelphia, it's not called the 7-Eleven; it's the Wawa, which sounds kind of silly until you notice the flying goose on the store logo and realize that "wawa" is an onomatopoeic Leni - Lenape word for "goose" or "wild goose" or "Land of the Big Goose."

Standing in the dairy aisle, I reached for a gallon of milk, then deliberated about taking a second, though I knew we didn't need it. I reasoned with myself: as an act of faith, lets take only one today. Lets have faith that the store will be here tomorrow, that the milk will be here tomorrow, that there will be enough.

Resolved, I headed home, cutting across the school playground on the way. Everything was very close together -- the house, the Wawa, the church, the school. That was a happy urban time when we were able to live a mostly pedestrian life, sometimes using the car so infrequently that we forgot where we had parked it last.

The teacher out watching the students on their after-lunch recess hailed me to ask if I wanted to take my kids home early. I could see the younger one there playing with his friends, still innocent but wary. They must have sensed that something was up. Hanging on to my moment of faith in the Wawa, I answered the teacher, "No, not yet. Just let them have a normal afternoon."

When Gerry and I went over a couple of hours later to pick them up at the regular time, the older one was ecstatic, exclaiming, "All I could think was, 'When's Daddy getting back?' And then I remembered, you were already home."

Our Fine Front Door on 3rd Street, Philadelphia
***************
Thanks to my friend Jan Donley for suggesting a poetry connection that perfectly captures the mixture of shamefulness and gratefulness one feels for being granted an ordinary day, while at the very same moment others are in despair. How amazing and humbling to feel so secure despite the uncertainty:

September Twelfth, 2001

Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor,
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands,

aren't us. I wake beside you,
stretch, scratch, taste the air,
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light.

Alive, we open eyelids
on our pitiful share of time,
we bubbles rising and bursting
in a boiling pot.

X. J. Kennedy (b. 1929)
American poet, translator, editor; and
creator of textbooks for teaching Literature and Poetry

The House You're Standing In . . . or Holding in the Palm of Your Hand

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Shop Around the Corner"
Gingerbread bookstore created a few years ago
by my friend Professor Kathleen O'Gorman
Look closely and you'll see that this Gingerbread House has its own Gingerbread House! When I praised Kathie for the charm of this particular design feature, she said, "Ah, the meta-gingerbread house! The measure of how desperately I didn't want to grade papers that year!"

In practice, that is.

In theory, it's the measure of "interiorty":

"A house within a house, the dollhouse not only presents the house's articulation of the tension between inner and outer spheres of exteriority and interiority -- it also represents the tension between two modes of interiority. Occupying a space within an enclosed space, the dollhouse's aptest analogy is the locket or the secret recesses of the heart: center within center, within within within. The dollhouse is a materialized secret: what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority."

from On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic,
the Souvenir, the Collection (p 61)
by Susan Stewart ~ poet, professor, academic folklorist
This subject has long been of interest to me, as I explained a couple of weeks ago, when writing about Katherine Mansfield's story "The Doll's House." While admiring Kathie's photographs, it occurred to me that Susan Stewart's theory of the small house within the big house is just as applicable to the gingerbread house as it is to the dollhouse. Both display the impulse to miniaturize and the process of reducing utility to ornament. And both allow the creator to control a manageable universe: "Worlds of inversion, of contamination and crudeness, are controlled within the dollhouse by an absolution manipulation and control of the boundaries of time and space" (Stewart, 63).

CLICK HERE TO SEE ADDITIONAL PHOTOS
OF THIS GINGERBREAD BOOKSTORE,
PLUS BOTANICAL GARDEN, CHRISTKINDLMARKET,
BASEBALL STADIUM, AND MUCH MUCH MORE!
WITH MANY THANKS TO KATHIE & MANY FRIENDS
FOR CREATING & SHARING!
[See comments below, especially #4, for Kathie's
detailed history of the gingerbread project]

Seeing the photo of Kathie's gingerbread masterpiece, our mutual friend Leonard Orr said, "Good to see this festive mise-en-abyme! I hope it includes a miniature version of Kitti's book on the shelves inside."

We entertained ourselves for awhile, imagining all that was inside. I suggested all of Len's books, plus the Complete Works of Shakespeare & an OED. Len suggested Beckett, Kafka, Woolf, and copies of all the avant-garde novels that Kathie teaches. Len observed that "To have room for all of the essential works, this would have to be the gingerbread Powell's." Kathie said, "To fit them all, it would have to be the gingerbread House of Leaves!"

Len: "Next challenge: #7 Eccles St. (with Bloom's library and Sweets of Sin)."

Kathie: "#7 Eccles Street! How can you do this to me? I can tell I'm going to have to do it one of these years! Now let's see . . . shall I move the piano?!"

Len: "Did William Morris create gingerbread houses? If so, they might still survive, the interiors covered with tapestries and carpets depicting noble labor or scenes from Icelandic sagas. I look forward to seeing your replicas."

Kathie: "I believe the research for that work will be adequate justification for a return visit to London."

Len: "As well as a large grant from British research associations."

Me: "And a morgage exemption!"

Len: "I didn't know mortgages were available for gingerbread houses."

We also enjoyed some comments from Kathie's daughter: "Awww Mom, I miss you making Gingerbread Houses, having the kitchen counter covered with frosting flowers or ice cream cone trees, smelling you baking on a cold winter morning, and coming down from my warm bed to see what new masterpiece you were working on."

Kathie recalled, "All of the desperate attempts at architectural challenges, like the dome for the arboretum, for which I / we ought to have received our degree in architectural engineering! I continue to seek out roofing materials here, of course! Good to have them on hand just in case there's an unexpectedly urgent need for a gingerbread house somewhere!"

Len, a literary theorist of the first order, added that, until our discussion of Kathie's edible creation, he "hadn't thought about the necessity for gingerbread house theory."

Conveniently, there is Susan Stewart's aesthetic of the miniature: " . . . even the most basic use of the toy object -- to be 'played with' -- is not often found in the world of the dollhouse. The dollhouse is consumed by the eye." Likewise, the most basic use of gingerbread -- to be eaten -- is not the case with a gingerbread house, which is to be consumed by the eye, not the taste buds, edible though it may be. The transcendent vision offered by the gingerbread house or the dollhouse, "the most consummate of miniatures," can be known through visual apprehension alone (Stewart, 62, 61)

Then there's this great passage from Bill Bryson: "Houses are really quite odd things. They have almost no universally defining qualities: they can be of practically any shape, incorporate virtually any material, be of almost any size. Yet wherever we go in the world we recognize domesticity the moment we see it" (28, from At Home: A Short History of Private Life). You can always count on the miniature to signify domesticity!

Carole Maso contributes this existential insight on the realm of miniaturization and the meaning of life: "It is the week before Christmas. In the apartment across the way, a man works on a dollhouse. So what if we are doomed? He will die rubbing a small chair smooth" (199, from her novel AVA).

And, interestingly enough, even Martha Stewart weighs in on the topic: "What is more tantalizing -- at a child's eye level -- than a gingerbread replica of the house you're standing in?" Reading Martha's insight gave me goosebumps! Why? Because she is talking about the secrets of interiority! Within within within. [Emphasis added.]

She goes on the describe "The whimsy and . . . the thrill of . . . playing with scale and expectations: What's big is rendered small (the house) but with such an eye to detail that it uses three shades and flavors of cookie, and the roof and chimney have the realistic look of shingles and bricks. Meanwhile, what's small (the teddy bear) is presented as life - size . . ." (Martha Stewart Living, December 2012, p 130 - 31).
Exteriority


Interiority

Gingerbread Close - up

See also my previous posts: Making Gingerbread for Christmas
and Gingerbread: A Short, Happy Photo History
In closing, I can't resist turning once again to the journal of my friend Jan Donley. You might recall that my last fortnightly post featured her drawing "Dad's Lamp" and her story "The rain fell on yellow leaves." This time she writes of a miniature house, even smaller than a dollhouse -- a house you can hold in your hand. Reading it shortly after Christmas a year ago, I thought it was the perfect reverie for all those faraway post – Christmas snow day feelings, and I had to add it immediately to my list of all - time favorites.

House / 13 January 2012
You received it as a gift—a ceramic house to set on your mantle or on a shelf or on a table. You hold the house in the palm of your hand—a triangle roof and a square base. No windows. No doors. Just the shape. Simple. The house a child would draw if you said, “Draw a house.” Or the house in a dream with no entrance and no exit. You’re just suddenly there. In the box of it, or you’re looking at it from a distance. Or there it is in a coloring book. You color it blue or brown. Maybe you add windows and doors. Even a dormer. And then the house starts getting complicated, and you can no longer hold it in your hand or remember your childhood or even dream it. Suddenly the house becomes a cape or a colonial or a bungalow. And there are too many words to remember, and too many memories to hold onto, and too much loss. The world is no longer the world you knew, and houses stretch for miles: triangles atop boxes. And you want to hold one in your hand. More than anything, you want to hold a house in your hand. And you reach out for one, but it stays just beyond your grasp. Never simple anymore. It is not the house in the coloring book. It is instead a structure full of rooms and doorways and hallways. The hallways are the hardest. They are narrow and long. You walk down one and push open a door. You hear the creak of its hinges and swear that one day you will oil them. You look inside the room, and maybe there’s a bed and a desk. A lamp sits on a table beside the bed. Maybe it is lit. Maybe a book waits by the lamp. Maybe a person, someone you love, holds the book. And that is familiar. And you leave the hallway and walk toward the familiar. Or you close that door and continue down the hallway and open another door. Its hinges do not creak, and the room behind the door looks like no room you’ve ever seen. All the windows on all the walls are wide open. Wind blows curtains up like wings. The wind takes you, and suddenly you are out the window and flying. You have wings. And nothing is familiar save for the houses below you—so far away you can only see their shapes—triangles and boxes. You want to hold one in your hand. [Emphasis added.]

My house is filled with houses like this:

Especially around Halloween:

and Christmas:

"Safe house. Saying the words to myself in secret.
For safe house made me smile.
Safe house made me feel warm.
Safe house was something small you could hide in, I thought.
Like a dollhouse where if you were small enough to fit inside
you would be so small nobody would come looking for you." (61)

from Black Girl / White Girl
by Joyce Carol Oates

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com