slow living

Emma Bovary are you out there? Do you remember her from your college reading days? (Does Madame Bovary ring a bell?) This poor woman was obsessed with reading romance novels and had a certain "romantic" vision of what her life would be like. When she married and had a child, she was immediately disappointed with her mundane wifely duties. Her disappointment thrust her life into a downward, destructive spiral and eventually death. Zola said: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!" [she] is me!" Perhaps we've all felt like her--disappointed with our seemingly banal lives.

To me "slow living" by its very nature is anti-Emma Bovary. It's finding joy in simple, seemingly banal activities and moments: feeling satisfaction with cleaning a stack of food-crusted dishes; patiently listening to and actually enjoying a five-year old recount her fantasy wish-list for the tooth fairy; laughing at the sight of the three-year old sitting in the bathroom sink with a whole bottle of shampoo mixed into a mountain of frothy suds. (I had to work hard to smile and not scream at that scene!) Seeing this sweet baby peacefully sleep in her quiet sun-filled crib was one of those simple, magic moments that I will always remember. I had to share it with you too.

So be off with you Emma Bovary. You're not invited into my house!

creation + compassion

Saturday night Lynne and I both simultaneously had the pleasure of leaving kids at home with dad, and going on a little outing. She on her side of the country, and I on mine. We each attended a televised broadcast of the Relief Society--a super cool women's organization (in fact the largest women's organization in the world)--that has for a purpose to strengthen women and families. One of the speeches was particularly moving to both of us: the title "Creation and Compassion". This is actually a subject that Lynne and I have spoken to each other about several times over the past few weeks. The idea is the power of creation: how each of us has an innate desire to create something that did not exist beforehand, to organize, to improve, to make something beautiful. (Even the five year old loves to create on her estate-sale sewing machine.) Our creation could be something as simple as a yummy apple crisp, or a little servant frock, or something as grand and miraculous as a new human life. We as women are creators--especially all of you crafty ladies out there! Somehow, when we create, we touch a little bit of the divine in all of us. So the next time your husband asks: "why do you spend so much time making things?" You can quickly respond: "I'm simply developing my divine side!"

"Chaos Subdued by the Power of Need"

After the milk debacle of last week and lots of busy-ness for Melissa the past few days we, this morning, have decided to declare this week on Sugar City "Subdue Chaos" week. Thus a little Vermeer (who is more orderly than those Vermeer people?) and a favorite poem from an old college professor, written by May Sarton. (And tomorrow we have a new project that we are really excited about). Off to do some subduing... enjoy the poem, even if you haven't lost loved ones to a violent water death.

Dutch Interior

I recognize the quiet and the charm,
This safe enclosed room where a woman sews
And life is tempered, orderly, and calm.
Through the Dutch door, half-open, sunlight streams
And throws a pale square down on the red tiles.
The cosy black dog suns himself and dreams.
Even the bed is sheltered, it encloses,
A cupboard to keep people safe from harm,
Where copper glows with the warm flush of roses.
The atmosphere is all domestic, human,
Chaos subdued by the power of need.
This is a room where I have lived as woman,
lived too what the Dutch painter does not tell --
The wild skies overhead, dissolving, breaking,
And how that broken light is never still,
And how the roar of waves is always near,
What bitter tumult, treacherous and cold?
Attacks the solemn charm year after year!
It must be felt as peace won and maintained
Against those horrible antagonists --
How many from this quiet room have drowned
How many left to go, drunk on the wind,
And take their ships into heartbreaking seas;
How many whom no woman's peace could bind?
Bent to her sewing she looks drenched in calm -
Raw grief is disciplined to the fine thread.
But in her heart this woman is the storm;
Alive, deep in herself, holds wind and rain,
Remaking chaos into an intimate order
Where sometimes light flows through a windowpane.

sugar city guest: my mom, on the subject of pleasant labor

sunny day
laundry collected
wash
line dry
birds and breeze
alone in thought
gather in
smell
fold

night time
exhaustion
turned down bed
ease between cool sheets
feel of fresh
scent of earth
peaceful slumber

The most over used appliance in our modern world, in my over wrought opinion, is the clothes dryer. I am an advocate of line drying under the bleaching aid of the sun and the drying agent of the breeze. But there is deeper meaning and value for me in quelling the impulse to throw the laundry from the washing machine into the dryer. Piling my laundry basket high with whites and escaping over the grass to the clothes line becomes MY time. Organizing, ordering and hanging my wash to dry is a creative task – an art form. Socks are pinned together here, sheets there, and under-garments are privately tucked away on the inside line.

Hanging clothes is the ultimate nature experience. The smell of newly washed laundry mingling with fresh outside air is a sensory high. Sun warms your skin. Listen closely and you hear the cooing of the Morning Dove or the chirping of the Chick-e-dee-dee-dee. Insects buzz around you A cob web has formed in the corner of the line. It is a oneness – a belonging in the middle of natural earth where Mother Nature once again works with us.

The reflective nature of the “hanging clothes” chore is probably the most profound for me. As I fulfill this pleasant labor, I always feel closeness to the women of my past. I think of the countless generations of women who have done this before. But often, I remember my mother. I think of her outside in most any weather humming to herself, making order in her laundry while the children inside wreak havoc. I can almost climb into her skin and feel for a moment that I am her and she is me. We are bonded together as mother and daughter and the space of time and place dissolves.

Hanging clothes is a simple act of womanly duty. Here is peace and order amid hectic lives and connection between our generations.