Author: carin

a runcible fruit

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

The quince crop this year is just enough to fill the house with bowls of fragrance (gorgeous fresh scent for weeks as they ripen); not enough to make jam. Which makes me very happy.

I’m not in a jam-making mood.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
    Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
    They danced by the light of the moon,
          The moon,
          The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

—from The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear

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the reason i like keeping old notebooks

~ carin ~ 7 Comments

Well, there are several reasons. Not the least of which is that I can open one willy nilly from the dusty pile under my desk whenever I like and find odd things written inside that alternate between (only to me) mind bendingly brilliant, to (only to me) amusing bon mots, to… what the?

I posted an example of the latter on my ‘other’ blog recently. No flipping clue what any of it meant. But it did amuse me and could very well be brilliant.

Or… ahem…uh, not.

The thing is even if there’s no apparent purpose, if all those words from all those years ago amount to meaningless dreck, so be it. The fact is that they were written, jotted, recorded with intention. There was a message, an impression to share. And maybe it’s the sense of that ‘something’, more than the specific, that resonates. There’s pleasure and even welcome discomfort in stumbling across that kind of rawness in ourselves—like a piece of us that we choose to forget but that, at some level, still exists.

Not everyone feels this way. A friend of mine burns her notebooks at intervals, doesn’t want to be reminded of what she thought was important then. I understand wanting to avoid the cringe factor, but still, I think she’s missing something.

Anyway, after having that bouncing round my head for the past few days, this morning I opened a new old notebook and the first entry was this—a quote by Mr. Housman:

“The reason the words can have such a physical effect as to raise the hair on one’s neck is because these words are poetry, and find their way to something in us which is obscure and latent, something older than the present organization of our nature.”

Not that it has anything to do with notebooks. But to which I still say yeah.  
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yes yes yes, we should!

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

In case I’m not being clear—to the oh-so-excellent question posed: Should We Learn to Love Weeds?—I say yes! We should learn which are the good ones and make salad and soup and tea and allow them a few sacred spots in our gardens and yards and welcome the variety of insects their variety will attract, which, if all goes as it’s meant to means most of those insects will eat each other, saving us the trouble and expense of spritzing nonsense all over the place and poisoning the very air we hope wafts in through our windows on a pleasant day.

There are some dastardly ones too of course, but no need to tar them all with the same brush or to miss a good meal…

Makes me think of the story someone told me about seeing a homeless man downtown with a Feed Me, I’m Hungry sign. The irony was that he was leaning against a cement planter that was full of dandelions, purslane and lambs quarters—the stuff of pricey gourmet greens.

Self Seeded Nettles Soon to be Soup

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things i love

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

Beach glass.
Is there anything more beautiful?
Of course there is.
But that’s not the point…
I love having little piles and jars of it scattered about the place.
Love it so much I’d like to tile the bathroom floor with it, the kitchen countertops, or maybe line the the inside of my car with a cool green mosaic.
Feels like good luck whenever I find some.

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can we ever stop comparing??

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

In last Saturday’s Toronto Star, Karen von Hahn wrote a piece suggesting—no, stating—that not only does Chicago sit “smack dab in the middle of the North American continent” (by the way, it doesn’t), but that its music, architecture, shopping, dining, general amusements, and occasional citizenry are superior to Toronto’s. 

Oh why bother I say…

I’m just so (yawn, yawn) tired of the endless comparing ourselves with anyone; it’s a bad, silly, and negative thing to do. And serves zip purpose. Except of course to encourage people to take sides and engage in conversation, which is always divine. So, okay, well done and thank you, Ms. von Hahn, for that, for igniting some small debate at this end.

My response (which ran in yesterday’s paper—for some reason without my final comments re Winnipeg) is as follows:

Re Karen von Hahn’s “Chicago wins style smackdown”— Sat., Oct. 9th/2010

Sigh. Not again with the comparing. This is so tiresome, and ultimately pointless. Fine, fine, Chicago has a brilliant waterfront and a few things Toronto doesn’t have. So? Do we really want to be like Chicago? Are we meant to come back from every little sojourn bleating and mewling that Pisa has a tower that leans…why doesn’t ours? And why aren’t we like Stockholm or Reno or Santiago? Why can’t we have Ayres Rock?? Seriously, do we really care that there’s no Barney’s on Bloor? Is that how low we’ve sunk that we define our style by some other city’s retail spaces?

In any case, if we must make lists, may I suggest the article missed a few key things. Like beaches, parks, the islands—the wisest minds may not have been at the wheel when configuring the waterfront, but we do have some spectacular green spaces right in the middle of our city. And true, we don’t have ‘Chicago blues’ but neither does Portland or Berlin. We do, however, have Caribana, the Pride Parade, the Toronto International Film Festival, to name but an easy three.

As for the Shedd Aquarium ‘equivalent’ Ms. von Hahn says “we’re still waiting for…” —we are? I’m not waiting. Is anyone waiting for this? Frankly I’m very proud we don’t have an upscale Marineland in our midst. This is style?

Ms. von Hahn says Chicago has Oprah and Obama. Yes but we had/always will have Jane Jacobs. Now there’s style for you. And she chose to live here. Imagine that. Especially when she could so easily have returned to the States, moved to, oh, I don’t know… Chicago maybe.

Ms. von Hahn suggests these comparisons matter because great cities attract great leaders, or vice versa. The implication being, I guess, that Chicago’s had some good management in the form of a “mayor with a vision for positive and stylistic changes, and the power to make it happen”. Maybe so, but not until they clean up the mess that is Chicago’s west side or the south side’s Englewood, will I covet what they’ve got.

And probably not even then because everything’s a package—the good, the bad—and I’ll take Toronto’s good along with some of its bad—including an opera house that lacks a piazza—anytime.

Finally, and if nothing else I’ve said changes your perspective one iota, please, please, Ms. von Hahn, get this straight: Chicago is NOT the centre of North America. That distinction—you will find if you only press google—is Winnipeg’s.

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today’s colour

~ carin ~ 3 Comments

Burning Bush. The first to redden its leaves. And the least apologetic.

Virginia Creeper. Turns red in the sun, yellow in the shade. Note creeping shade on right.

Cottoneaster. Can be seen trembling occasionally as winter door wreath season nears. 

History of rocker on porch: found at Sally Ann years ago. Since, painted red. Now lives by the wood pile and welcomes falling leaves.

Wellies. Long story about these. Some other time.

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my next cat will be called charles wallace

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

“You mean you can read our minds?”

“Charles Wallace looked troubled. ‘I don’t think it’s that. It’s being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inad—inadvertently. That’s a good word, isn’t it? I got Mother to look it up in the dictionary for me this morning. I really must learn to read, except I’m afraid it will make it awfully hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I think it will be better if people go on thinking I’m not very bright. They won’t hate me quite so much.'”

—from A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

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