big bird in a small cage

I think this is about the half dreams I have in the morning right before I wake up for good.

amara terra mia

these flowers...

...they came from my sweet mama's beds -- she who is so good at growing things.  I planted clippings from her plants the first year we lived here and each fall I am overjoyed when they bloom.  I am a miserable gardener and have enormous appreciation for the things that survive in spite of me.  

cowboy poetry

If I am ever quiet, it surprises me to realize that there is always music in my head.  Not that "ear-worm" kind of thing -- a concept I don't get (and hate the creepy sound of) because I'm never really annoyed by the music that I seem to broadcast.  Sometimes it's like studying with headphones, a comfortable drone in the background, but mostly it's like moving through a world of frequencies and then something comes blasting in, pure and clear, through the static.

happy birthday john

I was mistaken, 

we need more than love.
-Annie Humphrey

to keep in mind

Ultimately, it is the act of attending to the course of ripening that matters the most.  In this, pears have taught me much about restraint and the rewards of patience.  Most of all, I’ve learned that the art of cooking consists largely of “watching” with all the senses.  Fruit “intends” nothing as it relates to human consumption. Its ripening is fundamentally a biological imperative rather than a wish to please human taste.  Other foods are even more passive in this regard.  The flesh of animals or fish couldn’t care less.  The ripening of cheese runs its own course.  Yet all food offers the promise of an answer to human needs and desires, from basic sustenance to aesthetic and sensory pleasure.  It is therefore up to us not only to notice food but also to nurture it to this end.  To neglect a pear on the table and then return to find it ripe days later is merely a lucky coincidence.  But to keep a pear in mind as it ripens is to practice cooking in its simplest form.  It is through such observance of any food from the point of purchase throughout its preparation and later in the act of eating itself, that cooking is purged of lapses of attention, imposed formula, impatience or expediency.  Like a fresco restored to its former clarity, food reveals what we wish for or remember it to be.  

-Paul Bertolli, from Cooking by Hand

I have been working on a few lists.  Pears appear on one that includes, among other things, figs, blue cheese, honey, rosemary and sage.  Since Sunday, I have been watching, keeping in mind, two pears.  Today is not the day.

my back pages

Thanks Jason!  Many happy returns.