A Letter from Mom
Posted by Kathleen Clare Waller on Wednesday, September 19, 2012
This one I received in the mail today starts with Hebrew and ends with French. "Oy vey" at the exasperation felt at the busy cadence of September; "moi" as a signature of intimate endearment.
Letter writing is something I learned from my mother. She forced us to write thank you notes and birthday notes endlessly as children, but as the repetition felt easier, I also found a love for the craft. She told me she corresponded frequently with her own father when she moved to Boston from Minnesota. At the time, the distance was made farther with the absence of internet and the price of long distance calling. But their letters allowed their relationship to endure. As we correspond from opposite sides of the globe, now Boston between Hong Kong, we do not merely stay in touch nor mark life events. We capture a raw feeling as we write in our favorite pens, on pretty notecards or humorous postcards, at the window or a local cafe...we each grow as we write, grow as we receive, read, and grow closer together all the while.
In this latest I have just received, three ideas for Affecting others emerged in my ensuing daydream on the 'cat couch' we keep by the window for this kind of thing.
1. Write a letter. I don't just mean an email, although those are nice. There is something about putting pen to paper that captures your handwriting, your personality, your mood. It shows you took the time to connect with this person. It is a creative product. What do you choose to write on? With what writing implement? Do you write in straight lines? Diagonals? Do you include something in your letter?
This particular letter also has three newspaper clippings inside (leading me to #2 and 3) and information from my American bank account. It is a multi-dimensional product! The notecard has Mary Cassatt's "Children Playing on the Beach" (1884) on the front. My mother is enjoying the chilly New England beach of September, this reminds me. She is leaving at 6 am on Sundays with my father to beach walk and make the most of the day. The pen is black, clear, handwriting is the perfect school cursive I know. The date is clearly marked, and a single movement of setting is both described and set off with a squiggly line. The three sides of the notecard are used. Where it stops, we pick up in phone or email conversation. Sometimes we even talk about the contents before they arrive in my hand (often, actually), but it doesn't matter. There is something new there when I read it on the couch.
2. Two topics occur in many of our correspondences: cooking and reading/writing. Of those two topics, two of our favorites are included in the newspaper clippings: Julia Child and Paul Auster. Paul Auster's new book is out! Yes! Only I have to wait a few weeks in Hong Kong. I could buy it on my kindle, yes, but an Auster I must have in the physical form, to keep on a bookshelf, to mark up with pen as I read.
Auster is in a book review of this new book, Winter Journal, but also mentioned in this article about the sort of Gertrude Stein abode (have you seen Midnight in Paris?) of Boston: A Masterpiece in Red Brick. It's an article about 9 Columbus Square that was owned, inhabited, and curated by William and Beverly Corbett for decades. They brought together artists like: Auster, Don DeLillo, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Seamus Heaney. They ate together, chatted, wrote in the salon. Wow. Can you imagine being invited to dinner at their home?
One of its frequent denizens says, "The house was an extension of Bill and Bev--garrulous, welcoming, nourishing, in every sense of the word...[it] was their instrument. It shaped them; they shaped it." I study domestic space (filmic apartments) in my dissertation, and I couldn't agree more with this statement in terms of the way a home can reflect an individual. Home can show creativity, mental breakdown, calmness, inspiration, particular interests, and much more.
So two ideas come from #2. First of all, make your home a reflection of yourself and shape your home into something that will breathe more life into your own individuality. Share it with your friends so they can experience this special part of you.
Secondly, cultivate a feeling of shared experience, either in your home or elsewhere. I often feel so busy, but these experiences are what living is about. I would like to make time for more of this encounters. Perhaps (after the dissertation is done) we can cultivate it in our own home, albeit on a much smaller scale of a Hong Kong sized apartment.
3. Julia Child. It would have been her 100th birthday on August 15 (2012). If you haven't yet seen Julie and Julia or read her memoir, you are missing a real treat. It's not just the French food...it's her magnificent story of perseverance, a love for a new culture, and even her strong reaction against the McCarthy era in the United States. If you get into it, also check out her book of letters to and from Avis and a new biography that is out: Dearie: the remarkable life of Julia Child.
I had a review of that book in this letter, but also a fascinating article: A dinner in honor of Julia. Ric Duarte got into Julia pretty much the same way I did. "My mother had a day care when I was 11 years old and I was too old for 'Sesame Street.' But after that, this bizarre woman with an odd voice would come on TV and cook French food. I thought, What is she doing? I started watching her every day." Well, my mother didn't have a day care, but I am five years older than my brother, so when he was still only allowed to watch Sesame Street, my sister and I were stuck as well (which really wasn't that bad). We got into Julia. I've got her cookbooks and DVD's--a mix of humor and fine French cooking. Even my French club of 17-year-olds enjoyed her shows and could follow her recipes.
So Mr. Duarte cooks a dinner in honor of Julia every year on her birthday. He cooks for his friends, bringing them together with 'good food and good wine.' It's a simple idea, but a touching one. It's one I just might try. Although this year I was in France on Julia's birthday...it was just as easy just to go to a local restaurant. Perhaps I will go for a Yule Log at Christmastime instead. If you haven't seen that episode, it's a classic! (The Jacques Pepin version is on youtube.com here. He did a lot of work with Julia and they even wrote a cookbook together.)
It's 7:30 p.m. My stomach is rumbling. Bon appetit!
Letter writing is something I learned from my mother. She forced us to write thank you notes and birthday notes endlessly as children, but as the repetition felt easier, I also found a love for the craft. She told me she corresponded frequently with her own father when she moved to Boston from Minnesota. At the time, the distance was made farther with the absence of internet and the price of long distance calling. But their letters allowed their relationship to endure. As we correspond from opposite sides of the globe, now Boston between Hong Kong, we do not merely stay in touch nor mark life events. We capture a raw feeling as we write in our favorite pens, on pretty notecards or humorous postcards, at the window or a local cafe...we each grow as we write, grow as we receive, read, and grow closer together all the while.
In this latest I have just received, three ideas for Affecting others emerged in my ensuing daydream on the 'cat couch' we keep by the window for this kind of thing.
1. Write a letter. I don't just mean an email, although those are nice. There is something about putting pen to paper that captures your handwriting, your personality, your mood. It shows you took the time to connect with this person. It is a creative product. What do you choose to write on? With what writing implement? Do you write in straight lines? Diagonals? Do you include something in your letter?
This particular letter also has three newspaper clippings inside (leading me to #2 and 3) and information from my American bank account. It is a multi-dimensional product! The notecard has Mary Cassatt's "Children Playing on the Beach" (1884) on the front. My mother is enjoying the chilly New England beach of September, this reminds me. She is leaving at 6 am on Sundays with my father to beach walk and make the most of the day. The pen is black, clear, handwriting is the perfect school cursive I know. The date is clearly marked, and a single movement of setting is both described and set off with a squiggly line. The three sides of the notecard are used. Where it stops, we pick up in phone or email conversation. Sometimes we even talk about the contents before they arrive in my hand (often, actually), but it doesn't matter. There is something new there when I read it on the couch.
2. Two topics occur in many of our correspondences: cooking and reading/writing. Of those two topics, two of our favorites are included in the newspaper clippings: Julia Child and Paul Auster. Paul Auster's new book is out! Yes! Only I have to wait a few weeks in Hong Kong. I could buy it on my kindle, yes, but an Auster I must have in the physical form, to keep on a bookshelf, to mark up with pen as I read.
Auster is in a book review of this new book, Winter Journal, but also mentioned in this article about the sort of Gertrude Stein abode (have you seen Midnight in Paris?) of Boston: A Masterpiece in Red Brick. It's an article about 9 Columbus Square that was owned, inhabited, and curated by William and Beverly Corbett for decades. They brought together artists like: Auster, Don DeLillo, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Seamus Heaney. They ate together, chatted, wrote in the salon. Wow. Can you imagine being invited to dinner at their home?
One of its frequent denizens says, "The house was an extension of Bill and Bev--garrulous, welcoming, nourishing, in every sense of the word...[it] was their instrument. It shaped them; they shaped it." I study domestic space (filmic apartments) in my dissertation, and I couldn't agree more with this statement in terms of the way a home can reflect an individual. Home can show creativity, mental breakdown, calmness, inspiration, particular interests, and much more.
So two ideas come from #2. First of all, make your home a reflection of yourself and shape your home into something that will breathe more life into your own individuality. Share it with your friends so they can experience this special part of you.
Secondly, cultivate a feeling of shared experience, either in your home or elsewhere. I often feel so busy, but these experiences are what living is about. I would like to make time for more of this encounters. Perhaps (after the dissertation is done) we can cultivate it in our own home, albeit on a much smaller scale of a Hong Kong sized apartment.
3. Julia Child. It would have been her 100th birthday on August 15 (2012). If you haven't yet seen Julie and Julia or read her memoir, you are missing a real treat. It's not just the French food...it's her magnificent story of perseverance, a love for a new culture, and even her strong reaction against the McCarthy era in the United States. If you get into it, also check out her book of letters to and from Avis and a new biography that is out: Dearie: the remarkable life of Julia Child.
I had a review of that book in this letter, but also a fascinating article: A dinner in honor of Julia. Ric Duarte got into Julia pretty much the same way I did. "My mother had a day care when I was 11 years old and I was too old for 'Sesame Street.' But after that, this bizarre woman with an odd voice would come on TV and cook French food. I thought, What is she doing? I started watching her every day." Well, my mother didn't have a day care, but I am five years older than my brother, so when he was still only allowed to watch Sesame Street, my sister and I were stuck as well (which really wasn't that bad). We got into Julia. I've got her cookbooks and DVD's--a mix of humor and fine French cooking. Even my French club of 17-year-olds enjoyed her shows and could follow her recipes.
So Mr. Duarte cooks a dinner in honor of Julia every year on her birthday. He cooks for his friends, bringing them together with 'good food and good wine.' It's a simple idea, but a touching one. It's one I just might try. Although this year I was in France on Julia's birthday...it was just as easy just to go to a local restaurant. Perhaps I will go for a Yule Log at Christmastime instead. If you haven't seen that episode, it's a classic! (The Jacques Pepin version is on youtube.com here. He did a lot of work with Julia and they even wrote a cookbook together.)
It's 7:30 p.m. My stomach is rumbling. Bon appetit!