The Picture
Sitting on the futon in the living room, I am writing this post and sipping tea. It's quiet now after Sunday night's meal of soup and pizza.
The Images
The futon in the living room
I am
Sipping tea
It's quiet
Soup
The stories
The futon in the living room is a great new place to hide things, according to Prisca. Until this morning it was the extra bed in the extra room, the office with the aging computer whose binary beeping to itself creeps me out. It could not have been sat or slept upon without folding up the ironing board, a permanent admonition to iron a shirt or two, or press a seam on a sewing project in progress. Usually the futon was in its upright position, its stylish fake black leather upholstery set off by a folded tan cotton blanket and a kilim cushion which I breathlessly found in the as-is department at IKEA-- I've been coveting these since falling in love with the bohemian apartment of Mary Tyler Moore's neighbor Rhoda. Very occasionally it would be unfolded down to a bed, like when the twins came for a week. But now the futon is in the living room where my studio was until this morning. Now the living room seats at least five people, and I can invite guests like my Newcomer friends to visit, stitch and share inspiration.
I am still an artist, but since moving here last June and immediately setting up my studio in the living room where the patio doors to the minuscule balcony provide ample natural light, I have not used the studio. Since coming to Saskatoon I seem to be reluctant to resume this identity: the professional portrait artist with three to seven paintings a month as normal output. Having moved out of The Studio in Saint Albert to spend nearly two years in Peru, now my only real connection to art has been my nearly weekly painting excursions with L, driving out into the country to the perfect road with ponds, hills and shrubs to sketch from nature. That has never been one of my fortes. I am a studio artist, counting on controlled lighting, and subject matter that poses or that lies good and morte for hours. I love subjects that have mass and gesture, as well as noses, eyes and mouths, that connect their gaze with the viewer. The country lane does none of that. Its sharp winds tease amid shifting light, limitless vistas, and lacy shrubbery leafless the last six months, and impossible to describe in terms of volume. So now the studio is in the stuffy little office, crammed next to the pathetically beeping computer. Maybe the cramped space will be more conducive to the necessarily hermit-like activity of making art. It will be about the same dimensions and discomfort level of my shared space in the Studio. But I will still be missing my daily contact with my fellow artists.
Sipping tea, I swirl the last drops of heavy liquid in the bottom of the cup. I dissolved a scoop of Isa-something in hot water as a soothing before bed drink. It is very high in all the B vitamins, and has a pleasant herbal and molasses sweetness. I started using Isagenix nutritional products about a year ago at my daughter's urging, somewhat reluctantly and to make her feel better. But I've found I've been able to lose the weight I wanted and to maintain it by using the shakes for breakfast and doing a cleanse with their herbal stuff once a week. A week or so ago it was my birthday. On the phone, my daughter's voice goobled and snorted, heavy with allergies. I sympathized, my allergies typically kicking in by the third week of April, as the last of the snow withdraws and the first fresh green things establish their presence with some conviction. I told her I expected mine to hit any time now, due to a supposed lag in seasons between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Secretly though I was surprised I wasn't already snuffling with running eyes after sitting out painting for two hours on The Road the previous Tuesday. K said, "You know, Mom, you probably won't get much of anything because of all the cleansing you're doing". Before having her baby, she would cleanse religiously too, and her eczema and allergies-- pollen, apples, potatoes, peaches, etc-- would virtually disappear. With breast-feeding now, that wasn't an option though. Sure enough, I'm enjoying April and now the beginning of May with only the rarest sneeze! I am happy and grateful because spring, this rarest of seasons, is the most precious to me. I thrill to the suspenseful burgeoning buds on the trees, the rarefied colours of blossoms in the pearly grey trees, and then the shimmer of delicate green buds on wet black branches, soaked from the first rain. The air has the freshness of crisp clean laundry when I open the windows wide to void the stale winter air from the rooms. I am so grateful for all this, that it is the one season that I count in terms of the number of years remaining to me. They seem so small when I count the precious Aprils.
It's quiet now, after supper. The kids have left to go back to their own apartment. Yes, we now have our son A and his wife J living in town! They have been so far away as we have been too, I guess. They arrived Friday night and moved into their place yesterday. I never knew how I loved my family! I feel this sacred joy at the reunion, and it was the same during the time I spent with my daughter's family last month. Increasing the capacity of the living room to hold people was a symbolic gesture of opening the heart. The hole is filled, the city--the apartment -- feels like a home. P and I occupy the space with serenity that though quiet is filled with heart song.
Soup of the evening, beautiful beautiful soup! My Mother could make soup out of anything. When she was on a roll, we would have a different soup every night for two weeks, or perhaps a soup two or three days running but it would never be the same, as it was stretched creatively, subtly each day. Perhaps she made a lot of soup because food was expensive and we had to stretch it sometimes. But I believe she made soup because of a religious beauty that making soup has. Having learned many cooking secrets from her, I inherited the compulsion to collect the meal's chicken bones, skin etc. and promptly boil them in a bath of onions and herbs. I would then strain it all, then sort the tidbits of meat from the pile, separating based on sight and touch. Meat has a velvety feel unlike grease or tendon. Mom and I are scrupulous about separating all the meat and avoiding anything gristly or fatty. The exception may be the odd tiny bone that comes from the ribcage, where the delicate intercostal muscles are a delicacy, but very hard to separate from the bones. I know it is barely worth the effort to work at the ribcage of a small bird, but the lessons run deep. Mom would explain to me how every bit of the chicken or other animal has uses, and on a farm in the old days it would all get used. First the roast for a meal, then the leftover cold meat. Then the boiling for soup. The fat, skin and so on would be fed as a delicacy to the dog and cat. The bones can be reboiled for a second weaker but useful stock. By then the bones are dissolving, and can be ground to meal for the chickens and pigs. In my mind the circle continues, and the days where necessity dictates the scrupulous use of food are never far away. I have taught K to make this soup, and in her days in Davenport while B went to school, and they and the twins needed to be fed for very little, a chicken would carry them over for days.
Thank you Mom for this gift of soup.
