Computer Woes And Heart Day

“Love is a many splendored thing.”

PAUL FRANCIS WEBSTER

Today it’s just a quick note to let you know that I’m not able to publish any proper posts these days. My computer is in sickbay. It’s not a virus (thank goodness) but my Expert-in-Computers nephew thinks it might be the hard drive giving up the ghost. There have been symptoms we had hoped might just be hiccups. I had the urge last week to get on with getting it seen to, but what with the weather and a little habit of procrastination, I kept hoping it would last another day. Now it’s really time to take care of business. Thankfully I have my important docs and photo files saved on an external drive and we’re hoping (fingers crossed with little prayers) for a smooth-ish transition.

I can do this simple post from my iPad but I find the keyboard too tiny to work on anything more substantial. Plus, it’s not happy if I try to load more than a photo or two. 

On other fronts, I’m well and happy. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I been getting hints from other occupants of the house hoping there might be Victoria Sponge for dessert. I’ll be in the kitchen baking this delightful concoction later this afternoon.

We’ve invited dear friends to join us tomorrow for tea with cake. Because Valentine’s Day isn’t just for couples — it’s for celebrating love in all its many splendid expressions and relationships.

💖💝💖

“Cooking is love made visible.”

KAHIL GIBRAN

💖💝💖

Wishing you a beautiful day.

 Hugs,

Brenda

 xox

Five On Friday: Snow, Flowers, Poetry, Tea and Other Blisses

ONE: SNOW 

"Stillness is the flower of winter,

all hope waits beneath a blanket of white"

UNKNOWN

It hardly seems possible January has come and gone in a snap of the fingers. Christmas seems light years away, even though it was only two weeks ago I finally got everything put away. It feels like a lot has happened and nothing has happened.

There were many cold, grey, often snowy days. And during those deepest, darkest weeks we hibernated like bears, or perhaps it was more like our neighbourhood squirrels who, smart fellows, were nowhere to be seen on those frigid days. While they nestled in their hidey-holes, we hunkered down by the fireplace, snuggled under blankets, sleeping away colds and flu, reading books, watching movies, and preparing the simplest of meals. We barely ventured out except to shovel the walks and feed the 'livestock', also known as filling the bird feeders and topping up the heated birdbath. Life at its most basic and we were glad for it.

TWO: FLOWERS

“Sometimes a girl

just needs to buy herself some flowers.”

When the weather turned much milder last week, I ventured out to do a bit of shopping. Getting a bunch of cut flowers was at the top of the list. I didn't dare risk it during those really cold days but I was in need of something to fill spaces left empty when Christmas was packed away. And so a bouquet sits in the centre of my dining table, delighting my aesthetic senses every time I come into the room.

Out in the garage the other day, Rick noticed a tulip bulb starting to sprout in one of the many pots we planted last fall. Surely not we said, but going to see for myself, yes, there it was, a lone sliver of green poking out from the potting mix. We do hope Peace Rose, also in the garage hibernating, gets no ideas to follow suit. After all, it's only January in Alberta, Spring is still a l-o-n-g way off.

THREE: POETRY

“To read a poem in January is as

lovely as to go for a walk in June.”

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Lately I've been hungry for poetry and, as a result, my poetry collection is gradually growing. I used a Christmas gift card to order my latest addition and it arrived the other day: The Singing Bowl (don't you just love that title) by Malcolm Guite, poet-priest and Chaplain of Girton College Cambridge (UK). This collection, first published in 2013,  includes poems "that seek beauty and transfiguration in the everyday...the poet seeks to celebrate the world of which he is made, find heaven in the ordinary and echo a little of its music."

I was smitten with the first poem I read, and I think I'll stay with it for a while before reading more. Titled Singing Bowl, my writer's soul resonated with its beautiful lines, and so I want to share it with you. For a real treat you can listen to Malcolm Guite recite it HERE. It jumps off the page as you listen.

Singing Bowl

Begin the song exactly where you are,

Remain within the world of which you're made.

Call nothing common in the earth or air.

Accept it all and let it be for good.

Start with the very breath you breathe in now,

This moment's pulse, this rhythm in your blood.

And listen to it, ringing soft and low,

Stay with the music, words will come in time,

Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.

Become an open singing bowl, whose chime

Is richness rising out of emptiness,

And timelessness resounding into time.

And when the heart is full of quietness

Begin the song exactly where you are.

FOUR: AFTERNOON TEA

"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
WILLIAM COWPER, 1794

According to my little online research, the custom of drinking tea dates back to the third millennium BC in China. It was first popularised in England during the 1660s by King Charles II and his wife, the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza, and it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the concept of 'afternoon tea' first appeared.

I have always been drawn to these lovely lines (above) from William Cowper's The Task: Book Four 'The Winter Evening'. They evoke a simple life pleasure that so many of us can and do relate to. On these cold winter days, it's nice to imagine sharing tea with family or friends in a cottage with a stone hearth where warmth and contentment keep the outside world at bay. Although I neither have a stone hearth or shutters at my windows, I do know the anticipation that builds when cups clatter in saucers and loud-hissing kettles throw up their steamy column. Make no mistake, 'tis bliss.

FIVE: COMMONPLACE BOOKS

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile

knowledge, usually by writing information into books. ... Such books are
essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: recipes, quotes, letters,
poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas.

WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Along with drinking pots of tea and reading stacks of books these past weeks, I've also started going through some of my earliest commonplace notebooks. These house my decades-old collection of quotations and excerpts from things I'd read: phrases I loved the sound of, things I wanted to remember, advice I didn't want to ignore.... These bits and pieces jotted in an old spiral notebook have given me glimpses of the woman I was becoming, echoing what I did and thought about at the time.

I'm interested to see that many sayings still resonate even after all these years, perhaps because the subject matter is still important, it still matters to me. Because many of us love quotations, I'm sharing a sampling with you. Sorry, some have attributions, others do not -- I'm better nowadays at keeping track of where I find things or who said them.

• Life is too short to be the caretaker of the wrong details. ~ Alexandra Stoddard
• Eat small portions but taste everything.
• Fill friends' lives with sweetness.
• Make an 'open-hearted' home.
• No one is wise enough by himself. ~ Titus Maccius Plautur, c. 200 BC
• Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. ~ Walter Elliott
• Some pursue happiness -- others create it.
• Strengthen yourself with contentment, for it is an impregnable fortress. ~ Epictetus, 1st century AD
• Much unhappiness results from our inability to remember the nice things that happen to us. ~ W.N. Rieger
• What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? ~ George Eliot
• A (wo)man's harvest in life depends entirely on what (s)he sows. ~ from Book of Galatians
• Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day -- like writing a poem or saying a prayer. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To end the list, I want to share a paragraph from a 19th century book My Dream of Heaven by Rebecca Ruter Springer. It leapt from the page when I read the book many years ago. It is something I want to think about these days when it seems so easy to spout off, and sometimes not all that kindly, about any and everything going on in our world. I want to mind my words and actions and consider the possibility that they may have farther reaching consequences than I can ever imagine. 

"... If only we could realize while we are yet mortals, that day by day

we are building for eternity, how different our lives in many ways

would be! Every gentle word, every generous thought, every unselfish

deed, will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come..."

REBECCA RUTER SPRINGER

Dear Lord, give us strength and grace to carry our mantle of compassion and goodness and kindness every single day. Let us walk in the beauty of Your grace ...  and remind us one day at time, sweet Jesus, that living graciously matters.

 * * *

On that long note, I'm wishing you a beautiful weekend.
Thank you, beautiful friends, for visiting today. 

Hugs,

Brenda

xox

Reading Books Of An Epistolary Nature

"While I would have always classified myself as someone who likes to read,

it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve really devoted myself to

reading as a true pastime and taken on the self-proclaimed title of reader as

a main component of my identity. Along the way, I’ve let other hobbies fall

to the back burner with no regrets, and as one thing has led to another, I’ve

really let myself immerse fully into the reading life."⁠

NICOLE VIOLA BENNETT, THE ART OF SIMPLE

When the days get colder and crisper, I find myself burrowing into my all-time favourite pastime of reading. And like Nicole Bennett above, I tend to let other pursuits fall away with little regret as I immerse more fully into the reading life.

Last autumn, I read a handful of books that fall within what is termed the Epistolary literary genre. Although I'd never paid attention to it before, I had a vague idea the genre must have something to do with letters—the Dear Mary kind, not the alphabet—because what sprung to mind was the word 'epistle',  the word ascribed to several books in the New Testament which originally were letters written to the early church by people like Paul, e.g. the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.

According to Wikipedia, an epistolary novel is one that's written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings, and other documents are sometimes used. Both novelists and non-fiction authors use this literary genre with good success.

Whether it's a novel or a collection of someone's personal letters gathered in a book, I admit that the use of letters to tell the story creates a sense of being up close and personal to the characters or the author. It's a little like reading a box of old letters in an attic and finding yourself immersed in someone else's personal space, privy to comments and details of a life not available to just anyone. Letters create a bond between sender and recipient, and when letters are used to write a book they create a similar bond between a writer and her readers. What was it that John Donne once said? More than kisses, letters mingle souls. For thus, friends absent speak. 

I found an interesting article on Book Riot in which the author, Jesse Doogan, discusses her take on this literary genre and offers a great reading list of possibilities. If you are piqued, do check out 100 Must-Read Epistolary Novels From The Past and Present.

Now that I am more fully cognizant there's actually a genre for this kind of storytelling, I went in search of books and was duly surprised to find some epistolary novels and others on my own shelves. I share my finds below.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (novel)

by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

“Dear Miss Ashton, My name is Dawsey Adams, and I live on my farm in St. Martin's Parish on Guernsey. I know of you because I have an old book that once belonged to you—the Selected Essays of Elia, by an author whose name in real life was Charles Lamb. Your name and address are written inside the front cover.”

Being a person who reads books in her own time and space regardless of whether everyone else is reading it decades earlier, I admit to finally reading the 2008 New York Times bestselling novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I loved it and couldn't put it down. I then had the happy pleasure to watch the movie on Netflix and loved that too.

The novel is set in 1946 just after World War II. Writer Miss Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger living in Guernsey, UK. Through a series of letters, the compelling story unfolds of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and its members who lived through the German Occupation on the English island of Guernsey during the war.

84, Charing Cross Road

by Helen Hanff

“I wish you hadn't been so over-courteous about putting the inscription on a card instead of on the flyleaf. It's the bookseller coming out in you all, you were afraid you'd decrease its value. You would have increased it for the present owner. (And possibly for the future owner. I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.)”

84, Charing Cross Road is the delightsome collection of a twenty-year exchange of letters (1949 to 1969) between Helene Hanff, author in New York City, and English bookseller, Frank Doel, of Marks & Co antiquarian booksellers in London, England. These two people who lived an ocean apart developed a lasting friendship based on their mutual love of books. They never met in person.

I first became aware of the book of letters after I saw the lovely movie based on it which starred Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel and Ann Bancroft as Helene Hanff. I've read and watched the movie so many times over the years, yet I never tire of it. Same with the book—sometimes it's just plain LOL delightful.

Daddy Long Legs (novel)

by Jean Webster

"It isn't the great pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones—I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be forever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant...I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of little happinesses, even if I never become a great author."

Daddy-Long-Legs, published in 1912 by American writer Jean Webster, follows the story of young Judy Abbott who is about to be rescued from an impoverished life at an orphanage. A generous guardian pays for her education, complete with allowances for nice clothes, books and such, and in exchange for his anonymous generosity, she must promise to write him every month. And so she undertakes the task diligently, sending off lively and often humorous tales of school life, budding friendships, and other life enriching discoveries. She nicknames her benefactor based on a shadow she saw on a wall, and so many of her letters begin, Dear Daddy Long Legs. A charming coming of age tale that unfolds through a series of letters. 

I read the book for the first time just recently and enjoyed a delightful afternoon between its covers. I first saw the 1955 movie of it, the one starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron. The movie really doesn't follow the book, but if you treat each as separate entities, both can provide an afternoon of old-fashioned entertainment.

Anne of Windy Poplars (novel)

by L. M. Montgomery

"It's dusk, dearest. (In passing, isn't 'dusk' a lovely word? I like it better than twilight. It sounds so velvety and shadowy and ... and ... dusky.) In daylight I belong to the world ... in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I'm free from both and belong to myself...and you. So I'm going to keep this hour sacred to writing to you. Though this won't be a love-letter. I have a scratchy pen and I can't write love-letters with a scratchy pen...or a sharp pen...or a stub pen. So you'll only get that kind of letter from me when I have exactly the right kind of pen. Meanwhile, I'll tell you about my new domicile and its inhabitants. Gilbert, they're such dears. ..."

Anne of Windy Poplars—published as Anne of Windy Willows in the UK, Australia, and Japan—is an epistolary novel by Canadian author L.M. Montgomery. First published in 1936, this novel features a series of letters Anne sends to her intended, Gilbert Blythe. She writes of her experiences as the new principal at the high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and her head-on encounters with the proud Pringle clan.  The book is fourth in the Anne series.

I read all the Anne books when I was young, but I still enjoy reading them all these years later. If I ever decide to reread this one, I like to wait until Autumn, the season in which the story opens. I like letting Anne's descriptions dovetail with what's going on outside my own window.

***

Others books I want to read that I think fit in this category include:

The Diary by Eileen Goudge is the novel of two adult daughters who discover their mother's diary in her attic and are stunned to find out that her first true love was not their father. I read this book a few years ago and enjoyed it very much. The surprise ending made it completely worth reading. I have the novel on my growing pile of books I hope to read or in this case, reread, in 2020.


The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne's Frank's father, Otto Frank, was the only surviving family member. At the end of the Second World War, the group who hid Anne and her family presented Mr. Frank with notebooks and papers in Anne's handwriting. He circulated copies of Anne's diary to friends as a memorial to his wife and daughters. Urged to make it public, Mr. Frank had an edited version published in 1947, and over the years this book has been translated into more than thirty languages.

I admit that I have never read this book. I tried over the years, but I was always a little afraid to. Yet so many people love the book and quote from Anne's writings that I'm finally taking myself in hand—I plan to read it in the new year.

My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M.Montgomery. Edited by Francis W.P. Bolger and Elizabeth R. Epperly. Miss Montgomery was a keen letter writer and this book is a collection of her letters written to George Boyd MacMillan over their thirty-nine year friendship. In this epistolary autobiography you'll catch a glimpse of her wide range of interests, "from domestic concerns, her cats and gardening, to her professional literary career as best-selling author".

I read the book years ago when I was consuming all things L.M.Montgomery. I really enjoyed reading her letters—they made me feel close to her. I'm looking forward to dipping into it after all this time to see if the same spots I once underlined or starred still resonate.

There's a question I have for you! Do you find yourself being drawn to those same spots you marked when you read the book, say, ten, twenty or even thirty years earlier? I surprise myself quite often to find myself still drawn to the same spots. Some things just are 'forever', aren't they? Although there are other occasions when I see I'm not that person anymore. I realize I've grown up or changed how I view certain topics or ideologies. I find that an interesting discovery and was wondering if you do as well.

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Reflections on the Intimate Dialogue Between Man and God by C.S. Lewis. Posthumously published in 1964, the book takes the form of a series of letters to a fictional friend, Malcolm, in which Lewis chats about various aspects and forms of prayer.

C.S. Lewis was always a favourite author when I was a young adult. I haven't read much of his work other than the odd Narnia story in more recent history, so I am looking forward to rereading this one too.

* * *

Well, dear friends, after working away on this most of the day, I look up to see that the afternoon is waning and snow crystals are fogging the air. It's going to be brrr cold tonight. I saw a little owl earlier sitting on our feeders. A complete surprise as I've never seen an owl so nearby. We think he might have been a Boreal owl but we're not sure. That's a first for us. Perhaps the frigid temperatures brought him forth for food. I know little mice dwell beneath the neighbour's shed which happens to be near our bird feeders, a spot where seeds freely fall. Perhaps his sharp eyes saw them scurrying about under the snowdrifts.

On that note, I wish you a pleasant rest of the day and a warm and cozy evening. Happy reading or whatever you are up to.

Hugs,

Brenda

xox