Ecotone: Writing About Place: HousekeepingAndPlace

[London and the North] I think we should have bought more of a mud coloured carpet really. This one, light brown, is too light and its natural fleck is constantly undermined by the competing fleck provided by crumbles of mud making their way across from the front door mat.

[Switched At Birth] We met with our builder today. I made extensive notes on a legal pad about county permits, footing and slab pourings, plumbing fixtures, roof trusses, wind load engineering, appliances, driveway configurations, windows, and when to expect the bulldoziers.

Fixing dinner tonight, I found myself thinking about the culinary concept of mise en place. It means having all your ingredients measured, chopped and ready before you start cooking.

[Hoarded Ordinaries] Today I was supposed to play grading catch-up, finishing feedback on several batches of online drafts and reading my way through a backlog of response papers. Instead of doing the honest work of grading, though, I took the easy way out. I did housework.

[the vernacular body] The unfinishable struggle to stay the hand of chaos entices. So, he imposes order where there is none.

[Cleanup] I have spent so much time cleaning things lately that an hour with the computer is a treat, and (this isn't fair!) the thought of thinking about housework is almost oppressive. Does that keep me from writing something? Uh, no. (P.)

[Feathers of Hope (Pica)] The time I have to practice calligraphy is early in the morning. This is also the time when I might be writing or meditating, and in practice it ends up being the time when I everyone else's blog over several cups of tea. And get ready for work, having eaten breakfast. And taken a shower. And am late for work. And so on.

[Via Negativa] To me, the messier the woods get, the more inviting they become. A young, even-aged forest has little to offer in terms of habitat, either for wildlife or for the imagination. Songs die somewhere down in the throat. On a late afternoon in early winter, with the clean outlines of aging trees against a sky blue to the horizon, I am reminded of water spilling over fallen logs or waves on a lake lapping against half-submerged hulks along a ragged shore. The impeded stream is the one that sings, Wendell Berry once pointed out.