OOTD

Christian and I were invited to attend the wedding of a couple from Congo who settled and raised a family in Winnipeg. My wardrobe felt inadequate to provide the colour I was searching for for this joyful occasion and so I left my outfit fate with the thrift store gods and took myself browsing on Monday. Thrifting with such conditions isn’t easy… I checked dresses, skirts and blouses and was hours into this hunt when I started on pants, before landing on these, Diane von Furstenburg, my size, for 12$. I paired it with a blouse I had seen earlier and considered the hunt a success.

Reading

I finished a massive 1261-page book of William Trevor’s Collected Stories, begun months ago when the weather was cold and the skies were clear. (The book is so big that when my 87 year-old mother-in-law spotted it on my lap, she asked if it was a dictionary.)

Collected stories have a chocolate-box-like quality to them, and I find that I often forget a story after a little while, despite enjoying the experience of dipping in and letting my mind settle into a scenario. One story that does stand out in its entirety is titled “Her Mother’s Daughter” - its ending so perfect in its poignancy. Or perhaps I just found the themes relevant.

But more often than not, it’s sentence here or there that I particularly like… Like, in “The Teddy-bears’ Picnic” where Trevor writes, “Their choice of decor and furniture was the choice of newlyweds who hadn’t yet discovered a confidence of their own.” Or, in “In Isfahan”: “Normanton wandered away from it, through dusty crowded lanes, into market-places where letter-writers slept on their stools, waiting for illiterates with troubles.” Another book off the list, done!

Satisfying

TikTok is full of satisfying videos… like the lawn-mower owners who clean up an overgrown yard (SB Mowing), gift wrappers (Bee and Blooms) furniture flippers (Build it like Becker) and sometimes the unexpected wedding dress restoration…

Perhaps I find them pleasing because the hands-on-ness of their subject is in contrast to research. This (it’s kind of long…) Youtube titled “Why Are Movies About Research So Addictive” in Patrick Willems’ dissection of how Hollywood has found a way of portraying an almost un-portrayable job. (Via)

Postcard

In lieu of the usual horizontal format, a nice vertical view of Albert Beach at the end of a nice afternoon, courtesy of Christian!

Welcome to this week’s edition of things I’ve enjoyed and thought about… And while I hone my conversational writing to match Nigella Lawson’s, this rambling and the links from which it is inspired is all free!

1. Drawing, again

Drawing for Illustration by Martin Salisbury, mentioned last week, had these two inspiring quotes from illustrators, on the subject of drawing:

David Humphries:

"When I was a student, I remember visiting an exhibition of drawings at the Royal College of Art by Sir Isaac Newton and his contemporaries. I was really annoyed that all of the scientists could draw better than me. After the exhibition, when I was sitting under a tree in Hyde Park, an iPhone dropped out of the sky and hit me on the head. At that moment it occurred to me that very few modern illustrators have the technical ability to make drawings of that quality, and it is the advent of photography that has allowed drawing to disappear from the science curriculum (and the majority of art schools). But the real loss is that the act (and discipline) of describing things visually helps us understand their function and appreciate their beauty; merely pressing a button on a camera or a phone just isn't the same."

Kerry Lemon:

"I'm evangelistic about drawing. Always on a mission to get people to draw. The tragedy of art education is the quick determination of who is 'good' at drawing and who is not. An obsession with product, rather than the process of creation. Finding joy in the process, the sound and texture of dragging pen, brush or pencil across a page will mean you will continue to do it and, as in all things, the more you actually draw, the more you WILL automatically improve - your finished drawings will become better and better. There are no shortcuts. No expensive pens or expert tuition will get you there. Just draw. Draw constantly. Draw everything, all the time. Drawing is all about looking and a regular drawing practice will alter your view of the world. You will begin to see things that you previously ignored. Sitting on the train, you will be acutely aware of the pattern of the seat, the light on the metal railing, the profile of the commuter opposite, the weave of their scarf. Drawing is magic, and I am bewitched by it.

2. A thing I learned about rhubarb

It's nice sitting down with a cookbook written by Nigella Lawson. She's a very chatty cook and were you to compare recipes to all the thoughts she pens along with them, I wonder if the latter wouldn't outweigh the former. But I like listening to her.... she writes so well, it does indeed feel like listening, I swear I can even hear her British accent. Her recipe books have photos, and I always find them very colourful, almost over-saturated. She has a chapter on rhubarb, accompanied by bright pink rhubarb photo-subjects... in a trifle, all soft in a tray, fresh from being roasted. Until I read the chapter though, I didn't know that there are two kinds of rhubarb... In Cook, Eat, Repeat, she writes:

For much of the world, the coming of rhubarb heralds the arrival of spring; for those in England, it appears brightly in the bleak midwinter, absurdly, improbably pink, the color of hope, filled with all the light that is missing from our skies. My heart lifts every time it comes into season towards the end of December. How could it not? Yorkshire forced rhubarb, which is started off outside, but then transplanted inside, cultivated in the dark and harvested by candlelight, is one of our greatest culinary treasures: hot pink from the cold earth, its stalks are more tender, their texture more delicate, and the taste purer and more vibrant than the hefty red rhubarb that comes later, out in the open, and which, as the year moves on, and the stalks grow thicker and greener, all too often cooks into a fibrous khaki mush (p 127).

Mystery solved! I will no longer worry where all the pretty pink colour goes... it was never really there to begin with!

3. Tiktok is still fun

Sometimes I abandon a social media platform for awhile... I scrolled through Tiktok recently and it made me feel happy that Hank Green's office has been redecorated since I last visited the platform. And a ceramicist got accepted into a market after being turned down again and again. Feeling "heartwarmed" on social media should be celebrated!

4. Geraniums

Inspired by this post, I bought geraniums for inside the house. They remind me of the ones that lined the window sill behind our elementary school teacher's desk. For years, I disdained them, but my taste has changed, and now they make me think of coziness and comfort.

5. The view here

It's been very warm this week. Leaves are sprouting, delicate and shiny like butterfly wings before they dry. I planted flowers in the garden a week earlier than in years past. Everywhere, the first dandelions of the season...

Psst! Happy Friday! This was sent just before the day ended, and doesn’t include a link to a recipe. But if you’d like a recommendation, we tried this soup on Wednesday, when it was chilly and rainy, and paired it with Buttermilk Biscuits and felt satisfied.