35!

recipe for best birthday party ever: berries, friends, cakes, grass, shade, trees, children, frisbee, babies, blankets, sunshine, cool sea-breeze, mini-kites, balls, grilled vegetables, watermelon, smiles and bare feet.

(only spot of bother: the vengeful bee... 'Mama, au. Tij au. inger. au')

elderflower cordial

recipe here. new favourite cocktail: white wine with a dash of elderflower. in a bowl (of course). yum.

where should i start?

(strawberries, grapes in becoming and mysterious pumpkin/courgette plant imported from P's veggie garden: all on our balcony)

whenever i ask this question (often, often, often), the universe consistently replies: right where you are. but this one is really hard for me to crack. simple as it sounds in theory, living it is bloody impossible. for a multitude of reasons, my mind would rather i began 'over there'. and then moved on. oh how vague this all sounds. rewind.

two years ago, we bought an allotment with a little house (remember?) in leiden, 45 min. by car from here. the idea was to turn it into a dream garden for us to spend all our summers in. this was two years ago, and i have been there four times, a grand total of six hours or so spent on our plot. the said plot is still a swamp, much worse in fact than when we bought it, and in the two years we have owned the house, we haven't managed to get our act together to connect the water, so that the floor still hasn't been washed. in the meantime, my once blooming, flowering, fruiting balcony at home has been dead for two years, since clearly there is no point in planting things on a balcony when one is the owner of a huge GARDEN, and few weeks have gone by without me becoming very agitated about the whole GARDEN issue.

so that's the bit about trying to start 'over there'. i have this image in my mind, frolicking babes, jolly dogs, sunshine, huge veggie garden (which in fantasy land is not being trod upon by either dogs or babes), me reclining in the shade of a blossoming apple tree, in my hammock, reading a book and sipping lemonade (and not being disturbed in these activities by babes, dogs or the necessity to actually care for the huge veggie garden). you know, soulemama meets nikki mcclure kind of stuff. but then on a fluffy cloud. and in my haste to make this vision my own, i tend to forget a few steps. the first few steps.

(marc is planning to go on an old-fashioned quest next spring, walking to compostella or some such place. at first he was planning to start somewhere in france, but then he decided it was more real to start from our door. i love how, under the surface, his life and mine always intertwine. 'you know what it is, though,' he said to me, 'the first thousand km will be so boring...'.

yes, but without them, you won't get wherever you're going, honey. and neither will i.)

hhmm.

so, for the umpteenth time, back to the drawing board, also known as square one. we are selling the doomed garden. and my balcony is coming alive. next year, perhaps, a small veggie garden in town, P-style. you know, the next step.

felt

sweet peas and stone softies (felted stones we made at the bijenmarkt on saturday).

passion for bowls

the one i broke (half of tord boontje), the one i found (perfect chipped scratched blue white breakfast bowl), the one i inherited (polka dots from my grand-father's house)

i can never get enough of bowls. they make me insanely happy. the way my hands cup around them. the roundness of them, the fragility. the way they can carry everything i need. i once went on a retreat and brought along a bowl (golden hungry bowl by tsé-tsé), then spent the whole reatreat eating and drinking only out of that bowl. it was a fantastic experiment in mindfulness: i couldn't drink and eat at the same time, nor could i eat things that didn't belong together. i only ever had to wash the one bowl. but i had to wash it often. if i wanted to eat huge portions, i couldn't fool myself into thinking i had eaten hardly at all (that's your seventeenth bowl there, honey!).

would it work at home do you think? i'd like to try. anybody wants to join me for a bowl week? starting monday? (that gives me a few days to choose my bowl...)

in perspective

we own a pasta machine. this is the second pasta machine in my life, the first one was bought years ago, in a pre-children life, when i spent an entire afternoon making tagliatelle with my brother, hung the tagliatelle to dry in the kitchen, went to have a drink to recover from our efforts, and returned to find out that cats do, surprisingly enough, like fresh pasta. i then cleaned the pasta machine thoroughly, with much soap and grace. and found out that pasta machines rust in water. exit pasta machine. forever. or so i thought.

last year, we were visiting one of those local organic markets brimming with goodies, with my brother (again?), and there was a young woman offering fresh-made ravioli to the crowd. the ravioli were delicious, the machines lovely, glinting in the sunshine. enter pasta machine II. used once. on the day it was bought. put away. much too much trouble.

until a few weeks ago, when we went away for a few days to the beach with P. and her children, and we thought, why not, a nice project to do with the children, we'll make our own pasta. so i brought the machine along, although not the instructions, because i remembered them so well, of course. make the dough. divide it into eight balls, put away in the fridge for a few hours. then begin rolling. there are nine positions on the machine, each ball must go ten times through each position. easy, no?

yeeees. except it took us two days, and four shifts of two hours with two people per shift to get one portion of pasta ready. hhmm. so much for jamie oliver's claim that making fresh pasta takes as long as running to the store for the dry kind. we swore. we laughed. we cried. we drank. we got mad at innocents. we cursed. we philosophized. we questioned. mostly though, we turned. and turned. and turned that bloody handle. the result was amazing silky pasta. such as none of us had ever had. but clearly, clearly, CLEARLY, not worth the trouble.

i came home disturbed (in more ways than one), and immediately sat down to investigate the world of fresh-pasta-making. turns out the actual instructions would have been useful. not ten times through each position, but once. we might have been done in a little under an hour instead of the eight it took us. ahm. (the amazing thing is that P. is still talking to me...).

... and here is the other amazing thing. suddenly, making fresh pasta does not seem like so much trouble. in fact it's on our menu every week. because, you know, it takes barely longer than running to the store for the dry kind!

cramp

i found a bird
but only
half
alive
one broken
useless
wing
nestled between
two pavement stones
then fluttering
then nestled
in my hands

nestled
its beak soft
seeking
the warmth
of space
where fingers meet

nestled
its claw
clamped
firmly
around
the waist of my thumb

this was nine days ago
my hands still hold
curled,
cramped,
sweaty
empty
space

not daring
quite
to stretch
my fingers

not daring
quite
to feel
the ache
of ‘he is gone’

not daring
quite
to trust
the gift he left
behind

once a year...

... we put on our twirly skirts, take off our shoes, and dance the day away at the international gypsy festival in Tilburg. and no matter how high my expectations, this is one special day that never ever disappoints. it was perfect. just you look at my girl.

sideways

(in case you were wondering where we were these past few days, the answer is here. and it was luverly)

now then, the creative process (she says casually as if it had long been agreed between us, that on this day and in this place a discussion would begin, concerning the creative process, and artistry in general, that would go on for, say five, or six, posts, at the very least, with comments, interjections, back-tracking and genial not to mention ingenious conclusions...)... is all about leaving off the main road of the idea, and taking that little overgrown side-track you didn't even know was there until the funny-looking birch tree on the left winked at you.

or: take this little wedding dress, worn by our good old friend Alice (mama, it's actually a dress-up wedding dress, Alice is far too young to be married...). there i was, following up this link on how to turn a man's shirt into a smock. cutting and smocking away. as per the instructions. when my eye fell on an odd object on the floor of my sewing room (...now for those who haven't been in my sewing room of late, i should mention that in view of how literally littered every surface of that room is with various objects, odd and even, it would have been infinitely more surprising if i had in fact been able to glimpse a bit of the floor itself...). the oddity turned out to be the collar of my very man's shirt, which, having been cut out in a circle in order to make the smock, then obediently followed the laws of gravity and flopped at my feet. and standing there, looking at this sad sad collar, orphan without its shirt, i suddenly thought: wedding-dress! ten minutes and a bit of lace later... i mean seriously, how does that work? (homework to complete before next installment: think of more cases of "sideways" creativity. tell me about them. watch Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk.)

peonies (by Mary Oliver)

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

...

this amazingly beautiful and astute poem was sent to me by a dear friend:

do not weep

do not stand by my grave and weep
i am not dead, i do not sleep.
i am a thousand winds that blow,
i am a diamond glint on snow.
i am the sunset on ripened grain,
i am the gentle autumn rain.
when you awake in the autumn hush,
i am the swift uplifting rush.
of quiet birds in circling flight,
i am the soft starshine at night.
do not stand by my grave and cry,
i am not there, i did not die.

this is exactly it. so far, i have seen my grand-father in a cloud formation, a fluff on the wind, a crow, a couple of beetles, the heart of a peony and, most surprisingly, as a little light green catterpillar in a wild rose i wanted to smell, on which occasion, i was so surprised to see him that i croaked out loud: 'is it you?'

(last night was wonderful, we danced, and laughed, and drank and ate. and listened to Patsy Cline, whom my grand-father loved. so good. the children and i are leaving for a few days, back on thursday with more grand-father stories...)

hands

my grand-father is going to be cremated today, which has me thinking of his physical presence. he was an intensely physical person: he exercised far into old age, taking walks every day, doing his 'exercises' on his balcony. he used to do country-skiing in winter an hike in summer, and when he was already very old, and too blind to trust himself on the metro/electric train, he went cross-country skiing in the little playground in front of his house. he had calculated that he needed to make 40 rounds of that tiny place in order to get in his k's. he also said that the fact that he had to turn every ten metres or so was actually an advantage as it meant he had to practice his turns. and that pretty much sums up his spirit.

he enjoyed eating and drinking, except when in the throes of one of his radical diets (increasingly in the last few years). he was very affectionate, free and generous with bear-hugs and kisses.
but the most vivid memories i have are of his hands. he had remarkably sensitive and strong hands (as Marc found out the first time he came to visit 'that grand-father of yours, he has a strong hand-shake for such a little old man...'). having spent most of his professional life working as a researcher in a medical institute, in the last fifteen years of his life, he developed his own philosophy and practice of holistic healing, based on homeopathy, acupuncture and the sensitivity of his own hands. he believed that his hands could sense what medication (or food) a given organism needed at any point in time. he also believed that all acupuncture points of the body also existed as replicas on people's hands, and that applying homeopathic remedies directly to these replica acupuncture points could heal the corresponding organ/system. i am not sure i am explaining this right, but what it meant in practice is that he would hold my hand in his and place some item of food in my palm and he would then know how my organism as a whole, as well as any sub-systems, would react to me eating this food ('tebe polezno, detochka!'). he also practiced a form of reiki in which he removed pain simply by letting his hands hover over the painful area. he healed many people and made tremendous amounts of notes of his findings. the tragedy in this is that he believed he was alone in these powers, and although he enjoyed the sense of being a unique pioneer, he also felt sad that the 'gift of his hands', as he called it, would die with him, and i now wish i had (as i kept promising myself) done some research for him into reiki, but also into holistic natural medicine practices so that i could have talked to him about how he was in fact, part of a long tradition of healers.

miracles in the kitchen

i don't care how mad this makes me sound, but my grand-father is really here. and not just anywhere, but in the kitchen (which is where i have set up his photograph and a candle, because it's the place where i'd like best to talk to him). well, apart from talking and laughing, which he does a lot, he has also been busy: the bottle of failed kvas i was about to pour into the sink, turned, miraculously, within the span of half an hour (while i was out of the kitchen and he clearly was in it) into the best kvas we've had so far (recipe coming up soon). a few hours later, my dreamy licking of a ricotta-covered spoon (making risotto, you know how it is...) led me to fantasies of a ricotta cheesecake and within the hour, i had a recipe for it, delivered straight into my hands by an unknown girl at the supermarket. oh, and did i mention the amazing fresh-salted gherkins (recipe coming up soon too), how well those turned out?

and this for a man who for years, and for complicated reasons (mostly ideological ;) only ate sardines, oranges and kefir (yes, i know, i know...).

anyway, we are having a food/wake thing for him tomorrow evening. in Isabelle's words: 'now your grand-father has finally come to live with us after all!'

ne grusti, kunichka

my grand-father, Michail Lazorovich Bykhovskij, passed away today, aged 90. although i miss him terribly already, i trust that he is in a good place now. he was a complicated shining man. ours was an uncomplicated shining love. his last words to me were 'don't be sad, kunichka'.

i am anyway, though, but 'gore ne beda...' (sorrow is not a misfortune)

skirt and sadness

my grand-father is dying now. every time i think 'never again', i cry. every time a memory bubbles up, i smile. it is both achingly raw and surprisingly gentle, this pain of having to say good-bye.

(skirt = little white dress not worn because wrong model + amazing aquamarine indian silk pants not worn because torn beyond repair. i cut off the top of the dress, pleated the back, added elastic and a couple of ties with little bells, then added a silk ruffle on the bottom)

...

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

the bib and the jellyfish

I.
i completed a bib i have been making for antoine. i started making it on the morning of the day he was born. it took me half an hour to put it together, but i didn't have any snap buttons, so had to go and buy some, got contractions on the way, came home, had baby, sort of forgot about the bib for a few days. that was almost two years ago. then, last sunday, i woke up with the sun smiling at me through a chink in the curtains, stretched, got up, took a hammer out of the cupboard and hammered in the snaps. it took me ten minutes.

half and hour plus ten minutes, that's forty minutes to complete a bib. you'd think. except for the endless remonstrations, complaints, and pestering i put myself through in the intervening months ('when are you going to finish that bib?' 'what, you still haven't finished the bib????' 'come on, how much effort would it actually take to finish that bib?' 'get up! go and finish the bib!' 'right now!!' 'what kind of an idiot can't even finish a bib?' 'i bet it will take you less time to finish that bib than it takes me to form this sentence' 'you know what it is, don't you, it's laziness/lack of perseverance/incompetence/apathy/inertia/idiocy, that's what it is' 'tomorrow, tomorrow i will finish the bib' 'tomorrow, i promise that tomorrow i will finish the bib...').

II.
we went to the zoo last week, and had a fantastic guided tour behind the scenes of the aquarium (for an entertaining and instructive report, see here). at some point we stopped in front of the jellyfish raising section. there was this large round aquarium with jellyfish in it, and they were all turning in circles, at the same pace, and in the same direction, on an invisible ferris wheel. one of the children asked why they were all doing the same thing, and the amazing answer came: jellyfish are not strong enough to move by themselves, they can't swim, they can't determine their direction, or their speed, any movement they make (except for that 'open and close' thing which turned out to be their breathing) is actually the currant lifting and carrying them. at the zoo, the currant happens to be a ferris wheel.

*****

wisdom by juxtaposition. what if i too am a jellyfish, but an odd one, delluded into believing i can determine my own course? what if all i ever do is flow with the flow, whether i want to or not, whether i brace myself or let go, whether i resist or embrace the wave. if it isn't bib-making time, it just isn't bib-making time. whether i give myself a hard time about it or not. all my pestering and worrying, all those months, didn't get me an inch closer to completing the bib. the currant simply wasn't going that way. and when it finally turned, why then, no effort involved, no remonstration required.

a jellyfish can never get tired, or burnt-out. it knows that self-improvement is a really good joke. oh, to embrace my jellyfishiness.

(the bib in the photograph is actually part of a baby-shower gift for a little girl who was born this week, the pattern comes from Bend The Rules Sewing)

cuisine

thought it would be fun to have a notebook in which to write the russian recipes i am collecting at the moment, so i fished out (and completed) a long-unfinished project. the notebook cover is a linnen napkin with embroidery from a japanese book, can't remember which.
also, there has been quite a bit of movie watching around here lately (we saw Mrs. Dalloway three nights in a row because somebody kept falling asleep and we had to start all over again) (not that i mind, i could watch that movie many many more times...) (we also saw La Maison and Transylvania, both a little disappointing, but that's what happens when you have expectations) so i wanted some light knitting. these dishcloths, from a pattern in Mason-Dixon's Curious Knitter's Guide are pretty, easy but not boring, and very useful.

soupe à l'oseille

unavoidably, any attempt at recapturing (and sharing) my childhood heritage will involve food(and poetry...). first on the list, and very appropriate for the season: sorrel soup. pick approximately three large handfuls of wild sorrel (in garden, park, forest or roadside)(see here for info on sorrel, distinguishing characteristics: forked horns where the bottom of the leaf meets the stem and sour taste) (whence 'zuring'). in a small saucepan, hard-boil as many eggs as there are eaters. in the meantime, peel two largeish potatoes and throw them in soup pot together with 1,5 litre of water and two cubes of chicken stock (or, even better, 1,5 litre of fresh homemade chicken stock). put on medium-low fire until the potatoes are cooked. throw sorrel into soup, stir once, turn off the heat. put one hard-boiled (and peeled) egg in each soup bowl, mash up with fork, pour soup over egg, garnish with sour cream.

yum. yum. yum.

still russia

my grand-father is very much alive, and very ill. his illness brings me painfully close to the truth that he will not be around forever (there is that buddhist story of a king who asks a wise man to bless his family, and the wise man says 'father dies, son dies, grand-son dies'.) i will very probably have to outlive my grand-father. and the pain i feel at the thought of life without this dearest of old men is made brighter and sharper by the thought of what would disappear together with him. he is, in a very real (though not factual) sense, my last link to russia. without him, i feel as if the last little thread would snap between me and that weird country of which i was born and that runs in me like a childhood virus never quite recovered from.

walking the streets of moscow, any time in the last 15 years, i have looked, sounded and felt like a foreigner. but deep inside i hugged to myself the secret flame of my belonging. because always, walking those streets, i was visiting my grand-father. and my yearly visits to him fanned and nourished that little flame, so that walking other streets, in such different different places, always i knew myself to be (also) a russian woman.

without my grand-father, russia will become an empty shell. a huge, grey, dirty, difficult and inaccessible shell. and in my pain of having to live one day without my crazy and wonderful ancestor is mingled the fear of the little flame dying out.

i guess i just have to find another way to fan and nourish. another way to connect inner flame and outside world. i guess i just have to learn to be (also) a nomadic russian woman.

(speaking of nomads, amazing photographs here. found through Elianne's new and wonderful blog)