attendants
No one told them that their jobs were finished. They were never properly dismissed or let go.
Informed that their necessity had waned.
They continued to attend. Even after temples were shut and shrines dismantled.
Always faithful, always devoted.
Incapable of being anything less.
Now they sit in corners of musty shops.
Paint peeling and gathering dust.
Collecting offerings for forgotten gods.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
So long, 2010.
You were interesting.
I spent the vast majority of 2010 living in a black-and-white circus that will be nicely bound on bookstore shelves come September.
It’s still rather hard to believe, but I’m working on that.
This time last year I was still unagented and pulling my manuscript apart again for yet another revision.
Visions and revisions. That’s the way this year went.
2010 sounded like Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock soundtracks and jazz and Arcade Fire and Florence + the Machine.
It sounded like Florence + the Machine a lot. Song of my year, no question:
My New Year’s Resolution is to stop saying (repeatedly) that anything happening to me is weird or strange or crazy. Because crazy is my new normal and I should probably try to embrace that.
I should be more of a believer.
This is all really happening.
The snow outside is melting. I have stars in my hair.
Bring it on, 2011.
frames for nature
Nature doesn’t need frames, I say, but she insists on finding them anyway. Running around like a cameraless photographer as she composes each shot. Leaving to find another when she’s satisfied.
I ask her why, not really expecting an answer.
It’s too much to look at all at once, she says.
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe it’s better to have tastes of it, a narrower focus.
I do it myself now, too. Finding lines of bare trees and glimpses of blue sky.
Nicely contained within decorative arches.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
On Friday, we baked cookies & tartlets & listened to absurd amounts of holiday music. I still find the “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” song mildly disturbing.
And we made peppermint bark. I’d never made it before, but I wanted to try something not-cookie, and my Martha Stewart holiday cookbook had a recipe that seemed fairly simple, so we gave it a whirl.
We couldn’t find candy canes (craziness!) but we substituted giant peppermint sticks which were probably more fun to break.
We melted absurd amounts of white chocolate.
We mixed the two together with a bit of peppermint oil & chilled it in a pan & then broke it into pieces:
It is delicious.
We were intending to bring it along for holiday visiting yesterday.
Then we had a blizzard.
And holiday visiting was canceled.
So we’re snowed in with over 2 pounds of peppermint bark. I’m going to have to freeze it or something, we can’t possibly eat all of it between the two of us.
(Besides, I also have chocolate-covered, sea salt-dusted caramels. Those are getting eaten. Savored one by one.)
silver bells
Listen, and you’ll hear.
In the snow-quiet. In the cold that envelops bare branches and evergreens alike, winding around sleds and mittens and waterproof boots.
The bells are ringing. Even if they don’t appear to move. Even if you can’t see where they are hung. Even if you have to listen very, very closely while your fingers and toes go numb.
Be patient.
They need the cold and the snow-quiet to sing so sweet.
Listen carefully, and you’ll hear everything.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
