The weird part of this house renovation experience has been what it’s triggered in me.  My inner house took this opportunity to reveal the run-down and crumbly within, and that there’s no time like the present for at least recognizing what’s ripe for refurbishment.

People are like houses but are not houses.  Some qualities of our architecture can’t be improved by other people.  Help along the way can be gotten, of course, but ultimately the bulk of the task is solely ours.  We can hire people to make us prettier but not taller, more aware but not wiser, more skillful but not talented…some of our walls we have to bang out and rebuild ourselves.

I’ve decided to spend some time ruminating and writing about this renovation experience as a whole, being a bit more honest and braver and curious in how I examine it. Odds are I won’t be wielding a sledgehammer.  I’m fairly certain, however, that I’ll see firsthand what it’s like to create open spaces.

PS:  Happy St. Patty’s Day!

This feeling is due, of course, to the renovations we voluntarily put in motion at the beginning of January.  In fact, we bought the house knowing full well that life would boing into being pear shaped for a time because of said R-word.

Of what it would be like to live on site while the work went on we had inklings.  People advised us it would be worse than we imagined.  Like worse x 100.  It’s not that we disbelieved them.  Yet, even the most dismal and scary descriptions were more like partial explanations.

Until you experience it firsthand, you can’t quite grasp how COMPLETELY crappy and uncomfortable it is to be in a house where rubble rules…and grit conquers all…and you are left with one room in which to eat, sleep, work, find warmth, regroup, etc…and you have one bathroom you share with the builders.

Not even food lands with its usual levels of solace.  (We don’t really have much of a kitchen anyway, given that half is generally fuzzed with brick dust at any given time.)

Anyhow, this is why I’m on the run from the house even as I spend much of my time in it.  Because we have to be on site even if we don’t want to be, at least at this stage of things.

So, the bedroom that’s become our all-purpose room also has to serve as my growlery*.  Actual growling has happened.  It’s superbly cathartic.  Although the dog is not into hearing me make sounds that are his turf.

And, I’ve stopped trying to look for the upside and the silver lining.  They’re there, but at the moment they’re covered in sand.

And, every morning I get up early – at least an hour before the builders arrive – so that I can have my tea and staring time and free write for at least 10 minutes.

In these free writing sessions, I haven’t been able to detach from what’s going on around me.  It would be nice if I felt called to scribble about warm woolen mittens and cupcakes, but inevitably I circle back to the crusty exposed pipes and cement. As you do.

* “Sit down, my dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “This, you must know, is the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.”  – From Charles Dickens, Bleak House

I can easily produce something edible, but it’s rare for me to produce something of plate-licking caliber.  God knows it’s not for lack of trying either.  Edible, however, is what tends to shake out of these kitchen sessions.  There’s no bitterness attached to this statement even though edible just isn’t good enough…if I’m being honest.

It’s obvious I haven’t a latent stash of culinary talent waiting to be coaxed out of hiding, and I can accept that.  Likewise I’ll continue to love my afternoons or evenings consumed by the promise of a new – or even an old -recipe.  But all the while I still have an entrenched faith in dogged persistence, that a sweet, fat payoff awaits:  eventually I’ll progress from mere edibles to delectables.

You have to dream in big, drippy, meaty haunches or you have nothing but watery broth at stake, to guide. And there’s no fun in that, even if you’re a vegetarian and the only haunch you can stomach is of tofu.

I was all set to devote this year to becoming a far better, more skillful, more knowledgeable cook – which sounds sort of haunchy – but as I was writing about that framework I realized that that was not “it”.

No, “it” is thicker than how deftly I can mince shallots, stickier than my defeatist attitude towards cake.  “It” is my lifelong mixed-bag relationship with food, not my aspirations for the making of food, that call out.  We have some rifts to heal and a vision for the future to flesh out, food and I, neither of which will happen if I don’t defrost the freezer they’ve been sitting in.

By chance or luck (whichever you believe in) my quarterly order to Amazon included several books* that touch on different aspects of a food relationship I’ve been quietly or nervously noodling.

There’s the Eat-better-spend-less aspect that drew me to Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy & Paul Merrett.

There’s the screw restrictive diets/sensible adoration aspect à la Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl.

There’s the global-citizen/huge-swell-of-pride aspect from knowing how to cook both seasonally AND indigenously that spurred me to explore Spanish cuisine via Seasonal Spanish Food by José Pizarro, Culinaria Spain by Marion Trutter, and The Real Taste of Spain by Jenny Chandler.

I’m pleased with these new additions to my food lit library.   I’m not so pleased by the hard stuff that lies ahead and outside their pages.  But now is the time to engage with it, because now is the time.

* Note – These links are indeed Amazon affiliate links.  If you use them to buy something, I receive an affiliate commission.  Thought I should let you know so that you don’t feel mislead.

In recent years I’ve explored their very opposite by spending January naming what was already good and sound from the year before, a ritual I called the 31 Days of Self-Congratulations.

Corsica, September 2008

That exercise didn’t call to me this time, maybe because it’s a very time-consuming one. Could also be that the year felt like it wound to a close mid-November when our trip to Italy was over.  And the disparities between regular life after enjoying the irregularities of the traveling life were wide and sharp, and it took me a while to recognize that this was strong stuff that would stand between me and my optimistic New Year rituals of the past.  Not to mention the lure of new ones, like the “Best Of” lists that were bell-ringers (unintentional punning) for many bloggers in 2009.

Happily, fortuitously, mercifully, relievedl-y this morning I awoke to the bright penny shine of 2010 before me with my regular life batteries recharged enough that I was thirsty to write again.

Perhaps that’s what a low-key New Year’s Eve spent in the company of your Partner-in-Life, darling dog, roaring fire, a good dinner (lamb shoulder, parsnips and carrots, and mashed spuds with gravy made from the lamb drippings) the last of the excellent box wine from Chateau Peyriac de Mer (it’s the same excellent stuff they bottle, only in a box – trust me), and fireworks we could watch from the roof of our house can accomplish.

I also awoke thinking that a new New Year ritual regarding Determinations (not the R-word nor the I-word) would be better than none.  It’s funny how sometimes with our first blink we have the answers we’ve been gnashing our teeth over for eons.  On the other hand, last night it was very windy.  Window-door rattling windy.  Part of me fancies that overnight the wind swept through me, too, clearing a path to what was so apparent today.  And why not?

1. Utilizing self-discipline some more, at least as Judith Sills defines it:  “acting according to what you think instead of how you feel at the moment. That’s the only way any of us gets ourselves to do the hard stuff.”
2. Remember who I am. One of the sore spots of 2009 was acknowledging the degree that I’d muzzled parts of myself to meet certain expectations coming from outside myself.  One example:  for the sake of giving compassion a larger role, I didn’t speak with the conviction or honesty I felt.  There are times when a soft squeak can’t possibly do the job of a lion’s roar.
3. Thank friends who I’ve leaned on in 2009, and remind them that I’m here for them, too.
4. Enjoy the higher ground…sometimes.
5. Take more walks.
6. Own what I create with pragmatism and fairness – the good, the bad, the so-so…the beautiful, the ugly, the simply plain.
7. Remember that flexibility creates opportunities.
8. To that end let myself imagine big, because holding a bigger vision for my life is not a recipe for disappointment but a recipe for innovation.
9. Since icing is sometimes crucial to a cake, believe big in those imagineerings.
10. And since even sprinkles atop icing can be non-negotiable, believe I can stand on my own two feet.
11. For the next year, write with a sense of purpose.  Even if the purpose is silliness.
12. Face my demons, Temper Temper and Between-Meal Snacks.  Fairly self-explanatory.
13. Engage with the eternal question regarding Happiness…
14. …with inquisitiveness.  Rather than panic or the feeling that the clock is running out.

Best wishes everyone.  Here’s to luck and opportunity for us all.

I’m afraid that on December 31st when I look back on what I’ve written here in 2009, all I will see is a of gripes about the internet troubles we’ve had in the past few months.  But that has been the case, much to my consternation.  To that end, I just want to send a quick word to the friends of this blog – old and new – that things will probably be quiet here for a little while longer while we we wait for our internet service to be activated.

The alternatives are limited, because we’ll be broke if we go to the internet cafes every day.  Or turn into barflies if we have to keep going to pubs to check emails and write blog posts. Or morph into Wifi trolls.

This last one is a very real possibility.  Tonight we drove around various neighborhoods looking for an unprotected network. (Didn’t find one, arrrrgh.)  How sad is that?  Don’t answer.  Just cross your fingers that Telefónica process our order mucho rápido.  Graçias.

Here’s hoping you stick with me and the better posts to come.  Pinky swear.

Book Stall in Lucca

Let me start off by saying that our expedition to northern Italy has been fabulous so far.  It’s been chillier than expected, and we’ve had a couple of rain events to contend with, and I’ve come down with a cold, but those aren’t even mild complaints you’re hearing.  I’m loving, loving, loving this time in Italy.  It’s just so beautiful and fascinating and old and modern and everything I hoped it would be. It took me 40 years to get here, but it was entirely worth the wait.

The one bummer bit of the trip is that the gods of internet connections have been showing their trickster sides and having a good belly laugh at the Vodafone dongles supplied for our internet-ing.

With connections as slow as dial-up, until today I haven’t been able to upload even thumbnails and emails can take five minutes to send.  So, my intention to blog at least in brilliant snippets, decent photos included, was shanghaied.  That is…until we scored access to a Wifi setup at a cafe here in Argegno, a village on the western shore of Lake Como, thus restoring some normalcy to our technology oriented lives.  (Mwahahaha, internet gods, I’ve snagged some of your golden apples and I’m baking them into a fruit turnover not wholly unlike what you’d find at a McDonalds, and you can’t do jack about it!)

Big bowl of cheese.

We have to be careful about how much time we spend in this cafe and when we go, because they do this daily happy hour thing whereby they offer free eats – cheeses and coppa and salami and pizza slices and bruschetta and these delicious cheese/rice balls rolled in bread crumbs which are deep fried and to die for…I believe the need for boundaries with regard to said cafe is obvious.  Their vino rosso della casa is nothing to sneeze at, either.  (We’ve already broken the rule imposed yesterday which was that we wouldn’t come here too close to dinner, because we’re weak-willed people who can’t seem to say no to free nibbles.)

Anyhow, in between sight-seeings and experiencing and feasting on some of the best pasta and non-pasta dishes on the planet, I’ve had a couple of burning learnings on this trip that I’m capturing here for posterity.

Uno – My Internet-centricity Is Serious Stuff
I’ve noted and and noodled upon this topic quite a bit in the past three weeks, mainly because it seems that since mid-September I’ve had one internet connection problem after another.  Which is inconceivable to me given that it’s year nine of the 21st century, and I live in Western Europe.

Not being able to blog regularly has been a stretch.  Actually, it’s been a royal pain and a messer-upper of my creative equilibrium.  Actually, at times it’s felt like an amputation.  Something integral – a limb called ADSL – has been lopped off.  More than once.  And the loss of that limb has been both discombobulating and isolating and confusing.  My creative medium has been compromised, and I’ve struggled to adjust.

Call me a product of my time, call me an internet junkie, whatever -  I like being connected to the wider world…at least through broadband.  And I don’t like for my connection to be limited to three hours a day and at speeds reminiscent of the internet’s woolly mammoth days.  I want high speed access.  24/7.  The strength of which not subject to normal weather events like bog standard rain showers.   Am I asking too much?  No, I isn’t.

Anyhoo…there’s been a silver lining, too, with not being online so much, one that I’m duly noting and noodling about.

Apparently, not reading about the amazing feats and ideas that others are blogging about has given my whirring brain a chance to consider a few very interesting ideas of my own.  They’re still in the toddler stage, these ideas, so I couldn’t dish coherently about them even if I wanted to.  But I know they’re growing, cutting teeth and crawling towards the next phase of maturity.  Never in a million years would I have connected the dots of “no internet” and “flash of insight”, possibly because so many of mine from the past have come from rabbit holes I’ve found online.  Yet, there you have it.

So, what’s the takeaway from this that I can carry forward?  Well, a) disconnecting from the world is conducive to creativity.  That’s hardly a new concept, but one I’m experiencing firsthand for the first time and in such a positive way.  b)  I’d like to be the one who pulls the plug on the router.  Forced marches are not fun, and neither are forced internet absence.  Or abstinence. Whichever word best applies.  Both do, frankly.

Due – Not Being Bizzy and Not Feeling Guilty

The impossible has taken place – I’ve barely thought about work on this trip, but that’s not the impossible dream – I haven’t felt an iota of guilt about it.  Not a jot.

Instead, I’ve totally savored our days spent walking around towns full of amazing buildings, churches, frescoes, gardens and eats. I’ve set my watch by the 4 PM ritual of a latte rather than an email inbox review.  Rather than mulling new service offerings for 2010, I’ve mulled over whether I want pasta for dinner or some other savory treat.  That’s been the nature of my to-do’s.  Yeah, there’s been some stuff to take care regarding the tree that fell on our house, but for the most part I’ve been focused on where I am in the here and now and not someone who feigns to be engaged with her surroundings but is really fretting about all the marketing she ought to be doing or all the appointments that ought to be on the calendar.

Now and again I get a biz-related twitch, but I’m letting it fizzle rather than fester.  What’s helping me do this is a thought I keep looping back to:  I may never again have this opportunity to be so unbizzy, to be exactly where we are at this place and time.

I mean, I hope I get to come back to Italy.  In fact, I think I will pine for it.  But that’s not something I can fully predict or control.  I can only grab hold of the here and now, and be guided by it.  That’s what’s tangible.  So, why the hell not?

Exactly.

Wrapping Up

Now, it wouldn’t be at all fair for me to rattle on about the beauty of what we’ve seen without providing a glimpse. In fact, it would be rude.  So, here’s a Flickr album I’ve put together for your viewing pleasure. (Link included here just in case you didn’t catch it at the beginning.)

Where there was once decking there is now air.

If you’re me (and Tim), when you get that news you make a few of the necessary phone calls, exert extreme self-discipline to not visualize the debris and freak out, thank the gods that nobody died, thank the gods that you have caring people in your life who will help you sort this shit out, and concentrate on finding a really good dinner.

We found out about the fallen tree when we reached Marseille, made our calls, took an aspirin with our aperatifs, and truffled the good dinner in due course in the Vieux Port area of the city.  Actually, it was a meal that will go down in our history of plate-licking good meals.  I had the Pintade (guinea hen) with some kind of savory mousse, seasonal veg and gratiné potatoes, and Tim had the pistachio encrusted salmon.  That meal fed more than our bellies.

Funny, isn’t it, how as soon as I yammer about my intention to pluck the feather of paying super duper attention to my travels, life gives that resolve a good whack.

I’m not backing down from that intention, by the way.  It’s a little wobbly on the ol’ feet at the moment, but still walking.  Which is all that’s needed.

{More about Marseille in a day or two.}

Actually, you can’t help but notice the geese.  I mean, c’mon.  There’s thirteen of them in permanent residence… in the cloister.  They have their own fish pond  and a steady stream of adoring tourists who slip them nibbles through the fence of their enclosure.  The saint they honor, Saint Eulalia, was tortured to death by the Romans, but the geese seem to have scored a better fate.

You have no idea how excited I am to be writing those last three words.

Bringing equal satisfaction and pleasure is the softness of our planning for this trip.  As in we haven’t done a whole lot and don’t intend to.

Our planning is deliberately spongy, and we are choosing to be more like sponges positioned for experiencing rather than on edge and scuttling like crabs from one “must see”/”must do” event or place to the next.  I don’t want to get boxed into worrying about what I might be missing on our travels; I want to pay attention to what we find.

Which is not to say we’re completely thumbing our noses at our guide book and declaring an embargo on travel organization.  It’s an exercise in balancing, just,  really.  (Rather than an exercise in  balancing + juggling + gum chewing + itinerary orchestrating)

I’m being spongy, too, with setting goals for this trip.  In fact, I don’t want goals.  No goals.  ( Do you hear me Coop of Doubt?  No goals.) And no, the earth’s rotation won’t be knocked off kilter as a result.)

Instead of having goals I want to pluck some feathers.  Whole different game, plucking feathers.  Right about now feather plucking looks like this:

• Pictures or sketches – I hope to regular-ish post a photo or a sketch of something  I see that strikes a chord.  What strikes a chord of mine might not strike a chord of yours, but I’m not going to get tangled up in all that. If it moves me, you’ll get to see it.  We’ll take it from there.  I want to say I’ll try to post something daily but don’t want to promise it, because – you know – I might get caught up in the experiencing and forget to do.
• Rekindling my wordy spark – I haven’t been all that moved to write for the past few weeks.  It’s a rare occasion that I don’t have something to say about something.  Lately though, I haven’t felt the spirit of impassioned articulation stirring.  I don’t have a resolution straight up my sleeve about that, but I’m keen to muddle my way back to writing here and elsewhere.   Patience, patience.  Kindness.  Lightness.  Buckets of curiosity.
• Tug some boundaries.  I can’t quite explain what boundaries are plumb for tugging.  It might be as small as not grumbling if we have dinner on Spanish time (i.e. 10 or 11 PM at night).  I have a feeling stuff around boundaries will creep up later, so if it sounds vague an squishy now that’s the way it is.  Besides, if the boundary topic creeps up later, it will be more interesting.  So, let’s let sleeping dogs lie for the sake of interest? (Speaking of sleeping dogs, my oh my the husky snores roaring out of our little terrier right now…)

Big day tomorrow.   So, time for bed.   G’night. Auf wiedersschen.  Bon nuit.  Buona serra.  Bye.

For weeks now I’ve been a bit fretful about some of the stuff we didn’t or couldn’t bring with us when we moved.  I don’t know why.  The pencil sharpener is just the tip of the fretting.

I wasn’t in the mood to analyze this mood this morning, so I sharpened my pencil with the old fashioned sharpener and treated myself to some sketch therapy.  Which I’m thinking may become a regular Monday ritual, because it was really nice to be out of my head and in my hands for a spell.

My handwriting totally clashes with ink; switching to graphite is one of my better ideas.