The Daily: 10 October 2023

A Brief Literary Exhortation

You will want to go find a copy of Starling House by Alix Harrow. You may want to buy this perfect rendition of the Southern Gothic because you will likely read it two or three times in quick succession and then come back to it several months hence, to savor such exquisite gems as this:

You will want to arrange matters so that you have no pressing concerns on the day after you acquire this book because you will inevitably stay up until 3 in the morning, unable to stop reading until arriving at the intriguing bibliography at the end — which you will promptly investigate, seeking out evidence…

… that it’s all true.

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And if that’s not enough to make this autumn a literary delight, there is a new Jim Butcher book coming out in a few weeks…

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As you might have guessed, this book recommendation is by way of an apology… and an excuse. I didn’t get the remainder of the cultural appropriation essay properly edited. Or even much typed. It is still over ten pages of somewhat angry scribbling that needs much work to make it palatable. And I was doing other things.

Yes, I did stay up until 3am reading, something I haven’t allowed myself in years. This was not so much giving myself permission to enjoy a really good story. I really couldn’t help it. And then, yes, I did go check out the novel’s “bibliography”… and no, I will not tell you what that means. You simply must read through to discover it yourself — or it won’t be as enjoyable.

But I can’t sleep late these days. Or not past 7am anyway. My normal wake-up time is 5am. I don’t use alarms; my body just wakes up. No, I don’t know how that works. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do… like waking at 2am to take my thyroid pill every night. I’ve heard that you can train yourself to wake up at a given time or after a set amount of sleep time. No idea how that works either… In any case, a couple hours after five is sleeping in by my body’s clock, but it’s not sleeping much when you’re up all night.

Also I just had a lot to do. I did not get done with many things. I have many plants lined up in the sheltered lee-side of my house, “hardening off”, meaning waiting for me to put them in the ground. I want to plant another round of salad greens, but that involves finding the seed. During the mold clean-up, I moved it all… somewhere… Then, the tomato vines still need to be cut down, and the last tomatoes need to be turned into tomato sauce. There are still potatoes to move into the basement before it freezes. Same for the tender houseplants. I have my geraniums on the back porch — which is closed up for the winter — but everything else is still outside provoking the weather gods. There is a new work bench to assemble, a replacement for the one that used to live in the basement, before mold turned it into a stinking smorgasbord for pill bugs (who, I’ve learned, eat primarily mold). The front bank needs weeding, again, since we had a warm week last week, and it’s time to cut down the volunteer sumac. I’ve been telling myself to wait for the leaves to turn that lovely sumac red and then cut it down, but I don’t know if we’re going to get much more color.

Two weeks ago there were hardly any colorful trees. Now, after a week of warm sun and then a weekend of blustery rain, the ground is covered in leaves, some of which are still green, and the trees are not. We had a bit of color last week, though nothing like a normal New England show. The drive to work was pretty though. Today, my neighbor’s maple tree looks rather suddenly bare.

Strangely, the raspberries seemed to have taken this weather as an inducement to fruit again. I didn’t even notice any flowers, but now the Carolines are covered in fruit, larger and better tasting than what came earlier. So there is that to deal with — or just leave for the birds. I haven’t decided. There is an old bit of folklore that says berries on the vine after Michaelmas should stay there — because the pooka spits on them in October. And one really shouldn’t mess around with pooka spittle. But I also just don’t want to deal with berries right now, and there’s so much else to do… I could just put off berry picking and processing until the birds or the frost take the tasks off my hands.

Of course, there are the normal weekly tasks to address also. All the more so since the mold cleaning project completely broke my normal schedule. I had to refresh the yogurt culture and pretty much restart the sourdough starter. I hadn’t washed bed linens for weeks, and the ironing pile is embarrassing — it contains many light linen and cotton shirts that probably won’t even be worn again until after the snows melt next year. I don’t know if I can bring myself to just hang them in the back of the closet and iron them when it gets closer to the proper linen weather. But that’s probably what I should do now.

Then, there’s the fact that it’s October — double digit October already — and I haven’t pulled out the fun Halloween stuff yet. My neighbors once again have beaten me to create phantasmic front porches and lawn graveyards. I don’t even have pumpkins. However, I did bring out some paper marigolds for my ancestors altar. And I’ve been playing Verdi’s Requiem and burning scented candles. I also started to plan for Thanksgiving — I want my turkey tree back… it was a family thing… cut out paper leaves and write all the things that inspire gratitude on them… add some orange lights… you get the idea — and I needed to figure out how to get the second leaf into the dining room table — to accommodate more people — and… well… all the furniture was moved. Again.

So I am behind on more than just writing. However, I have the essential things covered now. Clean bedclothes. Fresh yogurt and bread. A really tasty chipotle and lime hummus. And then there’s this:

Roughly ten days worth of a New Mexican version of succotash. Corn, green chile, black beans, potatoes, zucchini, a roasted winter squash and tomato base, and lots of herbs and spices. So while I am not cooking this week — because dinner is already made! — I can address the essay… along with the rest of the teetering to-do pile.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2023