Muse
Valerie Hadida
My friend told me that if you keep shutting the door on your muse, she will eventually stop knocking. Your muse will find another, more receptive home for her ideas.
Ideas want to be played with and shared. They don’t want to be held captive, squirrelled away in the basement. They need to play in the light of day and feel the air swishing around them.
What is the point otherwise?
Big Pot of Deliciousness
Photo via JuliasAlbum.com (thank you!) - but I didn’t use her recipe.
There’s snow on the mountains surrounding Lake Annecy and white caps on the water. Most of our crew went skiing yesterday and we all needed a hearty vegetarian meal that wasn’t a giant bowl of melted cheese.
This was a huge hit! I’ll definitely put this in regular rotation. You can make this a one-pot meal if you do things in the right order.
Basic ingredients:
Veggie sausages
Onions
Garlic
Tomatoes
Butter / vegan butter
Soy cream
Herbs do Provence or whatever else you have on hand
Gnocchi
Spinach if you can swing it.
I didn’t use a recipe, but here’s the gist:
Brown some vegan sausages and set aside.
Caramelize some onions, then add in some salted butter, tomatoes, garlic and herbs de Provence.
When all that smells good, add soy cream and simmer for as long as you want.
Taste and season accordingly. I added water to thin out the sauce as needed.
Throw in the gnocchi and some fresh spinach (if you have it) into the sauce and simmer until the gnocchis are soft.
Cut up the sausages, throw them into the pot and stir until heated throughout.
There’s not a lot of “freshness” to this meal, so I also put a big plate of crudité on the table which no one said they wanted but everyone devoured.
xo, L
Gift from the Sea
Apparently yesterday was world introvert day, which I didn’t realise because I spent 10 hours writing in my journal and planning the solo trip to Tenerife I’m taking later this month.
Young mothers, I hear your envious groans. Don’t worry! Your time will come. I’ve been where you are and couldn’t imagine peeing alone, much less taking a solo trip to the beach. For now, just read this book: A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, better known as the wife of Charles Lindbergh.
Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gift from the Sea was published in 1955 but it could’ve been written yesterday. It reminds us that the rhythms of life ebb and flow. We are social creatures who need time alone.
Here’s another gem:
The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. [When I am alone] I have shed my mask.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
And this one:
Don't wish me happiness. I don't expect to be happy all the time... It's gotton beyond that somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor. I will need them all.
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh
In any case, your time is coming, my friend.
Until then, Happy World Introvert Day from Letters of Note.
xo, L
One Life
Happy New Year! I have the perfect New Year’s Day activity for you — go see this film!
One Life is the true story of how Nicholas Winton helped save 669 children in Prague on the eve of World War II. Anthony Hopkins plays Winton to perfection, who by all accounts was a quiet, unassuming man who accomplished extraordinary things.
In a world of performative activism, One Life reminds us of what we can accomplish when actually do something instead of just talk about the problem. Winton was a regular guy who did what he could. He was a hero who wanted no part of heroics.
Go see it! You’re welcome!
I saw One Life a few weeks ago at the Made in Prague Festival in London. The Q&A that followed was with the writers, Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, as well as Nicholas Winton’s son, Nicky.
The Opposite is Also True
A woman’s pursuit:
To demand excellence from yourself
but not be demanding of others.
To dream big but
be happy where you are.
To feel big and
to feel small.
Chances are,
your bigness is underdeveloped.
Too full of the truth
“Darling, you feel heavy because you are too full of the truth. Open your mouth more. Let the truth exist somewhere other than inside your body.”
- Della Hicks-Wilson
The Practice of Shipping Creative Work
Some takeaways from Seth Godin’s book.
Reminder: A writer puts words on a page. An author has a point of view.
And this: My heart is not for sale. What I aim to do is to create a piece of work that might help or entertain or inspire. I’m telling a story. I’m not reciting the Walter Cronkite version of my life.
Reduce decision fatigue.
We become what we do. We don’t ship the work because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship the work. Saturday Night Live goes on at 11:30pm - not because the show is ready but because it’s 11:30pm.
Understand that a non-fiction book is a souvenir. It’s just a vessel for the ideas. You don’t want the ideas to be stuck in the book. You want the ideas to spread. Which means you should share them. The more you give away, the better you will do.
Generosity is the easiest way around resistance. Write for someone else and send it to them.
Type when you’re not inspired. The typing will turn into writing and then you’ll be inspired.
Mis en place. Set boundaries, prepare your tools and do the work. No drama. Chop wood, carry water.
Flow is the result of effort. The muse shows up when we do the work, not the other way around.
Ship the work. Improve.
Three Fun Things
This is a great article: My Jewish Charlie Brown Christmas (NYT)
I regret to inform you that my wedding to Captain Von Trapp has been cancelled. (McSweeny’s)
Sophia made me a playlist for my birthday: 52 Songs for My Mama (spotify)
Coco Chanel
Last night - at 4:30pm! - London was cold, dark and rainy. My hormones were totally out of whack and all I really wanted to do was put on my pyjamas and eat mashed potatoes on the couch while watching Christmas movies.
Instead, I performed a small miracle: I managed to get myself all dolled up and went to an event that started at 8pm, which is basically midnight.
I KNOW! I’m an overachiever.
Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto is on at the V&A until 8 January. It’s a truly gorgeous exhibition featuring her life’s work, fashion philosophy and a handful of personal letters.
She was obviously an incredible artist and business woman. But there’s a lot more to her story than meets the eye. Namely, was she pro-German or was she a spy for the French resistance? No one seems to be particularly motivated to investigate these issues….
For example, she had a decade long affair with the (married) Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor. When he finally asked her to marry him, she declined and famously explained: “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Mademoiselle Chanel.”
That’s a great quote. What she didn’t say was that Grosvenor was a passionate anti-Semite.
Wow! that got dark! I hadn’t planned on that tangent, sorry about that. Let me get back to one of my favourite chanel creations: Chanel no. 5.
The iconic bottle was designed to be both masculine (it’s essentially a whiskey/hip flask) and feminine (fragile and elegant). The result is a simple design that has hardly changed since its creation in 1921.
And it happens to be the only perfume I wear… :)
image via hashtaglegend
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Thanks, I guess. A Vegan Thanksgiving
Just a few of my favourite (vegan) Thanksgiving recipes…
1 - Really, this is the best vegan stuffing I’ve made and I’ve made plenty. Don’t skimp in the vegan salted butter.
2 - The New York Times’ famous Vegan Mushroom Make-Ahead Gravy.
3 - A version of this Brussels Sprouts salad. Use your own vegan flare. I omit the parmesan and add candied pecans.
4 - Vegan Pumpkin Pie: Getting the pie to set is always the biggest challenge. I have an Aga, which makes baking times that much more mysterious. Watch it carefully, allow extra time and put foil around the crust edges.
Happy Thanskgiving!
Transfiguration
Today’s poem was written just for me. (And every other woman I know, but mostly me.)
**
Transfiguration
by Kate Baer
I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman
back into a woman
back into a woman
again.
Heavy by Mary Oliver
Luke Knight, We sit and watch. via The Auction Collective
Heavy
by Mary Oliver
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
“It is not the weight you carry
but how you carry it—
books, bricks, grief—
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled—
roses in the wind,
The sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
Doris Derby, Photographer
Doris Derby went behind the scenes of the Civil Rights movement, to capture the everyday lives of women and children.
A parishioner of the Union Baptist church in South Carolina in 1972.
Sleeping children in Rome, Miss., in 1968
Outside a Black-ownded grocery store on a Sunday in Mileston, Miss., 1968
Alice Walker