Baker's Alchemy

I used to be a so-so baker, but I've gotten better. Not having to rush really makes a difference, as does changing your techniques a little. I used to be intimidated at the thought of making bread, and my results were edible but not admirable. The texture would be uneven, or some of the dough wasn't quite cooked through. Biscuits were another challenge: mine never rose like I wanted them to. Brownies and cakes were OK, and so were my pies, but the crusts were never really flaky and always a little disappointing considering the effort they took.

I guess I've just gotten the hang of it (except for pie crusts, which I have yet to master). Baking really is a ritual, in the true sense of the word, because it's transformative and in a way "magical." I still get the same thrill I got as a little girl with my Easy-Bake oven, which allowed you to turn out miniature versions of cakes, pies, and biscuits cooked under a light bulb. I'll never forget how proud I was of my first endeavor, a small apple pie that I insisted on bringing to the dinner table for dessert, even though it was only big enough for a single serving. The feeling of creating something that turned out well was gratifying, and I repeat it every time I pull out a pan of biscuits or a batch of gingerbread cookies.

When you have time to enjoy it, working with dough is very soulful. When you spend a lot of time working with your mind, working with your hands is very relaxing. Assembling and measuring the ingredients is the preliminary to the really fun part: kneading and shaping the dough. I always thought kneading the bread was probably the secret to having it turn out well -- and it was the part I had the most trouble with. Recipes only take you so far, and I learned that you have to become fearless in the face of the unknown. Followed the measurements exactly, but your dough is too sticky? The hell with it. Just add more flour and keep kneading until it becomes manageable. It seems like a problem, but it isn't.

And how about those biscuits of mine, which used to be so paltry? I'm using the same recipe, but now I double it, and the biscuits turn out much better. I also use a different kind of flour, which makes them rise more creditably, and if I add more salt than the recipe specifies, it improves the flavor. They may not taste exactly like my grandmother's, but they remind me of hers, and that's moving in the right direction.

It's gratifying to work with the dough and feel it taking shape in your hands, but my very favorite part is getting the dough (or the batter) into the pan. I love cutting out biscuits, which I do with a floured glass. I'm happiest when they're all of a uniform size, but I admit that rarely happens. I usually have one mongo biscuit that results from taking the last bits and pieces of dough and rolling them together into one; it may be twice the size of the others and a little misshapen, but it tastes the same as the rest. I also like rolling up bread dough, sealing the ends, and tucking them under before I slide the loaf into the pan. Looking at a pan of dough ready to go into the oven always makes me feel like I've been making good use of my time.

There's also the unparalleled moment of unmolding a cake or a loaf from a pan. I was taking a Morning Glory cake out of Bundt pan the other day, admiring the way it came out so beautifully shaped, when it suddenly took me back to another childhood memory: that of making mud pies. I used to love to take the tea cups from my little tea sets, fill them with dirt, and unmold them onto saucers. I'd take a moment to admire the perfect shape of my dirt puddings before picking them up and throwing them at the side of the house. That was always the grand finale. Of course, I've outgrown throwing things since I've started working with edible materials.

Yes, it's a little bit of alchemy and maybe a little bit of your own soul that goes into baking. You transform a few piles of dry stuff and a little bit of Crisco or butter into something delicious that didn't exist before. Your kitchen smells great, you've preoccupied yourself for half an hour or so with working to make something turn out well, and afterwards you get to eat. There's really nothing bad you can say about a round of baking, as long as you don't eat everything up in one sitting after you're done.

Losing Paradise, Gaining the World

Depth psychologists talk about the story of Adam and Eve and the expulsion from paradise as an allegory for the birth of consciousness. There's more than one point in a person's life when she experiences a breakthrough like this, and I would say the transition out of childhood is one of them. I was thinking about this after reading Anton DiSclafani's The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls.

The novel tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who has lived a free and happy life with her parents and twin brother on an isolated Florida homestead until a family tragedy abruptly changes everything. At the beginning of the story, Thea is being taken by her father to a camp for girls in the North Carolina mountains and is desperately hoping for a reprieve. She feels she's being exiled and that things will never be the same now that she's leaving home. She's right. It's obvious that something major has created this turn of affairs, but the narrator doesn't reveal it until much later.

Thea describes her home, her family, and her early life in loving detail as the story unfolds. With a wealthy family and a beautiful home, there's not much to trouble her, even with the Great Depression in the background. She rides her pony, roams the family's land with her brother and cousin, and grows up with a sense of security about herself and her world. Ironically, amid all the wild flora and fauna of central Florida, the most dangerous snake in the garden turns out to be: adolescence. A growing physical attraction to her cousin is the catalyst in a series of events that brings Thea's childhood crashing down.

At the camp, Thea experiences her loss of security and happiness deeply and mourns for what's been lost while coming to realize that she can never put things back together the way they were. What seemed immutable -- her parents, her freedom, even her beloved twin brother -- have been revealed as anything but. The gates of childhood innocence have been shut behind her, and Thea has to get by in a new environment, immersed for the first time in a world of strangers.

This novel is really about growing up, the shift in consciousness that is the gift of adolescence (although it doesn't necessarily feel like a gift). It's painful to realize that all things change and that even a paradisaical home must eventually be left behind. Thea comes to see her parents in a newer, more critical light, makes decisions good and bad, and eventually embraces her independence. Refusing to define herself in terms of the guilt that partly belongs to others, she develops an affection for her new life and the people in it and learns to stand outside the judgment of her family.

Thea isn't always likable, but she's courageous and independent. The process of growing up that many people experience more gradually falls on her suddenly, but she adapts. Another theme that this story shares in common with the biblical Fall is the issue of sexual awakening and the burden of guilt that's shifted onto the female. Thea refuses to accept this burden. One of the novel's grace notes is the depiction of Thea's sexual awakening as natural and beautiful in its own way.

While depicting the enormity of the loss Thea feels at having to leave the past behind, the novel also reveals the upside. While the rest of her family seems diminished and almost paralyzed by what's happened, Thea learns by leaving home that there is a wider world beyond and that somewhere out there is a place for her.

I left Florida (at a much younger age than Thea) when my family moved, and I have experienced a sense of loss for that earlier period something like what she feels. I, too, missed the light and the heat and had to adjust to changes that were cultural and familial as well as climatic. Myths are always moving through our lives, taking on the shape of varying circumstances while retaining something constant underneath. Everyone has their own version of this story.

Hestia Meets Zen: The Housecleaning Blues

Housecleaning is one of those things that goes better with music. I used to have a habit of cleaning on Sunday mornings, and I always picked something lively that would add some pep to the proceedings. It was almost fun, too, floating a mop easily over the floors, with a dance step here and there. I still clean to music, and it's even more necessary these days because I have more furniture now, which makes cleaning harder.

We're not talking about a lot more furniture, but it's amazing how it's made dusting and mopping disproportionately difficult. The pieces I've accumulated were sensible: a desk and chair to assist with the dissertation process, a book carousel to organize all the additional books and keep them close by, an end table with a bin for magazines, a floor lamp to shed some additional light. Besides those, I also have a few things that didn't used to be there tucked away in odd places: a boot box in a corner, a shoe organizer under the bed.

I remember when it used to take only half an hour to dust and mop all the rooms. A while back, I was wondering why it now takes so much longer, when it dawned on me that I have more things to dust around. My living room, which seemed so spacious when I first moved in (almost like a small ballroom when empty) now has much less open space, and most of the furniture that needs dusting has books or other objects on it that have to be moved and replaced. Mopping is like running an obstacle course. It's harder to get to the corners; I have to mop around desk and chair legs, move things out and put them back, and in general be more painstaking.

I think of those Sunday morning cleaning sprees with regret. I like my furniture but can see how it's complicated something that used to be easy. When I bought my desk, I remember being surprised at how much space it took up in the living room; it seemed much smaller on the showroom floor. (The delivery man told me this is a common phenomenon.) Still, the solidity of it seemed suitable to the task, and I have to say it has served its purpose as an organizing platform for writing. It's just that I liked my living room better when it had more open space.

I remember joking with friends about buying my first couch. I took it as a sign that I was solidly in the adult middle class and hoped it wouldn't lead to buying a mess of other material goods. One friend said he had a goal of not accumulating more than he could fit into the back of a pickup truck, which I thought was a worthy aim. I wasn't too far off the mark with my own belongings, which I was then able to fit into a 10 x 10 storage unit. It would take something a little bigger than that now, although I realize what I own isn't much compared to what many other people have.

I enjoy looking at modern architecture and interior design in magazines like Dwell, where the aesthetic emphasizes making the most intelligent use of space, especially when it's limited. I like the way designers approach it not as a problem but as a spur to creativity, as if they're constructing a haiku with space instead of words. I was fascinated by a story about a tiny Paris apartment, that, though multi-level, had less square footage than mine. The occupants (who, as I remember, worked in a restaurant) did not have enough room in their minuscule kitchen to entertain, and the bedroom barely contained a bed, but what space there was had been cleverly utilized to the max. A New York apartment, while not nearly as small, was still tight; it nevertheless managed to squeeze a tiny library into a bedroom and a full kitchen partly under the stairs.

Most of these modern dwellings are uncluttered and sometimes even spare in their furnishings. I like looking at shining hardwood floors, tidy kitchens, and streamlined bathrooms, and it makes me realize that having a lot of things is not what makes a home appealing. My preference falls somewhere in between the spare and the full; pictures, books, and objects collected over time reveal personality and make a place yours, but there is a point where they spill over and start weighing you down.

My friend with the pickup truck rule described the living room I had in another apartment as being very Zen-like. At that time, I felt I had very little and thought of it as a nice way of saying that I still had the living room of a college student. He wouldn't describe my current living room in those terms, which is good in one way. It looks more like the kind of place I imagined for myself than what I had then. But I also realize that in some ways simpler is better. I was right the first time about not wanting to get saddled with too much stuff.

If I do someday have a home like the ones I enjoy dreaming over in magazines, experience has given me a handy rule for furnishing it: the "does it make dusting harder" principle. If I can experience the ease of dancing and singing, ballroom-style, while gliding the dust mop across open floors, I'll know I've done well.

Coffeehouse Archetypes

Can architecture and design express an archetype? I'm sure the answer is yes. It's fairly obvious how this works with monumental public buildings like the U.S. Capitol or the New York Public Library, but what about something less ambitious, like a neighborhood coffeehouse?

A coffeehouse I sometimes go to had a redesign this year, so I've had a chance to think about the before and after and the way they come across differently. Before the renovation, the interior was a large L-shaped room with the front counter on the short end of the L and seating all around the walls. Even though students with books and laptops accounted for a lot of the customers, the noise level was high and sometimes rambunctious.

I was told that the renovation would move the counter back and create more room at the front of the store. It did. But somehow, the effect now is of less space than before (to me, at least). Previously, the decor consisted of medium-toned furniture and a few bright wall prints. Now darker tones prevail, and the space is almost separated into rooms by the placement of large pieces of furniture and screens that act as dividers. It's a very boxy arrangement for a cafe.

A barista told me that the design is meant to facilitate studying. I can see how that would work, since the segmented spaces almost have the feel of library carrels and study nooks. What I've noticed, however, is that I tend to feel sequestered if I sit behind one of the screened areas or in the back. For me, one of the pleasures of going to a coffeehouse is the sense of community and being with other people, which the new design tends to dampen a little.

I'm surprised it affects me this way, since I've often wished for a little more quiet than the ear-splitting cacophony I've sometimes encountered there. Maybe the noise level has gone down -- I can't say for sure. But in some respects, being sectioned off with a few other people tends to magnify conversations, fidgeting, and other distractions in your immediate vicinity. Overall, the feeling is a bit blocky, although I'm told a lot of customers like it.

One of the main purposes of a coffeehouse is to foster community and provide a gathering place. Libraries do the same thing, and sometimes bookstores do, too. Many bookstores now try to emulate libraries, with cushy seating and soft lights, and some libraries incorporate cafes, so that they've all come to resemble one another more closely. This may be the first coffeehouse I've seen that has attempted to create a less commercial and more studious vibe. It's a bold design, but I miss the spacious, all-encompassing gathering place it used to be.

I once did some research on library architecture and identified one of its archetypal building blocks as the monk's cell, typified by the many paintings you see of Saint Jerome poring over books in a confined, not to mention cozy, room. A scholar's life is monastic and solitary, and a library usually provides a lot of private space for study. A public gathering place, such as a town square, tends to be open, providing no barrier to conversation and free movement. The archetype there is one of unity. The renovated coffeehouse reveals an attempt to combine both of these purposes.

Maybe I'm zeroing in on this because I've been doing research in the area of individualism and community in society. I don't think one precludes the other, but I can't remember ever being in a room where I felt pulled in opposite directions to the same degree. I think the design was intended to have something for everyone, but I liked it better when the community sense was uppermost. It's now more mazelike and seems to require more maneuvering than I'm usually interested in doing with an iced coffee in hand.

It'll be interesting to see if my feelings about the space change over time, and how the rest of the community embraces the new design.

Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It

Several years ago, I visited the Menil Collection in Houston, where I first saw René Magritte's L'empire des lumières (The Dominion of Light). I was very taken by it. I was one year into my Myth Studies program and had a new interpretive lens for making sense of the emotional impact of stories, images, and art. So when I looked at this painting, I immediately recognized the mysterious interplay of opposites that makes it such an arresting image.

Magritte had a way of fearlessly combining the impossible, or the incongruous. In this painting, it's broad day in the top half of the frame and night in the bottom half. What I thought of first on seeing it was the parallel to the conscious and the unconscious, an obvious Jungian interpretation. 

What I think makes the scene so striking is the lamplight in the midst of the darkness, which focuses your attention on the shadowy region. The bright sky above seems empty in comparison with the layers of light and shade in front of the building, and the sense of depth is emphasized even more by the reflection of the lights, trees, and building (but not the blue sky) in the softly rippling water below the trees. Even within the darkness, there is a lower level of unconsciousness in the mysterious pool, of which we only see the surface. 

There are many opposites in the painting: sky and water, nature and civilization, day and night, above and below. They blend into one another in subtle ways, although the painting seems at first to present two starkly separate realms. The trees reach up from dark roots into the bright blue sky, and the light from the lamp and the window echo the daylight above. The painting almost seems to map consciousness, from the everyday, somewhat vacuous persona to the ego to the personal unconscious to the deeper collective unconscious underneath it all.

I wasn't really planning to write about this painting, and the way it came about was this: I was thinking this afternoon about synchronicity and pure coincidence and the difference between them. That brought up an association with the famous statement that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," attributed to Freud (which he probably didn't say, but that's a different story). That got me to thinking about Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, with its iconic pipe and inscription, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." ("This is not a pipe.") That led me to thoughts of L'empire des lumières, probably for the mere reason that it's also by Magritte and happens to be my favorite.

Back to the question that started all this, about the difference between synchronicity and coincidence: I think they're both real, but I'm not sure I can define what separates them. I would say that synchronicity seems meaningful, whereas coincidence doesn't, but who's to say what meaningful is? Some might argue that there really aren't any coincidences. I'm not sure I'd agree. It's a large metaphysical question, and I don't have the resources (or the chocolate) to puzzle it out at this time. Was it synchronicity that led me to this painting? Or just a rambling series of thoughts?

I don't know, but I do know that Magritte painted a series of Dominion of Light variants, so for some reason the image seems to have captured him. Another interesting fact: Jackson Browne's 1974 album Late for the Sky has a cover image inspired by Dominion of Light, and when you look at it you can easily see the influence. I just discovered that. Apparently, the photo was shot in South Pasadena. Huh, somebody was just talking about Pasadena yesterday. Do you think that means anything????

I would say no. I just watched a video of Mr. Browne singing "Late for the Sky," a song I don't believe I had heard before. I don't know what it has to do with metaphysics, or Freud, or cigars, but I'm glad I came across it. It was lovely.

Out on Monk's Road

A few days ago, I drove west on the Bluegrass Parkway to visit the Abbey at Gethsemani. There was a time when I made this trip more often, and I've been overdue for a visit. The abbey is a Trappist monastery in a bucolic setting down a narrow country road in Nelson County. Thomas Merton lived there, and today it's home to quite a number of monks. They're contemplative, which to my understanding means they emphasize prayer and work and an atmosphere of silence.

The Gethsemani monks are known for their fruitcakes and cheese and bourbon candy. I sampled the candy once at Christmas time, and believe me, it will either clear your sinuses or put hair on your chest or both. They're generous with the bourbon is all I'm saying.

They picked a great spot for a contemplative abbey; by day, they're surrounded by lush fields and soft green hills with little to interrupt the quiet but birds and crickets, and by night they're tucked under a bright canopy of stars. I know, because I used to take my binoculars and go there star-gazing. It was the one place I could think of where it was dark enough to see the night sky and safe enough to be doing it. I used to gaze at the moon by the hour from their parking lot and try to identify constellations and nebulae; the only interference was a rather bright light on a nearby barn.

The first time I visited the abbey, I think I was expecting something more medieval. I was doing the Artist's Way and went there on an artist's date. A monastery might not be the first place you'd think of for an artist's date, but as I interpreted it, I was seeking out new experiences and exploring realms outside my everyday sphere. Certainly, the abbey qualified for that. It was a place I'd long been curious about and floated in my imagination as some kind of mysterious, otherworldly Avalon, resounding with chant and shadowy silences.

When I got there, late in the afternoon of a Saturday in November, I stopped at the visitor's center and spoke to the monk on duty, who had a very round face and glasses but didn't seem particularly medieval. He told me I could visit the church, so I went in and looked around. I might have taken his invitation too liberally, as I went all the way down the nave and around the little nooks at the other end, which may actually have been off limits. When I came back to the seating area behind the little gate, I was just in time to see the shocked face of another visitor, evidently a regular, who crossed herself agitatedly and knelt down to pray with the stiff manner of someone who had just witnessed the breaking of at least eight and possibly more of the Ten Commandments.

I stayed in the growing dusk of that autumn day for vespers, sitting with the other visitors who gradually filled the seats as bells tolled and white-and-black-robed monks came strolling in from various directions to fill the benches on either side of the nave in front of us. To be honest, I think I was a little disappointed with the plainness of the church, which seemed rather starkly white with its unadorned dark wood beams and spartan interior. When the monks began to chant, it was in English, not in Latin, and even the melodies seemed more modern than I was expecting. I was still a little wounded by the silent rebuke I'd received from the pious woman and wondered why I so frequently felt in the wrong when it came to Catholicism, the church I was raised in.

In between chants, there were readings, and as it happened, one of the readings was on fornication, which was mentioned several times. Each time it came up, a few more visitors, all young and mostly in pairs, got up and left in a hurry. The Abbey at Gethsemani is fairly famous, and I'm sure it draws people from all over the world, many of whom are not churchgoers at all. I surmised that these young pilgrims, probably admirers of Merton's who knew of his work with the Buddhists, stopped in to see the place associated with him and got more than they bargained for in the form of an epistle on sins of the flesh. I sat there unmoved. I might have had trespassing issues, but otherwise my conscience was in the clear.

I'm not sure why I went back after the first anticlimactic visit, unless it was because had I noticed the light. After the first time, I usually went directly up to the second-floor balcony, which allows you to look down the length of the nave from on high. You can't even see the monks unless you sit close enough to the front, but what you can see is . . . light -- the way it streams in through the parti-colored windows, like the answer to a prayer or the sound of the word "om." It's very peaceful in the balcony, with that warm light streaming in, and the simplicity of the church turns out to be the perfect backdrop  for watching the light. When I think of the abbey now, that's what I see.

One time, I was sitting up there, lost in thought, when I heard a door opening behind me. I looked around and saw one of the monks crossing the balcony from the monastic area on his way down to the church. He was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a spring in his step, and he smiled at me without saying anything, though his expression spoke volumes. That's another thing that has stayed with me, the joy in his smile.

On my recent visit, as I sat light-gazing, I thought to myself that I should keep my mind open and see what inspiration or epiphany might come to me on one of those sunbeams. I'd been sitting there for a while, thinking about little else but how funny life is, when suddenly I realized that I needed to change a password on one of my accounts at home. Not exactly the kind of thing I was expecting, but when I'm sitting in an attitude of meditation in a house of prayer, and an unexpected thought comes to me, I pay attention.

On the way out, I stopped to look at the walled garden, a simple but inviting place drowsing in the early summer evening. I peeked into the visitor's chapel, where someone had posted a note about praying the rosary. I waved at a pleasant-looking couple I saw in the parking lot. On the way back to town, I passed a young man walking on the side of the road who looked at me with a sort of light in his eyes, a la "Woodstock." I don't know what any of that means, but when I got home, I did change my password.

A Walk in Chicago

I was in Chicago for a few days last week. As often happens in an unfamiliar place, I was tired and a bit overwhelmed the first day. Downtown Chicago is an extremely energetic environment, and it took me a day to get in synch with it.

A lunchtime walk to the Newberry Library on the second day allowed me to get my feet under me. My natural love of walking kicked in, I enjoyed finding my way to the Library (and seeing the inside of it), and the skyscrapers and busy streets that had seemed daunting the night before started to seem exciting and intriguing instead. There was a lot to see.

My last night in town we had a conference dinner, which ended early. I started walking back toward my hotel, but it seemed too early to just go to my room and brush my teeth. I decided instead to walk toward Navy Pier. I was enjoying the views of the skyscrapers lit up against the dusk and the Friday night exuberance in the air. I knew if I kept walking I would come to the waterfront, so I tried to maintain a straight course while staying on well-populated streets.

I eventually came to Lakeshore Drive and was faced with an underpass I hesitated to use. While hesitating, I saw groups of people crossing it from the other side, so I made my way down to it from the street level and ventured forth. Navy Pier, on the other side, was awash with people as I strolled past. I wondered if I should try to get to Millennium Park or if I was going to get caught in the rain.

I asked two women emerging from the park near Navy Pier how close I was to Millennium Park. I walked along with them for a while as we discussed the best way to get there. As it turned out, it was a little late for Millennium Park by then, and I had conveniently but unintentionally (because of the lake shore) walked in a sort of circle so that I was not far from my hotel. By that time my feet were tired, and I had satisfied my impulse for a walk, so I called it a night.

Every place has its own presiding genius, its local gods. I don't know Chicago well enough to say what its gods are. I was downtown, and that's different from other parts of the city I've seen before. I saw glittering towers, groups of revelers out on the town, and beautiful window displays of artfully arranged housewares and home decor. I saw a man playing a saxophone in front of the AT&T store. I saw a homeless family huddled in a doorway. I saw many tourists in a crowded Navy Pier arcade, a glimpse of the lake at nightfall, a young man taking a break in the cavelike service area of a large hotel, a doctor leaning against the reception desk inside Northwestern Hospital, and a pair of young men posing proudly for a picture in front of an underpass mural.

I navigated by prior knowledge of the map, attention to the presence of others, the advice of guides, and my own intentions. I'm glad I followed my hunch that it was too early to go to bed. During the day, Chicago is busy, directed, and purposeful. It gave me a fuller sense of things to experience a more festive but still multi-faceted city as it wound down into evening.