Holiday Musings

Hello, chickadees!  Our part of the world is about to get hit with a winter storm that will keep us all shoveling and snow blowing for the next couple of days.  Mr. Magpie and I had plans with friends for the whole weekend, plans involving festive things like horse and carriage rides, holiday fairs, brunch, and long walks.  Most of those plans have been cancelled, which makes us sad, but we are consoling ourselves with a roaring fire in the fireplace and copious cups of tea on the sofa avec les chats. 

All in all, this Christmas season is turning out to be a wonderful one.  I've made a few twig wreaths, including the one above, using invasive vines we had cleared from the property.  No wires needed to make these simple wreaths.  Just weave the vines around the bottom of an old bucket to get started, and then you can finish the wreaths as natural, free-form lovelies from there.  Even better than the wreaths are the driftwood trees that my sister is making.  I will share a picture of the one she made me soon.

I'll be making my Maine Needham candies soon, too.  You can click this post from last year for my recipe.  If you like Almond Joys, you will love these candies made with chocolate, almonds (in my version), coconut, and potatoes.  Sounds crazy, but they taste divine.   

I know I'm partial, but I can't imagine a better place than Maine at Christmastime.  The morning that we went to our favorite tree farm, a light snow began to fall, turning the whole place into a snow globe.  As we tramped through the brambles in search of a tree that "needed us," as Charlie Brown would say, we could hear kids laughing and running through the trees.  Pure magic.  

And then there was the visit to the Holiday Open House at the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals, a wonderful farm where they rescue horses.

I can't imagine Christmas without animals and long walks in wild places.  This Christmas we plan on going for a walk through one of our favorite bird-watching spots, Gilsland Farm.  We've been hearing about a lot of owl sightings in the area, so we're hoping for some good luck.  In our own backyard, the feeders have been visited by all the usual suspects, along with red breasted woodpeckers and lots of Carolina Wrens, which are a lovely tawny color against winter's snow and bare branches.  We've cracked open the autumn pumpkins to share with the squirrels and chipmunks, who have been feasting on them all week.

We are off to a holiday open house tonight to see friends and raise a cup of cheer before the snow flies.  It is bitterly cold outside, on its way to below zero in the next few hours, so I am worried about all the folks who don't have coats and mittens or even a roof over their heads tonight.  Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and warm and dry.  I hope you have a full belly, and I hope people you love are nearby--or just a phone call or a text away.  This can be a joyous time of year, but it can be incredibly hard, too.  May we all be able to give help when it is needed . . . and ask for help when we need it ourselves. 

xo Gigi 

Falling Leaves and Pumpkin Seeds

Happy November, my friends!  My three-month-old MacBook hard drive crashed last week, and it's still not back from the Mac Store yet.  I miss it, but in the meantime, Mr. Magpie is lending me his laptop.  I know I've been promising photos of the house, and they are coming, but delayed furniture deliveries and other hold ups are slowing down progress on the house.  We're loving being here all the same, so it doesn't really matter to us!  For the moment I thought I'd just share a moody late afternoon instagram shot of one of my kitchen windows. 

October was wonderful here in our new neighborhood.  One highlight was a visit from our niece, with whom we built an entire fairy village, complete with street signs, a hospital, school, a senior center--yes, she's that thoughtful a girl--a restaurant, farm, lookout tower, and much more.  I have tons of photos that I'll share once my computer is up and running, but in the meantime, here's one of the fairy houses.  This one's long gone now, as it was one of the first to be eaten by the giants squirrels who invaded the village.

Our lovely dead end street just an hour before Hurricane Sandy hit.  We have wonderful woods for exploring and for gathering fairy village supplies at the end of the street.

The morning after Sandy hit the waves at Portland Head Light were monstrous--beautiful, but monstrous.  We were fortunate to lose just a few tree limbs during the storm.  Our hearts go out to all those who lost loved ones or whose homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. 

As the winds raged around our little house, we nursed a sick kitty (who is now on the mend, thanks to antibiotics) and made Halloween cards. 

And the first Halloween in the house was a good one.  We bought far too much candy, as we had no idea how many ghouls and superheroes would show up, and we didn't want to run out.  So leftover m&m's it is for dessert from now until . . . well a long time from now.  Sigh.  I like m&m's too much for my own good.

Last but not least, I roasted pumpkin seeds this morning from the seeds leftover after carving jack-o-lanterns last night.  The recipe follows below.  More just as soon as my MacBook's up and running.  Thanks for bearing with me, lovelies!



Quick Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

• approximately 2 cups washed and dried pumpkin seeds
• about 5 dashes worchestershire sauce
• a dash or two (or more) of your favorite hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
• about 1 teaspoon cajun spices
• salt to taste
• about 1 tablespoon demarara sugar
• about one tablespoon olive oil.

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl.  Let sit.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Once the oven is heated, pour the coated seeds onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for about 10 minutes.  Take them out, stir well, then put back into the oven for another 5 minutes. Stir and repeat.  I ended up roasting mine for a total of about 25 minutes, but it will vary depending on how wet your seeds are to begin with.  Just keep checking on them and stirring them every five minutes and you won't burn them.  Let cool, then munch away!

A warm welcome to new readers and a big hug to old friends.  xo Gigi

On Teaspoons and the Blue Moon

I saw this weekend's blue moon rise through the skylight of our new bedroom as I rolled a fresh coat of paint over the ceiling's slope.  The radio was playing "Tiny Dancer," and I was belting out my best Elton John impersonation for Mr. Magpie, "Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band . . . ."  My own jeans were spattered in shades of Mountain Peak White (BM), French Gray (F&B), and Palladian Blue (BM).  Every bone and muscle in my body ached from the past week* of painting, cleaning, hauling, weeding, and mowing.  My shoulder protested when I swiped the roller yet again over the ridges in the paint tray, but as I glanced back up at the skylight, the moon stared right back at me.  I shivered.  Suddenly it hit me: I was home. 

And then again yesterday as I alphabetized spice jars and sorted through teaspoons in the kitchen, I felt it.  All around me loomed the chaos of boxes and tables and chairs piled in precarious pyramids, yet I knew just where my favorite teaspoon was.  Somehow this knowledge translated to something bigger; I knew just where I was, too. It's atavistic, this sense--as primitive and visceral as the feeling of sharing a meal around a campfire.  

I've lived many places, but not all of them have felt this intensely like home, no matter how lovely the floors or sturdy the walls.  For a few years before we moved back to Portland, we lived in a beautiful loft in an old mill beside a canal.  It certainly looked like a home, but for us it had become a prison, simply because of the circumstances of our life at the time.  When we had the opportunity to move, we seized it with both hands.  We knew that meant renting an apartment for a couple of frugal years rather than living in our own home, but all that mattered to us was the chance to rebuild our lives, to start making a new home within ourselves.

I believe a place can save you, if you let it.  This city where we met a lifetime ago as students has always called to us to return.  When we finally were able to, we did so with our hearts and eyes and minds wide open to the changes this return would bring.  Have I ever told you Portland's city motto?  Resurgam, "I will rise again."  It refers to the four devastating fires the city has survived, especially the great fire of 1866, which led to the building of Portland's famously beautiful West End.  We have always found that motto fitting for our own lives, and I suspect we are not alone.  This city at the far northeastern edge of the US is a good place for starting over, for rebuilding, and for making an even better go of things a second, third, or fourth time around.

Over the past two years we have revisited our favorite haunts and discovered countless new ones, mentally bookmarking certain leafy neighborhoods as we went. And now we are here in one of our favorites of those neighborhoods, in this little house with its maples and white pines and its gardens full of hydrangeas, lilacs, and nasturtiums.  I know that like anything real and good, home is a feeling that grows over time, but it has already begun to take root, and I think this is the realization that made me shiver as I watched wisps of clouds drift past the moon's surface the other night.

I like that a blue moon is rare.  I like that we must remember to pause and look or else miss it and have to wait years for the next one.  The past couple of years have been a lesson in taking the time to pause and look.  This means noticing the moon rising as well as the sun setting.  It means listening for the sound of a fog horn on a damp night or watching out my window every morning for the baby herring gulls to take their first flight.  And it means searching through the piles of moving boxes for the one marked "silverware," so I can find my way home at last. 

    

*Note: We got to close on the house a week early, so we've been here since the 23rd.

  

Home

Come August 30th, this is the 1937 Cape cottage that Mr. Magpie and I will call home.  We found out on Monday that the offer we made on it was accepted, and we've been scrambling all week to finish the loan paperwork and get the ball rolling on the million and one things that need to happen before we close.    

All that matters to us now, though, is that we've found our little corner of the world, surrounded by gardens and grand old trees.  This is the the third time we've bought a home, and as the old saying goes, the third time's a charm.  We looked at several houses, and bid on a few that we failed to get, but the moment we stepped into the backyard of this house, we knew why.  This was the place we were meant to find.  Yes, I believe some things are meant to be, and I don't question those things.  A little faith can go a long way in a wicked world.  

It feels right to be closing during the same month that Mr. Magpie and I will be celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary.  During all those years, we have called ten different places home, and I've loved each house, apartment, and condo where we've laid our heads, but honestly, I just feel blessed that every night we've had a roof to keep us dry and walls to keep us safe.  Home for us will never be a mansion.  It will always be the place where meals are shared and memories made with each other and with the people and animals we love.  As the English poet Robert Southey wrote, "There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits."

I'll be sharing much more about the house in the weeks and months to come.  It has been a long wait for this place, and I feel like Dorothy after far too long a stint in Oz.  I can't wait to kick off my ruby slippers and leave them by the kitchen door.  

xo Gigi  

I See the Moon (in Everything): My Obsession

Ember Grove

As Mr. Magpie and I were leaving the house last night for our evening walk around the neighborhood, I said, quite casually, "I think I'll bring my camera."  This, of course, is a little like a scuba diver saying, "I think I'll bring my oxygen tank," a fact I realized even as I was uttering the words, and which was confirmed by my husband's uncontrolled laughter.  Many of you know what I'm talking about.  Our husbands, friends, and families have come to accept that dinner won't be served until each dish has been photographed in just the right light with steam rising tantalizingly from the pasta/potatoes/risotto.  They know that any visit to a new restaurant will require shots of the decor, the specials board, the entrees, and the creme brulee.  They no longer bat an eye when we haul out our cameras at greenhouses, antiques shops, used bookstores, and, the big one . . . cafes--for who among us can resist snapping a foamy latte on a granite counter with a pretty heart fashioned from the milk froth?

Angela Adams

I'll come out and say it: I am an addict.  I'm hooked on the click, the frame, the snap, and shutter.  I'm hooked on light and color and control.  That's right, control.  I decide what to leave in, what to leave out.  I decide how bright or dim, how focused, how blurred, how washed out or saturated with color.  Most of all, I'm hooked on remembering moments--flashes of perception and thought and feeling.  A photo brings back smells and sounds and emotions.  It brings back physical sensations: the feel of cobblestones beneath my feet, the salt breeze coming in off the bay.

Squid and Whale Tattoo

Last night, as we made the long loop up the hill and around our neighborhood,  Mr. Magpie waited patiently while I snapped pictures as if our little world would disappear tomorrow.  The thing is, for me it would.  At least this version of it would, this twilit June night under a full moon when the air felt soft and still warm from the day.  The streets were quiet.  Nearly everyone was inside watching the Bruins beat the Canucks for the Stanley Cup.  As I framed a shot of the moon rising over our park on the bay, joyous shouts rose up and tumbled out the open windows of one of the old Victorians on the Prom.  The Bruins  scored their first goal of the night just as I took the shot below. 

By the time we made it home, I had taken 86 photographs.  Just like that.  Nearly half were of the moon.  But then, as I looked through the shots, I began to see the moon in all of them; circles emerged, full moons and half moons and silvery crescents.  I realized then another reason I'm obsessed with photography: patterns.  This fascination also lends itself to my love of writing and of art in general.  I love patterns--the ones I see in a field of daisies, in a well-wrought poem, or in a lovingly designed room.

  

Add caption

And so, it was there in the O's of a favorite restaurant's sign--the moon was in the spoon-- 

and soon, I found it in the patterns of windows . . .

Laura Fuller Glass

in the spectacles (or lunettes as in lune, as in moon) in a favorite studio

in the creamy white of a bloom . . .

Willa Wirth

Willa Wirth

in the display and sign of an amazing jeweler . . .

Otto Pizza

in the pies at a beloved hangout . . .

and strung on a line behind a neighbor's place.

The moon was everywhere at once, and it was up to me to find it.  And that's just it.  Camera in hand, I am both treasure-seeker and archivist.  And the treasure usually lies where I least expect it--in a mood or a color or shape . . . or something else I didn't see at all until I peered through the lens.  

Enchanted Weekend

In the week since my last post, spring has finally arrived in earnest.  There are certain days in May when I can't quite believe that the world can be so beautiful--when trees rain pink petals and the sun, like a  willful child, refuses to set until long past its bedtime.  This past weekend was filled with three such days in a row.

Friday nights are free nights at the Portland Museum of Art, and the first Friday of each month is also Art Walk night, when all the galleries in the Arts District stay open late and the streets fill with gallery-hoppers.  Those are Cheap Date nights for us.  They usually include a slice of pizza at our favorite joint or an ice cream cone (caramel and sea salt for me) at another favorite haunt.

And then there's the fun of the museum.  

I'm not sure which I love more: staring at the art or staring at the people as they stare at the art.  I love to see how a piece engages the viewer.  Certain pieces seem to invite touch or even play.  This is what always makes me a little crazy about museums.  I completely understand and respect all the rules, but I still long to touch!

Once back out on the street anything goes.  We can hula hoop until nightfall, if it ever comes.

Later in the weekend, Mr. Magpie and I celebrated Mother's Day with my mum at her house, which happens to be the house where I grew up.  We spent the day working in her garden and cooking together.  The forecast had called for rain, but we saw nothing but sunshine and blue skies full of impossibly puffy, white clouds the whole day long.  Lucky ducks.

Dinner was mostly grilled outside: shrimp marinated in lime, olive oil, garlic, jalapenos, scallions, and cilantro; new potatoes tossed in olive oil with salt and pepper; and portobello mushrooms marinated and stuffed.  The only things not grilled were the fiddleheads, which my mother steamed and tossed with butter, which is the simplest way to make them, and maybe the most delicious.    

Have you ever had fiddleheads?  Here in Maine they are a celebrated springtime treat.  They are simply fiddlehead (ostrich) ferns that have sprouted through the soil but have not yet unfurled.  Available for just a few weeks in the spring, they are a highly prized find at farmers' markets and local grocers.  You can't eat just any variety of fern, so don't run out and pick some for cooking.  Buy them from a reliable supplier.  Just as with mushrooms, there are certain locals who know where the fiddleheads grow, and they keep their harvesting spots a secret, making these magical greens all the more special to those of us who love their flavor.  To me, fiddleheads taste like spring and childhood, because my memere always cooked them in late April or early May.  She often cooked them with bacon and always tossed them with butter.  Some people serve them with vinegar on the side and others like them with hollandaise sauce, but I'll take them tossed in butter every time.

For dessert, I made a strawberry-almond meringue and sponge cake with cream.  

It sounds over the top, and it is, and we loved every bite of it!

Later in the evening, there was still plenty of sunlight left, and I couldn't resist capturing a few shots of the yard as the sun's rays slanted through the pale green of the trees' sprouting leaves.  

I hope your weekend was every bit as lovely, 

especially all you mothers and grandmothers out there in blogland.    

Simply Bloom

This spring, some of the first trees to blossom in my neighborhood grow just inside the gates of the old cemetery.  I took these shots a half hour before sunset.  What glorious light with which to work, what wonders to admire.    

My City at Night in the Fog

I have been wanting to show you more of where I live . . .

. . . and then the fog rolled in the other night and I knew it was time. 

This place is always beautiful, but late on a foggy night 

something a little spooky, but also quite magical, occurs. 

One senses aspects of the city that are hidden by daylight,

overlooked by the casual eye.

The city's spires reach higher into the night sky

and the trees share some of their secrets.

All the usual haunts become the set of a film noir feature,

and every doorstep glows in the mist.

My city beckons long after the last shops close--

its flowers bloom beneath the streetlights,

and my favorite places 

wait quietly in the dark.

There is color, but it's muted,

and the fog blurs the line between the present and the past

until time ceases to exist

and there is only the cry of seagulls,

the scent of ocean mist, 

and the echo of footsteps down a cobblestone street.