Accentuate

Back from Boston, where I was reacquainted with my old accent. How quickly it comes back when I am surrounded by family and others who all speak that way! When I was in college, I worked hard to get rid of that accent. It was the epitome of provincialism to me. Now I hope that a fragment will stay with me, a reminder of being born and raised in Massachusetts. Everything can seem to be so blanded out and plain vanilla - franchised and globalized - that a local accent feels like a little pocket of resistance. But it probably won't last. Already my R's are tightening up, getting clearer, sounding more like an NPR announcer. Blah.

The Unconditional Yes closing party was lovely and low key. I had many comments about how sad it would be to take down the living room installation. People quite enjoyed hanging out in there - the transparent curtains created a space that felt, at once, cozy and available. I was quite sad to go too. It was such a stroke of luck that I connected to this amazing community of women. We all sang songs from the Simmons Songbook of 1935, including such hits as "I Want A Man" and "The Simmons Dump" (apparently a reference to the land that has become Back Bay).

Tomorrow we will have our hat exchange as the final piece of House Study/Handmade over at WH. And then I will have about six weeks of relative quiet before Knitting Sprawl kicks in again.

In amongst all this busyness of the last several months, I have been wondering if it is ok to not want more. To be satisfied. Let's see how this short experiment goes.

That Will to Divest
by Kay Ryan

Meaning: once
you've swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept
for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to
divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what
singleness can bear,
once you've begun.