Something about a good book

There's something about a good book that makes me float above it all and sink in the deepest depths of the velvet seas of being, where I can feel happiness and sadness or compassion and anger in its organic form. Sentences leave me jubilant and glorious and glowing and beautiful and expressive- and I love writing about this feeling because my skin is gushing and overwhelmed and yearns to be entranced again!

Have you, too, felt this way?
Kindle and other electronic reading paraphernalia offend me; the feeling of a good book can never be substituted. 

Alone

So, I'm alone again and for the first time in quite a while, I feel at peace, but in a haunting, hollow kind of isolation. My family came down to visit for a couple of weeks, and for the allotted time, everything was more than tolerable, it was festive.

I'm not certain if this pale sadness arises from their departure or my future departure. There will be time for adjustment, but it's so real, not an imaginative time frame anymore as everyone is leaving home in the coming weeks. It's strange to grow up and feel your bones expand; it's gaining perspective, but will there be a loss, also? Can you feel whole at home when you return?

I have been sick for a few days and it never ceases to amaze me the capacity of work our bodies undergo to survive-structures so complex and intelligent exists in our flesh! But often, it is the body and the mind who are often at odds; one has an overflowing will to survive, while the other just collapses.

Foods of late.

 Homemade honey in Montreal; living near the water makes me very much want to become Thoreau.

Crepe with nutella/everything marvelous in life

Duck confit; was a bit dry and the salad a bit acidic.

French toast brunch at a little place on St. Laurent; respect for amaretto liquor. Not having air conditioning on a daily basis dissuades you from dining al-fresco, however.

The decor was a bit eighties Vegas, but the sugar container is completely minimalist and smashing.

Also, freshly-made jam! Do I have the ambition to do this at home?

 The shops in Old Montreal are adorable; an array of eclectic merchandise.

the salad with smoked salmon and goat cheese was very homey, like a reunion of produce from a country market.

After Montreal, I developed an addiction to grilled sandwiches and vegan granola bars, the latter probably the healthier. I think this phase passed, but for a while, it looked as if freshman 15 was starting earlier than anticipated.

This was a carb-filled day in Georgetown. I figured I would celebrate.

I would very much like to pass many afternoons dreamily at Baked & Wired, sipping deep coffee and being immersed in a delicious book.

And ice cream, gobs and gobs of ice cream.

So my mother has a mullet now.

I think there was a miscommunication with the hairdresser, or worse...

A Diversion.

Sometimes, when I feel frustrated and sad, I'd think about the new experiences and emotions that await me; then, I feel invigorated and hopeful and happy.

But beyond personal experiences, impersonal experiences also hold their gravity in the world. Have you ever talked to your parents? I mean, not really talked, but just held a mundane conversation about weekends plans or a current event, but in amidst of those words, there appears a vastly different prism where they inject anecdotes about their childhood or beliefs that are foreign to your ears?

I hear then I see every sentence that is dissipated into my environment; I used to love hearing about the time before I was born, about childhoods during the Cultural Revolution, when my maternal grandparents owned a small plot of land with which they planted infinite heads of cabbage or when my father used to save his allowance to buy street noodles.

I don't know if they know I am digesting this information to the extent of which I am telling you now; moreover, I think they like to just express themselves, but every memory and every story alters the world as it exists in your mind; stolid buildings collapse and morph into islands surrounded by salty seas; an earthquake shifts this distant land yet reaches the method in which you interact with those close to you; these sentences contain infinitude.

So, I didn't used to like the color green

but then, I read Atonement.

Pablo Neruda is my hero.

Ode to Salt

This salt
in the salt cellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me
but
it sings
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those
solitudes
when I heard
the voice
of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a
broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.
And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food.
Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste finitude.

Baking Frenzy.

Like Picasso had his red and blue periods, Ruoxi is having her baking period (as her works can be considered masterpieces also, of course). I've downloaded two recipes from 17 and Baking: an orange meringue tart and checkerboard cookies. 

Orange Meringue Tart

(see recipe here)

For the crust:

 

For the filling:

For the meringue:

Checkerboard Cookies

(see recipe here)