it takes two

we attended the wedding of a good friend of mine this weekend. we used to work together and i used to say that she was the keeper of my brain, or at least my memory and on more than one occasion, my sanity (i should note that the times when it didn't work are entirely my own and not at all her fault).  it was so great to be there to share in the happiness of her day.

it was a gorgeous weekend and she and her new husband looked so relaxed and happy amidst their friends and family. the church was lovely and filled with lilacs and people who were happy for them and children who plugged their ears when the organ played (what is up with organs? they're a terrible instrument). everyone gathered after the ceremony in her parents' beautiful, wide front yard for champagne from her father's own vineyard (in denmark, yes, it's true - and it was good!). then on to a dinner and party that lasted 'til the wee hours of the night. it was truly a stunning beginning to what i am sure will be a long and happy life together.

we stayed with her parents' neighbors, as we were a bit slow (what, me, procrastinate? really?) to book the pension they had reserved and all the rooms were gone by the time we decided we needed one. that turned out to be quite ok, because her parents' neighbors were a couple that knew husband when he was a child growing up in the heart of copenhagen. we had a leisurely breakfast with them in the sunshine before we left, reminiscing over the old times and the people husband knew when he was growing up. it is a small world after all.

but it got even smaller, as it turned out that the groom's parents had worked closely with my father-in-law on his technolution drawings - helping him with the latin names of all of them. husband and i had some nearly-tearful moments talking to the groom's mother about him. it's been more than five years since he died, but we do still miss him. it was very nice to meet someone who had known him and worked closely with him too. it made us both happy and sad at the same time and sometimes those are the best kind of emotions because they're so keenly felt. you feel alive at moments like that, when you are truly feeling something, even if it does make you feel a bit sorrowful.

a little bit weird to run into such connections from BOTH sides of husband's family (his parents split when he was 5) at a wedding where our connection to being there was actually through me, the girl from the other side of the world.

and it makes me think, once again, that we were undoubtedly meant to be. and tho' i shudder at times to think of the chain of events that had to be as it was for us to meet and how easily they could have gone another way, perhaps it's times like this that should make me realize we really were meant to be together. these things can't be coincidence, can they? there must be strong connections binding us - and we would probably have found our way to one another no matter what.

and now, our long weekend is winding to a close. a new week awaits. with new projects and new challenges ahead. but these experiences (and a lot of sunshine) leave us fortified and ready to face it head-on. but first, a bit of rest.

* most of the photos above were taken by sabin.

cooking and evolution

a number of years ago, when my father-in-law was still alive, i sent him an article from the new york times on how cooking had pushed evolution. he was the inventor and first professor of technolution, the study of how technologies have pushed evolution, so i always had an eye out for articles and books that explored such themes. his thinking about the article resulted in the illumination above, which hangs in my kitchen, right near my stove. peter had developed a pictorial language through which he expressed the concepts. all of the drawings have human figures and a circle within a square inspired by davinci's vetruvian man.

harvard anthropologist richard wrangham has written a book called catching fire in which he explores the importance of cooking to human development. peter would have been so interested to read it (he died just after new year's four years ago). what's interesting is that wrangham pushes back the cooking a lot farther in time than has previously been postulated (tho' you can see from peter's illumination that he thought that too). he says that already 1.9-1.8 million years ago, on the cusp between australopithecus and homo erectus, our ancestors began to cook. further, the relationships created around the hearth between men and women were essential for our development into the evolutionary stage we've reached today.

cooking our food, especially meat, gives us quicker access to the nourishment and the energy it brings with it. wrangham argues that our small teeth, small stomach and relatively short intestinal system point to food being cooked much earlier than previously thought. already as homo erectus, we were cooking, he postulates. and it was important that while the men were out hunting, the women were at home tending the fire, so it would be ready when the men returned with the meat. of course, the women also learned to cook roots and things while they were waiting around for the meat to be delivered. i've read only a review of the book, not the actual book, but it's on my amazon wish list for sure and i'm anxious to read more.

interestingly the roles haven't changed all that much. tho' today's men can do some cooking too, it is still a task that falls largely on women's shoulders. and i know that our nightly meal is an essential part of our day, something that mostly i prepare, tho' husband is very helpful in the kitchen. we eat together, as a family, around the table. and although it's much easier on us what with kitchen aid mixers and smeg stoves and such, maybe it's not all that different than our distant ancestors. i do wish peter was here to discuss it.

an intellectual life

today i drove across the disturbingly windy øresundsbro (that's a bridge) to sweden to attend an all-day symposium in honor of my father-in-law. it's the one that upset me so much when i received the invitation a few months ago. i was pleased to see that there is still a glimmer of being pleased that i'm crossing a border to another country, even tho' it's pretty much like going to another state. i do apparently retain some of my former awe of living in europe (to be said to oneself in a hushed tone). but, i digress.

as i listened to a danish architect speak about urban planning and how he has basically lived his life in a reaction to the modernism of mies van de rohe and le corbusier, and a retired seagoing captain speak about regional cultures and identities and a rector of a university speak about the meaning of an entirely new field invented by my father-in-law, it struck me that i am living an insufficiently intellectual life.

how much time do i spend thinking about what makes cities tick? what makes a great urban space a great urban space? and how do our surroundings affect us? what effect will places like dubai have on the people who live there? you might think that i would have no business spending any intellectual energy on such questions, but you would be wrong. perhaps if i devoted more time to these questions, i would get to the bottom of what makes me uncomfortable about singapore's pristine, clean, safe streets.  would i be able to live there and keep my sense of self as i know it? should i even want to? should i be more open to change than that? shouldn't i ponder those questions in a bit more depth?

and the question of culture and identity is certainly relevant for a person who is going on ten years outside the country of her birth. what remains of the culture and identity i grew up with and what has been layered on top of it? and what does that mean to my identity? who am i today because of the things i've experienced. why is it that i can take the piss with sarah palin's cross-eyed flute performance when my adelaide from guys & dolls in the miss south dakota pageant was no doubt no better or more successful? what aspect of who i am today distances me so far from that person that i was that i'm ok with that?

what am i really doing with the chance i'm being given to write about one of the most important industries in the world? 90% of the stuff on the planet is transported by ship at some point and there is an enormous shortage of people to sail those ships. and i'm writing about that these days (when i'm not experiencing a total writer's block). am i doing enough with that chance? i could have a real effect on an industry that's undergoing an enormous change. have i devoted sufficient intellectual energy to the questions before me?

after today, my answer is that i could do better. and if i do, it would make peter proud. wherever he is. and for some reason, that seems really important.

keeping my vibe down

"i am someone easy to leave"

"even easier to forget"

a voice, if inaccurate.

did you ever have one of those days? well, it was otherwise a good day what with the retail therapy and all, but it's definitely been one of THOSE evenings.  

"i'm the one they all run from"

diatribes of clouded sun

someone help me find the pause button

you are all painfully aware of my kitchenless state. however, i was able to begin using my new kitchen sink today, which was a step in the right direction. tho' several times i still found myself taking dishes out to the bathroom. amazing how quickly one learns new habits and has to unlearn them.

all these tapes in my head swirl around

keeping my vibe down

so, inspired by having an actual sink, i bought salmon to cook on the grill. and i bought a mandolin to make a lovely salad of the fennel, zucchini, baby carrots and fresh new garlic that came in my dogme box from årsiderne today. i even went and got salty macadamias from Irma, although i don't even want to think about the food miles on those. i put the salmon in a pan in a bed of lemon, doused it in gorgeous, yellow, local, organic rapeseed oil and an inspire chardonnay blend from spiers (one of my favorite south african wineries--moyo, their restaurant is AWESOME, but i digress) and covered it in the fresh dill that came in the box so it could poach in the pan on the grill. in short, i actually felt inspired.

all these thoughts in my head aren't my own

wreaking havoc

silly me.

"i'm too exhausting to be loved"

"a volatile chemical"

"best to quarantine and cut off"

the kids set the table in the circle.  the sun was shining. the rest of the spiers bottle was chilled and sweating beads of moisture onto the bright linen tablecloth.  the fennel salad and a bowl of tzaziki were on the table awaiting the delicately poached salmon.  

all these tapes in my head swirl around

keeping my vibe down

all these thoughts in my head aren't my own

wreaking havoc

i called everyone to the table. the pan was hot and i had no gloves, relying on my inner chef's asbestos hands, so i set it on a chair that was next to the table.  and before i could do anything, it fell on the ground.  upside down. spilling my lovely salmon into snail trails, leaves and dirt, spoiling the whole thing.

"i'm but a thorn in your sweet side"

"you'd be better off without me"

"it'd be best to leave at once"

initially i swore up a storm, even inventing a few new swear words in the process. to salvage things and feed my family i went down to the grill where you can get quite delicious rotisserie chickens, which we could at least eat with the fennel salad and tzaziki i made.

all these tapes in my head swirl around

keeping my vibe down

all these thoughts in my head aren't my own

wreaking havoc

looking back, i think where it began to go wrong was when we opened the mail and received this invitation to a symposium in honor of my father-in-law that will be held this fall:

he died just after the first of the year two years ago. he was such a special person and we have so many of his books in our home. the invitation has a watermark of his signature in it. and it got me all on the wrong foot. he was very dear to me and made it clear that he loved me and accepted me wholeheartedly into the family. i worked closely with him on his technolution project, translating and editing for him to ensure the english was correct, my translations even being part of his exhibition at the library in alexandria, egypt a number of years ago.

when i ordered the wegner chairs today, it was to complement the first 4 he gave to us. as i photographed my bookshelves yesterday, he was on my mind, as our whole evolution collection was his. i love so much enountering his marginalia as i read his books, but somehow seeing his handwriting makes me realize he's no longer here.

he was a brilliant man. he invented a field of study of which he was the first professor at lund university in sweden. he surely had so much left to think and write and discuss. and i suddenly miss him so much.

but listening to alanis morissette helps me and it's her song tapes which i wove into the beginning of this posting.  sometimes you just have to wallow in your sorrow and cry your eyes out.