Cinq

A five things essay featuring language learning & pizza-making, plus recommendations & links

one
Drought paints crisp patches through the yard, the clover and the crab grass sere where the sun strikes most square. Under foot, seed-heads shatter, and the honeysuckle blossoms have shriveled and gone. The potted ferns and geraniums and calibrachoa need daily watering, and I’m glad I’ve put them on the back porch where I can see them most of the day; otherwise, I would forget. The little potted basil seems to want water at least every twelve hours or droops, ever so slightly.

But the places the shade lingers, the brush springs bright. In every lower-lying seam, a greener thread. The rabbits make their way from one to the other or follow the curve of the hedgerow, where the trees and brush make a place where the grass can rise still lush.

two
Each night, I comb the internet for different iterations of the same guide: Order like a local in a French restaurant; Ten essential phrases for dining out in France; How to decipher a French menu. How to, how to, how to. I run through exercises on an app and cringe at the times I fumble a pronunciation. I roll my eyes at the way my brain thinks that supplying a Spanish word or phrase is helpful. What I do take heart in is that, though the last time I seriously used my twenty-year-old Spanish minor was 15 years ago in a Spanish literature class at Binghamton, that learning lodged itself gratifyingly deeply. So perhaps there’s hope for my French eventually.

Every version of this, for me, is a version of how not to look like a tourist, no matter how futile that must be, given that I’ve got a scant year of Duolingo¹ practice under my belt and can only interact in the present tense—nevermind whatever is happening with my accent, which comes and goes like the weather. And yet, the desire persists: to want to seem accomplished, comfortable, somehow seamless.

I know, of course, that this is futile. The ruse will last until whatever comes after “Bonjour!” as I discovered the last time I was in Montreal. (I can’t help it: if someone says hello in their language and I recognize the greeting as such, I will always try to reply similarly.) And I don’t mind too much making gaffes in the actual moment; this is what language learning is like. Most folks around the world are inclined to be generous and helpful; I’m also not worried about not being able to communicate or get what we need. The 21st century traveler has a lot of resources at their disposal. And still, I’ll try so hard to try to get it “right,” whatever that means in the moment.

All of this in the context of an upcoming cycling adventure, wherein we’ll be navigating small villages along the Rhône River for a handful of days. I can’t wait.

three
Three pounds of hand-kneaded dough becomes twelve individual balls, twelve possible pizzas. While my parents watch, I feed slivers of honey locust my dad has brought me from his woodpile into the fuel pan of the little pizza oven. The flames are bright and eager; they roll across the oven’s low ceiling like unfurling ribbons. Dough after dough stretches in my hands; dough after dough slips with unexpected ease from my makeshift peel. Mozzarella makes sweet, stretchy pools we strew with basil slivers; the edges of three kinds of mushrooms crisp even further under their slivers of fontina and bed of caramelized onion. My favorite—fig and goat cheese and prosciutto—hides beneath a mound of arugula, peppery bright. We make eight pizzas, save four balls of dough for another night, and have leftovers planned. We eat the other five, chasing the slices with watermelon and strawberry pie. The neighbors’ donkeys snort at us from behind their screen of maple and multiflora rose.

four
The blue cream I comb through my hair smells strangely sweet. I reuse the blue vinyl gloves that protect my fingers from the dye as many times as I can, but I despair at everything else: there are blue splotches on the tips of both ears, a smudge halfway up my forearm, and, for the first time, a stray gob on the counter. Though the dye dregs leave blue speckles in the sink that fade only with time, it thankfully doesn’t stain the countertop. In my hair, where the dye is only visible on the gray strands, the color will only last two weeks. What begins as a deep sapphire sheen thins to an icy blue. It’s my favorite shade on days two and three, when the contrast between my naturally dark hair and the proper blue is highest. The tinted strands catch the light, and sometimes, when I’m feeling most whimsical, they seem to glow.

five
The pharmacist was maybe concerned, maybe nonplussed about the fact the needle left no mark. My very recent Covid booster shot, pinched into my left arm, didn’t seem to hurt as much, either, as the other ones. This was the only one without a little bead of blood forming at once at the injection site. But she held the Band-Aid—unwrapped, in readiness—for a while, waiting. I don’t want to ruin your outfit, she said. I’d been wearing a blazer when I came in (because I’d just come from my book talk), with a sleeveless shirt beneath (because I was getting a booster shot directly thereafter), but the day was warm. I could just leave the jacket off, and I said so, as the blood did not rise to the surface and did not rise. I don’t think it’s going to bleed, she said again, and folded the adhesive tabs over the little pad. And then she waited, a little longer, looking and looking, until maybe there was the tiniest little mark—like the heart of a mosquito bite—and she unwrapped a new bandage, pressed it on, gently. There. In case.

A few other highlights²:

• Huge thanks to Sarah Tollok for this in-depth review of the April 2023 Conversation & Connections Conference hosted by Barrelhouse. You can read more about this wonderfully kind and supportive conference in Sarah’s review, but allow me the indulgence of sharing what she said about my session on metaphor:

  The session was a superbly effervescent glass of champagne, bubbly and light at just the right moments but with hidden depths of flavor. It left me with the perfect buzz humming inside of me.

  Sarah’s Bookstories is forthcoming in Spring 2024! Put Conversation & Connections on your September calendar, too, because it’s coming to Philadelphia!

• Rita Chang-Eppig’s new novel, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea, is a rich and marvelous feast for the senses. The narrative, inspired by historic events, is deeply compelling and filled with memorable characters. For me, though, it’s the language that steals the show. Chang-Eppig’s skill with figurative language throws up sparks on every page in ways that are fully connected to the world of the novel and illuminate the protagonist from every angle.

• Some great work at Defector this week, including “How One Dumb Woman Got on HRT in 2010,” by the fantastic Casey Plett, who talks about HRT, trans health care, and process with candor and humor, &, in a completely different vein, a David J. Roth profile of pitcher Noah Syndergaard and his present decline, “Twilight of the Thunder God.”

• In small “This is what it means to me to have made it” news, an attendee at my Tuesday book talk at the Pennsylvania Chautauqua in Mt. Gretna on All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel came up to me afterward to say she heard a podcast about Bea Wolf, the middle grade graphic novel retelling of Beowulf by Zach Weinersmith and thought of me. I gave my talk on J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf in August 2015, and she remembered after all this time! I’m just so delighted to be that person’s Beowulf person.

• Thanks to the amazing resource that is Twisted Threads, I’ve embarked on a new tablet weaving project!

  

  Weaving with silk is the coolest thing.

  I’ve woven a kivrim pattern like this before, but thanks to TT, I was able to customize that draft to make it much wider. Its purpose is presently somewhat secret, but I’m delighted with the way it’s turning out, now that I’ve got my threading in the correct orientation. (Rough going at the start, when it was literally upside down and backwards. But sometimes these things happen, and they can be corrected, and on we go.)

1. I admit some fondness for the owl app. Taking some proper classes is on my to-do list, though.

2. I’m experimenting with new formats/structures for this little newsletter, so if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!