Ever play with a Proust questionnaire?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For years, Vanity Fair closed each edition with its own Proust questionnaire of a celebrity, which I always read even when it was my introduction to the celebrity in question.

Turns out Proust merely prompted what became a popular party game and perhaps more.

Still, I’ve found that these can be a fine prompt for self-reflections, especially when I was drafting contributor’s notes to accompany my literary appearances in small-press periodicals.

Here goes.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Being centered in the Holy Now within a circle of those I love and trust.

What is your greatest extravagance? Dining out. Or entry-level boutique wines.

What is your current state of mind? Littered across too many fields.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Actions rooted in a sense of duty or obligation, rather than passion or desire.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Patriotism.

What is your favorite occupation? Deep writing and revision when the act becomes a form of prayer.

What is your most marked characteristic? Serious, with a twist of lime.

What do you most value in your friends? Spiritual warmth.

What do you most dislike / deplore about your appearance? Aging, and all that comes with it.

Which living person do you most despise? Besides Trump and his toadies on the Supreme Court?

On what occasion do you lie? Not lies, exactly, but less than full disclosure under uncomfortable conditions.

The widow purchases the property title

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In a transaction dated December 27, 1859, Elise purchased the property from the Shackford estate heirs for twelve hundred dollars. In addition to Captain John senior’s sons Jacob, John, and William and daughters Esther and Hannah, grandson Samuel Shackford,, and their spouses as the sellers, we find the name Myrick D. Bibber, the furniture merchant who built at the corner of Water and Shackford streets around 1840.

Note that daughter Sarah Shackford Lincoln is not mentioned in this agreement (she died in 1846). In December 1841 she had sold “my right title and deed [?] to the estate of my Father John Shackford, late of Eastport” to William Shackford and Bibber.

In the 1860 Census, the household was enumerated under Elsie’s daughter, Abigail C. Olmstead, 46, dressmaker, personal value $15 or $1,500 — the script is difficult to read. Elsie — or Eliza, as the Census recorded her — was 83 and had a real estate value of two thousand dollars.

The household also had boarders: storekeeper Peter Kane, 21; Sarah Leighton, 72; and Sophia Gleason, 67.

Ten residents in our house would be tight, even if the two ells attached at the time had living space.

An inventory of Elsie’s estate was ordered in August 1868 after she had been declared non-compos mentis and placed under the guardianship of her step-grandson John S. Pierce [Pearce], by way of Hannah Shackford Pearce.

Her death, October 19, 1868, was reported in the Eastport Sentinel as “Mrs. Elizabeth, relict of the late Captain John Shackford, 78 years.” The age would correspond to Elsie’s.

In 1880, her daughter-in-law, Abigail Olmstead, was recorded as age 65 living in the household of her youngest daughter, Mary A. Roberts, 31, in Boston.

The linkage to Fisher Ames Buck and later owners was finally apparent.

That sale was by Abigail’s daughters.

Dreaming of literary success versus the reality

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Working in the thralls of daily newspaper journalism in the heartland was not my dream. Literary fame was. Of the critically acclaimed sort, as if bestseller status would follow.

Whoa, expressing that so boldly feels harsh, yet true. Even so, I did plod away on both fronts.

And now? I’m a survivor wondering what would have resulted if I had narrowed my focus.

I had no idea how crassly market-driven the shrinking book-publishing world was. So much for idealism.

~*~

Still, I pursued, working on my own into the wee hours.

These days, I have the luxury of revisiting my earlier work and wondering just who wrote it. The pages are so unlike what I’d venture today – wilder, for sure, and more profuse, often leading to an Oh-Wow! of admiration. The dross, fortunately, has been stripped away.

That’s been my reaction in presentations at our monthly open mic night here in town even when I’ve veered toward the edge of embarrassment yet still being warmly applauded.

Passages in both my prose and poetry make references I no longer understand but trust to leave untouched, perhaps for others to reconnect.

Writing? It’s like talking to yourself, ‘cept sometimes you have to get up to allow the rest of you to reply.

~*~

Another recent experience has come in assisting a friend to create a remarkable novel, one he finally presented to a literary agent whose thoughtful response seemed quaint, actually – the perspectives of three people in the agency, even though no. Somebody actually has time these days for such reflection?

It really did feel like an earlier era. I was rather envious.

~*~

I’m also recalling another experience after I had returned “back east” and was reading an essay about Snyder, Whalen, and Kerouac in the North Cascades, I felt sharp pain, knowing the lookout stations and High Cascades were so far behind me and the rest of my generation.

~*~

Add to that the fear of being discovered once your early book approaches publication. How strong are you in its potential storm?

Except, that you instead encounter indifference.

~*~

It can lead to bitterness, considering all the years and lost potential.

As for inscriptions at book signings?

Keep the faith!

Share your Light, too!

I don’t remember his name

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Or much else, for that matter.

He was my introduction to philosophy professor, and then a semester of logic.

I expected to learn pithy bits of wisdom but discovered that philosophy is mostly about bottomless questions. I did find symbolic logic enticing, akin to geometry a few years earlier.

He was young, apparently Greek, as I recognize today – that curly hair and beard resembled any of a slew of statues. Rumors were that he was madly in love with his girlfriend and spent most of his nights talking long-distance to her in Europe.

What fascinated us was his clothing, the same cheap gabardine suit and tie and pair of scuffed brown oxfords every time he showed up for class. We assumed it was the same pair of socks and same shirt, too.

The next semester he wore a different suit but only that one to every class.

Later, hearing of his finals question from the previous year, I was grateful I hadn’t had him then.

The question he assigned for the blue-books scribbles was just one word:

“Why?”

Nothing else.

Most of the students labored away, hoping to chance across an acceptable answer.

The “A” grade went to the one who wrote a one-world answer:

“Because.”

And the “B” went to the one who used two: “Why not?”

Applying the Tao of food

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Chinese mystic Lao Tsu, the founder of Taoism, once said, or I think he did, that when it comes to food, we should eat what’s in season and from the region where we live.

Living in a so-called temperate climate, as I have, makes the adage difficult to maintain day to day through a full year, but as a guideline, I’ve appreciated its merits. Besides, it’s not a bad concept to keep in mind when sitting down to ponder seed catalogs and ordering, and then getting the mailings and planting the seeds under grow lights, as many folks do at this time of the year.

Here are some foods as I see them applying. Many but not all are items foodies pay dearly to obtain. Others are the basic reason for gardening – or is the practice itself the reason and any harvest arrives as one more blessing?

  1. Asparagus: I came to love this herald of spring when I was living in an apple orchard. The sprouts grew wild, free for the taking, and glutting out for the month they sprang forth was a delightful challenge. I repeated the celebration with a bed or two in Dover, and do miss those.
  2. Fiddleheads: These ferns are another herald of spring and well worth the expense. We’re hoping to raise our own, as well as asparagus, as we get better settled in here.
  3. Strawberries: Just in time for a few birthdays in June …  
  4. Crabmeat: It’s available if you know where to look, but Betty’s (the best) is available only from late spring to early autumn. Fresh is definitely the tastiest.
  5. Lobsters: Again, year-‘round, but the price does drop as the waters warm. Not that they’re ever cheap.
  6. Blueberries, raspberries, currants, and cranberries: Our county leads the nation in the harvest of wild, low-bush blueberries. Cranberries are a more recent addition at a few farms. Raspberries and currants are whatever we can keep from the deer.
  7. Summer garden abundance: lettuce, sugar snap peas, parsley, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes.
  8. Potatoes: The skins are so tender when fresh, and the insides haven’t yet turned starchy. My, they are sweet and creamy, definitely worth the excuse to head up to Aroostook County, where culls can be a bargain.
  9. Garlic and leeks: We do store these, so the “in season” doesn’t always apply. But they do brighten up what we’re eating through the winter months.
  10. Scallops: Speaking of winter, getting these straight from the fishing boats is heavenly. Those you buy at the market or in a restaurant aren’t quite the same.

Fresh cider and pick-your-own apples, peaches, and pears were things we enjoyed in Dover but haven’t yet located here in Way Downeast Maine. We’re lookin’, though.