"Fourth of July"

"Fourth of July"
Sufjan Stevens

Lovely song. Lovely words. Sad, though. His mother died.

Being Southern

I wonder if it means anything to be Southern anymore. I would definitely say that my grandmother is Southern. My parents are Southern, but to a lesser degree. I can't really say whether I am Southern at all. I grew up here. All my family lives here. We've been in Alabama for close to 200 years, and before that, South Carolina and Virginia.

I grew up here, but I can't say the South had a very formative influence on me. I wish it did. I was more influenced by the secular/modern Western culture that the traditional South loathed so much. I would say that I'm a South-haunted Southerner. The South is this immense but distant thing that lurks in the shadows of my life, with a vague sense of it running through my blood, yet ever just beyond my reach. The South is something I want to understand and redeem and keep alive. But can I pass on something that was not passed on to me? Is this how the South will die?

Flannery O'Connor: limitations?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the essay "Flannery's Kiss" by Mary Gordon (link here), which I initially found in searching for information about how Flannery lived out her celibacy, but stayed for that and other thought-provoking observations, which I recorded in my notepad. Here's one I found especially noteworthy:

O'Connor does not allow her characters to feel the pain of loss. They are denied the experience of grieving. I have often wondered if people are more comfortable with violence than with grief: violence is sharp, clear, bounded; grief can be eternal; it percolates and permutates. Its path is gradual and slow. It's the kind of thing that, as an artist, O'Connor can't do. She's no good at denouement, and she can't do the consequences of an act that follow onto a lived life. It is one of the failures of her craft; a failure unusual in so exigent a craftsman. Her stories, as she says, are romances, in the tradition of Hawthorne. She is interested in the climactic moment, not in the consequences of the climax. She is interested in redemption, but not in forgiveness. Consider the vast tonal difference in the two words: redemption and forgiveness. Consider the differences in temperature. Redemption is a fire that burns; forgiveness is a cooling poultice; it relieves. The sentence "I have been redeemed," is very different from "My sins have been forgiven." The first sentence speaks only of imposition; the second suggests agency. In Catholic sacramentology, sins can only be forgiven in the sacrament if the sinner asks forgiveness. As we all go on sinning, we must constantly be forgiven. Indeed re-forgiven. Redemption took place once in history; forgiveness must be relived. At the end of the sacrament of penance, the priest tells the penitent to "go in peace." This sentence is impossible to imagine in a story of Flannery O'Connor's.

I recommend the whole essay.

Edit: I find the essay more interesting in what it reveals about O'Connor; I disagree with some of the positions and opinions put forward by Gordon.

Saturday Gardening

On Saturday morning I did yard work and some gardening at my mom's house. While the earth was still dewed I took photos.

Yellow bearded iris

Salvia greggii 'Raspberry' cheerfully greeting passing cars and walkers.

I've been on a big Salvia kick the past few years. Salvias are probably no longer fashionable in the horticulture world, though, as they were in the 90s and 00s.

Salvia greggii 'Raspberry'. I got this plant from Petals from the Past a few years ago and it has been very reliable and floriferous. I'm a little skeptical about the cultivar name, though. The one issue I have with Petals from the Past is their sometimes dubious or incomplete labeling.

I took cuttings from many different plants on Saturday. So far, so good; no sign of wilting or stress from any of the cuttings. Some plants, like spicebush (Lindera benzoin), I'm not sure about. I took softwood and hardwood cuttings just to see what would happen. I probably should have consulted my textbooks first. Here's what I took cuttings of:

• Double white Lady Banks rose. (a beautiful thornless climbing rose covered in small, fragrant double flowers in spring.)
• 'Fortuniana' rose. (Another climbing rose, with slightly larger double white flowers.)
• 'Altissimo' rose. (Another climbing rose, with vicious thorns and very large, single, vibrant red flowers.)
• 'Mutabilis' rose. (An antique China rose with flowers that change from pink/coral to yellow as they age.)
• Salvia 'Waverly'. (A tall salvia with spikes of pinkish-white flowers all summer and contrasting purple stems)
• Salvia 'Anthony Parker' (A salvia I haven't grown before this year. Supposed to get five feet tall and wide and loaded with spikes of indigo-purple flowers)
• Mountain mint. (Pycnanthemum muticum. A native relative of true mint with leaves that smell like peppermint and flowers that attract droves of pollinators.)
• Cigar plant. (A plant from Mexico that's loaded in summer and fall with orange tubular flowers that look like cigars - they even have what looks like rolled tobacco leaves, ashes, and smoke coming off one end.)
• 'Gorizia' rosemary
• Scented geraniums, 'Attar of Roses' and 'Old Fashioned Rose'
• Spicebush

That's about all.

Angelic Warfare Confraternity

I'm planning to join the Angelic Warfare Confraternity with a friend next month. We'll go to the Dominicans in Atlanta to be enrolled. I got my package in the mail today.

The Confraternity was officially constituted in 1727 by Pope Benedict XII, though its origins likely date back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and the custom of wearing the knotted cord in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas goes back even further. Here is part of the letter I got with my package:

"In the fierce struggle for chastity, the Angelic Warfare Confraternity is ready to equip you with many graces and helps. It is our eager desire to receive you and enroll you into our sacred brotherhood."

The package comes with the cord and medal, as well as various publications on chastity and the Confraternity.

"Pious Trash" & Catholic Literature

I read the Flannery O'Connor essay "Catholic Novelists and Their Readers" from Mystery and Manners last night. I don't know if I'll ever be a Catholic novelist, but she sure makes me want to try. Check out this quote (emphasis mine):

For the Catholic novelist, the prophetic vision is not simply a matter of his personal imaginative gift; it is, also a matter of the Church's gift, which, unlike his own, is safeguarded and deals with greater matters. It is one of the functions of the Church to transmit the prophetic vision that is good for all time, and when the novelist has this as a part of his own vision, he has a powerful extension of sight. 

It is, unfortunately, a means of extension which we constantly abuse by thinking that we can close our own eyes and that the eyes of the Church will do the seeing. They will not. We forget that what is to us an extension of sight is to the rest of the world a peculiar and arrogant blindness, and that no one today is prepared to recognize the truth of what we show unless our purely individual vision is in full operation. When the Catholic novelist closes his own eyes and tries to see with the eyes of the Church, the result is another addition to that large body of pious trash for which we have so long been famous.

It would be foolish to say there is no conflict between these two sets of eyes. There is a conflict, and it is a conflict which we escape at our peril, one which cannot be settled beforehand by theory or fiat or faith. We think that faith entitles us to avoid it, when in fact, faith prompts us to begin it, and to continue it until, like Jacob, we are marked.

Another:

We Catholics are very much given to the Instant Answer. Fiction doesn't have any. It leaves us, like Job, with a renewed sense of mystery. St. Gregory wrote that every time the sacred text describes a fact, it reveals a mystery. This is what the fiction writer, on his lesser level, hopes to do. The danger for the writer who is spurred by the religious view of the world is that he will consider this to be two operations instead of one. He will try to enshrine the mystery without the fact, and there will follow a further set of separations which are inimical to art. Judgment will be separated from vision, nature from grace, and reason from imagination. 

These are separations which we see in our society and which exist in our writing. They are separations which faith tends to heal if we realize that faith is a "walking in darkness" and not a theological solution to mystery. The poet is traditionally a blind man, but the Christian poet, and storyteller as well, is like the blind man whom Christ touched, who looked then and saw men as if they were trees, but walking. This is the beginning of vision, and it is an invitation to deeper and stranger visions that we shall have to learn to accept if we want to realize a truly Christian literature.

Josef Pieper on Maternal and Paternal Love

Somewhat in relation to ideas I was musing about the other day, Josef Pieper (as quoted from the Anthology) has something interesting to say about the difference between maternal and paternal love:

It has always been said that mothers, as those who love most intensely, seek less to be loved than to love. A mother's love for her children is "unconditional" in a unique fashion; that is, it is not linked with any preconditions. Because of that it corresponds to the deepest longings of children, and indeed of every human being. Maternal love doesn't have to be "earned"; and there is nothing anyone can do to lose it. A father, on the contrary, tends to set conditions; his love has to be earned. But that likewise repeats a fundamental element peculiar to all love: the desire that the beloved not only "feel good" but that things may in truth go well for him. A mature person's love must, as has rightly been remarked, contain both elements, the maternal and the paternal, something unconditional and something demanding.

St. Ignatius and the Moor

A friend told me about this story recently, which St. Ignatius of Loyala recalled in his autobiography.

Shortly after his conversion, the ex-soldier and courtier Ignatius was riding down a dusty road in Spain in the company of a Muslim Moor.  They were discussing religion, and, not surprisingly, they disagreed on a few points.  The Moor angrily ended the discussion and rode off.  As a parting shot, he made some insulting remarks about the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ignatius was outraged.  He thought it might be his knightly duty to defend the honor of Mary by killing the Moor, but he wasn’t sure that would be consistent with his new faith. He left the decision up to the donkey he was riding.  They were approaching a crossroads.  If the donkey took the road that the Moor took, Ignatius would follow and kill him.  If the beast took the other road, he would let him go.  The donkey took the other road.

See more.

Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin

Live performance of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin by Blandine Rannou

The Masculine Genius

The quest for and the perception of beauty. This is an integral part of the masculine genius, yet much maligned in our age both by women (with some justification) and by some feeble-minded men who think they can thereby ingratiate themselves with women. Men can be friends with women or lovers, but no man should ever be buddies with women, especially at such a price. A man who disparages the masculine genius is just as pitiable as the woman who disparages the feminine genius. You want to shake him and say, "Snap out of it, brother!"

If no man ever found Helen beautiful, there never would have been a Trojan War; but neither also would there have been an Iliad. Speaking from my own experience with women, it just doesn't seem that women have a taste for beauty like men. This can be seen foremost in the ways some women attempt to make themselves appear beautiful to men. A woman's beauty resides in her soul and her virtues; anytime she attempts to appeal to a man with immodesty, she appeals to what is base and lustful in man, but not to man's desire for beauty. But sometimes it seems that women don't see any difference between the two. 

(We first learn from our mothers that we are loved, but it is only from our fathers that we learn that we are worthy of love, that is, that we are beautiful. And for those of us who had absent or less than perfect fathers, we learn that more perfectly from our Heavenly Father anyway.)

The works of art women make, too, are often original, powerful, tender, humorous, disturbing, genius, intricate, and often moreso than art made by men, but rarely do I find it more beautiful. (A notable exception, I think, is the realm of the performing arts, at which women excel in creating beauty, and that, I think, because they are portraying beauty from within, rather than beauty in something else). I know I have some female readers. I don't mean to offend by saying this. I'm generally curious whether you agree. 

It follows, also, that women just can't perceive beauty in men like men can. I do not think women find beautiful men attractive. There are other things about men that attract women. As with women, a man's beauty lies in his soul and his virtues. A woman may find a man's soul and virtues attractive, but probably not because they are beautiful, but for other reasons (and there is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly natural). I got the sense, growing up with my mom and my sister, that they were entirely oblivious to male beauty. Maybe I'm wrong, and their appreciation of beauty was deeply hidden, but as they would have had no reason to hide it, this doesn't seem likely. 

This is one reason why I think men need male friends. Everyone needs someone to find him beautiful (women, do you agree?), and men are the ones best equipped for the task. It is a part of man's genius, after all. (And I mean nothing impure or disordered here). In friendship, men show other men that they are beautiful and worthy to be loved, though in our age of suspicions about love between men, this end of friendship is heavily veiled under other pretexts, communicated in indirect ways. In less perverted ages, this was not necessary, as can be readily noted from literature and Scripture. 

But I am curious as to whether I'm wrong about all this. To any women who wish do respond: Do you find men beautiful? Is your attraction to men motivated by a quest for beauty? What qualities do you find make a man beautiful? In seeking female friends, are you drawn to the beauty of woman, or to something else? What makes a woman beautiful?

Hemiparasites

Last year, walking in the woods at lunch, I found an odd plant with fern-like foliage and tubular, lipped yellow flowers. I took photos and noted the location for future visits. It turned out to be Pedicularis canadensis, wood betony, a hemiparasitic plant. What is a hemiparasitic plant? In the case of wood betony, it has leaves that photosynthesize nourishment for the plant, but if you were to look underground, you would see that its roots attach to the roots of another plants, stealing water and minerals and avoiding the hard work of sending down its own deep roots.

Wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis), hemiparasite

Flowers.

Many beautiful wildflowers are parasitic. One of my favorites is Indian paintbrush, with plumes of flowers that look like they've been dipped in bright red paint. I saw large swaths of it on the side of the Interstate last Friday.

Maybe the most famous hemiparasitic plant is mistletoe, though it attaches to tree branches instead of roots.

A few other things blooming on my walk:

Coreopsis

Coreopsis

More white wild indigo.

Weekend Trips: Bibb County Glades, Andalusia, Trappists

I had a busy weekend. Birmingham, Flannery O'Connor's farm, a Trappist monastery. This could be a long post.

After work on Friday, I went to Birmingham for a Courage meeting and to reconnect with a friend. On the way, I stopped at Petals from the Past to buy some perennials to put around my mom's mailbox and to buy some American hollies for my dad (alas, they were sold out).

After Petals from the Past, I went to one of my favorite "secret" places in the world: the Bibb County Glades. Let me tell you about how you get there. The ordeal makes it obvious that, though it is public land, they really don't want just any schmoe going out there. First of all, you go to Bibb County in west-central Alabama, which just about no one has ever heard of (though it is pretty and has many horse and cattle farms and rolling, grassy hills). 

You turn on a county road and go a few miles. Once you cross a narrow bridge, there is an unmarked dirt road on the left amidst dense vegetation. You take the dirt road, which has mud puddles a foot deep and large rocks that you have to dodge. At the end of the dirt road you see a gate and the sign for the nature preserve. 

The "deception" doesn't end here. The trails in the nature preserve take you to relatively-boring (but pretty) areas along the Little Cahaba River. To find the Glades, you have to go off-trail. After going a ways through normal-looking Alabama forest, you begin to see strange plants you've never seen in the woods before. This prepares you for the sight ahead.

Before long, the trees disappear altogether except a few small cedars, and you find yourself in a rocky expanse of field  and slope, a sunlit oasis in the middle of the forest, aburst with blue, white, and yellow wildflowers you've never seen before in Alabama or anywhere else in the world. And that's why they make the place so inaccessible. It's a habitat for many rare plants and some endangered species.  

Bibb County glades. This is Amsonia ciliata var. tenuifolia, fringed bluestar.

The reason why trees don't grow here, and why so many rare plants do, is that the glades are outcrops of a kind of limestone called Ketona dolomite, which contains high amounts of magnesium, which most Alabama native plants can't tolerate. The plants you find in the glades have evolved to grow in this condition.

More fringed bluestar, Hypoxis hirsuta (common gold star, yellow), Minuartia patula (pitcher's stitchwort, white) 

The bluestar is the dominant species in bloom right now. The wildflowers I found are only the tip of the iceberg; the main bloom season has just begun.

On the edges of the glades, in the shade, you find an endangered species, found on only a few sites in Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas: the Alabama croton (Croton alabamensis).

Alabama croton, rare and endangered shrub, though now becoming more popular in cultivation. The leaves have silvery undersides and bright orange fall color. When crushed, the leaves smell like Granny Smith apples.

Alabama croton in the shade.

More of pitcher's stitchwort. I think these little carnation relatives look like baby's breath, popular in flower arrangements. They contrast well against the dark blue Ketona dolomite:

Pitcher's stitchwort

Check out that Ketona dolomite!

I couldn't resist one more photo of the bluestar. There were also many plants I just didn't have any idea about. I'll have to go out there with a guide sometime.

I got so carried away at the glades that I was sure I'd be late to the meeting in Birmingham. Traffic in Alabaster and Hoover was terrible also. Turns out the meeting started at 6:30 and not 6:00, so after I apologized for being late, the deacon looked confused and told me I was fifteen minutes early. Birmingham was lovely as ever.

***

A recent Catholic convert/new friend asked me to join him on a literary/religious pilgrimage on Saturday. We left bright and early, cutting across little towns in central Georgia with imposing courthouse squares and Greek revival plantation houses. We made it to Milledgeville, a former capital of Georgia, and home to Flannery O'Connor for the last years of her life, where she lived with her mother at a dairy farm, Andalusia, a few miles from town.

I had a serious attack of nostalgia at Andalusia. The house looked just as I imagined it, but the farm was much more hilly and forested than I imagined. A close look at the trees, and they only appeared to be 10-40 years old, meaning they probably weren't there when Flannery was alive. The nostalgia set in because of the way the house and land so resembled my great-grandmother's homeplace. The dirt driveway, the moss-covered brick paths, large oaks and the beds of old cemetery iris underneath. The house itself, though larger than Granny's, had the same feel, down to the doorknobs which looked exactly like Granny's.

Flannery O'Connor's peacocks were gone, but they had two new peafowl in a cage out back. Here are some photos of the place.

The main house at Andalusia, where Flannery O'Connor lived.

A copy of the Flannery self-portait. We asked how many of the things were original to the house. Though friendly, they young, college-aged docents didn't seem to know a lot about the details of the place, only giving a vague sense that most of the furniture in the house was original.

Compare:

Flannery O'Connor's bedroom. I noted the books on the bedstand were a Latin breviary, a Bible, and two others I couldn't identify (we weren't allowed to enter the room). Also in the room were her crutches, a typewriter, and a record player.

The house where the tenant farmers lived, behind the main house and to the side.

Inside the tenant house.

One of the out-buildings, but not the large dairy barn. Man, these buildings look just like the ones at Granny's house. And the whole place makes Flannery's stories come alive in a fresh way.

Compare:

Main house, view from the pond below.

Me. The house was pretty big. I love the big porches and high ceilings in old houses.

Compare:

We also explored a little in Milledgeville. We stopped at Sacred Heart parish, where Flannery and her mother went to daily Mass. It was a little Southern church with an intact (though now separated from the wall) high altar and new marble communion rails. A deacon saw us go in the church and came inside to talk with us for a while and show us around. He also told us to go to Flannery's cousin's house, who lives behind the old governor's mansion. She was the first female Harvard Law graduate, he said, and is a tenacious Southern lady in her 90s, who might even speak to us. (She goes to Mass at Sacred Heart). We were on a tight schedule, though, so we didn't meet her, though we did go by the cemetery south of town to visit Flannery's grave.

***

Next we went to the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, about an hour north of Milledgeville, and on the southeast edge of the Atlanta metro area. I don't know why I always thought this monastery was in the middle of nowhere in south Georgia. If I knew it was so close to Atlanta I might have gone before now.

I didn't feel like taking photos of the place, though it was beautiful, and they must make a lot of money because extensive renovations and property improvements were in the works.

There was a lovely magnolia-lined avenue leading to the monastery. I couldn't help make comparisons between this place and the Benedictine monasteries I've been to. First of all, the monks behaved differently. They neither spoke to you or made eye contact, but they would speak to a person if approached. (Perhaps the Trappists have the silence still?) All of the monks I saw were doing manual or menial jobs. Apparently they built the church by themselves, carting wheelbarrows of concrete one at a time. It was hard to imagine how long and tedious that would have been.

The church itself was a beautiful and high Gothic ediface, though images and ornaments inside were at a bare minimum, reserved for the area immediately surrounding the tabernacle, as one might expect from the Cistercians. The walls and columns were bare white concrete, and a simple roof of wood. There were many windows allowing in a lot of light, of blue stained glass of abstract pattern.

We joined them for vespers, which was nearly identical to vespers with the Benedictines, although they did not allow visitors to sit in choir, and we were only able to listen to it without participating.

The front door of the church was a Holy Door for the year of mercy. We saw plumes of smoke from around the corner. I thought it was a charcoal grill, but it turned out to be some rough looking people smoking cigarettes, drinking, and listening to rap music. You can imagine the contrast between solemn vespers in the quiet church and this scene right outside. I'm thinking the Trappists may have been hosting a rehab program. These people looked really rough.

We stopped near Atlanta and ate low country food. It was good.

***

On Sunday I made more cornbread. This time I had a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. I used Alabama-grown stone-ground coarse white cornmeal, which I bought in Birmingham, and a little bit of barley flour for a boost of fiber. This time the loaf fell right out of the skillet, and the barley flour, though only a tiny amount, gave the cornbread a very smooth, almost creamy texture, that contrasted well with the grittiness of the cornmeal. And, I used real Irish butter and bacon grease. The flavor was amazing. I made it a meal.

Fell right out of the skillet.

More on Cicero and Friendship

I have some more thoughts in response to Cicero's On Friendship.

Last time I wrote about Cicero's view of friendship as higher than the natural relations of family because it is not indissoluble. If a man is unfaithful or disloyal to a spouse or relative, he violates the natural law. This makes sense, as marriage and family are necessary for our survival, and that is why these relations are indissolubly bound by blood and covenant, and violated to our peril.

Friendship, on the other hand, is not bound by blood or covenant, but is dissoluble. It is not law and vow that binds a man to be a loyal and faithful friend, but his own character and integrity. This is why those lacking virtue are incapable of beginning or sustaining true friendship. Friendship, being founded on less secure and more fragile parts of our nature, requires greater care and attention, such that only the wise and virtuous can pull it off. Friendship is not, strictly speaking, necessary for survival, but it is necessary for thriving, joy, and happiness on earth; humanity reaching its full natural potential. 

We may no longer value friendship as the Greeks and Romans did. We may think it something lower, on the way to something else, or something temporary and to be used for our pleasure and advantage; a little hobby to piddle around with on the side. (The ancients would not call this true friendship.) Whether or not we value true friendship like the Greeks and Romans, it is undeniable that we are freeloading off of their commitment to and obsession with true friendship. 

It is not an accident that the Greeks and Romans dominated the ancient world politically, culturally, and intellectually, and laid the foundations of our civilization. It is due, in large part, to the extreme degree to which their leaders and thinkers valued and pursued true friendship.

Societies that only have good-will for spouses and kin, but are prone to back-stabbing, deception, quarreling, and warfare with non-kin and outsiders, are societies that remain perpetually tribal in nature. Thousands of years go by, and they survive and pass on many lovely family traditions, spend many nights in the comfort and security of their loved ones, but they never move on to something higher, something that transcends the insularity of their households and private interests, something that unites all of humanity in good-will.

If only we were as noble as these tribal societies, much less the ancient sages! For, we are coming to the point where we can scarcely even pull off marriage and family, much less true and unwavering friendship. It is rarer, these days, to find even a man who has good-will for his parents, children, or spouse, much less a non-relative. We are truly freeloaders on the faithfulness of our forefathers - but how long can we pull off this selfish act before facing the consequences? We already see signs of the degradation of society's structures...

Here's a snippet from Cicero:

[M]ost men unreasonably, not to say shamelessly, want a friend to be such as they cannot be themselves and require from friends what they themselves do not bestow. But the fair thing is, first of all, to be a good man yourself and then to seek another like yourself. It is among such men that this stability of friendship, of which I have been treating for some time, may be made secure; and when united by ties of goodwill, they will first of all subdue those passions to which other men are slaves; and, next, they will delight in what is equitable and accords with law, and will go to all lengths for each other; they will not demand from each other anything unless it is honourable and just, and they will not only cherish and love, but they will also revere, each other. For he who takes reverence from friendship, takes away its brightest jewel. Therefore a fatal mistake is made by those who think that friendship opens wide the door to every passion and to every sin. Friendship was given to us by nature as the handmaid of virtue, not as a comrade of vice; because virtue cannot attain her highest aims unattended, but only in union and fellowship with another. Such a partnership as this, whether it is, or was, or is yet to be, should be considered the best and happiest comradeship along the road to nature's highest good. In such a partnership, I say, abide all things that men deem worthy of pursuit — honour and fame and delightful tranquillity of mind; so that when these blessings are at hand life is happy, and without them, it cannot be happy.

The only thing missing from Cicero, I think, is charity, but he comes about as close as possible, for a heathen, to the Gospel truth.

Yellow Trillium

Some photos I took one morning in the arboretum.

Trillium luteum, yellow wakerobin, wildflower native to Smoky Mountains.

Rhododendron austrinum, Florida azalea.

Rhododendron chapmanii, Chapman's rhododendron.

Aquilegia canadensis, eastern red columbine.

Southern Cornbread

I made some cornbread last night from scratch. I used a Southern-style recipe: no sugar or flour at all in it. The ingredients were stone ground cornmeal, eggs, butter, buttermilk*, baking soda. I heated the oven and melted the butter in a cast iron skillet. Then, after the butter melted I swirled it around the skillet and poured the excess into the batter.

The cornbread separated from the sides of the skillet, but not from the bottom. Thus, it didn't fall out onto a plate when finished. The recipe said this means my skillet is not seasoned well enough (I did that later).

The cornbread was very coarse and gritty, as far as I'm used to, but the corn flavor had so much depth and intensity. It was so savory. It made me really want a bowl of stew, or greens, or black-eyed peas. Mmm. I ended up eating half the loaf last night.

*I didn't buy buttermilk. Instead, I mixed plain yogurt and whole milk at a ratio I read can substitute for buttermilk. Since both store-bought buttermilk and yogurt are cultured with lactic acid bacteria, the result was basically the same.

White Wild Indigo

White wild indigo (Baptisia alba), found in the wild, with thigh-high spikes of white flowers, is a sight to behold. This native member of the bean family, along with other members of the Baptisia genus, have become popular in native and perennial gardens. I'm lucky to have found two Baptisiae growing in the woods near my dad's house. 

(The other is an endangered species, Baptisia megacarpa, with yellow not-as-pretty flowers that arrive in early summer followed by bean pods that look puffed up like balloons.)

I took a few photos of white wild indigo this morning:

Random things and photos

Some random things:

I was on the phone with our financial advisor. He ended the conversation by saying, "Have a good day, babe." Creepy...

***

I've got the Miitomo App, a new social networking app made by Nintendo. It seems like a fun app - very quirky and bizarre, as I would expect from Nintendo - and without the moral outrage and envy-mongering often found on other social networks (ahem!). I only know two people on there so far, though. Here's a "miifoto" I made yesterday:

This was me yesterday morning!

***

I don't know if I've written about my linen towel. I've used it for about four months now. It is super-absorbent; when I dry off after a shower about 2/3 of the towel remains completely dry. It's not as soft as a cotton terry towel, though. In fact, I might even call it "exfoliating" (to put a positive spin). However, it gets softer with each washing, and it dries super fast.

The other day I helped it dry even faster by suspending it over my bedroom window with trouser hangers. It did double duty as a curtain, enabling a nice afternoon power nap.

Linen towel drying in the sun and serving as a curtain simultaneously.

April Ask (62 Questions)

1. What three U.S. cities would you never, ever move to even for the job offer of your dreams? 

Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles. I don't hate them; just don't have any interest in them per se.

2. What combination of fixings makes your perfect burrito?

Rice, meat, salsa, guacamole, cilantro, grilled or sauteed vegetables.

3. What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

Baptism.

4. What is the most thoughtful gift you’ve ever given?

In middle school I painted my great-grandmother's house and gave it to my grandmother for Christmas. She has it framed in her living room.

5. Who is your role model or has had the biggest influence on your life?

Living: a certain friend. Dead (asleep): Gerard Manley Hopkins. Risen again: Jesus Christ.

6. Do you have any nicknames?

Rosco, Bean. Both currently out of use.

7. What’s one thing you wish you had known as a freshman in college?

Wake up early and do all your homework before your first class. Try to schedule early morning classes, and never miss a class. Your afternoon and evenings, entirely free, can be devoted to leisure, exercise, and extracurriculars. College would have been so much easier and fun if I had done that, and I probably would have made mostly As. Oh, and get a job!

8. How many siblings do you have?

One living.

9. Do you consider yourself a morning person or a night owl?

I used to be a night owl. Now I get up early and can't sleep in anymore.

10. How long did it take you to start enjoying coffee?

30.5 years. I started drinking it last fall, in lieu of buying or making tea every morning.  

11. What do your parents do for a living?

My dad is a small business owner. My mom is retired and cares for my grandmother.

12. What quality is your automatic “no way” when pursuing a potential relationship?

Smoking, gratuitous profanity, two-facedness, rudeness to strangers.

13. What are two of your bucket list items?

Visit England. Write a book.

14. Have you ever kept a New Year’s resolution?

No. I don't even make them anymore.

15. Were you closer with your mom or your dad growing up?

My dad when young. My mom later on.

16. What is something you are financially saving up for currently?

A house.

17. Where is your happy space?

The woods, anywhere. Catholic churches.

18. What is your favorite article of clothing you own?

Probably the linen shirt I'm currently wearing, and have worn once or twice a week for the past six years.

19. Do you have any specialty cooking dishes?

I used to make salsas and pasta salads. I haven't done that much lately.

20. What is one job you could never do?

Discounting the immoral jobs, probably dentistry.

21. When is your birthday?

June 27.

22. What is in your fridge right now?

My things, as opposed to my roommates: whole milk, several beers, muesli, bulgur wheat, La Croix sparkling water, butter, a loaf of stale bread that needs to be thrown away.

23. What are you worse at than 90 percent of the population?

Socializing.

24. Do you believe in aliens?

I have no grounds for belief in aliens, since no credible authority has told me of their existence. However, to speculate, I would guess there is some other form of life in the universe. Whether they have intelligence or self-awareness as we think of it, I can't say.

25. Do you think it’s the little things or grand gestures that count the most?

This is a both/and thing. Though, I believe the little things are the most telling about a person's character.

26. Have you ever been out of the country?

Yes. Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Mexico, Canada, and Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Missouri, Kansas, Washington State, and Washington, D.C. if they count.

27. What fact about you surprises people the most?

Oh, I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask "people." Some people tell me they are surprised to learn that I'm quiet. Others have told me they are surprised I'm not quiet. Take that for what you will.

28. What do you do for a living?

Basically bookkeeping and shipping.

29. What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?

Jumped off Chimney Rock? It's hard to say; I'm a pretty spontaneous person.

30. What’s your ideal vacation?

Europe.

31. If you could live in any other U.S. city, which city would you live in?

I don't know about cities. As far as regions, I'd like to try living in the Pacific Northwest. Mostly for the enviable climate for plants I like to grow.

32. What was your favorite family vacation growing up?

St. Augustine, Florida.

33. Are you a big fan of any major pro sports team?

No, I know next to nothing about them.

34. What was your favorite subject in school?

Spanish and English.

35. What are you better at than 90 percent of the population?

Plant identification.

36. If you could travel back to any one point in time what would it be?

Pre-Reformation England. Or, Republican Rome (not as a slave, though). Or, Victorian England.

37. What is the proudest moment or greatest achievement of your life so far?

Converting to Catholicism? Probably the most life-changing, at least.

38. How did you meet your best friend?

He was close friends with one of my close friends. The three of us used to hang out together.

39. If you could be any animal, what would you be?

Cf. past monthly asks.

40. Salty snacks or desserts?

Salty snacks. I don't care for sweet things much, unless they're berry-flavored.

41. What is a family tradition your family has?

My mom's side bakes a chicken on Thanksgiving instead of a turkey, because chicken tastes better, they say. My dad's side used to have goose and Christmas pudding on Christmas.

42. What do you think is the most important life lesson for someone to learn?

Humility.

43. What was your favorite toy growing up?

Legos.

44. Who was your favorite teacher or professor?

In high school, Mr. Thompson, my 12th grade English teacher. In college, Dr. Ponder, a horticulture professor.

45. What is the best advice you’ve received?

"Shut up."

46. What’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

Well, I found a $100 bill on the sidewalk yesterday while out on a walk.

47. What do you feel people take for granted the most?

People take other people for granted the most, I think. That, or time. That, or God's mercy.

48. What do you like the most about (insert city of residence)?

I mostly like the family and friends I have in Auburn. I've lived in prettier, friendlier places.

49. What is the craziest scene or event you have ever witnessed?

I don't know. Maybe the slaughtering of a goat. I suppose I'm sheltered.

50. What is your biggest pet peeve?

The noise made by plastic wrappers, the mouth noises and sound effects to be heard while listening to NPR, the sort of small talk that consists of pointing out the obvious that had better be left unsaid.

51. What was the worst job you’ve ever had?

Cleaning bird cages.

52. What was the last book you read?

Cicero's On Friendship.

53. When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?

An architect.

54. What was something that recently moved you?

The truck that took me to work this morning.

55. What skill or talent do you wish you had or were better at?

Latin. Playing harpsichord.

56. If you just won $1 million, what would you do with it?

Pay taxes, pay off any debts, buy a house, save anything left over.

57. If you had a superpower what would it be?

Reading souls.

58. What are you passionate about?

Catholicism, music, plants, language, spirituality.

59. What is your favorite movie?

Romeo & Juliet

60. Are you a cat person, a dog person, both or neither?

Both and neither. I like them better when they're somebody else's.

61. What do you think is your greatest strength?

I suppose I'm a pretty passionate and sincere person.

62. What is the last vegetable you would ever want to be?

What an odd question. Celery, I guess.

Cucumber magnolia

The cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata) is a large deciduous tree with greenish-yellow flowers, followed by oblong, bumpy green fruit that look like little cucumbers (hence the name). Since the tree is so large, and the flowers mostly unnoticeable, one could argue that this tree is more of a curiosity for the collector than something you'd want to plant as a specimen in a front yard. It is native, however, and if found on-site I would keep it if it were in good shape. This one is growing in the arboretum at Auburn.

Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata) in flower.

Another gem flowering in the arboretum is the Alabama azalea (Rhododendron alabamense). It has white fragrant flowers with a yellow blotch in the center. I planted one in my mom's yard a long time ago and it died eventually. It probably grows best on a high site in moist, acidic soil, and pine shade (that high-light, diffuse shade found under groves of pine trees - the best shade for most azaleas). I planted mine on a lower site with denser oak and sweetgum shade. No bueno.

Alabama azalea (Rhododendron alabamense)

Finally, I couldn't resist a photo of one of the young grancy greybeards they planted in the arboretum. Chionanthus virginicus is also known as white fringe tree, but I prefer the less prosaic common name "grancy greybeard". It's in the olive family and dioecious; that is, each tree is either male or female. Although, some trees have both male and female flowers. The male flowers are more showy than the female, so when buying a tree,  it's best either select it while in flower, or find out whether it is a male tree (Good luck with that at Wal-Mart or Lowe's).

Grancy Greybeard (Chionanthus virginicus)

Pronunciation of Plurals

"Processes," pronounced "processEEZ": plural of the imaginary Greek/Latin chimeric monstrosity "processis." 

"Processes," rhyming with "addresses": plural of the English word "process." 

"Process," being derived from Latin processus, the plural of which is processus, the last syllable rhyming with "juice," and not rhyming with "cheese" in any way whatsoever.

Enough said.

Close to Walking

My niece Lucy is close to walking. She'll be a year old in two weeks. I went over to my sister's last night for my mom's birthday dinner.

She can stand by herself, but needs help taking steps.

She has begun to be shy in the past few weeks. Whenever I see her now, for the first five minutes or so, she'll try to hide her face and puts on a bashful smile.