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OLYMPIANS
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
-- the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
Excerpt from "The Map," from Elizabeth Bishop's North and South
As I see it, in the disorganized days that follow the great physical and psychological trial that is Moving House, there are only two acceptable types of eating to do: either abdicating responsibility for health and finances altogether and getting take out for every meal....OR doubling down on both those things with some intensive Francis Mallman-like (or Babette's Feast-like) cooking in your new kitchen.
Oops! It's been a while. Our excuses for our long winter's silence are too numerous to list, too flimsy to be believed and also too real to argue with. And maybe we've been away for reasons we're holding close to our chest (for now).
Coming home with a baby for the first time was a completely overwhelming experience. I hadn't been around one at all since my teenage babysitting days. So there I was, too afraid to let Henry cry to take a proper shower, let alone change into a shirt without spit up caked on the shoulder. And I found myself feeling completely untended. So one vain day, I decided that with the right accessory I might feel more put-together.
Here’s what I know: the simple practice of exercising keeps me from winding myself into the boa constrictor of my mind, it keeps me from falling asleep at the television every time my infant goes for a nap or agrees to be strapped into her rocker. It recalls me back the animal simplicity of my weird self. So without further ado, I present to you my favorite exercises.
"I know the cure for everything: Salt water...in one form or another: Sweat, tears or the sea." –The Deluge at Norderney, from Seven Gothic Tales, 1934
I would trust Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke - or, if we're to go by one her better-known pen names, Isak Dinesen (author of Out of Africa and Babette's Feast, the latter of which I am personally crazzzzy about) - on this one. No doubt about it: salt water, in one or several of its forms, will cure what ails you. Sea salt will also do all sorts of other things, all of them practically alchemical or just plain regular magic.
