A Moveable Feast

some reading inspiration as the spring revs into summertime

Hello friends! I’ve been thinking of you often as I’ve been moving through the world and collecting data. In my mind I’ve been back to report more recently than I have, but I guess that points to the passing of time in these spring days, which are quickly shifting into summery days. Maybe its both my favorite and least favorite time of the year all wrapped up into one. I love the longer days and the hope of upcoming adventures, and I also feel the closing of a chapter of another school year - even though I haven’t been in school for awhile - the clipping feeling of graduations and endings always sneaks up on me.

I’ve been in a recovery mode since the conclusion of the TWOC tour earlier this month. I think that since I was away from February to May the depth of the beginning of summer is even more shocking to me. It’s almost as if I was on a vacation that skipped the entire spring - although I was living in some other parallel life that still has me reeling a bit from both joy and confusion.

When we were in Ketchum, Idaho, I had the opportunity to visit Ernest Hemingway’s grave. Anne McCue and I both dropped coins upon it and asked for guidance in our writing. I heard him say, ‘Dig deeper into the work.’ His work? My own? I decided I had better review some of his since it had been ages since I read the classics and would probably fail any pop quiz on anything beyond the surface of who I thought he was. So I went for the early and late works by ‘Hem’ - focusing on his short stories (for now) since I’m in a bit of a short story phase anyway. I read ‘The Nick Adams Stories’ and ‘A Moveable Feast.’

A moveable feast, according to Hemingway, is a concept that an event (ie ‘feast’) is a memory or state of being that had become a part of you, a thing that could always be with you no matter where you went or how you lived after, and that it could never be lost. An experience first fixed in time and space or a condition like happiness or love could be carried with you wherever you went in space and time.

I love this concept! There were so many moments in the past few months that count as a moveable feast for me. Sitting in the hot tub outside alone in Ketchum, staring at mountains while snowflakes fell gently and a magpie built a nest nearby is one that comes to mind right away. I was in that moment, taking a mental snapshot, reminding myself to be there - and I think I mostly was… but now it is a part of me. Standing in Patsy Cline’s house in Winchester, Virginia, where her mother lived until she passed in the 1990’s - that was a moveable feast. Staring at the NYC skyline across the East River while consuming a perfect NY Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese - literally a moveable feast. Staying centered and grounded when things got hard on the tour but standing up for what I believed in a moment while walking along the Mississippi River - a moveable feast in itself.

In Ketchum Idaho, where Hemingway is buried

I think we have many of these in life - they are memories but they are more than that. How to categorize them and keep track of the feeling is what I’m interested in. Ironically, Hem never mentions the phrase ‘a moveable feast’ anywhere in the collection of writings, which were published posthumously in 1964. Would he have approved of the final selections or the extended version that came out later? We’ll never know. But I’m grateful to have gotten to know him better - and at a time when I really needed to.

A few favorite quotes:

‘I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again…you belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.’

‘Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan. I did not know it was too early for that because I did not know Paris well enough.’

‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’

‘There are so many sorts of hunger. In the spring there are more. But that’s gone now. Memory is hunger.’

‘This book is fiction but there is always a change that such a work of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.’

So many more good ones, but that’s enough quoting for today. I am inspired by the truth in his writing. It’s refreshing to me and so believable - even if it is fictionalized (or not) clearly he is IN THERE. That’s what is so fun about writing (either songwriting or prose or poetry or whatever your medium is - even painting!) The creator cannot help but be in there - showing a vulnerable part of themselves to the reader/listener. When I love something the most it is because I, as the consumer, can also find myself in there - as if the piece was written for me. I think Hem does a great job of this in a great deal of his work. Some of it is also not for me, and I am ok with that.

What are you reading or consuming right now that resonates with your own experience?

A book I am reading right now is ‘Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Childfree Life’ by Maria Coffey. It’s a memoir published this past fall. It is both surprising and satisfying and relatable all at once. Coffey is reflecting later in life on the adventurous life she and her husband Dag led and how so so frequently she was questioned ALL OVER THE WORLD why she didn’t have children. Many of her reasons are so loving and the dilemmas she faced with this decision in the 1980’s and 1990’s are not that different than the issues that are still being projected at women who are childless. It’s a great read even if you decided to have kids.

Well, I am off to a fun filled day of music so I must go but I am delighted you made it this far on my book reports. I am grateful for you! Thank you thank you love mp