“CHRYSALIS”

 

So I was watching an indie film yesterday by director Dolly Wells about the life of a recluse famous writer as observed (third person) outside her "chrysalis" by an unexpected guest living with her in Brooklyn, NY.  The guest was not quite a stranger - in fact in the story her most recent published novel Good Posture, which also happens to be the title of the film, she had actually written about her when she was just a toddler held affectionately by her mom (her good friend),  and that maternal bond quite stayed within the writer's eye as some high epitome of beautiful love. This child, however, grew up to be a bad cook (she was staying with the famous writer for free in exchange of house chores; her widower dad was in Paris with a new woman and she was temporarily between homes) yet she was clever and artistic and she didn't mind her being around (remember that their relationship through affinity, or otherwise literarily, goes a long way). Her job was to take food up to her room and knock on the door and announce she was leaving the lunch outside on the floor (her first attempt at cooking turned out to be a rubbery pasta and salad greens with a mayo dressing and it was "grisly," although the young teenager would improve de rigueur later in the film). One of the most memorable lines in the film is this: A writer needs solitude as quiet as a womb chamber; art's development is from feeding the pupa into butterfly. 

...

At the farmers market this morning Nida said of the permissions set aside and bagged, "Hey, hey, those are for you!" They're grown in Kula upcountry, and I was a bit surprised about them being around this early in the season (back on the East Coast, or West, they come out December or January; in S. Korea midwinter long), but I was happy to take them - when ripe, which is just about, seeing those blushed orange skin soft to touch, peeling the permission with a pairing knife is like unveiling a miniature sculpture with its sweet juice intact inside for your bite to catch. Persimmons also remind me of a favorite auntie in So. California with a lovely so very So. California backyard garden (meaning so very Mediterranean in visual effect - bluer than blue sky backdrop through topiary trees, fruits and herb beds, marble white tiles). I can see her pruning and harvesting wearing a straw hat with a large brown bow on the back. It is an intimate picture of tending and giving. She loves sweet potato shoots growing in her side bed under her calamansi shrub. She picks the tender shoots and washes them in rose petals water and steams them over the cooking rice when it's almost done. In a bowl she adds tomatoes and persimmons and that's lunch with ginger tea. I am dedicating this beautiful tableau of a beautiful lady who knows her food well and more than that becasue she is beloved. In writing, if writing matters as bountiful divining words for life, then let it be food for this chrysalis - and may poetry come.