Beginnings and endings
Welcome to Muse of Fire, a monthly newsletter about literature, life, and ecology.
Is it possible to pinpoint the exact beginnings and endings of things—ideas, friendships, projects, desires? Even pandemics, it seems, are hard to chart with certainty.
We know the meet cutes: seed meets soil; brush grazes canvas; Jon Cusack and Kate Beckinsale reach for the same pair of socks. But the beginnings of things, like the ends, sometimes fade beyond reach, and boundaries are harder to trace when it comes to art and life. We all live our lives in medias res.
I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings and endings this summer: wrapping up years of research; starting new projects; reconnecting with friends. In July I explored new cities, like Durham and Cologne, with old friends, and revisited old haunts London and Oxford, with their long summer twilights.
Today’s my last day of summer vacation, but the saffron-colored monarchs will still be out for weeks. So it seems fitting that today I’m also working on this first Muse of Fire newsletter.
In the coming months, I’ll be sharing musings on literature, snippets of research, notes from the lectern—along with personal updates and pleas for seasonal recipes. My hope is that it will provide a space to think about books—and the worlds they create and sustain—together, with a recognition of the ways that space, environment, and ecologies underlie both the materials and conditions of reading.
Thanks for being a part of this new beginning.
Rolling along
Twelve years ago, I arrived in Oxford to study the fifteenth-century royal pedigree rolls that I wrote my dissertation on; now, I visited them to wrap up my research, to say goodbye to those artifacts. The rolls themselves—several parchment sheets sewn together—stretch across time, from Adam and Eve to the “current events” of their days, the Plantagenet du jour. But they don’t end, exactly: users continued to update them, to keep them current. And, like all archives, they’re selective, suspect, and strategic; they give us a certain shape of the past, while connecting us tangibly to scribes and readers. This is where my works begins and ends, here in the archive, among stiff and resolute parchment rolls, illuminated and stubborn and beautiful.
Summer highlights reel
Long evening walks along the River Wear in Durham with my friend Rebecca. Drinks with friends at the Durham’s Old Shire Hall, complete with Edwardian stained glass; and banquet with colleagues at the Durham Castle, which still has enough artillery to keep out the Scots. Row-boating under the Elvet Bridge (learned that it’s hard to navigate going backwards). Lots of full British breakfasts. Choral serenade about St. Cuthbert’s miraculous otters at Durham Cathedral. Had a massage at Vane Tempest Hall, a smallpox hospital in Gilesgate supposedly haunted by the (friendly?) ghosts of patients.
Helped my college roommate get ready for her wedding in a castle overlooking Cologne; ate lots of Caesar salads (anchovies, please); reconnected with friends in a multi-level German library complete with ladder (think: Belle) and complementary cognac. Drank local Kölsch; stuffed suitcase with those little jam jars from breakfast for my mom. Learned how early “too early” is, even for Germans, to arrive at the airport. Ate German-Turkish-Mexican fusion burritos while waiting.
In Oxford, I slept in the basement of the Christ Church College Old Library; had breakfast in the Great Hall (of Hogwarts fame); found a lemon tree in a secret garden. I caught a Samuel Pepys tribute concert (read: Purcell) and drank cold Verdejo in the patio of a favorite restaurant during a heat wave; and found the best-smelling takeaway market in town. Met my personal angel of mercy, in the form of a London cab driver responsible for getting me from Westminster to King’s Cross 30 seconds before my train pulled away from the station.
What I’m reading
No surprise—I’ve been curled up with books about the Thames Valley.
Dianne Setterfield’s Once Upon a River (2018) begins on the winter solstice in a village pub known for its consummate storytelling. When two waterlogged strangers are pulled from the river, the locals begin to weave their own narratives of these unsettling events. What begins as a fairy tale becomes an exploration of how narrative transforms a community.
Also perched bedside is Penelope Lively’s City of the Mind (1991), which begins with a modernist, tour-de-force description of an architect’s view of London on his daily commute. His heightened sense of the built environment, with its architectural bricolage and chaotic construction, become a way for him to understand his memories and losses. The demolition, survival, and rebuilding of London’s edifices becomes a a metaphor for rebuilding a life.
What I’m learning
I made my first two Instagram reels on Oxford and Durham (if this is your jam, please send me pointers!) and am working on a new website for my editing biz using Elementor for Wordpress (with lots of help).
What I’m loving
Epsom salt foot soaks. The Mets’ winning streak. German raspberry jam (see above), which made it safely back to West Virginia in little jars :)
Wishing you a peaceful summer of long evenings and new beginnings. And let me know what you’re reading these days.