The Dark Tower Series – cozy does it

I’ve been waiting for a cool, gray day where the seagrass sways and the rose of Sharon bows in the damp and the breeze. The curtains billow at the open windows, faithful spectrals awaiting loves long lost at sea. Come back to me, they whisper, unanswered. I don’t have the heart to tell them.

The ocean’s an unraveled bolt of fabric, pre-hemmed with white and ready to cut, too unwieldy for the machine, too expansive for the hand, destined to sit on the shelf, admired and fading, to inspire projects too elaborate for fruition, aspirations never addressed, dreams destined to remain unrealized.

A freighter snails its way along the horizon line, containers catching the view from the highest stack. “Bon voyage, mes amis!” je dis, “Et merci pour votre service!” I’ve been practicing my French again. Montreal’s this week et je suis un peu rouillée, j’ai peur.

I write at the window, sipping Earl Grey without caffeine, feeling the lack of coffee today, but that’s ok. We cut our demons for a reason, right? We feel the lack of them sometimes, but we must carry on. The golden glow of the table lamps helps to fill the void left behind by coffee’s lack. I savor over-steeped bergamot instead, robust and resonant in flavor. I warm my cheeks, my hands in swirls of steam.

I’m feeling the doubt of sharing a long-form fiction project with a handful of friends a couple of weeks ago now, doubt being my greatest talent, or at least sometimes that’s how it feels. I bolster myself. Have courage; it’s there somewhere inside your head, in your heart, in your gut. Be proud of your words, that collage of letters, chapters, characters built in your mind. You love them and they deserve the chance to be read.

It’s Monday and I’m getting excited for the new adventures this week will bring, the sights and smells and tastes and sounds of a place I’ve never set foot in before. This week, I also anticipate finishing reading a series that I’ve been reading for over a year now.

I went to forty-sixth and second in New York. They sell roses at the market on the corner across from Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. There is no turtle in the fountain, but the fountain is there and I wondered if anyone has reached the tower sitting there in that little urban oasis, tucked away from the fray, somehow in another world. In. Mid. End. Keystone. There’s just one thing left to do. Read. And then I’ll know what it was all for, this journey, this year. And when I’m done, I’ll buy a rose from the market and I’ll leave it on a bench for another adventurer to wonder at. For what is life without wonder? What is life without intrigue and imagination?

Dear friends,

We woke to mild temperatures and a low-lying mist this morning, not so different from the ones that I remember from our past trips to Ireland. Today is St. Patrick’s Day, so it seems fitting that the weather should jog my memory of one of our favorite travel destinations. The clouds have lingered into the early afternoon and the Atlantic is molten steel, capped with cotton.

Feeling culinarily ambitious and craving hearty fare for later on, I headed out to the grocery store first thing this misty morning to pick up the ingredients I was missing for Guinness Beef Stew and Irish Brown Bread. The rich scent of simmering carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, and beef mingle with that of Irish stout, red wine, stock, and thyme. The smells are starting to escape the seams of the Crock Pot lid in thin breaths in a successful effort to permeate the kitchen.

The brown bread’s baking in the oven, adding the sweet dryness of toasting flour into this afternoon’s scent medley. My hands feel soft from mixing and working the dough, something I haven’t done since we lived in Brooklyn. As I turned and folded the sticky dough on the floured counter, I thought of our old kitchen on Union Avenue and realized something. We’ve had our home in New Jersey for five years today.

When we lived in Brooklyn, I had maybe four meals that I would make on rotation, having limited cooking skills and even less patience for meal planning. Irish stew and brown bread was one of these meals and I’m sure we both grew tired of it toward the end of our time in New York. It feels nostalgic now, however, to make it here for the first time. It feels festive and like an appropriate meal to celebrate five years of living in this beautiful place together on this gray, March day.

While working in the kitchen earlier, I also couldn’t help but think of the improvements we’ve gained in our cooking skills over the past five years. We went from cooking tried and true recipes maybe once or twice a week to cooking from an expansive variety of options three to four times a week.

The kitchen has become a space for creativity in our home, for trying out new recipes and having them turn out more than half decent, most of the time at least. It’s a space for surprising ourselves, for building confidence, and for drinking red wine or a cold beer while stirring simmering concoctions in many pans and pots all going at the same time.

I enjoy the sensory experiences of cooking- the scents, the sounds, the colors. My favorite, however, is the warmth. There is the warmth of the stove burners as they glow red, the warmth of the preparing meal simmering away, and the warmth of the oven and it’s golden light as I open the door. Speaking of- the oven timer’s beeping which means the brown bread’s finished baking, so I’ll get back to this post in a moment.

The bread is golden and ugly and rugged, just how I remember it. 🙂

Speaking of ugly and rugged, I resumed my quest for Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” last week, digging in to Book V, The Wolves of the Calla, after a months-long break from the series. This one’s a continuation of King’s behemoth, western-style, adventure tale with his characteristic visceral descriptions and unparalleled creativity for the dark and disturbing. It’s far from cozy though, and I think today is a day to lean hard into cozy, so I’ll take a break from Roland and his ka-tet’s adventure in favor of one of my dad’s recommendations instead, P.G. Wodehouse’s Mulliner Nights.

Just a few minutes more until I can slice into the brown bread and see how I’ve done this time…

Upon post-slice review, I think I could have baked it for five minutes less, as it was a little more crumbly than I remember, but it will do just fine with a pat of Kerry Gold Irish Butter and a mugful of Oolong sips for now. At dinner later on is when it will really have a chance to shine, dunked in savory stew, soaking up all the hearty flavors to make for a delicious bite. Now, I’m craving that cozy reading escape before getting back to work on some fiction of my own.

I hope this post added a little warmth to your day, wherever you are. And to my friends and family who celebrate, wishing you all a very happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you have a festive evening whether it’s out at a pub, listening to Celtic music at home, or indulging in a hearty meal paired with an Irish stout, lager, ale, or whiskey. Thanks so much for reading. I hope you’re doing well. 🙂

Sláinte,

Beth

Tag: The Dark Tower Series

Monday Observations

March Postcard