“It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness”

I toiled over a new recipe for baked Portobello mushrooms the other night, planned the entire dinner line-up around the special dish. But after one bite of the syrupy darkness it became on my plate, Katherine Mansfield’s journal entry bubbled to mind: “It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness.”

Well, maybe not all. Though the mushrooms were a soggy, inedible mess, I did enjoy the preparation of them—the cleaning and chopping and mixing, the fragrance of fresh herbs. I’ve come to the conclusion (again!) that everything is about the journey.

Whatever we do may end up a mush of a mushness, but more important is how we get there—and our mindfulness along the way.


[Art from McCall’s Magazine, via Vintage Gaze.]

My Year of Reading Aimlessly

“I do not want to be a book worm. If its book is taken away from it, the little blind head is raised; it wags, hovers, terribly uneasy, in a void—until it begins to burrow again.”
—Katherine Mansfield

For the past year, reading has been a salve for my grief and a substitute for exploring the world beyond my apartment (doctor’s orders to stay off my feet). I’m not alone in turning to books for spiritual sustenance and guidance. Nina Sankovitch read a book a day a few years ago to comprehend her sister’s death, then turned the 365 project into a best-selling book—Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading.

Unlike Sankovitch, I’ve no best-selling book as a result of my year of reading. And I certainly didn’t match the pace and quantity of her reading. I had no deadline and no specific goal in mind.

Yet I feel changed by my bookwormishness. My grief has lightened, I’ve learned loads, I’ve discovered (or rediscovered) some critical aspects of my nature, and I feel not quite whole but substantial enough to serve the greater good in some way. Though reading didn’t heal me physically (I’m still supposed to stay off my feet), it accomplished remarkable emotional and spiritual feats.

Like Katherine Mansfield, I need to be more than a bookworm now. Venturing forward, my reading will be specifically purposeful: to strengthen and improve my physical well-being, and to advance an animal-related education project for which I’ve volunteered my time. I’ll miss making random book picks at the library, but I look forward to reading for a cause.

Correction: I (almost) ALWAYS look forward to reading. Period. Don’t you?

[Art by Ramón Casas.]

Experiencing A Disconnect

On my reading docket is a collection of Katherine Mansfield short stories. It’s my first foray into Mansfield’s work and after consuming a bit of it, I needed more context. Who was she? Where did her characters come from?

When I was scanning book titles at the library’s 2-for-1 sale, I noticed Journal of Katherine Mansfield and without hesitation scooped it into my stack. When I opened it the other night, this passage popped out: [Caution: It’s funny at first glance, but becomes tragic the longer you think about it. Read fast and don’t think!]

I positively feel, in my hideous modern way, that I can’t get into touch with my mind. I am standing gasping in one of those disgusting telephone boxes and I can’t ‘get through.’

“Sorry. There’s no reply,” tinkles out the little voice.

“Will you ring them again—Exchange? A good long ring. There must be somebody there.”

“I can’t get any answer.”

Then I suppose there is nobody in the building—nobody at all. Not even an old fool of a watchman. No, it’s dark and empty and quiet . . . above all, empty.

Can you relate? I know I can.

[Portrait of Katherine Mansfield by Anne Estelle Rice.]