The Kitchen Table Chronicles - Grief really might be a thing with feathers.
TV, Transient teen talk, grief, growing and the Hunger Games.
TV (Severance and White Lotus, I’m late to the party, as usual), film (have you seen Flow?), music and Max Porter books. Also, the Hunger Games
The Kitchen Table Chronicles
Notes on good things shared from the place all the best conversations happen, straight from my kitchen table, to you.
Genuine conversation from the kitchen table - transient teen talk that will be gone far too quickly.
Dinners are a whirl of plans, exams, whose elbow crossed the halfway line, who had what at lunch that day, friend group goings on and articles that are too chaotic for me to even recall. They are an exhausting, dizzying, fun and some times exasperating affair, but I know that their days are numbered and try to make the most of all of it.
Watching
Have been leaning more towards reading this month with the new Hunger Games book being out, more on that later. But first, Stoker with Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman. I’m not sure if this is one of those things that I was expecting something else (a vampire based drama with the title being “Stoker”) and therefore I didn’t love it quite as much as I had hoped to. A second watch might be in order.
The Lighthouse. Sound design was great, visually good too but there’s a scene with a washed up mermaid that just kind of took the edge off the whole thing. Also some things that Robert Pattinson did that I didn’t need to see. Cedric Diggory should not be taking part in such activities. I’d expect it of Edward Cullen I guess, but I digress. Another one that I wanted to love but couldn’t quite get there with, I keep finding that with films lately. I’m yearning for some sort of gothic dark fairytale with an undertone of melancholy and hope. Does it even exist? And then I found Flow.
Flow is not at all what I was looking for, the total opposite in many ways. An animated film with no human dialogue following the journey “Cat” takes following a flood. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was soul food.
Jurassic Park on Friday night because I just needed something that was kind of a fast food film equivalent. I prefer the original to the newer Jurassic World offerings for reasons I can’t quite articulate.
Ladybird. Is there a bad Saoirse Ronan film? Actually, I just remembered the Little Women remake, so yes, but other than that… (Ok, it’s probably not a bad film per se, but I love, Love, LOVE the Winona Ryder / Claire Danes / Gabriel Byrne etc one)
Always late to the party, I have started watching White Lotus and Severance and am barely into either so no spoilers please. Severance in particular looks like it’ll be fun.
Adolescence was something wasn’t it? It feels like there’s a lot of talk about that one in particular and I don’t think I have anything amazingly original to add to that conversation other than the fact that I have often worried about all the usual teen daughter vs older men who want to do bad things narratives, but it never entered my thoughts that people of a similar age were also a threat. I’m lucky in that respect I guess but also, it’s a lot, isn’t it?
On the record player
Chappell Roan. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Why did I not find this last year? Ah, yes. The Taylor Swift obsession was fresh and the Eras Tour presided over all my thoughts as I used it to rehab my brain. TS is still in heavy rotation and my go to pick-me-up, but I have been reaching out to other music again in continuation of picking up / memorising new things. I can’t help but feel that a Scissor Sisters / Chappell collaboration would be disco pop perfection. I’ve also been revisiting a few old friends - Basement Jaxx’s Rooty still sounds fabulous and I can now appreciate the musical influences at play in it that I was oblivious to when it first came out.
I just discovered the soundtrack to The Ballad of Wallis Island and think that will become a favourite over the summer.
Towering on the nightstand (because it’s perfectly normal to have a book stack that looks like The Leaning Tower of Pisa)
The Hunger Games. Sunrise on the Reaping. They (Hunger Games series) are not “fancy books” (i.e works of literary genius), I get that, but I unapologetically like them. This latest instalment did not disappoint and brought me back into reading in a way that I’m hoping I can make stick. I struggled for a long time after the pandemic for reasons unknown and then the head injury didn’t help. Regardless, I’m reading again and trying to give more time to that sort of activity and less to the phone related kind. Paper not pixels is a good reminder if I find myself reaching for something app related.
Max Porter. I have not read two books by the same author simultaneously before but have unintentionally ended up doing this with Lanny and Grief Is The Thing With Feathers. I’ve heard people speak of devouring books but these are ones that I actually want to eat the pages of, lest I leave any stray morsel of words behind.
I think I needed “Grief…” a long time ago when our baby was (still)born, I certainly could have used a crow to guide me through the process of life after death. It has brought up all kinds of thoughts and feelings about all of it, I think grief really might be a thing with feathers. Flighty and wild, able to drift on a wind effortlessly or swoop in heavy and fast without warning. Probably time to deal with some of that stuff (the baby was due 17 years ago today, that seems like a crazy amount of time to be down the road of something and still see it on the horizon, but here we are).
What’s going on in the garden?
Tomatoes, cucumbers and peas are sown in pots indoors. I am possibly one of the worlds most impatient gardeners because it’s been a week and why aren’t they a foot tall already?
Patience is not my forte, but there is magic in watching plants become from seeds.
I am pinching tops off the basil and rooting them in water because I don’t think you can ever really have enough of the stuff. It livens up a simple tomato sauce and is a supreme topping for pizza, similarly focaccia with cherry tomatoes or mozzarella. I’m even tempted to try it with lemon sorbet, I think that could be a thing?
Foods on the table lately…
Salads and tapas style food. Mostly because I can never quite figure out what it is I want to eat and so having a meze to choose from is the perfect option. Also teens who are discovering their own food tastes and identities will always find something to their liking and can fuss-free opt out of stuff they have no interest in.
Pizza - now the clocks have changed it could feasibly be outdoor pizza season if it would just warm up a little more. I got given an Oooni for my 40th and it has honestly been one of my favourite birthday gifts ever. Wood fired pizza cooking is the most satisfying kind.
Soul nourishing
A beach day. I was meant to live by the sea I think and did not value the brief three year stint where I did enough. Sea washing over my feet, sharp cold, brief reprieve, repeat. Watching waves bring their water from who knows where. Wondering what beasties are out to sea a mile or two. Keeping an eye out for dolphins, just in case. The joy in people rarely being sad on the beach. Ice creams eaten feistily before they succumb to seagull or sun.
If you know someone who would like to join us at the kitchen table, invite them!
If you have knowledge of the gothic fairytale film of my dreams please share it! All recommendations welcome, on any of it.
What have you been watching / reading / growing / eating / listening to / nourishing your soul with? If you’ve got something good that doesn’t feature in that list, I would love to hear about that too. Be sure to leave your kitchen table talk in the comments below, conversation very much encouraged.
With love,
V.V