Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

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  • How these alleys beckon

    How these alleys beckon

    Alley in Cassis France. Photo by Susan Palmer

    The narrow alleys I’ve encountered in trips to France and Italy linger in memory, more perhaps than the cathedrals and art galleries and sweeping views. In the particular case of Cassis France, that’s saying something, given the massive capes that rise straight from the sea to surround the little harbor town — a place best visited in the off-est of seasons. The alleys don’t have a “wow” factor. It’s more of an “oh, my” thing, a “nestling in my heart” thing.

    Those European alleys may have some longevity going on, hundreds upon hundreds of years of inviting people in. But the alleys in my little neighborhood in Eugene, the most beautiful among them, just a few steps from my door, could teach a thing or two about the art of beckoning.

    I snapped the picture above on my way to our little neighborhood grocer last week. Something always blooms, and the senses engage: the sound of gravel crunching under my shoes, the aroma, just now, of lilacs. Once in January, a lone rose in a sunny spot had pushed its way through an old fence, coral-orange and almost fully open. Despite all.

    A footpath. The alley says, “Come walk this way.” It’s human-sized and human-paced. The traffic noise from other streets fades. You are here. You are now.

  • She had game

    She had game

    It’s not quite a year since my mother passed. She was such a gift. If I started to talk about her, we’d be here all day. But here are two things.

    That photo above? I snapped it in January 2024 when I visited her. She lived in southern Alberta and that particular week, the temperature had dropped into serious minus zones. That day it hit minus 30 F.

    She was 97. And wanted to check it out. I’d driven up from my home in Oregon and had my emergency gear in the van, including a down sleeping bag. I bundled her up and took her out. I lasted almost two minutes. She was laughing when I took her back inside.

    Second thing: The week before she died, she organized a luncheon with her two best friends.

  • A writer’s long game, stitched a word at a time

    A writer’s long game, stitched a word at a time

    Quarter-inch stitching on a queen-sized quilt. Photo by Susan Palmer

    Oregon author Ken Kesey knew well what practicing novelists learn: Writing a novel, regardless of its quality, is hard.

    Truth.

    I’ve written four. The first one found a small regional publisher and came out to positive reviews and modest success. The second one, with the help of a New York agent, circulated the halls of the big five publishers for a year, got no traction and became part of my learning-to-write novels curve. The third one will be published this year. The fourth one is awaiting a polish.

    I’m speaking from experience, two kinds, not one. Developing long-project completion chops in the real world also builds long-game muscles in creative work. These aren’t separate silos.

    My examples: re-upholstering a barrel chair I love. Talk about terra incognita. That project involved a new power tool. But I managed to keep from stapling my hand to the chair.

    And then there was the quilt. That began with excited-naive me buying a gorgeous hunk of fabric and falling in love with a swirling stitch pattern. Hand stitching the thing took a year. The picture above shows it on the dining room table at the basting stage, the bright red thread binding the cotton batting and the backing fabric together before the actual stitching could begin. It required more than 71,000 individual stitches, roughly a quarter-inch-long (I counted a square foot of it and estimated. Yes. I did. A person needs the data.).

    I wish writing a novel didn’t take me as long as it does, but there you are.

    Finished quilt. Complete. Usable. By Susan Palmer