INHERITED HABITS

My mom and my dad's sister, my Aunt Mary Rowe, were great communicators. They would write a pithy quote on their letters and cards to each other and other relatives as well. I expect I've inherited their love of these short little quips of wisdom or humor.  With the Corona Virus and sequestering, I've found I do not have more time than usual. But I do more things that I like to do in the time I do have. So, here are some words from ages:

Well, first, a word of wisdom from me:  Don't do business with AT&T if you can avoid it. They have to be one of the worst companies for customer service.

Now, to the greats:

No man can conform his faith
to the dictates of another.
The life and essence of religion
consists in the internal
persuasion or belief of the mind

                   Thomas Jefferson, 1819

That woman tempted me,
And she tempts me still.
I pray to God,
She always will!

                  Perhaps the author (unk.) was fearful to sign it.

Life is short, live it!
Love is rare, grab it!
Anger is bad, dump it!
Fear is awful, face it!
Memories are sweet, cherish them!

                  Another unknown author but
                  a great quote.

Anything too stupid to be said, is sung.

                  Voltaire  (1694-1778)

Last words of a dying Pancho Villa:

Don't let it end like this,
Tell them I said something-  (1877-1923)

This is lousy weather for a wedding toast
but then it is lousy weather for just about anything.
It poured rain, ceaselessly all day.

Here is to the Bride
May you always have diamonds on your fingers
and knock-you-dead-destroy-the-paycheck
dresses to wear.
Here is to the Groom
May you have an indestructible paycheck.





 

FROM THE ASHES.

Driving home from Oregon yesterday took seven and a-half hours. As I rolled into the county, local radio announced a burn of 450 acres near Mountain Ranch, the area that took the brunt of the Butte Fire. The Butte Fire is considered the worst for home losses in the state from a single fire.
The day before I left, I managed a quick trip to the local Arts Council Gallery for a look at their exhibit entitled History From The Ashes.
There is no joy in picking up cherished or simply common objects from your burned out property. Mostly sadness, tears and awe that anything recognizable survived the conflagration.

We know art is healing. And there is something about picking through the ashes that must be common to all of us. I watched on television as folks did just that after Katrina. The flood, destroyed as completely as fire.
When my house burned to the ground in Michigan, I remember finding  my melted marbles and my mother's  jar full of precious coins. The wafts of smoke coming from the ashes, the strong smell, the bent bed springs and melted cook stove didn't make me give up hope that I might find a heart shaped plastic locket my grandmother gave me that contained a tiny rosary. Of course, it couldn't possibly survive, but my 8 year self believed in miracles.

Items found, were given an artful setting of remembrance.

Or put together to form a sculpture or a mobile.

One survivor made a fabric wall hanging, with burned out spars of trees surrounded by wild flowers. A reality, wild flowers, rain fed, follow a burn.

Dead bushes and trees amid new grass on this canvas.

You can see my face reflected in the glass covering a spectacular photo by John Slot of the borate bomber releasing its chemical fire retardant.

And this photo by Katie Clark of a partially burned home with a surviving flag.

The most spectacular piece in the show is this shawl, positioned like an effigy with burned offerings at its feet. The shawl was made from the ties that bound hay bales distributed to land owners. Hay spread on bare ground, an effort to help prevent erosion. This artist washed and dyed the pieces. She softened them enough for weaving and wove this shawl.
It is a good feeling that something pretty, or remembered or useful rises from the ashes of despair and we can all see through to their recovery and healing, as art surpasses the ashes.

A DOORBELL STIRS MEMORIES.

The UPS guy came to my door yesterday and said, "That is the neatest doorbell I've ever seen!" I was slightly dumbfounded that anyone would even notice my doorbell.


What I like about it is that if you actually ring it, which most people don't, it really clangs loudly and I can hear it from anywhere in the house. I explained to him that it is a replica of a San Francisco cable car bell that signaled "all aboard" and impending stops. We bought it years ago in honor of my husband's father who worked the cable cars as a gripman when he was a young man. Of course, we heard all about it from the source, how when the street car is free wheeling down one of those steep hills, the gripman had to use his great strength to keep the giant clamp on the cable to make sure it didn't careen out of control, and release the cable when it approached it's stop, along with the applying the brake to keep it from jolting people off the car.  The cable moves continuously under the street and the car is attached and unattached as it makes it's route.

The guy was amazed at the mechanics of the cable cars and how it worked. I immediately went outside and cleaned it up a bit. It has a big stain from a wayward bird "dropping" by, and the door, has a few dings and has seen better days.  His son,  George, rode the street cars free to school, a San Francisco tradition for school children, but Gus would let him ride free on non-school days, something MY parents would never have done. Gus would smile and rub his hair and say "Com'on Chachi". He loved his only child with unabashed displays of affection, even as an adult.
Strange what memories a simple comment about a doorbell can engender. It left me with warm feelings all day as I thought back on those days.

ANNIVERSARIES OF THE HEART.

I love this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It really suits my feelings at the end of a year. I miss those family members gone, and as I go through the rituals of Christmas and the new year, I think of them, little memories tickle in, mostly sweet, some regrets. And, I appreciate the sentiment of "anniversaries of the heart." Here then, the poem. And, a ritual my mother and I shared for more years than I can remember.

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;—
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;—a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.


My mother was a hard-working person, who tried to make everyone's dreams come true at Christmas. She cooked enough on Christmas to practically keep all of us full until the New Year. An early riser, she would get up before everyone and savor those early morning moments with her first cup of coffee and the crossword puzzle from the morning paper. Other than that, she rarely took time off for herself, but the week between Christmas and New Years was hers. She'd set up the card table and begin a jigsaw puzzle. Anyone and everyone could take part. If someone dropped in, she would engage them in the puzzle. Time floats away as you concentrate on working a puzzle and she chose them to be challenging. Then on New Year's day, the puzzle finished, we took down the tree and put the ornaments away.

I kept that ritual going in my home after she died but then, somewhere, I stopped working puzzles. And this year, for the first time, I missed putting my ornaments away yesterday.

A couple of days after Christmas, I got into my stuffed full quilting closet and there, the "anniversaries of the heart", lay hidden. Memories came pouring out. Lacey doilies she had crocheted. Patches she had made for a bedspread. Her handwriting on wisps of paper pinned to fabric describing its future use. Her button collection.
I kept scraps from clothing she wore or made for my daughters. The closet had so many unfinished dreams, I've yet to finish the job.


With most of the material and stuff I'd put into the closet gone, it is looking much neater on this side. My sewing machine is giving me trouble and is out of the closet. I gotta find something better.


On this side of the closet, those nicely closed drawers were so stuffed full, the bottoms were warped and the drawers couldn't close.


My office is practically unnavigable for the stuff I unloaded from that closet. Yes, it was full of unfinished projects, but marvelous memories it contained have inspired me anew to finish them. Thanks Mom. Thanks Henry.

MEMORIES OF YUMA.

Yuma was the first place I stayed with Jim when my kids thought I’d taken up with an ax murderer. Well, not really, but they were very protective and worried about me taking up with a man they didn’t know. Thus the blog for me I started in December of 2008. I have happy memories of the green, green fields of Yuma, biking along the canals, and beautiful Bougainvillea growing like wild in this city. Right after lunch, we went in search and on the way found an Elks Club. We were astonished that they have 1600 members. Many of them are snowbirds. We stopped for a beer but the minute someone lit up a cigarette we hastily left.

This is the Bougainvillea from January, 2009. I’m shocked at what  poor pictures I got from my little camera. When we drove by, the bush had been chopped to practically nothing with no blooms on it.

And, green fields in Yuma are visible everywhere it seems. The big lettuces, cabbages, spinach and kale we didn’t find, except for this already harvested iceberg lettuce.

And, of course, this is what I was expecting to see, also from January 2009.

There is still a lot of green.

What appears to be a small lettuce of some type.

I believe this is alfalfa. No denying the green, but the fields of memory we could not find. Ah, what the wise men say is true. You can’t go home again.

We are parked at the Quechen Indian Casino and each day look up at the Mission Church associated with the Yuma Territorial prison.

Last night, so typical of this part of the country, the scene turned to caramel.

Then it darkened.

And reddened, good night. Probably boring pictures but like a tv screen, the sunsets just attract your eye and we are so happy we get to enjoy them.

ENJOYING A COLD WEATHER DAY.

Being snowed in is an opportunity to pick up a quiet project and enjoy the day. I had several tasks that I could complete unhurried. I got news that a service is being held today for my friend Anne Williams which put me in a contemplative mood.


Years ago, she and I would quilt together, before the rotary cutters and modern quilting innovations. We would have lunch and spend and afternoon chatting and cutting quilt blocks, simple diamond squares or nine squares. We always made rescue quilts, meaning using up salvageable material from old clothing. We didn’t buy new material unless we needed muslin to applique on. Backing material for me was almost always an old sheet. Then I’d make a quilt or she would make a quilt from the blocks. I designed this one for my oldest daughter who was young and single and a runner at the time. The blocks we made were divided into earth and sky. The quilting reads run,run,run on the background pieces.

It isn’t an expert quilt like quilt guilds specialize in today where they nearly mass produce perfect quilts. I think they miss a lot of what I liked about quilting. Maybe not. I shouldn’t judge. But when I examine my quilts and take a few minutes to really look at them, memories of a certain dress I loved, now preserved in a tiny square, delight me. I’m looking at a square dance dress Anne and I made when we served on the design committee one year; a piece of my son’s shirt, a square from my daughter’s blouse. I must have spent a half hour enjoying this quilt.  My friends Pam and Russ own a store called Stories In Stones. Quilts are stories too, each one unique.

LEAVING WASHINGTON STATE.

Thunderbird Thousand Trails has a new washroom. I was glad the old agitator machines are gone for the more efficient front loaders that I like because I had three big loads of laundry to do.  I chuckled a bit when I thought of the "old agitators". At least I didn't have to heat water on a wood stove and fill that old wash tub.

It pays to put things in perspective. It is hard for me to imagine how much work my mother went through to wash clothes when we lived in Hardwood. I do know we had less clothes and therefore washed less often. We've come a long way, Baby. 


How things have changed, in more ways than equipment. At the laundry I chatted with a friendly woman. She and her husband work full-time and  live in their RV full-time. They move between three Washington Parks and commute from them to their jobs.  They sold their house and made this dramatic change because they couldn't get their two sons, age 20 and 21 to move out and get a job. The boys have menial paying jobs, no aspirations to go to college, and it was just too easy to stay home with, as she put it, "the silver spoon."  Her beautiful top of the line front loading washer is in storage. She and I both laughed about the solution. Hey, at least she did something about it. I know parents with a 26-year-old do-nothing spoiled kid still living at home and all they do is complain about him.

It rained much of yesterday and the weather was cold and damp.  It cleared a bit, just as the sun was about to set. More of it to come, too, but I'll be leaving the motor home before it gets to Murphys.  I'm flying back to California today because my sister is being treated for brain cancer and I want to spend some time with her. I have lots of pictures (and memories)  to share from our tromp through Michigan.

QUINNISEC AND SERENDIPITY TWICE.

Leaving the Cousineau’s farm, a quick hug with Bernice before she went to work. Warm good-byes to Marie and Mark. We left with a mixture of reluctance and joy at the great memories we forged and excitement to be back on the road again, looking for what’s around the bend. We headed for Iron Mountain and Kingsford, another place I lived and where my grandmother Lydia Moore Kraus lived before she died. Her funeral  was the first time I had ever been to one.

From Karen Halderson Bruchman we learned my other best pal, Judy Gedvick Orler lived in Quinnesec. I love the name Quinnesec, and  Keewenaw, Ispeming, and so many other Native American names that dot the Upper P. And, of course, I love Pasty. We had a brochure like this one on our dashboard and bingo, there it was in Quinnesec which is on the way to Iron Mountain.

We pulled in and enjoyed an early lunch. I can honestly say, this was the very best pasty we’ve tasted so far.  Moist, enough meat, flaky crust. Scrumptious. We bought two extras for the freezer and if there had been more room, I’d have filled it up with pasty.  A full one pounder for $4.24. How can you beat that?
Since Karen gave us rudimentary information from memory about Judy’s whereabouts, her married name, Orler. She lived on a street that sounded like Maple but wasn’t, probably Mapes?  I asked to borrow a phone book at the Pasty Oven but they didn’t have one. At lunch, Jim whipped out the computer and checked Google Earth. No maple or mapes, but he found a street a short distance from the The Pasty Oven called Marpe.  We drove up Marpe St. about a half block when I spotted a guy outside working near his garage. I walked up and asked him if he knew the Orler family, I was looking for Judy Orler a childhood school friend.
“The woman across the street is a Judy, about your age. I don’t know her last name, though.”

And, it was the right Judy from Longfellow School in Foster City. She didn’t remember me but I remembered her and Karen with such great fondness. No one knows how meaningful a childhood friendship can be or what affect a person you meet along the way will have on you or you on them.  She and Karen would periodically come to mind and I would think about my school days, and wish that someday I could see them again. I would  wonder what happened to them and what their lives were like. Serendipity twice. It was a full circle for me of pleasant surprises, and I am so grateful that on this trip to Michigan I found them both. I really believe that memories light up our lives.

SOME DAYS ARE LIKE THAT.

Theresa, my brother Clark’s fiance,  is an excellent cook and I should have taken pictures of the food, since I did such a lousy job of taking pictures of the people gathered at my brother’s  home yesterday. Some days are like that.

Dawn, my sister, with our visiting  cousin, Gary Rowe  enjoyed a rich artichoke dip with a variety of crackers and chips;   brie, pomegranate & pepper jelly, candied pecans, cookies,chips, and assorted drinks. I rarely indulge in such rich foods, but couldn’t resist snacking and drinking a good barbera wine. Theresa makes everything from scratch. Delish!

It is naturally an event when an out-of-town cousin visits.  Conversations around the table get quite spirited and old memories are displayed and hashed over for the fun and laughter they bring.

Clark was known most of his life as Corky, and only took back his real name late in life. He and my son,  Doug work together sometimes.  When dinner was served, I was full of goodies and could have skipped dinner.  I didn’t though.  Why resist the most beautiful Cobb Salad with roasted chicken and bacon, three different dressings;  four different kinds of quiche, jumbo shrimp, and apple cobbler for desert. Naw!  I loaded up and went home feeling like a stuffed toad.  Food for a King or Queen. Some days are like that.