"Nature is Intelligent"

If you haven't watched it yet, check out Fantastic Fungi on Netflix, a beautifully made film about the health benefits of mushrooms.  Amazing time-lapse photography about fungi and what they do for us.  

Día de los Muertos--November 2

When I first moved to San Antonio in 1967, I was wide-eyed at the tradition of skeletons dressed up like brides and grooms, skeletons posed on porches. I thought it was creepy. 

Since then, I've learned a lot more about the tradition and I think it's wonderful.  Today I'm making my first día de los Meuertos altar.

The first step has taken most of the day--gathering pictures of loved ones no longer physically present. 

It all started with my daddy's watch.  Then I found lots of pictures of him throughout his life, pictures of his parents (Mama Jim and Daddy Jim) and his four siblings.  Bob sent me this photo of my daddy's mother, the grandmother I knew less well than Mimi.  She had five children and died in her sixties when I was 12. 

Rose Harris

My nephew Canaan, who died of a very aggressive cancer on March 13th this year, was a pastor in Colorado, a husband, and father of two.   Here he is at Nana and Granddaddy's the year I made clown costumes for all the cousins.  

Others will join these: my friend Gary who died ten years ago; two daughters of two of my closest friends, both of whom died three years ago;  Mary Frances Weathersby, a vibrant yoga teacher and friend for many years; my mother's three brothers and my daddy's four siblings; my great-grandmother Cana so beloved by Carlene, though she died before I was born.

Altars also include items enjoyed by the deceased loved ones--fruit, candy, ornaments, jewelry, books, poems, teddy bears, etc. 

I've included a beautiful red wooden heart covered with Milagros--a birthday present from Charlotte; a garland of orange paper flowers from Mary Locke; an orange ceramic pumpkin and candles and a garland of orange flowers.

The final piece is a strand of twinkly lights or candles, reminders of the lights of friends and family members.

October 15th

My birthday week has been great!

Starting with the coast trip, staying with two of my oldest and dearest friends in Mary Locke's beach house. 

Continuing with dinner at PF Chang's with Carolyn whom I've known and loved since we were SAC faculty wives in the early 70s. 

Watching the eclipse with Kate and Charlotte before going to a wonderful Italian "hole in the wall" cafe called La Sorrenta.  (Charlotte prefers no pictures-- it's hard for me to resist, but I do.) 

Kate and her son, Jakey
with shadows of the eclipse on his green shirt.

The grand finale tonight: Jan hosting Pam and L'Indy and me for a knock-your-socks-off shrimp dish, along with fruit tart and asparagus with pesto

L'Indy (Linda from Indiana)
and Luci

Pam admiring Jan's table
and flowers from Lorraine

Jan is "the hostess with the mostest" 
 who knows how to put together 
a memorable party!

Delivering a birthday tart
with only one candle, enough
to make lots of wishes on.

So happyand grateful
for ALL of you (here and far away)
 who have made Turning 75 so much fun! 

***

       Today is Day's 53rd birthday.  On my 23rd birthday I was in labor all day, but she held off showing up until after midnight so she'd have a birthday of her own, evidence of her independent spirit from day one.

     After a weekend in Richmond with the boys, she and Tom celebrated tonight watching a Buffalo Bill's game and drinking mocktails. 

Two pictures from her first few months as a little "You are my sunshine" Texas girl...

Lloyd and Carlene's first grandchild--
when we lived on Beckmann Hill in Helotes

Online Mixed Media Classes

I have given myself my favorite sort of birthday present--splurging on six online art classes.  Over the past four years or so, I find that I love taking classes at my own pace far more than in person classes.  

The first one Pam and I are both taking: Wanderlust led by a teacher from Poland who invites a variety of teachers from all over the world to present a weekly class.  We've both signed up for Wanderlust in past years, then we took a break, but neither of us could resist the early-bird special for 2024. 

Similar in structure is one called Art is Magic.  I'm hoping to learn a few things from it, but my first few classes were disappointing, probably because I've had similar classes before and the teaching is spotty. 

Anything San Antonio artist Lyn Belisle teaches is stellar!  She offers a variety of collage and encaustics classes on her website and I've never been disappointed. My favorite is Postcards to Myself--which I used to make six collages for Carlene a couple of years ago, all incorporating old family photos. 

The Handmade Book Club--while I'm taking a break from membership for a bit--offers a quarterly Five-Day Challenge for practically no cost, $5 this year, for five days of instructions on a single binding technique.  It runs the gamut from complex leather-covered books to simpler book constructions.  Ali Manning is an excellent teacher--as are her guest artists--and she's an expert in the history of different papers and designs. 

I'm loving the Gel Print Summit hosted by Drew Steinbrecher.  Fourteen gel print artists offer classes in a variety of things that can be done with gel plate mono printing--including image transfer and geo-printing (using actual twigs and leaves and flowers).  Along with Ali's and Lyn's, these are the most professionally organized and interesting classes I've  taken.  Most of the teachers are from Australia, the Netherlands, and England. (There's not a dud in the bunch!) 

Not only are the fourteen classes worthy of several views, but if you follow the trail of each teacher to his or her website, you can find links to other online workshops. I've signed up for cyanotypes and "Beyond the Basics of Gel Printing" by two of the best teachers at the summit. 

I cannot describe how thrilling it is to have all this learning and playing to look forward to for the upcoming year and beyond.  It's like opening a present every day.

If anyone is interested in more details, just let me know and I'll send links.  

Who are you, really?

Pam sent me this wonderful message, a poem posted on Jane Dunnewold's blog, and I want to share it with you all...As we grow older, we all have a "litany of losses" but something essential remains.

a poem from Rosemerry Whatola Trommer. ​ Losing It It was a tiny percentage, I knew, but still there was some French royalty somewhere in my blood. I would spend hours imagining myself in my proper place: in a long pink dress ​ and thin gold crown in a castle on a green hillside, doing needlepoint, no doubt, and nibbling bon bons, and so when I again asked my mother to tell me about that part of our heritage, she told me, ​ It’s so little blood, and you’ve had so many skinned knees, I’m pretty sure you’ve bled it all out by now. And I was instantly less grandiose. That was, perhaps, the first identity ​ that I was aware of losing. But soon after that, I was no longer blonde. And soon after that, I no longer lived in Wisconsin. And soon after that, I was no longer a Scout. Everything I thought ​ I knew about myself didn’t last. Ah, the litany of losses. Those notions of who we are, how they shed, they spill, they slip off. As they’re lost, we usually rush to replace them. ​ I became worker. Lover. Parent. Friend. We wear them so close, these identities, that we no longer see them as separate. We think they’re who we are. But what if we skinned ​ not just our knees, but our thoughts, and let those roles escape? Who would be left to walk through the field this evening to see the double rainbow stretched across the east?​ ​

Camp Jannie

 

A great big thank you to Janet and Bill, Nani and Val, Molly and Mia, and the two cats--for taking such good care of Luci this weekend, as always!

Nani is their newest and fourth dog, the white puppy gazing at Luci.  Janet intended to foster her until her family came along, but Janet--being Janet--fell in love with her and decided to adopt her.

It's a big sprawling family but they have the yard for it--a beautiful expanse of plants and grass.  

Janet is a seamstress extraordinaire and she's going to be featuring three of her jackets at a fashion show on Saturday.  Everything she touches turns into something beautiful!

Foursome Friendship Turns Fifty

 

When we first met, the four of us (Mary Locke, Beverly, Sylvia and I) were all in our mid- to late-Twenties.  Three of us were married with children; one of us (Sylvia) still glamorously single.  We escorted each other into our Thirties, celebrating birthdays, marriages, travels, and....what Mary Locke calls "Life's Rich Pageant." 

I attended Sylvia's wedding party right across the street from where I now live--long before I had any way of knowing I'd ever live on Ogden Lane--and she lived upstairs in an apartment of what is now Jan's house next door! 

Throughout the decades, we have traveled to our various homelands and met each other's families.  We've been to lake houses, beach houses, Colorado, Cape Cod, and any place we considered a good setting for a retreat. Some of us have been to the weddings of some of our children.  After my divorce, we four went to the beach for a divorce retreat!  (Whoever heard of a divorce retreat? I think Beverly made it up....)

Beverly hosted my unforgettable fiftieth birthday at Port Aransas--where she and Larry were living at the time.  Some of us fondly remember a bit of midnight skinny dipping and some afternoon scarf dancing. 

Twenty five years and many retreats later, here we are on the beach at Port Aransas, staying at Mary Locke's beach house, eating a birthday cake Larry made for me, and waving scarves at sunset.

Years ago, Beverly and I wrote a book we called The Fabric of Friendship.  We included writings by all four of us--a sort of foursome memoir. While we never published it,  the assembling of it was a celebration of a friendship of four women.  One of Beverly's daughters, Whitney, on seeing one of Beverly's scrapbooks filled with pictures we'd taken of ourselves together, said, "Y'all sure must love yourselves!" 

We did.  We still do.

Three decades later, it seems fitting that three of the four of us are waving shimmery fabrics on the beach and letting the wind do what it wills. 

We didn't grow up together, but we all grew up in identical Baptist traditions.  While none of us are in the Baptist church anymore, we all still know all the words to all the same hymns.  We all know the same stories we were steeped in as girls.  Mary Locke--who like me is a kind of spiritual mutt--still wants "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" played at her funeral. 

Now here we are, one already 80, the other three at the octogenarian door.  My gratitude for a friendship of such length and depth is immeasurable!  

Mary Locke and Beverly walking on the beach

Beverly

Mary Locke and me

Mary Locke dancing without music

(Sylvia's not in these pictures.  She was unable to join us because she and Peter had a trip planned--which didn't actually happen because Peter got Covid.  The three of them had a September retreat while I was in Virginia.)

Ten Feel Goods

1. 

Playing the New York Times word games every day and "not stopping til you reach genius on Spelling Bee"--a goal I borrowed from Janet.  Some days are easier than others.  Monday and Tuesday this week were buggers!  But today they lightened up on us players and made it easy peasy.  It feels really good--if not entirely accurate--to be called "genius" first thing in the morning.

2.

Going to a nail salon, store, or a favorite restaurant where Luci is welcomed.  Since she's almost always with me in the car, I don't have to drive her home if I get a sudden urge to have lunch or get a pedicure.

3. 

Watching "Dear Edward" (Apple TV) while cutting up papers for the Five Day Book Challenge. Charlotte gave me a gift last year--a whole package of beautiful paper placemats, too pretty to lay under drippy foods and drinks.  I've been saving it for a book project, and the Five Day Challenge is shaping up with paper placemats. 

4. 

Packing for a retreat at the coast with friends I've known and loved for fifty years.  We're taking not only food and drinks but activities.  My part is to teach them to make a simple book out of file folders and collaged papers. 

5

Janet always being happy to see Luci show up at Camp Jannie while I'm gone.  

6.

Bypassing my usual frugality and signing up for five art online art classes, most of which stretch out throughout the year. (1) Wanderlust--a yearlong class with a variety of teachers.  (2) Art is Magic--similar to Wanderlust, different artists. (3) Gel Printing Summit (4) A collage class with Lyn Belisle. And (5) The Handmade Book Club. 

7.

Planning a trip to Georgia with Day to celebrate her 53rd, my 75th--bathing ourselves in fall foliage in the North Georgia mountains. 

8.

Luci crawling under the covers when I watch movies in bed.  The feel of her soft fur against my legs.   Just knowing she's there, all that furry sweetness!

9.

Getting back, slowly, to book making.  It's fascinating to learn different structures--accordion books, coptic and other methods of sewing signatures together, round books, altering vintage books, etc.

10.

A surprise delivered by mail--even if I ordered it myself and forgot.  

The first week of October

I've been having a mostly zip-a-dee-doo-dah week.  Lots of things are going my way....

(Knock on wood, please)

A big chunk of the credit goes to Cecelia, dear friend and massage therapist since the 1980s.   She gave me an amazing massage for an early birthday present--what could be better?--and then suggested we try a machine  that works in subtle ways on the nerves to repair nerve damage.  She's been offering me this for months, but I have been skeptical and too preoccupied with other treatments to add one more. 

It's not a one and done kind of thing.  I've had three treatments so far and it seems to be making a difference--that along with physical therapy and dietary changes.  Who knows? But I'm giving it a go with a grateful heart!  For more hours than usual, my feet have been less grumpy today. 

Sometimes the solution to problems may be close to home all along.  

Luci agrees.  I've been trying out the best quality dog foods (the ones you have to order online), but she eats them grudgingly, reluctantly, without a smidge of joy.  Or she goes a couple of days without eating.   Ever since her second skunk encounter, her caloric intake has been even less than usual. 

While Jan and I were discussing this in her kitchen, we noticed Luci had scarfed up a whole bowl of Carma's kibble!  Not only did she eat it with gusto, but she held her head up and crunched each bite loudly, giving me a look of reproach: "See, Ma, this is what I like!  Why can't WE have good stuff like this at our house?"

Jan gave us a baggie to bring home.  So far, Luci has refused to touch the very same food in our house!  Some people might say--Jan (who loves her (actually did say), she's a "manipulative little bitch." (Too bad the English language has taken the word for female dogs as an unpleasant moniker for human women!) 

Next door's dining fare is always better than same ole, same ole in the regular old bowl at home. 

I canceled her veterinary appointment for tomorrow and have decided to just give it time.  She's fine--just picky.  We just took a walk in the wonderful rain and she seemed perky as ever. 

While I'm at the coast this weekend, she'll be at Camp Jannie's so she'll get to enjoy Other People's Food again for a few days.  And play with Bill and Janet and their four dogs.  I expect it will be a zip-a-dee-doo-dah weekend for my sweet little mutt. 

October

I remember writing, a few weeks before my 60th birthday, something to this effect: Sixty comes wearing clunky boots draped in mismatched rags....I can't run from her, she's barreling in, a fearsome thing. 

How little did I know that Witchy Unattractive Sixty in my mind would turn out to usher in a mostly good decade with some unforgettable adventures, one last romance, friendship, energy, and great expectations!  How little did I know that Sixty was so...young! 

The weeks before my October birthdays cause me to reflect a bit more than usual on aging, especially the ages that end with zero or five.  

The weather is getting slightly cooler now and October is here, if only in name, without the sentimental scents and colors I associate with my birth-month in Georgia. I love walking Luci on the nature trails, letting her feel more a bit of dog wildness, trails filled with mysteries to sniff and, potentially, other four-legged strangers.

If "April is the cruelest month," October is perhaps the sweetest, when autumn was full of color, a nip of cold air, men burning leaves in their yards, women hanging clothes on the line, then running to bring them in if rain came without advance notice.  October is the month of my birth, of the county fair, the ferris wheel and cotton candy carnival that set up for a week just a couple of blocks from our house on Ann Street.  October smells like orange and gold and red, apples and leaves and boiled peanuts. Homecoming and mums and high school bands. 

In two weeks, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that this will be my seventy-fifth whole October.  How did I arrive at this staggering number?  I knew all along it would arrive one day (if I was lucky), now here it is, my new reality. 

I met an attractive man on the trails tonight and I noticed myself comparing ages.  I do that a lot these days--compare my age with the age of the person I'm talking to.  I don't see dancing or dating  in my future, but there's nothing at all wrong with my eyes, or my memory.  

Luci and I meet good people on the trails--dog walkers, kids, teenagers on bikes, puppies.  We share dog stories and de-skunking recipes.  I learn that there are at least three foxes in the neighborhood.  

This upcoming weekend, I'll be celebrating 75 early at the beach with friends.  We go back fifty years.  One has a beach house and we're reviving our many years' tradition of retreats we started in our thirties.  I look forward to walking in the sand, donning a swim suit, and having our fill of seafood. 

So, come on, October!  It's going to be okay.