Show and Tell

Today  I finally got to enjoy a Show and Tell at Lyn Belisle's Art Studio--something Pam has been inviting me to try for a long time.

Once a month, Lyn (who happens to be the mother of the author, Rick Riordan, whose books my older grandsons love) hosts a Show and Tell at the Studio.

Lyn's husband, Mike, had made a delicious spread of food and gave us his recipe for Sopapilla Cheese Cake.  A fiber artist showed us the fabric Valentine card she'd made for her 93-year-old mother.  She was dressed in a jacket she'd made with this necklace.

Another woman showed us her glass works--sushi bowls and pendants.  Two men read poetry.  A songwriter played some of her songs.  Another woman, recently back from Japan, taught us how to fold fabric to wrap things, Japanese style, a process called furoshiki. Participants introduced us to materials, media, and finished art works, and Lyn's  encaustic mixed media pieces were hanging all over the studio.  I left inspired!

I'll be taking a class from her in late February on transferring images onto paper and fabric.

If you live in San Antonio, check out her studio in the Carousel Shopping Center on Nacogdoches.

Terra Incognita

Just when I think I know a fair amount about the world I live in, some seemingly small new insight can rock my world.

In the early pages of  Field Guide to Getting Lost, Solnit talks about "terra incognita," the unknown or unexplored land masses on old maps. It got me thinking about maps and the cartography of being human.

If I imagine my mind as a map, printed not on paper but Silly Putty, what my mind knows is like the familiar countries, continents and cities on a map; what I don't have a clue about--that's terra incognita. Both are always shifting in size and shape depending on the extent to which I stretch and pound and pull on the Silly Putty.

There's a jokey post card in which the state of Texas is half at the size of the whole of America and all the other states are shrunk. It speaks to the outsized Texas ego--we're bigger, more important, than the other 49 states combined.  Probably my own maps are as distorted as the one on that postcard--though it could be an inflated or deflated state of mind rather than an actual state.

Every time, I learn something new, I think or say, "Oh, I didn't know that!" and my Inner Iowa grows bigger after that, more interesting.  The roads that lead to it are wider, and I can get There from Here. If I keep hearing/reading/doing the same things over and over,  my Inner Iowa is static.

When a revelation pops through in a book or conversation, new trees and flowers sprout in my Iowa, and little mountains pop up in the middle of the prairie.

The known lands can change drastically, too--when what was formerly familiar erodes or changes beyond recognition.

Fixer Uppers

Today I was introduced to Fixer Uppers--which can be watched online if you, like me, don't have regular TV.

Each episode has the narrative arc of a good story:  Folks choose a dilapidated house and Chip and Jo (the adorable couple in Waco) remodel it.  In the end, everyone is happy.

New Eyes

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/having-new-eyes/8026

This poet has published two books--and she didn't start writing poetry until she was 68!

Solnit and Steinem

       Some books are better tasted a little at a time, not read whole.  A Field Guide to Getting Lost is one of those.  Just when I start to fall asleep in a chapter, up pops a line or a paragraph that shines like a neon sign and keeps flashing in my mind for days!

       "Leave the door open to the unknown," Solnit writes, "the door into the dark.  That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go."

       She quotes a philosopher named Meno, before the time of Socrates, who asked, "How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" 

       "The things we want," Solnit writes, "are transformative, and we don't know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation.  Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration--how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?"

       While Gloria Steinem (in her book, My Life on the Road)  doesn't make a single reference to the Solnit book, the two writers could be having a conversation about that exact question!  Since I'm reading them side by side, they are having a conversation in my mind.

       Steinem's childhood was shaped around her father's desire to live on the road.  They only returned to their house for short stays between long road trips of living in a travel trailer.  He was a kind-hearted, rule-ignoring, unconventional, free spirited wanderer.   He sold small antiques to strangers and refused to work a regular job.

       As a child she sometimes yearned for a more conventional life, living in a house like other kids instead of following his impulses to drive to California or Florida or wherever. She learned to read from road signs instead of going to school.  She would ask her father to drive slowly by pretty houses so she could imagine what it was like to live in one.

       She remembers visiting abandoned ghost towns, one of which was being used as a movie set:

       Ever challenged by rules, my father took us down the road to a slack place in the fence, and sneaked us onto the set.  Perhaps assuming that we had permission from higher-ups, the crew treated us with deference.  I still have a photo my father took of me standing a few feet from Gary Cooper, who is looking down at me with amusement, my head at about the height of his knee, my worried gaze fixed on the ground.

       As a child who wanted too much to fit in, I worried that we would be abandoned like those towns one day, or that my father's rule-breaking would bring down some nameless punishment.  But now I wonder: Without those ghost towns that live in my imagination longer than any inhabited place, would I have known that mystery leaves a space for us when certainty does not? And would I have dared to challenge rules later in life if my father had obeyed them?

Transitioning Back to Solo for a While

Mike boarded a plane today, feeling rough.  I went to the lab to get my annual blood work done.  Just as the first few days back after a trip take time, so do the first few days after someone I love leaves the house empty and quiet.

I am planning to curl up in bed--it's finally wintry here!--and read.  I'm putting aside A Field Guide to Getting Lost ("an amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism") in favor of a more straightforward narrative to get lost in: Gloria Steinem's My Life on The Road.

I'm also dipping in to another good book: The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker--fascinating to a anyone, like me, who loves to read about the changes in the ways we think and use language.

Why does style in writing matter? he asks--after pointing out the limits of Strunk and White and other style manuals often used as bibles by writers and editors.

He answers his own question this way:  "Style...adds beauty to the world.  To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life's greatest pleasures."

Sam and Laura

I was thinking about the fact that Mike's place is called Brown Mule Farm--though there's not an actual mule on it--and I asked him when he started liking mules.

There was an old man in town named Stuttering Sam.  He had a mule and a wagon.  I was a little bitty boy and I thought that mule was tall as the Empire State Building.

Stuttering Sam loaded up that wagon with tomatoes and peppers, cabbages and onions, and other things from his garden. He let me ride around with him selling them.  I loved him.  He had white hair, and was a peaceful man.  

He was the only person I knew who stuttered besides me.  It took us a long time to greet each other, but I felt good riding in his wagon with him.  I'd go up to the doors of the houses and ask people what they wanted--corn or cantaloupe or beans, watermelon or tomatoes. At the end of the day, he'd give me a nickel and I could go to the country store and buy a Coke or a Snickers.  That mule looked like he was fifty-feet tall.  

Sam was probably the son of slaves.  Lived in a wooden shotgun-style house, no paint.  I loved his house.  It had a certain smell to it.

People used to say Stuttering Sam taught me how to stutter.  But he didn't.  I was a little bitty boy when I first met him and I already stuttered real bad.  That's just what people said. 

Kids used to tease me cause I stuttered, but Laura [the black woman who kept him while his mother worked as a legal secretary] taught me not to let it bother me so much.  Laura was tough.  She taught me to be tough.  

"You have to keep your eyes on where you are going and ignore all that noise," she said. And that's when I learned not to care what other people thought about me.

My mom used to take me to all these speech therapists and one day one of them took me to the fire station.  That was my favorite part of speech therapy, going to the fire station, seeing that brass pole and curved door, the fire trucks.  I got to talk to the firemen and all.

Then one day, when Daddy and I were cleaning out the septic tank, I got to see the Goodyear Blimp.

"Why were you cleaning out the septic tank?" I asked him.  

It was a grease trap.  We had to clean it every two years or so, take heavy buckets to the dump.  It was a gravel pit really.  It had lots of fossils.  I still have the fossils I picked up there.  

We never did figure out why I stuttered, but I think it was a wiring in my brain thing.  Most people when they talk, their words go from their brains to their speech.  Mine take a different route.  

I only realize now that Stuttering Sam and I had a real marketing hook for selling watermelons and cantaloupes.  Cause where you gonna see a little white boy and an old black man stuttering together?  It was almost like a side show at the carnival.  We were good sellers! 

The Secretary of Interesting

My friend Pam began one of her almost-daily forwards to me this way: "As the Secretary of Interesting it is my duty (and joy) to keep you in the arty and could be fun loop!"

I'm so glad she's taken on the mantle--Secretary of Interesting.  She's given me Brainpickings and online art classes and announcements of cultural and creative things going on in San Antonio and elsewhere.

While I've not managed yet to take any of the actual classes, I've benefited enormously from the online blogs and websites and book reviews. And in February, I'll be taking a class with her at the Lyn Belisle studio on transferring photographs to paper and fabric.  I can hardly wait!

I'm thinking Pam should start her own blog--as Secretary of Interesting!

A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

Since I'm only halfway through this book, I'm not entirely ready to recommend it, heartily or otherwise.  But, wow, can this woman make good sentences and paragraphs:

"It is the job of artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar...."

"Children seldom roam, even in the safest places.  Because of their parents' fear of the monstrous things that might happen (and do happen, but rarely), the wonderful things that happen as a matter of course are stripped away from them.  For me, childhood roaming was what developed self-reliance, a sense of direction and adventure, imagination, a will to explore, to be able to get a little lost and then figure out the way back.  I wonder what will come of placing this generation under house arrest."

These sentiments remind me of the open doors created by artists, and the roaming in the woods Betty and I used to do, the shelter of pine trees, the picking of blackberries.  And the walks downtown with a dollar to spend, stopping in all the stores just to look around and talk to the storekeepers who all knew us and our parents.

(I'm reading A Field Guide to Getting Lost with a mix of pleasure and duty before I get into Gloria Steinem's book, My Life on the Road, which I'm looking forward to reading.)

***

Today Mike and I spent the morning at the ER Clinic for his respiratory infection--I insisted that he start on meds before flying--and now that stubborn man is out spreading mulch in the cold wet air.

"Do you smoke?" No way!  "Do you drink?" No, maybe a bottle of wine a year.  Both true.

"Do you have any other medical issues?"  No.  (He chose not to mention high blood pressure.)

But when they measured it and found it "through the roof," he had to admit that "sometimes" he had a touch of high blood pressure, "nothing to worry about."  They gave him a pill and waited half an hour to see if it would go down--which it did.

What he wanted for dinner his last night here was Frito Pie--so we went to Wendy's, got two bowls of chili, and cooked it with Fritos, Pico de Gallo, and cheese, then topped it with guacamole.

How To Love

https://www.brainpickings.org/?s=how+to+love

I've mentioned Brainpickings before--and this is an excellent article in a recent post.

Victoria's Paintings

Yesterday, the McNay had an exhibit of Six Artists of the Future--one of whom was my dear friend,  the amazing Victoria Suescum.  Everyone was raving about her work and taking pictures--which we all hope translates into sales!

If you missed it, you can see these paintings at Victoria's studio and her water colors are on display, starting today, at Cappy's.  Our writing group has had several meetings at her vibrantly-colorful studio and I know that they stimulate playfulness and creative juices big time!

The beloved Artist of the Future, Victoria

 If I had a house with big walls and high ceilings, 

I'd want them all, a permanent art show to live with and love. 

One of three jungle trees

The Now

It was inevitable that Mike would one day meet my ex.  When it happened yesterday, it was brief, painless and predictable--two men shaking hands, period.  For me, though, two entirely different worlds brushed up against each other for a minute.

I'd imagined what it would be like, seeing the two of them in the same yard.  As Mike played with  the little kids, dogs and the goat, as he grabbed my hand for some Texas Two-Stepping on the grass and slid down the slide, I was so happy to be in the Now, not in the Then. To dance when you feel like it, even if nobody else is dancing, is exhilarating!

Some of my friends have friendly relationships with their exes, but my ex and I have always been rather awkward together, even when we were married. I told Mike this morning, "I know you better than I ever knew him, and vice versa."

"That's because we are both transparent," he said.

I don't make any claims to my own transparency--but I can say that Mike is about as transparent as they get.  It's one of the things I love most about him.

Elena's Birthday Party

Elena's 4th birthday party was billed as a dog party, the idea being that the dogs of guests could wear costumes if they chose.  But as you can see, Scrappy the goat had more fun than anybody's dog, very attuned to the popping of the piñata.

Nathan, it turns out, is a natural dancer

Jocelyn fell in love with Mike instantly and wanted to sit with him, play with him, all day.  She and her two brothers are being adopted by friends, Cale and Jennifer, who already have two daughters of their own.

Elena decided mid-way that she needed to change clothes into her dragon costume from Halloween.

Mike pushed Jocelyn and her new sister, Ember, around in the wheelbarrow.

 These were the two newest member of the birthday party tribe, CJ and Elizabeth, three months old.

Mike and Skippy

Mike following me  down the slide

Will, the piñata rope puller

Elena with her former nanny, Dalitt

Nathan and Elena

The Little Dragon after blowing out candles

Mike and Jocelyn


When Ember (daughter of the firefighter and wife who are adopting Jocelyn)
saw Mike rubbing Jocelyn's head, she sidled up to him and said,
"Will you rub my head like you rub hers?" 

The Tin Man

This little guy was our find yesterday.  He's rusty, but we are using him for a pattern to make more. I'm pretty sure he has a heart in there somewhere.

If anyone wants to contribute to our project, please save sardine, bean, coffee and vegetable cans, any kinds of cans, for the endeavor.  And funnels for a tin man's cap.

Traveling 281 to Marble Falls

We had another good day--probably Mike's other second best day ever!

It was quiet and easy, driving through the Hill Country, stopping at various places.  Cindy's brother Ron, whom I'd met before, was at Chocolatte where we stopped for coffee and gelato, so he showed us around Marble Falls.  Then we wended our way back through Johnson City and Blanco.

Talked to Day on the phone this morning--after Carlene asked me to check on her about the weather--and the snow had not started yet, but they are expecting 2 to 3 feet of snow, starting tonight.  She and Tom and the  boys don't plan to leave home for three or four days, and she's just hoping the power stays on so they can continue with the house project, moving the boys' bedrooms downstairs and theirs upstairs.

Several people have told Mike that Chris Madrid's had the best burgers in San Antonio, so we went their for dinner.  It was so noisy that our ears are still ringing and Mike pronounced the burgers so-so after his favorite at EZs.

P.S. Saturday morning

Day's driveway:

Gruene, WImberley, Blanco, and Back Home

What a beautiful January day!  We headed out to Austin, but stopped in Gruene today, and Mike liked it so much we stayed there most of the day, then drove back Devil's Backbone through Wimberley where we didn't stop, just looked.  Lunch was delicious at Moxey's in Gruene, and we ate dinner at the Bowling Club Cafe, then watched the bowlers bowl and decided to drive on back home and do another road trip tomorrow.

I realized today that I have agendas for covering territory--we have to leave Here by such-and-such a time to get There. Mike. on the other hand, lives in the moment, not caring if we make it to the next place we'd planned or not.  I'm going to try to be more like Mike that way in the future, just letting "the raw side drag," as my Daddy used to say.  It's a lot more fun now that I'm getting the hang of it!

Ya Ye's

If you like old rusty parts of airplanes and carnival rides, cracked and crumbling stone ornaments for your garden, old pictures, photographs, metal and glass objects, jewelry, clocks, wooden doors, and nice people, check out Ya Ye's on Commerce Street.  Mario, the owner, has just bought a property of buildings that someone made out of old windows and doors and other purchases from YaYe's, and we're going to go see it one day this week.  He calls it The Peacock House because  eight peacocks reside there.  It should be a photographic adventure.

My friend, Suzanne, likes YaYe's so much that she got married there, and it was a great wedding, attended only by Mario and the judge who officiated--and me, the photographer and reader of a poem.

Mike likes it so much that he could poke around there all day--though we only spent the morning there today.

I like it because I can buy old studio portraits and snapshots for writing groups.

After that, we stopped in to see Kate's pretty new apartment, had lunch at Schilo's, and saw the sobering movie, The Big Short.

Tomorrow, we head out for a Texas drive-about adventure--to Austin and other places.

Medina Lake Monday

Mike and I had a delicious steak lunch at Joy and Frank's house at Medina Lake yesterday. Our two guys hit it off from the start, "two brothers from a different mother."  Both are bikers, collectors, and lovers of old things.  Both have built their own houses and buildings--Frank and Joy adding on to a beautiful house Frank bought there in 1971.  The stories of these two men entertained them, and us, all day!

I was reminded of the beginning of our lifetime friendship--back in the late Sixties when Frank returned to San Antonio to teach at S.A.C. after graduate school in Chicago.  I remember one day in particular,  a day on the opposite side of Medina Lake when a bunch of us threw sticks into the lake all afternoon for our dog, Tony, to retrieve. I was shy and tongue-tied around these college teachers back then, being a young college student at S.A.C. myself.

I'd watch from the sidelines as we threw sticks, smoking a cigarette, reading a book.  And then--miracle of miracles--Frank brought Joy into our circle of friends, and I mean that literally.  Forty years ago, I attended Frank and Joy's wedding and we have been great friends ever since.  I loved Joy instantly, as everyone does, and I finally had a kindred spirit friend in Texas!

What fun it was to introduce my dear friends to Mike--and vice versa!

Antioch, Earl, and Pie

Mike woke up wanting to try breakfast at Earl Abel's.  I remembered going to the original Earl Abel's on Broadway many times with Will and my parents, and it was always so good.  A restaurant started in 1933, everything on the menu is homemade.  We had a good conversation with Roger, the owner, who--it turns out--lives on my street, two blocks down.

Because I so enjoyed Friday night at Temple-Beth-El, Mike and I went to the Antioch Baptist service today.  The rabbi gave the sermon, echoing Martin Luther King's message of equality for all--as the Antioch pastor had done at Temple Beth-El.  There was a standing ovation, first by the women, then everyone, when the Antioch preacher announced that both rabbis and the cantor at Temple Beth-El are all women!  My favorite line of the sermon was this:  "We should not all seek a bigger piece of the pie; we should seek to make the pie bigger so that everyone has plenty."

On the way home from church, we decided to go back and try some of Earl's homemade pie--Mike cherry, me chocolate.

What a fun day it's been already--as days usually are with Mike!  He always says, "This is my second best day ever!"  (The best was about eight years ago when we met in a town called Hope.)

Now we're going to rake some leaves and buy some sunflower seeds for the birds.

Elena's Fourth Birthday: January 16th

A wage ride with her two pandas

Mike and I had a wonderful birthday with Elena--a wagon ride, letting a balloon go "all the way to Heaven," doing crafts, and playing at the school playground down the street.

Bonnie joined us for lunch at Adalantes, and Elena had a big laugh as I tried to read the Spanish words in the bathroom.

She is one thoroughly happy girl, on her birthday and every day!  Tonight, she's doing Build-A-Bear with her cousin Audrey, four days older than she, and next Saturday she's having her actual birthday party.  Oh, how I love this little girl!

Dream Week

Tonight I went to Temple Beth-El for a wonderful service.  Temple Beth-El's Shabbat service was done with the Antioch Baptist Church.  The two congregations' choirs sang a beautiful rendition of "We Shall Overcome" and the preacher from Antioch delivered the sermon, echoing the words and rhythms of Martin Luther King.

Dream week continues with another service at Antioch on Sunday morning at 11:00.  I highly recommend it to all of you!

Cooking Thai at home

I love Thai food--and had been really hungry for some when Kate announced that the menu for Wednesday would be Pad Thai and Tom Kha soup.  I have eaten both in restaurants, but these two were the best ever.

"It's so easy," she said--as she gave me the recipes to try for last night's dinner with the family.

Yeah right.  For a chef like Kate, every edible thing looks easy!  Mine fell short of the bar.  You have to cut up the raw chicken with kitchen shears, then slice scallions, ginger, cilantro, basil, and lemon grass.  You have to cook the noodles and make the sauce, squeezing limes and using Thai chili and fish sauce and coconut milk.

I followed her recipes last night, but mine was not as good, not even close.  Either you're a chef or you're not.  Kate is the real deal.  Cooking a meal like that is a real act of love.  And Kate does it without the kitchen looking like a tsunami has just entered the room.  I, on the other hand, will spend Friday morning washing dishes and bowls and pans.

Charlotte and Gerlinde

Of course, in partial defense, I was cooking while Elena was here.  She spent the afternoon with me--such a delight!--and we went to the toy store to buy something with the money Nana had sent her.  "I love birthday cards that have money in them," she said as she chose her stuffed pig and monkey.

Elena sleeping in her first big girl car seat

"Can we have some of those little chocolate cookies in the refrigerator?" she asked.

Turns out she meant chocolate chips!

Joy had brought her a bilingual book (we read the English pages) and had wrapped it in fabric--which Elena just loved.

Meanwhile, Pam has sent me a feast of inspiration in blog posts to read--and I love Poor Man's Feast. I think maybe I'll return to reading about food, not trying to make it! 

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


I'm reading an entire book about this poem, a book by Gregory Orr.  But the most illuminating insights into the poem have come from the writers in my writing group.

A poem leaves itself open to a myriad of interpretations and insights.  This one is eminently memorizable--what with its rhythm and rhyme patterns.  In the end, as I see it, the speaker is saying that even though the two roads were essentially the same, he's going to tell his story when he's old just the way he wants to tell it--that one was "less traveled by."

In other words, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

I heard a good companion talk on Ted, though Ruth Chang didn't actually mention the poem: https://www.ted.com/talks/ruth_chang_how_to_make_hard_choices?language=en

Barnie and Sarge

After reading Humans of New York, I was jazzed. "That kind of project has your name all over it, Yenna," my fourteen-year-old grandson, Jackson, told me. "You could write a book about people you meet on your road trips."

I love what Brandon Stanton has done!  I can't imagine anything more fascinating than wandering around the world, meeting people, listening to their stories and taking pictures--then making a book out of it.

It's an infinitely copy-able idea, at least in theory.  You can also read this stories on his blog, on Facebook, and on the HONY app.

After reading his book, I feel more attuned to every stranger on the street, looking into each person's eyes as if I'm looking at a work of art. His book does that, just like going to an art museum makes me look at ordinary things differently afterwards.

So in Charleston, I thought I'd just do the same thing: I'd take pictures, interview people, and find a story to go with each one.

My assistant, the extrovert Mike,  started up conversations with such colorful characters on the streets of Charleston, and I snapped pictures. To "Can I take your picture?" everybody said, "Yes, sure!"

So on the last day, Mike, driving, saw these two men painting a canon.  He thought that surely had a story I'd want to capture, so he pulled over and said, "Get them."

I took one picture from a distance, then hopped back in the car.  "Why don't you go talk to them?" he suggested.  "That's gotta be a great story!  Two men painting a canon--it could be two hundred years ago."

These two men were happy to have their picture taken.  Sarge is the one with the cigarette, a retired Marine.  Barnie is the one who asked me if I'd like to go out to dinner with him--and gave me his phone number.

I hopped back in the car again.  "That guy was flirting with me," I told Mike, my ego feathers fluffed up from the surprise turn in the interview.

Mike was disappointed.  "That's not a story for a book!" he said.  "Who would want to read about that?"

"Here's the deal, Michael," I said.  "At my age, that's a really good story!"

Marie--sweetgrass basket-maker in Charleston

Just as we were leaving Charleston, we decided to stop at the visitor's center.  Mike bought a small basket from Marie to use as a stand for a sculpture.

Marie is holding a beautiful rice basket.  "Two hundred dollars," she said.

I told her I liked it, but couldn't afford it right then.

"I'll tell you what.  I will give it to you and you will send me the money later.  The Lord loves a cheerful giver and I know you will pay me when you can."

I declined her offer, but said maybe I'd get it next time we're in Charleston.

"Because if you don't pay me," she continued, "Every time you look at the basket, you will think of me and think 'I owe Marie that money.'"

She asked me to take a picture with her holding the rice basket, probably to increase my sense of ownership:

"I love your pancho," she said.

"My daughter made it for me," I said.

"I would trade you a basket for that pancho," she said.  "Tell your daughter if she comes here and brings a pancho I will give her any basket she wants."

Independent Lens, PBS

Today was just the kind of day I needed--a quiet, productive morning organizing my papers and raking the yard, followed by a little pampering at the nail salon, followed by two more excellent films on "Independent Lens" (after Downton, of course.)

Before going to bed with my newly painted toes, I wanted to recommend these two special films:

Mimi and Dona tells the story of Mimi (from her granddaughter's lens) who has cared for her intellectually disabled daughter all her life.  Mimi is 92 when the film begins, 97 when it ends.  Her daughter, Dona is 63 at the beginning.  The filmmaker, Sophie, the niece of Dona, ironically gets the diagnosis that her son has autism while she is filming the story.

Autism in Love documents the lives of four adults with autism--two of whom are partners.  You may need Kleenex for both of these.

If you'd like to see them, just go to PBS and look under videos--then go to Independent Lens.

A boy named David

A week ago, a 16-year-old boy named David, a student at Alamo Heights High School, committed suicide in his family's back yard.  I didn't know David.

The news reports say that he was a victim of cyber-bullying by classmates.  He didn't die from gunshots or drugs, but as a result of unbelievably vicious insults.

I don't know if David attended Cambridge Elementary or not--the elementary school at the end of my street--but it's one of the schools that feed into Alamo Heights High School.  Every morning I watch as parents walk their children to school.  I love watching them as they run or amble or glide into school on skateboards.  I like seeing them dressed up for Halloween and Fun Fair days.  I know families of some of these children, and I know how precious they are to their parents, sisters and brothers, and grandparents.  As David was to his.

Some children and teenagers, at some point, decide that others in their class don't cut it.  Maybe they are too fat, too skinny, too smart, too different, too rich, too poor, too whatever. But with the followers on Facebook and Instagram--the audience for their opinions is huge, hundreds of "followers."

I read a thread of group texts to David--a good-looking boy whom his classmates called "Monkey Face."  The comments must have been mortifying to a sixteen-year-old.  He was one of three sons and an Eagle Scout; he traveled with his family and played sports.  He was loved at home. He couldn't take the bullying of other kids any more.

Teenagers don't even know who they are yet, so the words of their peers can be inflated indicators of who they are--whether for good or bad.  We used to say, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but your words can't hurt me."  Not true--then or now.

Making a Murderer

This new documentary series on Netflix traces the life of a man who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit.  DNA exonerates him and he is released.

He lives a gritty life--in a rusty trailer on the compound where his family runs a salvage yard.  He has a low IQ, but comes across as an honest person.

When he is, shortly after his release, accused of murder, the entire series focuses on the trials and family dynamics.  It's an excellent series about the plight of being poor in America.

Last Sunday in Charleston....

A week ago, Mike and I visited Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston.

After the tragedy in June, the church is without its pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, one of the nine fatalities.

I almost said "victims," but there were far more victims than nine--the families, children and friends grieving seven months later and far into the future.

As we all saw in television interviews in June, these are people who want to move on and "be a model to the world of forgiveness, resilience, and strength" (as the interim pastor said.)

I wondered: how could they welcome us so warmly, two of several white people there?  How could they sing, braid each other's hair, wear purple and blue hats, go to work every day?  How do people move on after such a tragedy?

They could just as understandably close their doors to outsiders.  They could, with reason,  feel hatred or suspicion for white people--since the perpetrator of that terrible crime was white.  But that's not what they are doing. As one of the elders said, "You are welcome here, whatever church, synagogue, or mosque you come from--or if you have no faith at all."

What a contrast to the divisive rhetoric of "the Donald" who wants to build a wall at the Mexican border and to ban Moslems from the United States!  What a contrast to the never-ending fighting in which political candidates take aim at each other--not with guns but with words and personal attacks.  The members of Mother Emmanuel are humble, kind, working-class people, no towers named after any of them.

As Obama said in his speech last week, we live in a country of "more gun-related crime than any developed country in the world."  We have watched so many news reports of mass shootings, he said, "that it almost seems normal."

Children in classrooms, office-workers, church members, college students, moviegoers--all the victims of mass killings were  people in the middle of living until gunshots shattered everything.  While I agree with Obama's speech about the obvious need for stringent background checks and ending loopholes, it's not enough.

We need a world that loves its kids, all colors, all income-levels, and all religious faiths into which they are born. What I dream for is a world in which shooting would be the last things any child would want to do with his hands.

Day's Recipe for Overnight Eggs Benedict

This was delicious--and such an easy way to serve breakfast to a bunch of people.  The Hollandaise sauce is made in the blender.

Eggs Benedict Casserole 

6 English muffins

1 pound thick-cut Canadian bacon

10 large eggs

1 cup milk

salt and pepper

chives to garnish


Butter a 9 x 13" pan.

Split the muffins in half and cube and distribute them evenly into the bottom of the dish.  Cube the Canadian bacon and sprinkle half of it over the top of the bread.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk and season liberally with salt and pepper (about 1 t. salt and 3/4 t. black pepper).  Pour the egg mixture evenly over the bread and stop with the rest of the bacon.  Press down on the bread to make sure that it is all submerged in the egg mixture.

Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

About an hour and a half before serving, take the casserole out of the refrigerator an let it sit at room temperature while the oven preheats to 350.

Cook at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour, until the custard has set.  You might want to put a loose piece of foil over the top during the last 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and keep covered until ready to serve.  Top with Hollandaise sauce and minced chives.


Blender Hollandaise Sauce

3 egg yolks

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 t. salt

1/8 t. cayenne

10 T. unsalted butter.

Melt the butter in a small  pot.  Try not to let it boil.

Put the egg yolks and lemon juice, salt and cayenne, in the blender.  Blend the egg yolk mixture at medium to medium high speed until it lightens in color, about 20-30 seconds.

Then turn the blender down to its lowest setting and drizzle in the hot melted butter slowly while the blender is running.  Continue for another couple seconds after the butter is all incorporated.

Turn off the blender and taste.  It should be buttery, lemony and just lightly salty.  Adjust a bit--even adding a touch of water if you want it thinner.  Serve within an hour or so.

Sausage Strata from The Meeting Street Inn in Charleston

We enjoyed this so much at breakfast that we asked Betty, the cook, for the recipe:

She used a giant pan, so I'll probably halve or third it for a 9 x 13 pan.


1 package of bulk sausage browned and drained.

1 bag of Jimmy Dean Skillets (If you can find that)--basically, it's a mix of hash brown potatoes, green peppers and onions

1 large spoon of minced garlic

1 cup chopped bell peppers

1 cup chopped sweet onions

2 cartons (1 quart each) of liquid eggs

1 carton heavy cream

4 cups shredded Parmesan cheese

4 cups shredded Swiss cheese

4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

4 cups cooked bacon, crumbled

1 T. sea salt

Mix all dry ingredients, then add peppers and onions.  Layer all that over the sausage and top with cheeses.  Mix eggs and cream and salt in a pitcher and pour it over.  Cover with wax paper and foil and cook at 325 for two hours or until it looks done.

Two hours???

That's what it says.

Homecoming

After three days on the road, I drove into San Antonio at 2:00 today--so happy to be out of the car and inside my messy house.  I had to turn on the AC to cool the house because it was so hot and muggy on this January afternoon.  The now-leafless pecan tree has shed its attire all over the yard.   The car is only half-emptied, the three-weeks of mail opened, mostly bills and coupons inviting me to buy new bras and stuff.  Home feels good, even in its messiness.

It's hard to have good telephone conversations on the road, what with road noise--so my traveling companions were mostly podcasts and other words--This American Life, Serial, Ram Dass, John O'Donahue, On the Media, On Being, and Liz Gilbert's Magic Lessons.

Maybe it's because I'm road weary, but my hunch is that I will be flying and borrowing or renting a car next time I travel east.  It's always more expansive driving the first leg of a journey than the last one.

I took the lower route home so that Betty and I could have a farewell lunch--so good but too short.  I spent two nights in motels and stopped only briefly in two places I always like to visit on the Southern Route, an art supply store in Covington, Louisiana, and a quilt shop (Block Therapy) in Gautier.  I know both these routes so well that it's like driving around in a stretched-out and familiar neighborhood.

On the road, I feel hopeful about all the creative endeavors I'll do when I get home--I'll write a book AND do some quilting AND take a class in portrait photography.  But of course, as Liz Gilbert says in Magic Lessons, the first step in creative endeavors involves alphabetizing the spice drawer.

Allspice. Basil. Cinnamon....

Observing Humans

I thought it would be easy to snap pictures of people and find a nugget of their stories--as HONY (Humans of New York)  does.  It's not easy.  First, you have to have way more advanced skills as a photographer than I have.  Then, you have to juggle your notebook and ask questions and listen while you're taking pictures, giving the person time to relax and talk naturally.  But trying--just trying--makes me see every person I encounter as the unique human he or she is.   Everyone has a story.

We shared wine and cheese with this North Carolina farmer and his wife.  I'd love to see what the experts at HONY would do with Billy Joe--what a character!

"How did you meet?" I asked--having only my iPhone to capture a snapshot.

"You want to know the truth?  She was bending over the bottom shelf at Wal-Mart and she had on these red pants and I thought WOO-HOO!"

"She hung up on me the first three times I called--which didn't do me any good since I'd just had a divorce and wasn't feeling so confident of myself."

But he prevailed and here they are, married two years.  "I give her everything she wants," Billy Joe said.  "Like this Christmas. I gave her four chickens and a rooster.  Last year I gave her two hogs."

Back in Hartwell

We arrived in Hartwell at sundown, just as the weather was taking a turn--moving into freezing territory.  We were so lucky not to have this weather in Charleston. It was a wonderful trip!

We loved and highly recommend The Meeting Street Inn--and left feeling that we had a lot of new friends there.  Three nights and four days in Charleston gave us a chance to really get a feel for the city and the happy, friendly people there.  I can hardly wait to go back there.  The city--in spite of its recent tragedies--exudes a sense of closeness among the people and friendliness to tourists.

Tomorrow morning, we'll pack the Mini and I'll head to Carlene's for a short visit, then have lunch with Betty before heading west.

I feel so fortunate to have had such happy times this trip--in Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia!

Humans of Charleston (and a couple of mules)

Amanda on Mount Pleasant.
"What would you like to tell people?" Mike asked.
"Buy your baskets from me," she said. 

Shananda who makes jewelry with African beads

Here's January.
"My name is January but I was born in October," he said.
"Some people say they named me that because that was when I was conceived.
But my granddaddy is also named January." 

"Will they bite me?" I asked Mike.
"Probably not," he replied.

They didn't bite anybody. 

Carlene--who makes sweet grass baskets.
"Everybody is so happy here, so nice," Mike said.
"It's too hard to be mean," she said. 

Carlene today--wearing a wig
She advised us to have lunch at Buckshots--
a soul food restaurant about 30 miles from here....
which we did. 

Eloise--who has a degree from Duke, but after 30 years as a histologist,
returned to sweetgrass basket weaving, and is teaching the craft to her granddaughters.
"My grandmother is with me every day," she said.
"If you don't know where you come from, you never know where you're going." 

Mike who sells matts.  One of his customers asked, "Do you have one that says Oklahoma?"
"No," he replied.
"If you did have one, what would it say?" the customer asked.
Say what???