Women and Houses

When the 1960s turned into the 1970s, Mark and I lived in a quaint little stone cottage on Beckman Hill.  We rented that house for 11 years from our old German landlord, Mr. Beckman. 

For $125 a month, we had the entire 65 acres and we could survey miles of Texas Hill Country from "the point" behind our house. Both of our children were born during those years, Day in 1971, Will in 1978.  In the Bicentennial year, 1976, I grieved a miscarriage. 

To everyone's amusement, our German Shepherd Tony climbed a big tree with a crooked trunk.  He caught frisbees there and sat patiently beside Day's stroller when Mark and I rode our motorcycles in the open field we made into a motorcycle track.  Our friends (Joy and Frank and others from the SAC art department) drove up our long bumpy driveway to visit us there, to have a picnic with the babies beside the track.  Frank and a few others brought their bikes.

One day Carlene bought me a pot plant for the living room.  I'd never imagined having a plant hanging in the window, but it sparked something in me.  This was my home, and I could put things I loved in it.

Will was a baby when Mr. Beckman decided to sell the entire 65 acres.  If we'd had $100K, we might have bought it--but that might as well have been millions! So we bought seven acres from him, a couple of miles down Scenic Loop and built a house there--a story for another day.

I yearned for a house of our own, a house I could decorate, paint, and move things around in.  I wanted a house that would be a canvas I could make my own.  For reasons I'll go into later, it turned out that this was never going to happen. 

And so, I began reading about the relationship between women and houses.  I remember sitting on a blanket on the ground with books spread all around me one fall afternoon, copying lines and paragraphs that discussed the meaning of houses to women.  From there, I wrote a book of my own, Women and Houses.  

The book of the month in the Handmade Book Club was a book shaped like a house. I made mine this week--but I still can't get this site to post photos.  

But what to do with those pages?

Turns out I decided to resurrect my book.  Now that I'm copying my own past writing, as well as quotations I'd collected, it feels like coming full circle.  It's transporting me back to all my past houses while I'm seeing my past questions in a new light, literally.  I'm sitting beside windows looking out into a yard of lush native plants and hummingbirds and doves and cardinals.  All flat surfaces are covered with papers, some I've saved (for some reason) for decades.  I'm at home here--more so than I've ever been anywhere.

I find myself in this chapter of my life looking back on all the previous chapters, all the houses that even now I could walk through in the dark and tell you exactly how many steps there are in every staircase. Each one is its own treasure trove of stories and memories and the friends and family who visited there.  

What I long yearned for I now have in spades, including a big sense of being At Home.

 Is it everything I hoped it would be, having a house of my own?

Oh yes, it's all that and more! 

My only sad spot is that my daddy (who along with my mama bought this house for me when it was still charmingly shabby) didn't live long enough to see what it's become and to have his favorite banana pudding at this table, looking out into this yard full of flowers and birds.  By some standards, it's just an ordinary little house. I wouldn't trade it for a mansion. 

Sasquatch

My new friend/all-round handyman and gardener, calls himself Sasquatch. A. tall man, mid-thirties, he has an elephant tattooed on the back of his calf.  

After he planted all the plants Bonnie picked for my yard, I knew I had to capture him for all jobs in the future--but I had no idea what all I'd be getting.

He knows how to propagate plants, knows what to trim, what to leave alone. I asked him today how he learned to do electrical, building and landscaping, and he said he watches lots of videos. He doesn't like TV, only documentaries about animals and plants. 

He's also spent years in the military.  So far I haven't encountered anything he can't do. 

Sasquatch is quick witted and quick to make decisions that would take me forever.  He has definite opinions and loves the same color palette I do. 

Yesterday, we spent two hours in Home Depot--an exercise I never would have imagined would be a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon.  He insisted I ride in one of those carts for old people--knowing how much we had to do and that I'd never make it on my feet.  I thought okay, I'll try it.  He was right.

As a former motorcycle rider, I have to say it was pokey and not at all agile ride.  No wheelies, no quick turns, just up for forward, down for reverse.  

Luci caught on faster than I did, as she's accustomed to following my feet in the grocery stores and thrift shops.  She trotted beside me in my cart as if we did it all the time.  

Orlando first filled my basket with pavers and plants in the garden shop.  Then he got himself a cart and we filled  it with paint, electrical do-dads, a light fixture for the casita,  screens and whatnot.  

At one point, I said to him, "I'm so happy!" and he said, "Me too!"

He anticipated my path and moved anything blocking an aisle. He climbed a ladder to bring a fixture down to show me. 

Then he packed our purchases into my car, got Luci into her backseat bed, and drove home to unload. I drove  to a food truck in a beautiful little park near Sunset Ridge to get us a pizza while he got to work hanging plants and laying a square of pavers under the bird feeder to keep scattered seed out of the soil. 

Two quick slices of pizza, and he was out the door to finish  before dark. 

I love and adopt almost all of his ideas. He's as into all this as I am!  "The best part about doing these things is seeing what a difference a few simple changes can make," he says. 

He's made the yard sparkle with fairy lights and lined the front pathway with them. He's made the back porch of the casita inviting and cozy, with plants and bird cages hanging from the eaves.

You might say Sasquatch is the man of my decorating and landscaping  dreams!   

Marcus

As of today, my two oldest grandsons, are both over the dividing line between kid and adult.  Today is Marcus' 21st birthday!  (Jackson will be 25 in October) 

He just sent me a fantastic picture of himself that captures the man he is: sun-tanned and cheerful, fit and glowing--but Google is not letting me post it.  Some glitch!

His parents are in Copenhagen for a week and when they return, Marcus is scheduled for a tonsillectomy.  His girlfriend Lucia is home for a month in Spain.  So I'm guessing he and his brother will be going out for dinner tonight, Marcus having his first legal drink!

As a little boy, he was shy. He proclaimed that he would never move away from his mama, that he'd always live at home.  He was a Mama's Boy for sure.

One day I looked down at a three-year-old Marcus as we were packing the car to go somewhere.  "Here, Marcus, can you hold these keys for me for a minute?" I asked.

His face registered a mix of delight and pride, honored to be tasked with such an important job.  He timidly took the keys and held them carefully, then said, "Yenna, I've never holded keys before!" 

He played the trumpet for a while, played lacrosse, adored all sports, had an incredible memory for athletes, coaches, plays, wins and losses.  When he went to college, he reinvented himself: he knocked on doors and got whatever he asked for, mostly jobs relating to sports and sportscasting and writing.  He made so many friends and created the life he wanted. 

He interviewed a star basketball player for his podcast, a girl from Spain, an art major.  

When Day heard the interview, she said, "Marcus, I think she likes you.  I mean likes you!" 

"Like she's into me?.....Nahhh" he said.

But his Mama was right.  I don't know what transpired, but pretty soon pictures started showing up of Marcus and Lucia.

One night the two of them were having a meal with Jackson and Deanna and the whole table was filled with his friends.  Jackson (reportedly) asked Marcus: "Did you ever think this would be your life, all these friends, a cool girlfriend and all?"

Marcus said, "Yeah, for sure.  I always knew this would  be my life!"

Here's to Marcus and 21 candles!  Here's to knowing what you want and going for it.  Here's to creating the life you want!

Cultivating the Joy of Aging

Charlotte texted me this poem by Jayne Gumbel, and I wanted to share it with all my aging friends and family:

Cultivating the Joy of Aging

Some mornings now

I wake before the world

and sit quietly with my coffee

like an old woman

who has finally stopped arguing with the wind.

The body speaks differently these days.

Knees remembering storms.

Hands carrying the ache

of everyone they have tried to love.

Still!

Wendy, the willow waving no matter the weather!

The birds call my name from the trees -

as though nothing precious has been lost.

This delights me!

I was taught to fear becoming older.

As though aging were a narrowing.

As though beauty belonged only

to smooth skin and unbroken things.

But the heart!

the heart becomes enormous

through weather.

I have cried enough now

to recognize sorrow

in the eyes of strangers.

I have lost enough

to stop wasting time

pretending permanence.

And joy? true joy!

No longer arrives like fireworks.

It comes quietly now.

In painting, in poetry.

In a friend who still reaches for my hand.

In the courage to rest.

In forgiving the life I did not live.

In belonging to the earth

instead of trying to rise above it.

Aging is not a punishment.

It is an initiation.

A slow loosening

from performance, certainty, and speed.

A returning.

Not to youth -

but to something kinder.

Sometimes I think

the soul grows older on purpose

so we will finally learn

how to love everyone.

Even ourselves.

Especially ourselves.

And when my time comes

to leave this shimmering world,

I do not want to say

I stayed young.

I want to say:

I stayed astonished.

A Mother's Day message from Candy to Carolyn

Two of my dearest friends and I all grew up together.  Not as children and teenagers but as mothers of small children and faculty wives.  Our husbands were professors of art at S.A.C. in those days--and we three and other wives bonded as we watched our children play on the yard of the Koehler House where most of the faculty and student exhibitions were held.  

Carolyn's Candy and Joy's Kim and my Day were girlfriends--and Kim had a big brother named Chris.  The three of us now have two sons and four daughters in their forties and fifties. 

Now we three mamas are in our late 70s and early 80s.  We still get together when we can and it's always so dear to be with friends who go back that far. 

This morning scrolling Facebook, I happened to read Candy's Mother's Day message to Carolyn and it was so beautifully written and such a spot-on description of Carolyn that I'm taking the liberty of posting it for anyone who didn't see it on Facebook. 

Here it is:

Candy Carlos Banda is with Carolyn Cox.

May 11, 2025

  ·My mama is a magical being, my mooring to goodness and my spurring to evolve. She is such a story of juxtaposition!

Meeting as teenagers and wanting to get married just weeks later, she and my daddy weren’t supposed to make it, but they sure in hell did! Best love story!

Without a college degree, she wasn’t supposed to become Vice President of San Antonio Christus Santa Rosa hospitals, but her badass self did.

Society tells us that we aren’t supposed to talk with strangers in an elevator, but if you have ever been in an elevator with my mom, you know she certainly does just that. This lady makes a point to speak to all, to include all, to engage all.

She didn’t have to be our biggest cheerleader, but there she is showing up at all of our events. My mama is the manifestation of being present, buoying us up through love in action. 

A Catholic-raised girl doesn’t normally choose to live her life with an agnostic husband and daughter with all kinds of existential angsts, but there’s my mama showing us how to do it. 

My parents’ tandem of curiosity and reflection taught me how each of us can grow when we invest in others, ask authentic questions, listen intently, and engage in discussions that explore and examine the essence of being a human in this world.

She didn’t plan on being a widow, but she is now and damn is she my hero. I have been in awe of Mom from day one, but I am most proud of this chapter in her life because she has made the choice to live life with goodness, grace, and strength. She continues to show up and be engaged in our lives. In her constant effort to live a life bigger than herself, she chooses to work serving others. She is figuring out her life on her terms, and it is damn special to watch unfold.

Her being shapes my world. Love you, Mama—alll the way up and back down, again and again and again…Happy, happy Mother’s Day!!! 💛💛💛

Blue Jean Books and Dish Rag Books

I've picked up and then cut up a few pair of old jeans and a few other blue fabrics, and today I am ironing them onto interfacing and then backing them with a kind of tissue paper.  That's what you call book cloth.  Later, on another assumbly line day, I will cover book boards with them to be used on books with exposed spines. 

Same with dish rags picked up for a dollar at a thrift store along with a couple of vintage handkerchiefs.  

The smell of steam on fabric takes me back--since every garment I ever wore was made by my mother, Carlene.  

On the night before she made a dress or a skirt for either of us, she enjoyed cutting out the patterns--McCalls, Simplicity, and Butterick.  

Then she'd iron and neatly fold the fabric the long way, selvages together.  On each pattern piece, there was an arrow indicating straight of grain.  So she'd pin each pattern piece, sleeves and skirts parallel to the grain.  She then cut each piece with pinking shears and pin matching parts together.

My favorite part was sitting beside her as the fabric slid under the presser foot of the machine and watching the parts come out the other side connected.

While I've made a few garments in my life, I find making small pieces like book covers more satisfying at the moment.  When machine stitching is called for I love using her old Bernina to stitch the parts together.

Memories of my mother are woven into everything I make.  To her--and then to me, and then to Day--handmade gifts were the best gifts.  

Lyn's Classes

Lyn Belisle is a well-known San Antonio artist who generously shares her magic in these online classes:

Lyn's classes  

The first one on this site is the one Nellie and  I are working on now. To that end, I picked up sticks and stones and magnolia leaves as Luci and I were walking.  

This class, The Keeper of Fragments subtitled "A Devotional Reliquary Figure," teaches students how to honor the fragments and memories that make us who we are.  Nellie, an artist in her own right, jumps right in and makes beautiful figures.  I, on the other hand, start by collecting pieces--fabric scraps, buttons, string, ribbons, and papers.  And now I'm ready to tear paper and start assembling my figure.

This one is akin to one I've taken and loved earlier, The Secrets of the Spirit Doll.  Both build figures with faces and adorn them with tiny envelopes and bits of handwriting and all kinds of found objects.  

Nellie makes her own clay faces; I use, for now, faces made by Lyn, sold on Etsy.

My usual aesthetic in book making has a lot to do with precision and measuring and stitching.  Lyn's classes are more organic.  She rips and tears and rarely measures, making this a big step outside my comfort zone and a chance to look with new eyes at the things I've been saving.

It's refreshing and meditative.  I highly recommend any of her classes if you're looking for something new and meaningful.