I like the game of solitaire on my phone. It's close to mindless, but each click of a card gives a sense of temporary rightness.
When I miss a possible move, I'm reminded of missed opportunities in a day. Or when I pay attention to the big moves and ignore the little 2s and 3s, it makes me wonder how often I do that in life, too--keeping my mind on one big thing, I forget to notice that everything can change when I move something small. I like the way the phone cheers and applauds when I get it right.
Working on the apartment has been an opportunity to move familiar things into new places and feel that same "click" when an old thing finds a more favorable place.
Moving the smallest thing can open up a space for something new--like the antique pine piece Mike bought me yesterday. It's marked up with insect holes and scratches and has ten large drawers inside for much-needed storage. The grain of the wood, the dovetailed joints, the patina that only age can give--it all adds a soulfulness to "Nana's room." (Elena calls that room "Nana's house.")
But the difference is that now I'm not moving everything solo. "I'll do it," Mike says, moving in a heavy piece of furniture. "I don't want you to hurt yourself." Or he hangs something and it's not quite right and he hangs it somewhere else. And when I have an idea, he says, 'That's perfect!"
He pays attention to the large and small details, trimming out over flaws, perfecting the sheetrock and paint. (I've gotten so used to flaws I've been unable to repair that I barely see them anymore.) But when they are fixed, everything looks just right, and I can hear cheers and applause.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Shopping with Mike
Saturday morning is a good time to find treasures. Mike and I poked around a couple of great garage sales and the Habitat Store. He found a granite sink for $35 for the casita bathroom and will cut it to fit, a piece we needed for kitchen appliances, and a beautiful old Texas pine cabinet for $125.
Shopping with Mike is like shopping with a male version of me. He looks for old things with possibilities and has the skill (unlike me) to bring out their potential. He loves color, as I do. He built his three-story barn out of recycled materials and that's primarily what we've used for this refurbishing project.
He came back on Tuesday for a short visit to complete the apartment--which we hope to have done in time for tomorrow's writing group.
We've had another great week of working together!
Shopping with Mike is like shopping with a male version of me. He looks for old things with possibilities and has the skill (unlike me) to bring out their potential. He loves color, as I do. He built his three-story barn out of recycled materials and that's primarily what we've used for this refurbishing project.
He came back on Tuesday for a short visit to complete the apartment--which we hope to have done in time for tomorrow's writing group.
We've had another great week of working together!
Losses and Friendship
Last night, Freda hosted a potluck dinner party for Barbel--just back from Germany and her mother's funeral. Her San Antonio friends gathered to see her for this short Texas visit before she goes back to Albuquerque. We sat on Freda's porch (until a yellow jacket landed on my hand for a nibble) and talked about loss and grief.
This morning, I got this from Freda:
Here is another quote from a very good memoir I just finished called "H is for Hawk" by Helen MacDonald. She is a historian who lives in England and trains hawks and falcons. She wrote her book after the sudden death of her father.
"There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realize that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are."
Barbel's mother was 96. They knew at their last visit that it would probably be the last, and Barbel's mother sang to her.
I noticed--as I have many times before--the care that friends give to each other in hard times, reflecting on their own losses and telling how they got through them.
I also noticed in a group of women sixty-something to eighty-something how authentic and beautiful women can grow as they age. We may not be as vivacious as we were at forty, but there's something rich in the quiet softness that comes with age and losses.
This morning, I got this from Freda:
Here is another quote from a very good memoir I just finished called "H is for Hawk" by Helen MacDonald. She is a historian who lives in England and trains hawks and falcons. She wrote her book after the sudden death of her father.
"There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realize that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are."
Barbel's mother was 96. They knew at their last visit that it would probably be the last, and Barbel's mother sang to her.
I noticed--as I have many times before--the care that friends give to each other in hard times, reflecting on their own losses and telling how they got through them.
I also noticed in a group of women sixty-something to eighty-something how authentic and beautiful women can grow as they age. We may not be as vivacious as we were at forty, but there's something rich in the quiet softness that comes with age and losses.
Friday, May 15, 2015
B.B. King dies
My first music outing with Mike was BB King's club on Beale Street in Memphis, September 2007.
Growing up on Beale Street, Mike said he saw him perform at least fifty times and he listens to him probably every day.
King died after having had diabetes for many years--at the age of 89. Without knowing how to read music, he was the king of soul, performing almost up to his death. He was born on a Mississippi plantation in 1925 and began his career before he was twenty.
"Was he ever married?" I asked Mike.
"He had a love affair with his guitar," he said. "He wanted to be buried with Lucille [his guitar]"
From NPR:
You can't mention names without talking about his guitar, Lucille. It was actually more than one. The story goes that the first was a $30 acoustic he was playing at a dance in Arkansas when two men got in a fight, kicked over a stove and started a fire. When King was safe outside, he realized he'd left the guitar inside. He ran back into the burning dance hall to save it. After he learned the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to name his guitar for her to remind himself never to get into a fight over a woman. And since then, every one of his trademark Gibson ES-355s has been named Lucille.
The sound he got out of her was what set him apart. Playing high up on the neck, he'd push a string as he picked it, bending the note to make it cry. He didn't burn a lot of fast licks, but you could feel each note he played.
Growing up on Beale Street, Mike said he saw him perform at least fifty times and he listens to him probably every day.
King died after having had diabetes for many years--at the age of 89. Without knowing how to read music, he was the king of soul, performing almost up to his death. He was born on a Mississippi plantation in 1925 and began his career before he was twenty.
"Was he ever married?" I asked Mike.
"He had a love affair with his guitar," he said. "He wanted to be buried with Lucille [his guitar]"
From NPR:
You can't mention names without talking about his guitar, Lucille. It was actually more than one. The story goes that the first was a $30 acoustic he was playing at a dance in Arkansas when two men got in a fight, kicked over a stove and started a fire. When King was safe outside, he realized he'd left the guitar inside. He ran back into the burning dance hall to save it. After he learned the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to name his guitar for her to remind himself never to get into a fight over a woman. And since then, every one of his trademark Gibson ES-355s has been named Lucille.
The sound he got out of her was what set him apart. Playing high up on the neck, he'd push a string as he picked it, bending the note to make it cry. He didn't burn a lot of fast licks, but you could feel each note he played.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
What a three-year-old remembers
"I used to look at that when I was a baby," Elena said yesterday. "Because it's so beautiful."
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Later, she told her daddy, "There's no house anymore in Yenna's country. A man died and they broke his house all down."
The last time I saw Allen in his hospice bed, I took Elena with me. She took one look at him and her eyes filled with tears. She was less than a year old. "Oh yes, I remember him," she said.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Silly Linda
Well, Folks, we called it off. After I'd packed up all his presents, boxed them up to return, after I'd taken down the pictures, after I'd reported Us as Over, we called the Break Up off.
When I heard the real story that had sent me down the Rabbit Hole, it was just another life lesson of how I can make up a story out of threads!
I should be a fiction writer.
Elena, on another matter, said yesterday, "Silly Linda." I didn't know she knew my first name--and it sounded so cute coming from her.
When I heard the real story that had sent me down the Rabbit Hole, it was just another life lesson of how I can make up a story out of threads!
I should be a fiction writer.
Elena, on another matter, said yesterday, "Silly Linda." I didn't know she knew my first name--and it sounded so cute coming from her.
Monday, May 11, 2015
That solitary house
In the earlier post, I showed a picture of a house in a field of flowers.
I got this note from my brother today after he read my blog:
I know that house. I see it 2-3 times a week. It is on Hwy 29 outside of Winder --even has a rusty barn roof out back. I went in it once, though it is eerily empty now.
This is why: I was pastor of the church in that rural community and knew practically every country house. The lady who lived there was down in her back and when I visited her the last thing she said before I left was "Preacher. Promise me one thing. Promise me you will do my funeral."
"Sure," I promised. Six months later we were living in Columbia. Now 30 YEARS later I still "see" her in her ragged chair by the oil heater with a face full of relief that the matter was settled. And I also still remember one more of my broken promises, and wonder if anyone breaks as many promises as us "preachers."
I love that reflection. I love the coincidence--that I took a picture of the very house that reminds Bob of a promise he couldn't keep.
Speaking of Houses
A huge yellow cartoon dinosaur is demolishing Allen and Hudson's house across the street. I'm riveted. The claws reach down and rip off the roof in big strips of metal. A stone wall and fireplace go down in less than a minute. I watch as the garage goes--along with it the house number 610. It is, as Will said (my son who's a firefighter) like a funeral, watching a house go down. The mirrors on my walls are shaking.
Door frames and windows and walls are being heaped into a pile and the house, after two hours of work with the Big Cat, is now gone. A hundred-year-old house, the lives it used to shelter, gone.
A house like a life takes so long to build. All our knowledge and experience can be gone in one fell swoop. Do I sound morbid? I won't overworkf the metaphor.
Door frames and windows and walls are being heaped into a pile and the house, after two hours of work with the Big Cat, is now gone. A hundred-year-old house, the lives it used to shelter, gone.
A house like a life takes so long to build. All our knowledge and experience can be gone in one fell swoop. Do I sound morbid? I won't overworkf the metaphor.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Spirituality 101 on an airplane
Some people think all writers are after "the Great American Novel." But I know many writers, and they are each doing their own things, as I am--from poetry to comedy, from short stories to nonfiction.
One thing all writers have in common is a love of looking and listening, finding in strangers pieces of people we know, or people we are, or people a little bit like people we used to be. When we find a juicy character in a stranger we sit beside on a plane, we consider turning her into a story--as she is a mirror for characters we've encountered in real life.
Actually, I sat in the seat in front of my most recent find; I couldn't even see her face. Listening to her for two hours on the flight from Greenville to Houston, I got enough material for a novel, but I lack the intellectual fortitude, skill, or patience to stay with her for more than a page.
Let's call her Stardust. She spoke loudly and confidently to her seat mate for my two hour flight yesterday, and her voice carried clearly for three or four rows. Frequently, she laughed--a loud, resonant, annoying laugh. It wasn't a mirthful laugh; it was more a practiced, all-knowing Guru-laugh, the kind she might have picked up from an encounter with an Enlightened Being.
Stardust's seat mate (let's call her Lucy) was too soft-spoken for me to make out most of her words, so I focused on the speech of the woman I came to know was a "spiritual healer"--a pastiche of New Age clichés.
"I can tell you are a giver," she said. "You give give give give give give give!" [seven gives!] So how are you at receiving?"
I waited as Lucy responded, then I heard Stardust say, "You have to feel it to heal it....If you were my client, I would invite you to start journaling. See what comes up around that. You have to feel your feelings. Do not run away from them. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel!" [seven feels!]
Lucy talked some more and I strained, unsuccessfully, to hear what she said.
"Oh dear! You have been a caretaker all of your life!" Stardust replied. "Bless your heart! Now you are on a beautiful path of self-transformation. Today you are sitting here with me for a reason. You are going to take back your life and attend to your lonely little inner child."
Lucy told her more, but I could only make out a few words: mother-in-law, husband, children.
"In those moments, give it over to God, to your angels, and to your ancestors. There's a whole team up there waiting to support you....I talk to God, my angels, and my ancestors all the time."
Soon, they were talking about butter. Stardust had recently attended an herb conference: "Cutting edge as far as going back to the earth," she said. "It's a conference of ancient medicine women. Here's the skinny on what you need to do. It's all about butter."
In certain circles, "It" is often all about One Thing. But butter?
Lucy was advised to buy raw organic butter and start eating it regularly. "It's the best source of high quality fatty acids and it will change your life....If you are lucky, you may find it at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, but since the really good butter is illegal to sell, you have to ask around at farmer's markets."
After half an hour on butter, during which I dozed a bit, they moved to past incarnations. "I believe in past lives," Stardust told Lucy. "I have had many past lives and in every one of them I have been a mother to many children, a wife, a caretaker like you. But I've always had a pain in my heart--that I couldn't do what I was meant to do. This lifetime has been a long time coming. This lifetime is for me, just me."
Lucy complimented Stardust on her skin. "Well, you have pretty skin, too," Stardust said to Lucy. "Mine is a reward of eating only the highest quality foods, grown locally, no meat, no sugar. Mostly grains, fresh vegetables, and butter." Then there was a little pocket of silence--as Stardust "needed a moment" to "go inside herself."
When the conversation resumed, I could hear Stardust asking Lucy, "May I tell you a little bit about my life?" to which Lucy said, enthusiastically, "Oh yes! I'm sorry! This has been all about me, hasn't it?"
Stardust's narrative sounded well-rehearsed: "I was a child of divorce. Both my father and my step-father were good people, just filled up with demons and anger and rage. My mother, though she was wonderful, was weak and unavailable. As a result, I learned to be invisible, not to cause anyone any trouble. 'Don't bother about me!'--that was my mantra."
"This all worked for me until I was about 28. I had a lover who was handsome, funny, smart, and successful. But the pain in my heart was constant. When I went back to school and studied spiritual healing, I realized that he just wasn't available for the spiritual life, so we went our separate ways. I still love him and his way of being in the world, but I just had to accept that we were together for a season, not for life."
When the plane was gearing down for landing, Stardust said, "I need a moment now. When a plane ascends or descends, it is important to concentrate on that energy and refrain from talking."
As we stood to de-plane, I finally got to take a look at the pair behind me. Lucy was a grandmother, as I'd imagined her to be; Stardust was maybe thirty, tall, curly haired, beautiful. She had flawless buttery skin.
Lucy was showing a picture of a grandchild on her phone. Stardust's voice was a reverential audible whisper. "She is a truly exquisite being, a beautiful soul. I feel that I have known her on another plane. I could have been her mother or something."
"I'm going to get me some of that butter," Lucy promised as they parted.
"And always remember, you are on a beautiful path. Just learn to receive all that the Universe has in store for you. Take care of your inner child. She needs your care."
One thing all writers have in common is a love of looking and listening, finding in strangers pieces of people we know, or people we are, or people a little bit like people we used to be. When we find a juicy character in a stranger we sit beside on a plane, we consider turning her into a story--as she is a mirror for characters we've encountered in real life.
Actually, I sat in the seat in front of my most recent find; I couldn't even see her face. Listening to her for two hours on the flight from Greenville to Houston, I got enough material for a novel, but I lack the intellectual fortitude, skill, or patience to stay with her for more than a page.
Let's call her Stardust. She spoke loudly and confidently to her seat mate for my two hour flight yesterday, and her voice carried clearly for three or four rows. Frequently, she laughed--a loud, resonant, annoying laugh. It wasn't a mirthful laugh; it was more a practiced, all-knowing Guru-laugh, the kind she might have picked up from an encounter with an Enlightened Being.
Stardust's seat mate (let's call her Lucy) was too soft-spoken for me to make out most of her words, so I focused on the speech of the woman I came to know was a "spiritual healer"--a pastiche of New Age clichés.
"I can tell you are a giver," she said. "You give give give give give give give!" [seven gives!] So how are you at receiving?"
I waited as Lucy responded, then I heard Stardust say, "You have to feel it to heal it....If you were my client, I would invite you to start journaling. See what comes up around that. You have to feel your feelings. Do not run away from them. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel!" [seven feels!]
Lucy talked some more and I strained, unsuccessfully, to hear what she said.
"Oh dear! You have been a caretaker all of your life!" Stardust replied. "Bless your heart! Now you are on a beautiful path of self-transformation. Today you are sitting here with me for a reason. You are going to take back your life and attend to your lonely little inner child."
Lucy told her more, but I could only make out a few words: mother-in-law, husband, children.
"In those moments, give it over to God, to your angels, and to your ancestors. There's a whole team up there waiting to support you....I talk to God, my angels, and my ancestors all the time."
Soon, they were talking about butter. Stardust had recently attended an herb conference: "Cutting edge as far as going back to the earth," she said. "It's a conference of ancient medicine women. Here's the skinny on what you need to do. It's all about butter."
In certain circles, "It" is often all about One Thing. But butter?
Lucy was advised to buy raw organic butter and start eating it regularly. "It's the best source of high quality fatty acids and it will change your life....If you are lucky, you may find it at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, but since the really good butter is illegal to sell, you have to ask around at farmer's markets."
After half an hour on butter, during which I dozed a bit, they moved to past incarnations. "I believe in past lives," Stardust told Lucy. "I have had many past lives and in every one of them I have been a mother to many children, a wife, a caretaker like you. But I've always had a pain in my heart--that I couldn't do what I was meant to do. This lifetime has been a long time coming. This lifetime is for me, just me."
Lucy complimented Stardust on her skin. "Well, you have pretty skin, too," Stardust said to Lucy. "Mine is a reward of eating only the highest quality foods, grown locally, no meat, no sugar. Mostly grains, fresh vegetables, and butter." Then there was a little pocket of silence--as Stardust "needed a moment" to "go inside herself."
When the conversation resumed, I could hear Stardust asking Lucy, "May I tell you a little bit about my life?" to which Lucy said, enthusiastically, "Oh yes! I'm sorry! This has been all about me, hasn't it?"
Stardust's narrative sounded well-rehearsed: "I was a child of divorce. Both my father and my step-father were good people, just filled up with demons and anger and rage. My mother, though she was wonderful, was weak and unavailable. As a result, I learned to be invisible, not to cause anyone any trouble. 'Don't bother about me!'--that was my mantra."
"This all worked for me until I was about 28. I had a lover who was handsome, funny, smart, and successful. But the pain in my heart was constant. When I went back to school and studied spiritual healing, I realized that he just wasn't available for the spiritual life, so we went our separate ways. I still love him and his way of being in the world, but I just had to accept that we were together for a season, not for life."
When the plane was gearing down for landing, Stardust said, "I need a moment now. When a plane ascends or descends, it is important to concentrate on that energy and refrain from talking."
As we stood to de-plane, I finally got to take a look at the pair behind me. Lucy was a grandmother, as I'd imagined her to be; Stardust was maybe thirty, tall, curly haired, beautiful. She had flawless buttery skin.
Lucy was showing a picture of a grandchild on her phone. Stardust's voice was a reverential audible whisper. "She is a truly exquisite being, a beautiful soul. I feel that I have known her on another plane. I could have been her mother or something."
"I'm going to get me some of that butter," Lucy promised as they parted.
"And always remember, you are on a beautiful path. Just learn to receive all that the Universe has in store for you. Take care of your inner child. She needs your care."
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Inspirations From Nellie
Nellie always inspires me to make things--and this short visit was no exception.
She was in Lawrenceville for our high school reunion on Saturday and we got to visit all too briefly on Carlene's back porch. I opted out of the reunion, not knowing for sure I was going to be there, but I got to see Nellie, my favorite friend from Central Gwinnett High School.
Judy (Carlene's walking partner and the mayor on her third term) dropped by. "I won't stay long; I know you're reminiscing about old times," she said.
"Actually, we're not," Nellie said. "We're talking about art and the things we want to make in the future."
We parted with a list of blog sites she recommended, and I got to see some of her art and art-in-progress--as well as snagging some pictures from her phone. I always love getting glimpses of her journals. She told me about the Midori Travel Journal and I signed up for Jane LaFazio's blog on making things out of cloth, paint, and paper.
http://janeville.blogspot.com/2012/03/stitch-ritual.html
One of Nellie's projects she calls "Five Alive." Every single morning, she emails five women who are living alone, sends them a quote or a tip or a photograph--then if she doesn't hear from each one by noon, she goes to their houses to check up on them and "make sure they are still alive."
She was in Lawrenceville for our high school reunion on Saturday and we got to visit all too briefly on Carlene's back porch. I opted out of the reunion, not knowing for sure I was going to be there, but I got to see Nellie, my favorite friend from Central Gwinnett High School.
Judy (Carlene's walking partner and the mayor on her third term) dropped by. "I won't stay long; I know you're reminiscing about old times," she said.
"Actually, we're not," Nellie said. "We're talking about art and the things we want to make in the future."
We parted with a list of blog sites she recommended, and I got to see some of her art and art-in-progress--as well as snagging some pictures from her phone. I always love getting glimpses of her journals. She told me about the Midori Travel Journal and I signed up for Jane LaFazio's blog on making things out of cloth, paint, and paper.
http://janeville.blogspot.com/2012/03/stitch-ritual.html
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| Nellie's dolls |
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| A self-portrait by one of Nellie's friends |
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| Nellie and her friend in Florida |
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