Ebey's Landing, Again

This painting, by an old girlfriend of my late husband,
has hung in my house for 33 years —

Yesterday I took this photo, from the same vantage point—

And this, from the National Park Service:
The Ferry House is located above the beach at Ebey’s Landing. Some mistakenly think this is the Ebey House, but that structure no longer stands. The historic Ferry House, built c. 1858, was a place where early travelers to the island, arriving by boat, could get lodging, food, postal services, supplies, and overland transportation to Penn Cove, where they could continue their journey by ship. The NPS is working on restoring the Ferry House to preserve it for future generations.

Ebey's Landing, Whidbey Island, Washington

In a twist —

Decidedly anatomically feminine —

The reverse —

Whose name I do not know —

State of the Universe

wilted tulips
bits of sandpaper
books scattered
bunches of last year's hydrangeas
(a clutch of corkscrew hazelnut branches on the loveseat
quince petals bruised and smashed on the carpet
poems scattered in the sunlight after a night of rain-like-the-end-of-the-world)
(one slice of leftover cake
pencils with no eraser
a brown silk dress from Alabama, c.1910
fractured sleep)

15

1. misunderstandings
2. a birthday
3. wig
4. hold the chicken, please
5. corkscrew hazelnut
6. 'he cut down a tree"
7. 2 tablespoons garlic salt
8. chins
9. ice
10. sapphire
11. slink away
12. visitation
13. pink camilia
14. deep-fried butter
15. pocket

Holy Week

Days of frantic sewing —

of dotted Swiss and seersucker and sometimes

pink wool, for a coat cinched with a chain.

Of dresses passed down, pared to size;

of rick-rack and hand-sewn hems. Of buttons

plucked from the button-tin, lucky if matched.

All was new or new to me:

gloves soft as a rabbit's ear, a pearl at each wrist.

Shoes to grow-into, and a hat that snapped

an elastic welt under the chin.

I tripped off to mass with my five sisters,

fussy in last-minutes stitches.

Impatient with The Strife is O'er — the dirge of it!

Wanting only to shed this membrane of prettiness,

escape to the topmost branches of a maple

where I could bellow my hymns —

my solo Alleluia's —

swaying on thin limbs.

A Human Condition

He told me once that he would drink less
if I baked every day. Seemed an easy solution!
So it was oatmeal cookies and apple pie
and cake and zucchini bread and baguettes
and puffed-up honey whole wheat loaves
and tapioca pudding and lemon-blueberry muffins
and buttermilk biscuits I could make with my eyes closed.
Sometimes I baked twice a day, at breakfast and dinner:
waffles and cornmeal pancakes and poppy seed breadsticks
and chocolate cream pie and 2-egg yellow cake,
or Black Midnight Cake from my mom's Betty Crocker
3-ring cookbook (the page stained and ripped) .
Or chicken pot pie or stuffed crepes or popovers or shortcake.
Not enough, apparently, so I opened a bakery
and damn if he didn't die drunk a November night
after I'd spent the afternoon spooning fruitcake
into a row of tins - the one and only time I've made fruitcake.
Never knew how/if it turned out, or if anyone bought it.
(If it suffered its way into the garbage.)

Spring

Yesterday, I carried home from work a long tendril of clematis armandii, and today, though they've wilted, the room is afloat in their scent — a kind of powdery gardenia scent, with barely a suggestion of spice. It's glorious.

Warning: May Cause Weeping

A friend forwarded this to me tonight, from the website Zen Garage:

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again.

At her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing and this is what happened. (Written by Justin Fox)

Bloom

Wintered-over in a corner of the bathroom
since October, watered only once
these five months, and so little heat
even the tiles shiver, on the first day
of spring my geranium bursts forth
twin blossoms in a pulse of scarlet—

Is this what hope is?

Overkill?

In response to yesterday's neighborhood shooting and the subject of the previous blog post, here are two vastly differing accounts of the events that led to a suspect's death (apologies for the weird formatting in the first part, due to blogger issues when I copy and past [and just gets worse if I try to correct]):

From The Seattle Times:
-->

The man who was fatally shot by Bellevue SWAT officers in South Seattle on Friday morning was a suspected robber who was attempting to run down officers with his car, according to Seattle police.

The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, was in his car at his brother’s house near South Hudson Street and 42nd Avenue South around 5 a.m. when Bellevue SWAT officers arrived to serve a warrant, Seattle police said.

Seattle police, who are investigating the officer-involved shooting, said that as SWAT officers approached the residence they noticed one of the men they were looking for was in the driver’s seat of a Mercedes-Benz parked in the driveway.

“The suspect noticed the SWAT officers, too,” according to a news statement released by Seattle police. “He put the car in reverse and backed up with such velocity and disregard that he struck a parked Ford F-250 pickup truck and pushed it several yards into the street.”

Bellevue officers gave numerous commands for the suspect to stop, but the man switched the car into drive and stepped on the gas, police said.

Three Bellevue officers who fired their weapons were afraid the suspect would “drive them over rather than surrender,” Seattle police said.

The three officers, who have not been named, have been placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure after a police shooting.

Seattle police said one of the Bellevue officers fired a handgun and the two others fired rifles.

The wounded man was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died, police said.

Police said there was no one inside the house, but the suspect’s brother was questioned. Once it was determined the brother was not a suspect and was legally carrying a firearm, he was allowed to leave with the gun, according to Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt.

According to Bellevue police spokeswoman Carla Iafrate, SWAT officers were attempting to serve warrants on the suspect’s residence and vehicle in connection with a series of robberies in Bellevue and other jurisdictions.

She said it’s common for officers to work in other areas and that while Bellevue SWAT was leading the operation, Seattle police detectives were standing by to question the suspects.

She did not release additional information on Friday about the robberies or any other suspects, except to say there had been at least three robberies.

Juli and John Russell, who live across the street from the suspect’s brother’s home, said they were startled by gunfire, police yelling commands on a loudspeaker and the sight of a man’s body on their street.

“Early this morning, we heard gunshots outside of our house. A lot of voices, yelling, at like 5 in the morning,” said Juli Russell, a graphic designer.

“I was up already, and when I looked out the window, my husband and I saw a car crash into another car, a Bellevue SWAT vehicle

and a body that was shot.”

Neighbor David Keyes said, “We hunkered down on the floor in the bedroom and tried to stay safe. We knew this was not kids messing around with fireworks at 5 in the morning.”

He said police evacuated them from their home about a half-hour later. 

From an account that was posted on facebook by a neighbor who lives across the street from the shooting:

"this morning, at 4:57 am, Bellevue SWAT assassinated an unarmed man directly in front of my house by firing 23 rounds into his body with automatic assault weapons. My three sleeping children and my wife were less than five degress from the line of fire. The Bellevue and Seattle Police claim that while attempting to deliver a warrant, the victim backed up and hit our neighbors' truck and then put the car into drive and lurched forward and that that is the reason that the eight person strong, fully armored and armed SWAT team opened fire. This is not true, and my neighbors and I have pictures to prove it. The car hit the truck with such force in reverse that later the tow truck had to pry the vehicles apart. Furthermore, we live on a dead-end street and the SWAT tank was behind the truck that the victim backed into and blocked the only exit from this block. ( I could clearly see this through my window) There was no where for this dude to go in his car and the SWAT would have clearly known that. The victim was on his way to work, had violated his parole and panicked when approached by SWAT and hit the gas in reverse, (granted a very stupid, and in this case, a fatal mistake) at which point the SWAT team opened fire. Following the explosion of gun fire, the SPD gave us no information, only yelling "stay in your homes" which of course I ignored and evacuated my family with no assistance from our "protectors". Immediately after the killing, my children were screaming, "I don't want to die" as the SWAT continued their assault with percussion grenades on the vacant house while the victim bled to death on the street. This is outrageously blatant misconduct and this block of supportive neighbors has pictures and we have a voice. I don't contest that the police have to sometimes use deadly force, however, this man was unarmed and this operation was conducted on a densely populated residential street where over ten children and their families live. The Bellevue police and the SPD put my family in the line of fire.

 

 

Under the Same Moon

I awoke this morning (having overslept!) to this text message:

"Big police action. My street is taped off and blocked, no one allowed in or out. I checked and SWAT killed someone down the street who was a robber. If you want to come in you can park [down the street] and give your name to the officer on the corner and he'll escort you up. How 'bout that snow?"

What? Hello?? Police??? SNOW?!!!

Honestly, I felt as if I'd overslept by 30 hours, not 30 minutes. Looking out my window, there was no snow whatsoever at my house (a mile away), and I vaguely recalled being awakened at 5am to the sound of helicopters circling overhead. What else was going on in the world, anyway, while I enjoyed my half-hour bonus snooze? Such a disconcerting feeling — that of life going on without you, a passing-by of the parade, not even having heard the clanging cymbals of the marching band.

I high-tailed it over to work, and, sure enough, the blocks surrounding Melinda's were cordoned off with police tape, and dozens of tank-like vehicles and police vans were parked askew, blocking the streets in every direction. I didn't know whether to feel more safe in their presence or more in danger!

The three officers positioned at the corner asked my name, looked at my ID, then held up the tape so I could pass under and walk up the steps to my last-day-of-the-workweek. All the action was at the other end of the block, where a suspect in a string of robberies had been shot and killed a few hours earlier; and just moments before my arrival, a second suspect had been apprehended in a house.

Not long after that, Melinda and I decided to take a stroll down the sidewalk, curious to get a closer look at the hubbub. There were mostly men, in various war-like "costumes", coming and going from the tank-like vehicles, weapons slung across their chests, flak jackets bulking-up even the slimmest of them. One cop did a face-plant on the sidewalk — gear and all — when he tripped on an uneven slab of concrete. He came up with his helmet cock-eyed and, I'm sure, embarrassed as hell, limping.

What I was interested in was in finding the human in all these cartoon-like characters parading back and forth. There was lots of important running (a` la Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible). At one point every person that passed us was stuffing a Costco muffin into his or her mouth. (Had someone sent out a Muffin Alert?)

It was eerie, surreal, not unlike something viewed on TV, which seems to be my only source of this kind of footage. But was this drama or documentary? The news or a movie? I had to repeatedly remind myself that every last one of the police personnel was a live human, in the flesh, who would return at day's end to some version of home, family, pets, lawn-mowing, vodka, meatloaf, arguments, love, sex, loneliness — every bit of every life as ordinary and wonderful and challenging and mundane as the next, and then some. Give or take a semi-automatic weapon or two.

A few hours later the investigation was finished, and the hullabaloo cleared out.

There's something oddly empowering about living in this neighborhood and not experiencing fear. I often walk to work, in any season, light or dark. I walk to the store, the coffee shop, sometimes to a bar or restaurant in the Columbia City business district. I know people who've been mugged. My car has been rummaged-through, neighbor's cars have been stolen. I could go on and on, but why?

I tried to find the name of today's robbery-suspect-victim, his age. Wondered if either of my sons went to school with him. Couldn't find it in any of the stories. Who is his mother? Where does she grieve, tonight?

Trying to see the human in both sides of this, wanting to understand the motivation to commit armed robbery and the motivation to be a cop. Both sides equally complex, and after this morning's weapons-and-costume parade, I understand even less than before.

We are infinitely complicated creatures, at once a wonder of evolution and often, seemingly, barely a step out of the primordial ooze.

All that I carry inside my skull — every memory and image, every song and snippet of verse — no more important than those the dead robber carried with him until this morning. No more important than what each of the city-gunmen, on administrative leave, holds inside his head this early spring night, under a waxing gibbous moon, 82% of full.

Grace

How did it get to be Thursday and I lost track of the week, of days?

On Tuesday I heard the poet Stanley Plumly give a lecture on John Keats, a talk which emphasized the human in Keats, the fragile drowning-lungs which put an end to his days, despite his 5'1/2" size which, incidentally, was broad and built like a boxer.  Who dies at 25? Keats did. In Rome, in an apartment on the Spanish Steps, in a room no larger than a closet.

O.

I am undone by the swells and tempests of these days, everything sifting into a kind of place. That exquisite, necessary sorrow that has engendered all that I name to be beautiful.

Fenimore, in the weeds —

St. Patrick, Raindrops, Spider

Thank you all for your kind comments on the post below.

The robbery took place four years ago, the death even longer. I've run bits and pieces of that poem through my consciousness for quite a while now, and yesterday morning it made itself known, at 8am, and by 8:16am, I had most of it on the page.

Cathartic, healing. Now that I've immortalized it, in a fashion, I'm able to let go of it.

Poetry saves us — saves me — again and again.

Lost

Where is it now, the wallet

he wore in his back pocket,

sent to me from the coroner

in an envelope, all that was returned

from his broken body?

Not t-shirt (cut free

from his still-warm chest.)

Not sock or shoe.

Coveted, my last remnant

of him, the animal skin

I held to my cheek

and inhaled, eyes closed.

Stolen by strangers, every room

of the house tipped askew,

drawers upended, a jumble of despair

through which I raked

in search of anything left behind.

Small solace in knowing everything

we once treasured still exists

in some form — ash, particle,

entombed at the dump.

Did the robbers toss aside

the expired credit cards,

the note to meet a friend

for dinner one day too late?

The fifth-grade school photo of me

he carried for twenty years?

Photos of our sons, still children?

No cash, no checks, value only 

in what thieves never want. 

In what I want back, knowing

there is no coming back from the dead.

In the dark —

I put on my beret and coat, grabbed the clippers
and ventured out into the back yard
in search of branches.
Rain: a mist illuminated in porchlight,
each droplet holding its own tiny lamp.
(The cat crazy with excitement, fully aware
that this was so completely odd.)
Not much but apple branches,
but perfect with moss and lichen.
I snipped a small bunch: wet!
Dragged my muddy feet in the back door,
cat on my tails, fluffed up and carrying
her own rain in the tips of her furcoat.
Branches to stuff in the bodice
of my vintage red dress, like antlers,
starkly out of place, pinned to a bare wall.

Pieces, Bits

Nights and more nights and late nights, and I must remind myself of my chronological age and for god's sake stay home once in a while.

It's 8:22pm and I'm home and it's no small miracle.

But who can say no to poets and musicians and more poets, and yet poets again? Certainly not me.

Stepping the wrong way down north-facing concrete steps tonight, I slipped on wet moss, lush green and a runway for the unexpected. Sat plop-down, thanking and aware of my chronological age (just this once, though!) and the small padding it provides.

My job has suddenly shifted into unsettling territory, not threatened but lacking the accustomed fun. I plug myself in to my music, arm myself with paint brushes and squeezed-up tubes of oils and get to the business of it all, turned inward. In survival mode. Dying for a feck-all laugh-fest.

On a brighter note, I'm at work on a new project with possible promise, itching to move it forward. Note to self: patience.

Meanwhile, some of those in my closest circle struggle with issues of health — currently the land of the unknown and the yet-to-be-discovered. Nothing to do but love them even more.

One and a Half Shoe

I wish I'd taken a photo of the claim ticket from the shoe repair where I had some sole-work (soul-work!) done on some ancient boots.

Pair #1 is a duo of black-buckly boots I've had since 1999, a gift from a friend/glass-artist/poet who at one time was my employer. Curious story here: at work I'd mentioned to him that I'd seen the best boots ever at Macy's, and gave him an inch-by-inch description of them, and that they were out of my price range, so my covetousness would not be not be appeased. A week or so later, on my birthday, he gave them to me — perfect size! He told me that he'd taken a measurement of my foot by taking note of how much space my feet took up (on his patterned kitchen floor!) as I stood at the sink one afternoon attending to work stuff.

Of course I was delighted beyond belief; it was such a thoughtful gesture and, honestly, they were most likely beyond his budget too, being that we artists claim the lower percentage points of the 99%-ers, generally.

I've had them re-heeled, had seams resewn, really beat the hell out of them for 14 years, so it wasn't a surprise that I wore through the sole in one of them. Thinking ahead, I brought both of them in for resoling.

Pair #2 was purchased during honeymoon #1 in the village of Le Puy, high in the mountains in central France, in 1983. The right boot had come unglued, sole-to-body, so I brought that one in for repair also.

Three boots, one and a half pairs, and the cobbler — a lovely gentle-natured man named Seung — wrote on the ticket: 1 1/2 shoe.

Well, of course, this pleased me to no end, the notion of bringing one half of a shoe to be repaired! When I picked them up yesterday, I handed him the ticket, and said I was there to pick up my three shoes. After considerable confusion, he corrected me: 1 1/2 shoes.

Too difficult to explain my amusement, when he meant none, and there were language barriers.

The end of the story goes like this:

This morning I put on the "half" shoe, along with the other half, delightfully walking to the coffee shop in my 30-year-old French boots.

And, lo and behold, the sole on the other half was soon flapping along the sidewalk, disassembled, unglued, its sole wrenched loose of its bearings.

Sigh.

Next Saturday, it's another trip to Seung, this time with my other 1/2 shoe.

"great art was born of great terrors...."

"You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them."
     —Anais Nin

The Truth

Taking some liberties here posting a facebook post from a friend (actually, a friend of a friend, someone I've never met in the flesh!)

"I just heard Gretel Ehrlich quote an old friend: 'A poem is an emergency of the spirit.' She was discussing her new new book about the Tsunami in Japan. On hearing those words, I could barely breathe."  --John Swinburn

Splendid stuff!

Lots of emergencies of the spirit this week 'round here, lots of poetry too.

Light Switch, Red Dress, Pussy Willows

Knife Edges

Winter seems to have doubled back on itself, dark and pelting rain tonight. We're in the limbo-land of teasing, turbulent March weather, as untrustworthy as a bad husband.

I've spent many hours with 3 different people in hospitals the past seven days, an up/down elevator of emotions and stomach-flipping uncertainties. When we love our friends/family intensely, these fears are magnified, set up before us keen and raw, knife edges flashing. And I believe in keeping my knives sharp.

In the midst of this chaos, I found out that a poetry zine took five of my poems. Five! I'll say that's a record haul for me.

And for the first time in all my years, winter has proved a fertile time for poem-making. It's an unexperienced and heady surprise — most of my writing, historically, has followed the growing season. But something is afoot at the moment, and I'm riding a wave that doesn't seem to want to break, barely balancing I am but balancing nonetheless, the water just ahead churning up a blue froth that keeps advancing into the distance.

"It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas."

—Leonardo da Vinci

Tuesday Poem: William Stafford

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford
January 17, 1914 – August 28, 1993

The American poet William Stafford, the 1963 recipient of the National Book Award for Poetry, published 57 volumes of poetry. A man of gentle nature, Stafford was a conscientious objector during WWII.

I was fortunate to take a workshop with him in 1992, at the Olympic College Writer's Conference, In the keynote address, he said, "It's not what life hands you, but what you do with what life hands you". Those words have been a guiding light for me in the 23 years since I heard him speak.

Stafford wrote 22,000 poems in his 79 years — an astonishing output of writing. I heard him say that he got up every morning and wrote 40 lines — no more, no less.

And although I have many favorites, the poem above is new to me. I read it for the first time last week when a co-worker brought in a program to a memorial held to honor the Seattle artist Susan Balshor, who recently passed away. This poem was on the back page of the program.

The line "following the wrong god home we may miss our star" undid me, pure and simple.

 May we all follow the right god, and find our star.

Sunday Blues

Listening to....

Igor Presnyakov, a Moscow-born guitarist, appeared, as things do, from somewhere out of the technosphere, and he's amazing. His shtick, if you will, is covering contemporary tunes in his unique guitar style. This one knocks my socks off. Enjoy!

Fragment

Can I please just get in a car in the West of Ireland
and drive alone up into the sheep-dotted hills,
farther and farther as the road steepens, narrows,
until the engine sputters, gas burned to zero,
the light failing?

And be alone in that windy silence.

Work, and More Work

First thing today — really, before the first thing — the 3-pallet shipment from the Atlanta & Philadelphia shows was unloaded onto the sidewalk, then dragged/pushed up the alley for better access to the final destination.

Raining. Mud.

Three of us put it all back: the show fixtures in the shed (heavy lugging!), and glass back into the house — our little homing pigeons. And so welcome on our bare shelves!

Once everything was unpacked, Melinda and I got busy photographing every piece; it's the only time of the year that we have complete collections in the house. Lights, white photo tent and a handy-dandy digital camera.  We worked together seamlessly, a choreography of handing pieces off to each other when there was next to nothing in terms of staging space. (We're packed to the gills and then some at the moment.)

The minute – well, I took a 20 minute lunch break first — but (nearly) the minute the photo-shoot was done, I began pulling pieces to fill orders. Seems there is always a handful of orders awaiting completion, missing a piece or two due to any number of errors and/or mishaps. And this time of year, when the big show shipment flies home, it's our version of Christmas morning: an unusual abundance dominates for 2 or 3 days, and then it's back to make-to-order business.

Between pulling cooled pieces from the "kitchen kiln" and doing the final look-at to insure top quality, M. and I moved pieces from 3 orders out to the front porch for signing with the diamond-tipped dremel. (Keeps undesirable glass dust out of the house.) And then back onto the "Hot Shelf" for preliminary packing, double-checking the counts, assembling packets of care-cards to include with each order.

I was running on a minimum of fuel: only four hours of sleep, with perhaps a bit of over-tippling the night before in a week of emotional wallops: life.  No reserves at the moment.

So it was push ahead and get the job done and don't think about napping or putting my feet up or sitting down to a relaxed meal. There were orders to process through UPS and shipping labels to print. (Remember to put the label sheets in the printer the right way!) There were credit card numbers to be processed (the joys of $$$) and I had to make at least an attempt at cleaning up.

And in the end, not a piece of broken glass, amazing considering my somewhat fragile sensibility and the general lack of space. Mindfulness was the rule of the day.

About the time I signed out, I sat across the table from Melinda and said,
"We kicked ass today. Damn. This is one complex small business, and we're doing it."

(Or, as my brother, who hardly knows who I am, said to me last year when I mentioned that we'd exhibited at the New York International Gift Show,
"Good for you, getting a little experience." Pat pat pat on the head.)

My "little art job".

His Name Was P...

When any mention of her ex-husband's name was uttered, a grim pall was cast over the room....

On the Page at 11:11

Stairs to Nowhere, A Chair for No One

Except, maybe for the ghost which appeared twice, ascending the stairs, even though I wiped the viewfinder off for possible smudges. And there was no chance of reflected light, as the sun had already set.

Vegging should be spelled "vedging".

I snipped a bowlful of rainbow chard tonight in the 5:30 dusk, sauteed it up with onions, garlic, threw in a couple cans of cannelini (canellini?) beans, lots of freshly ground pepper, lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon juice, topped it off with parmesan, some brown rice on the side.

For economic reasons as well as health, I've decided to lean a bit closer to the vegetarian side of things, with nary of complaint. Don't get me wrong — I love a hunk of sizzling cow on the flame, or any slow-roasted pig parts, and fish, and fowl, and and and.....

But I've a refrigerator full of tofu and a cupboard full of beans, and it's all good, every last bit!

Late Nights

If I consult a calendar, I can confirm that I am no longer 25, but to tell that to the gallivanting spirit I've adopted of late would engender an argument with myself that I'd rather avoid.

Nonetheless, two nights in a row of hitting the pillows at, oh, 2-something A.M., after a good ten nights of out-and-abouting, these quinquagenarian (how's that for a show-offy word?!) bones are complaining.

Oy.

My niece flew in from Ottawa last night and spent the night before heading out to spend the week with her parents across the waters of the Salish Sea. If I could choose a daughter, it would be her. She's recently completed her PhD in microbiology, and over a breakfast of oatmeal with blueberries and toasted almonds, she spoke of her research in virology, and of cutting-edge cancer research, where in the next 10 to 20 years, cancer treatment will be individualized to fit the patient, thereby avoiding stab-in-the-dark chemical attacks on the human body in the form of chemotherapy. It essentially amounts to a cancer vaccine — fascinating and hopeful stuff — and she's thick in the middle of it. My heart glows when she's close by, and she's beloved not only by me but by my sons, who consider her more of a sister than only a cousin.

Sigh.

Cake, and Clouds

I've been reliving some of my earlier mothering days this week, chauffeuring my concussed son to and from PT appointments, to his umpire workshops, to the light rail station. I'd forgotten how those rides in the car provide a quiet space for conversation, and as R. is particularly taciturn, I'm always amazed that he actually converses when he's the passenger.

Little gifts.

While waiting while he was at PT, I found a French bakery that I'd driven by probably hundreds of times yet never paid attention to — stunningly beautiful and delicate petits fours and cake slices that look like they're fresh off Avenue des Champs Élyéees. Pricey little morsels, but what a great treat.

And then there's the ride home along Lake Washington Boulevard — whitecaps on the lake and the sun flaring out from behind cumulus clouds. Nothing budding out yet, but it's all there, on hold, ready for the shift into a new season.

In a Dark Glade

We walk the path bisecting the park's peninsula, my friend J. and I, late on a Saturday afternoon, a shadow of low cloud slung over us. In the moss draped maples, high up in the winter canopy of bare branches, ferns grow like lace, perpetually green.

I tell J. of my friend who entered these woods with a gun, shot herself dead in a dark glade. No knowing where, exactly, and it doesn't matter. J. speaks of his med-school ER days, the bullit-riddled patients, bodies resisting resuscitation. That moment after somebody "called it", and the quiet release of possible salvation.

His story lingers under cedar boughs and hemlock as the light slips from the day, and we are silent for a moment, our footsteps on the loamy trail barely perceptible.

A woman and a dog approach through the trees, and I recognize her as the one who discovered my friend's shattered body here, six years ago. We're barely acquaintances, and I offer a quiet "hello" as she passes. 

Although I live in a big city, our neighborhood enclave is small, with connecting lines criss-crossing over and under who knows who and who talks to who and, more importantly, who knows what. A secret can be difficult to keep, and I'd heard that this woman desires anonymity, but I know the truth regarding the cruel fact of her discovery.

I also know that she still walks these woods every day, regardless of what ghosts hover in dappled shade where bone and blood marked dirt.

I don't know what it means to stumble across a gunshot suicide.

500 years ago, this forest burned, evidenced by tree rings on long-logged lumber. Storms have  blown through — and will continue to blow through — felling fir snags: eagles' perches. Fungi will go on with their decompositional work, breaking down everything into the smallest molecular bits. 

And in a mere two generations, this story will be — according to the odds — forgotten,  a page from a book left out too long in the rain.

From the "Are You Kidding Me? Department

On the Comcast homepage, line #8 of Ten Things You Should Buy in Bulk:

college degrees

WTF?
Most people in this country can't even afford one. The absurdity of this notion so floored me that I didn't read further, even though there may have been a perfectly reasonable explanation.

May have been.

But I doubt it.

Next time I'm at my local food co-op, I'm going to check out the per pound price of college degrees, and if it's feasible, I'll bag up a slew of 'em.

You never know when an extra college degree will come in handy.

Soiree

At a dinner party last night I was seated beside a doctor who specializes in palliative care at Children's Hospital in Seattle, and one of the other guests asked about what kind of awareness dying children have of their own fate, and he said that often they know and accept this before their parents do, and he's known a child as young as six to have a conversation with his/her mother and father to help ease their oncoming sorrow.

We all took turns reading a poem (or singing a song, playing the guitar), and this doctor chose to read this poem, by Billy Collins:

Picnic, Lightning

It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore. This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next. 

Desiccated

I went outside to take some photos, and only had to walk a few feet until I found my subject....

A Song For You

Even almost ten years after the fact, and seemingly from nowhere, come moments where it feels like my husband was in his car accident just last week. And wherever I am, I must surrender to the moment, knowing that it will pass, and the knowledge that, as time goes on, these moments become spaced further apart.

This happened today at work, while I was painting, alone, and listening to Pandora on shuffle, which, with 100 stations and each station playing any variety of tunes that fit the theme,  there is a possibility of infinite variations.

It was a sunny afternoon in a winter of rare blue skies — remarkable in and of itself — and I sat and let the wave wash over me. And then this — a new song began, and it was one of the songs played at Mark's memorial — A Song for You, by Donny Hathaway:

I love you in a place 
Where there's no space or time
I love you for my life  
You' re a friend of mine  
And when my life is over 
Remember when we were together
We were alone 
And I was singing this song to you

My sons and I listened to dozens, possibly hundreds of songs that week before we gathered together, and there was no question that this song — a favorite of Mark's — was the right one.

His memorial was held in one of the theaters at A Contemporary Theater in downtown Seattle, and close to 300 people attended. There was live music as well as recorded, and we listened to this song on their state-of-the-art sound system, and it was heartbreaking, as well as breathtaking.

The timing of this song today was a bit of a heart-taker, a breath-breaker, and I sat up and listened to every note with tears streaming down my face. (Good thing I was alone!)

There is not a day that doesn't pass without a gift, and today's gift was a big one.

---
 
I don't know if I'll marry again; the whole business, at this point, seems like a fuck-load of effort that I'd rather forego. But life, and love, has a sneaky way of catching us unaware, roping us in when we believe we're invulnerable.

Still Life, with Oils

Cryptic Annotations

Rustlings

There has been a dearth of wind in Seattle for months, and not enough definitive pounding rain on my attic roof, besieged, as we are, with interminable grey.  (From which Seattle gains its fame.) I think it's the omnipresent grey that drives people away rather than actual precipitation, which, statistically, isn't necessarily on the generous side. NYC receives more rain per annum than Seattle does. Go figure.

But a wind has rustled itself up tonight, and after an evening spent with my best poet-friends, and one of those discussions over wine which digs deeply into the heart of things, there comes an ease which knows no other inception than just these things: wind, poets, wine.

There exist turbulent rumblings all round my modest peaceful core — my older son was rear-ended last week and is dealing with the complications of a concussion and whiplash, both profoundly disturbing, with persistent headaches, dizziness, double-vision. He just last month began a new school program, a jump-start to his life which has faltered these past few years due to a pile-up of unexpected circumstances. It seems to be a quarter step forward and twenty steps back. He might have to withdraw from one or two of his classes to get his jolted skull some time to heal. I would like nothing more than to see this young man soar, yet it's challenging, after 27 years of falling down, to keep any kind of faith.

And one of my closest friends, a man who owns a large part of my heart, awaits his own deadly diagnosis. Just one phone call, and the rest of his life will chart itself out.

Yet, in the midst of these bruisings of the heart come flickers of surprise joy, flashes of light so dazzling I hesitate to look straight-on, rendered shy and in awe of the possibilities of love and redemption.

This is my world, set before me with every planetary rotation, and I'll take it.

Fragment

I am of few words this evening,
staring at the blank space of a word document.
I shall very soon descend into my fatigue, slip
into the light of dreams, that blue before dawn,
suspended, just there —

Turbulence

Pulled to a thousand compass points this week, tending those I love, stumbling on some accounts, pockets brimming with worry. And also waves of astonishment as I seem to have tripped into a new energy field where tectonic shifts in the landscape have set me atilt, askew, akimbo.

Cryptic enough for ya?

---

I'm participating in the creation of yet more new pieces at my second home, the glass factory, and hot-damn it's thrilling! Grateful for the gift of it, I am. Melinda jets off to another wholesale show next week, to filo-dough-fee-uh, and we're in the rush of the last minute of it now, the ever-evolving swirl (and sometimes clang) of glass and pigment and my favorite paint names (and favorite colors): Prussian blue, alizarin crimson, Payne's grey, perylene maroon, irridescent Aztec.

The cats doze, one on bags of bubble wrap stuffed back into a closet, the other snoring on a high shelf beside a window. Outside, squirrels burgle the suet feeders, while green finches wait in tittering impatience.

---

These words from a friend gifted with keen insight and rare wisdom:

We seem to be at that mid-life place where tolls are collected with sorrow as payment… a time to invest in the graces of gratitude and the present, and give in to knowing the limits to what can be promised....

Silent

One of these days I'm going to turn on my computer,
and there will be this message:

Updates are available for you life.
Would you like to update your life now?

If you choose to update now,
keep in mind that you also must restart your life
for any updates to be effective.

Estimated time to completion: varies,
depending on the age of your operating system.

Compose/Decompose

I've had my head in a moldy James Fenimore for the past hour, having violated my rule to not touch the weather-ravaged volume on the porch. I couldn't resist, fascinated as I am by things in their decay. And who could argue that mold-study isn't a perfectly acceptable alternative to Super Bowl frenzy?

It's 522, and no one's home.

James Fennimore, Month Eight