Category Archives: Memoir

Music for January

taking down the dogwood

This morning the Woodson’s Complete Tree Service guys are taking down our dogwood tree. I expect that this is not a foreshadowing of my or Tom’s early demise. After all, we aren’t as old in people years as the dogwood was in tree years. We sometimes wonder whether this tree was planted when the house was built. If so, it would be 85 years old. In any case, the dogwood has had dieback for years and had to come down (see the post To Autumn).

Forgive me, it’s just that January’s short days and cold nights make me think long thoughts. I told you a while ago that I was going to write more about the 2014 road trip. I was hoping for a brief, yet comprehensive, summary of what we saw and felt and what we learned. Maybe later.

Back to January My mother died in January. Three years later my dad died in January. That was okay, really, but I do get a bit pensive whenever there is snow on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes (the route we take from Virginia to Michigan for the funerals).

Music of the Spheres Tom bought some new speakers for the stereo system. So we had to try them out by listening to music we’d heard many times to see whether or not the new speakers sound significantly better than the older (by 20 years) speakers.*

The first song I listened to was “Secret Gardens” from Judy Collins’ True Stories and Other Dreams. I listened to it a couple of hundred times when my parents were dying and then died. Thinking back though, even in 1973 when I first owned the album, I cried when I heard this song. I cried Monday when I heard it again. I think they are tears of happiness: “I see you shining through the night through the ice and snow of winter.”

Next, we listened to Joan Baez’s version of “North Country Blues” from her Any Day Now: The Songs of Bob Dylan CD. I think I was checking out the speakers to see how they worked on pure human voices. Very well, I can report.

Next, I made a quirky choice: “Land of the Navajo” by Peter Rowan. The majority of our CDs are still in storage, maybe that’s my rationale for choosing this CD. Or maybe it’s because, while the plot of the song is opaque to me, Rowan’s evocative yodels (or whatever they are) take me back to the land of the Navajo, which I love.

Canyon de Chelly

Tom chose Abbey Road, you know by whom. We listened from “Here Comes the Sun” through “Her Majesty.” I was astounded. They sang with the voices of angels. I hadn’t remembered that.

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right

How did they know how to write “little darling” instead using heavier words? Baby, I’m amazed.

Next, we listened to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” from Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde CD. Tom has been listening to this song since he was a teenager in the town he always characterizes as “the armpit of Utah.” Looks like songs of love and yearning may work anywhere. I note that I am a person from the lowlands.

Finally, we listened together to some songs from Judy Collins’ Wildflowers including “Since You Asked”:

What I’ll give you since you asked
Is all my time together;
Take the rugged sunny days,
The warm and rocky weather,
Take the roads that I have walked along,
Looking for tomorrow’s time,
Peace of mind.

As my life spills into yours,
Changing with the hours
Filling up the world with time,
Turning time to flowers,
I can show you all the songs
That I never sang to one man before.

We have seen a million stone lying by the water,
You have climbed the hills with me
To the mountain shelter.
Taken off the days, one by one,
Setting them to breathe in the sun.

Take the lilies and the lace
From the days of childhood,
All the willow winding paths
Leading up and outward.
This is what I give
This is what I ask you for;
Nothing more.

Maybe I can use this song as the summary of the road trip/marriage we’ve been on so far.

wildflowers

*The verdict on the speakers: I am not an audiophile. I don’t usually listen consciously for sound quality. Nonetheless, the minute I heard these speakers, I had a simile for Tom. The speakers are like my sugar cookies (really Joy of Cooking’s rich sugar cookies). They are so pure, simple, and unadulterated that a person used to inferior baked goods might not notice how delicious the cookies are. Same deal for the speakers.

Road Trip 2014: Restaurants

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Grand Canyon Lodge, North Rim, Arizona–the dining room is on the left

My husband Tom and I have been on a road trip since January 2, 2014. I want to write about our journey in some—as yet unspecified—epic, metaphorical piece, but I have been finding it difficult to get these—as yet unformed—thoughts into the computer. Experiences and ideas swirl around in my head, but I can’t focus. I think I will start writing about simple, finite topics (e.g., restaurants, bookstores, campsites, hikes, medical misadventures) and hope that concentrating on them will help some of the other ideas settle down and organize themselves.

Path of our trip, in brief: Virginia, Maryland Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina Note: we plan on being in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania before year’s end.

Finite Topic #1: Favorite Restaurants

First, a minor confession: Tom and I are, some would say, foodies.* So, although we have shared many camp meals and picnics, we have ended up going to restaurants more than one might think for a couple of (would-be) adventurers. As Tom says, in our defense, we met in a restaurant— Grand Canyon Lodge in 1971—so, really, all this restaurant going is just a logical progression of how we started our journey together.

Anyhow, you can see from the list above, where we’ve wandered. For the amount of places we’ve traveled and eaten in, one might think we would have a long list of restaurants to recommend, but no, we have a list of six favorite restaurants from the whole trip. While there were plenty of okay, pretty good, or good meals, there are entire states, regions, and interstate highways where we didn’t find food that we loved.** Here’s the restaurant list:

K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, New Orleans http://www.chefpaul.com/site.php
Alicia’s Mexican Restaurant, Alpine, Texas
Juanitas Taqueria, Cottonwood, Arizona
Saigon Bowl, Denver http://www.saigonbowldenver.com/home.html
Plaza Cafe, burrito and quesadilla trucks, Santa Fe http://santafeplazacafe.com/ (Santa Fe was our favorite food town.)
Zingerman’s Deli, Ann Arbor, MIchigan http://www.zingermansdeli.com/

Lunch in New Orleans

I don’t want to critique the restaurants any more than to say that, in each place, we enjoyed tasty meals made with real ingredients and cooked and served by professional, friendly people.

Heading into Alicia’s

Saigon Bowl, Denver

*Yes, we travel with whole nutmeg, Sriracha, smoked paprika, and the dowel rolling pin Tom made me.

** That’s not counting the delicious food we have shared with family and friends along the way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

De Senectute

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My hands are worn and my vest is worn. I was able to buy a new vest yesterday, but I am not sure what to do with my hands and the body to which they are attached.

old hands

old vest

What started this line of thought: A few days ago my husband Tom read an article that noted that people 65 and older are “elderly.” As I am going to have my 65^th birthday in a little over two months, I was not happy to hear it. “Older” I have been using for years. “Mature” I have used as a joke. “Old” I have recently accepted because to do otherwise would seem—to myself and to others—like I was avoiding reality, but “elderly”? I’m not going there. Then there were the articles in the New York Times: I read three of them about aging–one after the other. One article talked about retired people getting rid of possessions and traveling the world as carefree vagabonds. Another article talked about how the elderly (harrumph) can find pleasures in doing the small things in life like going to the public library. The final article talked about some Baby Boomers’ discomfort at finding themselves old.

Looking Backward: When I was a freshman in college, I translated Cicero’s De Senectute (On Old Age). I remember that I found the topic boring, that I wasn’t very good at the translating, and that I only got a C in the class. The good thing about this class for me was that it was Cicero and Catullus, and I loved Catullus.

I forget what Cicero had to say about old age, so I am not going to get any advice there, but I remember what Catullus had to say about love and I suspect that might help me as I look forward. As Catullus wrote to his beloved, I say to my husband: “Suns may set, and suns may rise again: but when our brief light has set, night is one long everlasting sleep.”*

ravens on the South Rim at sunset

Note: If you haven’t read Catullus, I recommend Catullus: The Complete Poetry translated by Frank O. Copley. Used copies seem to be available on the Internet from $.01 upward. A new copy sells online for $506.98. Somewhere in storage in Charlottesville, I have my own copy of Copley and perhaps, the notebook where I wrote my own translations.

* This excerpt from poem #5 is translated by A. S. Kline at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Catullus.htm#_Toc531846828

Montezuma Pie

April: Cruelest Month (?), Earth Day, Earth Mother, and the Possible Limitations of Agnosticism

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lilacs, Denver Botanic Gardens

I want to go on record that I don’t think April is the cruelest month. How could I believe that when my youngest child and my father were born one day (and about 70 years) apart in early April? I just like T.S. Eliot and so I usually remember these words about this time of year:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

From “The Waste Land,” by T.S. Eliot, 1922

I have also been thinking about Earth Day/old days. In 1970, I went to the Teach-In on the Environment at the University of Michigan. We were big on teach-ins back there in Ann Arbor. 1970 was also the first summer I went west and thereby became even more taken with nature than I was growing up on a lake in Michigan. In Ann Arbor, I was a minor functionary in ENACT (Environmental Action for Survival). In fact, in 1971, I submitted testimony for ENACT related the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to Congress. My own comments related to possible drawbacks of the pipeline for native peoples were included along with other, more academically expert, testimony. Since I am bringing up this tiny historical footnote, you probably notice that it was a big deal for me. I think we all stopped the pipeline for a few minutes or something.

Not only was I not very successful as an environmentalist, I didn’t even make it as an Earth Mother, and that designation didn’t seem to require any coursework. I sort of went back to the land to the extent that I have been an (mostly) organic gardener for forty years. I do recycle (some), I do clean with vinegar and other non-toxic materials, and I think our children feel a connection with and a responsibility to the natural world.

The Part about Agnosticism: Actually, I am a flaming agnostic (some might say waffler, know-nothing, etc.). I don’t claim to know anything about god or the meaning of the universe–and I have a hard time figuring out how one would claim to know such information–and I don’t have much use for or patience with organized religion. The thing is, because of my broken wrist (see, Scat Happens), I have had call to stretch my hands like this:

hands

This exercise has made me think about prayer. I am still a flaming agnostic and proud of it, but I am still reverent and hopeful within the natural world. So, below are a few of the photos I’ve taken on our travels. Happy Birthday Bill and Dad. Happy April. Happy Earth Day/Week/Month.

butterfly and coneflowers

Scenic Lake, Michigan

Sedona, Arizona

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

View of Cape Royal and Wotan’s Throne, Grand Canyon

Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island, Utah

Garden of the Gods, Colorado

Book Report

Old Year, New Year: Flexibility, Part 3

The Wedding Quilt

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To me, the title of this post sounds like these words should be in an anthology of sentimental pioneer stories written in the late 1800s. This is the title I want, however, so I am wondering where these words will lead me.

Looking Backward: Forty years ago next June, my sister-in-law, Betsy, made my husband, Tom, and me a quilt as our wedding gift. It took many months for the whole project to come together. Tom drew Hopi designs (or at least what Frank Waters thought were Hopi designs) on squares of cloth and Betsy embroidered them. She patched these squares together with squares of cloth she had taken from old shirts, skirts, and jeans. The skeleton around the patches was dark blue broadcloth (I think that’s what you call it). The quilt warmed our beds in our dumpy Salt Lake City apartments. The quilt was bright, bold, and strong, just as we all felt back then.

quilt detail: turtle

I gather now that I wasn’t supposed to wash the quilt as much as I did. However, there were the two of us and two babies (mewling and puking), and I like things clean. Please keep this in mind for a few paragraphs.

quilt detail: Hopi figure

Way Back: I never could sew and I can’t sew now. I mean, I can sew on buttons and fix little rips and that is it. Because I wanted to make Christmas gifts by hand for my kids and because I was poor, I did piece together a few flannel nightgowns, some stuffed animals, and, I believe, a Superman cape for Robert, and sleeping bags for Martha the doll and Railroad Dog the stuffed animal. Way Way Back: I’m so old, I was required to take Home Ec when I was in 7^th grade. I made the worst, the ugliest, the craziest-pleated kilt in Milford (MI) Junior High history. I kept it for years, although I do not know why. Please keep this mind, too.

quilt detail: sun figure

Fifteen Years Ago: Some of the patches on the wedding quilt were falling apart. Maybe I had washed it too much. A few patches almost disappeared along with some of the embroidery. We bought bright—but not as bright—quilts and coverlets at L.L. Bean and packed the wedding quilt away.

Not Too Many Years Ago: Tom and I started thinking about what we might do when we retired. We planned to travel back to Utah and explore the places we’d missed, like Capitol Reef and Escalante. We told Betsy we’d pick her up from her little Utah town and go adventuring together again.

Capitol Reef

Five Years Ago: Betsy just up and died and we miss her.

2013: A) Tom and I went adventuring on the Colorado Plateau. We saw Black Dragon Canyon with Blaine and Bonnie, but Betsy, their dear friend, wasn’t there. We camped in Capitol Reef and it was even better than we had imagined. B) We got back to our house in Charlottesville, Virginia. We took some paintings out of storage. The wedding quilt was protecting one of the paintings. We lay the quilt on the lawn and saw that, really, only a handful of patches needed to be repaired.

quilt on lawn

Two Weeks Ago: I can’t sew worth anything, but I finished repairing the wedding quilt. It lies now on our bed and we will put it in the camper to go back to Utah when the new year comes. Although the quilt, and we ourselves, are not as bright, bold, and strong as when we were young, it’s alright, and, this time, Betsy will come along with us.

quilt, repaired

Here’s the song that always reminded us of Betsy:

Oh, had I a golden thread
And a needle so fine
I’ve weave a magic strand
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design.

In it I’d weave the bravery
Of women giving birth,
In it I would weave the innocence
Of children over all the earth,
Children of all earth.

Show my brothers and sisters
My rainbow design,
Bind up this sorry world
With hand and heart and mind,
Hand and heart and mind.

(The Judy Collins version (from Whales and Nightingales, 1970) of “Oh, Had I a Golden Thread” by Pete Seeger, 1959)

Summer: Poetry, Flowers, Fruit

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I thought I would write about poetry. This idea didn’t just come out of the ether. My friend Pat recently sent me Billy Collins’ poem “Forgetfulness” (published in Questions About Angels, 1991). I think the poem perfectly delineates the waning of my once (if I do say so myself) prodigious memory.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Here’s the link to Billy Collins’ website: http://www.billy-collins.com/.

Along with the poem: Some people seem to enjoy my photos, so I am enclosing some recent flower photos:

butterfly and black-eyed Susans

clematis, H.F. Young

gomphrena

scaevola

black-eyed Susan vine

The words that have been going through my mind the most, though are from John Prine:

Blow up your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own

From “Spanish Pipedream (Blow Up Your TV), John Prine, 1971;see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RBgfUvymM or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG0-iWCKjsw, for example.

Do I dare to eat a peach?

peaches #1

peaches #2

peaches #3

Close to the Ground: Living Inductively

Lynda Terrill