Category Archives: Family

Family, Travel

Ex-Pats

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Beltane                                                                           Solstice Moon

The two ex-pats nodded knowingly at each other as they discussed returning to the U.S. for visits from their home’s abroad.  Mark said, “Yes, I walk down the hall at the motel and people move aside.”  Mary said, “Yes, I now what you mean exactly.”  Mark continued, “It’s the nuances.  I understand the signs here.  I don’t have to communicate with sign language.”  Again Mary agreed, but added, “Still, when I come back, there are also things that are strange.”  She talked about a time when she needed to call me to tell she had gotten delayed, but could no longer find a pay phone.  But they both agreed, Mary from Singapore and Mark from his motel in Coon Rapids, that there was a feeling of comfort at being in the home culture.

Mary says the pollution in Singapore is bad enough to make breathing difficult.  Loggers in Indonesia burn the forests, then the smoke crosses the Straits to reach this fortunately air-conditioned nation.  When Singaporeans and Malaysians complain  to Indonesia, the Indonesians point that the companies which own the forests and do the clear cutting and burning are owned by Malaysians and Singaporeans.  Meanwhile, many people wear masks or stay inside.  With little wind during the hot summer months it’s unclear how long this pollution will be around.  It began last Friday.

(Singapore yesterday)

Mary also reports that dengue fever, also known as bone break fever, has infected 10,000 already this year as opposed to 5,000 last year.  This has lead officials to declare dengue hot spots, marked with red circles, in which there have been ten or more cases.  In those hot spots mosquito control will come into your home and check for mosquitoes.  We know about mosquitoes, but not dengue fever, though West Nile virus is here.

(sand storm, Riyadh)

In response to a question Mark said that sand storms create similar problems to the haze in Singapore, with respiratory illnesses increasing.

The ex-pat life.

Family, Woolly Mammoths

Mark of Arabia

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Beltane                                                                         Solstice Moon

The desert rambler has returned to visit.  Mark showed up at the backdoor this afternoon.
He went with me to the Woolly meeting at Bill Schmidt’s apartment.  Bill had a delicious meal and a very thoughtful video called Griefwalker. Stephen Jenkinson is a man who has chosen to live into death rather than away from it and has discovered great riches in the process.  Check out his website if that sort of living interests you.

(Mark two years ago)

Bill, Stefan, Mark, Warren, Frank, Scott, Mark Ellis and I were there.  Mark O. had a 60 mph car accident this last Friday, thankfully door to door rather than head to head, but scary with considerable to his car.  He reports some fears about driving now, understandable.  Warren’s making some moves on their various houses, of which they seem to have at least 2 too many and maybe 3.  Frank’s picking out burial plots.  Scott’s helping a friend deal with a schizophrenic relative who has ended up in a locked unit for her safety.  Stefan has begun to recognize that the racing, cramming pace of his life has begun to overtake him.  I talked about the shoulder pain and the p.t.

The Woolly meeting is here next time and, barring rain, we plan to make good use of the fire pit.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Garden, Memories

Archaeology of the Heart

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Beltane                                                                         Solstice Moon

While watching a NOVA program on dogs, a reference was made to archaeology.  I studied archaeology and the broader discipline of anthropology seriously in college.  Seriously enough that I applied for doctoral work in theoretical anthropology.  Why I didn’t follow that up is a story for another time, but archaeology resonates for me and the mention of it in this context triggered a memory only recently interpreted.

Over the course of my life when confronted with the odd plumbing job or carpentry task, you know, the men things, I would fob them off with the stock phrase, “Oh, I learned everything my Dad knew about these things.  Nothing.”  And, as far I know, that’s a true statement in both instances.  I’m still not able in those areas though I admit I’ve never tried too hard to learn.

Kate and I work outside together a lot, though she works in one area and I work in another.  I found myself having a rising sense of impatience, irritation about her work.  Those who know me well would recognize this mood in me.  I’m not proud of it, but it does surface from time to time.  This time I knew my mood simply had no basis in reality.

Kate works hard.  She works well.  And she was doing both of those, as I know she always does, so this mood was about me, not her.  Suddenly buckets of water sloshing in the wee hours of the morning came to mind.  Uh, oh.  When we moved to our home at 419 N. Canal, it was the first, and last, home my father and mother owned.  We moved there in 1959 and my dad had his stroke there in the  1990’s and died after having moved to a nursing home from there.

In my years there, from 1959 to 1965, I don’t recall a service person ever coming to our house to repair anything.  Likewise, I don’t recall anything ever getting repaired.  Must of have happened, but I don’t recall it.  The only such incident I do recall was a recurring one in which our basement, which housed our furnace and little else, would flood.  When that happened, Dad would get me up and together we would bail out the basement, one bucket at a time.

Roused from sleep, cold and wet, these were not my favorite memories.  I do remember that as we worked, Dad would become silent, sullen.  In fact, I remember him being irritated and impatient with my willingness to do this chore.  Aha.  My memory of teamwork seems to be tied to those nights and I seem to have selected my father’s attitudes to carry on, carrying his water into my own life.  As sons often do.

Rethinking this time also made me realize a second thing.  Why didn’t Dad try to solve the problem rather than resort to such a makeshift solution every time?  I don’t know the answer.  It might have been money.  It might have been pride.  It might have been that these matters simply didn’t show up as problems to solve, but rather came up as problems to ameliorate.  Whatever the reason, I learned to be incurious about solving problems around the house.  Doesn’t matter.  Maybe it’ll go away or fix itself.

Now, I have owned homes since 1969, 7 altogether, one in Appleton, Wisconsin, one in Minneapolis, one outside Nevis, Minnesota, 3 in St. Paul and 1 here in Andover.  Over that time I’ve learned some very minor skills in home repair and one big one.  The big one?  Hire somebody.  Works most of the time.  As far as I can tell, solving day to day problems in the house is one of the few things I’m incurious about.  Fortunately Kate is better than I am and together we can call anybody.

The archaeology of our own thoughts and feelings is the most rudimentary and personal dig we will ever engage.  And that, I’m plenty curious about.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Memories

Memories

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Beltane                                                                     New (Solstice) Moon

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had interactions with folks from Alexandria, Indiana resulting from a reader posting a blog entry, a 50’s boyhood, to an Alexandria Facebook site.  It’s been interesting.  The most interesting interaction has come from an old classmate who found my memories romanticized.  You can see her comment under Who.

(1st)

I wrote her and in doing so discovered that she was a girl (then) who had done very well in our class, but didn’t (apparently) get the recognition she felt she deserved.  I had to reflect that could have been true.  Sexism (though not named) was alive and well back then and I’m sure it effected teacher’s perceptions and other students opinions.  It may have helped me to some awards and recognition.  Impossible to parse out now at this remove, but I’d never thought of it until she wrote.

Having said that I want to add that happy memories are not necessarily romanticized.  That’s a word used by an outside observer.  As resident in those memories, they were happy.  Being a kid among kids is a great way to spend time when you’re young.  Sure, we had our hassles, too.  Our arguments and fights.  I remember one incident where a next door neighbor pulled my pants down in front of my friends.  This was the nuclear option at the time.  I thought life was over and I could never face anybody again. Until the next day of course.

(3rd)

Once my life moved away from Monroe Street it began to take on a more serious, turning toward adult tone.  We had a house on Canal Street, one  we owned, rather than rented.  In junior high I remember a fight with Rodney Frost, a bad one by the standards of the day. (low)  Rodney died several years ago and my first memory when I saw his obituary was of that 6th grade fight near the junior high school.

Girls remained a mystery for me well into college, so I had the normal ration of pre-teen and teen angst over dating, sex and self worth.  Those were not happy memories.  My father and I began to part ways emotionally during junior high, a fact I credited only much later to a growing unease he had with my intellectual maturing.  When this distance had reached its maximum, around my senior year of high school, my mother had a stroke and died seven days later.

(4th)

Those months and the years following them were more than unhappy times.  They were a constant struggle for self-worth capsized often by grief and the estrangement I had with my remaining parent.  This was just the way it was.  Do I wish it could have been different?  Of course.  Do I know it won’t be.  Yes, I do.

That period and its attendant miseries are now in my past, but they are in my past and they show up whenever I visit that period or that place, Alexandria.

(third phase)

Cinema and Television, Family, Our Land and Home

First Fire

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Beltane                                                                   New (Solstice) Moon

The old moon went to black and the new moon in waiting, the Solstice Moon, has not yet appeared.  The weather stayed on the cool and cloudy side today though it did get a bit warmer later.

Kate and I had first fire in our new fire pit area, dining on a delicious dinner of cowboy caviar, chicken wings and a broccoli, bacon and raisin salad while part of a dead black locust tree burned.  The crushed gravel we had Javier put around it will have to be modified in some way since it tends to slough when walked upon.  Could have foreseen that but didn’t.

We sat there, watching the smoke rise among the ash trees around the border of what used to be a compost pile.  Our woods surrounds the area, in essence a new outdoor room tucked into the front edge of the trees near the grandkids playhouse.  Looking back into the woods I kept wondering what it would have been like, looking into woods like these and not knowing where they ended.  You can’t even see our property line, so the woods could be impenetrable for all that can be seen.

Afterward we watched two more episodes of the Swedish crime drama, Wallander, not the Branagh one, but the original.  I like the Swedish one better.  In it Wallander has more personality in it than the depressive, uncommunicative character portrayed by Branagh.

Family, Garden, Our Land and Home

Outside

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Beltane                                                              Early Growth Moon

Trying to reconcile everyday writing (a creative need and best practice) with everyday gardening (a practical need and also best practice).  Decided in conversation with Kate to get up at 7 AM regularly, eat breakfast, work an hour outside until 9, then come in to write.  Today was the first day of that new schedule.

(Summer – Pierre Puvis de Chavannes)

Mostly I weeded this morning among vegetable rows where a stealthy clover had crept in and those damned prolific chives, bright green beautiful spears.  Along the way I observed the onions, the kale, the chard, the beets, lots of beets and the carrots.  Unlike my garlic, which had a very low germination rate, the carrots, often a problem, have responded with vigor, many of them up, almost a solid line of small green feathery stalks in each of three rows.

Due to the removal of the ash, and possibly the river birch pruning, we no longer have as much as shade as we had.  A major part of the point in both actions.  Yet.  We planted hostas and ferns and hydrangeas in both spots.  The ones under the ash will need to go elsewhere, way too much sun.  Those under the river birch, I’m not sure.  It’s an east facing side and the tree is still there, plus the seven oaks on our hill shade them, too.  I’ll watch them.

Javier and his crew finished the fire pit with crushed granite, extra thick landscape cloth and five cubic yards of shredded bark.  It’s ready for the grandkids, for the Woolly’s and for us, another outdoor room, this one away from the house at the edge of the woods.  There is a short path from the fire pit area to the grandkids play house.  It’s now a very spiffy area with a home for the imagination and a place to make smores nearby.

 

Family, Feelings

Cash Flow, Fiscal Tides

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Beltane                                                               Early Growth Moon

Boy.  This money stuff doesn’t seem to get easier, even with practice.  The annoying reality of cash and its flow, in and out, never seeming to be quite enough, no matter how much is available.  A well known phenomenon at all income levels this is an area where Kate and I have grown enormously over the last 15 years, yet still have growing to do.

We have different approaches to money, no surprise there, we’re different people and most of the time the differences seem to complement each other.  Her more detailed way, my big picture way.  Her more generous nature, my more conservative one.  (when it comes to money.)  Sometimes we work at cross purposes and that requires extra conversation, extra listening, extra patience.

Money is very far from the point of life, for either of us, but its misuse can make life pretty damned miserable.  As we’ve experienced.  So we’re committed to staying on top of this, to stay in the conversation, to keep things clear and honest.  It’s good for us, but it’s not always easy.

I’m proud of both of us and how we’ve become more adult, more rational, more compassionate in this area of our life.  We never stop learning or growing.

Art and Culture, Family

Arty Whirl

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Beltane                                                                        Early Growth Moon

Grandma and I got in the machine and went into the big city.  Where we ate dinner at the Gasthof on University, weiner schnitzel for both of us, a nod to our honeymoon late night dinner in Vienna, then we motored over to the Northrup King Building, one of several repurposed large building complexes in Northeast that house artists and galleries.  This is Art-a-Whirl weekend and all those buildings have open houses.

Cars and people and walking from gallery to gallery, studio to studio, talking with the artists, looking at the amazing range and skill levels represented.  I chose the Northrup-King building because it has three floors of artists in a long, L-shaped brick structure.  We only made it through the first floor and we saw many studios and galleries.

An impressive metal sculptor on the far northern end did small shoes to large table pieces ranging from the representational like the shoes to the very abstract.  He had a great shock of white hair and very neatly organized shelves of metal materials for his work.

At another stop I bought a small blue print, Ocean, that reminded me of the color field painters and Kate got a print of Jerry Garcia for Jon.  Mostly we looked, seeing this and that we liked, not buying, not really in the mood, though I did see a large ceramic piece, bees as the motif, that I would have purchased in flusher times.

An important part of this kind of jaunt for me is the stimulation, knowing others are out there giving their lives over to their imagination, seeing it come outside into works accessible to others.  Made me wonder what it would be like to have a building full of writers with people coming through looking at short stories and novels, maybe buying one, maybe not, talking about them with the writer.

Art and Culture, Family, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Laboravi

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Beltane                                                                     Early Growth Moon

Out to Famous Dave’s at 11:20 this morning, just ahead of the Mother’s Day rush.  We had a nice meal, discussing family, as the restaurant slowly filled up, the number of very large patrons noticeable unfortunately.

I’ve been back at work on Missing, now writing new material, most focused on John’s origins, where he came from and what if any implications that might have for his time on Tailte.  This will lead into the work of experimenting with point of view, which I’ve given a lot of thought but have not made any decisions about as yet.

Greg, Latin tutor, began to push me a bit this last time, saying how many verses he wanted me to tackle before our next time.  Up til now I’ve been learning at a pace comfortable for me, maybe a bit slow for him, but ok since I was the student.  Now, I’m closer to a colleague and we need to have adequate material before us each time we meet.  We’ve met in person once in the last three and a half years, at Kate’s retirement party at the MIA two Januaries ago.  Odd.

I sat down and pounded out five verses in a little more than an hour.  This includes making commentary notes in Microsoft Notes, words to highlight, helps, ways in which Perseus confuses the matter, words Perseus doesn’t have.

Here’s a strange, and a bit disturbing, thing.  I turned in my resignation from the MIA last Tuesday.  I’ve heard nothing from them.  12 years.  Nothing.  Weird.  And confirming of my decision.