Category Archives: Family

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden

The True Generational Transition

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Summer                   Waxing Summer Moon

Jon and Jen moved around the house this morning, packing and stowing, wiping Ruth’s tears–the wrong cap on her bubble bottle–and feeding a smiling Gabe.  It was the deliberate preparation of seasoned parents, checking this and that, getting ready.  As I watched, I realized this was the true generational transition.  The birth of grandchildren seems to represent the moment when the grandparent’s generation gets legs in time.  It’s not.  It comes when those children integrate into their family.  It comes when their parents take responsibility for them in a functioning, dynamic family.  It comes when tears are soothed, food comes to the table, when boundaries are set, when imagination is nurtured.  It comes when love creates a new family.   I saw all this over the last two days.

Jon put together Ruth’s playhouse.  We bought it a year and a half ago on sale at Costco.  It’s actually a utility shed, but a very cute one with windows and peaked roof.  We’re going to put white lights over the whole area and dress up the inside so other grandchildren can use it too.   Permaculture focuses not only on the plant life in an area, but on the human use of the land as well.  The playhouse adds generational nurturance to the built environment here.

Meanwhile the attacks on our new drip irrigation continue.  Vega seems to have taken a particular interest in where the netaphim should be.   She is not content with things as they are; rather, she sees things as she would like them to be and acts.  She apparently sees the netaphim with multiple holes, disconnected from its sources of water and distributed not where the plants are, but where she sees a better design.

Life has vibrancy here.  A good thing.

Aging, Family, Woolly Mammoths

The Grandchildren Are In The House

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Summer                                      Waxing Summer Moon

Grandpas Bill Schmidt, Scott Simpson and Frank Broderick (Woolly Mammoths all) prepared me for the wonder of grandchildren.  They were spot on.  Ruth came in last night and said, “Hi, Grandpop!”  She had me at coming through the door.  Gabe got transferred from Dad to me soon after Jon came in the house.  Gabe looked up and gave me one of his trademark smiles, Happy to see you Grandpop.  That’s what I heard, though Gabe’s 1 year plus mouth formed no words.

Herschel, their 6 year old German Shorthair, recently diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, bounded in as if he had no stinking terminal illness.  He proceeded to pick up a small Ruthie sandal and run from one end of the house to the other with it in  his mouth.  This is Herschel’s way of signaling anxiety.

The Olsons stopped to see the Johnsons in Nevada, Iowa.  Zelma Johnson, Jon’s grandma, still lives in this small Iowa town where Kate and her sisters grew up.  Due to estrangement from David, Jon’s father, Jon had not seen his grandma in a long time.  Jen got to meet Zelma and Zelma got to meet her great-grandchildren, Gabe and Ruth.  David and Kate were high school sweethearts.

Kate got two cloth bags full of kiddy stuff at the dollar store.  Ruth opened her hers and took out each item and showed it to me, exclaiming happily as only small children can.  Retaining the  young child’s sense of of awe and wonder at simple things is a goal worth keeping at the forefront of our maturity.  Who needs a Lexus when she has a bubble maker?  Who needs a fancy house when there’s plenty of chalk to draw on the sidewalk?  Who needs fine clothes when a small electric fan with lights can entrance you?

These visits, back and forth, them here, us there are critical to family cohesion.  They are why I still travel to Indiana and Texas for family reunions.  As Grandpa Frank put it, “You don’t have a family if you never see each other.”  True.

Aging, Family, Memories

Grandchildren on the way

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Summer                  Waxing Summer Moon

Grandchildren.  Those living links to the future who know us and whom we know.  In my case Ruth and Gabe.  Three years old and one year old.  They are on their way here right now, probably someway in the Twin Cities.

Grandma Ellis, Jennie, was a school teacher.  I knew her a bit.  I liked her.  She understood young boys.  I have three memories associated with a visit I made to her house in Oklahoma City when I was 9 or 10.  In the first I took apart a clock Grandma no longer wanted.  She realized I wanted to know how it worked.  Later I tried to knock wasps out of the air with a bug bomb.  In my mind it was a dogfight, fighter to fighter.  If so, I got tagged and plummeted to earth with a huge swollen left hand.  The last memory involved a sinkhole that appeared in the alley behind grandma’s house.  It was big enough to hold a car.

What this means to me, these memories as central to my experience of my grandmother, involves the humility to realize my grandchildren may not remember me for who I am or what I have done, but for what happened when they visit.  Do I accept it and recognize the experience, validate it?  My grandma Ellis did.

I’ve written elsewhere about my namesake, grandpa Charlie Keaton.  He rode the rail at the Derby every year and loved horses and harness racing, too. Again, I remember him making syrup from water and sugar.  He also cooled his coffee in a saucer and drank from the saucer.  He wore green underwear with a flap in the back.  Those are my memories of grandpa.

Grandma Keaton, Mable, was a different story.  Either she suffered from bi-polar disorder like most of her children or she suffered some mental problem associated with child birth.  I remember her as a shuffling, almost mute older person.  Within in our family lore she famously fed a 13 year old growing boy half a weinie and two tablespoons of baked beans for lunch one summer during an extended visit.

Thus, my grandparent memories are thin soup, memory wise, though as the oldest in our family at least I have some memories where my brother and sister have few if any.

Family

Puppy Dog Tales and Grand Kids

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Summer                                  Waxing Summer Moon

Geez.  63 this morning.  I like it, but moving from peak BTU’s per square inch of flesh to late September makes the neck whiplash a bit.

The grandkids arrive today.  Sometime this afternoon or evening.  We’ve done the usual things:  wash the bed linen in the guest bedroom, clean out the detritus that gathers in an empty room, moved furniture, worked on stains in the carpet.  We’ve also made a modest start toward kid-proofing the house.  Gabe’s a little too young to need much and Ruth seems wise enough to not make us very concerned.

I’m glad to see them come, like the new puppies having Gabe and Ruth in the house will crank up the energy level and remind us of our embeddedness in the next generation.  Jon and Jen are good parents and fine friends so it’s a delight to see them come, too.

There is an inevitable upset with the arrival of guests.  Routines change.  More people need consideration when deciding on something.  This can, usually does, create some tension and anxiety on all parties.  It is, simply, part of living in community and as part of a family.  My introverted personality makes me especially prone and my anticipation about guests gets tamped down as a result.  An unfair and unnecessary experience, but I don’t seem able to shake it.

The next few days provide a learning opportunity for me.  I’ll report back here.

Art and Culture, Family, Garden, Politics, Writing

What Do You Do Well?

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Summer                      Waxing Summer Moon

“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.” – William Hazlitt

What do you do well?  No false modesty, please, just a clear honest look at yourself with an assessment of your skills and abilities.  Each of us has something that we have forgotten the how of in the midst of performing the act.

Typing is one such skill for me.  I long ago broke with the eyes to the keyboard, careful typing of the uncertain.  I’ve used a keyboard since turning 17 and it is now a tool about which I think little.  Perennial flower gardening is the same.  Vegetables not so much, since I still have to think about growing season, water and food preferences, sun and varities.

Politics comes naturally to me now, but only because my dad and I started watching political conventions when I was 5.  Weighing the political possibilities in a given situation is like typing.  I no longer look at the keys.

Writing, too, has begun to come into that category, too, though the longer pieces, like novels, still require a good deal of careful planning and thought.

Parenting and child-rearing, also, seem to have become second nature to me.  I can think about it, but I don’t much.  I just do.  In the same vein caring for dogs now has experience and attentiveness to guide me, not conscious thought so much.

Cooking, too.  I’m not confident in my cooking skills when it comes to cooking for others, but for Kate and me, I work in the kitchen with interest and experience.

Touring at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts has gone through peaks and valleys, with my comfort level and confidence now beginning to rise again.  This one will take a while to pass into something I do well consistently.

OK, that’s my list.  What about yours?

Art and Culture, Family

New Puppies Make Selves at Home

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Summer                          Waxing Summer Moon

So I spent a couple of hours this morning lining the base of the chain link fence with used wooden fence railing, then wiring those rails to the bottom of the chain link.  This is in an attempt to prove that I am human, Vega dog.  Me smarter.

Tonight Vega looked around the living room, hopped in the Stickley arm chair, made herself small and occupied the same space usually taken by a whippet about a third of her size.  Quite a performance.  No wonder she can slither under the fence.  Later, Vega hopped up on the couch and plopped herself down, just like the whippets.  I used to have a firm no dogs on the furniture policy, but it went by the wayside long ago.  They like a good chair as much as I do and the couch, well, hey, that’s for all of us, right?

Research today on the pre-Raphaelite show.  The more I learn the more I respect the work and thought of these guys as it pertained to the purpose of art and the craft of art-making.

Family, Garden, permaculture

Growing

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Beltane                       Waning Dyan Moon

“Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.” – Remy de Gourmont

Don’t you suspect Remy de Gourmont considered him(her)self a complex mind?  It’s the simplest explanation for this quote.

Our two puppies are six months old, so they’re past that OMG they’re cute! phase.  They still play like puppies though. Rigel ran circles around the cedar just off the deck while Vega lay in wait, pouncing on her sister as she made each circuit of the tree.  They slept outside in the garage, just as we had always intended the wolfhounds would.  Never happened.

We have a five stall doggy home in the garage custom built by Jon.  Each stall has a layer of insulation below its floor and an opening in the front where feeding bowls can be set.  We did feed the wolfhounds out there.  The doors lock.  Perfect for containing these big (68 pounds) puppies.

We’ve decided on Rigel and Vega as their call names, though which is which we have not decided.

Still gimping along with a less than stellar inner world, pressed down, slow to motivate.  The saving grace of these periods of melancholy, as my analyst pointed out, is that they are a prelude to a creative time.  I’ve been turning over ideas for a new novel and possible new, online, ways of marketing.

The garden continues to develop.  All the squash have emerged, ditto all the bush beans.  Carrots and beets have begun to show their presence, too.  The garlic is close to harvest.  The potatoes have really taken to this sandy loamy soil we have in the raised beds.  Strawberries, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, chard, mustard and collard greens, kale, cucumbers, asparagus and onions are all growing, especially now that we’ve had a little heat.

Time to hit the grocery store.  After that, I need to work on the computer set up which has some problems that need addressing.

Art and Culture, Family

New Dogs

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Beltane                      Waning Dyan Moon

Something hinky with the 1&1 servers today. (my web host)  Couldn’t get on until late.  Back now.

I spent the morning and late afternoon working on an America’s tour for a group of design students at the College for the Visual Arts.  The theme came with some difficulty, but I decided on Essential Designs.  The notion is that art of the Americas focused on matters essential to the culture that produced them:  myth, rank, the natural world as a source of sustenance, protection and ritual.  The tour should be fun with students already engaged in the world of art.

Midday Kate and I went back out to Junior Lehman’s and picked up Cleo and Blue, the Irish Wolfhound/Walker Coyote Hound mixed breed I wrote about last week.  The ride back was tough for these two who had never ridden in a vehicle before, but we cleaned that up.

The introduction of new dogs to a pack always has its moments and today was no exception, but nobody got hurt.  It will take a bit of time for all parties to adjust, but we’ve done it before and are confident we can make this work.  Having new dogs is like having new plants, grandkids.  They are alive, vital and have their own way in the world.  That’s what makes having them in our lives exciting and fulfilling.

Family, Travel

Went Down the Sunday Throat

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Beltane Waning Dyan Moon

Amtrak Cardinal north of Renessalear, Indiana 8 am

Kate and I woke up at 4:30 this morning, showered and finished packing. We headed around the corner to the train station. As we got there at 5:15 or so, the station master had just begun to announce boarding. We walked up the double staircase. The door to our car opened right at the top of the stairs. We went up three steps, went forward as the car attendant asked and sat down. Less than 10 minutes after leaving our hotel room, we were in our seats and ready togo. Try that at the airport.

We had a discussion of Hoosier phrases with Diane yesterday. When somebody chokes, we would say the food “went down the Sunday throat.” We also ate supper, not dinner. I referred to one of my aunts as being “a caution,” a phrase the others had not heard.

As the train now heads north, I find, as I always do, that I’m glad. The north refreshes me, invigorates. Mostly, it is home. Indiana is where I’m from and a place that holds the precious memories of childhood, but it is no longer home, except in the sense of that familiar place where I grew up.

We ate breakfast today with a former Marine corps A6 Intruder pilot and his wife, a librarian. He was not a person I would have chosen for conversation and that made this another wonderful moment. We found both him and his wife delightful company. He expressed a keen interest in the Kindle. They are on their way from Lynchburg, Virginia (they are Episcopalian) to California where his lt col son will hand over command to another officer.

The pace of the train, the sound of its whistle, plaintive and sometimes forlorn and the comfort of the seats combine with good company and friendy attendants to make the trip a joy.

Next stop, the Metropolitan Lounge in Union Station, Chicago.

Family, Travel

Being with Those We Love

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Beltane                    Waning Dyan Moon

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Indianapolis, Indiana

Family reunions.  First cousins, the forward edge of the baby boom, we hold each other in special regard.  We know the trajectory of each other’s lives.  Kenya lost her husband Ron three years ago, but now sees the world again.  Kathy, with her roots in the military, could not come today because she had a memorial for Hoosiers who’ve died in Iraq.  She’s had bariatric surgery as has Kate.

Diane, who picked us up, stood up for me at our wedding.  She’s lived in the Bay area since 1974.  A breakup with her long time partner, Jeff, still wounds her.  Richard, her brother, retired from Eli Lilly five years ago.  He has long hair, a sulky tattoo on his right upper arm and wore a Las Vegas t-shirt today.  Las Vegas, where we learn to forget.  He races harness horses.

There was little Jacob, wandering from picnic table bench to grass to his mom to Grandma Tanya.  When he tipped over forward, he found the grass as interesting as whatever he left behind in the upright world.

These are the people who know me from the long ago, those years before we learned to read, while we learned to drive and who stood with us as our parents died.

I love them; they love me.  And that is all I know on earth and all I need to know.

A train rumbles along the track outside and sounds like muffled thunder in our room.  We have been back from the reunion for a few hours.  We leave Indy tomorrow morning at 5:30 am.