Daily Archives: July 9, 2009

Aging, Family

You And Grandpop Are In My Heart.

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Summer                         Full Summer Moon

Jon finished building and insulating a wall dividing our furnace room.  Behind this wall will go the produce which can keep over the winter:  potatoes, squash, onions, garlic, carrots, turnips and parsnips.  It will be our green grocer when the weather tips away from the summer solstice toward the winter one and beyond it.  In addition we will have canned tomatoes and greens, pickles, canned gazpacho, dried beans and canned beans, grape jelly and maybe currant.

Jon has done a lot of construction for us, utilizing skills he learned while working for a remodeler after he finished Augsburg.  He built the garden shed near the house, put together the playhouse for grandkids, built the platform I work on in the computer room (where I am right now), a five stall dog enclosure in the garage as well as shelving on the walls.  He’s a talented guy, an artist, a teacher, a father and an expert extreme skier.

The visit has been filled with sweet moments, but tonight at the dinner table there was this exchange between Kate and Ruth (3):  I love you Ruthie, you are in my heart.  I love you, too, Grandma. You and Grandpop are in my heart.  That stopped the conversation for a minute.

They leave tomorrow morning for a drive across the Great Plains, one I’ve made many times since Jon first moved to Colorado.  It is a long drive, but a good one.  We’ll miss them.

Aging, Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Family

Innocence and joy

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Summer                                     Full Summer Moon

Ruth (grand-daughter, 3) has a voice that is innocence.  Her pitch, her earnestess and her imaginative conversation all draw me to a time when life proceeded with leaving home in the early morning, going down the street to pick up my pals, deciding whether to go to the field, play baseball, ride bikes or hunt for pop bottles to turn in for spare change.  Her voice carries the sweetness of cotton candy sold under bright lights at a county fair, pink dresses with lots of frill.  When I hear her, I remember the garden before the fall when we walked with the sacred unclothed and wide-eyed.

Gabe has a smile that lights up the room and makes everyone glad.  Innocence and joy are great gifts children offer to adults, reminders of what the world has on offer if we can shed the mantle of maturity, even if only for a little while.

Today I’m going to put the finishing touches on my pre-Raphaelite tour.  I’ve changed my focus a bit with more attention to Hunt’s evolution as an artist and as a spiritual seeker than an examination of pre-Raphaelitism per se.  In that regard I will start with his Light of the World, started when he was only 23 and finished a year later.  This painting made him famous and rich, but, more important, it ignited a life-long spiritual journey that took shape in his art.  This is a trial run for this tour, so we’ll see how it goes.