On Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day of grilling and celebration, children eager for the end of school, pools and beaches newly reopened. It's a time to celebrate the beginning of a vibrant season.

Of course, we all also know the bigger significance of the holiday, but it's not the focus of the "celebrations," is it? Perhaps it's too much of a contrast with the liveliness of the world at this time of year. I find it hard to focus on the real meaning of Memorial Day, too. It's heartbreaking.

For those who have served and returned home bereft of friends who died in the field, the day must feel otherworldly. Their focus must frequently fall on remembering, not just today, but every day. And what is today like for those families who have lost someone? What must it be like to watch the little flags waving along a parade route, to see the fliers advertising Memorial Day sales on watermelon or hotdogs or lawn furniture? How little the normal world recognizes the bizarre contrast between picnic parties and remembering those who won't return home to share another family holiday.

Life certainly goes on, and celebrating summer is important, of course. But I'm making a point today to stop, with gratitude, and recognize that today is also about the people who willingly step into harm's way to serve in the military. Think what you will of the war in Iraq, or Afghanistan, those who serve there are made of something special to do what they do.

Last year, I received from a dear friend of mine a book that details the heroic service of just one of the many Marines who have served in Iraq. The book is called The Gift of Valor. In it, author Michael Phillips draws the vivid portrait of Marine Corporal Jason Dunham. Heartwrenching and illuminating, the story of this brave young man and those with whom he served stays in my mind. It is worth the time to read to get a feeling for the type of work that our military service members do every single day. While not all of them have to make the sacrifice that Jason did, they are cut from the same cloth: they will step up and give whatever they have because they have sworn to, because they have a sense of what it means to honor their commitment to each other.

These are huge thoughts that try to flee my mind because it's just too hard to hold onto them for too long. But I pull them back and back again today, and I'll say a prayer of thanksgiving to know the brave service members I do. I'll say another prayer of thanksgiving for the service of those like Corporal Dunham.

The vets will raise their flag in our small-town square this afternoon, and certainly their thoughts will honor their friends who didn't get to come back and mark the beginning of another summer. I will join them, with my hand on my heart.

Single shot on Saturday: tableau

My gardening husband came in with this bunch of hydrangeas this afternoon, and it begged for a fuchsia vase. Something about this unlikely pairing with the shells and the bowl of garlic is so pleasing for me. How I love little treasures put together in a corner of the house...

Poem for a Wednesday

For today, I present you with a poem about juxtaposition by Fleur Adcock from her collection  Poems 1960-2000.

It's the sort of thought that I've been preoccupied with lately:  how can kindness and cruelty dwell so closely in the same spaces in our hearts?  What do we conceal of our baser natures to prove our goodness?  What does our "goodness" cost us?  How does one accept the ruder truths of self?    

I turn these age-old questions over and over in my mind like a well-worn stone.  

“For a Five-Year-Old” 

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
It might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful had,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
four closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

--Fleur Adcock

Why I'm not "Just Sayin..".

I'm in a soapbox mood today, so indulge me.  

I am a big lover of so many things, as you probably know by now.   There isn't a day that I wake up to weather I don't love, there isn't a time of day that is less beautiful than any other to me.   I try to take everyone at face value, to appreciate the wholeness of a person, even the rougher spots that we all have, and sometimes show.

What really gets under my skin is people trying to "get under my skin."  I have, at certain times of my life, been a magnet for critics, would-be Henry Higgins, evangelists of all denominations.  Maybe I wear my heart on my sleeve so obviously that I look malleable, dewy-eyed and innocent, just waiting for the "right" idea to make me real.

Once, about a year ago, I was in the local mall with the girls when I was approached by a very aggressive salesman.  He waltzed over to me from his kiosk, gave me a sympathetic cluck and a tilt of the head, and said something to the effect of "poor mama, you look so old and tired."  Somehow, by putting me in this sad little category, he got me to slow down enough where he could step in front of me, and block my way.  The moment he got me to stop, he gave me the hard sell on hand cream.  $40 dollars later, I walked away with some lotion, a green vinyl bag, and a bruised ego.   The cream, by the way, was crap.  Which matched the way I felt.  I took a small comfort in knowing that at least he failed with his attempt to sell me eyecream "all those wrinkles, ma'am!" 

In each day, each of us is bound to cross paths with people going through trials, sometimes acting out aggressions or envy or need or disappointment.   It is taking me years to see it, but these actions don't really have much to do with me, other than the fact that when do I encounter them, I often take them too much to heart.   Could you guess that for days after that fleecing at the mall, I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to gauge the extent of my wrinkling?   Ugh. 

As I said, I have worked for years to accept the wholeness of people, the good and the bad, to look past faults and transgressions, sometimes to the detriment of myself.   I think I've done this in part because I long for that universal acceptance myself.    It's an unrealistic thing to expect from everyone you meet, but still.  It's a fantasy I'm working to let go of.  I remind myself that there will be no unicorn appearing in my backyard this afternoon, either.

The world is full of the need to project the mean, the critic, the unaccepting.   The worst is when these are couched in the guise of "friendship" or "help" (like the lotion salesman).   

Rhetorically, these attacks seek to throw the equilibrium of the listener.   Kindly delivered, they are like poisoned apples.  Seemingly harmless, but meant for injury.  Sometimes these friendly attacks come as "No offense, but...," which of course is just a warning of impending offense.  That "but" seeks to absolve the messenger of responsibility.   It's a gentle delivery, as the messenger hopes to injure but still remain in the "friend" category.   Nowadays we call those kinds of friends "frenemies."

The latest type of rhetorical poisoned apple is "I'm just sayin.."  Instead of prefacing an attack, it comes at the end, as a way of softening the blow.  Again, this sort of expression seeks to remove the messenger from responsibility for his or her own hurtful words.  In person, it might be accompanied with a sheepish shrug, or a little kick at the ground and an "aw shucks." It's an I-just-can't-help-what-I-feel sort of expression.   

To these expressions I say this:  Bullshit.  I think we should be responsible for our words, for the nastiness we throw out into the world. 

If a person has the chutzpah to let the words out of  her mouth, then she needs to own them, good or bad.  If you want to sell me some hand cream, don't make me feel ugly to do it.  Own it.  Sell the product, not a poor image of me to myself.  If you want to attack me, just do it.  Don't preface it with a request that I forget you said it.   Don't end it with the lie that you can't help your feelings.  That you're "just" saying.  Because, friend, if you're "just sayin," your words are poisoned.  And you put the poison there.

I'm asking too much to remove these time-honored means of attack and persuasion from language.  I'm probably asking too much of myself to disregard them entirely.  But I am promising that I won't ever use them.   And I'm promising that when I am sent these poison apples, I won't bite.   You shouldn't either.

Things that Go "Thump" in the Night, and What I Might Learn About Myself

My Etsy shop is in the works, but delayed.  All the good things I've done to stay on track notwithstanding, sometimes someone puts a wrench in the works, and tosses your world upside down.  

Several Saturdays ago, I was exactly on schedule for my shop, with a planned opening on April 22.  The weekend up until then had been sunny and carefree.  Ada and I made beaded necklaces while Esme napped, and before we had dinner that night, I surprised them with a box of percussion instruments I've been collecting.  We danced and sang and ignored the carpet that needed vacuuming, and it felt wonderful.   

A few hours later, while I was watching tv, someone attempted to kick in our back door.  Which is in the television room.  Where I was sitting not 8 feet away.

Since then, I've been plagued.   The incident was not isolated to my home; there were several attempts at houses next door and across the street.  Our house is a fairly "hardened" target, and, as I keep reminding myself, this creep did not have any success here.  The cops were here in 3 minutes, and stayed guard around the neighborhood.    

However, I have been siderailed.  My plans to do my shop and work on the writing projects I have been on the backburner for a few weeks now.   In the meantime, all of my frenetic energies have gone into maintaining a normal family life with dinners, baths, playtimes, and homework.   

Anything left over has gone into fortifying our security here.   We are a good team, my husband and I, and I feel more successful with each effort, both the routine-keeping and the security-planning.   Our neighbors are amazing, each working through this themselves, and reaching out to the other to assist and reassure.  The police are sensitive and responsive, and all of this combines to give me renewed optimism.  

The incident was one moment.  I didn't even see it happen, rather, I heard it.  A single, sickening thud that could only be a man's foot on my door.   But it is a moment that lasts and lasts, and follows me with what-if's.

The few nights of sleeplessness have passed, but my sleep is now rich with dreams that are teaching more about myself and how I'm dealing with my own feelings of vulnerability and fear. I'm finding little insights hitting me throughout the day as I'm discovering the many layers of emotion I'm carrying:  I am stunned, outraged, mournful, angry, agitated, and determined.  I've surprised myself to find that of all of these, I am mostly determined and angry.  I am, day by day, forcing myself to return to my plans, to reclaim the thing that thug did almost get away with: my confidence.  

The past week brought me back to painting and making earrings, and this next week promises more painting and some fun sewing projects, and a writing workshop with a friend.   And I am loving all of it.  

In the middle of it all, I am pondering my reactions, especially the anger part.  I have always imagined that come across as a peaceful person, enthusiastic but generally harmless, mild as milk.  Perhaps there is more to me than I once guessed.   I have been gravitating toward this owl painting lately--there is a little more work to do on her, but she is vivid for me already, and she, too, seems to be more complicated than I had originally assumed.

The Etsy shop will be stocked soon, my writing will become a priority again within the week.  My caged-tiger self will someday stop seeing danger in every shadow, I am certain.    One moment won't control my perceptions of the world, but it might have awakened me to how I see myself.  I refuse to lose anything from this incident, but instead I am going to gain something from it...that's the biggest surprise of all.

Three Things for Thursday

Three reasons my blog has been post-less for almost two weeks:

1.  Easter.  Yes, it's crazy, but Easter has turned into the mini-Christmas around here, with all the sneaking and intrigue of playing Santa.   It literally takes weeks to pull off such a feat successfully, clandestine visits to candy stores, toy stores, etc.  By the time Easter actually rolls around, I am exhausted!  This year, I found (okay, set up) an email address for the Easter rabbit, so Ada and Esme could ask him whatever questions they wanted.   Of course, there were requests--a glow worm for Esme and a crib nest for Ada's baby.  The Easter bunny came through in the clutch.   And the girls were delighted.   If you want the Rabbit's special email address, let me know.  I just know he'll write you back!

2.  I am still plagued by the irresistible urge to clean and organize corners of the house from end to end.   I do each piece in little bites of 10 or 15 minutes, and the result is that it takes a long time.  And it makes a HUGE mess.  Invariably, 15 minutes into a project, I am interrupted, and what used to be at least hidden behind a cabinet door or stuffed into a drawer is now strewn about the room in piles.  I leave it there to attend to whatever urgency is calling me, and, well--it's not pretty.   Eventually it gets put back, hopefully in some order.   

All that noise about breaking some eggs to make an omelette is at least partially true.  I can say that over the past month I have made some good progress:  The study cabinet is clean, and so is our desk.  All of our camera equipment is organized, and I can actually find what I want quickly!  I have filed the contents of the inboxes (high five myself for that one!), and Ada's school records, drawings, and homeschool materials are sorted by subject and age range.  With all the "new" space, Esme now has her own little section.  That was the fun and gratifying part.  For more grungier work, I excavated under our family room couch and found some long-lost toys and an old, dried out lemon (don't ask--I have no idea, and I am as grossed out as you would be).  In between all this, I've sorted through Esme's old winter clothes, changed in some of her hand-me-down summer clothes, and organized her closet.  One night I pulled out the dvds, and now all of them--even the new ones that seem to rattle around the tv for months--they're are all filed away into huge albums.  I have to say it is calming to see the absence of junk lying around in all the common areas (at least non-toy junk).

The pantry is still calling to me, as is my own closet, and a stack of Ada's artwork that needs to be put into a binder.  But the current hot project is the studio closet, a monster that I'm battling with for the next few days.   To make space to store materials that are just getting into the way, I decided I needed a set of shelves to fit into the space under the eves.  Why not drop everything and build them?  Uh, lots of reasons.  But it seemed like a great idea.  In execution, it is taking so much longer than I anticipated.  That, and I'm suffering under the pressure, literally.   Yesterday I gave myself a massive blood blister on my thumb while tightening the bit into the drill.  Cringe with me, please.  And then I stuck myself with a splinter--under my nail.  Yes, there is a reason that is a technique used in torture.   Still, yea Kirie! I sucked it up and put another leg onto shelf one.   Only two more shelves and 12 more legs to go....

I promise to post pictures when I'm done.   Assuming you care.  Please say you do...I have spent altogether too much time on this.   And too much time writing (and talking) about it.  If you made it this far, thanks for being so patient!

3.  In the midst of the half-way projects and hopping around for Easter, and several other writing projects I'll share with you later....I've been prepping and creating some items for an online shop I'm opening in less than a week.  I've been intending to open an Etsy shop for a year, and I have finally assembled almost all the pieces to do so.   The shop is going to be called Spangletree Studio, and I'll tell you more about it soon.   Suffice it to say that I feel like a Santa's elf, sewing and painting and bending wires and sanding little doors....it's going to be fun. I can't wait to tell you more about it next week!  I'm holding back just so as not to jinx myself... 

I miss my blog.  I also miss reading my bloggy-friends. I promise to get back to a regular posting and blog reading schedule starting after April 23.    

Whispering in my ear--Can you miss someone you never met?

A little background:

I have a thing for stories, as you might know. And as much as I like to read, I love to hear a story, too. My mom would read to me incessantly when I was little, and long after I knew how to read to myself, she continued to read aloud to me. She read, late at night and her head nodding with fatigue, through many series--Little House, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew. It must have been exhausting for her, after long long days at work.

But how I loved it! We shared the story together, discovering it, though in a way it also seemed almost to spring naturally from her as she spoke the words. I especially loved how her voice wrapped around the characters, made the pictures move in new ways, different from the way the pictures formed when I read to myself. Listening to those stories was pure pleasure.

I still love to hear a story. It's probably why I am an NPR addict, and I am usually a rapt listener to anyone willing telling me a narrative of their life, or even what happened to them that day. I love to hear it.

So it's not surprising that I have affection for audiobooks. I may have resisted the ipod for years past its introduction, but at the prospect of hearing podcasts of This American Life, and the Moth, and StoryCorps, well--I caved this winter, and now I'm often found wearing my earbuds, a story whispering into my ears.

The past few months I've been mining itunes for good audiobooks, and listening to a mixture of oldies and some new, more pulpy stuff. Heart of Darkness was amazing, real and thick and haunting in a way that, shamefully I admit, it wasn't before I heard it read to me. After Conrad, I wanted to go for something lighter, with the thought that it would be good to listen to while doing chores or exercising. My choice was James Patterson's Beach Road, which definitely falls into the pulpy junk pile, was disappointing and grungy.

So, in an attempt to find a middle ground, I stumbled across a mystery by Kate Wilhelm, a writer I'd never heard of before. Of course, I’ve since come to find out that she is prolific, talented, and lauded by many. I’m thrilled to know I will be able to explore her books for a long time to come.

For now, I am into Wilhelm’s books featuring character Barbara Holloway. Just as I did when I was a little girl, I still enjoy a series of stories. Mysteries are especially great in a series. While they can be cute and fun, a series can also leave lots of room for development of character and place. More importantly, they leave room for ambiguity and growth, and maybe that's why I like them so well. That, and the fact that my mom and I can exchange them between ourselves and have our own little book club.

Anyway, Kate Wilhelm's series about Barbara Holloway are like pearls on a string, each one smooth and well-constructed from the inside out, glowing. I started accidentally in the middle of the series, with The Unbidden Truth. Read by Anna Fields, it was engaging, lively, haunting. I was hooked.

I say hooked, and I mean it. As I listened, I was almost addicted to hearing what would happen next. In particular, I was drawn to this narrator, Anna Fields. Like my mother, her voice made the story move, wrapping itself into the plot and the characters so that it really did feel as though the story was being spun exactly as I was listening.

I was so taken with Anna Fields’s warm and mysterious voice and the way she gave life to Wilhelm's characters, that beyond finding other books in the series (which I did), I wanted to see what else she had given voice to.

A Google later, I learned that Anna Fields was the stagename for Kate Fleming. Like Kate Wilhelm, Kate Fleming was prolific, narrating over 200 books. And clearly, she was talented. She was asked to narrate the 9/11 Commission, and awarded honors from her peers. I also learned, with heartache, that she died in 2006, tragically trapped in her Seattle studio during a flash flood.

All of this background leads me to confess this:
In some strange way, for the past week or so, I've been feeling a certain loneliness knowing she is gone. I was puzzled over this melancholy, but I finally put a label to it: it's that I miss Kate Fleming. I know, I know--I didn’t know her at all, she is a disembodied voice in my head, and yet, I miss her. The intimacy of audio can foster that kind of connection, I suppose. I think of the way she could get inside a character, and get inside my head, and I know that the world has lost someone special.
Is it possible to miss someone you didn't know? Perhaps.
I suspect I have this lonely, loss-filled feeling about her for another reason. Because while her voice is firmly in my head, I have the sickening outside knowledge that at the same time she was making those detailed recordings, her fate was rushing toward her in a way she couldn’t know. She is stuck there in time, unknowing, but vibrant and powerful with stories each time I listen.

We are all like Kate Fleming, in a way. We are firmly in our own reality, with the voice in our own heads shaping and moving the story of our daily life forward. And it feels so permanent, like something recorded and tangible, something to be accessed again and again. But it’s not. For each of us rides on an unstoppable river--or that river flows toward us, I don't know. But I do know that the permanence of things is an illusion. Like anyone else, I shove that knowledge down each day to some hidden place so I can "get on with life." I only recognize the pull of the river again, if only for a moment, when I encounter beautiful and fleeting, something perfect and special. Something like a perfect whisper in my ears as I'm lulled into another storyland.