Happy Christmas, Bee

This is a totally, sappy post about grandchildren.  You've been warned....


I'm with my daughter, her husband and their two munchkins. And munchkins they are- both fairly short for their age and both walked early so they race around on stubby legs with too long pants tripping them up.  They are 18 months apart and someday will be best friends.  Even now, Noelle squeals when she sees her older brother after naps.  Actually, she squeals when she wants to eat, when she's "all done", when her brother takes his car/backpack/stroller/water bottle back.  She likes to squeal.  I'm their Bebe but Josiah calls me Bee.


It's beginning to feel like Christmas around here. We try to play Christmas music- anything besides the Veggie Tales book with " We wish you a merry Christmas" over and over.  "You want to read a story, Noelle?" as I slide the offending book under the couch.  The innocent little thing just plunks down on my lap.  My daughter and I think about holiday food and packages arrive regularly from Amazon.

And the Christmas tree towers over the munchkins- all seven feet of it.  Josiah loves the tree. He wants the lights on first thing in the morning and sometimes tells the tree goodnight.  And today, under the Christmas tree, we had one of those adorable, "why can't I film this or bottle it and savor forever" moments.

He had on the Bears Christmas stocking hat (a die hard if disgusted Chicago fan and fans-in-training live here) and he had that soft, captivating look on his face.



"I wuv the Cwismas twee," he sighed. "It's happy Cwismas."  And started singing "We wis oo a berry Cwismas..." Ok- a child you love can sing anything and you want a recording.   Then he looked at me and said, "I wuv oo, Bee."  Oh yes, this is the magic grandmother moment.  He holds out his arms and says, "Hug?"  Well of course,  I'm practically in tears- "anything you want, dear child."


Mama leaves and I have to capture this moment. Or at least re-stage it.  Get the hat, find the cute snowman, pose, capture.  All sweetness.  And the squealer lets me know she needs a picture.  A sequence of blurry pictures of a moving target follows.  In the only clear picture she looks like a fat black and white bumble bee.

Where did that belly come from?

And right in the middle of the photos, off goes the cute hat; the snowman is launched and suddenly, I have a two year old with a tantrum.  Cars are tossed.  "No happy Christmas!" Stomp, stomp.  I should have turned on the video but I was trying not to laugh. What on earth happened?

No picture captures his disgust at whatever set him off....ha!

Who knows?  He's two and a half. She's fourteen months. I'm much older.  They won't remember anything from today. I'll always smile when I see these pictures- sure there was a tantrum but first there was a tender little boy with his brand-new wonder, the very spirit of Christmas.  And there was a lovely little, squirmy squealer with her infectious laugh.   It's a very Happy Christmas.

The Sad Journey to St. Louis

Last week I wrote about the riots and protests that happened in Ferguson, Missouri. I was traveling through Missouri on my way to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. I haven't published them. It's taken some time to compose my thoughts. Then it was a holiday, more distractions happened and suddenly, a week has past and life is back to normal.  Or is it?

**********

I sipped coffee and enjoyed a home baked goodie. My girlfriend was hosting me in wealthy Overland Park, near Kansas City, Kansas.  The evening before we had a brisk walk around a nearby park- under low-hanging tree branches, near a stream.  The four young men on the path didn't frighten us. We felt completely safe.

The next morning brought the news-

"St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said the grand jury of nine whites and three blacks decided that "no probable cause exists" to file charges against Wilson, who is white, in the death of Brown, who was black."

My stomach clenched.   My mind went first to my family- my son, his wife and child who live in the city of St. Louis. Their urban neighborhood has also experienced a shooting and protests. I prayed they were safe. And God forgive me- my second thought? I wondered if my luxury car would be safe parked on their street.

This news did not bring out the compassion in me. At first it just scared me.



After I left suburban Kansas City, I drove the four hours east, listening to news reports the entire way including reruns of the previous night's violence and confrontations after the grand jury decision.  I listened to commentary, civil rights activist, white citizens of Ferguson, former police.  Over and over.  And I drove.

I drove through rolling hills dotted with peaceful farms. Billboards inviting students to visit numerous colleges. Huge signs for "Mizzou".  Bucolic, peaceful. A world removed from the city.

"It's difficult to get a sense of the wider situation in St. Louis from any one position on the ground, as so much is happening at once. As some businesses burned, looters broke storefronts in scattered places across the area, and a St. Louis-area police officer was shot, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It's unclear whether the shooting was related to the Ferguson unrest."

As I drove, I thought, "I'm not a racist. I don't judge. I have friends who are African/American. Or would they prefer Black?"  Honesty, how well do I know the people who share the label "American" with me?  I hear the conflict in the voices on the radio, echoing my own. What really happened?  Is peaceful protest possible?  Is violence ever justified? How do we fix a broken system?  A system that favors me and mine.  My sons don't fear police, they aren't stopped and harassed, they aren't profiled.


After arriving in the St. Louis suburbs, I picked up a Craigslist find for my daughter-in-law.  I exited the freeway and wound through wide, clean streets. Artificial ponds graced the landscape around thriving businesses.  I give the optometrist money for his daughters' used doll house that would be a birthday gift for my granddaughter. An expensive wood doll house with a little family, a Caucasian family.

Back on the road I see expensive neighborhoods, sleek office buildings of successful Fortune 500 companies, stately churches- one's website showed their worship service. More Caucasians. They published their vision statement online-

 "A shining light on a hill …sharing Christ with open arms 

through preaching, teaching and healing."

What does that look like? Do they really have open arms? Do I?  What does it mean to be a "shining light on a hill" when you are in the wealthy suburbs of a racially divided urban city?

I had needed a moment to compose myself and process that day.  I picked a familiar grocery store and followed my smart phone. It's embarrassing how comfortable I felt when I saw REI, Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack.  And Arhaus- my niece manages one of these high end home design stores. Why is this one all boarded up?

I still don't have answers, only questions.  Why do I get to feel comfortable in affluent America?  What did the young man collecting carts in the parking lot feel?  The one with long, shiny dreadlocks.  I figured I was wise not to drive the 20 minutes into Ferguson- I had no place there. I also knew I was too scared to go. And that makes me uncomfortable. Sad.

What does my response look like now that I've arrived? Beside worrying about my car, my family. 

As I crossed the parking lot that first day to a coffee shop,  I felt again the anger after deaths of young Marine pilots and my own husband's death. In my grief I would wonder,  "How can everyone go about business as usual? Don't they know..."  

This feels like that, like loss and grief. The anger at the normalcy of life going on as usual.

All I know- I sat there in a comfortable, familiar cafe.  Middle age women chatted, a casual business meeting went on in the next booth,  a plethora of expensive laptops dotted tables. Behind me the espresso machine hissed and Muzak soothed the savage beast. Except there didn't appear to be any passion there, let alone savage beasts. 

Before I cocooned myself in Panera's, I had texted, "I have the dollhouse. I'm thirty minutes....and a world away."  Suddenly I needed to get on the road to my son.  I felt the sun's slide and I didn't want to drive into St. Louis in the dark.  That night I parked my car on a public street within a quarter of a mile of the site of a shooting.

FERGUSON, Mo. — Ferguson residents woke Tuesday to a scorched and scarred city. Rows of burned cars in one parking lot glowed gray in the sunlight as wind blew away their ashes. Yamiche Alcindor, USA TODAY6:29 p.m. CST December 1, 2014

*********


It's been a week. A week of sirens, helicopters overhead and a domestic violence next door. And no one touched my stupid car.  One night it snowed and I prayed for peace, like soft falling snow.  But what does peace accomplish if there is no change under the cover?

"The first meeting of the Ferguson Commission was marked by outbursts from angry residents.

They came to speak their minds and got fed up with the hours-long process.

Too much talk, not enough action-- that was the outcry from people in the community who came out to this first commission meeting at the Ferguson Community Center." Mike Rush, KSDK7:34 p.m. CST December 1, 2014

What's my response? I'm still thinking. 

What's yours? 

The Gentle Journey

Storm's coming....

It’s been cold. Freezing cold.

 We have freezing cold water crystals on top of a layer of  previously liquid water. That’s snow on  ice for the non-scientist like me

Everyone's trying to stay warm

I hired my handyman to move stuff  from the deck to the garage,  from the garage to the barn.  Spring means a reevaluation on what stuff needs to stay and what needs to be tossed but that’s a task for later, lots of delayed decisions around here.  But the big truck should definitely go into the garage. Which proved to be similar to squeezing the baby back up the birth canal, technically possible but not recommended. That’s why I hire help- to do the things I can’t do myself and in this case, probably shouldn’t be doing anyway.

Two days  after squeezing a dually truck into a crowded garage, it snowed ten inches on ice and I was expected in town.  Removing the tight fitting truck proved to be almost as much fun as shoving it in- “When you back this out, remember to pull in those mirrors.” Good advice.  Of course, I forgot and almost took down the storage unit when the passenger side mirror reached out and grabbed a shelf.  I have a decent size garage but it's a really big truck. And, yes, there is space for a second car. It would all be so much easier with one great big door instead of two or so I tell myself

I drove the Beast for three days. Lord, I love that truck.  Love the heated seats.  Love the radio that puts my fancy car to shame. And, as I told the people expecting me in town,  “I could probably drive cross country the ten miles to town if the roads are too slick.” A slight exaggeration but snow is no problem for Clyde, the wonder truck.

Old picture but this is what Clyde loves to plow through! We don't have quite this much snow yet

By Thursday, I needed to get my recycling to town because heaven knows there is no room for anything like that in the garage.  So now I have both cars out the garage. And the recycling is in fancy car, which is a bit squirrely on the frozen water. Plus it needs new tires that I'll order in town.

But I know the secrets to driving on ice.

Two hands on the wheel.  Eyes on the road.

Watch for the other drivers and give them plenty of room.

Proceed in a way that never requires you to hit your brakes.

Brake gently before the turns and accelerate carefully coming out.

Don’t jerk the wheel- soft hands.

Everything gentle and careful.

I know all this. I’ve driven on ice for years.  But I’m so thirsty and dry- the cold has sucked the juice right out of me and my lips are parched.  I remove one glove and rummage through the console.  Cold eyeglass case, dental floss, a really cold flashlight.

Eyes on the road.

Maybe the Chapstick's in the purse. Stretch across the passenger seat, rummage in the purse.  Pen, spare key, checkbook, a pair of glasses for that case in the console. Maybe another section. Can I unzip it with one hand?

Eyes on the road.

I have a flash, an epiphany, I see the byline.

“Local women found in her car off Highway 16. The vehicle rolled the embankment.

Black ice blamed.

Her right hand was still in her purse, clutching  Chapstick .”

You know the still small voice we talk about? Sometimes it’s just common sense.

Eyes on the road.

Two hands on the wheel.

Pay attention to the task at hand. 

 **************

  

 How do we stay on any path?

How can we live well on this big blue ball of water?

Pay attention. Focus on Life.

Listen to the small Voice.

Slow down. Be gentle. Hold life with soft hands.

Avoid creating situations where you have to slam on your brakes.

Watch out for other travelers, not as a threat but as other fragile humans to serve.

Keep your eyes on the Road.

How’s your driving?

Keep safe this winter on the roads.....and be gentle with your life.

A First Birthday.... and a Day in the Country

I'm in Oxford.... Ohio, this week. Noelle Kathryn is one year old and I came to celebrate. And we discovered farm animals together. That's one of my first loves so it seems very appropriate.

I was raised on a dairy farm in Alaska and mostly remember Holsteins- the black and white milk cows but all farm animals smell like home- or money! as my dad used to say. Baby animals and the fragrant turning of the cool dirt means spring to me and pumpkins and petting farms say autumn all over the midwest.

So Happy  Birthday, our sweet autumn baby girl.  We're glad you're here and part of our family.

These grandchildren just get cuter and cuter. I'm a blessed woman.

"These are balloons, Noelle! Fun, aren't they!"

"Can I help!!!!" says big brother. "She's not even paying attention to the presents...."

"I LOVE these little people"

I also came to visit my favorite grandson. My "grandma name" is Bebe but he calls me "Bee". He can call me anything at all.  I'm putty in his hands.

And today we were off to the farm!

"Noelle, this is a goat."

"Goats are fun!" 

"Meet your first horse, Noelle. You laugh but he's trying to eat your skirt"

This sheep will stand still for photos, unlike a one year old!

Cuties in the corn bin. We found it in their pockets at home. :)

Total concentration

As a little girl, my daughter wanted to grow up and live on a farm.
She's older and wiser but don't they look great there? 

Ended the farm day on a hayride to the pumpkin patch. Tons of pumpkins and we were able to leave the field without buying one or having a meltdown scene. A perfect end to the day.

"Happy Birthday, baby girl!"

I love the memories of my farm childhood and I'm grateful my grandchildren can at least be exposed to American farms.  I want them to understand where our food comes from, the hard work it takes, the special families that do that work.   This was a good first step.

Going home after a wonderful day at a farm. 

Mosaics- beauty from broken pieces

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is a technique of decorative art or interior decoration. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors, known as tesserae; but some, especially floor mosaics, may also be made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called "pebble mosaics".  Thank you, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic

art...creating...... assemblage......technique....decorative....what's missing?

Wow- fun- breaking stuff- more fun- putting pieces together- design- laughter- permanent- aha moments- new from old- beauty from brokenness....  Mosaic creation is a lot like life. 

Judy collects cool stuff and buys some cool stuff and shares with her students. She's wonderful. 

 We had the practical stuff too.  Containers, paper towels, masks to protect from grout powder, water, q-tips. You need tools and stuff to make beauty from broken pieces.




So many choices.  Some we choose, some choose us.

It starts to come together, a piece at a time. No longer is any piece a part of the original. 

Each adds to the final design.  And the design come together. 

It won't look like what we had in mind but when you first start, it's better not to have a specific end in mind. Be flexible. Let the broken pieces guide you.  Maybe you don't have to be in control. 

Now we rest. We wait.  Let the pieces of glass and ceramic settle into the glue, let the bond form.

If you disrupt this process, the tesserae won't be firmly in place.  The end result will miss what completes it.  There will be a gap, a hole. And that's all you'll see.

We return to Judy's to view our project.  Inspect the solidity of our work. We wiggle tesserae and check that sharp pieces don't extend past the edge.  We're creating art to handle, to feel, to experience with more than just eyes.

Pieces that are loose are re-glued. Security is important to wholeness. It's looking good!

Then we cover the entire board with thick, mucky grout.

 Dark, wet, messy, squishing into cracks and crevasses.  

Cover the pieces, lose the design, bury the thing. 

We've made a mess. Did we screw the whole thing up? 

No.....

We carefully wiped each surface that we wanted revealed. 

Gently removed the grout from the glass and ceramics but left what will hold the beauty in place.

Use tender fingers around shards of broken glass.  Explore with q-tips.

Learn from others. 

Add found objects. 

See what emerges from the process. 

There is more work to do.  Sealing the grout.  Polishing with vinegar water.  But the big work is done.  Now I just get to enjoy. And remember.

Once broken, 

now not just repaired

but repurposed for new beauty, new wholeness. 

Mosaic

God bless you for your kindness and generosity, Judy.  We had a wonderful two days with you.

http://www.pendletonartworks.com/

Grief and the abundance of life

This morning I dumped goat cheese on my scrambled eggs and was reminded of my cousin who works in a fabulous cheese emporium. A fancy name for a store or market but the root is from Latin poros, which means journey.  Cheese and gourmet goodies travel from the world to Longmont, Colorado and they are delicious. Decadent. A far cry from gooey "American" cheese food.   And when my brother in law died, that decadent and delicious foods showed up at Janet's house.

In the midst of grief and sorrow, our cousin put together an extravagant basket of French cheeses, little toast things, spreads and jams, smoked salmon and these little melt-in-your mouth shortbread lemon bites.  We endured  the funeral, survived the reception and returned to an empty house- starving.  We attacked her bounty of expensive gourmet food like it was McDonald's french fries and we had just hiked in from Outer Mongolia.

We sat on the floor and ate with our hands. We opened wine and gorged ourselves with the most amazing meal. We were loved in an extravagant, outlandish fashion.... and after a week of "consolation carbohydrates" we deserved it.  Or did we?

Do we deserve extravagance in the midst of pain? 

Do we deserve abundance in the face of tremendous loss? 

Do we deserve to love and laugh after all the pain, in the middle of raw grief? 

All I know is we were renewed in our spirits, 

united in our love and laughter 

and humbled by this gift.  

We appreciated the lasagnas that had streamed into the house- well, not all of us. This was an Italian family, lasagna a family meal. My niece refused to eat it without her dad.   But we were grateful for the kindness of friends and neighbors who brought pizzas and pastas and casseroles and cookies and sweet rolls.  But when a basket of expensive abundance was placed in our hands, we were delighted. Overwhelmed by the sheer generosity.  Amazed that fine food could so restore our spirits on a bleak day.  And if we had know what was in the basket, "Of course we would have invited you back to the house." My brother and his family had lived in France for years and had to settle for leftovers the next day.  I have no pictures but will put in a shameless plug!  http://www.cheeseimporters.com/home.html

Fast forward a few months and now we are purging Janet's home of all unnecessary items- she is moving from a house into an apartment and most has to go.  We are in the midst of a garage sale- which surely would have made Dante's list of one level of hell if he ever had to endure one.  It's humiliating to place your treasures on the yard and have people paw through them.  It's discouraging to expect a decent price or understanding from strangers. Garage sales suck. 

But in the midst of that difficulty, God sent Judy.  She was a volunteer at their town's performing and visual art center when Janet worked there. She came to the yard sale to help, to buy stuffed animals for a mission on the Mexican border and perhaps find mirrors for her latest mosaic piece.  We appreciated her help, gave her all the stuffed animals and were delighted when she offered us a mosaic class.  We had a ton of tasks, mostly heartbreaking and all exhausting and had no time for play. 

But play we did. I set out to talk about Judy and our classes but food took over instead. But both were extravagant signs of abundance in the midst of grief and turmoil.  Both were gratefully received and both brought life and hope, laughter and beauty. One was consumed within a few days but we treasure the memory. The other is a more permanent sign of friendship and fun.  Both were generous reminders of grace, abundance in the scarcity of grief. 

These are half finished.... the story will continue.

So do we deserve....

 beauty, kindness, grace, abundance, care, laughter.... 

extravagance....at any time?

I don't know what we deserve but we thrive on all these gifts and they are small pieces of love that create a thing of beauty- in our lives, in our families, in our communities.  Next time I want to give with abundance into the dark of someone's grief. 

Sunshine and Fog- it's South Dakota!

We just returned from the fabulous South Dakota Festival of Books.
http://www.sdbookfestival.com/events.htm

This year was in Sioux Falls- which has 24 miles of bike trails.... none of which go east-west, the way we needed to go from our campground to the downtown festival venues!

 But we did get in a few great rides. 

Then we headed west- Janet had never been to Wall, SD- home of the "world famous" Wall Drug. Free ice water in the 1930's transformed a small town drug store into a small town legend.

https://walldrug.com/t-history.aspx

The most compelling moment? Not the terrifying tyrannosaurus rex that tries to escape and EAT every 12 minutes.... 

Not the bobble heads....https://walldrug.com/c-58-bobble-heads.aspx

 No- what amazed us was original art including SD's much beloved native son, Harvey Dunn,- hanging on the wall.... across from the grill.  Yep, greasy dirt was building up on the frames. Can't imagine what's happening to the art itself.  But it is very accessible and some really fine art to gaze at while in line for a big, delicious pecan roll. This is the owner's view from a newspaper article a few years ago. Pretty cool.

It may be the finest private collection of Western art on free public view anywhere in the world, he said.

One small stretch of wall, facing the doughnut counter, contains more than half a million dollars' worth of fine art - including an original N.C. Wyeth painting, "The Devil's Whisper," and two of the store's dozen Harvey Dunns, "Punching it Out" and "Gray Dawn."

"There's no other place where we could put them and expose this many people to them for free," Hustead said.

The whole story is here if you're interested.
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/top-stories/the-water-s-free-but-the-art-s-worth-millions/article_ffbfd813-7078-5b17-8756-c6810175af44.html
Or
http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jcontent/living-the-dream/living-the-dream/collectibles/4325-wall-drug-of-south-dakota



But we had places to be and mile to go before we slept so we went to the Badlands National Park to see a spectacular sunset, stars without light pollution and sunrise over the amazing sites.....





or fog.

It was compelling and different. The various minerals showed pink and green and the ridges were eery against the white sky.  This is within a couple of hours of my home- we'll be back but for now, we saw the Badlands in the fog.  And didn't see any snakes.

 

Unpaved roads may be impassible in wet conditions....

And shoes may be caked with sticky, mucky goo.....

Views may be obscured.....

Ducks may be glum......

But the prairie is still lovely......

Beauty is still evident to the eyes that look. 

Kayaks in the sunset,

art by the donut counter, 

water droplets on the late summer grass.

South Dakota-

you never know what you'll get.