tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22262315256339996252024-03-21T15:07:36.399-07:00Commune of womenCommune of Women is a novel about six women, trapped together in a small room, who must use their slender resources to survive and prevail by sharing everything: their hope and fear; their food; and their life stories, which grow deeper, darker and more intimate as the days pass.
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Find <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Commune-Women-Suzan-Still/dp/1936558165">Commune of Women</a> at Amazon in either ebook or paperback.</center>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.comBlogger317125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-89326144582266597272013-04-06T10:10:00.001-07:002013-04-06T10:10:23.207-07:00Contemplating Pancho: More About Fiesta of Smoke<style>@font-face {
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> At the feet of my hero, at his ranch near Parral, Chihuahua</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A large black-and-white photo
of Pancho Villa sits on my desk. He’s on horseback, riding straight toward the
camera, bandana around his neck, hat pushed back so strong light floods his
sweaty forehead and big black moustache. His horse is at a gallop, lathered
with sweat, and dust rises under its hooves. Behind them, horse-drawn caissons
rumble and a crowd of horse cavalry, guns and banners jutting, gathers in the
distance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I am stunned by the drama of
this photograph. No matter how often I glance at it, or gaze, as I do many
times a day, an urgency and a terror grips me. This is war, the Mexican
Revolution of 1910. This man and those who followed him put their lives on the
line for an ideal: freedom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For more than thirty years
I’ve traveled in Mexico, into the interior where the anguish of the Mexican
people is unvarnished by tourist trappings. It’s become clear to me that the
freedoms gained in the Revolution are being lost and that the desperate plight
of the poor remains. In many ways, the Conquest of the 1500s is on-going, with
the pillaging of land transferred from the Spaniards to multi-national
corporations and corrupt politicos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> was born out of these observations and ponderings<i>.
</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">How does social transformation occur?
What are its mechanisms, driving forces, psychology? Who are its leaders and
what motivates their incredible sacrifice? Does every age produce a Pancho
Villa, willing to ride through the night from one battle to the next, to live
lean and forego rest for an ideal? These questions began to congeal into
images. And thus the insurgent Javier Carteña entered, tracked by international
investigative reporter, Hill, who asks the same kinds of questions:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span><span style="color: blue;">Staring up from the flap of the book’s dust jacket was Dr.
Javier Carteña. Hill bent over the small black and white photo like a
virologist discovering a new germ.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>The
face that stared back at him was handsome in the way that fighting bulls
are--full-boned, brave and powerful. The eyes did, yes they did indeed,
smolder. The mouth was full-lipped and slightly drawn down in the corners, as
if at any moment he might bark an order that would carry no compassion but
strike one senseless like the stooping of a falcon. It was the face of a
monastic--solitary, disciplined, tortured down deep. Calypso had called him a
"warrior-priest," his wife and children notwithstanding. A head of
glossy black hair filled what was left of the photo.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>He
buttoned the top button of his overcoat, gathered up the book. The first thing
to do, of course, was to call the publisher. He set off down the street
quickly, smiling to himself. Now he was in his element! Now, there was a scent
to follow.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Caught between
the two men is Calypso Searcy, a successful writer, whose adolescent love
affair with Javier Carteña has impacted her life for twenty-five years, and
whom Hill has just met:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Hill
fished some ten-franc pieces from his pocket and began to push back his chair
when his eye lit again on Pont St.-Louis. A woman stood there, mid-span, facing
the cathedral. She was wearing a yellow dress and the afternoon sun slanting
through it gave hints of a long and lithe body. But more remarkably, she had
one leg stretched out on the railing and was rhythmically lowering and raising
her torso to her extended knee, in long, balletic stretches. Intrigued, Hill
left a five-franc tip to propitiate the gods and threaded out through the metal
chairs.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>A
red fox coat, heaped on a big oxblood-colored leather bag, glowed like a fire
at her feet; and she was humming the strains of <i>Zum reinen Wasser</i></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">: “<i>Where streams of living water flow, He to green meadows
leadeth...”</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Leaning
casually against the railing about four feet away, a distance he deemed
friendly but not overpowering, Hill ventured: “I love Bach, myself.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“Truly,”
she said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Thirty
years of savoir-faire melted and Hill was a fuzz-faced lout from Denver again,
all elbows and size-16 shoes. “One of his loveliest . . .” he managed to
stammer, “his finest cantatas.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">Time for pure out-West charm--ingenuous,
all-man, no horseshit.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“Listen,”
he said, “I know just from looking that you and I are as different as hog wire
and harp string. But if you’re not otherwise engaged, I’d be honored to take
you to an early supper.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It
quickly becomes apparent to Hill that Calypso is in some kind of trouble, and
when she disappears, he sets out, using his investigative skills to track her,
first in Paris:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">The room Hill entered was a perfect
exemplar of early seventeenth-century architecture, long and narrow, with a
high ceiling, windows at the end giving onto the street, and a marble mantle
framing a small fireplace. Orderly, it would have been a lovely room. The
degree of disruption alarmed him. Rugs were pulled up, sofa cushions slit and
books pulled from their shelves into splayed heaps. He bent and picked one up
at random. <i>Ombre et Soleil</i></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">, the poetry of Paul Eluard. It had been so badly manhandled that
the center pages fell out with a <i>thunk</i></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“<i>Oh
non, monsieur!</i></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">” Madame
Pouillon shrieked. “You must touch nothing!”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“But,
what possible difference . . .” he broke off, gesturing at the incalculable
mess.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“Yes
. . . but no. You must not touch Mademoiselle’s things. On this I insist!” Hill
nodded, trying to keep down his frustration. He had to work fast, before she
insisted he leave altogether.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then to California, New
Mexico and Arizona, following Calypso’s swiftly vanishing trail, and finally
arriving in southern Mexico. Meanwhile, Javier and Calypso recall their
youthful bonding in Berkeley in 1966:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Javier
would never forget the afternoon he brought Calypso home from the hospital, so
agonized she could barely breathe. He laid her on the bed and gingerly removed
her sweater and jeans. It was his first full view. Her entire body was a
patchwork of bruises and lacerations. Only her ankles and feet seemed to have
escaped unharmed. "My God, Caleepso! My God!" was all he could mutter.
He sat on the end of the bed and massaged her feet, the only part of her he
dared touch, until she fell asleep.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Her
general demeanor impressed him. She was calm, serene and patient with herself,
and grateful, although not servilely so, in her reliance on him.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"Caleepso,
I am impressed with you. You are very strong."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>She
was sitting in her big armchair with a mug of steaming tea. Late afternoon sun
streamed obliquely, setting her long dark hair ablaze with red highlights. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"Something
happened to me, in there."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"Obviously
. . ." He waved a hand at her, as if to ask if she thought he was blind.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"No.
I mean something . . . wonderful. Something . . . sublime."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"Tell
me."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>No
words for the ineffable, he thought, as he listened to the stammering account of
her experience after the rape. Had she been delirious? Dying? Mere language
could never convey the wonder he saw sweeping her face. Something profound had
happened to her. Who knew better than he what lovers pleasure and pain can be,
how intimate their dance and how seductive?</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>"I
see you, Caleepso," he said when she had lapsed into silence. "I see
your soul."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>The
room was in cloistered darkness. They sat, with the hiss of the radiator and
the background roar of evening traffic, in silence. At that moment, they both
knew the truth: there would never be another human being as intimately,
inextricably bound to them as they were to one another.</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Revolutionary
fervor heats up, then boils over:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">She ran. Lights swept across the ground,
and in the strobe effect, Calypso saw running figures, then blackness, then
again, people running, pulling sleepy children behind them or carrying them in
their arms, and then again, blackness. A shot rang out. Then another. In one of
the sweeps of the lights she saw someone lying on the ground. Then another. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Suddenly
the <i>selva</i></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"> rose before
her and she slammed into a wall of vegetation. A searchlight swept across the
foliage to her right, its arc about to encompass her. More shots. Calypso dove
to the ground. Pulling herself forward on her arms, she clawed beneath the
forest understory like an animal desperate for safety from the madness of
humankind. . . .</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;">. . . Sleep evaded
Javier. He was cold. He suspected it was not just the wind that was making him
that way. A knife of ice had been inserted in his guts, the moment he stood on
the empty lakeshore. If anything should happen to Calypso, he would never be warm
again. But it was so careless of her to do this! She was causing him trouble
when he had enough already. She was risking the safety of the operation. When
she finally came wandering back, he’d send her packing. She had no business in
this place, where she didn’t have the slightest understanding of the
seriousness of things.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>He
tried to make his anger heat him. It failed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Sometime
in the darkest part of the night he finally must have dozed, because when he
jerked awake, Pedro was standing by the bed, ghostly through the mosquito
netting. “Boss! Wake up! There’s trouble! Get your boots on. We gotta go!”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>Javier
threw aside the blanket and netting and was on his feet in an instant, reaching
for his shotgun. “What?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“It’s
the village, Boss.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“What
village?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“The
one where Calypso is.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“What
about it?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“Come
on, Boss! It’s under attack!”</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>I
sit gazing at Pancho Villa. His eyes are inscrutable. There is no hint of what
drives a man so fiercely to risk his life in a cause that could just as easily
fail as succeed. As <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> gestated
and grew, it became clear that love is a motive force the power of which is
incendiary and unfathomably profound. <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> is a study in history and cultural transformation, yes.
But even more, it probes those vulnerable, wounded places haunted by Eros:
romance, sexuality, friendship, patriotism, and the passion for freedom at all
costs. </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>In
the thirty years it has taken to write this book, the love between Calypso and
Javier has demanded to be recorded, and so has their passion for social
justice. During those three decades, actual events in Mexico have demonstrated
that these two were not misguided: the people are rising up, acting out one of
the great dramas of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,<span> </span>offering their lives to the dance that
is a fiesta of smoke.</span></div>
Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-74589707354343140712013-04-03T15:34:00.003-07:002013-04-03T15:40:30.318-07:00I'm Back!<style>@font-face {
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I'm back! I thought you'd like to see a photo, to be sure I'm for real after all this time, so I just snapped this one in the bathroom mirror. That's why I look a little fuzzy--although it may also reflect my mental state. Please excuse the 9-month silence. I'll explain later. For now, I have an announcement: my second work of
literary fiction, <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">,
launched March 5<sup>th</sup> with Fiction Studio Books! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Fiesta of Smoke</i> is a love story set
against fifty years of political turmoil in Mexico, and</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> takes on the critical social issues of
disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, political corruption and the
increasing encroachment of powerful drug cartels. <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is available in paperback or e-book on Amazon and
Barnes&Noble. And in case you're wondering: yes, I'm currently working on a sequel</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">People have been asking me what
motivated me, thirty years ago, to begin writing <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, and what kept me motivated through so many years and
distractions. One searing image bears responsibility for it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> I was traveling in a dilapidated VW bus from Mérida, the
capital of Yucatan, to Xumal, an ancient Mayan city of the classical period and
a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We wound along a narrow road bordered by fields
and areas of low trees. It was the dry season, just on the cusp of the coming
rains, and the trees and grasses were dry and shriveled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Suddenly, I spied a large
group of people, between seventy-five and a hundred I estimated, sitting in a
field of yellowed grass and bracketed by forest. The women were all in traditional
dress of flounced skirts and colorful <i>huipils</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, the hand woven and embroidered blouses of the Maya.
The men and children, too, wore the simple clothing of the indigenous Maya. The
group was unusually still, forming an unmoving tableau on the field’s proscenium
as we labored past in our noisy old bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Who <i>are</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> those people?” I asked my Mexican companion, for the
utter lack of movement struck me as odd and somehow disturbing. My friend
answered that these were Guatemalan refugees whose home village had been
destroyed by a paramilitary death squad. “They have nowhere to go,” he said
sadly, “and so they are sitting here.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">At that moment, <i>Fiesta of
Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> was born. As surely as if I had
received a certified letter from On High, I knew I was called to write about
their plight. Thirty years intervened. I wrote three other books in the
interim, completed masters and doctoral degrees, worked as a university
professor, divorced and married again. Still, the image of those humble,
disrupted people never left me. Many of them must be dead by now. Their
children will be grown and have children of their own. Tardy it may be, but <i>Fiesta
of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is for them—those nameless,
despairing people in a field by the side of the road in Yucatan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As if to put a seal upon my
decision, the instant it was formed the skies suddenly opened and the first
rain of the rainy season commenced. I opened the van window and thrust out my
arm. Rain ran down it, into my lap. It splashed my cheeks and dribbled down my
chest. I hope it is like this for the readers of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">—that the love that is poured through its pages will
anoint them in a downpour that revives everything. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For your enjoyment, the opening pages of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i>:</span></div>
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Prologue</div>
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The
story I am about to tell you is true, as I myself was a participant. Some parts
come from the accounts of my contemporaries, as alive and vivid as a basket of
eels. The rest, rising from the dust of centuries, is open to conjecture only
to those who lack a certain kind of faith that we, who made this story by our
doing, held as our deepest fiber. To participate with us, you must consider
that illusion is the veriest truth and reality can play you false in a
heartbeat. There is nothing more you need to know, except that in matters of
this world--and no doubt the next--the only real thing is love.</div>
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. .
. .</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sierra Madre
Occidental, Chihuahua, Mexico</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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In
a house ringed with guns, the couple is dancing. Courtyard walls condense
fragrances flying on night wind sighing down the Sierra. Nectar and smoke lace
with the smell of tortillas on the comal<i>.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
From the open kitchen door a trapezoid of yellow light illumines, on a tilted
chair, a blind guitarist whose gypsy rumba entwines the soft splatter of the
fountain. White moths circle the musician’s head like spirits of inspired
music.</span></div>
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The
dancers scarcely move. He holds her close, his forearm across her back, her
hand curled into his crooked wrist, the other warm on the back of his neck. He
scoops her into himself, their hips pressing, slowly rotating to rhythm as one.
He submerges himself in her hair, its scent of apples and sandalwood, brushes
his cheek against its softness, and gazes into the darkness, alert for signs.</div>
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She
rubs her cheek against the rough hand-woven cloth of his white shirt, breathes
his essence--rich as newly-churned butter, sweet as vanilla, feral as a jaguar.
It rises into her brain like a drug. Her head against his chest, she feels his
heart pulsing powerfully, tuned like a guitar string to its own primal note.
His whole being vibrates with what he senses: the closeness and surrender of
her body, the sultry beat of the music, the luscious fragrances of the night,
the invisible ambling of the guards on the walls, the inevitable approach of
ruin.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
It's great to be back! You can thank my friend Susan Coster for prodding me every day until I got this blog posted. Thanks, Susan. Please keep it up! </div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-74361570955465140682012-07-16T08:40:00.000-07:002012-07-16T09:05:22.426-07:00Soft Summer<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The ghastly heat of a week
ago has subsided into moderation. It’s being the kind of summer I always hope
we will have, here in the parched foothills. The nights are cool; the morning
dawns with an eastern breeze tinged in chill; and the days are long, drowsy and
filled with sun, without scorching. In the gardens, squash are plumping, a
deluge of tomatoes is just on the verge of turning red and inundating us, and
we have more lemon cucumbers than we know what to do with. In the courtyard,
cosmos are nodding on the morning air; bees mob the basin of the fountain; and
cone flowers are raising their magenta standards amidst the greenery.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Everything is in that slow,
sensuous state of gestation that heralds harvest. Yesterday, I made a tomatillo
sauce that’s so good it’s drinkable. I harvested the fruit from my own plants,
in the courtyard. I stood at the kitchen counter, meditatively shucking the
paper lantern husks, enjoying the surprise of either green or purple fruit,
depending on which plant they came from.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I went down through the dry,
fragrant grass to David’s pepper plot and harvested two ancho chilies, then
roasted them in the flames of the stove burner and sluiced off the burned skin
under cold running water. I sliced
and diced tomatillos and roasted chilies, sautéed diced onion, added fresh cilantro
and cooked the whole thing down to a thick and sensuously green sauce. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I have Frida Kahlo’s recipe
for potatoes in green sauce and was eager to try it. So David went down to the
potato patch and dug me a bowlful of fresh new potatoes. They’re sitting on the
kitchen counter now, awaiting a good scrubbing before they’re parboiled and
then cooked in the sauce, along with chicken thighs I’ll dredge in herbed flour
and cook very slowly over newly-harvested garlic cloves.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">David and I revel over the
miracle of eating this way, from foods fresh from our garden and cooked with
love and imagination. We linger over our meals, out on the deck under the oak
tree. We plan and we plot what our next annexation of the mountain will
include. Last night our plan was to reclaim the next of three abandoned and
brush-covered terraces in the orchard and to build a gated entrance across the
front of the property, to shield us from the road. David used the grocery list
to sketch the footings for this project and I rummaged old journals for
sketches I made in Taos while in my 20s, of simple but elegant double gates
studded with hand-wrought rivets. We discussed the possibility of making these
from boards cut from downed sugar pine logs that are stacked at the south end
of the property.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There’s always a creative
ferment, here. Whether it’s writing or painting or sculpting or gardening or
cooking or building or clearing new land, we’re happily involved in the act of
living in the present, with an optimistic eye toward the future. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And that brings me to my
point for today: I need a vacation. I’ve been writing and writing and writing
for several years straight now, without a break. <i>Commune of Women</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> consumed three solid years. <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> was completed slowly over the last 30 years but
almost half of it was written within the last 12 months. Basically, my brain
feels like cooked oatmeal. I’m going to give it a rest.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> So, I’m taking a break from the blog until the first of
August. I want to indulge myself shamelessly in not much of anything. To give
that chaise longue David gave me for my birthday back in March a good
breaking-in. To read the writing of someone besides myself. To putter in the
kitchen and master a few new cooking techniques. </span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For instance, both the
Mexicans and the French do versions of fried zucchini flowers. Now, I don’t
know about you but on a normal day of endless pressures and demands flower
fritters don’t come readily to my mind. I want to spend the kind of day where
they do. I want to take a basket and go down into the garden and pick those
big, spreading stars of golden light. I want to slowly and delicately separate
the fresh eggs from my neighbor’s hens and whip up a thick and gooey batter. I
want to enjoy the smell of grapeseed oil heating in the pan. And I want to have
the pleasure of serving these little morsels to my husband on an old Mexican
terra cotta platter and of watching the smile of relishing spread across his
face as he bites into the crispy tenderness.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I want, in other words, a
slow summer. A summer of blue shadows, rocking hammock, the drowsy hum of bees.
And mostly, I want the spring in my mind to fill back up. I want it to brim
with the waters of the unconscious, cool, laden with deep minerals, whispering
of an aquifer of limitless inspiration. And when those waters spill over, you
my friends will be the recipients of the first drops. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Until we meet again in a few
weeks, I hope your summer is slow and fecund and filled with the small joys of
the season.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-64500994625694286942012-07-13T17:50:00.003-07:002012-07-13T18:01:53.437-07:00Surendorf at Billy Whiskers<style>
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Tomorrow is another Billy
Whiskers morning and David and I will be off to enjoy ourselves in that
eccentric environment where we both feel so at home. Tomorrow morning, there’s
an extra dollop of interest and fun: my dear old friend, Cindy Surendorf, will
be there with a collection of her father’s block prints on view.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Her father, Charles
Surendorf, was a brilliant artist and one of my most beloved friends. He
started coming to Tuolumne County in the 1930s, drawn by the natural beauty of the
Mother Lode and the rustic brick buildings left behind by the Gold Rush. I had
known Charles on sight all my life, as he painted and sold art in downtown
Columbia, the “ghost town” we both inhabited.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> First, he had a sporty metallic silver Chevrolet station
wagon out of the back of which he purveyed watercolors and prints to the
tourists who wandered through, in those pre-State Park days. Then he had a
studio in the old Pay Ore Saloon, a sloping brick building with a shaggy porch
roof of split sugar pine shakes. Always dapper and urbane, in his sandals and
Bermuda shorts in summer or wool trousers and sweaters in winter, he stood in
sharp contrast to the scruffy and sartorially-challenged local populace. And
his wife, Cindy’s mother, was simply the most beautiful woman in this or any
other county, with her wide-set dark eyes, pyramid of black hair and dazzling
and bewitching smile.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I perfectly remember the day
I really made his acquaintance. It was high summer and I was in my early 20s,
driving through an area called Springfield, where limestone boulders, exposed
by hydraulic mining, rose solemnly, interlaced with China trees, against the
bluest sky. Suddenly, I felt that I was driving through a Surendorf watercolor!
In an instant, I “got” the spirit of Charles’s Columbia oeuvre. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I was a shy young woman but I
knew it had to be done: I had to go straightaway to Charles’s house and thank
him. Thank him for his clear seeing, his technical virtuosity, his depth of
soul. All my life I had loved these rocks, these sun-drenched waste acres,
these ramshackle brick buildings of 1850s vintage. It came as a shock to
understand that someone--Charles Surendorf--had understood long before me and
actually had the expertise and passion to honor that vision.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Up Maiden lane I went, its
borders of blackberry bushes reaching, laden with ripe fruit, into the open car
windows and drowsy white heads of Queen Anne’s Lace bobbing in the meadow. There
was the house, of Gold Rush vintage, surrounded by deep, shady porches and huge
old cypress and poplar trees. The air smelled of dry grass, ripening fruit and
water.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I parked under the big
cypress, went timidly to the front door and tapped, already doubting myself and
my mission. Before I could turn and flee, however, Charles came to the door and
graciously invited me into the house. His presence was startling in its vivid
aliveness, its energy, its perception. I felt I was standing in a beam of
scrutiny that flashed over me, accepted me, approved me. I stepped from the
porch into his living room and was instantly struck by the power and beauty of
the art, <i>his</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> art, hanging on the
walls. From that first instant, I was captivated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I refused to take a seat;
refused the offer of a drink of water. Standing nervously by the door, my eyes
downcast, I delivered my message: how I had suddenly seen myself within his
paintings, had understood the depth of his vision, had had to come and thank
him for his artistry. Then, again refusing to sit, I opened the door and fled
into the hot afternoon. “Come again,” he said to my departing back. “Soon.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I did. Charles and his art
had an irresistible magnetism for me. I spent many a pleasant afternoon at his
house, in the living room drinking tea or in the back yard in the shade of the
cane plants that lent a tropical air to a space surrounded by out buildings
holding his gallery and studio. We talked art. He told me about his life, his
training, the people he had known. He tried and failed, for years, to get me to
pose nude for him. Instead, he did three oil portraits, that, on his death, his
children, Broozer, Steph and Cindy, generously gave to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">My own interest in painting
and sculpting was budding. One day I asked him if he would teach me to paint.
In response he said, “Go to the back yard and pick a bouquet.” I made up a
fancy arrangement of Virginia Creeper leaves, dried grasses and flower seed
heads, all that was available on that fall day. He came into the studio,
surveyed my arrangement, plucked the entirety of the vegetable matter from it,
set up a canvas and paints for me and said, “Paint that.” Then he departed to
the front of the house, leaving me in his bedroom studio, standing before a
heavily-glazed crockery vase, nestled in a New Zealand sheep skin, all that
remained of my careful composition.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had spent hours simply
watching Charles paint. I knew how he handled a brush, how he took up his
paints, how he mixed them on the palette, how he danced before the canvas,
advancing and retreating, his focus complete. It was as if that watching had
turned into kinetic knowing. I began to paint, feeling confident and excited.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">An hour later, Charles came
in to see what was going on. He stood back and eyed my canvas without a word,
as I hovered anxiously, brush in hand. Finally, after long and intense
scrutiny, without ever looking at me, his eyes still fixed on the image on the
easel, he said, “What do you know! The girl can paint!” Then he turned and left
again, leaving me glowing from the finest compliment that, to this day, my
painting ever has received.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Charles died in 1979, leaving
me bereft. His presence in my life is absolutely irreplaceable. So it was with real relief and
enthusiasm that I greeted his daughter Cindy’s decision to create the NPO, The
Surendorf Foundation, to promote awareness of his art and to teach his block
print making techniques in the schools. Charles’s reputation went far beyond
the boundaries of Tuolumne County: a complete set of his Columbia block prints
was collected by the Smithsonian Institution; he was acknowledged to be among
the 100 greatest block print artists of America; his paintings and prints are
in collections both public and private, worldwide. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Tomorrow and Sunday, from 8
AM to noon, we all have a rare opportunity to see Cindy’s own private
collection of Surendorf prints. I hope those who can will come for the
occasion. And for those who are out of the area, consider checking out the
website of The Surendorf Foundation: <a href="http://www.surendorf2artfoundation.org/">www.surendorf2artfoundation.org</a>.
If you have questions, Cindy can be reached by email at cindy@surendorf2artfoundation.
I have seen the results of her work in the schools, last year. The block
printed images created by the students were moving, powerful and a fitting
tribute to Charles and his passionate advocacy of art. You might even consider
contributing to the foundation. Arts in the schools are struggling or
nonexistent. You can keep Charles’s memory, techniques and passion moving
forward, to be invested in the next generation, through your generous
donations. I thank you for considering it. Cindy thanks you. Charles thanks
you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Remember: art saves lives!
See you at Billy Whiskers!</span><br />
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</div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-16939008417579820272012-07-12T07:56:00.002-07:002012-07-12T07:56:40.802-07:00The Dragonfly Whisperer<style>
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I am truly blessed to have as a dear friend The Dragonfly
Whisperer, who is a reverend, Reiki master and spiritual adviser, as well as
the creator of the website A Gossamer Heart:</div>
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<a href="http://www.gossamerheart.com/">http://www.gossamerheart.com/</a></div>
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Dedicated to the healing of the wounded soul, this site is a
treasure trove of information and inspiration, offering prayer, support and
healing practices, as well as<span>
</span>links to many organizations focused on specific diseases and conditions.
I hope you will take the time to check it out. Be sure to follow the link to
her blog, as well, where you will discover that The Dragonfly Whisperer is a
talented and inspiring poet, in addition to her other amazing abilities.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Also, she is a maker of marvelous inspirational videos. Her
more than 60 Youtube videos have been viewed by over 100,000 people, worldwide.
You can view them at:</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/dragonflywhisperer1/">http://www.Youtube.com/user/dragonflywhisperer1/</a></div>
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With the world passing through an unusually rough patch in
its history, when greed, corruption, and violence and unkindnesses of all sorts
beset it, it’s so refreshing to know that there a people out there selflessly
giving of their energies for the healing of the planet. Thank you, Dragonfly
Whisperer, for the overflowing generosity of your spirit.</div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-7683204650225675442012-07-11T07:30:00.000-07:002012-07-11T08:09:58.789-07:00Fiesta of Smoke: Foreword<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In view of yesterday's post regarding the protests currently happening in Mexico City, </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">today </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I'll share with you the foreword I am considering for <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i>. My intention in writing it is to dispel any notion that my story rides on the back of actual individuals, particularly Subcomandante Marcos. In fact, the bulk of the plot and the parallel character of Javier, were written many years in advance of the advent of Marcos and the Chiapas uprising. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">About those who harbor radically revolutionary energies, depth psychologist Adolph Guggenbuhl-Craig has written, "while they may be destructive, [they] destroy in order to clear the way for something new. They are eminently social creatures, despite the fact that the society they propose is not the existing one, but the one which will supplant the present one. True revolutionaries offer alternatives." It was these alternatives to the miseries I have witnessed that motivated the long and considered writing of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Particularly, I wanted to emphasize that it is not political dogma and fervor that should motivate social change, but love. Revolutionary Che Guevara said it best: "Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic revolutionary without this quality." <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i> is a paean to love, on many levels, and I hope it will move your hearts as it has moved mine, these many years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> . . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Thirty
years ago, when I first began writing <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, Subcomandante Marcos, the Zapatistas and the Chiapas
Rebellion were still a dozen years in the future. From traveling in Mexico I
had seen the seeds of revolution ripening: huddled groups of Mayan refugees
sitting in fields; grinding poverty; nonexistent health care, education or
sanitation. More importantly, I <i>felt</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
the coming changes. In a country lush with vegetation and overflowing with
fruits and flowers, tension zinged through the air. Something acidic and old
polluted the beauty and the abundance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I
became a self-educated student of Mexican history, particularly of the Mexican
War of Independence of 1810 and the Revolution of 1910, and of three of the men
who led them, Father Hildago, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Inspired by
Hildago’s <i>Grito</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, the cry for
independence, I began to wonder how I, in some small way, might serve the
ongoing cause of freedom in Mexico. And thus, <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> was born.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In
the thirty years it has taken to bring this book to completion, uprisings have
taken place all over Mexico, chiefly in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero. And in
most uncanny fashion, Subcomandante Marcos has arisen much as the protagonist
Javier Carteña has, from student to leader of rebellion. Let me make this clear
at the outset: Marcos is a real person and has put his body on the line for the
freedom of a people; Javier is a fictional character in no way drawn from the
existence of Marcos, and in fact, precedes him by a decade. I can only think
that in creating Javier, I tapped into a zeitgeist that was forming Marcos, at
the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> <i>Fiesta
of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is a fiction in which I have
been scrupulous both in following recent developments in Mexico and in avoiding
using real incidents as fodder for this narrative. Real people are suffering
and dying due to social and political conditions in Mexico and I would never
use their grief casually. Instead, I attempt to elucidate this complicated and
murky situation through fiction. The social and political problems I describe
are real, as is the existence of paramilitary death squads, Army intervention
and official corruption. Any similarity to persons living or dead, however, is
purely coincidental. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The
ancient evil of the Conquest is resurrected now in Mexico and, as our own
civilization is built upon that long season of bloodletting and genocide, we
are all implicated to a degree. The ongoing battle for independence and human
dignity in Mexico is one of the great dramas of our times. Above all, I wish
this account to bring attention to the real struggles of real people who are
fighting a desperate battle for their homeland, their cultural heritage and
their dignity as human beings. <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is my small contribution to the <i>Grito</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAk7H_fF3zyf5u0LuuJiFlA-rrQc_yZy51C_zG5d62tO4QNFr5iphmrF_ONsg5eEJ__S-d4T48ZbZBRFMjTLau9D3qyztAkENnb9YI24CA6t9iu2-mztoSbfhehgWH368sArn1eZt4tXY/s1600/MexicoCityProtest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAk7H_fF3zyf5u0LuuJiFlA-rrQc_yZy51C_zG5d62tO4QNFr5iphmrF_ONsg5eEJ__S-d4T48ZbZBRFMjTLau9D3qyztAkENnb9YI24CA6t9iu2-mztoSbfhehgWH368sArn1eZt4tXY/s320/MexicoCityProtest.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-81566128652426760512012-07-10T06:18:00.000-07:002012-07-10T06:18:14.133-07:00Sometimes Life Supports Fiction<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> It is always deeply moving to
witness citizens taking to the streets to reclaim their communal voice and
individual liberties. I was thrilled, yesterday, when I saw, on my friend
Michael’s Facebook post, an image of Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma as an
absolute river of humanity! Thousands upon thousands of people have gathered to
protest the recent presidential election in Mexico, that put the corrupt PRI back in power once again. Charges of election fraud are rampant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The people are marching to the Zócalo, the
largest plaza in any Latin American city. This is the kind of massive protest
that I describe in my soon-to be-published book, <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, an excerpt from which is below. I include only a
fragment, because I don’t want to give away the plot but you’ll get the basic
idea. We are living in a time when people all around the globe are rising up to
protest injustice and to take back their liberties. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For those who may have missed
them, a synopsis of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
can be found on the January 5, 2012 post; the Prologue, on January 8; an
introduction to the protagonists Calypso, on February 3, Javier, on February 20
and Hill on March 2; Calypso and Hill Dine was posted on March 14; More of
Calypso and Hill, on March 30; More of Calypso and Hill–2, on April 10;
Calypso’s Apartment, Place des Vosges, on April 19; Hill’s Teenage Sex Life, on
May 15; and<span> </span>Calypso in Paris<span> </span>on June 25.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">. . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The footage of the women of
Chiapas holding back the advance of the Mexican Army made the nightly news in
every major city on the planet. The women touched something primal arising from
the deepest layers of the human psyche. As images flashed around the globe of
barefooted women in skirts facing off with an army of body-armored, helmeted
men carrying automatic weapons, people rose up in response. The following day,
a huge protest erupted in Mexico City, marched down Paseo de la Reforma and
took over the Zócalo, the largest plaza in Latin America, filling it to
overflowing. Soon protests appeared in other major cities of Mexico.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Protesters came to camp in
front of Mexican embassies and other contingents picketed at the White House
and the United Nations. In Mexico, a general strike paralyzed the country for
three full days. At each of these events, reporters and cameramen from
international news agencies were present, their interviews and footage on the
nightly news adding fuel to the fire. . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">. . . Hill and Calypso
gasped. The sidewalks were lined with crowds carrying signs. Little bands of
drums, clarinets and trumpets shrilled tinnily. The demonstration went on for
blocks. Many of those gathered were wearing indigenous clothing. Some of them
had no shoes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“Who <i>are</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> these people?” Calypso could not contain her
astonishment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>“They are the
citizens of Mexico. No matter what the official story is on TV or in the
newspapers, no one is fooled. Everyone knows who stands with them and who is
against them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> . . . .</span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-29010407964538583522012-07-09T08:32:00.001-07:002012-07-09T08:32:05.395-07:00Once Every Couple of Decades, Whether It Needs It or Not<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Last Friday, I finished my
third pass through the <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> manuscript. Each pass takes a couple of weeks of seven to ten hour
days. Every space between words, every fact, the nuance of every word is
subject to scrutiny. Obviously, this work takes a very intense focus. When I
finished this time, the book was going to the copy editor, so it was getting
more and more imperative to get it right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So imagine my dismay, when I
reached the end, at page 768 (to which the 1000-plus pages have been reduced
through the magic of 12-point font), and looked around and discovered that my
surroundings hadn’t had a really deep cleaning for almost two decades. Dear me!
How could this have happened?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I used to be a really fine
housekeeper but then I decided to have a life, instead. I mean, do you write a
novel or do you clean the carpet? I’m not Superwoman nor am I bionic. It
definitely had to be one or the other. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The consequences of setting
out on the path toward a larger life were not immediately obvious. I mean, you
can get away with not sweeping down the cobwebs for a year or two, before the
house starts looking like a set for “Saw XII.” The thing is, while I was
carefully training myself not to see the encroaching grunge, <i>it</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> was <i>breeding</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. Multiplying geometrically. And doing it in an entirely furtive
manner--lurking in dark corners, taking over the undersides of things, creeping
to the back of cupboards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Meanwhile, I set myself a
nice little programme: 2 years for the masters degree; 5 years for the
doctorate, during which time both parents fell ill and eventually died; then
teaching, which as anyone who’s ever done it knows, consumes your life
maximally, 24/7; then 3 years for <i>Commune of Women</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">; then the truly mad decision to complete <i>Fiesta of
Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> within the following year; and
then . . . well, here we are in the present, two decades later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>The cobwebs in the light well above the shower can be
measured in either yards or pounds, take you pick. I have this very day evicted
no less than 3 black widow spiders from my kitchen, with a fourth awaiting
David’s bolder, more huntsman-like approach. You’ve already been apprised of
the metal confetti to which a rat has reduced my tubes of oil paints in the
studio cupboard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If you’ve ever lived in the
country, you know that it’s a lifestyle best described as Entropy in Action.
Even under the most fastidious management, things tend toward dissolution,
falling apart, getting dirty or invasion by alien forces. One could easily
expend an entire incarnation in pursuit of mere cleanliness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For example, I vacuum the
rug;. Sophia the cat, AKA The Vector, simply walks through and the carpet is
seeded with foxtails and burrs, in a single pass. I dust my desk and a single
car passing on the road sends dust boiling in to coat it, again, before I can
even sit down to write. I put a clean plate or bowl in the pie cupboard while
tidying up the kitchen at night. In the morning I reach for the same<span> </span>plate or bowl and find it cabled in
spider web.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is not even to mention
the depredations of weather: a 60-mph wind blasts a pane from the studio window
and explodes it, all over everything. Snow sits down hard on a carefully tended
bush in the garden and splits its branches off from the trunk. Rain blown
horizontally across the ridge seeps under doors and windows, leaving stains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This tendency of nature to
invade and erode, coupled with benign neglect on my part, is the unholy marriage
to which I am now awakening, like someone shaking off a decades-long spell. Where
to start setting aright the devastation? I have plans to go about with a quart
jar, removing daddy longlegs spiders from the rafters and transporting them to
the shed. I am busily wiping down webs, washing windows, delving into
hidey-holes and niduses of entrenched dirt. This will go on for weeks, possibly
months.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">However, running counter to
that is another stream, which longs to spend time at<span> </span>my easel, or at my sculpture stand out under the oaks, or
gardening, or starting the next book . . . The river of benign neglect for housewifery
is already gaining force. One day, it will simply sweep me away and in another
20 years, should I live so long, I’ll awaken one morning, take up my broom, and
begin again the endless battle against the forces of entropy. </span></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-84966721318507970392012-07-06T07:28:00.000-07:002012-07-06T07:28:17.454-07:00Homeland Security, Big Hill Style<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The nefarious Mr. Sniffles
has been raiding our home, again. This pure black, long-haired cat was a ratty,
scrawny mess when he first strayed in to my neighbor, John’s, house. John named
him Mr. Sniffles because of his chronic watery eyes, sneezing and general poor
health. Now, several months later, Mr. Sniffles slinks through our open doors
looking glossy and well-fed. As why shouldn’t he, since he’s eating all my fur
children’s food?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Last night, he came through
the dog door, pulled a box of dog treats from the counter and commenced gnawing
on the box to get to the goodies. It wasn’t until he achieved his goal and
began crunching on a dog biscuit that I awoke. I leapt for the light switch, to
catch him in the act, but he was too fast. The light came on just as the dog
door flap closed with a silky hiss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We have tried all forms of
discouragement short of gunfire. Even the fur children are involved. Maclovio
runs at him, barking, but since Mr. Sniffles and he are peers in the size
category, it’s generally a stand-off. Sometimes Panda and Mac team up, which is
more effective in the short run but does nothing to discourage return visits.
Sophia is more blunt: she tangles with Mr. Sniffles in unabashed hostility and
the yowling is horrific. Nevertheless, sooner or later Mr. Sniffles will lurk
furtively through the door, once again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Yesterday morning I was taking a
break from writing, lying down in the loft to rest my eyes. Suddenly I was
awakened from a light doze by that distinctive crunching sound. I crept off the
bed and looked over the railing. There, directly below me, was the silky black
nemesis, scarfing Maclovio’s kibble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">An evil gleam passed through
me, as a plot instantly formed. Ever so quietly I bent to retrieve my shoes. I
held them out over the railing, taking aim. I released them and let gravity
have its way with them. They rocketed downward and smacked straight into Mr.
Sniffles. He did a maneuver impossible under any but the most straitened
circumstances: he came about three feet off the parquet, with all four legs
heading in a different direction. Then he ran away so fast that I really didn’t
see him do it. It was as if he had simply vanished. I chortled in my glee as I
descended to sweep up the kibble he had splattered in his flight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now, fast forward an hour and
David and I are sitting on the porch over lunch. I spot a gray squirrel making
the very same furtive moves, out in the vegetable garden. I watch him as he
slinks along, then stops to sit on his haunches and survey the surroundings for
danger, then advances some more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I whisper to David, “Watch
this!” We observe as the squirrel jumps into one of the raised beds and
immediately begins munching on tender young beet greens. David, who has worked
very hard to nurture these babies along, is incensed. He sets down the spoon
with which he is eating half a cantaloupe. He takes careful aim. David was a
star baseball player in his day and his aim is more accurate than most. He
heaves the melon rind and it falls exactly where the squirrel no longer is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPVLKQicAOvg9bnbHrjiiNnqHWv7LG_2cdIr1Ln2NCWGtyfwQTTNeS6nm53Z29vE4UurDnQOxansaSxikR5mSCCfItkJX4xVame9norxSSNiQo-7j8cEaIWXy1igvxSBWmc7yi8C_M7gc/s1600/Squirrel3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPVLKQicAOvg9bnbHrjiiNnqHWv7LG_2cdIr1Ln2NCWGtyfwQTTNeS6nm53Z29vE4UurDnQOxansaSxikR5mSCCfItkJX4xVame9norxSSNiQo-7j8cEaIWXy1igvxSBWmc7yi8C_M7gc/s320/Squirrel3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Quicker than light, it has
dematerialized and is now on the back side of a pine tree, galloping upward. It
works its way around until it is about 30 feet directly above the beets. It
goes out on a limb and lies, its four legs hanging in space, on its belly along
the branch and gazes into the veggie bed, obviously contemplating its next
move.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q9_rkBgKNMm3hlKRfOjv2LC9A6weuViuVhMu0FoXqUCVRDo19TiF_p8JiZ4H8Cvb8rIaGyWlFVVSMTdOmpcgGBiCie9CXTW6qIdHyEfD7zYTEa3HOdMUeSu2KWAAdxr2OYDueOGqZlU/s1600/Squirrel1*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q9_rkBgKNMm3hlKRfOjv2LC9A6weuViuVhMu0FoXqUCVRDo19TiF_p8JiZ4H8Cvb8rIaGyWlFVVSMTdOmpcgGBiCie9CXTW6qIdHyEfD7zYTEa3HOdMUeSu2KWAAdxr2OYDueOGqZlU/s320/Squirrel1*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span> </span>David goes into the house for more ammunition. “The .22’s
right there, by my chair,” I offer companionably. “No,” he responds, coming out
of the house with a handful of cherries, “I’d probably miss and hit Martha.”
Martha being our closest neighbor to the east.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The squirrel, obviously
highly motivated, makes its move. Down the tree it comes, this time to raid the
bird feeder for seeds. David lobs cherries to no avail. I go for my camera and get the shot of the squirrel
eating a cherry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK7lZI_5axgITYTSm0T0dP9PScIwbuENQOnXPX9pWOxY7WoF_ENdfK3HDPfOouS8Dv3jyJAuM-NvazvxB5sPF2jPjJy7yloKNnvguhGPH8cAuQcKkBopcAhOpcGUAgBCCoCoxNik2N1M/s1600/Squirrel2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK7lZI_5axgITYTSm0T0dP9PScIwbuENQOnXPX9pWOxY7WoF_ENdfK3HDPfOouS8Dv3jyJAuM-NvazvxB5sPF2jPjJy7yloKNnvguhGPH8cAuQcKkBopcAhOpcGUAgBCCoCoxNik2N1M/s320/Squirrel2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then it goes for the lettuce
in the cold frame. Now I’m the one incensed. This is my turf and the source of
my daily salads. I focus the camera on this scoundrel as if it were a gun
sight. The squirrel sits on his haunches, stuffing his little cheeks with
Mesclun and arugula as fast as his little jaws can move. In one final, heroic
effort to defend our boundaries, David hurls the other half of his cantaloupe,
which explodes right at the feet of our foe, who levitates and dematerializes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKPPV-kt_t8XulIsETpy75v6clIJOm7x0D5O7GLE7A3Lsl0ISIY2KKO7bZ5eisyMg8q3ErLPmii0CBkS53hJytkl0riqQRB3vP2UEC9uKv_k_TzoymSrIbKcqa6ZwtQEdlRBH3dvpdgk/s1600/Squirrel5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKPPV-kt_t8XulIsETpy75v6clIJOm7x0D5O7GLE7A3Lsl0ISIY2KKO7bZ5eisyMg8q3ErLPmii0CBkS53hJytkl0riqQRB3vP2UEC9uKv_k_TzoymSrIbKcqa6ZwtQEdlRBH3dvpdgk/s320/Squirrel5.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Minutes late, our roof is
under bombardment. Green pinecones are being flung from high in the branches of
the pine that overhangs the house. They resonate through the house, disturbing
the <i>wah</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> and alarming the fur
children. The squirrel has an evil gleam of its own, apparently.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For the moment, our demesne
is secure. We have a watch dog and two watch cats and an arsenal of lob-able
produce and footwear. We are united in fiercely protective vigilance against
critters red in tooth and claw. Things look safe for the foreseeable future.
Like, maybe the next hour. But we can never relax our guard. There are
barbarians at the gates. It’s a jungle out there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q9_rkBgKNMm3hlKRfOjv2LC9A6weuViuVhMu0FoXqUCVRDo19TiF_p8JiZ4H8Cvb8rIaGyWlFVVSMTdOmpcgGBiCie9CXTW6qIdHyEfD7zYTEa3HOdMUeSu2KWAAdxr2OYDueOGqZlU/s1600/Squirrel1*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q9_rkBgKNMm3hlKRfOjv2LC9A6weuViuVhMu0FoXqUCVRDo19TiF_p8JiZ4H8Cvb8rIaGyWlFVVSMTdOmpcgGBiCie9CXTW6qIdHyEfD7zYTEa3HOdMUeSu2KWAAdxr2OYDueOGqZlU/s320/Squirrel1*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-20382636289358222172012-07-05T08:28:00.001-07:002012-07-05T08:28:24.272-07:00Morning Garden<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEhST1QXotDzsdIxQNCE2zEbymCTBQC5oDX-XmVrpK-1IBdGSTPD2AzlnaWUlZ97EYjgbU4nyI_ZA1ISSKVACeUpzQKYuaZdoQKl2h4LmhfczaFTLBTu7zYVxAx_7TXMcQlFxHqorA8U/s1600/CtydMorn13*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEhST1QXotDzsdIxQNCE2zEbymCTBQC5oDX-XmVrpK-1IBdGSTPD2AzlnaWUlZ97EYjgbU4nyI_ZA1ISSKVACeUpzQKYuaZdoQKl2h4LmhfczaFTLBTu7zYVxAx_7TXMcQlFxHqorA8U/s320/CtydMorn13*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> It may have been Independence Day but David and I worked like
Trojan slaves in the gardens, yesterday. His focus is practical: he mounded
potatoes, made teepees for the beans and watered his extensive vegetable crops.
My focus is aesthetic: I planted a new bed of flowers and pots of geraniums and
nasturtiums, washed the pillows and coverings for the outdoor furniture and
generally fussed about.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This morning dawned cool and
breezy and my first impulse was to go back to the garden, to survey our
handiwork. The dawning light was so beautiful that I ran for my camera. The
resulting photos are my gift to you, so that you can dip in and sip a bit of
this tranquility, the way the bees are just rousing to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The geraniums I
transplanted haven’t wilted down a bit. That freshly plumped chair was so
inviting that I sat there to have my breakfast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmukJxFb176EIq5AhN6BH-by4IEjWf6mWEHypYj3dherjdQTyzSShoDeXxuSfoM-FneyxDp964fwlqEqiD9jm7rGMPr5hJRMUObp9yFy_Kzq2FCDrXsf7e5C_OE-nT36mAGsL8ulFU4H0/s1600/CtydMorn1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmukJxFb176EIq5AhN6BH-by4IEjWf6mWEHypYj3dherjdQTyzSShoDeXxuSfoM-FneyxDp964fwlqEqiD9jm7rGMPr5hJRMUObp9yFy_Kzq2FCDrXsf7e5C_OE-nT36mAGsL8ulFU4H0/s320/CtydMorn1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The iron bunny looks well
pleased with his surroundings, this morning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6rrqKOyZD-fOzc1O-EUGoe7hN8EsR_X1-n4v2X7WGTFlDhkuTV2vuuJHZo_D3gz1szTJCo7sVNuOlYkopelk8N-cbwkJsvELqhKAUqX1KFY9gZYWEKY_oKc4zX4RxmctS-IIPAdeI0Y/s1600/CtydMorn3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6rrqKOyZD-fOzc1O-EUGoe7hN8EsR_X1-n4v2X7WGTFlDhkuTV2vuuJHZo_D3gz1szTJCo7sVNuOlYkopelk8N-cbwkJsvELqhKAUqX1KFY9gZYWEKY_oKc4zX4RxmctS-IIPAdeI0Y/s320/CtydMorn3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I couldn’t bear to cart the
seed heads of the angelica and kale off to the compost heap. So I stuck them in
the ash bucket that works so hard during the winter months, giving it a more
glorified function for the summer.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQFUs3jQNg879SU4QOztqKQ2VCob4nj5mGrviHBy1JyLie26jtHHER3FDQL8PaHZoKWXiposX-K8fT0_9NGcypR2VmHmUYT-WmnXnMZv4GXNV8Sq7J1592dnYlatO9CxsJKD_5kTdi3Q/s1600/CtydMorn4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQFUs3jQNg879SU4QOztqKQ2VCob4nj5mGrviHBy1JyLie26jtHHER3FDQL8PaHZoKWXiposX-K8fT0_9NGcypR2VmHmUYT-WmnXnMZv4GXNV8Sq7J1592dnYlatO9CxsJKD_5kTdi3Q/s320/CtydMorn4.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Lilies of the Nile are
just on the verge of blooming.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif176WasEeVpjKzwiIQONnd3IKuSyZ4-GJNz8mD9PAQYYk6SQX6rrnsEvNE8_XtX_P5B83lMao4OXG8luh9ElsplBFpzBhNRAbVMeq8BcPL7ix6n_iprTVQknBUkclrbLOEANATo5uA0M/s1600/CtydMorn10*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif176WasEeVpjKzwiIQONnd3IKuSyZ4-GJNz8mD9PAQYYk6SQX6rrnsEvNE8_XtX_P5B83lMao4OXG8luh9ElsplBFpzBhNRAbVMeq8BcPL7ix6n_iprTVQknBUkclrbLOEANATo5uA0M/s320/CtydMorn10*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> The nicotiana is bursting
like belated 4<sup>th</sup> of July fireworks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_OdsyRK-Q3jqcGlUGECNrz-UIuZBAt2_mgLf4Zsuwe32TD1RcvOrJje7P76Ghe-uDfhg0F6Umy9OYOLGoQQzlbqvKUSWAl78lOkVOQfHgWS6NwgajMNAJl55UN64NJVC3Xr5FLD6TBGo/s1600/CtydMorn16*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_OdsyRK-Q3jqcGlUGECNrz-UIuZBAt2_mgLf4Zsuwe32TD1RcvOrJje7P76Ghe-uDfhg0F6Umy9OYOLGoQQzlbqvKUSWAl78lOkVOQfHgWS6NwgajMNAJl55UN64NJVC3Xr5FLD6TBGo/s320/CtydMorn16*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The new babies look perfectly
content.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKYG7mQy5wt_WM4uJX7rKTaTyVxwEnqqglbhTP1xVKSfayuS2JuHyXMBiqlEbbPEhw4tj0oaQoKkg6EI0gimq9G30pNnjEdZJ9v4QuQMYAzg97xmnNqANBHW17wPnI6L__kwFvY_RSnss/s1600/CtydMorn17*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKYG7mQy5wt_WM4uJX7rKTaTyVxwEnqqglbhTP1xVKSfayuS2JuHyXMBiqlEbbPEhw4tj0oaQoKkg6EI0gimq9G30pNnjEdZJ9v4QuQMYAzg97xmnNqANBHW17wPnI6L__kwFvY_RSnss/s320/CtydMorn17*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The honeysuckle is luring
several kinds of bees, including big black carpenter bees as big as the end of
my thumb. They look exotic, in their shiny black armor, against the foofy
petals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyC4FoZirJeipHNWFccqCFkI3Hq6TvN3EoXR-kN8E6eegUTokY3V1iFFJLTsg3t3f-oulDaeQrDzKxXobzR2LHbqWy6mbsJeQP2dpii0Zm-tTvf0eS_x4iWmYW4rxGdpZYVItM4Xj_W9U/s1600/CtydMorn23*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyC4FoZirJeipHNWFccqCFkI3Hq6TvN3EoXR-kN8E6eegUTokY3V1iFFJLTsg3t3f-oulDaeQrDzKxXobzR2LHbqWy6mbsJeQP2dpii0Zm-tTvf0eS_x4iWmYW4rxGdpZYVItM4Xj_W9U/s320/CtydMorn23*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The scabiosa and Echinacea
are happily commingling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3RACB8txag_CApX63TSpbkePxix4CgyLZyOR4pSAdOmR6fHv_P9esC_mxGkF-nyonr1Veos6kymMRECn3YvAZurMtdIHKqdPHwonaGq01bFgRyRFl-Mg1BCFOWegIJrnlk1a2ucOMlU/s1600/CtydMorn14***.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3RACB8txag_CApX63TSpbkePxix4CgyLZyOR4pSAdOmR6fHv_P9esC_mxGkF-nyonr1Veos6kymMRECn3YvAZurMtdIHKqdPHwonaGq01bFgRyRFl-Mg1BCFOWegIJrnlk1a2ucOMlU/s320/CtydMorn14***.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And the fur children are
sweetly at peace, as witness Sophia’s first cat nap of the day.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYPtgj4k1laYVkR4BLGGWOUOjBa0_Hn9j_DMMbXPK-pl5Ahcq_eN7pz8ytsqLaAunJdsMMa5-OHlBLx6UqyJsJBDNmx30SAPuWVAYXI9kwn35dDQ6Vnwrkb7UKKPx5G3wPV1oG5OEICYE/s1600/Sophia4*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYPtgj4k1laYVkR4BLGGWOUOjBa0_Hn9j_DMMbXPK-pl5Ahcq_eN7pz8ytsqLaAunJdsMMa5-OHlBLx6UqyJsJBDNmx30SAPuWVAYXI9kwn35dDQ6Vnwrkb7UKKPx5G3wPV1oG5OEICYE/s320/Sophia4*.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> It was harder to get a
picture of Mac, since he was sitting on my lap in a little doggy meditation.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_RGBeg2ANREgGM1Z7KE-njl1yQBEVz9CbYNSxsQU3_olM73kiD7grLfTst8x74WdxkjuRh2fL9ZS5A6WXhlENuf0btS7xPPVgF4-JGSUDNwuTMKkZXdCgCojBwfLLSASSoRZcJEg7UU/s1600/Mac,Ctyd.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_RGBeg2ANREgGM1Z7KE-njl1yQBEVz9CbYNSxsQU3_olM73kiD7grLfTst8x74WdxkjuRh2fL9ZS5A6WXhlENuf0btS7xPPVgF4-JGSUDNwuTMKkZXdCgCojBwfLLSASSoRZcJEg7UU/s320/Mac,Ctyd.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Blessings of the day to
all! I hope it’s a bloomin’ beautiful one!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50PFEx1dU7si9LogSAEOs-YxplIpnsFKz3qUITfXJ6qRobFntmOQi0yOA9JRjcRwzpSAmO2FLXOWlkgRx54VsP5_yzmKHzZ8BXkYbaLfbOsczTJr11hqkhPv4Xj5OXxL69p2WYtQ1XSE/s1600/CtydMorn5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50PFEx1dU7si9LogSAEOs-YxplIpnsFKz3qUITfXJ6qRobFntmOQi0yOA9JRjcRwzpSAmO2FLXOWlkgRx54VsP5_yzmKHzZ8BXkYbaLfbOsczTJr11hqkhPv4Xj5OXxL69p2WYtQ1XSE/s320/CtydMorn5.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-54587997237199181892012-07-04T06:51:00.001-07:002012-07-04T07:05:18.656-07:00I Wish I Had a V-8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>So put me on a highway and show me a sign, and take
it to the limit, one more time.</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">--The Eagles</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> It’s Independence Day! Bring
forth the hotdogs, corn on the cob and sparklers! Except that the dogs are
filled with pink slime. The corn is genetically modified and is causing rare
cancers. And sparklers and all other fireworks are banned in this and five
surrounding counties due to fire danger. The only thing going spectacularly up
in smoke appears to be the American dream.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There are some things,
however, that America has just done well, and that’s all there is to it! I know
it’s popular these days to put American industry down, often with good reason.
But on this 4<sup>th</sup> of July, I want to remember the good times and the
good things. And one of the first things that comes to mind is the V-8 engine.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I love to drive fast. Put me
behind the wheel of a good automobile and I will turn any country road into the
Indy 500. When I was a junior in high school, my folks owned a 1960 powder blue
ragtop Thunderbird. I can still remember the day I focused on the speedometer
and realized it topped out at 120 mph. Nothing could stop me: I went straight
down to Keystone, where Highway 108 has one of its few long, straight
stretches, and put that car to the test. That big old V-8 didn’t even strain,
as I pegged it. Give it wings and it could fly!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">My senior year, I talked my
folks into buying the new 1965 Ford Mustang, and into upgrading to the biggest
engine it was possible to drop into it, with a four on the floor. It was metal
fleck khaki green with a black vinyl top and it was <i>hot!</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> My favorite pastime was to take in down to the Red
Hills, where the road, instead of having bridges over a stream, made U-shaped
dips into the streambed. I would floor the Mustang and jump it across these
drainages, which were four in number. Then turn around, and do it again. No
fear of flying, in that buggy! (I can tell this, now that my folks, God bless
them, have gone to their well-deserved and car maintenance-free rest.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Alas, the V-8 engine seems to
be going the way of the dodo bird. Gas prices and green-thinking have doomed
it. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get behind the wheel of a truly powerful
car, again.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Other good products that have
served me well are the typewriter and typewriter ribbon. I’ve demolished four
complete typewriters in my writing life, before switching to the computer. I
kind of miss the clickity-clack rhythm of typing, punctuated by the return
throw of the carriage. I don’t, however, miss trying to do footnotes on the
typewriter. Remember the cheat sheets that we had to roll in behind the top
sheet, with a line drawn near the bottom to remind us to insert footnotes?
Remember carbon paper? How about changing typewriter ribbons and the carbon
that got on your fingers and everything you touched? Dem wuz da days!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">David and I are going to make
a hot soaking tub out of an old cast iron and enamel claw-foot tub with a
propane heater underneath. We’ll have it out in the garden, where we can relax
in full, scandalous view of the birds and flowers. But this plan may go awry
for one reason: we were wondering, last night over dinner, if they still
manufacture rubber drain plugs to fit our tub? Or have they gone the way of the typewriter ribbon and the
two-party telephone line?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Tomorrow we’ll drive down to
some big box store to find out, lamenting the loss of Mundorf’s Hardware, where
you could find every single hardware need supplied. We’ll be in my Toyota
Camry, which, in spite of its 4-cylinder engine, is still a pretty snappy
little car. I’ll lead-foot it down and back up the mountain, hoping that
someone tries to tailgate me, so I’ll have a good reason to mount a road race.
It will be fun but . . . gee, I wish I had a V-8!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Happy 4<sup>th</sup> of July!
May freedom and independence be yours, your whole life long, and may the red,
white and blue (hopefully made in the USA, not China) wave over a land of
excellence in all things, forever.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5d7Ebto5nlJgoRtTpEQNrreF9c3xB9ZE87dfs0ROT2pq8Wqx0yNtCHT4Eka0JkFjof4ztQqYSbUN_mghwrWHvT6nq9sk4QrXS4SEE9WLz6XBK9Nvnra5H6cOZsHTvC8o9auuyCf9wFY/s1600/USAFlag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5d7Ebto5nlJgoRtTpEQNrreF9c3xB9ZE87dfs0ROT2pq8Wqx0yNtCHT4Eka0JkFjof4ztQqYSbUN_mghwrWHvT6nq9sk4QrXS4SEE9WLz6XBK9Nvnra5H6cOZsHTvC8o9auuyCf9wFY/s1600/USAFlag.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-77437353532482981282012-07-03T07:35:00.000-07:002012-07-03T07:40:59.058-07:00Paris: Ready or Not, Here I come! <style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF6WEEAd05o9IDu2HHxan2BQWj9RyPjaW30SdPNeStAMeEJHsyeU4gSH4vggfgrHKrurQuOiRmN1AsF11ducDj5USZuWSaVeQShWQ1rk3UHhHlWebfn6m7vaNaWlJLpHGxSW-yZgpBzFw/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF6WEEAd05o9IDu2HHxan2BQWj9RyPjaW30SdPNeStAMeEJHsyeU4gSH4vggfgrHKrurQuOiRmN1AsF11ducDj5USZuWSaVeQShWQ1rk3UHhHlWebfn6m7vaNaWlJLpHGxSW-yZgpBzFw/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Writing about my friend
Joan’s trip to France (<i>France, Drop by Drop</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, 06.27.12) has me thinking about my own travels there
and, in particular, my attraction to Paris. I have lost count of how many times
I’ve visited the City of Light. Each visit is a voyage of discovery, from my
first, when I spent six weeks there, walking, walking, walking to take in its
delights, to one of the more recent ones, that I’ll tell you about, today.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Iraq war started on March
19, 2003 with the bombing of Baghdad, dubbed Shock and Awe. It also happened to
be my birthday. My friend Reggie threw me a birthday party in which we sat
forlornly in front of her TV eating cake, watching bomb flashes over the
rooftops of Baghdad and, with party noise-makers, giving the Bronx cheer to
every member of the presidential administration who appeared on the screen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had a special reason to be
interested in the opening salvos of Operation Iraqi Freedom: my old friend,
Greg, was in the advance forces, attached to an intelligence unit. Before too
many days had passed, he was able to make email contact, although many messages
were scrambled, due to sand in his computer’s keyboard. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Things went along well enough
for a couple of months. His communiqués were fascinating, as he was part of the
team that, among other things, was investigating Saddam Hussein’s several
palaces, the architectural marvels of which he described in detail. But then,
one day, I received an email saying he was being medivaced out of Iraq, heading
to Ramstein AFB, in Germany. Would I come?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A day and a half later, I was
on a milk run train, chugging up the mountains to Landstuhl, in the German
state of Rheinland-Pfalz and three miles from the west gate of Ramstein AFB.
Greg had already been there, in the care of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center,
for a couple of days. He was released looking much altered: he had lost 50
pounds and the skin around his eyes was blackened like the rubber of a burned
tire. Nevertheless, he was in great spirits (as who wouldn’t be, making the
switch between Iraq and Germany!), hungry and thirsty. We went to a restaurant,
where we sat outside because his clothing reeked of war, and he proceeded to
drink no less than two dozen bottles of water, much to the dismay of the host.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj3W4pZQds5eY1OicaRJndo5a3qFGRlVoBqTc5g2nb4625kBUvS7r8Uh78Q3N8gtgEyKePg4QeQFAUOFsGPFSqqi0eWDGqw9zqBHB1xYtCiSFRJdN6F8HJLhqDNmZiU4yhTywXqc0pxXc/s1600/250px-Lanstuhl_Regonal_Medical_Center.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj3W4pZQds5eY1OicaRJndo5a3qFGRlVoBqTc5g2nb4625kBUvS7r8Uh78Q3N8gtgEyKePg4QeQFAUOFsGPFSqqi0eWDGqw9zqBHB1xYtCiSFRJdN6F8HJLhqDNmZiU4yhTywXqc0pxXc/s1600/250px-Lanstuhl_Regonal_Medical_Center.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A couple of days later, he
was again medivaced, this time to Walter Reed Hospital in the US, leaving me
loose on my own recognizance, within striking distance of France and with a day to
burn before I had to return to Frankfurt for my return flight. I consulted a map
in my room at the <i>Greune Laterne</i> and decided I just had enough time to take the
train across the border to Nancy, a city I had never before visited but the
marvelous 18<sup>th</sup>-century buildings of which had long captured my
fancy. In the north-eastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, it was
formerly the capital of Lorraine and had a fascinating history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I grabbed my purse and
hustled down to the train station, bought my ticket and was soon crossing the
border into France, where we made stops at a number of charming rural villages.
I was in bliss, just gazing out the window. So it came as quite a surprise to
me when, after a stop at a sizeable station, the train suddenly gained speed
and began to fairly fly across the French countryside. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I checked my ticket with a
frown, where there was no mention of a transfer. Yet it seemed to me that,
after two hours, I should have been approaching Nancy, while this train was
clearly heading more west than south. The mystery was soon cleared up by the
conductor who took one look at my ticket and launched into a diatribe worthy of
a scene from “The Pink Panther.” He rolled his eyes under his brimmed
conductor’s cap. He gesticulated wildly in his conductor’s uniform. His voice
rose to a wail that encompassed his entire frustration with Americans, women
and the post-War world. Somehow, my ticket notwithstanding, I was supposed to
have made a transfer at the last stop and was now on an express train, headed
for Paris!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I bought a ticket from the
aggrieved conductor and settled back to enjoy the spectacular country passing
me at warp speed. But in my stomach there was a huge knot. Now, precious hours
were being expended, with my flight time looming in faraway Frankfurt. And
rather than deal with the Demon Conductor, again, I would have to leave the
train, once it arrived in Paris, dive into the station, buy a return ticket,
and reboard the train, all in less than an hour’s time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Despite these worries, I was
mesmerized by the countryside we were rolling through. Green fields of grain
were punctuated by blood red poppies. Wide and lazy green rivers flowed beneath
drooping willows. A magnificent chateau suddenly flashed into view among
hilltop trees. Villages with square church towers topped by rooster weather
vanes drowsed under the late spring sun. I was enchanted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">After about three hours, the
outskirts of Paris began to manifest: grimed brick buildings, narrow streets
empty of foot traffic, giant tanks on towers, industrial areas devoid of trees.
At last the train slowed and entered the station. I leapt out and hurried down
the quay and into the station, only to find it bulging with weary vacationers.
Young people with backpacks sat about its vast floor, reading. Long lines
queued before grilled ticket windows. The smell of sweat predominated and, by
this time, my own contributed to it.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had 30 minutes to buy my
ticket and return to the train. I found what I thought was the right window and
plugged myself into the end of a long and very slow-moving line. I watched the
clock as we shuffled forward and have never witnessed more relentless movement
of the hands of time. Finally, I was next in line! I had my money in hand. The
customer at the window turned and departed, as I eagerly stepped forward and .
. . and the ticket agent reached up and pulled down his shade!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I let out a shriek of
anguish. I approached the window, where I could still make out the rippled
visage of the agent, through the opaque glass. God alone knows where it came
from, but to my amazement I heard myself shout, “I have to have a ticket! My
husband is dying at Ramstein!” The agent sat unmoved, a smile </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">on his lips </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">of satisfaction
such as only sadistic public servants who hate their jobs and their public can
muster.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Suddenly, however, a hand
grabbed my arm from behind, and I was virtually flung into the head of the line
to my left. Stunned, I bent my face to the grill and ordered a ticket to
Landstuhl. No one in the line protested. Ticket in hand, with two minutes until
departure, I turned and fled, vaguely aware of my benefactor reaming out the
first agent through the glass. I never even saw his face. And I’m sure he had
angel’s wings, as well, which escaped my notice as I ran, leaping over piled
baggage and dodging the plodding, galloping from the station and down the quay.
Just as the train doors were closing, I wedged myself through. The train jerked
under my feet and I staggered down the aisle to a seat as the grimy bricks of
the Parisian outskirts began once again to pass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had five hours to
contemplate my own strange lie. To this day it amazes me. It erupted out of
some part of me that still remains even more opaque than the ticket agent’s
barrier. And who was my mysterious benefactor? He, too, may be amazed by his
actions that day. All I can say is that I was meant to be on that train and
events conspired to get me there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It was Sunday late afternoon.
As we sped northeastward, I gazed into backyards where families were gathered
at long tables for Sunday supper. Or were picnicking on narrow beaches,
under big umbrellas, beside the river. Or dining outdoors in front of cafés in
little stone villages. All of France seemed to be at table, making me realize
that I hadn’t eaten in many hours. I was exhausted, hungry, still with alarm
and haste sizzling along my nerve tracts like express trains to Hell. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I calculated the hours. I
would make it back to Landstuhl by 10 PM. I had to be on the train to Frankfurt
by 5 AM the following morning. I still had to pack. I would arrive too late to
find an open restaurant and leave the hotel too early for any breakfast. None
of that mattered. I would make my flight. I was seeing a part of France I’d
never seen before and it was ravishing. And, through its eternal magnetism on
my psyche, I had once again, albeit briefly, been to Paris.</span><br />
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-42129638769658859812012-07-02T05:51:00.001-07:002012-07-02T05:51:10.981-07:00Another Billy Whiskers Morning<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Like Mark Twain, rumors of my
death have been greatly exaggerated. Although I have not posted a blog in the
last four days, I am, indeed, very much alive. The weather here has truly
deserved the description <i>heavenly</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">,
and nothing short of encapsulation in a full body cast could keep me from the
garden. There, the bees are busy drinking from the fountain or washing their
tiny feet in its water; hummingbirds hang with wings outstretched on
champagne-like air; and David and I have been laboring like beasts. But happy
beasts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This felicitous time reached
its apogee Sunday morning, at the Billy Whiskers Café, where we arrived almost as
the doors opened, already having worked up an appetite in the morning garden.
Soon tables were filling up with the regulars and Attitude was flying, or
hanging unspoken and suspended, on hummingbird wings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Our first clue that it was
going to be a feisty morning came when Rick sent the first order out of the
kitchen along with the bill, on which he had scrawled, <i>Prices vary according
to attitude</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. “Whose attitude?” the
customer asked. “His,” Karen responded. “Or mine. As need be.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A tuneless, perfectly unmelodic
whistle arose from the kitchen. Karen, coffee pot in hand, rolled her eyes. “I
taught him to whistle, so he wouldn’t sing.” A customer ordered his toast
“cremated,” and it came out appropriately scorched, as did my bacon and several
other dishes. “We do cremation well,” Karen confided. “Besides, today we’re
just playing like we own a restaurant.” The little pitcher that accompanied
someone’s oatmeal was empty of milk. The same customer had to remind Karen to
pour him some coffee, interrupting our discussion of Charles Surendorf’s
paintings that decorate the café’s walls. To say that things were a little
uneven is not overstating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One regular couple is well
advanced in age (by which I mean older than us, which means <i>really</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> old!) and the gentleman particularly enjoys the
banter. He was once a very tall man, now bent nearly double at the waist but he
hasn’t let that slow him down. His wife went off the restroom and another
couple entered and asked where she was. “Fifty-five years of marriage and she’s
finally left me,” he responded. “I suppose it was inevitable. It was bound to
happen, sooner or later.” They were on their way to the hospital in Modesto,
where he is to be treated for an infection. Less humorous thoughts of
separation must have crossed both their minds and their levity is really a kind
of courage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We were on our way out when
Rick emerged from the kitchen announcing, “I’m taking a customer survey . . .”.
We were eager to get back to our gardens, so we’ll never know just what was
being queried, but I think I heard something like, “Which is worse, this
morning, the service or the food?” as the door closed behind me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Nevertheless, all this
transpired with great good cheer. As one customer remarked happily, “I come
here for the abuse.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-13787565053669835582012-06-27T07:18:00.000-07:002012-06-27T07:18:00.280-07:00France, Drop By Drop<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">My friend, Joan, just returned
from a nice long stay in France and she’s been sending me photographs, one at a time, that are
torturing me. It’s like Chinese water torture--first one drop. Then another.
Then another. Then another. Then another. And just when I think these
delectable images will cease, another. Then another. Then another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s like sending a dieting
chocolate lover pictures of bonbons. Then big chunks of fudge. Then
crusty-creamy brownies. Then a bowl of Rocky Road ice cream. Then a cup of steamy
hot chocolate. Then more bonbons. Then . . . well, you get the picture.
Chocolate, chocolate, everywhere, but not a morsel to eat.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCvcwmRikCNZEwcEsngz4OtFR19teGj7Sko1BlVpbtCYBq1sBlRxhelYwHrnvLuNNPkhre6P8fxJKxTcSylfYzsbUkJhdldrl1c1sVldcbD5i1_ObqE7HKNTm-Q4QxR-qOzi9Fz7dPmIo/s1600/Garden.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCvcwmRikCNZEwcEsngz4OtFR19teGj7Sko1BlVpbtCYBq1sBlRxhelYwHrnvLuNNPkhre6P8fxJKxTcSylfYzsbUkJhdldrl1c1sVldcbD5i1_ObqE7HKNTm-Q4QxR-qOzi9Fz7dPmIo/s320/Garden.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now, Joan has the most
refined aesthetic sensibility of any living human being, as far as I can tell.
So when she does France, SHE DOES FRANCE! She hasn’t even shared the photos of
her time in Paris, the City-Most-Loved, yet. This is merciful. I know she hit
the high spots, the Death By Chocolate spots. I can only take so much in any
one day without expiring from delight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So, I’m passing on some of
her images so you, too, can spend part of your morning in exquisite torture.
These images are of the B & B where she stayed, outside of Montpellier, in
the South of France. Can’t you smell the early morning sweetness rising from
the garden? Hear the cicadas clicking in the noontime trees? Savor those fresh
croissants? Oh my! Where’s my passport . . . ?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Bonne matin!</i></span><br />
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-56905434519328583442012-06-25T08:17:00.003-07:002012-06-25T08:34:51.261-07:00Fiesta of Smoke: Calypso in Paris<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Today’s post is an excerpt
from my recently completed novel, <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. In this snippet, Calypso is fleeing a mysterious
pursuer, while attempting to complete the mission she has undertaken in Paris.
Her reminiscence takes her back to her first trip to the City of Light, as a
teenager.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Presently, I’m involved in
Round 3 of editing and revising the manuscript of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. Last week, the publisher approved the manuscript, saying,“I think you did a great
job with it. Calypso, Javier, and Hill are all great characters and you've
layered this novel beautifully. . . . Congratulations on writing a stirring
piece of fiction.” A message that, as you can imagine, was a great relief and
delight to receive! The plan, now, since it took me longer to finish than
anticipated, is to set the publication date around the first of November.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For those who may have missed
them, a synopsis of <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
can be found on the January 5, 2012 post; the Prologue, on January 8; an
introduction to the protagonists Calypso, on February 3, Javier, on February 20
and Hill on March 2; Calypso and Hill Dine was posted on March 14; More of
Calypso and Hill, on March 30; More of Calypso and Hill–2, on April 10;
Calypso’s Apartment, Place des Vosges, on April 19; and Hill’s Teenage Sex
Life, on May 15.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">. . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Paris, 1992</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Calypso walked quickly on rue
de Rivoli, dodging other pedestrians, heading toward Palais Royal. Traffic was
heavy and noisy. She felt mercifully inconspicuous in the early afternoon flood
of humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">To shake off her mysterious
tracker, she had caught the métro at<i> </i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Quatre
Septembre and ridden to Opéra, stepped onto the <i>quai</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, pretending to check for something in her purse until
the bell rang, then as the doors were closing, quickly darted back onto the
car. The automatic doors compressed her shoulders as she squeezed through.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">She turned to look back at
the <i>quai,</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> to see if anyone were
running or looking frustrated, but the train was engulfed in its tunnel before she
could be sure. She rode past the Madeleine stop, and Concorde, all the way to
Tuileries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Emerged from the mètro and
still not confident that she had eluded the tail, she merged with the flood of
foot traffic, stopping periodically to use store windows as rearview mirrors,
or to enter shops and observe the street from within. She could detect no sign
of a follower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It was still several blocks
to Palais Royal. Plenty of time to reconsider. But all her life, she had set
her eyes on what needed doing and had done it. Sometimes it involved
considerable risk or prolonged periods of quiet, dogged faith. Whatever was
required, she steeled herself to it. She did not deviate or dodge the
inevitable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">She had made the deeply
considered decision that while illegal, her project was not immoral. <i>Au
contraire</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. It was a grave moral issue
and she could not ignore or evade it. Hundreds, thousands, even millions, of
lives might be changed by what she was prepared to do today. It was a
responsibility that simply could not be shirked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Fate works in strange ways.
How could she have known, those many years before, when she was just beginning
to explore the cultural riches of Paris, that the contacts she was making would
some day lead to her implication in certain violations of international law? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In those days, she had
immersed herself in art--the Louvre, of course, came first, then the Jeu de
Paume, and then the Cluny, the Rodin, the Grand and Petit Palais. After that,
it was the galleries. She walked all Paris, singling them out, exploring them
methodically, penciling the streets she had explored on her American Express
Pocket Guide maps, so she wouldn't miss a thing, chatting with ever-increasing
intimacy with gallery owners, as her pitiful high school French was hammered
into a genuine tool of intellectual communication.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That was how she came to know
Jean-Paul and Yvette. Their gallery on rue de Richelieu, close to Palais Royal,
had drawn her again and again. Its interior was lined in glowing cherry <i>boiserie</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> and smelled of a potpourri Madame Grenelle concocted
herself, from lavender, cedar oil and other ingredients that were secret to her
and, she insisted, would die with her.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Monsieur Grenelle, a gallant
figure with a huge white moustache and grandly pomaded head of white hair,
darted-in waists on his jackets and impeccably creased trousers, was an
extrovert who loved meeting his public. He specialized in paintings of the
modern period. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Madame Grenelle, equally
slender and white haired, was a regal presence who fortunately hid her initial
chill behind the heavy cut velvet curtains that separated the gallery from
their personal sitting area. It took several visits before Calypso even knew of
her presence in the gallery, and then only because she asked about a pre-Colombian
terra cotta figurine. Antiquities, it seems, were Madame's specialty, although
the two had been together in both marriage and business for so long that their
expertise in one another's sphere was complete.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Their love of their
respective subjects was enormous and they were gracious and generous in their
willingness to teach. Soon, Calypso was visiting them for an hour or two, each
afternoon, and they were serving her tea in the sitting room behind the green
curtains.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">She remembered the day she
had broken through their Gallic reserve; the day they had finally taken her
warmly to their hearts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Monsieur Grenelle, with great
mystery and flourish, had whipped a drape from an easel, exposing a painting.
"This I have purchased today, for 10,000 francs!" he exclaimed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Calypso looked with complete
incomprehension at the canvas. It was lurid and hastily daubed in broad brush
strokes that left little raised incrustations of dried paint at their edges.
The subject was a woman's face, slightly green, with contorted lips, as if she
were about to vomit. The entire effect was repulsive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"10,000 francs!"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"<i>Oui!</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> <i> </i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">What a bargain, <i>non</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Is that for a single
canvas, or by the truckload?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There was a long silence,
during which she saw expressions crossing his face like clouds caught on
time-lapse film. Consternation, insult, dismay, disappointment, restraint and
finally calm restored--all while Calypso cowered inside her mortifying
rudeness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"So you do not like this
painting?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Oh Monsieur Grenelle,
please forgive me, I . . . "</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"<i>Non, non, non, non,
non</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. There will be no apology. Tell
me what you are seeing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Well . . . I . . . I
mean, it seems crude to me. Violent. Unhappy. And poorly made, as if the
painter were in a hurry, or just didn't care. And was also in a very bad
mood."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Ahhh! You have a good
eye. All of what you say is true. Do you know what this painting is?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"I'm afraid I
don't."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"It is German
Expressionism. A rare painting, long thought to be lost, by Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner, of his favorite model, Dodo. Everything you say about this painting
is true. He has used pairs of complementary colors to make aggressive and
unsettling contrasts. Blue and orange. Red and green. And then, this silly,
fragile pale aqua of her dress, so incompatible with the intensity of the
complementary colors. Colors clash, you know, if they have radically different
values. Really, it's completely ghastly, you're absolutely correct."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Calypso’s shoulders dropped
from around her ears, in relief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Kirchner is close to
Matisse in time, you know, a contemporary. But while Matisse painted his <i>joie
de vivre</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, Kirchner focused on the
tensions of modern life. He saw everything in collapse: morals, religious
faith, mindless mass society. He was much influenced by Edvard Munch, you see,
and by the Fauves. The harsh colors and jagged brush strokes, the crudeness of
the image, all are attempts at authentic expression."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Oh Monsieur Grenelle, I
must apologize! I am completely mortified! I am too ignorant!" Her French
came out stilted. She felt like a heroine in one of the first talkies, wringing
her hands and wailing her protestations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Not at all,
Mademoiselle Searcy. You are young. Beauty is what you are, and it is beauty to
which you respond. It takes time and a sound pummeling by life to appreciate
such art."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"You're very kind . .
."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Art can become too
rarified, you understand. Too pretty. Then a Kirchner has to come along and rip
the cover off things, show the dynamics, the mechanisms, behind all the show. I
suppose Freud would say, demonstrate the unconscious."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"I guess I'll learn to
appreciate him. Like I have <i>escargot</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"You are still very
young, and untouched, yet, by deep passion. Someday you will know that art,
like sex, should rely as heavily on raw energy as on technique."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Calypso was still young and
inexperienced enough to blush. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It was at that point that
Mousieur Grenelle had taken her kindly by the elbow, saying, "It's time
for a cup of tea. My wife and I have been discussing it, and . . ." he
held the lustrous draperies aside, "we think it is time for you to call us
by our given names. And we you, of course. Please, sit here in the <i>bergère </i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. . ."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">With that, they had gone from
<i>vous</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> to <i>tu</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, and over time Jean-Paul and Yvette became the
grandparents she never had.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">. . . .</span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-22284965474529847772012-06-21T09:28:00.000-07:002012-06-21T09:28:35.266-07:00Sculpting the Future<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which
every person leaves a mark.</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>--Chinese proverb</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I recently was asked to
mentor a student at the local Waldorf school. For her 8<sup>th</sup> grade
project, Autumn wants to sculpt a dragon in stone. I was happy and honored to
accept.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s been a while since I’ve
wielded mallet and chisel. Some of you may remember that last summer I was
working on a Solstice Stone, that I hoped to have ready for yesterday’s Summer
Solstice. The project was put on hold when I decided to throw all my energy
into finishing <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">.
The stone has lain outside on my outdoor sculpture stand all winter. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I invited Autumn and her
mother to come up to Big Hill, to assess my talents as a mentor. I have to
demonstrate more than beginning skills in the subject and then, be approved by
the teacher. Even though my masters degree is in art and writing, I could see
where the teacher might look askance at my qualifications, since painting was
my emphasis, with sculpting a pale third, behind printmaking. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So I dragged out all the
evidence: preliminary drawings in dusty notebooks, small clay maquettes, larger
maquettes carved in plaster of Paris, and then, final products in marble, granite,
slate, wood and bronze. I went at my sculpture stand with a broom and removed a good
4 inches of dead leaves. I brought out my mallets, hammers, chisels and rasps.
I was just searching for a rake, to have the area nice and tidy, when mother
and daughter arrived. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I toured them around, from
the smallest, humblest clay maquette, to the 9-foot steel armature for a<span> </span>bird-headed goddess that is sitting
lopsided in the yard, awaiting a stone base. I explained one complete development
of an idea, the image of a seed, from sketch through drawing to maquette and
finally, marble sculpture. I encouraged Autumn to follow such a discipline with
her developing dragon image.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I set a piece of local shale
in front of Autumn and told her to have at it, using the tools I’d piled up.
Her mother and I went off to talk and came back 45 minutes later to discover
that Autumn had begun creating a wonderful design in low relief that was well
suited to the soft and crumbly stone. It was also clear that she didn’t want to
stop carving, even though her mother needed to leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I sent Autumn home with the
stone, a hammer and two chisels. That she is a naturally gifted sculptor is
evident. I expect great things from her. As she was leaving, she asked how she
would choose a piece of alabaster to work on, at the stone yard. “Let the
stone<span> </span>speak to you,” I said.
“You’ll look at dozens of pieces, but one will call out to you.” I haven’t seen
her since. She and her family have gone on vacation where, presumably, she will
get a chance to choose her stone.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">What a gift it is, to see
that child’s enthusiasm and native talent! I feel that with every blow of the
carving hammer she is sculpting a future for herself that is exciting and
filled with anticipation, imagination, force of will and patient
follow-through. This child is no piece of marked paper--she is durable as
hammered stone.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-17692728705870507172012-06-20T10:29:00.003-07:002012-06-20T10:29:33.607-07:00Summer Solstice Blessings<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Today, the sun reigns supreme
as it reaches the apogee of its transit. It is at its zenith; at its highest in
the sky. The symbolism of the solstice is interesting, in that it does not
coincide with the character of the season in which it occurs. That is to say,
while the solstice inaugurates the Summer season, it also represents the
descendant phase of the light. Today has more hours of sunlight than any other
day of the year. Henceforth, however, the hours of sunlight will diminish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For this reason, the Summer
and Winter Solstice were represented in ancient Greco-Roman religion and
mythology as gates, through which transitional time passes. Janus, the
two-faced god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors,
doorways, endings and time, symbolized this liminal time of the solstice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We, too, can look both
backward and forward: back on the ascendent phase of the light, which began
last December; forward, to see the seeds that we have planted growing during
these summer months. I wish you the radiance of this day to light your
consciousness throughout your earthly journey. Blessings of the Light upon you!</span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-42519149871401987242012-06-19T08:01:00.001-07:002012-06-19T08:04:26.277-07:00Morning Math<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So far, the massive studio
cleaning effort reported yesterday has paid off. Both yesterday morning and
today, I tied on my gym shoes and did stints on the treadmill, the trampoline,
the yoga mat and the weight bench. And lived to tell you about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There’s not much to think
about as I plod along on the treadmill and since nature abhors a vacuum, errant
thoughts get more play than usual. It began with me noticing that the studio
windows and doors need cleaning. From the treadmill there is a lovely view out
the French doors into the courtyard garden--if you can see it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This observation led on to
the determination to wash one window or door a day, after exercising. Which in
turn led to counting: 7 French doors and 8 windows, each with between 8 and 12
panes of glass. About 10 minutes into my treadmill stroll, going about 3 and a
half miles per hour, I began counting panes and found that it was devilishly
difficult to do so while striding. If you don’t believe me, just go out for an
fast walk around the block and add up a column of numbers, while you’re at it.
Anyway, the final tally is 188 panes of glass. Which if you multiply it by 2,
for the inside and the outside surfaces, becomes 376 panes of glass. Some of
which are lurking behind large trees and bushes, or are barricaded by large
objects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lying on my yoga mat, (from
whence I evicted a large and shiny Black Widow spider, this morning), doing leg
lifts, I was admiring the skillful manufacture of the underside of a <i>Louis
Quinze</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> chair, depending from the
truss above me. Then it occurred to me that, if I knew its weight and how high
it was hanging above my vulnerable self, I might be able to calculate the
impact it would have on me, if it were suddenly--say in an earthquake or big
sonic boom or in the event of another meteor exploding in our neck of the
woods, like one did a couple of months ago--to leap off David’s nicely inserted
dowels and plummet downward, powered by weight and gravity. Could one of those
beautifully turned French legs actually work up enough steam to pierce my
straining abs? There must be a formula for such calculations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s come to me that cleaning
the studio is a better workout than working out in the studio. I get tired just
thinking about all that window washing. Meanwhile, however, I’ve broken a sweat
before 7 in the morning from something other than ambient heat and my math
skills are improving. Now, if there are 7 doors and 8 windows, that’s 15 times
2, for inside and outside, and at one washed per day, with Sundays off for good
behavior, that’s X number of days before all are clean . . . </span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-91882304256791833332012-06-18T10:04:00.000-07:002012-06-18T10:04:00.966-07:00Whether It Needs It or Not<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Once every six months,
whether it needs it or not, I clean my studio. Yesterday, I awoke with the
certitude that the day had arrived. I stood on the indoor balcony, looking down
into 625 square feet of grungy chaos and was undaunted. With David riding shotgun,
I knew we could prevail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Every home needs a room like
this one; a multipurpose room unafraid to take on major projects. Since the
last major cleaning, we have hauled firewood through the space and burned it in
the stove, with the concomitant bark, sawdust and ash. David has built
emergency bee boxes for our every-growing honeybee community (sawdust, glue and
errant screws); an early spring honey harvest left dots of honey on the carpets
(honey, stuck-to-honey-dirt, and ants); I began and then abandoned a collage
project (snipped bits of paper, generously circulated by wind pouring through
open French doors); David started his spring garden starts on the counter
(potting soil, seed packets, water stains); I stored my geraniums inside,
against the winter storms (more potting soil and water stains, plus dead
leaves); and David uses the work table as a desk (bills, books, drill bits,
nails, spare change, garden hats, more seed packets and the detritus of his
pocket bottoms) and the couch as a second closet (dirty clothes, clean clothes
in unfolded heaps, various pairs of shoes and boots parked randomly beneath or
in front).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One corner houses a wooden
studio easel with a painting now almost a year old. That project came to a
screeching halt when I became determined to finish <i>Fiesta of Smoke</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. There was a stack of framed paintings and unused
frames forming a bulwark around the easel. Stone carving tools lay in a heap on
the counter, where I piled them just before rain fell on my outdoor sculpture
stand, last fall. Five Victorian chairs, brought from storage for Christmas
celebrations, still huddled in a furtive herd behind the grand piano, blocking
access to the keyboard. Chopin’s waltzes still rest on the music rack, even
though low G went sour sometime in the cold snap of January, rendering the
piano unplayable. Exercise equipment—a weight bench and hand weights, a weight
machine, treadmill and trampoline—had a nice patina of dust, threaded with
spider web. And the skylight, rising 25 feet above the whole scene of
Dickensian, Havishamish ruin, is an insect death trap, supplying a steady rain
of crumpled bugs to the Persian carpet, below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had my work cut out for me.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I wrapped my head in a scarf,
both against the clouds of dirt about to be stirred up and the sweat that was
about to cascade. The studio thermometer registered 94, as I descended the
stairs, broom in hand, to do battle. David was there to help. We decided to do
a Shaker thing, and hang the extra chairs from the trusses. As I vacuumed the
rugs, he brought in a ladder and drilled holes and inserted dowels and hung
chairs. Then I re-vacuumed the rugs to get up the sawdust. He sorted and folded
his wardrobe and ferried it off to the actual closet and dresser drawers, while
I vacuumed some more. He discovered a box of old videos under the weight bench.
Since the VCR has taken a peculiar turn, in which it plays films in random
segments out of order, which was modestly entertaining in a surreal sort of
way, the first two times around but simply annoying, thereafter, we decided
both videos and VCR could go. Then, while I was vacuuming some more, the TV
disappeared. Since it only has a 14-inch screen and could no longer serve to
receive television programs, since the stations changed their signals, it won’t
be missed, either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Morning proceeded into
afternoon in this fashion. I discovered things long lost, stored things too
long exposed and removed probably a gallon of detritus from the floor. In the
process, I found that about two thousand dollars in tube paints had been
consumed by a rat. My first clue was finding yellow, red, blue and green rat
pellets in the cupboard under the counter. Then, I found the trays of what used
to be oil and acrylic paints, now containing a confetti of shredded metal from
the tubes. I tried to imagine the desperation of some poor old wood rat,
reduced in the middle of winter to gnawing on a tube of vermillion or geranium
lake. How could he survive such fare? Still, I was grieved by the ruin of my
paint stash, as I was by the dead hummingbird, trapped between the window and
my big wooden case of Rembrandt pastels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I have spared you photos from
the outset of the day, although they would probably have been more entertaining
than those orderly ones with which I now present you. I find I like being in a
room with pendant chairs. And I’m motivated to actually use my exercise
equipment, now that I don’t have spiders riding along with me on the treadmill.
I’m going to enjoy the studio, today. Maybe I’ll even paint at the easel, since
my acrylic jar paints remain unconsumed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But I have to hurry because,
as Robert Frost so aptly said, nothing gold can stay. I know that there’s a
hair’s breadth of time before the next wave of industry and creativity turns
the place into chaos, again. Already, I have followed a trail of small white
bits of paper from the dryer in the utility room, through the library, across
the studio carpet and into David’s closet, the tracks of a Kleenex that died a
terrible death by first water, then heat. Also, a dead butterfly, victim of the
killing fields in the skylight, has landed on the work table, bearing a
streamer of spider web. This is life in the country. Entropy being what it is,
I’ll have to repeat yesterday’s heroic measures in another six months. Until
then, imagine me playing Chopin, with the G key taped down, butterflies wafting
through the French doors, and 5 Victorian chairs hanging over me like the sword
of Damocles.</span><br />
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-34013590001092535562012-06-17T06:46:00.002-07:002012-06-17T06:46:20.481-07:00Happy Father's Day!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Whether you guys have children or not, I know there are many ways you've expressed the love, guidance and wisdom associated with fatherhood. Maybe you're a father of fur children, or you keep a garden, or mentor someone, or tend the environment, or foster responsible politics. However you choose to father the world, I thank you for providing a role model, for giving of your love, leadership and energy, and for being part of a responsible solution to the crying needs of our times. Blessings on you! I hope this day is a relaxing and joyous one for you.<br />
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<br />Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-20109838690028021242012-06-16T06:45:00.001-07:002012-06-16T06:49:03.715-07:00Saturday Morning Minutia<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The sun just this instant
rose, flooding my keyboard with orangy-gold light. The dawn breeze lacks the
smallest thread of coolth. The sky is cloudless and tinged with pink along the
rim of the western horizon, where Valley pollutants are building their summer
pleasure domes. Summer heat is finally upon us, apparently.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The minutia of a Big Hill
morning are in progress. Maclovio just mounted an heroic defense against the
invading Mr. Sniffles, the marauding neighbor cat who slinks in at all hours
and devours both cat and dog food. In the garden, bees are already plying the
flowers and sipping from the basin of the fountain. A congress of shrieking
blue jays just routed Mr. Sniffles from a hunting expedition in the shed. On
the rounded, straw-colored hills outside of Columbia, long blue tree shadows
stretch westward like spilled ink. The air is filled with the mingled scents of
jasmine and honeysuckle. Peace reigns.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I’ve just refreshed the water
of the bouquet of pink roses, my father’s favorites, on my desk, and of the
artichoke on its powerful stalk, before the deep heat can leave them waterless.
The emails are answered; the batter for our morning mushroom crepes is already
cooling in the frig; and the deck is swept and its potted plants watered. Soon
I’ll be off for the farmer’s market, basket in hand. Today, I’m looking for
ripe peaches and a bottle of Persian Lime olive oil.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In a world so filled with
troubles, I feel blessed beyond measure to experience such peace and plenty. My
prayer this morning is, as always, that someday the world will allow this
quietude and plentitude to wrap itself around every heart and across every
doorstep. Blessings of the day to all. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-45600624528033077372012-06-14T05:57:00.000-07:002012-06-14T05:57:00.116-07:00Snakes Alive!<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Twice, now, I’ve encountered Sierra Mountain Kingsnakes on my
evening walk. These gorgeous, white-, black- and red-banded reptiles (<i>Lampropeltis
zonata multicincta</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">) are usually
nocturnal, so it’s quite a treat to see one during the day or evening hours.
Kingsnakes eat lizards, small mammals, nestling birds, bird eggs, amphibians,
and occasionally snakes, including its own species, so they are formidable hunters.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">They are usually quite
secretive, as well, and the one I saw yesterday evening was no exception. I
encountered it climbing a sheer red clay road bank about 12 feet high. This
bank is always a source on interest to me, as it is studded with holes of all
sizes, like a critter apartment house. Apparently, that is what drew the
snake’s interest, too. It slithered up the bank in graceful S-curves, defying
gravity and stopping to thrust its head into any hole large enough to
accommodate it, hunting for who knows whom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When it came to the top of
the bank, it stopped and waited. I had the feeling it was waiting for me to go
away, so that it could hide itself. I turned away and took a few steps up the
slope, then turned just in time to see it secret itself under an exposed root,
where it was completely invisible. Actors and comedians know that timing is
everything, and the same is true in sightings of wild things. They are all out
there, doing the things that wild things do, but our perceptions of them are
fleeting. They are expert at concealing themselves from our probing eyes and
intellects and hurtful hands.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">These two sightings, plus
finding a baby rattlesnake dead on the road, remind me to be extra vigilant,
now that the weather is warmer. The very first lesson I can remember my parents
instilling, long before manners or chores, was always to look several steps
ahead of me when I walked. This habit has saved me a number of times. You
should see me levitate, when my foot is poised to fall on a coiled rattler!
That one small act is a study in relativity!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anyway, seeing these beautiful
snakes brought to mind D. H. Lawrence’s poem, “Snake,” which I offer to you
this morning as a meditation on the honoring of things that may seem, on the
surface, less than desirable. Lest we, too, have a pettiness to expiate.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Snake</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A snake came to my
water-trough</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">On a hot, hot day, and I in
pyjamas for the heat,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">To drink there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In the deep, strange-scented
shade of the great dark carob-tree</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I came down the steps with my
pitcher</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And must wait, must stand and
wait, for there he was at the trough before</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He reached down from a
fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And trailed his yellow-brown
slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">the stone trough</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And rested his throat upon
the stone bottom,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And where the water had
dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He sipped with his straight
mouth,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Softly drank through his
straight gums, into his slack long body,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Silently.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Someone was before me at my
water-trough,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I, like a second comer,
waiting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He lifted his head from his
drinking, as cattle do,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And looked at me vaguely, as
drinking cattle do,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And flickered his two-forked
tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And stooped and drank a
little more,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Being earth-brown,
earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">On the day of Sicilian July,
with Etna smoking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The voice of my education
said to me</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He must be killed,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For in Sicily the black,
black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And voices in me said, If you
were a man</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">You would take a stick and
break him now, and finish him off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But must I confess how I
liked him,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">How glad I was he had come
like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And depart peaceful,
pacified, and thankless,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Into the burning bowels of
this earth?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Was it cowardice, that I
dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it
humility, to feel so honoured?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I felt so honoured.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And yet those voices:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If you were not afraid, you
would kill him!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And truly I was afraid, I was
most afraid, But even so, honoured still more</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That he should seek my
hospitality</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">From out the dark door of the
secret earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He drank enough</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And lifted his head,
dreamily, as one who has drunken,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And flickered his tongue like
a forked night on the air, so black,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Seeming to lick his lips,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And looked around like a god,
unseeing, into the air,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And slowly turned his head,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And slowly, very slowly, as
if thrice adream,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Proceeded to draw his slow
length curving round</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And climb again the broken
bank of my wall-face.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And as he put his head into
that dreadful hole,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And as he slowly drew up,
snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A sort of horror, a sort of
protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Deliberately going into the
blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Overcame me now his back was
turned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I looked round, I put down my
pitcher,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I picked up a clumsy log</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And threw it at the
water-trough with a clatter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I think it did not hit him,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But suddenly that part of him
that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Writhed like lightning, and
was gone</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Into the black hole, the
earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">At which, in the intense
still noon, I stared with fascination.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And immediately I regretted
it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I thought how paltry, how
vulgar, what a mean act!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I despised myself and the
voices of my accursed human education.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I thought of the
albatross</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I wished he would come
back, my snake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For he seemed to me again
like a king,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Like a king in exile,
uncrowned in the underworld,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now due to be crowned again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And so, I missed my chance
with one of the lords</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Of life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I have something to
expiate:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A pettiness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Taormina, 1923</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvcx49saUm_Y1HIf-3SoQjgGkKVxNa-TLN80_qnP6ZaiYlDCa1sffoHhSSjKXknbIjDc_Kilcsc2M8rF7Cs3VWrRD2vb7fbNYp8LJLICTm09p-A6V5O4jfg5g8EzQ8HJjEgIiwSs5tvrY/s1600/SierraMtnKingsnake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvcx49saUm_Y1HIf-3SoQjgGkKVxNa-TLN80_qnP6ZaiYlDCa1sffoHhSSjKXknbIjDc_Kilcsc2M8rF7Cs3VWrRD2vb7fbNYp8LJLICTm09p-A6V5O4jfg5g8EzQ8HJjEgIiwSs5tvrY/s1600/SierraMtnKingsnake.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-30444077419363008892012-06-13T06:24:00.001-07:002012-06-13T06:29:57.358-07:00Make Up Your Minds<style>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Make up your minds that happiness depends on being
free, and freedom depends on being courageous.</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">--Pericles, 430 BC</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I was thinking, today, about
all the wacky things I’ve done in this life. Some of them made no sense at all.
Some of them were dangerous. Most of them were expensive in one way or another.
All of them were life-enhancing. I’ve just never been able to shove my life
into a box and neither has my husband, David. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">These ruminations brought to
mind our first trip to Germany, 20 years ago. We were riding a commuter train
from Frankfurt to Limburg, on our way to Talheim, to spend 2 weeks with the
Indian holy woman, Mother Meera. It was 5 PM and the train was filled to
capacity with gray-suited commuters returning home from work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">David and I were simmering
with a hilarity we didn’t dare express, because the train car was dead silent.
Not a murmur of a word, not a rustle of a newspaper. The passengers sat like
crash test dummies stuffed with unlived dreams, waxen and immobile. We had
never been in a culture so repressed, we irrepressible Americans. I wanted to
stand up and make an announcement: “Gentlemen, this train has been re-routed to
the Moon.” David whispered that he had an almost irresistible urge to take off
his shirt and finish the journey naked to the waist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We tittered and twittered and
rustled like two barn swallows. Except for a few pairs of eyes, strained to the
corners to take us into peripheral vision, no one looked at us. No one moved.
The train did its daily milk run: it stopped; people silently stood, without so
much as a nod to their seatmates, and departed; the train started again. This
happened a dozen times during the hour between Frankfurt and Limburg.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">No one looked out the windows
as the lush, dark, umber and spruce green countryside rolled by. We passed
cabbages the size of baby carriages, apple trees bending under loads of red or
golden fruit, fields of grain ripe for harvest. No eye but ours registered the
beauty and abundance of the German countryside. All eyes were straight ahead,
registering some middle distance that fell just short of actual contact with
any other human being.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">David and I subsided into
silence, ourselves. We were gripped with unease. We had inadvertently boarded a
train of the undead--people who died at some undesignated time in the past but
were too oblivious to themselves and their own needs to realize that they’d
stopped breathing or that their hearts had stopped beating or that their
imaginations had stopped making dreams, having wishes and longings, or making
plans for the future. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We were on a train of zombies
and we were alarmed. We looked at one another, wide-eyed. Was there a place in
us that knew that claustrophobic space, that energy-less energy, that listless
simulation of lifelikeness? Were we laughing out of nervousness? Were we
fearful because we felt our own masks moving suffocatingly closer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We sat erect, with renewed
vigor. We took internal vows not to be dead to the moment; always to adore the
rosy cheeks of apples, the huge blue and burgundy roses of cabbages. Always to
feel the pulse of the train beneath us, carrying us to new adventures,
spontaneous meetings, joyous soul-openings.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We closed ranks, David and I,
against the closed ranks of the un-dead. And we made up our minds: happiness
depends on being free and freedom depends on being courageous. Taking Pericles
one step further, courage depends on risking spiritual conflagration, total
engagement, even death. The Athenians knew that in 430 BC. Probably we
shouldn’t allow it to be forgotten.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-20509502004822842712012-06-12T07:06:00.001-07:002012-06-12T07:06:03.067-07:00Another Billy Whiskers Morning<style>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It was a busy weekend,
including a pit stop at the Billy Whiskers Café. Karen was in antic mode and
declared that she has gone feral, with no desire to fix her hair or diet or do
any of the expected things that bludgeon women’s time and energy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">We reminisced about the old
Paige House, a two-story charmer from the late 1800s that sits at the bottom of
this mountain, and a couple of miles from Columbia. When we were kids, our
parents used to vote there. I can remember entering its creaking front parlor,
where the canvas voting booths were erected. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">While my mother voted, I
looked around. The interior had the look of a place that has spent winters with
its windows open to all weathers. The wood was gray and dry. Where there was
paint left, it was peeling. The floors were bare of rug or carpet. A long
stairway penetrated the center of the house and went steeply up into darkness.
I was sure that the place was haunted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Karen remembered that Mrs.
Paige played the piano with an élan that indicated advanced musical training.
Karen never saw her do this, but would sneak up from her family’s property,
next door, and listen from outside. When Mr. Paige died, Mrs. Paige was left
without resources. She was carried from the house and, according to either
Karen’s first-hand memory or to stories she heard of the event, Mrs. Paige’s
hair was pure black, although she was in her nineties. However, when they got
her to the county hospital and washed her hair, it was white as snow. That’s
how long it had been since she’d had her hair washed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Karen’s father bought the
property and annexed it to the family ranch. The house is painted mint green,
now, and stands amid its ramshackle gardens of old roses and fruit trees, all
un-pruned, with a look of vacancy, although it is presently occupied. It
retains its air of mystery, still, turned in upon itself as if ruminating upon
a past no one else can remember.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">After breakfast, when David
went to pay, Karen and Rick insisted it was on the house. Why? we asked,
astonished. Because we had brought them a jar of our raw honey and they were
enjoying it immensely. But that was a gift, we protested. So was breakfast,
they countered. And Karen added that, in her present feisty mode, it was
dangerous to argue with her. We graciously and gratefully accepted and went our
way. </span></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2226231525633999625.post-39969049222982299062012-06-08T07:06:00.002-07:002012-06-08T07:06:37.892-07:00Tablecloth for the End of the World<style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDocYd5bp4m8Aw2F-rjWO41OPHXC47gEZVG73h4_rMRUMF-zbajD5MLJ72GdiysvGFkDOqruJenmrMhDC80kN00jgYTI89zws3LhwMut-gO-9aPhYiE9FE0t0w_ficXanLLy1pBtJzrRM/s1600/Table,LvngRm2*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDocYd5bp4m8Aw2F-rjWO41OPHXC47gEZVG73h4_rMRUMF-zbajD5MLJ72GdiysvGFkDOqruJenmrMhDC80kN00jgYTI89zws3LhwMut-gO-9aPhYiE9FE0t0w_ficXanLLy1pBtJzrRM/s320/Table,LvngRm2*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Aesthetic sensitivity is a
condition I inherited from both sides of my family. My mother’s genes must have
carried it from her French forebears who fled during the French Revolution to
save their heads. My father’s side has a long string of poets, artists and
dreamers. All that genetic bric-a-brac washed up in me and I’m not sure if it’s
a gift or an affliction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A case in point is French
table linens. I love to set a beautiful table and have collected a number of
gorgeous tablecloths to underpin everything else--the antique plates, the old
silverware, the crystal glasses. I particularly love a couple of lines of
linens (actually cottons) designed by French designers but made in India, by
hand, by the block printing method. These feature charming vegetal motifs or
seashells or birds, all in somewhat primitive graphics and with the uneven
coloration that attends block printing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As the seasons change, I
change my interior décor and one aspect of that is the tablecloths I strew
about on every possible surface. This time of year, with the heat of summer
coming on, cotton cloths replace the antique Kashmiri wool challis paisley
shawls that I drape on tables and that cleverly hide tottering piles of books
that are breeding more books under there, against my best impulses to the
contrary. These books necessitate large cloths that reach the floor, a shape
not all that easy to come by. Unless, of course, I delve into the websites
featuring French table linens. There, I find my favorite block printed styles
in an abundance of shapes, sizes, color ways and designs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And a concomitant lust
arises. The family genes assert themselves. How can I possibly be expected to
choose between the blue and white birds and the flower-strewn, ravishingly rose
pink “Jardin?” Or the blue and white seashells and the pale green and
vermillion coral branches studded with cowries? It’s just not fair to present
so many temptations! I mentally tally my recent credit card purchases. I
calculate my available disposable income.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxabGcd1qXzGJCZ6HL-kPPPR39QjBTkTF-c-URCEC_zJkCQqze_6V70b0WsAtDbQxYIG0UGrRn7yJgfK95RmkQvp4MQFwXm6L1jcEM_MCh1z35eRw4Z0lQklT4BBf6VrqeqEtd7N124Q/s1600/Table,Deck1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxabGcd1qXzGJCZ6HL-kPPPR39QjBTkTF-c-URCEC_zJkCQqze_6V70b0WsAtDbQxYIG0UGrRn7yJgfK95RmkQvp4MQFwXm6L1jcEM_MCh1z35eRw4Z0lQklT4BBf6VrqeqEtd7N124Q/s320/Table,Deck1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Eventually, I will settle
down, break out the blue and white Indian block printed cotton bedspread I use
every year, and press into service the French table linens already in my
collection. Summer will come and the house will look cool and collected, without
any new additions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then fall will arrive and the
tables will start to look flimsily clad, with their knees knocking together in
the chill. Now, for this particular juncture I’ve spotted a darling block
printed cloth called “Winter Garden” with garlands of fruits and flowers. It
would look lovely layered over a pink and cream paisley shawl. It could take me
right through Christmas.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then I remember that we may
not make it to Christmas, this year. According to varying reports, we are going
to experience either the Apocalypse or Ascension. Either way, tablecloths will
probably not be required for the occasion. Here’s where the family affliction
kicks in and aesthetic madness takes over. Despite the dire or transcendent
predictions, I still want to dress my house for that coming season. I think
Winter Garden would make the perfect tablecloth for the End of the World.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Suzanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04534661252540376720noreply@blogger.com0