Driving Audhumla

Audhumla is assaulted

Sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. I decided, when I took my trip to Arizona last week, to be a responsible citizen and not waste gas by driving to the airport.  I reserved a long-term slot in the new parking garage at the Fruitvale BART station near my house so I could leave Audhumla there and take the BART train directly to the airport. I picked my parking slot with care because I had to take my handicapped placard with me to Arizona for the rental car. So I chose a well-lit slot right next to the elevator on the fourth floor of the parking garage.

The trip went well, and when I was walking from the station to the garage last night, I found myself thinking about the great seats I had on the flights, the ease with which I found the every place I wanted to in Phoenix, and the book I read on the airplane. Then I stepped out of the elevator and saw that poor Audhumla had been raped and nearly murdered.

Apparently somebody took a hammer to the window, and, once it was smashed, ripped off the contents of the car. Audhumla lost her compass, I lost my Leatherman tool, and, worst of all, the very very carefully hidden cash I kept in the car for when the Big One earthquake comes.  When I hosted the Red Cross disaster-response class at my loft, one of the take-home messages I learned is that when there's a really big earthquake, the cash machines won't work, and neither will credit cards. We were told always to keep some emergency cash, water and food in the car.

Well, I still have my bottled water. But that's about all. Plus it will be nearly $400 to replace the window. And I am out the cash. This is a very big financial hit for me and I am so angry.  You'd think the BART officials would keep a better watch on the fancy new garage, wouldn't you?

crime BART car garage window theft disaster preparedness

Early influences

One thing that makes me a a bad Pagan is my distaste for cats. I am a member of an cat-loving coven, and there I am, barely able to stand being around felines of any kind. This is because I've been a dog person since my earliest days. (And probably because my grandmother infected me with her dislike of cats, based on her erroneous belief that a cat gave her baby boy the diphtheria that ended his life before he was two years old. ).

Here are two dog-loving photos taken in Ellensburg in the winter of 1949. In the first photo, my brother and I are sitting eating dinner at the little table we received as a Christmas present that year. Skipper, the farm's springer spaniel, is watching every bite go into our mouths. 

And in the next photo, I am with my grandparents and aunts when they picked out a new springer spaniel puppy for my Aunt Doris. I can't remember if they brought home the one I picked out, but, as you can see, I am purely enchanted with the puppy. I do remember that the puppy grew up to be a rambunctious dog named Piper, who was probably not at his best in a city environment.  I don't know why I have flowers in my hair, but figure this must be my Aunt Doris' doing, as she did indulge me in a thousand ways when I was that age and she was yet to have children of her own.  I notice that the coat I am wearing appears to have been cut down from an adult garment. In this era right after World War II, clothing shortages were still on everyone's mind. and someone in the family did the frugal thing and made me this coat.

Everyone knows my love of gardening. Perhaps this next photo, shot in Seattle at my great-grandmother's house in about 1947, will give you a clue. I don't remember this little wheelbarrow, but I somehow grew up knowing the names of all the flowers, how to plant seeds, and the thrill of waiting to see something bloom.

dog cat feline coven Pagan Paganism garden gardening war post-war

Family from afar

Last weekend I had some special company. My brother's oldest son, his wife and their two little kids went on a picnic with me. They live in Spokane, but were here in the Bay Area for a wedding.  The two children are both under three years old, so i decided that my loft--with all the art-making tools everywhere-- is not a safe place for kids who are that young. Their parents would have had to be on constant alert, I knew. And that would be no fun.

So we went over to one of Oakland's newest fun sites, Union Point Park along the Oakland estuary, very near my house. The park is a great place for little kids, with a terrific climbing structure that looks like a pirate ship, a big sand pile for digging, pretend boats to ride, and a soft cushiony play area surface that cuts down on skinned knees.  There's a big grassy meadow where kids can run wild, if they want, and an artificial hill from which you can see all the way to San Francisco. We didn't see any ducks the day the kids were there, but the estuary is often thronged with ducks and coots. These photos will give you a little idea of the park's waterfront setting.

One of the more unusual aspects of the park is the Statue of Unity, a 12-foot-tall statue by Bay Area sculptor Scott Donahue.  The statue is intended to represent  the international origins and ethnic diversity of Californians. Amazingly, this statue is a prototype for a 350-foot-tall version proposed to stand on Treasure Island  in the middle of the bay, to serve as the Pacific Coast counterpart to the Statue of Liberty. Here are a few photos I've taken of the statue. To be perfectly honest, it's not my favorite piece of art, but perhaps if it's ever built on the kind of heroic scale, it might be impressive, particularly when it's lit by thousands of LED lights.

The kids, of course, didn't care one way or the other. They basically did kid things, running their cute little Bobux shoes from one end of the park to the other.  Hezekiah, who just had his first birthday, seemed to have had more fun setting a fallen sycamore leaf on top of his head than anything else. He did, however, want to join his mom Jessica in playing my big djembe. Here are a couple of Hezekiah's favorite moments at the park.

Hadassah, who is not far from her 3rd birthday, is a regular climbing monkey. She was fearless, charging up rock walls and ladders. Her daddy Adam, who is a big gentle bear of a man, was on his toes keeping an eye on this constantly-moving little girl.

There's a lot of music in the family, coming from both sides. Jessica plays cello, and we have some conservatory graduates on our side.  So I figured that bringing my drum and big basket of rhythm instruments would be a good idea, probably providing the kids with some fun.  Hadassah tried out almost every musical item in the basket, although, as you can see from the photos, she hasn't yet quite figured out the technique for playing some of them.

Adam and Jessica are great young parents. I saw Adam  jump right in to diaper duty, and Jessica is a patient and nurturing mom. Here's Adam, figuring out the intricacies of some newenvironmentally sound diapers. And you can see Jessica with Hezekiah in his baby sling and snuggling with a tired hungry little boy.

All in all, it was a terrific day. I enjoyed exercising my underused grandmother muscles with the kids, and I loved spending time with the parents, too.  I hope they come back again soon.

drum park Oakland California family picnic toddler children child parents music

The season for remembering

Although I am always unhappy when the days grow short, and we move to the season of the long darkness,  I am elated when Sahmain (or, as you may know it, Halloween) rolls around. It's only three weeks from tonight, and now it's time to start making preparations for the many rituals and other events that are part of Pagan life in this season of the year.

As always, I will be building a communal altar for Dia de los Muertos. here at my Fruitvale loft. I've already ordered some great new fabric for the altar, printed with bright orange marigolds ( Zempoalxochitl or flor de muerto). Last week week I placed the red clay skull I made for the altar into the kiln for firing. If I'm lucky, there will be enough time for me to make a pottery burner for the copal incense we burn at this time of the year. And soon we'll be decorating novena candles for the altar, using photos of our beloved dead and others who have died in the past year.

Today I went over to one of my favorite neighborhood shops, Corazon del Pueblo, on Oakland's 14th street,(also known as International Boulevard). There I bought a string of foil papel picado banners and several new tin corazones.  (I always buy at least one new corazon each Dia de Los Muertos, and nail it to one of the pillers in my main loft area). I also brought home two small bags of copal. Then I stopped at the supermarket for a dozen plain novena candles,  and a small pumpkin,  so I'm ready to get to work. I'll wait until October 26 to buy fresh marigolds at the Alameda Farmers Market.

The Sunday before Samhain, people will come over to the loft to carve their jack o'lanterns for our Samhain ritual. The abundant pumpkin vines I have sprouting from all my pots are the results of all the seeds from last year's pumpkin-carving having been dumped in the compost bin.

My list of the dead grows longer each year, a function both of my age and the times in which we live. Grandparents, some aunts and uncles, two cousins, a husband, one of my children, friends and lovers, co-workers, and classmates are all on the list, as are those who've died in the five wars that have taken place during my lifetime: World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam war, and both Gulf Wars.

Today when I opened up the paper, I saw that more than 60 freshly-executed bodies were found  in Iraq, part of this senseless war that seems to be without end. The body count continues to rise, and more of our own young people are coming home dead or horribly wounded. I'll think about all this needless death at Samhain, and hope this awful conflict can come to a quick and just end.

Last year when Audhumla and I were making our big road trip, I waited two days in Vicksburg, Mississippi to see if Katrina would bypass New Orleans and make it possible for me to go visit friends in the the Crescent City.   As we all well know, this did not happen, and the city was devastated by the hurricane and subsequent flood. One of my old friends who brought his family to live in New Orleans post-Katrina is troubled by what he calls "The Ghosts of the Flood."

I had a similar feeling when I was up in Vicksburg (the fact that I say "up" in Vicksburg tells me that a big piece of my heart still lives "down" in New Orleans).  Only my sense of dis-ease came from going through the Vicksburg National Military Park, site of one of the bloodiest battles of the War Between the States. There were nearly 10,000 casualties on each side, and it felt to me like some of their their spirits still lurk uneasily over the battlefield and nearby military cemeteries. All that blood spilled on American soil, all those young lives that never came to fruition: it's overwhelming when you walk among the graves and battle sites. That day I found myself remembering words a young Unitarian minister preached in his New Hampshire Church following the bombing of Vera Cruz during the Mexican-American war. The Rev. Andrew Peabody wrote:

"When the individual soul stands before the divine tribunal, stained with the wanton butchery of those women and babes, think you that  the plea, "I knew that it was wrong and vile, but my country bade me do it?" will be accepted in Heaven's chancery in mitigation of the crime?"

So here are a few photos from Vicksburg, some from the battlefield itself and some from the Confederate cemetery nearby. I feel such sadness when I look at these photos and can only hope that someday we will no longer have a need for military cemeteries because we will no longer have war dead. That will be one of my main thoughts and intentions this Samhain season. What is remembered lives.

Samhain halloween muertos dead Pagan Paganism war Iraq Civil+war ancestors Mexico California Mississippi New+Orleans Louisiana Halloween

A member of the wedding

I have had so much fun digging through old family photos. Here are two from my two maternal aunts' weddings. 

The first one is from my Aunt Doris' wedding in December 1945. I'm the toddler in the photo,  several weeks shy of being two years old. My mom is kneeling to talk to me. She was one of the bridesmaids at this Christmas-time wedding, and was wearing a long dress from cerise-colored velvet. The photo was taken in the living room of my grandparents' home in Ellensburg, Washington. I am sure that I am looking in awe at the groom, my Uncle Toby, who was absolutely resplendent in his U.S. Army Air Corps uniform with its dark green jacket and "pink" pants. From the first time I can remember seeing him, I thought he was the most handsome man in the whole world.  He had been shot down during World War II, but somehow his plane managed to limp to Sweden and make a semi-crash landing. He was interned there in neutral Sweden for the rest of the war, and when he returned was considered the family's war hero.

When I was a little bit older, my dad made me a very fancy wooden doll house, and my mom used fabric remnants to make tiny curtains and rugs for some of the rooms. She carpeted one room with a piece of velvet left over from her bridesmaid's dress. One day when I decided to make a dress for one of my dolls, so went searching for some fabric. I sneaked into my mom's closet and found the bridesmaid's dress hanging there. For some reason I figured if she'd made the carpet from the velvet, she was through with the dress. So I cut out two doll-dress-shaped pieces from the back of the dress.

My other aunt got married in June 1948, also in Ellensburg. I was now a "big girl," a four-year-old who could be trusted to be the flower girl. So I got scratchy yellow organdy dress that was a modification of the bridesmaid's dresses.  I remember feeling very special in this dress, even though it was terribly scratchy and itchy.  I loved the flower bouquet I got to wear and I also liked having my hair pinned up. My brother was the ring bearer, and he was terribly disappointed when the wedding day dawned and he discovered he wasn't going to wear a bear suit.

wedding family photo bridesmaid Ellensburg Washington childhood genealogy veteran war

The rains have returned

Here in the Bay Area we enjoy what is known as a Mediterranean climate. This means that we get all our rain in the wintertime, and summers are, while not too hot, very dry.  So the arrival of the first rain of the winter/fall is always exciting.

In my case, I was really eager for the rain. Several days earlier, we had a very bad fire in the neighborhood. Apparently it was a very smoky sooty fire, and when the wash from the fire hoses drifted over to where I live, everything was covered with big black splashes. The leaves in the garden were already dusty, and the fallout from the fire made everything worse.

I went to bed and was awakened by the sound of rain on the roof. The next morning the garden smelled delicious--it seems that the fragrance of the leaves and flowers are heightened after a rain--and glistening rain drops clung to everything. And all the soot had washed away. Here are a few photos from that first post-rain morning. I'm so grateful for the rain!

Soon the Oakland/Berkeley hills will look like they've been upholstered in green velvet and all the spring flowers will start blooming, well before the end of December. It's a little bit tricky to navigate the turning of the wheel of the year here in Northern California, when winter and spring begin at the same time.  But I do love the way winter/spring brings the hills back to life. Right now I still have dahlias,  coreopsis, gaillardia and helianthus  all blooming, but in a few weeks, the paperwhite narcissus and freesias will return. We are indeed "a circle, within a circle, with no beginning, and never ending "

garden gardening bay+area California Mediterranean climate rain cycle Pagan Paganism  

Celebrating October 6

Today would be my grandmother Hazel Suver Mead's 116th birthday. She was born October 6, 1890 in Baker, Oregon, but lived most of her life in Ellensburg, Washington. She was, without a doubt, my very most favorite member of the family. Even now, some 46 years after her death, I find that I think of her nearly every day, and remain grateful for all she taught me. At Samhain, when we honor the ancestors, hers is always the first name that comes to mind.

I remember so much about her. Every time I pick up knitting needles, I am back in Ellensburg, snuggled next to her on the sofa, while she is teaching me the rudiments of knitting. Every single time I knead bread dough, I can see her fat freckled arms plunging into the big silver bread bowl, and I can remember the sight of her kitchen counter lined with fresh-baked loaves. Whenever I pick up a needle, I remember her helping me embroider a teacup on a dishtowel for my mom.

The taste of her favorite lemon-custard ice cream reminds me of her, So does the scent of lilacs, recalling the armloads we would take to the cemetery  for what she called "Decoration Day," " when we would put the cut branches into mason jars and set them on the ancestors' graves. Any time I play the piano, I can remember sitting on the piano bench at Grandmie's side, learning to find middle C and her mnemonic devices for remembering the names of the lines and spaces on the treble staff. (Every Good Boy Does Fine and All Cows Eat Grass).

On those rare days when I wear makeup, I can see Grandmie with her rouge pot, scrubbing her cheeks with a tiny square of rouge-stained flannel. And whenever I buy a postcard, I remember the stacks of gatefold postcards she collected from her travels. (I'll never know why Carlsbad Caverns had such a hold on her imagination).

So here's her photo in all her glory. I think this photo was hand-colored, as was once the practice. It's  very difficult for me to consider that my very pneumatic grandmother once had such a tiny waist. Of course it was achieved with very tight lacing.  My grandmother told me that when she was young, my grandfather could span her waist with his two hands.  Bearing six children certainly changed that!

One of my daughters inherited her milky white skin and thick auburn hair, and every time I look at her, I think of my grandmother.  As we chant at Samhain, "what is remembered lives."

Today is also the feast of Marie-Rose Durocher, born Eulalie Durocher in Quebec in 1811, the foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.  Not only were all of my sibs and I educated by these nuns, so were my mom, three of my aunts, my great aunt, and a whole flock of cousins. I am very grateful for this community and the wonderful education they provided all of us.

One of the things I will always remember about Mother Mary Rose--which is what we called her when we were in school--is that she was supposed to have had the ability to turn back fire. I remember that a house across the street caught fire when I was in grade school, and one of the nuns went over the threw a Mother Mary Rose holy card into the burning building and the fire  miraculously stopped. Hey, if it works . . .

It's also my brother Eric's 61st birthday today. In his honor, here's my favorite photo of the two of us together when we were pre-schoolers. We're only 21 months apart, which means, of course, that I can't ever remember life without him. And I'm very grateful that my only brother turned out to be a great dad and a world-class grandfather.

photos ancestors genealogy grandmother family northwest Washington Seattle nuns Samhain Pagan Paganism Catholic Catholicism

The other bear

Here's a strange photo of the very first bear-paw quilt I ever made.  At this point I hadn't quite figured out that it's best to photograph a quilt pinned to a flat surface. My late husband is under this quilt, attempting to hold it up evenly. He didn't quite make it.

This quilt is probably what started me on my large collection of blue fabrics. Every single block in this quilt is made from different blue fabrics. That's 30 blocks, each one with light, medium and dark fabrics. At this point I didn't know how to make half-square triangles so I laboriously cut out every single tiny dark or light blue triangle. And back then I didn't know you could use sewing machine to attach the binding, so every part of the binding is hand-stitched. I'll never do that again.

All in all, I was pleased with the finished quilt. I gave it to one of my youngest daughter's friends for her birthday. This particular young woman was going through a tough time in her life, and I wanted her to have something special that belonged just to her.  I probably would make this quilt in a very different way these days, but still, I think it turned out reasonably well, considering my beginner status at the time.

quilt quilting fabric sew sewing

Never thought of them this way

When one is a child, one's grandparents are, by definition, old. And it's hard to think of them as people who had an existence beyond the grandparent relationship. So whenever I see these two photos of my maternal grandmother--and my grandfather one one of them--I find myself a bit puzzled. These aren't the people I knew, after all.

In the first photo, my grandmother is wearing, of all things, a Shriner's fez. This really astounds me, for all Shriners are Masons, and my grandmother, who was a very pious Catholic would have nothing to do with anything connected with the Masonic Order. She told me about asking my grandfather to quit the Masons when they were engaged, and, when she found he hadn't done so, throwing her engagement ring into the depths of Puget Sound.  (My grandfather subsequently left the Masons, bought her a new engagement ring, and the rest, as they say, is history).

She's wearing a suit of what looks like silk. I think this style was popular from about 1910 to 1920. (I've seen photos of some of the early suffragists  wearing comparable clothing). My mom, her first child,  was born in 1919, so I suspect this photo dates from before she had children. She is, however, wearing her wedding ring, so I know it's after my grandparents' marriage. 

It's odd that she's sitting in a chair that was taken outside for the photo. In almost all of the family photos of that era, everyone is standing against the house, firing-squad style. I have the suspicion that this may be for some sort of fancy-dress party. The bemused expression on her face makes me thing that she's playing at being something other than her everyday self. My best guess is that this photo was shot in Ellensburg, Washington in about 1917. (One of my aunts thinks this photo is not of my grandmother, but rather, of her sister, my eccentric great-Aunty Ida.  I don't know for certain because my grandmother's name was written on the back of the photo).

The second photo was shot of my grandparents aboard their boat, which they kept moored in Seattle's Lake Union. I can remember going through the Chitteden Government Locks and out into Puget Sound on the boat, and then fishing off Whidbey Island aboard the boat. I think it was one of the beautiful old wooden Chris Craft cabin cruisers  with lapstrake construction. The boat, the Marodor, was named for their three daughters, with one syllable from each of their names.

Grandpie mainly liked to troll for salmon. But I can remember one night when we were aboard the boat that we pulled in near a beach on Whidbey Island and took a garden rake and actually raked in armloads of Dungeness crab. (Ah, for the abundance of my childhood. I can remember so many Friday nights when my parents would cook a whole pot of crab and all the Jesuits from St. Joe's would come for beer and a crab dinner).

In this photo, my grandfather is holding a bottom fish--probably a sole--in his hand. I would assume his inevitable pack of Luck Strike cigarettes could be found in his shirt pocket.  Even though they're out on a boat, my grandmother is wearing a dress with, I am sure, nylon stockings and her serious cotton sateen corset from Lane Bryant.  Women of her generation never wore trousers of any kind.  Even when she was doing the messiest work on the farm, she wore a cotton house dress, the corset, nylons and a pair of brown oxford shoes.  I think that's a piling behind my grandmother's head.

My grandparents liked to have a few cocktails and play bridge with friends who kept their boat at the same moorage on Lake Union. I would suspect that maybe they've both had one of my grandfather's famous Old Fashioneds. When my brother and I were little and had the chance to sleep on the boat with our grandparents, we would beg for the cherries from everyone's drinks, but I'd have to rinse mine off first to get rid of the taste of what I then called "burn-the-mouth." (I never did like hard liquor very much).  This photo definitely dated from the early 1950s. I wonder whatever happened to my grandparents' boat.  I know my grandfather really did love.this boat. It's interesting and unusual, I think, that someone who originally came from Iowa like my grandfather became so fond of the sea. 

photo seattle washington boat boating wood+boat grandparents