Liberating Grama's Butterflies
She kept them in a little box, with saved postcards
and flower decals from the 1920's
neatly pressed butterflies, encased in a plastic sleeve -
Much to the opposite of her cluttered, musty house.
I found them in my father's stuff.
Her dutiful son who couldn't throw her things away,
so they were interred in a box, on a shelf, which
slowly becomes buried by the next box
Until there are no more shelves.
Then begin to fill the corners of the room, the floor,
Until, like James Bond movies of the shrinking room
the walls seem to close in slowly, ready to crush the person
inside.
I slipped the butterflies from their plastic,
careful to keep them intact.
I think I could hear them start to breath
I set them on a little bush,
where they absorbed sunshine
newly beautiful to the world.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
James' Birthday
If you were born in 1954, on this April day, the 27th
and you had lived past 35 years
today you might have a cake with 61 candles
celebrating with Kaitlyn
your little grand daughter
She would be
the apple of your eye,
she would be your best little friend
who you (secretly) knew was smarter than any other toddler
and the cutest.
Since you will never meet her here
on the physical plane
I take her to the big trees and we touch the old bark
one tree
I call "Big Jim"
The cosmic grampa tree
She is always a little quiet when we
approach the Big Jim Doug Fir
She listens to the stories I tell
and
When we go to the bath tub in her parent's room
we pass the photo, when you were 35
Always 35
While grammy gets gray hair
Dear Grampa Jimmy, who we miss
Happy Birthday.
and you had lived past 35 years
today you might have a cake with 61 candles
celebrating with Kaitlyn
your little grand daughter
She would be
the apple of your eye,
she would be your best little friend
who you (secretly) knew was smarter than any other toddler
and the cutest.
Since you will never meet her here
on the physical plane
I take her to the big trees and we touch the old bark
one tree
I call "Big Jim"
The cosmic grampa tree
She is always a little quiet when we
approach the Big Jim Doug Fir
She listens to the stories I tell
and
When we go to the bath tub in her parent's room
we pass the photo, when you were 35
Always 35
While grammy gets gray hair
Dear Grampa Jimmy, who we miss
Happy Birthday.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
why people write
"Half the reason people "write" is so they can have a reason to tell everyone not to bother them."
me - 7-26-95
me - 7-26-95
Thursday, March 5, 2015
My Essay - Homework
My little blog has been a catalyst for me to write. Writers need to practice just like musicians, athletes and yogis. Writing is a practice I have neglected due to circumstances of which I will not bore you. There has been a severe lack of time. Time is the element which is negotiable, fungible, malleable and yet sometimes seemingly nonexistent.
I have several students whom I tutor in the area of essay writing and general quality sentence construction for various purposes. I thought, tonight, that if I am to teach I must certainly practice. So this here is my essay homework for tonight, and if you, my dear friends, are reading, you must be my tutor and give me honest and gentle feedback. I do really need to know.... because, dear reader, remodeling houses and running about doing freelance work for home organizing and babysitting (which I LOVE with all my heart) is not, I admit, practicing writing.
I used to live where the view of the mountains was enough to make me wax philosophic and poetic. I wrote on Chehalem Mountain, inspired by the broad vista of distant green hills and snow caped peaks. Tonight there would be Mt. Adams, pink with alpenglow. What I see out the windows of my city nest is only a tiny section of sky with evening light fading lovely, but abbreviated. Yet, I appreciate living in 'town'. I find it fits what I need to be searching for at this point in my life (one year shy of 60).
I spent the day with an almost 14 month old little girl. She smiles easily, runs into my arms to cuddle, eats everything offered with great gusto and wants to touch every pretty spring tree in bloom squeezing the blossoms in her incredibly small yet strong hands. My grand daughter Kaitlyn is the miracle, milagro, of my life. I watched her climb around the play ground today, and thought of the short year it has been since I witnessed her birth. Babies are a testament to life, reminding us once again how amazing it is that we get to be here. They, new to the experience, love everything and everyone good and beautiful, want to taste most anything, and watch the world sometimes so quietly it is holy.
Am I digressing from my essay topic? Maybe not. This writing is my practice, and my practice is to describe the parts of life that inspire or move me deeply.
The potatoes are cooking, and I must check them. I guess this is where I end. In conclusion....life goes on, and even writers eat dinner.
I have several students whom I tutor in the area of essay writing and general quality sentence construction for various purposes. I thought, tonight, that if I am to teach I must certainly practice. So this here is my essay homework for tonight, and if you, my dear friends, are reading, you must be my tutor and give me honest and gentle feedback. I do really need to know.... because, dear reader, remodeling houses and running about doing freelance work for home organizing and babysitting (which I LOVE with all my heart) is not, I admit, practicing writing.
I used to live where the view of the mountains was enough to make me wax philosophic and poetic. I wrote on Chehalem Mountain, inspired by the broad vista of distant green hills and snow caped peaks. Tonight there would be Mt. Adams, pink with alpenglow. What I see out the windows of my city nest is only a tiny section of sky with evening light fading lovely, but abbreviated. Yet, I appreciate living in 'town'. I find it fits what I need to be searching for at this point in my life (one year shy of 60).
I spent the day with an almost 14 month old little girl. She smiles easily, runs into my arms to cuddle, eats everything offered with great gusto and wants to touch every pretty spring tree in bloom squeezing the blossoms in her incredibly small yet strong hands. My grand daughter Kaitlyn is the miracle, milagro, of my life. I watched her climb around the play ground today, and thought of the short year it has been since I witnessed her birth. Babies are a testament to life, reminding us once again how amazing it is that we get to be here. They, new to the experience, love everything and everyone good and beautiful, want to taste most anything, and watch the world sometimes so quietly it is holy.
Am I digressing from my essay topic? Maybe not. This writing is my practice, and my practice is to describe the parts of life that inspire or move me deeply.
The potatoes are cooking, and I must check them. I guess this is where I end. In conclusion....life goes on, and even writers eat dinner.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Stories
Sunday morning, wondering why I awaken with a story playing in my head even before I arise. As I age, I begin to see more clearly that there was a 'story' was given to me, so long ago, and in bits. It is built into a quagmire of thoughts which holds court in my brain when I am not even aware. It probably permeates my dreams.
Gerry, you come to me front and center on this morning of the week, Sunday. The day I spent years attending mass, not by choice. You are now one more dear one from my past who has gone on this fall. You were my mother-in-law, Gram to my kids. You were a Catholic girl, like my own Mom, and you both bore 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls each. You had a photo of the Pope on your mantel, but when Big Jim left you, you took the photo down. I believe at some point after that you invented yourself again. You never remarried, and maintained a life alone.
You had a story you believed about yourself, that you were slighted, cast aside, undervalued by your parents. The story continued from your childhood into your marriage. Whenever I spent time with you, I consciously tried to counteract that story. Making you feel happy was a challenge I took on, because of the way my own mother was. You were kind to me, and I so appreciated that. You appreciated the way I raised your grandsons.
Snapshot memories are what I have now, because we lived 1000 miles apart.
Christmas 1976: I showed at the Belmont, CA family home with Jim, at the last minute, and unexpected. Jim had an aversion to calling ahead. Nonetheless, you welcomed me warmly and made sure that I had a gift to open when the family exchanged presents. You gave me a pair of warm red gloves. They were useful, and I kept them a long time to remember your kindness.
Snapshot:1984. We are sitting at the Lake Crescent Lodge restaurant, having lunch. You ordered the clam chowder, and prefaced that by saying, "I've never had good clam chowder in a restaurant. I make the best chowder myself."
That statement reinforced what I had begun to fear. That going against your story would be a losing battle. Your story was one which set the stage for reasons to be discontented. There was bacon in the chowder, and that was a no no. You were right, it was not up to snuff. Luckily the water was pretty, the car didn't break down and the children were good. We sat below the Olympic Mountains on the edge of a magnificent glacial lake. This made me think, why should it be so hard to just be happy?
1989: The saddest snapshot is you and I dressing for Jimmy's memorial at our home in the Elwha Valley. I had suddenly lost a husband, and you had lost a son. I hugged you and said, "I am so sorry you lost your baby."
You hugged me back, you didn't dissolve into tears. You patted me, and I felt our connection. You, the tough mama, used to taking punches. Later you will relate that year felt like as though you were hit by a Mac Truck. That was as apt a description as I, myself, might have used. We were hit hard, tough cookies we are, but still, we can be undermined. You and I carried that burden of loss, the mother's pain.
Snapshot 2002: You meet me dressed up, in a purple dress and a red hat. We have our picture taken by another resident of San Mateo Retirement Village. Years ago I had sent you the book " When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple". This resonated with you. You loved the sentiment. Being old meant you could forget what anyone thought. Maybe at this point in your life, you were letting go, just a bit, of your story.
Snapshot: 2013, our last visit. We go to lunch at the shopping center in Belmont. Afterwards we sit in your room at the assisted living facility. You ask me to stay, change into a house dress and lie down on your couch. Now, you say, lets talk. We talk about the past, the many years since I first became a part of the 'Curtis Family'. We talk about Jimmy, the boys, the big families which comprise 22 aunts and 23 uncles for my sons. The afternoon passes pleasantly. There is a timeless element to this visit. We laugh, and we cry.
You hand me some photos I had sent you over the years. One is a little album of you and my sons, and your son, their father. You say, "Here, I want you to take this." No more need be said. You want to make sure the photos all go back to those to whom they mean the most. You are preparing to leave this life. You still have the same feisty retorts and opinionated comments that I recall from you 37 years ago when I first met you. Not much dementia has hampered your personality. Any curmudgeonly aspects are those which you have nurtured and cultivated for over 80 years.
In the final analysis, you loved your family with all the you had. You tried, I believe, in your own way, to write your story into a plot you could live with. You sent me lovely cards every now and then, reaching out when you had the energy.
I offer this writing as my formal good bye. You've gone on, to the cosmos where everything can only be one. There is no separation, there is no mind to separate, there is only memory we hold of all that has gone to make us where we are now.
Gerry, you come to me front and center on this morning of the week, Sunday. The day I spent years attending mass, not by choice. You are now one more dear one from my past who has gone on this fall. You were my mother-in-law, Gram to my kids. You were a Catholic girl, like my own Mom, and you both bore 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls each. You had a photo of the Pope on your mantel, but when Big Jim left you, you took the photo down. I believe at some point after that you invented yourself again. You never remarried, and maintained a life alone.
You had a story you believed about yourself, that you were slighted, cast aside, undervalued by your parents. The story continued from your childhood into your marriage. Whenever I spent time with you, I consciously tried to counteract that story. Making you feel happy was a challenge I took on, because of the way my own mother was. You were kind to me, and I so appreciated that. You appreciated the way I raised your grandsons.
Snapshot memories are what I have now, because we lived 1000 miles apart.
Christmas 1976: I showed at the Belmont, CA family home with Jim, at the last minute, and unexpected. Jim had an aversion to calling ahead. Nonetheless, you welcomed me warmly and made sure that I had a gift to open when the family exchanged presents. You gave me a pair of warm red gloves. They were useful, and I kept them a long time to remember your kindness.
Snapshot:1984. We are sitting at the Lake Crescent Lodge restaurant, having lunch. You ordered the clam chowder, and prefaced that by saying, "I've never had good clam chowder in a restaurant. I make the best chowder myself."
That statement reinforced what I had begun to fear. That going against your story would be a losing battle. Your story was one which set the stage for reasons to be discontented. There was bacon in the chowder, and that was a no no. You were right, it was not up to snuff. Luckily the water was pretty, the car didn't break down and the children were good. We sat below the Olympic Mountains on the edge of a magnificent glacial lake. This made me think, why should it be so hard to just be happy?
1989: The saddest snapshot is you and I dressing for Jimmy's memorial at our home in the Elwha Valley. I had suddenly lost a husband, and you had lost a son. I hugged you and said, "I am so sorry you lost your baby."
You hugged me back, you didn't dissolve into tears. You patted me, and I felt our connection. You, the tough mama, used to taking punches. Later you will relate that year felt like as though you were hit by a Mac Truck. That was as apt a description as I, myself, might have used. We were hit hard, tough cookies we are, but still, we can be undermined. You and I carried that burden of loss, the mother's pain.
Snapshot 2002: You meet me dressed up, in a purple dress and a red hat. We have our picture taken by another resident of San Mateo Retirement Village. Years ago I had sent you the book " When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple". This resonated with you. You loved the sentiment. Being old meant you could forget what anyone thought. Maybe at this point in your life, you were letting go, just a bit, of your story.
Snapshot: 2013, our last visit. We go to lunch at the shopping center in Belmont. Afterwards we sit in your room at the assisted living facility. You ask me to stay, change into a house dress and lie down on your couch. Now, you say, lets talk. We talk about the past, the many years since I first became a part of the 'Curtis Family'. We talk about Jimmy, the boys, the big families which comprise 22 aunts and 23 uncles for my sons. The afternoon passes pleasantly. There is a timeless element to this visit. We laugh, and we cry.
You hand me some photos I had sent you over the years. One is a little album of you and my sons, and your son, their father. You say, "Here, I want you to take this." No more need be said. You want to make sure the photos all go back to those to whom they mean the most. You are preparing to leave this life. You still have the same feisty retorts and opinionated comments that I recall from you 37 years ago when I first met you. Not much dementia has hampered your personality. Any curmudgeonly aspects are those which you have nurtured and cultivated for over 80 years.
In the final analysis, you loved your family with all the you had. You tried, I believe, in your own way, to write your story into a plot you could live with. You sent me lovely cards every now and then, reaching out when you had the energy.
I offer this writing as my formal good bye. You've gone on, to the cosmos where everything can only be one. There is no separation, there is no mind to separate, there is only memory we hold of all that has gone to make us where we are now.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Alma
Alma is a beautiful woman who works in the dining room of the assisted living building where my parents now live. When she works at our table, I exclaim, "Buenos dias, como estas!"
She smiles, and answers. "Muy bien, gracias, y tu?"
When she takes my mom's dinner order, she squats down low to be at face level, and close because Mom's voice is quiet and a bit weak from the Parkinson's. I adore this dear woman, even if she did not let me speak my childish Spanish, and look gratefully and happily upon my endeavors to play at language.
I look 'Alma' up, and see a definition that means 'core'. I think soul and grace also define Alma. When I see her face, I want to thank her own kind parents for bringing this lovely soul into the world, who made it somehow from Mexico City and Estado Hidalgo, MX to Bellevue, Washington, USA. She is not alone, there are many staff at Overlake Terrace who are not ethnically white, European, US born. This is a plus, because it seems that every culture values the elders more than my own.
When I watch Alma I think of how I am with small children in a classroom, I bend low to have my face at the same level as theirs. It is a response of heart softening, of grace for all beings to feel equanimity. It is instinctive for a mother, a father, a person who feels empathy and respect for those most vulnerable. When I see the staff do this with my parents, I want to jump up and hug them, I want to leave a tip, I want to call their parents and rave about how much I appreciate their kid. I want to write about how good people are, how very good and kind.
Alma tells us we are her favorites, because we are "sociable, amigable". My Mom and Dad smile. We all smile. It is a lovely life moment, to feel such universal love.
She smiles, and answers. "Muy bien, gracias, y tu?"
When she takes my mom's dinner order, she squats down low to be at face level, and close because Mom's voice is quiet and a bit weak from the Parkinson's. I adore this dear woman, even if she did not let me speak my childish Spanish, and look gratefully and happily upon my endeavors to play at language.
I look 'Alma' up, and see a definition that means 'core'. I think soul and grace also define Alma. When I see her face, I want to thank her own kind parents for bringing this lovely soul into the world, who made it somehow from Mexico City and Estado Hidalgo, MX to Bellevue, Washington, USA. She is not alone, there are many staff at Overlake Terrace who are not ethnically white, European, US born. This is a plus, because it seems that every culture values the elders more than my own.
When I watch Alma I think of how I am with small children in a classroom, I bend low to have my face at the same level as theirs. It is a response of heart softening, of grace for all beings to feel equanimity. It is instinctive for a mother, a father, a person who feels empathy and respect for those most vulnerable. When I see the staff do this with my parents, I want to jump up and hug them, I want to leave a tip, I want to call their parents and rave about how much I appreciate their kid. I want to write about how good people are, how very good and kind.
Alma tells us we are her favorites, because we are "sociable, amigable". My Mom and Dad smile. We all smile. It is a lovely life moment, to feel such universal love.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Words
He asks me, my earnest 11 year old student, "If blunder means the same as mistake, why are there two words for the same thing?"
I have to think fast. "Well, I was wrong. They aren't the same thing. If I say that I committed a blunder, that would be a more formal way to say that I made a mistake. Words are nuanced."
This puts me into a deeper hole out of which to explain myself.
He asks, "Why do there have to be so many words that mean the same thing?" This is an honest question. I start in on my story of the 1600 years of English, all the tribes and countries that shared language between them, continuously adding words that are marvelously specific. This only makes my young student look at me quizzically.
"What is formal?" He asks.
Now I have to think. How would you describe 'formal'? It means many things, and has several connotations as well as denotations. Words are not cold stone, they are molten lava.
I give it my best, describing what I would wear if I were dressing up to be formal. I ask him what he would wear to be formal. He doesn't know. He doesn't have anything to dress up for yet. I try another analogy, of how people talk or write in order to sound formal. I think he gets this one.
There are over 250,000 distinct words cataloged in the Oxford English Dictionary. This does not include some technical jargon terms and slang. For me, as a writer and speaker, this is impressive and makes me proud of my native tongue. On the teaching end it is a huge challenge to keep new learners from feeling rightfully overwhelmed.
It remains a privilege to be able to spend the better part of an hour discussing words with young minds, even with all the ambiguities, varied synonyms and cultural connotations which are included in the process of understanding how to actually use a word in a sentence. Somehow I feel as though I am influencing the future in a lovely way. I imagine the words we cover to be little lights, stars to see the future by, to describe mysteries, to tell of love and loss and all that goes between. At some point in time this young man will know the difference between love and romance, nuance and difference, formal and casual, blunder and mistake. For now we navigate the strange vast land of Words on a cool fall evening in October, as the light gives way to some softness a word might aptly describe, if I could find it.
I have to think fast. "Well, I was wrong. They aren't the same thing. If I say that I committed a blunder, that would be a more formal way to say that I made a mistake. Words are nuanced."
This puts me into a deeper hole out of which to explain myself.
He asks, "Why do there have to be so many words that mean the same thing?" This is an honest question. I start in on my story of the 1600 years of English, all the tribes and countries that shared language between them, continuously adding words that are marvelously specific. This only makes my young student look at me quizzically.
"What is formal?" He asks.
Now I have to think. How would you describe 'formal'? It means many things, and has several connotations as well as denotations. Words are not cold stone, they are molten lava.
I give it my best, describing what I would wear if I were dressing up to be formal. I ask him what he would wear to be formal. He doesn't know. He doesn't have anything to dress up for yet. I try another analogy, of how people talk or write in order to sound formal. I think he gets this one.
There are over 250,000 distinct words cataloged in the Oxford English Dictionary. This does not include some technical jargon terms and slang. For me, as a writer and speaker, this is impressive and makes me proud of my native tongue. On the teaching end it is a huge challenge to keep new learners from feeling rightfully overwhelmed.
It remains a privilege to be able to spend the better part of an hour discussing words with young minds, even with all the ambiguities, varied synonyms and cultural connotations which are included in the process of understanding how to actually use a word in a sentence. Somehow I feel as though I am influencing the future in a lovely way. I imagine the words we cover to be little lights, stars to see the future by, to describe mysteries, to tell of love and loss and all that goes between. At some point in time this young man will know the difference between love and romance, nuance and difference, formal and casual, blunder and mistake. For now we navigate the strange vast land of Words on a cool fall evening in October, as the light gives way to some softness a word might aptly describe, if I could find it.
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