... and then come back to life ...

Although this is my favorite time of year, I woke up a few days ago with an uneasy feeling.  When I focused on the feeling, an image came to me of something small that was trying to grow but was hindered -- something like a plant trying to grow under a rock.  As I focused on the image, it shifted to a crumpled piece of paper, at which point I remembered a poem I wrote for a poetry class I took in 1967, during my first year of college:

All the babies were whining for candy

everyone I talked to said they

hated the weather

the poems in my head

had all been savagely crumpled

by my mind's hand

and when I went out to talk to the ocean

I found it had been drained

and put in storage

only an infinity of water tanks

remained

upon 

the silent sand

The professor wrote "good."

While sorting through some stacks of CDs this morning, I found this, torn from a calendar block in February of 2008, during the last months of Richard's life:

Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life -- after that you cannot be deceived.

(Zen saying)

"We died and were reborn and left mysteriously saved."

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Oh Sister")

Listen to Bob Dylan at 23 years old, being interviewed on the Les Crane Show:

Crane: There is a message ...
Dylan: Yeah.
Crane: ... in almost everything you say. What is your main message?
Dylan: Eat?
Crane: No, I don't think that's it. And that's a cute answer but that's not the message.
Dylan: Yeah. Aah. My main message is, ah, you know (giggles), you want it in one word (giggles, audience laughs), one word!
Crane: No.
Dylan: Well, I'll tell ya Les.
Crane: Yeah, Bob.
Dylan: One word message. It's just, ah, 'Be', you know.
Crane: Be?
Dylan: Be. Be period. Is.
Crane: How about love?
Dylan: Love? That's an OK word, yeah, That's all right I guess, but it's been used a LOT, it's been used a lot.
Crane: But that's part of your message, isn't it?
Dylan: Love? Well, yeah, but everybody says that.
Crane: That doesn't make it anything wrong with it.
Dylan: No, yeah, anybody can say it.
Crane: What about 'swing'?
Dylan: Swing? That's a good message.
Crane: Is that part of your message?
Dylan: Swing. Swing. Love. Be. Is. Was. Were. Double.
Crane: Double?
Dylan: Double up, once in a while.
Crane: Yeah (audience laughter). You're gonna sit there and I, I put on these duds for you tonight.
Dylan: You did?
Crane: In a tribute to you and you're gonna sit there and put me on, right?
Dylan: No, I'm not putting you *on*, everybody always thinks that (audience laughter).

The transcript came from here.

"... couldn't ask for a better grief counselor"

Thanks to this YouTube Channel:

About Dylan Den

I am a farm girl from Southwestern Ohio and proud of it.

I love my family, friends, my two cats, Nascar, Ohio State football, all music, especially Bobby Dylan.

Two years ago I lost both my husband and my father. Both of them were all about music. My husband, rock and roll, Rod Stewart primarily. My daddy, country and bluegrass. But they both had one thing in common, they both liked Bob Dylan.

I went thru all the grief counselling shit, nothing worked for me. Then I saw Bob Dylan last year, all of that changed.

This channel is dedicated to Bob Dylan. I couldn't ask for a better grief counsellor.

Bob's music has gotten me thru the toughest time in my life. I am forever grateful.

Thank you, Bob.

"Can't you hear that rooster crowin'?" / Zen Bob's Koans and the Theater of Cruelty meet the Days of Awe

Listen

"... Can't you hear that Duquesne whistle blowin'

Blowin' through another no-good town

The lights of my native land are glowing

I wonder if they'll know me next time 'round

I wonder if that old oak tree's still standin'

That old oak tree, the one we used to climb ..."

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Duquesne Whistle")

That's the Blue Moon waxing in my little video.  It will be full tomorrow night, August 31st.

This morning as I was waking up I could hear the delighted laughter of the baby boy with blue eyes who had appeared in a dream fragment.  So happy just to be alive.

Thank you to Velveteen Rabbi for the following from This is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared:  The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, by Rabbi Alan Lew:

"Look! I put before you this day a blessing and a curse."  So begins parshat Re'eh, the weekly Torah portion we read as the month of Elul begins.  Look.  Pay attention to your life.  Every moment in it is profoundly mixed.  Every moment contains a blessing and a curse.  Everything depends on seeing our lives with clear eyes, seeing the potential blessing in each moment as well as the potential curse, choosing the former, forswearing the latter (pp. 65-66)

The disturbing "Duquesne Whistle" video with its rollicking soundtrack could be a demonstration of how every moment is profoundly mixed.  And who is Bob Dylan?  The young man? The young woman? The young man lying battered on the sidewalk?  The jaded old man walking around the young man? The 71-year-old man singing, "I can hear a sweet voice suddenly calling / Must be the mother of our Lord"?  A little bit of everyone in that video? Maybe we've been treated to another of Bob's koans.  Maybe it's a nod to Antonin Artaud.  I sure don't know.  I've been listening to Bob Dylan since I was 14 years old,  and I'm grateful for the presence of his mysterious creative energy in this world of curses and blessings, in which we are given the freedom to choose where we want to put our energy.

Strange Days Have Come Again / The Master of Cognitive Dissonance / "We Are The World"

Warning:  The following is not going to be easy to watch:

Duquesne Whistle

This is another side of Bob Dylan:

Bob Dylan rehearses for "We Are The World"

Last Saturday I looked up in the sky to the southwest and saw a cloud that looked like a curtain or a veil.  It was a cirrus vertebratus cloud.  That isn't my photo.  I have lost the link that identified its source.

It's time to take a long walk.

May all beings be relieved of suffering.

May love bless and keep us always.

(Or maybe it was a virga cloud.  This isn't my photo either, and the link has been lost.)

A change in the weather / Threshold time

A few weeks ago, when I went to the downtown area of Bellingham to visit the Whatcom Museum so I could see "American Quilts:  The Democratic Art," I was startled by and drawn what to turned out to be an embroidered mourning quilt (c. 1900) from California.  It reminded me of a painting I did in April of 2007 as part of my own grief process -- close to a year before I traveled from Washington to California to visit with Richard before he died.

With the change in the weather in the last few days, the sky has been putting on a splendid cloud show.  I'm a late summer, fall, and winter person.  It is threshold time again.  I feel a sense of relief and anticipation as the days grow shorter and cooler.  I walk throughout the year no matter what the weather, but late summer and fall are my favorite seasons for walking in and around Bellingham.  I've decided not to travel away from Washington this fall.  There is so much beauty and variety here in Western Washington as well as Eastern Washington.  If I do travel at all, I will go over the mountains to Eastern Washington.

Above this there is supposed to be a short video of the sky as seen from my porch this afternoon.  It shows up on the preview but not when I publish.  I'll try publishing this post once more.

Laughter and creativity

Thanks to whiskey river for these insights into laughter and creativity:

"A great many people don't know how to laugh at all. A man can give himself away completely by his laughter, so that you suddenly learn all of his innermost secrets. Laughter calls first of all for sincerity, and where does one find sincerity? Sincere and unspiteful laughter is mirth. A man's mirth is a feature that gives away the whole man, from head to foot. Someone's character won't be cracked for a long time, then the man bursts out laughing somehow quite sincerely, and his whole character suddenly opens up as if on the flat of your hand. Only a man of the loftiest and happiest development knows how to be mirthful infectiously, that is, irresistibly and goodheartedly. I'm not speaking of his mental development, but of his character, of the whole man. And so, if you want to discern a man and know his soul, you must look, not at how he keeps silent, or how he speaks, or how he weeps, or even how he is stirred by the noblest ideas, but you had better look at him when he laughs. If a man has a good laugh, it means he's a good man." 

(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

"The fact is that we are living in a time when the decision to be an artist, to continue to create in spite of everything that's happening around us, IS a radical political act. This is, I feel, quite a dark time, potentially destructive to the best and most noble aspects of the human spirit. And that's precisely why it is terribly important for artists in all disciplines to continue to create, even when it feels like there's little market and little appreciation for our work. Just doing it, and making the difficult decision to continue to do it - to live creative lives that celebrate what life is and can be - is both defiant and affirming, and it's crucially important. People need to know that someone they know - a neighbor, a friend, a cousin - is committed to the arts. Young people particularly need to know this."
 (Beth Adams)
the cassandra pages
via negativa

"... 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I don't need your organization' ...'"

Thanks to the Doonesbury website for "Alan Watts Animated."

While I was out walking by Bellingham Bay this morning I could hear Bob Dylan singing "I'll Keep It With Mine" in my mind.

That's Oboe up there looking out of her cat-tree house.

I'm still in quiet mode, enjoying these late summer days and nights.

Here's what Bob Dylan was singing in 1978:



The years are flying by.  How could 1978 be 34 years ago?

With fall approaching, I am feeling some creative energy again.  In this last week, I had that recurring dream that the open ocean is right here in Bellingham instead of hours away.  After I write this blog post, I am going to move my 36" wide work table to a place in my living room where I can open it out to 60" in length.   

I've been checking out the recently released 1940 census of the United States of America.  I found my father at age 26.   Couldn't find my mother and grandfather, although I did find the boarding house where they were living in Los Angeles in 1940 according to a photo in my mother's photo album, and I did find my mother's brother, sister-in-law, and niece who also lived in Los Angeles.  

I also found Jack Kerouac at age 18:

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K4VT-JM6

A view from my porch here and now:

And Oboe here and now under the Poor Man's Orchid:

 Still wondering about Bob Dylan's "Tempest" to be released on September 11th.

I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay
And pensively stood by his tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say,
"How sweetly I sleep here alone.The tempest may howl and the loud thunder roar,
And gathering storms may arise,
But calm is my feeling, at rest is my soul.
The tears are all wiped from my eyes.
The cause of my Master compelled me from home,
No kindred or relative nigh.
I met the contagion and sank to the tomb,
My soul flew to mansions on high.
Go tell my companion and children most dear
To weep not for me now I'm gone.
The same hand that led me through scenes most severe
Has kindly assisted me home."

"I can't provide for you no easy answers

Who are you that I should have to lie?"

(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky" -- 1985)

Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, by Emma Lazarus:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

In the midst of writing this blog post, I heard two clips from "Tempest":

Gives me a chill.  Yep.

"Dear Word Detective: I was researching the origin of the word "yup" and Google sent me to your discussion about the term "sea change" being found in The Tempest. You wrote, "Well, as old William Shakespeare himself would say, 'yup."' I did not find any mention, beyond your Shakespearean quote, of "yup" on your web site. Did someone other than Shakespeare create the word "yup"? -- Linda Roberts.
Yup. Actually, if you read that sentence you quoted closely, you'll notice that I never said that Shakespeare said (or wrote) "yup." I said that he "would" have said "yup." I meant that he would have said it if he'd been born in, say, Texas, sometime after about 1900. As it happened, however, boy Willie was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His equivalent of "yup" was probably something along the lines of "verily" or "forsooth," neither of which has ever been very popular in Texas."

Yup.  It's been that kind of summer.

"Do you know the way to Cold Mountain?"

Something to listen to.  Thanks to Meng-hu at Hermitary for bringing this to my attention.

Those are Poor Man's Orchids behind my Amaryllis plant that decided to bloom a few days ago after not blooming for seven years.

My days have been full.  Still reading my favorite blogs on a daily basis but am in quiet mode.

Just finished reading The Long Walk:  The Story of War and the Life That Follows, by Brian Castner.  Not any easier to read than What It Is Like To Go To War, by Karl Marlantes, but well worth reading to  get a sense of what soldiers and veterans of our current wars are experiencing.

Now I'm re-reading The Spiritual Life of Children, by Robert Coles. Here's an excerpt:

"Here, for example, is what I eventually heard (in 1975) from a ten-year-old Hopi girl I'd known for almost two years:  'The sky watches us and listens to us.  It talks to us, and it hopes we are ready to talk back.  The sky is where the God of the Anglos lives, a teacher told us.  She asked where our God lives.  I said, 'I don't know.' I was telling the truth! Our God is the sky, and lives wherever the sky is. Our God is the sun and the moon, too; and our God is our [the Hopi] people, if we remember to stay here [on the consecrated land]. This is where we're supposed to be, and if we leave, we lose God.'
Did she explain the above to the teacher?
'No.'
'Why?'
'Because--she thinks God is a person. If I'd told her, she'd give us that smile.'
'What smile?'
'The smile that says to us, 'You kids are cute, but you're dumb; you're different--and you're all wrong!'
'Perhaps you could have explained to her what you've just tried to explain to me.'
'We tried a long time ago; our people spoke to the Anglos and told them what we think, but they don't listen to hear us; they listen to hear themselves, my dad says, and he hears them all day. [He was a truck driver]. My grandmother says they live to conquer the sky, and we live to pray to it, and you can't explain yourself to people who conquer--just pray for them, too. So we smile and say yes to them all the time, and we pray for them.'

... she had seemed a quiet, aloof girl who never had much to offer during our discussions at school, and now here we were standing on the side of a gentle hill near her home, and she was taking 'nature' quite seriously and letting me know that we are also part of that 'nature,' not outside it as perhaps I thought."

"What Makes You Beautiful"

Thanks to Doonesbury's video archive (-:

"Just Breathe"

Just finished watching Buck. "Just Breathe" is part of the sound track.

This is the time of year that I might see a hummingbird or a Steller's Jay or an immature Red-Winged Blackbird on the railing.  This is the time of year that it might be 80 degrees on the porch, and the cattails might be moving in the breeze.  The sky might look white rather than blue because of the moisture in the air.  I might walk out in the early morning and think to myself, "There is a hint of fall in the air."

It's something about the change in the angle of the light.  Summer days are brief and sweet here in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks to Whiskey River for this:

"People are frightened of themselves. It's like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we're supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege."
 - Marilynne Robinson
The Art of Fiction No. 198
the paris review
settled things strange

Book review: MATTERHORN and WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR

From Matterhorn:  

Mellas's throat ached.  Tears crowded close behind his eyelids.  But the ache was never released, and the tears never broke through.  Emptiness filled his soul." (p. 378)

For the first 378 pages of Karl Marlantes' 566-page novel, Matterhorn, I was numb, distanced, and without tears.  From page 378 on, I was with Mellas and his rifle platoon of Marines in Vietnam in 1969.  Now I'm remembering a time in the early 1970s when a friend, a Navy veteran, seeing my tears as he drank himself into oblivion,  said, "You'll have to cry for me. I can't." While still reading Matterhorn,  I bought Karl Marlantes' What It Means To Go To War.  The woman who sold me that book said that she had tried and had not been able to finish reading Matterhorn, but that she planned to try to read What It Means To Go To War.  Her face tightened with pain. 

Karl Marlantes' two books show the influence of his study of Carl Jung's writings.  This comes to mind:

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.

"Psychology and Religion" (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140
From What It Is Like To Go To War: 
"Maybe some veterans did feel horrible and sick every time they killed another man, just the way many people think they ought to.  I'm also sure some of the people telling me they'd feel horrible and sick could very well feel that way if they ever had to do it. But they didn't have to.  I did.  And I didn't feel that way.  And it makes me angry when people lay on me what i ought to have felt.  More important, it obscures the truth.
What I feel now, forty years later, is sadness." (p. 27)
From the back cover of What It Is Like To Go To War:
"What It Is Like To Go To War is a courageous, noble, and intelligent grapple with myth, history, and spirituality that beautifully elevates the cultural conversation on the role of the military in today's world. It is an emotional, honest, and affecting primer for all Americans on war and the national psyche, and we ignore this book at our own peril." -- Ed Conklin, Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara
After Karl Marlantes' decades-long search for a publisher for Matterhorn, it was a woman, Kit Duane, senior editor and managing editor of El León Literary Arts, who read his book and loved it and passed it on to the publisher, Thomas Farber,  and they decided to buy it.  In an extended interview on C-SPAN, Marlantes notes that it was a series of women who first read the novel and recognized its worth, which led to it being published by Grove/Atlantic in 2010.
From What It Is Like To Go To War:
"She and my first wife shared the not uncommon and deeply disturbing experience of living with a man with post-traumatic stress disorder without knowing where all the craziness was coming from.  These women are veterans of a different war. (my italics) 
These are not easy books to read.  I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning with a delayed reaction to reading the following from What It Is Like To Go To War:
"Two nights later a dark presence entered my bedroom, waking me from a sound sleep, a presence so malignant and evil it seemed to fill the room with dark oppressive liquid, squeezing the very air from my lungs." (p. 199)
This early morning I felt that dark presence for the third time in my life.  The first time was while Richard was in Vietnam. The second time was in September of 2001 when I was on my way to visit Richard after he had been given a terminal lung cancer diagnosis.  This early morning when I felt that dark presence again, larger than ever,  I called to mind and heart Karl Marlantes and his veteran friend, Bear, the nephew of a Chumash shaman.  I recalled their courage and the way with which they dealt with that presence.  I was no longer alone.  The dark presence left.  If that's not a good enough reason to read Karl Marlantes' books, I don't know what is.
(The three paintings above were painted in gouache and watercolor by am, from my experiences as "a veteran of a different war.")
(Blogger is messing up again.  In preview, this looks fine, but when I publish it, there are a variety of fonts.  Oh well.  I'm getting better at using the new Blogger)
Update from July 27, 2012 -- Listen to Bill Moyers and Karl Marlantes:
http://billmoyers.com/segment/karl-marlantes-on-what-its-like-to-go-to-war/

"... transmuted into a power that can move the world"

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world. 
  – Mahatma Gandhi

(Two untitled gouache and watercolor paintings by am, early 1980s)

Teresa of Ávila and the tempest

"Most artists work all the time. Especially the good ones. I mean, what else is there to do?" (David Hockney) 

(Photo taken of a section of the therapy garden area at St. Joseph Medical Center, South Campus, Bellingham, WA)

Looking out the window in the morning from the Community Food Co-op: 

New from Bob Dylan, to be released on September 11, with Teresa of Ávila on the CD cover.

"So it is, in truth; for I used frequently to recollect how our Lord, when the tempest arose, commanded the winds to be still over the sea."

(Teresa of Ávila)

Update from September 2, 2012:

Thanks to Michael Gray Outtakes for the correction.  It isn't Teresa of Avila after all, although it is reminiscent of her.  

Lyrics from "When the Deal Goes Down":

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom (am's italics) grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down

"Intuition Free" (a partial view)

Near the end of my 1-1/2 hour walk up the hill and back, I stopped in at Big Rock Garden to see a large sculpture by Ann Morris of Lummi Island.  The young horse stepping out moves me every time.

Looking at the sun shining in and thinking about what I eat and what the world eats

Take a look here.

This summer I'm eating generous amounts of a wide variety of delicious vegetables (including lots of fresh ginger root) and fresh salmon.  I've been cooking up a rich broth from salmon scraps and creating delicious soups full of vegetables and salmon.  I've been introduced to coconut flour and coconut oil recently and am enjoying them, too.  For me, food is one of life's pleasures.  It didn't used to be that way.  Learning to live in peace with food and with life has been an ongoing process for me.

 Here is some of my story from past blog posts.

I took this photo with a self-timer when I was 34 years old and had been actively bulimic since I was 17 years old.  Next to me is one of my paintings, "Woman Trying to Remember What She is Trying to Forget."

This is a photo taken at the Mt. Baker Ski Area when I was almost 36 years old.  My lowest adult weight was 10 pounds below this.  At the time, this photo was taken, I was still hoping to lose 10 more pounds.  People were beginning to comment on my weight loss in a concerned way.

There are no photos of me at my lowest weight.  That was in the spring of 1970.  I was 20 years old.  At my lowest weight, my goal was still to lose 10 more pounds.

Last fall, I discovered a world-wide community of bloggers who have had many of the experiences I had and survived to tell their stories.  I am deeply grateful for these blogs.  

If any of my readers have friends or family suffering from eating disorders, my hope is that they, too, find healing in this supportive community or in whatever way works for them.

Thank you, in particular, to the writers of these blogs that I have been reading since last fall:

Faith and Meow

My funny little life

Coffee Addict

and this new one:

Gentle Perseverance

Oboe: Cat From the Pacific Northwest Country

This is Oboe's strategy for keeping cool

My new shades were installed just in time for the relatively warm weather here today.

I hope that people living in unbearably hot places get some relief soon.

"Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible." -- Doris Lessing

Noonday rain and then noonday sun

Walking by Bellingham Bay on July 3rd

Walking up the hill from Lake Whatcom on July 5th -- View of Bellingham Bay and Lummi Island

Note the odd duck at the pond near Northridge Park

Rufous-sided Towhee

Heading back down the hill

Almost home

The "Where Will Your Spirit Walk?" Koan

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering -- Jane Austen, novelist (1775-1817) 

Some of the most painful days of my life were spent at the ocean or in my own home, including my childhood home as well as the place Richard and I lived for about five months after his return from Vietnam, and other places that I called home, the last of which is this place I have called home since October of 1984.  

Jane Austen's quote opened up something in me -- the realization that even when my perception was that I was experiencing nothing but suffering, it was in contrast to having previously experienced transcendent joy. 

Richard has never been far from my thoughts since we met as 17 year olds.  If we had had a traditional marriage and a long life together, today would have been our 44th anniversary.  

In this moment, though, I can feel something shifting in connection with the suffering I experienced in relationship to him.  The suffering is in the past. There is an unexpected opening for joy in its place in the present, born of that timeless transcendent joy I experienced so long ago when I first met Richard.    

My experience is that one does not love a person the less for having suffered in connection with that person's alcoholism, drug addiction, or mental illness. 

All suffering, nothing but suffering.  All joy, nothing but joy.  I can remember experiencing moments of both with Richard.  Without our joy, our suffering would have had no context. Without our suffering, our joy would have had no context.

In recent years, I have met others who have suffered in ways I can't even imagine, and yet they speak of the joy in their lives as well as the suffering.

The film clip ends in the place in my living room where I practice the asanas.  For me, yoga is where joy and suffering meet in a place of love. 

Did you hear birds outside, Oboe's voice, the sound of the electric fan in the kitchen, and the sound of the clock ticking?  It wasn't until the third time I watched the clip, that saw I Oboe!

Now I am reminded of an old post of mine, "Like a rolling koan," and William Blake came to mind:

"Man was made for joy and woe

Then when this we rightly know

Through the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine

A clothing for the soul to bind."

(William Blake)

and this, which was playing on the radio in my VW in July of 1968:

We were married on a Tuesday afternoon, a few minutes walk from this section of Miramar Beach, California.  Half of Richard's ashes were scattered by his brother not far from this place where we met as 17 year olds:

Photo credit:  Ana Preza

As Leonard Cohen observed, many loved before us.  Many will love after us.  Love is a story that keeps unfolding through the generations.

For my 63rd birthday in October, I'm looking into a visit at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, the place where Georgia O'Keeffe first stayed for a month in 1934 when she was 47 years old.  She moved to New Mexico when she was 62 years old.  That was in 1949, the year I was born.  She lived in New Mexico for 37 years until her death at 98 years old.

Georgia O'Keeffe said, "When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore ... unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone."

Where will your spirit walk?

"... what is your Original Face?" (Eno, Sixth Patriarch of Zen)

(Today I can't seem to figure out how to get the fonts and font sizes to match.  Perseverance furthers.)

Richard used to laugh and say, "It's always NOW."

I remember 

being 5 years old and how excited my mother was when I 

showed that drawing of a horse to her.

We've looked at it before here on this blog.

Listen to Einstein's theory explained.

(Thanks to Doonesbury's video archive for the inspiration) 

It's a treasure. That's where

I found the Robb Armstrong video, too.

Still reading Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. 

I'm a little more than halfway through the 566 pages.

My perspective is being transformed.

"The numbers would eventually 

lead a somber man, sickened

by the job he had to do, to 

some woman's door, to let

her know that her husband

or son would be coming home

wrapped in rubber.  The body

would arrive in the early morning

hours so that the people at the

airport wouldn't be disturbed."

(p. 361, Matterhorn)

Remembering the early morning of

December 1970

at the San Francisco International Airport 

when Richard arrived home from

Vietnam.  By the time I got there, airport was empty

except for us.  

Remembering 

that Richard signed up for art and music

classes at the local community 

college for Winter Quarter of 1971.  

Remembering that

in his last months on earth he painted. 

Remembering his laughter, his exquisite sense of humor,

and that there were 

things that he could never talk about,

except to 

say that he could never talk

about them,

 things that are coming to light through 

Karl Marlantes' novel.

Only now beginning to walk the miles

in my shoes, not his.  

(I'm not trying to write poetry here. Blogger has made it much

more difficult for me to arrange things in the way

I would like to in paragraph form.  

Today I am simply surrendering.)

Listen

Yesterday I looked out to see 

a single swallow fledgling

resting on the porch railing.  

This morning I sat in my rocking chair on the porch

and watched the day lilies blooming.

(Why won't the YouTube video stay put in the middle like the other one?  I haven't figured it out.  Yet.)

I figured it out (-: