Old Girl of the North Country Revisited

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Just now I copied and pasted the results from Google images when I entered the words "Old Girl Of The North Country", and the result was this mosaic of images that tells some of the story of where I've been and what I've been thinking about over the years that I've had this blog.

A Birthday in June

"Angel Brings What Is Desired" / "... I want to thank you for letting me be myself again ..."

Paul Klee, Ein Genius serviert ein kleines Früstück (A Spirit Serves a Little Breakfast) or Engel bringt das Gewünschte (Angel Brings What Is Desired), 1920; lithograph with watercolor.

"Lookin' at the devil

Grinnin' at his gun

Fingers start shakin'

I begin to run

Bullets start chasin'

I begin to stop

We begin to wrestle

I was on the top

I want to thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Stiff all in the collar

Fluffy in the face

Chit chat chatter tryin'

Stuffy in the place

Thank you for the party

But I could never stay

Many thangs is on my mind

Words in the way

I want to thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Dance to the music

All nite long

Everyday people

Sing a simple song

Mama's so happy

Mama start to cry

Papa still singin'

You can make it if you try

I want to thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

(Different strokes for different folks, yeah)

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Flamin' eyes of people fear

Burnin' into you

Many men are missin' much

Hatin' what they do

Youth and truth are makin' love

Dig it for a starter, now

Dyin' young is hard to take

Sellin' out is harder

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

I want to thank you falettinme be mice elf agin

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

Thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin

I want to thank you falettinme

Be mice elf agin"

-- Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), Sly and the Family Stone, 1969

This morning I received an email announcement for an art exhibit at The Contemporary Jewish Museum and wished I lived closer to San Francisco and could easily visit.  In particular, I liked the painting by Paul Klee and thought I would like to use it in a blog post today. 

Later this morning, soon after the summer solstice* had occurred, I was sitting in a cafe eating soup and talking with a friend and was startled because I thought I could hear a song that I haven't heard for years and which I clearly remember hearing on the car radio in 1970 while Richard was in Vietnam and in the five turbulent months we lived together after his return.  With all the noise in the cafe, I had to strain to be sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing, while trying to listen to my friend at the same time.  I felt something stirring in my heart. 

Then I remembered that today was the day in 2008 that half of Richard's ashes were buried at San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery.  As most of you know, I had driven south nearly 1000 miles to be at his bedside at the Palo Alto VA Hospital and to say goodbye the week before he died on April 20. Something told me I needed to return to the north after saying that goodbye.  It had not been at all easy to leave his ICU room, and a nurse talked with me and assured me that I had done all I could do and encouraged me to let him go.  Later I learned that soon after I told him I loved him and said goodbye and that it was okay to go toward the light, he slipped into a coma.  The doctors and staff told his sister that it appeared that he had been waiting for me, that he had held on to life way beyond what had been expected.  At times I feel guilty for not having stayed with him until the moment of his death.  At other times, I wonder if he needed for me to say goodbye so that he could let go.  I have heard many stories since then of similar circumstances where a dying person will not die until someone visits and the letting go into death process begins.

I didn't return to California for the memorial service.  Later I learned that his youngest brother had scattered the other half of his ashes at the ocean near where Richard and I had met 42 years previously.  

The young waitress who served us this morning had a small simple elegant tattoo on the triceps of her left arm.  It was all one dark color --  a stylized Japanese-style flower with five round petals within a circle and a few other marks. The entire tattoo was about 2 inches in diameter. I'd recognize it again if I saw it but couldn't find one like it on Google images. 

On June 20, 2008, I had posted this.  The tattoo on the arm of the young waitress brought to my mind the drawings on the backs of envelopes that Richard had done while on the airplane on his way to Vietnam in January of 1970.  

On her inner left wrist there was another tattoo. It was simply the word Peace.

When the young waitress brought the check, I told her of the series of coincidences.  Her eyes widened and she smiled tentatively and then said, "That gives me the heebie jeebies."

While working on this post, I received an email from PeaceTrees Vietnam, announcing a Citizen Diplomacy trip to Vietnam at the end of September.  I had hoped Richard and I could visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or Vietnam and find the healing that eluded us while he was alive.

When I stopped at the grocery store on my way home, the sales receipt was for $19.68.  It was in 1968 that Richard and I made a commitment to each other that lasted 40 years.  

Yesterday the day lilies on my porch began to bloom.  It's been raining steadily all day long, and it is an extraordinarily beautiful day:

"... I want to thank you for letting me be myself again..."

"...take what you have gathered from coincidence..." 

*... this year, the solstice happens on Thursday, June 20 for places in North America west of the Central Time Zone, occuring at 11:04 P.M Mountain Daylight Time and 10:04 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time. 

Addendum:  I received this in an email yesterday as well.

"... Meanwhile all the barns started talking to each other ..."

Meanwhile all the barns started talking to each other. "We feel mighty lonely," they said, "without any cows or any chickens. I guess we'll have to go find them." So the barns picked themselves off their foundations and galumphed down the road, and s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d themselves into that corner store, believe it or not. Did you ever hear a rusty hinge on a barn door? That's the way the barns sang: Eeeee, eeeeeeeeee.

(Pete Seeger, from an animated cartoon from 1971)

A celebration of cartoons and cartoonists on a perfect cloudy cool Western Washington June day with some rain

Very Semi-Serious

Baby Blue Eyes Blooming on a Grey June Day

A Play Of Light During Caffeine Withdrawal

(enlarge webcam photos for full effect)

Last night as I was about to go to bed after my third day of a steady headache from caffeine withdrawal, I looked at the webcam of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome and ended up staying awake for another 45 minutes to watch the play of light that held my attention despite the headache and my weariness.

This is the 4th time I've gone through caffeine withdrawal.  Until I was 30 years old and was in the process of returning to college to finish up my Bachelor's degree in English Literature and Art, I didn't drink coffee at all.  I had lived with low-level depression and lack of energy all my life, and the discovery of the positive effects of coffee seemed to be like magic.  Suddenly I felt better than I had ever felt.  I could stay awake all day long and was full of creative energy.  Then I began to develop withdrawal headaches if I missed my caffeine dosage and developed gastritis with accompanying nausea and lack of appetite.  I continued using caffeine for at least a year beyond the onset of those symptoms until I felt ill on a daily basis -- worse than I had ever felt.  After the first 5-day withdrawal from caffeine, I vowed never to drink coffee again despite how much I missed the lifting of my spirits that coffee gave me.

In the late summer of 2007, in hopes of becoming a massage therapist, I was studying for an anatomy and physiology challenge exam and experimented briefly with caffeine.  I decided against taking the challenge exam, and instead made plans to undergo an intensive yoga teacher training.   In late September of 2007, while taking that rigorous yoga teacher training, I began using caffeine again so that I would have enough energy to wake up before 5 a.m. and go to sleep after 9 p.m. Again, I was delighted by the feeling of creative energy.  I did experience headaches, but I continued using caffeine until 2009, when recurring headaches were undermining my sense of well-being.  I knew what to expect from withdrawal and vowed again that I was through with caffeine.

In 2010, while starting a new job after being unemployed for several years, I chose to use caffeine to keep me awake for the entire workday and to give me that added sense of well-being.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the job didn't turn out well, and I ended up quitting the job in despair.  During this time of caffeine use, my pulse and blood pressure began to rise alarmingly, and I suffered from recurrent headaches.  Once again, I withdrew from caffeine.  My pulse and blood pressure returned to normal, and the frequency of headaches lessened.

At the beginning of this May, during a stressful period where I was called for jury duty, I decided to try using caffeine again. In addition to needing the energy for the days of jury duty, I was and am acutely aware of my need to find a job, and I question whether I have the energy for even a part-time workday. At first, I had that wonderful lifting of my spirits and high energy. Then I began to wake up in the mornings with a dull headache that would leave only after I had some caffeine in my system.

Given that I had been waking up feeling unusually good for the past few months, the artificial lifting of my spirits from the caffeine didn't compensate for the dull headache I was having upon awakening, and so I decided to go through caffeine withdrawal again.

I know that in the next few days I will be feeling much better than I do now.  Will have to find another way to a sense of well-being and energy that lasts the whole day long.

I am grateful for that play of light during caffeine withdrawal.

"When one finally arrives at the point where schedules are forgotten, and becomes immersed in ancient rhythms, one begins to live."
(Sigurd F. Olson)

"There exists a universal human voice ..."

The Ballad of Hollis Brown

There exists a universal human voice of much broader circumference than has hitherto been imagined."
(Alfred Wolfsohn, The Biography of an Idea)

He realized that what matters is not whether life loves us, but that we love life and are able to express that love.
(from a lecture on Alfred Wolfsohn and Charlotte Salomon by Sheila Braggins in 2007)

Self-portrait by Charlotte Salomon, 1940

First Day Of June 2013

Memorial Day 2013 / Silent Meditation

Celebrating Bob Dylan's 72nd birthday today

My heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me
-- Bob Dylan (lyrics from "Mississippi")

Solace in all troubles

I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

(Anne Frank)

In memory of a dear friend to many in our community

Here is a man who found forgiveness in his heart and carried a message of love.

In his memory, please listen:

Gracias

Listening for an owl before dawn / Hearing a train

If you would like to hear a train and don't have time to listen to birds, go to the end of the video.  My goal was to record the sound of what I thought might be an owl.  The owl remained silent, but at the end of the video, you will hear the sound of a train from three miles away.

I am reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret after having watched Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."  There are trains running through that story, and from that story I have a new appreciation of trains, train stations, clocks, automata, books, children, silent films, Paris in 1931, World War I veterans, writing, drawing,  adventure ...

Just like a wheel / Mousie Brown's ingenuity

Does anyone remember this childrens' song?

He ran up the candlestick

The little mousie brown

To steal and eat some tallow

But he could not get down.

He cried, "Mama, do come quick!"

But Mama was in town

So he rolled up just like a wheel

And rollee-rolled, rollee-rolled,

Rolled himself right down.

I know I don't have the tune exactly right, but that is close to what I can hear in my mind.  As a child, I was not allowed to sing in the Glee Club in grade school or in the Glee Club in junior high because I have trouble carrying a tune.  The part of my brain that carries tunes doesn't work as well as the part of my brain that allows me to draw, and I've always been ashamed of not being able to carry a tune.  Today I can hear that I sing like a child who is still learning to sing, and I'm not ashamed of my voice.  

When I looked around on YouTube, I found a different version with a different tune and a grandma instead of a mama.

Here is the Chinese Mother Goose version:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40425/40425-h/40425-h.htm#THE_MOUSE

As a child of the 1950s and to this day, I am boundlessly delighted by Mousie Brown's ingenuity.  

Ain't it just like a wheel to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?  

Remembering my mother on Mother's Day 2013

Although I am not a mother and was never even pregnant, I am moved by Rachel Barenblat's essay on motherhood.  If I had read an essay like that when I was younger, I would not have been so afraid of being someone's mother.

These two photos of my mother and me were taken by my father, probably in 1950.

My guess is that the photo below was taken in the early 1980s, if not late 1970s.  I remember first seeing that photo and thinking that my mother looked younger than I did.  My sisters and I all grew up to be taller than our mother. That is one of the few photos of just my mother and me as adults.  I can only think of one other.  The photo was taken by my father at Anchor Bay, California, a few miles up the coast from where my parents lived after my sisters and I had grown up, and my father had retired.

Beginning in the late 1980s, my relationship with my mother underwent stresses that were not worked out before she died in 1994. Now I understand that she had a similar relationship with her mother.

As I was watching "Hugo" a few days ago on DVD, I thought it was something that my mother would have enjoyed seeing:

2005 / Thich Nhat Hanh's First Time in Vietnam since 1965

One day when I was in Paris as a representative of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation, to be present at the Paris Peace Talks, I received a phone message from Saigon, telling me that four social workers had just been shot and killed.  I cried.  It was I who had asked them to come and be trained as social workers.

A friend who was there with me, said, "Thây, you are a kind of general leading a nonviolent army, and when your army is working for love and reconciliation, there will surely be casualties.  There is no need to cry."

I said, "I am not a general.  I am a human being.  I need to cry." Six months later, I wrote a play about the deaths of these students, titled The Path of Return Continues the Journey.

(Quoted from For a Future to Be Possible (2008), by Thich Nhat Hanh)

(The play mentioned above can be found in the book Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (1993), by Thich Nhat Hanh)

Martin Luther King, Jr., with Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966.

Thich Nhat Hanh visiting in Hue, Vietnam, in 2005:

Read about Nobel Peace Prize 2013 nomination campaign here.

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da from Japan

Many thanks to Doonesbury's video archives.

Wish I could play my ukulele and sing as well as this young man.  I'm working on it (-:

Whatcom Falls Park 5-Mile Walk Meditation

"Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be," writes Agnes Martin. "I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step."

(quote from here)

Another view from my yoga mat

(from the 2013 Yoga Cats Calendar, by Daniel Borris, "Triangle Pose Variation")

While in Chaturanga Dandasana, a part of my variation of the Sun Salutation, I noticed the moon in my field of vision and made this little video:

If you turn up the sound on the video above and listen closely, you will hear music and chants of India, from a CD produced by George Harrison in 1997: