Saturday, May 31, 2014

Bread

'As in many European countries, "pan" is Spain's basic food and taken very seriously. Not so long ago, bread consumption was 1 kg/2 1/4 lb a head per day. In Galicia, if a piece of bread is dropped, it will be picked up and kissed. Bread also plays a ritual part in weddings, anniversaries as well as death ceremonies.'

from Greatest-Ever Spanish & Tapas Recipes by Pepita Aris ©2008

Friday, May 30, 2014

offering

He dug deep and held a clod of grass and dirt before me, pellets of earth clinging to the dangling roots.

What was he offering?

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The first time I felt like a grownup was the summer I started watching The Johnny Carson Show. It came on every weekday at 10:30 at night, broadcast from a studio in Burbank, California. The guests were generally suave, the conversation genuine and sometimes a little risque. I wasn't quite able to digest the interviews at first with their references to personalities and places long gone - but there was plenty of banter with the band and Johnny's sidekick, Ed McMahon. There were performances by singers & comedians, and stunts and pranks to keep an adolescent entertained. Bright and charming, Johnny Carson seamlessly joshed with his guests until they were comfortable and bloomed on stage. I first saw Tiny Tim on his show, and Ayn Rand. I got to hear my parents' contemporaries converse about their joys and mishaps in life, and so learned a lot from Bob Hope, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Doris Day. Actresses I'd only heard of- like Olivia deHaviland- impressed me with their perfect upswept hair and sequined jackets. The early years of the program, Johnny and many of the guests smoked on stage - that dwindled and disappeared toward the 70s. Johnny Carson was hugely popular, funny, modest, always on the edge of what was proper to talk about, and never a mean word to any of his guests.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Saving Trees

During the 1970s and 80s, there were a number of individuals who lived for a while in very large Sequoia, Fir, or Redwood trees. They spent days and nights among majestic branches. Not only were they trying to protest the logging of these ancient treasures - they were hoping to prevent it. Some tied themselves to the trees when the loggers arrived. I wonder what happened to each of those trees, the giants of the California coastline. Did the attention this brought to the disappearing forests rescue any of them? At the time, I thought this protest was both risky and wacky. But part of me deeply admired a person who could so bravely stand up for a tree. Part of me wished I could be so brave, standing up for our natural homeland, standing up for the life of a tree.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

the sweet smell of rain
is flowing through my open window.
my room is dark.
my pillow, soft.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Beetlebee

Some tremendous prickly pear cacti are now in full bloom, the golden yellow petals beaming with light. Today, I looked to see what insects were attracted to the flowers. There weren't that many, but I did find a bumblebee. When I looked at it more closely, I saw that it was not any ordinary bumblebee. Its body was dark and rigid, like a beetle rather than a bee. Still, its behavior was more like that of a bumblebee, hovering alone from flower to flower. A beetlebee.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

This afternoon’s beauty in Central Texas was anchored in the wildflowers, the glowing Mexican Hats in the fields and along the sides of the roads. A light rain had washed the cedars and oaks, now the clouds of dark blues and purple were mounded beyond the trees, and the light of the lowering sun brought out rich hues, the burgeoning life of spring.

Friday, May 23, 2014

life in the waves

Yesterday, a sketch I drew earned the title 'life in the waves'. There were waves, and there were unidentifiable sea creatures riding within the breaking surface of the waves. I started to think about that phrase 'life in the waves' and wonder if oceanographers have examined the surface motions of the oceans. The creatures that came to my mind are the tiny animals that give off phosphorescent light when the waters splash or break. Watching porpoises feed at night, sometimes you can see the waters light up every time their bodies break through the surface and disturb the swaths of these creatures. Sometimes, you can see phosphorescence in the curl of waves as they break, that glittery colorful light. It's been a long time since I've been to a seashore, but those memories carry a sense of the grandeur, the deep romance of nights at the sea.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

swimming in the deep
with blindered eyes
I'm no different from
the octopus, the jellyfish,
the smallest clam -
my human grandiosity
is folly -
I give up my words.
in the dark silence
we are the sea

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

mixed mysteries

how did my teeth and bones
go so awry
how came your kindly soul
like a skipping stone
arriving from afar

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

sparrows and mice

Four sparrows the other day were flying as a small flock. Their destination was not evident. They were weaving in and out and about, as though creating a tangible fabric from invisible threads, as though there were material of weight among them.

Watching them brought to mind the Walt Disney animated movie ‘Cinderella’, from the 1950s. The cartoon sparrows and bluebirds and mice were accomplished in many ways, and one was sewing gowns. The birds wove back and forth with ribbons and threads, while the mice manned the scissors. They sang in high pitched voices a song about ‘Cinderelly, Cinderelly’ as they worked. The art was rich and colorful, the characters entertaining!

Some of Disney’s cartoonists must have had the souls and observational habits of naturalists. Movies such as this one, ‘Fantasia’, ‘Songs of the South’, ‘The Little Mermaid’ suggest a deep familiarity with the interactive nature of plants, trees, and creatures of our world.

Monday, May 19, 2014

The Swimmer

When I was in high school in the late 1960s, several of us went on a Saturday afternoon to see the movie ‘The Swimmer’ with Burt Lancaster. He was the lead, and nearly the only, character. One day, he starts to swim in a backyard pool, and then he’s going from house to house, swimming the length of the pool and moving forward to the next pool toward home. The interactions with other people seem rather cold, and he keeps pushing forward, as though trying to swim out of his life. There's an urgency in his role. I’m still wondering what all that was about.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

quilter

a quilter creates an aerial view
of a fabric countryside,
by design,
or by stitching piece by piece
discarded bits of material
that come to hand -
a comforting, crumpled world.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Before I left Louisiana to return to Texas, I was doing some backyard study of how things grow. One of the last bits of info I’d heard was that though we all seem to know we can grow a tree from a seed, few of us realize you can grow a tree from a stick. Some people take a cutting and keep it in a vase or jar of water until roots appear, usually a few weeks, then plant it in the earth. Lazy me, I was trying just jabbing interesting looking twigs into the good dirt where I’d already been watering and composting. I left for Texas before I could see for myself if nature’s way worked. However, I took with me a pail of very moist Louisiana dirt with a few twigs in it. This week I noticed the poinsettia has come to life with small pale green leaves pushing outward from the top of the stick.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

I can divide the art work I do into two categories: art with intention and art without intention. No matter what the content or subject matter might be, the results are noticeably different. When I draw or paint without intention, I have no particular subject in mind. I relax and let my pen travel where it feels good. I don’t think much about what media I will use or what particular colors, or how to prepare the surface on which I apply the pen or paint. Sometimes, the work is complete before I can even see what it is.

With intention, I start off with some idea of what I want – a crow or a magnolia bloom. There’s a sense of what colors will work best, and I take some time to think about composition, how to balance the different shapes on the page.

Without intention, unconsciously a crow or magnolia bloom might show up. But the results of the two processes not the same, so different some might think different artists were at work. The conscious works are created with greater deliberation. The shapes of the subjects are more prominent. There are strengths and there are apparent mistakes where I did not get the form or perspective or did not achieve the whole somehow.

With the unconscious art, the product is characterized more by energy than form. There are no mistakes because there was no intention. The product shows a kind of vigor where the lines do not need to be perfect, and the shading is not necessarily contained within the lines. With a minimum of lines, or with a haystack of lines, there is something energetically whole that is expressed.

With intention, the results seem to be captured and more familiar, and perhaps more pleasing to the eye, but less alive. My most satisfying works have been those where something unexpected has surfaced: a banana tree, a whale bursting from the water, a huge clam, a stranger's inquisitive face.

who dat?

a camel
stared from the fence
among yellow wildflowers
nodding in the spring sunlight.
He tilted his head.
Was it him or was it me,
the stray far from home?

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Years ago – maybe circa 1995 – I read a newspaper article (Austin American Statesman) about cotton. Some entrepreneurs had looked for and propagated strains of cotton that were not white. They planned to grow crops of the different colors they’d isolated. The colors in the article photos were not bright, primary colors but rather earthy shades of brown, green, and yellow - maybe there was a dusty shade of blue in there. The inventors planned to make colorful, natural fabrics without using dyes.

For years I've looked for those cotton fabrics without success. I thought the project was a great idea.

Monday, May 12, 2014

corn flakes

Raiding the pantry for chocolate this afternoon, I noticed the writing on the side panel of a box of corn flakes. Essentially, corn flakes consist of corn meal with a little sugar and salt. That’s all! Simple, inexpensive, tasty, filling food.

Of course to make corn flakes, one must have access to corn, which grows tall and beautiful in the summer fields. (‘I am as corny as Kansas in August…’) During this extraordinary dry, hot, decade, agriculture has suffered mightily in the southern United States where I live. I haven’t seen a corn field for several years at least in the baked agricultural landscape, though I have come across a few raised gardens with small sections for corn. We’ve done alright though, with imported products and reserves. A fair number of genetically modified foods have been available, although many have proved nutritionally lacking. (Squirrels and birds ignore the designer products in favor of the old natural seeds and fruits and berries.) The weather has grown less extreme in this part of the planet this year. Though still much below average, there has been some rain and it is with great gratitude that I report, rain is falling tonight as I type.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

light fills wild blossoms
like bright wine poured in cups -
leaves on the trees grow giddy

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Growing up in Louisiana, in the summers before mass embrace of air conditioning, we had electric fans. The one in the kitchen sat on the counter. The blades turned, and the fan head swiveled back and forth with a quiet rhythmic buzz. If you faced the fan while it was on and went ‘ahhh…’, your voice was transformed into a funky vibrating sound that we kids found entertaining. If you got overheated, you stood in front of the fan for awhile until you cooled down.

At school, there were ceiling fans in some rooms. There were fans on stands with rotating heads. The first house I remember had an attic fan that circulated the air in the attic and house. It was loud!

My sister and I shared a room, and between the twin beds we placed a cylindrical floor fan. This was amusing too because the air current went upward, caught the underside of the sheets, and inflated them so that we were sleeping under airy domes, something like parachutes.

We left our windows open at night – screens kept out most of the insects although somehow we always ended up with June bugs under the light in the hallway. They made a kind of flapping noise when they fluttered up against the wall or floor.

Air conditioning for our family arrived in 1966. Somewhere along the way, we completely stopped opening the windows. It was either the heater or the AC that was on, always set at 73 degrees F. There was less experiencing the change in weather, no fresh scent from the pine trees just outside the house. When the house was renovated, somehow when the windows were painted, they were painted while closed and thus sealed shut. The windows wouldn’t open any more.

Before electricity, I don’t know how people managed the humid heat in Louisiana. I’m curious about this. In central Texas, there are old houses from the 1800s that have an open hallway running down the middle called a dog run. Having both ends open to the outdoors creates an air current that cools and provides fresh air to rooms on both sides of the run. Hanging damp cloths over the windows enhances the cooling effects of the breeze.

There are times, especially when the temperature is over 90, I very much appreciate air conditioning – the way it cools the air and takes away some of the humidity. But I loved open windows as a kid at night, hearing the crickets hum and smelling the breeze through the windows and screen doors. I loved waking in the night to a weather change, the thrill of the wind changing direction with the first norther of the fall.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Today, a lady at a counter offered me a long stem with six yellow daisies. They’d been in a large floral arrangement for a while – a few petals were drooping – but I was happy to take them home. I trimmed the stem and set them in a narrow glass vase with fresh water and a little plain sugar. It’s past sunset now, and the daisies are glowing like sunshine, like a gift in the night.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

wildflowers in the city

There are lawns in the suburban neighborhoods, and sometimes in spring there may be ribbons of bluebonnets, but this house was different. Firewheels (also known as Indian Blanket, Blanket Flowers, Gaillardia) less than a foot high, with their petals shaded in reds, oranges and yellows, covered one front yard with light and color. The breeze had them sway and bow, and with the dancing, they shimmered. A small prairie on a city street, it was an unexpected feast for the eyes. Former First Lady Lady Byrd Johnson would have cheered.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

postage stamps

My first semester at Washington State University, I met up with some fellow residents of the Grad Center every Friday after classes for a glass of wine, some food and fun. Someone might play guitar. We’d bring trinkets to auction for petty cash toward the next week’s event.

One of the women exchanged letters with friends around the world. She’d snip the cancelled stamps off the thin airmail envelopes and bring them to the ‘Prefunction’ as it was called. They were my favorite auction item - I would buy them for a handful of nickels and dimes. To have something tangible from distant places was fascinating. But what really appealed to me were the designs on the stamps. Flowers, portraits, slogans in foreign alphabets - I was purchasing tiny squares, triangles and rectangles of art. Bringing them home to my room brought me a bit of glee, as though they were treasures. That was the start of a lifelong love of postage stamps.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

a softie mousie
beneath the giant redwood tree
nibbles a seed from a conifer cone.
the owl above
watches with neutral interest,
a twitch of the wing -
it’s too early for supper yet.
the shaded day –
ribbons of light filter through boughs –
time on pause.
the smell of the great woods –
the gnawing of the mouse
is a solitary sound -
no louder than the owl’s thought.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Mouse

The mouse was a visible force when I was a kid. Walt Disney had brought them to the foreground with cartoon characters such as Micky and Minnie Mouse – not to mention Micky Mouse’s teenaged cheer squad known as The Mouseketeers! Was it Tom or was it Jerry who was a mouse (the other a cat of unpredictable temperament)? Speedy Gonzales (‘Arribe! Arribe!’) was funny and Mighty Mouse flew through the skies wearing a red cape to ‘save the day’ every Saturday morning. From earlier generations, there were poems and stories with mice (‘Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock…’). The mouse who pulled a thorn from a lion’s paw fascinated us with his Good Samaritan pluck. Some kids – and the occasional beloved adult – would tame a mouse, and carry the pet in his or her pocket. Friends in grad school sometimes kept little pale lab rats for pets to keep them from being exterminated when they were retired from science experiments. As I grew up, mice were no longer as popular and people would bring rodent relatives like gerbils, hamsters, and guinea pigs home for pets. Mice were no longer high on the popularity charts.

One of my favorite poems is by a man from Scotland named Robert Burns. In the late 1700s he wrote 'To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with a Plough'.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

salt and pepper





Today at an antique store amidst the china and glassware there stood a 3-part plastic relic that looked very familiar to me. A pale blue pepper shaker, a salt shaker of pastel yellow, and a white plastic stand like an easel with two loops in which rested the shakers. The shakers had paler lids, also of plastic, which covered the containers. On the lids were smaller hinged lids that snapped open and shut, covering the little holes through which the salt and pepper is cast.

We had one of those in the 1960s! Only the stand was shaped a bit differently. Plastic was still relatively young, and the colorful, functional objects coming out had great appeal. The salt and pepper shakers were put out by Tupperware who promoted their products through Tupperware parties. Housewives traditionally set up these social-sales events. They invited friends, and took orders, and were rewarded with a few of the must-have items for free.

I’m more of a foe than a fan of plastic items these days, but I have to say the little Tupperware set made me smile.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

There are lots of birders out in the world who at some time have kept lists of the species they’ve seen, the numbers, behaviors, and locations. For amateurs like me, and experts alike – it’s a natural high, a love of life that is different from ourselves.

I have not discovered many people who count lizards – only one so far in my life. He stated it was believed there were more lizard species at Pedernales Falls State Park – not far from where I’m living - than at any other location in the United States. I know little about lizards but it’s always a thrill to spot one in the wild, sunning on a rock like a mini-dinosaur. Sometimes the smaller ones, and snakes as well, can be seen in the beaks of a roadrunner who is thrilled to have a meal, who appreciates our reptilian neighbors in a more primal way.

Friday, May 2, 2014

TV Character Replacements

When you lose a leading actor on a popular television show that has been running for some years, there are different ways of moving forward. Let’s go back some decades to compare and contrast – I’m thinking of the comedy-homemaker series ‘Bewitched’ from the 1960s, the comedy-war series M.A.S.H. also from the 60s, and the somewhat existential comedy-nature-romance series ‘Northern Exposure’ of the 1990s.

In Bewitched, the story revolves around Samantha and Darrin, a young married couple. It was a popular show, and viewers got to know the characters well. After a few years, however, the actor who played Darrin was no longer available. The response of the producers was to not change anything at all, but just find another actor of similar appearance – like you might do in theater productions on Broadway – to replace the former actor in the role. So Samantha still had a husband, same name and similar looks, but it was not the same person. Life - or the show - went on.

In M.A.S.H., an actor who played Trapper John, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce’s best buddy, left the show. Instead of keeping the character Trapper John using a different actor, the producers adjusted the plot. The Trapper John character gets discharged, gets to leave the war and return home to the states. A new character - Doctor BJ Honeycutt - shows up to work alongside Hawkeye – somewhat similar in appearance and behavior to the former friend, but with his own name and separate history. When Col. Henry Blake gets discharged on the show (because the actor is moving on), Col. Sherman Potter, a very different kind of crusty, kind-hearted commander, fills in the gap. As a viewer, I found this more easy to adjust to than the ‘Bewitched’ decision. The entry of a new character was more honest – natural and believable – than pretending the original character was still the same human being when he was not. In Bewitched, the new actor in the husband role was more serious, less flexible, and understandably seemed to have no vestige of a real relationship with his ‘wife’ Samantha, unlike the first actor whose rapport with the lead actress was strong.

Northern Exposure’s lead actor, who played Dr. Joel Fleischman, decided to depart from the show. A new character was introduced, but with him came a different plot line that shifted the program considerably. He was a doctor so afraid of germs that he lived in a bubble he constructed for himself, wearing gloves and surgical masks for everyday tasks. As a viewer, I was a little jarred. The change was up-front – this was no attempt to copy Dr. Fleischman - the new plot was very interesting, but the world that Northern Exposure had created around Joel crumbled somewhat. The new fellow soon found his niche, and the storyline and the other characters were still great, but truthfully, it was a new and unfamiliar world.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

First of May still twenty fourteen

The unedited story of the notagoddess and the 100 acres -

Back to the tree again. A tree. Any tree.
How could I have forgotten this?
the let’s-pretend-I’m-a-goddess asked.
She was visiting – on vacation –
taking care of this swell hundred acres
this lush land of trees and vineyards
fruit orchards and ponds
whilst the owner – her dear friend –
was out on a mission.
All she really had to worry about
he had said
was making sure the lands got a good drink of water
Every now and again.
A thunderstorm will do the trick!
And they’re so much fun.
You just push the button – here!
And he showed her where it was located.
Rumble rumble rumble
They heard in the distance
And they laughed.
Well he left.
And she was happy there in the sweet smelling air
eating apples
eating plump peaches ripened in the sun
and chilled in a nearby stream
the sweet juices running from her fingers
which she washed in the same aforementioned stream.
She watered regularly – she marked it on her calendar –
but come to find out
she didn’t really like the rain falling hard
and all the thunderous noise -
Because she didn’t like getting her new shoes wet
And she had very sensitive ears.
And the neighbors complained about rainy days, too.
They were not very happy when their plans were postponed
because of an ordinary rain shower.
So the not really a goddess but lets pretend anyway young woman
slowed down on the rain.
She didn’t want to worry the neighbors.
The people loved the weather.
It’s like we’re living in LA – they said
(‘LA’ now, no longer called los angeles –)
Beautiful sunny weather!
The would-be goddess was smart though
and knew that the production of peaches and grapes
and the happiness of trees depended on quenching their thirst for water.
Ping!
She had a great idea.
Hoses – hoses fascinated her.
She loved hoses how they curled and looped and stretched out and how water could be carried – for miles even! In a good hose.

So she found a warehouse that had stored lots of hoses
and she made sure every tree was watered.
No one had to worry about rain now. All was provided for in a creative, non-irritating way.
Put up those umbrellas Forever!
She was so pleased, really enjoying her vacation
In the swell acres. Though she worried a bit
The owner had been gone a long time
And she could not leave unless and until he returned…

Meanwhile
Back at the ranch
The crops fared pretty well for some time
some years even
but the whole picture of the 100 acres was flagging a bit.
Some of the critters and birds were missing and when she asked
the remaining birds what was up
they said well there’s not enough to eat any more for all of us.
We can’t feed our babies any more.

To make a long story short –
She learned from the birds and hedgehogs
Trees need rain. Not just water.
The caterpillars and little beetles
the lichens and tasty fungi
that once thrived on the bark of the trunk, the branches,
the undersides of the leaves had disappeared once the water was
only delivered to the roots via hoses.
She had forgotten the tree is the center of life for lots of plants and little creepy things and ants and wildlife. One big old half-rotting half-thriving tree that used to be a booming city was now dry. (Or chopped down, even, but that’s another story.)

It had been so long since a thunderstorm had barreled through.
The neighbors grew alarmed when the failure-as-a-goddess
invited one in. ‘The wind!’ they said. ‘The terrible noise!’ ‘The puddles on the streets! It’s a flood - ’

Nonetheless. They got used to it. They liked how the rain washed their cars for free. And… they actually felt better after a storm – more alive and happy.

Some of the familiar birds and bugs didn’t come back, but some others showed up, looking for food and shelter, and the hundred acres – no longer lush still, but getting kind of interesting – made a come-back. (How’s that for a long sentence!?)

The gal who was tired of the goddess role gave the hoses away, and they were used to help refill the river and lake that had dried up in her adventure.

Where was the original owner? When could she leave? She felt chained to this vacation spot.

One day, a wise young toad (there were no old ones yet) sat next to her at the stream. She came to understand the hundred acres would get on just fine and dandy in her absence – that there was a greatness of spirit that ran through them all if they didn’t get too whiny and greedy and the rain would come with or without her calendar and the rainstorm button –

She left the owner a note on the dining room table – should he ever return -