No pictures today. I just want to remember a special person. I only met Marie a few years ago. Her life had been reduced to a few possessions and a shared room in an adult care home. I was there because I had been assigned. I will admit that my first response at receiving my assignment was reluctance. It seems that I have often had an elderly sister on my visiting teaching route. Often it has been an elderly sister to whom I become a attached and then they pass away. I find my self missing them. I miss Rachel, Roma, Elise, and now Marie
Her few possesions represented love. The flowers, the pictures, the cards - she loved to see them. It meant someone loved her and she loved them. She would often write down the names of people who came to see her. She wanted to remember their kindness to her. She would tell me with a joyful heart about her visitors. When she couldn't remember who it was she could look it up and then we had mutual friends.
She knew how to be so positive. I met her shortly after her husband passed away and she often talked about how wonderful it was that she had been able to see him again. They had been separated by the needs of aging bodies. His kids brought him and her kids brought her to a meeting place, some town in the mountains, and she was so happy to have seen him again. She remembered the good times and didn't dwell on the separation.
She did sometimes feel useless and frustrated in her situation. Her mind was still sharp but her hands were crippled by arthritis so she was in this care home. But she was not useless. One of her roommates was a little disoriented to be in a care facilty and would wander around. Marie gave her a small shawl that had been given to her. She wanted her to feel loved and more comfortable. She watched for ways to make life easier for others in the facilty. I occasionally found myself there at lunch time and she was always helping someone open their napkin or peel a lid off of something or ask for something they needed. She soothed the spirits of a rather agitated resident more than once.
I took her to the dentist a couple of times and she acted like it was a miracle that someone could do that. We went for a drive one autumn to get her out. She remembered that day with gratitude, not just once, but many times. She was good at being grateful for the smallest thing. I was very touched at Christmas time. I had been at home putting up the Christmas tree for our household with it's trimmings filled with memories and then stopped to see her. She was delighted that the home was putting up a tree with a few ornaments. None of those ornaments were memory filled for her, but she could rejoice in the season without regretting the past.
She gave when she had so little to give. She gave appreciation, kindness, encouragement, love and chocolates. She had her children keep her supplied with chocolates so that she had something to offer in thanks to the caregivers that helped her in and out of bed and pushed her wheelchair and checked her pulse. I would visit and she would offer a chocolate. I would decline and say, "I'm really fine and don't need anything" She would reply, "well, I want one. So you have to have one with me." We would eat a chocolate together and tell stories. She could always tell when I was worried about something. She gave me a listening heart.
She would tell me stories about her family. Stories about rattlesnakes and moving across the country and lush plants by the doorstep that turned out to be illegal.
Marie was excited to give something she had painted in the ceramics room to her daughter-in-law. She knew that it was not to the standard she would have had for herself when she was younger and painting lovely watercolors. She accepted that her hands couldn't do what they had once done. But she was excited to give something that represented not her hands, but her heart.
She didn't have a home of her own anymore, but she welcomed me into her beautiful heart furnished with a focus on the positive, loving kindness, thoughtfulness and gratitude. It was a privilege to know Marie.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The Newly Weds
We have had two pairs of newlyweds in this family this year. We love it! Our sons have been blessed with good women to be their companions in life and eternity.
In April we had Mike and Monica marry in Manti. Their photographer took much better pictures of them than we took. It was a cold day especially for the end of April. There was snow!
Our second set of newlyweds got married on a windy 60 degree day in Dallas in December. Go figure.
It was great to have the whole family together. I appreciate everyone's travel and energy. I know a couple people didn't feel to great and would have most liked to be in their own beds.
There we all are, but we should have found a better place for DER to stand. It is sort of like where's Waldo.
It was a good day also to celebrate the 4th anniversary of our other married couple.
In April we had Mike and Monica marry in Manti. Their photographer took much better pictures of them than we took. It was a cold day especially for the end of April. There was snow!
Our second set of newlyweds got married on a windy 60 degree day in Dallas in December. Go figure.
There we all are, but we should have found a better place for DER to stand. It is sort of like where's Waldo.
It was a good day also to celebrate the 4th anniversary of our other married couple.
the weather outside was....
.... not what we hoped for, but the kids were so delightful! And the food was pretty good too. We ate out, missed the live music that was supposed to be at the restaurant, oh well... But Katie made yummmy blackbean and sweet potato burritos. Monica made quiche and I got the easy ham for Christmas day.
We went to a living history museum nearby called Vermillionville. Vermillionville is situated on the Vermillion Bayou and features plants and natural history as well as the craftsman and building styles of Louisiana settlement.
These are the "knees" of the cypress trees that grow along the waterways.
A certain little boy thought the tornado model was worth chasing.
A certain little girl loved the natural history hands on table with her uncle Seth.
This is the Spanish moss that hangs from the trees. It is soaked for a few weeks to dissolve the outer layer. What is left is called bousillage. It is mixed with clay and hung over rough lathe to build the homes. It then has thermal mass and is cool in the hot weather and warmer in the cold weather. The next photo is of a bale of bousillage (boo see auge)
The sticks poking out of the chimney are so the chimney can be pulled off the wall in case of a chimney fire. The chimney is bousillage and so is the house. The house has siding. I wonder if the siding is Oak or sweet gum or cypress? All of those are large timber trees that seem native to the area.
I enjoyed the textile area. The warping frame was about as big as one of the walls of a bedroom in this house. They were able to warp about 100 yards on that frame. They had cotton of various colors
The loom was impressive. It was roughly made overall, but smooth where it needed to be smooth. The reed was most impressive to me. The reed is the part of the loom that space the warp yards and keeps them lined up. It was made with small strips of cane threaded on the support structure and spaced by winding the same thread around the support. It was amazingly accurate.
T tasted the cotton.
His sister liked spinning the wheel.
It was fun to be somewhere new while everything was decorated for Christmas. This little vignette was in the school house.
French was outlawed in public schools until 1968. Yet is survives in families and ...
This fiddle player (in his nineties) had a nice soft French voice.
Some building details are shown in the above picture and the next several pictures. Homes are built up about 18 inches above the ground.
Doors were almost all double doors like this.
The front porches were broad and roofed
a water tank
a shutter holder
Don't know why they built the roof like this. I loved the soft blue, green and red paints
Many homes had exterior stairs from the porch on the back to the upper sleeping rooms. A way of providing for travelers and still having privacy I think.
This is a close up of the door hardware.
The last pictures of Vermillionville illustrate ways of living not common today.
Mosquito netting and trundle beds
hand dipped candles
We went to a living history museum nearby called Vermillionville. Vermillionville is situated on the Vermillion Bayou and features plants and natural history as well as the craftsman and building styles of Louisiana settlement.
These are the "knees" of the cypress trees that grow along the waterways.
A certain little boy thought the tornado model was worth chasing.
A certain little girl loved the natural history hands on table with her uncle Seth.
The sticks poking out of the chimney are so the chimney can be pulled off the wall in case of a chimney fire. The chimney is bousillage and so is the house. The house has siding. I wonder if the siding is Oak or sweet gum or cypress? All of those are large timber trees that seem native to the area.
I enjoyed the textile area. The warping frame was about as big as one of the walls of a bedroom in this house. They were able to warp about 100 yards on that frame. They had cotton of various colors
It was fun to be somewhere new while everything was decorated for Christmas. This little vignette was in the school house.
This is a close up of the door hardware.
The last pictures of Vermillionville illustrate ways of living not common today.
An inspiring era
We traveled to and from Dallas the long way. So the "space men" in our family could gawk at a Saturn Rocket in Houston. Worth the trip perhaps for those of us who grew up in the space era. For whom the "space race" might have inspired career choices.
It was also a good chance to play with the capabilities of the new zoom lens.
I won't be able to tell you much about the pictures but the zoom gets close pictures of things that were really too far away for my eyes to see this well. Enhanced eyesight!
It was also a good chance to play with the capabilities of the new zoom lens.
I won't be able to tell you much about the pictures but the zoom gets close pictures of things that were really too far away for my eyes to see this well. Enhanced eyesight!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
My Miss Brooks
Surely there is a character in a book named Miss Brooks. She would be thin, gray haired, wear wire rim glasses and be quietly unassuming. She would work in a library. She would be those things because she was in my young life just those things. My brother and I would arrive at the limestone Carnegie Library across the street from the courthouse and hike up the stairs to the room with a linoleum compass rose over which my Miss Brooks presided. She was the librarian who led me to the orange bound biographies that I so loved. I don't recall library cards or details like checking out. I suspect she and Mom just took care of it. I just recall that she knew her books and she knew me. Years after she retired, my brother and I ran across her at one of those club bake sales that JC Penneys always allowed near the stairs that went to the basement. There in the blue tiled building, ten years or more since we frequented the room with the compass rose, she still knew us.
Miss Brooks was the beginning of my love of books and libraries. We lived in another place for a couple of years and our family economy only included trips to the library in the summer when the school library was closed. The school librarian refused to let me check out The Secret Garden when I was in second grade. I suppose she thought I would not be able to read and make sense of words like; mystified, brilliant, contrary and sentiment. I suppose that she wanted to keep a small supply of books appropriately apportioned so that older students would have something that would appeal to them. But I had heard about this story and wanted to read it. I tried twice at school and when it came to the check out line that librarian whose name I have forgotten turned me away. I could not understand why I couldn't check out any book I wanted to check out and persuaded my mother to take me to the big downtown public library in the middle of the school year so I could check out this coveted book. I read it and learned the meaning of words by reading sentences in which those words that seemed beyond the abilities of a seven year old had a meaning. I don't remember the reading being hard. I had heard some of those words even if I hadn't read them before.
We moved back to the town with the limestone library and behold the school now had a library. It was wonderful to go listen to the warm rich black voice of Mrs. DeGrate (sorry Mrs. D - I don't know how to spell it) read to us. I felt a little out of step with other kids because I had not read the Laura Ingalls Wilder series in 3rd grade. So back I went to the linoleum compass room and Miss Brooks to find them. I don't remember when Miss Brooks retired. During Jr High and High School, the library became a convenient place for my parents to pick me up if I walked downtown after school. The room with the compass rose had been replaced with another limestone building. One summer while waiting for a parent the tornado sirens went off and the library staff rounded everyone up and took us about three stories down to a civil defense shelter that I had not known was there. I read late into the night in those summer months, books by James Michner, Victor Hugo, Harper Lee....
The Library always had an art exhibit and I began to want to do creative things because of what I saw there. I loved the linsey woolsey coverlets and learned to weave. I planned a trip to Turkey with the help of a library and shopped for a new washer with the help of a library. I have watched movies and listened to music. I have driven the highways of the west listening to PG Wodehouse - checked out from the library. I have planned hikes, designed quilts, grown vegetables and painted watercolors with the help of a library. Because the library has digitial subscriptions I have researched my ancestors while sitting in my living room, warmed by my laptop. I have relaxed at the end of many days over many years with a library book in my hand.
I have read countless books from the library to my own children and peeked in the door as one of them acted out at bedtime the songs from a library CD. We sang along with Charlotte Diamond on a tape cassette as we traveled; "I am a pizza," "Four Hugs a Day".... on long car trips; I have enjoyed the sharing of the great story or doing the fun science experiment that we found in a library book. We came to love Raven, Anansi and Brier Rabbit as the characters of many cultures became our friends. We went to community events that we saw advertised and posted in the library. We touched pythons and played didgereedoos at special library events.
I have browsed art books and poetry and read books that were healing as I read someone else's words. I have learned some things to avoid from the characters in books. Characters in books made some mistakes so I didn't have to try that. I learned about racism and bigotry. I learned about greed and infidelity. I also learned admirable ways to behave. I learned about generosity and forgiveness about courage and curiousity. I registered to vote at the library.
In my college years, I was fortunate to work in the campus library. So libraries even got me through college, both financially and emotionally. I found quiet places to study in the library and places that had upholstered furniture. My student apartments were often lacking in that luxury. I liked to find the quiet places on campus to sit in a comfortable chair and just read. I could pretend my life was not always surrounded by thousands of other young adults. I made friends in the library, met fellows that I dated and even the man that I married all in the library.
I now live with that man in a place with one of the best library systems I can imagine. I never walk in the door without finding several things that I would like to read. Things that I didn't know I wanted to read or had an interest in before I walked in the door past that "Explore More" shelf. We are looking at retirement and as we consider places to live. I'm always asking "What is the library system like?" "Is there a system?" "Is that community part of the system?" "How far away would the house be from the library?" "How does the library feel?" "What kind of books do they buy?" "do they exhibit art?" "What is their programming like?" "Will I find that place where the community comes together there?"
Libraries have become the measure by which I measure a healthy community. Libraries are the place where someone knows my name and where I have become who I am.. Thank you, Miss Brooks.
Miss Brooks was the beginning of my love of books and libraries. We lived in another place for a couple of years and our family economy only included trips to the library in the summer when the school library was closed. The school librarian refused to let me check out The Secret Garden when I was in second grade. I suppose she thought I would not be able to read and make sense of words like; mystified, brilliant, contrary and sentiment. I suppose that she wanted to keep a small supply of books appropriately apportioned so that older students would have something that would appeal to them. But I had heard about this story and wanted to read it. I tried twice at school and when it came to the check out line that librarian whose name I have forgotten turned me away. I could not understand why I couldn't check out any book I wanted to check out and persuaded my mother to take me to the big downtown public library in the middle of the school year so I could check out this coveted book. I read it and learned the meaning of words by reading sentences in which those words that seemed beyond the abilities of a seven year old had a meaning. I don't remember the reading being hard. I had heard some of those words even if I hadn't read them before.
We moved back to the town with the limestone library and behold the school now had a library. It was wonderful to go listen to the warm rich black voice of Mrs. DeGrate (sorry Mrs. D - I don't know how to spell it) read to us. I felt a little out of step with other kids because I had not read the Laura Ingalls Wilder series in 3rd grade. So back I went to the linoleum compass room and Miss Brooks to find them. I don't remember when Miss Brooks retired. During Jr High and High School, the library became a convenient place for my parents to pick me up if I walked downtown after school. The room with the compass rose had been replaced with another limestone building. One summer while waiting for a parent the tornado sirens went off and the library staff rounded everyone up and took us about three stories down to a civil defense shelter that I had not known was there. I read late into the night in those summer months, books by James Michner, Victor Hugo, Harper Lee....
The Library always had an art exhibit and I began to want to do creative things because of what I saw there. I loved the linsey woolsey coverlets and learned to weave. I planned a trip to Turkey with the help of a library and shopped for a new washer with the help of a library. I have watched movies and listened to music. I have driven the highways of the west listening to PG Wodehouse - checked out from the library. I have planned hikes, designed quilts, grown vegetables and painted watercolors with the help of a library. Because the library has digitial subscriptions I have researched my ancestors while sitting in my living room, warmed by my laptop. I have relaxed at the end of many days over many years with a library book in my hand.
I have read countless books from the library to my own children and peeked in the door as one of them acted out at bedtime the songs from a library CD. We sang along with Charlotte Diamond on a tape cassette as we traveled; "I am a pizza," "Four Hugs a Day".... on long car trips; I have enjoyed the sharing of the great story or doing the fun science experiment that we found in a library book. We came to love Raven, Anansi and Brier Rabbit as the characters of many cultures became our friends. We went to community events that we saw advertised and posted in the library. We touched pythons and played didgereedoos at special library events.
I have browsed art books and poetry and read books that were healing as I read someone else's words. I have learned some things to avoid from the characters in books. Characters in books made some mistakes so I didn't have to try that. I learned about racism and bigotry. I learned about greed and infidelity. I also learned admirable ways to behave. I learned about generosity and forgiveness about courage and curiousity. I registered to vote at the library.
In my college years, I was fortunate to work in the campus library. So libraries even got me through college, both financially and emotionally. I found quiet places to study in the library and places that had upholstered furniture. My student apartments were often lacking in that luxury. I liked to find the quiet places on campus to sit in a comfortable chair and just read. I could pretend my life was not always surrounded by thousands of other young adults. I made friends in the library, met fellows that I dated and even the man that I married all in the library.
I now live with that man in a place with one of the best library systems I can imagine. I never walk in the door without finding several things that I would like to read. Things that I didn't know I wanted to read or had an interest in before I walked in the door past that "Explore More" shelf. We are looking at retirement and as we consider places to live. I'm always asking "What is the library system like?" "Is there a system?" "Is that community part of the system?" "How far away would the house be from the library?" "How does the library feel?" "What kind of books do they buy?" "do they exhibit art?" "What is their programming like?" "Will I find that place where the community comes together there?"
Libraries have become the measure by which I measure a healthy community. Libraries are the place where someone knows my name and where I have become who I am.. Thank you, Miss Brooks.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Perry Creek Trail & the Mountain Loop
OK, we have lived here nearly thirty years and we have never taken the Mountain Loop Highway. Oft touted as one of the great things to do in this county. To be clear, in our defense for missing this wonderland - there have been several years when the road was closed because of sinkholes and landslides. It always closes for snow. We have gone as far as Barlow Pass and the Monte Cristo trailhead, but there the road turns to dust and we have turned around in the past. Yesterday was the day.
We started with a stop to get a National Forest Day pass at a gas station in Granite Falls then a stop at the Verlot Ranger Station to ascertain that the road was indeed open this year. It was.
We reminised as we drove along about the first camping trip we took in this area. Red Bridge in June. We got rained out and I didn't sleep worrying about Nathan crawling of the edge of the campground into the river. This is where Mike found a freezing snowmelt filled side channel irresistable. Camping in the rain with a crawling child was not great - that trip slowed our camping aspirations down considerably for quite a few years.
We remembered the hikes up the Lake Twenty-two trail, the Heather Lake trail, Mt. Pilchuck. Tales of scout camps at Wiley Creek and Coal Lake were called to mind. David remembered a backpacking trip to Monte Cristo with Katie. But we stopped at Perry Creek. Three years ago we did this hike with Nathan - we got rained out that day and thought we would do it again. The next five pictures come from that hike.
This Landslide pretty much closed the trailhead. This first group of pictures is from the hike in July of 2008
Because there were tree limbs down (in 2008) we were able to see this Lobaria (the lettuce like plant), a tree top dweller that as it gets knocked out of the trees by the wind supplies the better part of soil nitrogen in the wet forests of the Northwest.
Mosses and Big Leaf Maples like and help each other. The maple trees will actually send out root fibers into the mosses growing on their branches and trunks.
We missed the May lily in the woods behind us this year, they have been closed to the public.
The Northwest always has moss along the trail.
The Mt. Dickerman parking lot is the new trail head and adds a mile to the trail. It was a good trail to take on a busy weekend. It is not as popular as the trails that end at lakes. It was a quiet hike. We didn't make it to the falls because we wanted to do the whole loop road, but we enjoyed the new part of the trail and a small part of the old trail. We saw a few plants we have never seen before - one of them a small flowered orchid.
DER counting the rings - about two hundred for this cedar before it fell. The nice clean cut was because it fell across the trail. This tree would have been a seedling when Lewis and Clark came west.
We love seeing the Canadian Dogwood along the trail.
Can you guess what this is?
The much touted loop, well was mostly a dusty tree lined forest road, but it did have a few really beautiful pull-outs along the Sauk River.
Most of them were not much beyond Barlow Pass. There were many small primitive campsites along the river. They would probably be really nice sometime other than a holiday weekend.
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