Category Archives: friends

Coming into glory for Pascha.

friends, my garden, ,


Yes, there are still lots of flowers in my life. I’m trying to get the house — at least the downstairs — clean in time for Pascha so that I can bring in some flowers and have the whole thing look good and festive together.

It’s been raining, and that makes the plants look refreshed and happy. This is the first time the gaudy bearded irises have bloomed. I mostly like them for their color; otherwise they are a bit messy looking for me.

 

 

 

 

The tulips are still blooming. Every night they close up, and in the daytime they open up more and more. But none of the petals have fallen off yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Dutch iris bed, these pale yellow-and-lavender flowers dominate the view for a few weeks, and later on when they are spent the cobalt variety open up.

Centranthus ruber

Our friend Art has a nursery in his back yard, and a few months ago he gave me this Centranthus ruber plant that he had propagated. It took forever to recover from being transferred into the pot in which it still lives, but now it is blooming, and coming into its common name of Red Valerian.


It appears that the kale, and arugula in the background, are making their bid for Tallest Blossoms in the Garden. About the time we turn the calendar page to May they’ll be out of there and tomato plants will be in their place, so I’m letting them have their days in the sun – and rain.

Forget-me-Nots, calla lilies, cyclamen and daffodils — I’m so happy to see them, I’m not worried at all about the hours and days of garden work that will need to be done once the rain stops. A lone and miniature red salvia bloom also greeted me this afternoon, and I can’t recall even noticing what were surely profuse weeds behind it.

In only a few days the ground may dry up enough for me to dig around, and the joy of the feast will strengthen me to do it — in every way we’ll be in Bright Week!

Venetian Painters

art, friends, history, , , , , , ,

The covered buttons on Ottaviano Grimani’s shirt jumped out at me when I came around a corner and looked up at the huge painting. Of course I couldn’t find a copy online that conveyed the stunning quality of the buttons, but the search was instructive.

This portrait by Bernardino Licinio was in the Masters of Venice show of 50 paintings that came from a collection that the Habsburgs assembled in Vienna, works of Venetian artists of the High Renaissance, mostly the 16th century.

Since I haven’t paid any attention lately to what is going on in San Francisco, I would have missed this opportunity altogether if my friend “Lorica” hadn’t invited me to go just before the show closed.

I loved that it was small and focused — we didn’t visit any of the permanent collection — so that my easily-overwhelmed brain could stay calm and receptive as we slowly moved from one room to another of the De Young Museum. The time flew, as Lorica elaborated and added to the information posted near the paintings. I am woefully ignorant, and she was the perfect guide for someone like me, who can’t chew very big auditory bites.

Giorgione’s Three Philosophers

It seems somehow shameful, but I am doing it anyway: posting some of my favorites here in truly pathetic versions of themselves. As soon as I came home I looked for them on the Internet so I could show my husband, and as it had been only a couple of hours since I’d seen the masterpieces in their glory, I was terribly saddened to see that aspects of the originals that had given me so much pleasure were flattened to the point of extinction.

St. Jerome by Tintoretto

That was an Aha! moment, as I contemplated the truly 3-D nature of paintings. And I realized why one would want to visit a show like this several times — because looking at the little postcards one can bring home is a sorry substitute for Being There.

The first thing I noticed about St. Jerome, who translated The Vulgate, was his smiling eyes. He must have been so happy to be reading God’s Word. (Lorica told me that he was known to be grouchy.) And the face of the lion was lovely, Aslan-like. Neither of those endearing features comes through in this little copy.

At left is The Sacrifice of Isaac by Mantegna, which I loved. The whiteness and statue-like quality of the painting was new to me, and the whole composition so complete in its portrayal of the event, and with beautifully “carved” figures. The little ram presenting itself, God’s hand presenting it….

One painting of which I could only find a decent representative online a few years after writing this post was Titian’s Entombment of Christ. I have inserted it in an update. My guide pointed out to me that it seems to be all about Mary, as she and her richly blue cape are the focal point of the composition.

Titian entombment 1200px-Entierro_de_Cristo_(Tiziano)

Another Biblical scene, Adoration of the Magi, by Bassano the Younger. I think it’s charming in the way it depicts the bustling arrival of the worshipers and how the man in green wastes no time in getting as close as possible to the Christ Child.

Some of the other artists whose paintings we saw were Veronese and Bordone, and Pordenone, whose Christ With the Cross (below) admittedly a very Italian version of our Lord, is still quite arresting, and keeps my thoughts on the Love of God.

Looking at the little pictures here, remembering the great works that I had so recently wondered at — it all made me think I hadn’t been paying enough attention while we were in the museum. After all, it was the chance of a lifetime, and I had been so casual, strolling around dully as though I could just hop over to Vienna anytime I wanted and see the paintings again.

One can see that I need to get to the art museums more often, and that my education in art appreciation has barely begun.

Bird’s Open Heart

friends, love, women, ,

I am taking a tutorial from Bird on aging gracefully; she is graceful and gracious both. The two of us were talking about how we both are forgetful hostesses, never remembering to offer our guests so much as a glass of water, much less tea and cookies. But my friend never locks her door, and usually doesn’t even shut it all the way, because she wants visitors to come in without knocking; she doesn’t always hear a knock or the doorbell.

She is always so glad for company, and rarely talks about herself, preferring to ask about her younger friends and their families, and to hear other people’s stories. Her own stories are only told when they pertain to some matter that concerns her guest, or after emphatic prompting. Bird is almost 95 years old; is she ever going to become what I find to be the more typical elderly person, living in the past, and impatient with recent people and their doings?

When I had her for tea last week she was the guest of honor. I picked her up and drove her to my house, and on the way here in the car I showed her a list of topics we wouldn’t mind her talking about. She started laughing — I don’t know at which question — and said teasingly, “I am not going to come to any more of your tea parties!” But when the guests had all arrived she was willing to share of her past and her tales with them, and entertain us all with her humor.

There is the story about her novel, written in high school, about the Spanish dancer Juanita. It was a love story, but Bird knew nothing about “the kind of love you have when you are married.” At the end of the romance, when Juanita and her suitor have progressed in their relationship to the point where the ardor is intense, the novel closes with the line, “Juanita leaned.”

The photo here was taken when her 11th child was a toddler and Bird was about 35 years old. She looks happy enough to burst—serene at the same time. I think she must have been the best wife for her husband; she was apparently not contrary, but neither was she wimpy. She had to be strong and steady when he was depressed and couldn’t work for — was it three years? The kind of person who would keep doing her own job of running the household, waiting and praying for things to change.

She told us over tea that decades ago, when some of us used to see the couple walking “together,” Bird ten yards behind, that Mr. Bird had needed long walks to help with his “emotional problems.” He would be in shirtsleeves, and she was wearing a sweater, and he told her he was embarrassed by her wearing the sweater, and asked her not to. She replied that she needed the sweater because she was cold, and suggested that he walk by himself if he was embarrassed. And he said, “But I need you to talk to!” This was funny because he was way too far ahead for them to be able to carry on a conversation. When one of their adult children later died, the priest told her husband, “Now today, you walk beside your wife.”

Bird seems to have walked as close to her husband as he allowed, as long as he lived. She has been a dear and encouraging companion to me, as we both try to walk with God. My prayer is that He would give me a measure of her spirit.

(I wrote the piece above several years ago; more recent posts in which Bird appears are here and here. Now she has reached 100 years, and is as young as ever. She still keeps her door unlocked and her smile bright.)

Sunshine Bounty

agriculture, church, food and cooking, friends, winter

Our neighbor Elizabeth stopped Mr. Glad and me as we were walking past her house and gave us these lemons that she had just picked.

Citrus fruits are like a long-term investment that God makes on our behalf, pouring light and heat into the fruits over several months, then rain for another while, as we work and play through Spring and Summer and Fall.

Then comes the time of year when light is weak and slant. We need extra vitamin C in our diets, and some color in our field of vision. Well, aren’t we lucky. The activity in the account we probably weren’t thinking about bears a dividend of sunshine.