Category Archives: friends

More than a week left…

family, friends, history, , ,
 

More than a week remains of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and am I glad!  The days leading up to and including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flew by in such a flurry of church and family that I am fairly flattened. Today is the first of my restful days and I’m in happy R&R from wonderfully happy times.

Here is a hodgepodge of photos and memories from the last two weeks, probably not in precisely chronological order.

Of course, there were the doll clothes I sewed on for a couple of weeks, and did manage to mail to Littlest Granddaughter (working on a nickname for that one) on the 15th. An entire blog post will have to be dedicated to the small garments, later. I hear that the lucky dolly donned them immediately.

Then K. and I went to San Francisco again with little T. who is now 5. We did the usual cable car, Chinatown, and riding the elevator to the 31st floor of the Saint Francis Hotel to look over the city broadly and straight down at Union Square and the ice rink (photo).

We rode up and down several times and there was never a doorman to tell us, as he told poor Babar, “This is not a toy, Mr. Elephant.”


The gingerbread house in the lobby at the Fairmont Hotel was even more glorious this year, being two stories high. We were favored by meeting a baker who was doing maintenance on the candy that had already been nibbled by children.

Last year there were signs asking people not to eat the house, but not this year. So evidently some have felt more liberty to partake, at least of parts that were protruding a bit; I didn’t notice any chunks missing from the gingerbread bricks. The baker repairman gave T. a chocolate Santa.

Not to be outdone, the Saint Francis Hotel had a giant sugar castle in the lobby there.

After the San Francisco trip I mostly cleaned and cleared rooms to make places for six soon-arriving family members to sleep. We didn’t get our tree up until the day before Baby flew in, so she helped us decorate.

One of my favorite ornaments is this doll who came from the Czech Republic just as the gifter had: our friend Tylda had sneaked across the border to Austria about the time I was born, when Czech was still joined to Slovakia.

 

The little man is about 35 years old, the last remaining salt dough ornament of which B. and I painted and baked a whole set with which to decorate one of our first Christmas trees. He is looking a bit crumbly, as though his flesh is gradually vanishing into the atmosphere.

Pippin and her family left the snow to come and be with us. “My” deer looked like this when she snapped their photo before driving down.

Seventh Grandson Scout was way livelier than last year and entertained us all. We managed to keep him from falling down the stairs, and he was heard exhorting himself, “No, no…” not to bother the Christmas tree. His aunt gave him the perfect hat!


Newlyweds Soldier and Doll were with us, too, for several days. Oldest daughter Pearl sent them darling Mr. and Mrs. Snowman ornaments that she made.

And I got my own striking couple,
crazy-eyed marionettes brought from India last year by Kate.

The married couples returned to their homes already, and as I write, we are nearing the departure of the last child and the return of Quieter Nest. But I plan to enjoy all the remaining days of Christmas, with meditations on the Nativity, and wait a while before I get out the After-Christmas to-do list I made a while back.

Within Our Reach

Christmas, family, friends, poetry

At Christmastime my thoughts keep turning to all my friends and family whom I will not be with for the feast, and I want to pick up the phone to talk to each one, to tell all that I miss them, tell them that if I were with them I’d hug them tight. The Father’s gift of Love, of His only-begotten Son, is the quality of love that is expansive and overflowing in its essence. It — He –fills the universe, and will fill us to the degree that we are empty of self. I guess just thinking of it makes me feel more like sharing.

Sometimes I cry because I miss these people whom I can’t touch and look in the eye; mostly the tears are out of gratefulness for having so many people in my life to love. Following fast on the heels of that thought is the chance to soak up that Love myself in the moment of grace. I notice, though, that this kind of quietness is hard to hold on to as the busyness factor multiplies now, and there’s definitely no time to be chatting on the phone with all my beloveds.

This poem that Maria posted to set December’s mood on her excellent Poem a Day is what I would like to say to everyone, every creature made in God’s image. And also, “God is with us!”

LETTER TO A FRIEND

I salute you. There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give you, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today:
Take heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present:
Take peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy:
Take joy.

And so at this Christmas time I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

~ Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1435?-1515), Italian Franciscan friar and scholar

Up and Down the Mountain

friends, mountains, nature, quotes, wildflowers, , , , ,

Last week was the occasion of a blessed excursion to my family’s mountain cabin, and this time I shared the time with my dear friend Mrs. Bread.

I’ve blogged about the cabin and lake before, here and here. The last two years I went mostly for time alone with God in His Creation. This time I enjoyed plenty of that experience, plus deepening of friendship, and working on improving or maintaining the house and property. Now that my father has passed, I am part owner of this place, and I happily but more intensely feel the responsibility to do my part, though I’m afraid I’ll never match the hardworking devotion of my siblings who live closer; some of them can dash up just for the day if they need to.

Here I am painting the threshold and doorjamb against the elements of winter. One year–or maybe more than one–the whole cabin was buried in snow, just a lump in the white landscape.

The drive took me ten hours, what with a leisurely detour to pick up Mrs. Bread on the way. So we stayed four nights so as to have three whole days for taking pictures, cooking, reading together, cleaning, admiring giant boulders and listening to the silence of the forest.
How can it be so awe-fully quiet? There are birds flitting and chipmunks scampering, breezes blowing and even the occasional chain saw in the village. But the earth feels peacefully serene up there, weighted with quiet, heavy with a silence that speaks of God’s presence. I seem to soak up contentedness and rest.

I needed the rest, as I had come down with a cough and cold in the two days before. The altitude gave me a headache the first night, and we both suffered from the reduced oxygen, our legs uncooperative and slow when we dragged back up the hill after a walk down to the lake.

It’s the High Sierra, and up there the mornings start out below freezing this time of year, making you want to lie abed and watch the sky lighten out the window. By midday it can be sunburning hot out on the deck, so we sat in the shade of the umbrella to peruse the several tree guides that have found their way to the cabin’s bookshelf.

At first we limited ourselves to studying the general shapes and angles of branches, focusing in on the cones with binoculars. Eventually we walked among the trees below the cabin and noticed where cones had fallen underneath their mother trees.

The pines in the neighborhood are mostly Lodgepole, as illustrated by the picture here. But to be truthful, it took Pippin’s later confirmation of that suspicion to make me believe it.

As we walked together marveling at the various beautiful flowers, berries, and stones, Mrs. Bread said, “These little trees grab at my heart!” See why I love her?

  

What a lot can be seen in this photograph, taken from outside the picture window, while I was sitting at the table inside writing a letter to a grandson. You can see the kitchen behind me, and the lake reflected behind Mrs. Bread’s reflection.

I like having these pictures of myself at the lake, something besides the ones of my feet that I took last year when solitary. Thanks, my friend!

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These three trees stood out from the pines with their trunks shown off by the granite slabs.  Mr. Glad thinks they might be red cedars.

The first morning at the cabin I read in the Psalter, “For Thou hast said: Mercy shall be built up for ever,” (Ps. 88) and was musing about the image that phrase conjured in my mind, of an edifice being constructed. And why not the image of towers of clouds, that often rain down showers of blessing? From now on, when I see cloud skyscrapers rising fast, piling layer upon layer, I will think of the way God’s mercies do the same, every morning.

Someone brought this small remembrance of our father up to put on the bedroom wall. If you click on it a couple of times you can read the labels. I love seeing my father’s handwriting, which didn’t change in all the years since this collection was made when he was in college.

Mrs. Bread helped me firm up my resolve to try really hard to come up to this beloved place more next year. It’s not available for very long, though: This week shutters will be put up, water turned off, chimney covered, to mention only a few of the many tasks to protect the house from blizzards–and if we can get through the snow to open it up before the first of July we’ll be happy.

I’ve never been up more than twice in a summer; I wonder if I really do have the liberty to even dream of spending a week, or visiting twice or three times. I’ll pray for a miracle, and wait to see how the Lord chooses to pile up His mercies next year.

Wandering into Urban Homesteads

friends, garden, other gardens, , , ,

God willing, today was the last day I will have to live out of my car. The floors took two weeks instead of one. In the meantime I have forgotten how to keep house–having a thick layer of fine wood dust on everything each night has beaten me down–and haven’t learned how to be a gypsy. I’ve been leaving the house at 9:00 and wandering around the county doing little errands or some shopping. I can take all the time I want to try on clothes or look for that special title at the library’s used book store…

But today, Memorial Day, the library was closed, and there was no place to be. My bed, my computer, and some vegetables were what I longed for. I have lost all my sociability and courage and just want to be a housewife hermit for a few months.

But before today’s last straw, some outings I enjoyed were gardening at church, and having a long-overdue chat with my priest; sitting in Starbucks on a day of pouring rain and drinking the largest Café Mocha I’ve ever indulged in; and visits with crafty gardening friends.

K. and S. got more chickens, and a hive of bees! They are growing everything from parsley and onions to raspberries and blueberries. K. has been knitting sweaters and socks. It was lovely to catch up on their homesteading developments.

One night we visited with our longtime friends who I will call Art and Di. Di is one my best-ever book friends; we never have enough time to sit by a fire in winter, or on the patio in summer, to talk about our reading and how it is all connected. She and my husband never tire of sharing music from their old and new favorite musicians.

Art creates beauty, whether it’s in his sketchbook or the garden. Among the santolina, lavender, germander and California poppies he had this yellow-flowered giant I wasn’t familiar with. He said it was sage, and wanting to know just what sort, I went home and researched it online.It didn’t seem to be in the salvia group, so I set several of my botanical sleuths on the chase and found out that it is Jerusalem Sage, not a salvia but Phlomis fruticosa. I also learned that Salvia and Phlomis are both members of the Lamiacea family, also known as the mint family.

In addition to propagating unthirsty plants such as the ones that populate the textured garden in their front yard, he has created a clever drip/wicking irrigation system that gets the needed amount of water right to the roots of his back yard vegetables. In the photos here, if you look closely you can see that the wick goes into a piece of hose carrying the moisture deep to the root zone. The paper bag that normally hides the water pot from the sun has been lifted briefly for me to see it.


Writing about these inspiring gardens and people I love is helping bring my most stressful day and fortnight to a better close than I thought possible when I sat down here an hour ago. Just remembering gardens and books and good friends is soothing and healing.