Magpies, Bees and Saws

My backyard is not a silent place this time of year.  As I trim bushes, cut flowers for the house and rake, I'll be called from the task by the raucous sound of a magpie flying up the creek or a bee near my ear.  During one recent morning, I heard bumblebees, the baby ducks, a magpie and mourning doves.  The stream gurgles around the rocks; its sound rising to my consciousness when I shift from my task to noticing some specific event like the first arrival of the dragonflies this season or the blooming of the purple allium.  I forget that I can record the sounds, but here are photos of this noisy place.

I have been tossing rocks into this stream to hear their lovely "plunk" for years.

The silent willow attracts the birds.

Some years I have few bumblebees.  So far I have heard four this spring.

The bleeding heart was transplanted from my last house.  It hosts the bees.

This rose called "Playgirl" had a million aphids but the sound of a rain storm seemed to have washed them away. 

The noise of this photos is one of chopping rhubarb for pie and the sound of sniffing the smell of iris.  

The title of the blog post mentioned "saw".  This is the source of the saw noises.  This is where I am spending most of my time as I get the house ready to sell.

Eight Steps for Mapping the Topography of Grief

                                       Eight Steps for Mapping the Topography of Grief

11.)   Begin by naming places on your map that you do not want to forget.  The name of your loved one, the beginning and the end.  You have become a toponymist now, a namer of places.

22.)   Draw the elevations, the ridgelines, and deep, deep canyons.  You will need such places from which to scout a route or to hide on those wicked days of sorrow.  The proximity of the curving elevation lines will determine which routes will be too steep and which, even on difficult days, will give you a sufficiently wide ledge upon which to lay, contemplate, and pray.

33.)   Add cities, suburbs, flash-by-towns, tree houses, trailer courts - places where you might find commiserating souls.  Mark them.  Coffee shops, internet cafes, libraries.  You will need details.  Start with one location.  Two.  Color-code your options for levels of hopeful contact.

44.)    With permanent ink, illustrate the location of the cemetery or with dashing and swift lines show where the ash and bone fragments flew from your hand.   Footnote the epitaph.

55.)    Add the rivers and the seas.  Find where the tears flowed in streams and eventually washed onward, beyond you, joining others in the salty waters.  Designate the lowlands where tears seeped back into the earth, nurturing fresh life.

66.)   Design roadways, byways, lanes, and paths.  If your grieving is brief, then you will need only one super-highway upon which to hurry off to other pages of your map book.  Otherwise, draw your roads crisscrossing.  The spaces inside the grid design will look like sticky-notes.   Leave them blank until you have regained your interest in details, in observations of hilarious and obtuse facts.  It will happen.

77.)   Draw a rectangle.  In it, put the title: The Key.  Grieving causes forgetfulness.  Map keys are important to maintain your sanity, to remind you where you have put things of significant import and feeling.

88.)    Lastly, sign your name at the bottom and date the map.  One day this map will be stored and then, only occasionally, will you take it out to reexamine it.  Noting its date, you will realize that time has passed and you have left the Map of Grief and traveled onward.   

Preface to Mapping the Topography of Grief - a Travel Memoir

What Will Be Left Behind

For the past twenty years, when I turned onto my street at night, the singular yellow street light on a very long block marked my driveway (and a fire hydrant).  It seemed like a little blessing as if I somehow deserved a special welcome home light.  As I prepare to put my home on the market this spring, I have been intentionally watching for the lovely things that I have been gifted by this home and which I shall miss.     

Chives, my little cat, sunning on the old stool that I use when I prune the grape arbor.

The spring exuberance of the hens and chicks in the early morning light.

The popping open of the Oriental poppies.  When the big green buds come close to bursting, one can pull the green sheath open just the tiniest amount and the flower will burst out with a whoosh.

I shall miss the little pathway that leads to the stream.  The willow becomes so dense at times, that the way is obscured.  I have sent my company out to the table by the stream with them balancing their dinner plates and they have returned plates still in hand - discouraged at being lost in such a small yard. 

I will miss that big old willow by the stream.  From the house, I love watching it wave in the wind and once a hot air balloon scraped across its top.  My daughter learned to climb it with tree climbing gear and visiting children and I would swing out over the water by sitting in its little metal swing.  

The stream.  Its gurgle has been a satisfying backdrop to hours of weeding, the movement of the hammock and the labor of picking raspberries. When I bought the house, ever so long ago, the six letter word "stream" in the ad was the singular motive for looking at the house.   As I move away to my cabin, where I can hear the river, I will know that a portion of that river's water will tumble by this lovely old house and yard.  I could send the house notes of fond remembrance on the currents.  

I shall miss the strawberry bed and strawberry rhubarb pie.

Maybe I shall even miss the mowing.  It is my weekly forty minutes of aerobic exercise.  I suppose the I could offer the new owners mowing services.  Maybe.

Los Angeles Revisited Just-In-Time

Tulips at Descanso Gardens

When I lived in San Diego, I thought of L.A. as if it were a highway, not a city.  I actually didn’t visit it often, but it always seemed like we spent as much time creeping on various highways as we did for whatever event we were planning to attend.  

Japanese Gardens at Descanso

An Eared Grebe in the Descanso Pond

I recently returned from a second visit to see my friend, Art.  Both times he has helped dispel my earlier impression.  The timing was perfect with their spring ahead of ours.  We visited the gardens at Descanso to see tulips and flowering trees, hiked into a canyon at Devil’s Punchbowl and wandered under a wisteria bush that covers two backyards and is only open one day a year. 

Trees Growing from Rocks in Devil's Punchbowl

Snow on the high hills above the canyon we hiked down into at Devil's Punchbowl.

A Small Portion of the 220 ton Wisteria!

We listened to a good band called “Pure Bathing Culture” at a club.  We spent three hours at a Korean spa for senior’s day and ate good food like potato and cilantro tacos and grilled Brussels sprouts with lemon and a cream chipotle sauce. 

 We spent very little time on highways, but even that was exciting.  On our way to the desert, dozens of Corvettes and Porsches raced past us at speeds of over a hundred miles-per-hour.  (We later saw a few of them pulled over on an off-ramp by the highway patrol.)  And we followed one humorous city bus.

Put L.A. and its nearby destinations on your list.  It is really gorgeous.  You just need a good guide - like Art.

A Beautiful Shade

As the evening darkness has begun to recede and I won’t be needing artificial light quite so early, it has occurred to me that I shall miss the beauty of entering a darkened room and turning on a light with a beautiful shade. 

I have taken a few of my favorite lamps up to the cabin.  Without ambient city light or the long summer sun, the cabin sits in deep black of winter nights.  On a moonless night at the cabin, I turned out every light before leaving.  Upon stepping onto the porch and locking the door behind me, I realized that I could not see the first of seven steps or even my car twenty feet away.  After that, I left a small porch light burning.  Arriving in the dark, the singular light welcomed me back.  I’m beginning to contemplate my alternatives for inexpensive lighting including long burning candles and LED bulbs. 

One of my oldest shades, a paper one with hand painted flowers, got a tear last year.  I removed it from the fixture to examine it for repairs and then set it on the floor beside the couch.  I later managed to clumsily step-on it leaving a gaping hole in the backside.  I am using it again at the cabin but have located a replacement shade, minus the flowers.  I’ll have to paint those myself.  I hope they will come out being beautiful.    

My Inheritance

Mrs. Benge and Mrs. Jones were salvagers in that time when women - talking with pins in their mouths - spoke of challenging feats of threading eyes and attaching zipper feet.  (Really, when you think of it, these were tasks worthy of fairy tale stature.)  Their daughters, granddaughters or nieces – almost always the girls - sat at their feet playing while absorbing the lessons of economy. With the wolf at the door, the last dollar spent, women – the ones who collected buttons - could hold the fabric of their family’s dignity together by rummaging through their collections of buttons and transforming old clothes into new. 

My Aunt Lucille was such a child.  I know because she was a good seamstress and in my inheritance, she gave me a large collection of buttons.   She told me that they had belonged to her mother, Mrs. Jones, and to her mother’s good friend, Mrs. Benge.

I sew.  Not anything like my fore-bearers could, but I can sew a straight seam, put up a hem or replace lost buttons.  My sewing box was at first just a tin and then after my inheritance arrived, I got an old metal box with handles.  My little tin could fit inside.  Eventually, I replaced that box with a double foldout wooden one that I purchased for two dollars at a Seattle yard sale.  Being bigger, it became a jumble over the years.  I’ve been meaning to straighten it out. 

I like being able to find the right color of thread, safety pins (love them) and needles and, of course, just the right button.  

Maybe now I will sew a little row of tiny buttons made of abalone shells on the window curtain (an old twenty-year project) or make a purse with my leather needle and use that huge black and white button to close it.   If, however, I get to neither project, I plan to will the buttons to someone in my family of the next generation.  And maybe they will also get the wooden sewing box with its button-like black knobs.

.  

        

Eleven Photos (2015) + One (2016)

Sandy River, OR

Joseph, OR

Bonneville Sturgeon Ponds, OR

Biggest Sunflower in My Yard

Last Grape Harvest

Fall Tree on Mill Creek Road

Leaf in the Cabin's Spring-Fed Pond

Palouse Hills and Hay Stack, WA

Hwy. 26, WA

Chioggia Beets

Reflection of a Painting

Fingers in Honey

Today I was thinking about some wonderful photos that I never posted last year when I got so busy.  Hope that you enjoy these, especially that first one.  The dad was drinking his beer and the little boy was either rowing or fishing.  Summer at its best!