The Night Cars

These past unusually warm April nights takes my memory back to the summer nights of my childhood visits in Maine. My cousin and I would sit in our grandparents swing in the evenings and talk or just mind-meld...sometimes we wouldn't have to say anything at all..we just put our heads together and rocked the swing, intuitively knowing each other's thoughts. There was an old empty factory building across the street with the multi-paned windows and sometimes we would go over there and run up and down the shipping and receiving ramp and then run back to our swing. We would sit and listen to the cars way off in the distance traveling on the city streets knowing that we would never know who was whirring those motors, shifting those gears, pushing those accelerators, stomping on those brakes that made that "errrrck" sound. Never seeing the cause yet hearing the effect.
So last night I put my head back on the wicker chair and looked up at the stars, thought of my cousin and listened to the night cars....

Volcano and Cello

There is a young cello artist I had the pleasure of hearing as my daughter and I strolled the streets of Alberta in Portland, Oregon during a FirstThursday Art Fair. This was a few years ago. Amid the creative booths and tables of very interestingly talented artists, Adam Hurst's music wove in and out of my psyche. His cello music is absolutely mesmerizing and I was enthralled with the hypnotic cords wafting through the night like clouds of incense. It is the most ethereal music I have ever heard...it takes you to a deep part of your heart.
Adam Hurst studied cello at Skidmore College while in high school and Brown University while in college. He holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (1997). He taught cello at Providence College as an adjunct from 1998-2002 and continues to teach privately.
That was the same year that we took a trip to Mount St. Helens. Adam Hurst's cello was the perfect background music for our visit~ the volcano that erupted May 18,1980. Mount St.Helens is an awesome effect of nature. Miles and miles of fir trees line the mountains along the road corridors. It is a herring bone pattern. So vast you can't wrap your mind around it. Then the sullen emptiness of the many miles surrounding the volcano that still expires its breath, looking almost like a teepee with smoke signals emitting from its gaping sunken crest. No vegetation except for a few hardy plants that take over years after vast fires have killed everything in sight. The last words of 30 year old volcanologist David Johnston as he witnessed the explosion...only enough time to shout "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" echoes in your mind and the drone of the haunting strings of Adam Hurst's cello seem to meld together as if the music were written for this awesome power of nature. I would like to go back sometime soon..but meanwhile I shall listen to Adam Hurst's evocative, dream like emotional melodies. Occurences happen in Portland and the Pacific Northwest that transfix your life, I'm pretty sure of that! It happens to me every time.
http://www.gypsycello.com/ Here is his website for his newest work. You will enjoy it I'm sure.

Two Crows Watched Over Us

Once a few years ago, I was in Portland, Oregon visiting my daughter. It was a beautiful day and we decided to go to the park and read our books. We packed up her lawn chairs and a little lunch and set off. We parked the car and walked a very little distance to a sunny and shady spot under a big canopy of tree. We set up our chairs and settled in for a long read. A man approached us with a back pack on, a paper cup in his hand and long, black hair. His face was rather swarthy. He stepped between us and asked us what we were reading. We looked at each other...a little skeptical and uneasy...and told him. He said he liked to read too. He said he would let us get on with our reading. We felt a little uncomfortable since our purses and lunch pail were just kind of strewn around..not really near us as they should have been. He walked off and sat down by a grove of trees. We continued to read. He came up to us again and said he had a question to ask us. We said ok, ask away. He asked..Did you vote for George Bush? We chuckled and gave him our answer. I looked up at him and to my eye he had a blue line outlining his face. I don't know if I am able to see auras but I saw this blue outline. He proceeded to sit down on the ground and told us he was a Black Foot Indian. He said Black Foot Indians are the most fierce of Indian tribes. He told us his age..just a few years younger than myself..how he lived under the bridge and that he was an alcoholic. He told us that his brother was a police officer in Portland and sometimes he lives with him and his family but he is not allowed to stay there unless he is sober. He told us of another homeless lady who also lives under the bridge that got angry at him one day and said to him "Choose your path". He said he thought about that a lot. He told us he had died two times and that his parents and grandparents were dead and he saw them in the light but they told him to go back and that he missed them very much. He told us about his grandmother Lucy Top Knot and how she taught him to tan hides to make a tent. He taught us Black Foot words and about the rituals of becoming a man in the tribe and about a bundle of precious things that his brother was chosen to keep. Blackfoot traditionalists believe religious items cannot be owned by individuals, but are held by "keepers" for the good of the tribe. He told us about them piercing the the chest of a man with antlers or pieces of bone and raising him up and twirling him around to see how much he can endure. He was sad about things in his life and that explained why I saw the blue aura around his face. He told us about the fir trees and the words for birds and plants. I looked all this up when we got back to my daughter's apartment. Everything was true. He showed us his ID from the reservation in Montana. I enjoyed our visit and it made such an impact on me. I wish I could listen to his stories again. The whole time we were talking to him I noticed two crows sitting in the tree above us.. they stayed the whole time..As we packed up and left they flew away. I will never forget this man...I think of him often.

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator


Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way. - Blackfoot Proverb

much ado about nothing in particular

Outside in my backyard, a gentle zephyr is blowing~the sky is truly "sky" blue~birds are singing and there is in particular two woodpeckers calling with their monkey sound and drumming away to each other from distant trees. Every so often the soothing sounds get interrupted by a lawnmower...did these people all buy their lawnmowers at the same place? Did they have a sale on Bush-hogs? These yards are tiny in-town yards..postage stamp size and these mowers sound like bulldozers! Ahhh, at last they have finished mowing...knew it wouldn't take too long to do a 20'by 15' lawn. Now the monkey drumming sound has distanced too and there is the sound of scampering squirrels gathering around me for their peanut afternoon snack. I shall pretend this glorious day is my birthday.

Knee Deep in Discovery

I'm knee deep-not "knee deep in June" as the James Whitcomb Riley poem describes..knee deep in genealogy. I'd been away from it for nearly a year-regretfully but feeling that I'd gone as far as I could. Refreshingly, I got started again full on course. I received by email (the internet is one of the most amazingly convenient and immediate modes of communication and sharing)some pictures I'd never seen from a cousin of Michael's. Michael hadn't seen his cousin in 50 years and then only saw him rarely. His cousin's quest was initiated by a friend of his son's who had contacted me through Ancestry.com. She was doing a favor for her friend as a gift whom she knew never knew much at all about his father's family. She and I unlocked many lost pieces and secrets that I'm sure Michael's mother didn't even know.
Things started clicking in my mind again and I got the big hat box of old pictures and grandma's funeral guest book. I started looking up the names of family who had signed their condolences and who had sent floral gifts. VOILA~perseverance, lots of patience and a discerning eye for birth dates, scrambled names written by well meaning census takers and other members of families are the key to unlocking the mysteries of relationships and identity of old photos.
Michael and his cousin knew none of the names I asked them to recall..they both said they only knew their grandma and she died when they were 9 and 17. They really didn't pay much attention and no one ever seemed to talk about the family which is a common thread in many families. Maybe because back then relatives lived very close together on the same street or in the same town or county. Maybe because there were secrets that were to never be discussed.
Last night after many hours of checking pages and pages of census and border crossings and ship arrivals for siblings of whom I deduced were related to their great grandma I am 98% sure I have found her maiden name and her parents name and their origins. I didn't uncover royal ties like Brooke Shields did in the television series "Who Do You Think You Are", and rarely will you uncover such a link, but it is exciting to at last know names and occupations and to be able to identify people in photographs...people who worked in skilled labor and farming jobs and lived ordinary houses that housed many children who grew up,got married and did the same hard working jobs to build this country from the ground up.

Springy Spring

Spring has SPRINGED! Here are some shots of spring around the Wildlife Habitat back yard. This is our neighbor's cat, Lucas. The squirrels call him "Danger" although he doesn't scare them when he tries to chase them..they love to taunt him. We took these photos of the magnolia tree right before a spring storm with the storm warning sirens blowing. Fortunately it only thundered and rained. The best kind of spring storm and afternoon entertainment of furry creatures. (You can double click on the images to see what's going on with the cat and the squirrel)

SHARING OUR DIARIES

Blogs are the new diary of our lives. They are the way most of us wile away the evening or late night. What is the purpose of it, one might be asked? Not so much a purpose as it is a joy. The thrill comes from writing, photography, reading and connecting with so many people all over the world who actually think like you do and think MORE than you do. It exposes you to all sorts of ideas and images that you might not be as readily exposed to if you didn't shout out in cyberspace. It helps you hone your skills at text writing for teaching a craft or moves your mind in a way that helps you improve your thinking and verbage;it enables you to discover computer skills you didn't know before. It surprises your kids! It makes even the home bound feel they can travel and connect with new found friends. That is worth more than monetary income. Once you start blogging it is addictive...it vitalizes you and it makes you go to bed at night thinking about what your next few posts can be about and what things you want to share or wonder about. It fills that creative need and helps us sort out our jumbled minds at times. Sometimes you get plagued with writers block...it is only temporary and natural and well understood by your fellow bloggers. Interesting note is that no matter what anyone has to talk about..no matter how great or how seemingly insignificant..it strikes a cord with your readers.
Only downside...your butt has a tendency to get wider.!!