Archive for the ‘domesticity’ Category

I plan to read this poem at tonight’s Solstice event at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino. Obviously it was written in a year other than 2013. We’ve had no rain all month, and none in the extended forecast, so face the likelihood of a drought year. I think of this piece as a kind of prayer.

 

Canticle for the Winter Solstice

 

I honor the rain that plummets from a leaden sky

on this day when the dying sun returns to life.

I honor the wet earth where fungi lift

the smells and secrets of their darkness

into forms potent with wildness

and fallen leaves grow slimy with decay.

 

I honor the sudden green suffusing

the face of the sun-scorched hill,

like the blush of knowledge in a woman’s face

after her first coupling.

 

I honor the flame of candle and hearth

that draws to itself the breaths

of all whose lives have sometime crossed,

mingles and transmutes them into warmth

and sends them out into the rain

where they caress the tender growing tips of trees.

 

The print that hangs on my study wall is old now, as I am. When I look at it I remember seeing the original painting, Georges Rouault’s “The Old King,” in London in the early 1960s. It was on loan from the Carnegie Museum of Art, part of some big exhibition. The Tate or the National Gallery, I don’t remember which. A crowd of viewers. The friends I was with moved on to other rooms in the gallery. I stood rooted in front of the picture, tears streaming down my face. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just posted a piece  on the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference blog about working with my editor, Andrew Todhunter, on revisions to my memoir about my sister Evelyn. The draft is finished, and out once again for comments. It’s always so valuable to see one’s work through another’s eyes.

Now I’ll need to write an epilogue. Just this week we learned that the New Zealand Geographical Board has assigned the name Stokes Peak, in Evelyn’s honor, to a peak in the Kaimai Range, between Tauranga (where she was born) and the Waikato (where she lived and worked). An impressive end to the story.

A beautiful image from an old friend, who recently scattered the ashes of her late husband:

“… as I threw the handfuls of ash into the water—they made circles ever widening which explains  why I dislike the term closure— it is not one circle, of life  with a beginning and  ending, but one circle making many concentric  circles which widen as a life enlarges, and sometimes the circles intersect as one life touches many and adds meaning  to other lives forever…. ”

My new great-niece came to visit this week. At ten weeks old, Baby Jessica smiles and gurgles. “Being a mother is different from what I expected, my niece Angela says. “I thought I’d spend all my time looking after a helpless baby. I didn’t realize I’d be getting to know a little person.”

I watch the two of them as they gaze into each other’s eyes, and am overwhelmed by the miracle of that mother-child bond.

My March gardening enthusiasm was a flop. Of all the seeds I planted, only lettuce, peas, fava beans and a few chard came up. Creepy-crawlies quickly demolished the chard. The weather stayed cold and wet. Weeds flourished. I turned my back. Then May arrived with its soft days, and I was tempted once again. This time I hied me to my favorite local nursery, North Star, where I found lovingly grown organic vegetable starts. I brought home chard, red cabbage, kale, basil,  parsley, and two tomato plants, Oregon Spring and Sweet 100.  The peas are coming in to harvest. The garlic looks happy. For now, optimism triumphs.

Our good tabby-cat Hillary died this week, at the ripe old age of twenty. The house feels strangely empty. We miss his quiet, gentlemanly presence. He was a devoted friend, especially to my husband Tony. Evenings he would lie in Tony’s arms, paw stretched out to touch his chest, like a baby.

When he was younger, the two of them would sometimes take a walk together around our meadow. Hillary would bounce back, tail fluffed, excited at having ventured into this scary place so close to the forest.

The two of them also had a daily ritual. Until he was too frail to go outdoors, Hillary would walk to the mailbox with Tony every morning to collect the newspaper. I loved to stand at the window and watch. Tail aloft like a slender questionmark, he would stroll at Tony’s side  to a point about halfway down the drive, where he would wait, invisible to any passing dog. On their way back to the house his pace quickened; once inside he knew he would receive a kitty treat.

From the moment he curled into the palm of my hand as a tiny kitten, I knew he was a mellow cat. Mellow he remained, right up to the end. We buried him in the orchard, where the white petals of plum blossom will fall on his grave.

I planted garlic this afternoon. I’m running a little late. My friend who lives at Comptche, inland from here, and grows beautiful garlic, likes to plant at Winter Solstice and harvest at Summer Solstice. But I figure January 2 is close enough. Anyway, the solstice was rainy, and today was sunny and mild, an excellent day for being outdoors. After spading in compost from a well-matured pile, I selected a good-sized head from last year’s crop, broke it apart, and dropped each fine fat clove into its hole.

The rest of last year’s crop hangs in a decorative sheaf by my kitchen window, where it’s convenient to clip off a head when I need to replenish my Wild River Pottery garlic jar.  I haven’t yet figured out how to make garlic braids like my friend in Comptche. Maybe this year …

I’m one of those odd people who enjoys ironing. I especially like ironing old linen. Many years ago, I found a dozen double damask dinner napkins at an estate sale. They were yellow with age, their edges hand-stitched with tiny hems. Laundered to a gleaming whiteness, they grace my table at every holiday. Now they are washed again, spritzed with water, and wrapped in a towel, a method I learned from my mother and grandmother. I unroll the bundle, lay a damp napkin on the ironing board, hear the sizzle of the iron as it polishes the fabric until the medallion pattern shines. Once stiff, the linen is now soft in my hand as I fold and set it to air. There is a quietness about that stack of folded linen that speaks of history and tradition and pleasure in beautiful things.