MEMORIAL DAY

[In four days the United States celebrates Memorial Day. You can read about Memorial Day on many websites: how it came into being, and where--lots of conflicting stories about its conception. Today I want to share with you a poem by Michael Anania, American poet.]

MEMORIAL DAY

It is easily forgotten, year to

year, exactly where the plot is,

though the place is entirely familiar—

a willow tree by a curving roadway

sweeping black asphalt with tender leaves;

 

damp grass strewn with flower boxes,

canvas chairs, darkskinned old ladies

circling in draped black crepe family stones,

fingers cramped red at the knuckles, discolored

nails, fresh soil for new plants, old rosaries;

 

such fingers kneading the damp earth gently down

on new roots, black humus caught in grey hair

brushed back, and the single waterfaucet,

birdlike upon its grey pipe stem,

a stream opening at its foot.

 

We know the stories that are told,

by starts and stops, by bent men at strange joy

regarding the precise enactments of their own

gesturing. And among the women there will be

a naming of families, a counting off, an ordering.

 

The morning may be brilliant; the season

is one of brilliances—sunlight through

the fountained willow behind us, its splayed

shadow spreading westward, our shadows westward,

irregular across damp grass, the close-set stones.

 

It may be that since our walk there is faltering,

moving in careful steps around snow-on-the-mountain,

bluebells and zebragrass toward that place

between the willow and the waterfaucet, the way

is lost, that we have no practiced step there,

and walking, our own sway and balance, fails us.

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Michael Anania was born in Omaha, NE in 1939.

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It was called Decoration Day when I was a little girl. We gathered wild iris and tiger lilies from the ditches that bordered the fields where corn was just beginning to thrust its green shoots through the black Illinois soil. We carried the flowers in quart jars of water to the cemetery where we decorated two small graves of my brothers. I didn't know what it was all about. But I felt the atmosphere of loss and mourning.

Now I know it as a day of remembering the ones who have left us--the Episcopal burial service says it beautifully: "Father of all, we pray to you . . . for all those whom we love but see no longer. Grant to them eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine upon them. May . . . the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."

BITS & PIECES

 Bits and pieces are what you get when you drop a cup on the tile floor--or when your soup in the microwave explodes--or when your moving vehicle meets an immovable/stationary object. Doesn't matter whether you're the crasher or the crashee--it's still bits and pieces.

To set your minds at rest, I've participated in none of the above crises. But my life is, in another way, just a series of this and that, random thoughts, whatchamacallits, minutae, and other little stuff--bits and pieces.

For instance--my calendar veers from "something every day" to "nothing this week." All efforts to regulate the filling in of calendar squares have come to naught--some days I have two things on a day, then later in the week I have one thing per day. The next week--what I'd looked forward to has been cancelled or rescheduled.

I used to have a regulation planner. Nowadays, to remedy this situation, I make a weekly calendar on an 8x11 spiral notebook--one week per page, cut into 8 equal parts--7 days plus a square to pen a few reminders for the coming week. Each day's "list" includes what kind of exercise I do that day--biking or yoga; what hobbies I need or want to pursue (sewing and painting feature often); phone calls I need to make; and sometimes a reminder that I'm going to clean the bathroom that day or do a load of laundry. As you might expect, I'm growing fairly desperate when I have to list nearly every single thing for the day. But since I'm pretty visual in my approach to life, it works to "see" what's happening.

That's the calendar thing. Low-cost, simple, and I can abandon it any time I like.

Reading--through the last of the winter months I binged on mystery series that I own--Harold Adams (writing about the 1930s); Agatha Christie (into Tommy & Tuppence right now); Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novellas (which I've read dozens of times since I discovered them in the 1950s). When I ran out of mysteries, I switched to non-fiction: Benjamin Roth's diary of the Great Depression; books by various artists sharing their techniques for watercolor and drawing; Liz Flaherty's Window Over the Sink, a collection of her essays and columns about Life and People and Living (highly recommended!).

I also read magazines but not on a regular basis.

Sewing/Quilting--finally made it to the end of the sofa throw I'd been working on since sometime late in 2020--since it was for myself, I didn't have a deadline. Also didn't have a lot of luck with the simple quilting, so the half-finished throw was gotten out, looked at, and then put away again. But eventually I persevered and it is now something for me to sleep under--turned out larger than a sofa throw, more like a twin-size bed quilt. 

Another project I wanted to make--a scrappy throw in many shades of gray--got going. I'm currently at the point of stitching three large sections into one for the quilt top.

Knitting--happens mainly on Tuesdays when I meet with Emily for Knitting @ Noon. Small projects only--I don't have the stick-to-it-ive-ness to work for months on a bigger piece.

Reference Photo

Painting--YouTube has made it easy to access tutorials any time, any place. On days when I can't conjure up a landscape on my own, I browse the tutorials for ideas. Other days, I'm right there with my paper and paint to work out a study of something or other--trees, clouds; color mixing . . . . About once a month I paint with my friend Pat at her house (she has more room available for us to sit and paint and chat). And I like her little dog, Sheldon, a Shih Tzu.

I'm in my silver birch tree period, in case you're interested.

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That's about it for me--bits and pieces. 

We could add in shopping (I go about once a month) and dishes (I on KP twice a day, my daughter cooks) and laundry (twice a week to make smaller loads) and attending (so to speak) online worship services and filling bird feeders. It's still a little of this and a little of that.

Maybe that's the way of the world now that I'm in my 80s. I've read that the 80s are the new 60s, but I'm deeply grateful my new 60s aren't as traumatic health-wise as the ones I lived through 20 years ago.

Probably I can get into this bits and pieces thing. Just takes practice, right?

 BIRD REPORT

My title is sort of orange because that's the color I'm seeing recently in the plumage of the birds who visit my feeders, my yard, and (ahem) my car.

Robins, though they have a reputation for a "red" breast, actually sport a deep orange. This year they've been making inroads into my suet cakes. Yes, really! All I could figure was that we've had too little rain, thus keeping worms underground and out of reach of robins, so the birds have to find protein wherever they can. Suet cakes will do in a pinch. 

--This theory was borne out when we finally got some spring rains, late in April, and robins were once again spied pulling worms out of the ground for their daily feeds.

This year I've started something new--an oriole feeder. I took the easy route--bought a feeder that will fit the screw-top of some grape jelly jars. Found inexpensive jelly, loaded up, hung it on the heavier plant hanger out front, and waited for action. The first thing we noticed was the feeder upside down. Something or someone had tipped it and the weight of the jar did the rest. Never caught the culprit, but we figure it was (1) squirrels, (2) heavier birds, or (3) the wind.

--I vote for squirrels. whenever there's mischief abroad, you'll most likely find a squirrel in charge. We've also noticed, however, that the grape jelly attracts all sorts of littler birds--everybody seems to have a sweet tooth--so to speak. 

--I waited long enough one day to spy the oriole for whom the feeder was installed in the first place. He took long sips, tilted his head back to swallow, then kept it up for several minutes. My daughter in Ohio who has a lot of feeders told me that the orioles also need protein, and they'll eat seeds from the other feeders to round out their diet.

Another new bird for me this year is the grosbeak. Mostly black, white breast (looks almost like a tuxedo), and an orange cravat down the front. (Bird experts call it rosy.) The younger grosbeak wears a small tasteful orange neckerchief. They've both dined at my backyard seed feeder. The lady of the family is in a muted gold gown, definitely not easily identified.

--Don't know if they stay around for the season. I've only seen them one day, but they could visit when I'm occupied in another room without a window on that side of the house.

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I have to confess--I do not like grackles. Sorry if you're tired of hearing about them, but they figure largely in my daily life. If the suet feeders are filled, within two days they'll be empty again, mainly due to grackles. A couple of years ago I watched a platoon of smaller birds drive away a grackle. So I know it can be done.

(In researching for this post, I discovered I may be maligning a different bird. Crows, ravens, grackles, starlings--I'd have to be a more discerning birder to know for sure. I apologize to all who know about these different species, and I suppose I ought to apologize to the species themselves, just to make things right.)

What bothers me about grackles (or whatever) isn't so much their habits--they're just being true to their nature--but what they tell me about myself. I like to think I'm an inclusive sort of person. I try never to exclude someone for a trivial reason. Maybe I don't go out of my way to discover ways to practice diversity . . . but then, I don't go out of my way to find and include a lot of people (of any kind) in my life. 

But grackles! I'm truly sorry, but I cannot openly court them as candidates for the diversity of my backyard bird sanctuary. I can't keep them out--short of enclosing the whole yard and creating an aviary, I must accept them as part of the environment. Apparently my ecosystem requires grackles.

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The lesson in this ramble goes like this: 

--some things cannot be changed without drastic measures

--some things should not be changed, with any measures

--if I'm going to invite birds of all feathers into my life, then I have to let the birds themselves dictate who is and who is not welcome

--but the big lesson is this: Into each life some grackles must fall. 

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Hope your life is full of bluebirds and sunshine and flowering roadsides.

Blessings on you!

Thursday's Child

 LEARNED AT MY MOTHER'S KNEE

[My mother has been gone for 65 years, but my, how she lives

on in my memories! This is one of my posts that celebrates her

life and influence.]

What did you learn at your mother's knee?

One thing I learned was how to swear. Fluently.

My mother had four older brothers and three older sisters. No matter how vigilant Grandma and Grandpa were, older siblings will be older siblings. I suspect the boys were the more accomplished swearers, though.

And it didn't take me long to learn where and when swearing was tolerated--not many places and not often.

But the best thing I learned from my mom was how to be a Positive Person.

Not a family pic--but this is how women
looked in the 1940s.

I knew all six of the Jenkins girls: Dessie, Grace, Sarah, Mom (Doris), Dorothy (Mom's twin), Virginia. It was a rare moment when all six happened to be together, so I got to know them in smaller groups when they met at Grandma's house to can green beans or help clean house or just because they wanted to visit and Grandma's house was central for most of them.

Picture this: Grandma sitting at her big round kitchen table, waited on by whichever daughters showed up. A pie is cut and served. The coffee pot is never allowed to go dry. Voices mix and mingle and soar. The decibel level rises to ever greater heights.

What did they talk about? Everything. And I learned a lot from the corner where I sat and listened (they thought I was reading--well, I was, but I was listening, too). What I learned was this: There was nothing too big or too personal or too sad or too upsetting that it couldn't be laid on the table, commented on, hashed out, maybe even solved.

These women faced the problems in their lives.

They acknowledged the problems.

They shared them with each other.

Then they got on with life.

And always, they laughed. By the end of the pie and coffee and the afternoon, someone's burden was lighter.

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When I think about my mother and her sisters, I realize they taught me many useful approaches to life. Such as:

-- Stand up to adversity.

-- Share your burden.

-- Laugh if you can.

-- Cry if you can't laugh.

-- Be honest; don't say it's worse than it is; don't lie; give the benefit of the doubt, if you can.

-- Walk away, if you have to (though I don't remember much of that, not permanent leaving).

-- Apologize if necessary.

-- And a very practical lesson: Clean the house--it's great for anger management. (Not to mention you'll have a cleaner house.)

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As you can imagine, the above lessons were the ones I caught by example. No one gave me instructions or a list called How to Live as an Adult. I suspect most of us learn by the examples we were given.

Which makes me wonder what my children would write, if they were asked what they learned at their mother's knee. I grow faint just thinking about it.

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Whether or not you have children, you were once a child yourself, so you had a mother. If she's still on this planet, wish her a happy day, and thank her, if you can, for what you learned from her example. If she has passed on to another place, salute her for the lessons she gave you.

Mine showed me how to be positive, even when life gives you lemons and you don't have a pitcher or enough sugar to make lemonade. Her smile, even when she was dying of cancer, was genuine; she wasn't trying to deny death. She was still saying "yes!" to life.