Rain Boots

 

Sunday we went to the seasonal garden center to purchase plants for our garden.  In the parking lot I spotted an older woman.  She was loading the trunk of her car although I didn’t notice with what, and she kept looking in our direction. 

I hoisted Penelope into a large shopping cart.  She dangled on her sockless feet rain boots, which were a couple sizes too big.  They were a recent birthday present and decorated with pink and red strawberries.  It was almost ninety degrees and I thought her feet must have been dripping with sweat inside the thick rubber.

So the woman approached us commenting on how darling Penelope was, and “Where did we get those boots?” she inquired.  I told her that I had ordered them on-line and spelled out the brand for her.  I was thinking of my slight splurge and guessing that a pair would likely be out of this woman’s budget in case she had interest in buying rain boots for a little granddaughter. 

She smiled vaguely with big, wide eyes and curly dyed hair most likely recently set at the beauty shop.  I could see she wasn’t really interested in any details or the possibility of buying rain boots.  She moved on.  “I found a raincoat at Wal-Mart, but the zipper didn’t work well.  It only zipped halfway!  I took it back.  Why would you keep something faulty after all?”

I smiled and nodded in complete agreement trying to find an exit in order to rejoin with Pat and Abe already ahead browsing the herbs. 

She changed the subject asking how old Penelope was.  I restated the question asking Penelope how old she was in an absurd, sticky sweet voice that suited an episode of Barney but certainly must not belong to me.  She dutifully displayed her fingers configured in an Okee Dokee formation as she had done many times the past week of her birthday.  “Oh, three!  You’ve made it through the terrible two’s, didn’t you?”  Yes, I confirmed, nodding some more and made some regrettable comment regarding her difficult behavior in front of my three-year-old daughter that somehow felt like I had branded her as a naughty girl.  I immediately felt ashamed.

“When I was little and misbehaved, my Dad gave me the belt!” she announced and thereby violently interrupted my internal self-criticism.  Her eyes were wider now and I suspect mine were too.  Unsure of how I should react and wanting more than ever to be mulling over which shade of pink impatiens I should plant, I simply stared back.  She choked out a laugh which I couldn’t determine whether it was a reaction to my visible discomfort or some nostalgic feelings. 

“I did something really stupid one time.  I hid under my bed thinking he wouldn’t be able to get me there.  Well, he got me, for sure, and he beat me much worse for it!  I sure learned my lesson!”  She laughed loudly this time.  “Well, I’ll let you go.” she said abruptly perhaps realizing I wasn’t eager to discuss corporal punishment or perhaps because I was backing away in desperation at not knowing how to respond or even wanting to.  How do you reconcile the happy grin and jovial interest in rain gear with memories of such physical and emotional pain?  This question mixed uneasily with the residual frustration caused by Penelope’s daily resistance to shoes on her feet resulting in compromises such as rain boots without socks on a sunny, ninety-degree day.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for” she wished our way as we rolled ahead in pursuit of new thoughts and plants to nurture in our garden. 

Dumpster Diving

This is in honor of the ten years since graduating with that ever useful self-designed major:  Anthropology of Women plus minor in Studio Art and dedicated to my sister, of course.

Walking across the smooth carpet covering the expansive second floor annex of Le Mans Hall, I carefully stepped over the wide burgundy borders. The boarders divided the length into stately geometric segments attempting to invoke the grandiosity of a palatial hall.  Playing my invented game of hopping over the burgundy I simultaneously prevented an imagined atrocity and listened to my sister.  She detailed to our parents with exuberance her latest class projects, her job cleaning the ceramic studio, and her off campus adventures. All of her talking halted at the presence of a dumpster which was planted at the end of the hall.  It was a grateful receptacle into which the students tossed unwanted items after emerging from their large flesh toned dorm rooms passing through tall thresholds, pushing open their heaving dark doors clad with a white board scribbled with the names of the room’s occupants and crowned with a tipsy transom. 

Into the dumpster bin, they’d toss crumpled papers, knotted condoms wrapped in tissues, soggy ramen noodles scraped from moldy bowls, and tags yanked from department store clothes.  On top of this garbage mountain resting like the foam of fat that hovers on the top of a brothy soup lay a large Papa John’s pizza box.  Inside a cheesy Pac-man missing only two triangles opened its mouth as if ready to gobble its cherries: a whole container of dripping, garlic butter sauce which seeped into the cardboard wetting it.  In the corner a discarded crust cradled a hot pepper like a sickle to its hammer.  The remainder of this pie was intact after some roommates undoubtedly regretted their midnight indulgence and declared it garbage in order to prevent another act of beer slicked weakness. 

Into this room temperature box of morning after, my sister who will one day fearlessly sleep on a bench overnight in Rome, spend a summer dusting ancient artifacts while baby-sitting a professor’s pad, and meet her future husband while skiing the Alps, lifted the cover, selected a slice, and ate it.  At once I was both horrified and completely impressed.  This, more than anything, demonstrated the possibilities college had to offer.  My Mom who fed us institutional, leftover tater tots rescued from the nursing home kitchen that my Grandma worked at, gave me underwear and bras resurrected from the garbage pails of her cleaning client, and also had us elbow deep in black trash bags full of deceased people’s clothes trying to find funky jeans  and sweaters or anything that would freshen our wardrobes, taught us well that nothing should be wasted. 

Looking back I realize my sister invented dumpster diving well before hipsters launched the trend, and for this she will be eternally cool.  

*Disclaimer:  This story is true-ish--meaning based on memory and some real events, but mixed with some fiction too.

A Penny For A Needle

An embroidery that I'm working on

A brilliant embroidery that I purchased from Field Museum and neglected to learn more about regarding its origin and maker

It's rainy outside, I haven't painted for days, and I really need to be with brush and canvas, but I had to share something momentous that I learned this weekend.  We visited the Chicago's Field Museum yesterday which is currently exhibiting reproductions of and artifacts relating to the cave paintings of Lascaux.  I've been eager to see it knowing it's likely I'll never experience the real thing.  It was great and well worth the trip.  You should go too!

Part of the exhibit highlighted some tool making procedures and even showed video illustrating the processes.  The last one was the needle!  They showed how humans 20,000 years ago made needles from bones to sew clothing and other textiles.  Not only were they sewing 20,000 years ago, but they were sewing with a tool identical to mine in design.  In fact, the needle hasn't changed in 20,000 years! 

I love this connection to the past and that I'm performing an ancient ritual each time I pass a need through fabric pulling its thread along.  I imagine I'm overreacting and my readers will likely not share in my enthusiasm, but for some reason this jazzed me more than the impressive nature of the paintings.  I guess you could make the argument that we are still painting today, though rarely in caves and largely with synthetic materials. 

In short I love stepping into the past and often feel frustrated that the artifacts have lost their significance.  We can guess at the meaning of the cave paintings, but we can not know.  Abe was similarly frustrated when were studying these abstract, yet very deliberate markings made in the cave.  He was working at an exhibit sorting them by type and likeness, but mourned the fact that we don't know what they mean anymore.  We know what the needle means because we have never stopped using it.  We've never lost that thread of thought.

Do we ever change?

Many loyal neighbors came to honor my Grandma at her wake.  We'd talk about her close-knit community on Superior St. and inevitably recall the extensive garage sales they hosted every fall.  These yard sales really left an impression on me, and in fact, I have written about them in an early  post about my Grandma.  I have a lot of fond memories of her bustling about and being the queen of her block.  Anyway, one of her neighbors remembered my selling homemade scrunchies at one of the sales.  It took me awhile to remember that I had in fact made hand sewn hair accessories to sell.  In light of my recent struggles with coming to terms with craft fairs and my Etsy shop, I had to laugh at my younger self in realization that not much has changed for me.  They say we often find careers related to things that we loved doing at kids.  So, maybe I need to reexamine (AGAIN) my interest in craft fairs.  I have two scheduled for December.  I'm hoping to have inspiration strike with some fantastic ideas.  I better get started-----hmmm are scrunchies making a come back?  In the meantime, I plan on submitting my application for the Oak Park Art League (OPAL).  Wish me luck!

PS  My back-up camera broke!  So, I am without clever pictures to post in my blog.  Any thoughts on whether I should get a new camera or just a smart phone?  What's your vote?

The Invisible Mouse and Other Tales

Mousey

One cool morning last week I gave a second thought to my backdoor.  I was departing for my routine jog, and an unreasonable fear of being locked out of my home prevented me from shutting the main door.  A quick dismissal of outside threats, and I was on my way.  Later that day, I spotted a flutter of evil rounding the corner of the kitchen to the back porch.  It was dark, fluffy, and seemed to float close to the ground.  I froze for a moment and then fell on its trail.  No rodent could be found cowering in any corner, but its droppings secured its presence.  My heart sank, and after dispelling panic, I set out for snap traps.  Morning after morning, traps sat empty but robbed.  No amount of tricks (tying on bait etc.) seemed to work.  One night my husband spotted our small dormer and was able to confine it in my studio. After a few days of futility, I began tearing apart my workspace--removing furniture, emptying bins, rifling through fabric.  I vacuumed and wiped up droppings in places that I preferred not knowing a mouse had scurried.  Still, each search party failed to yield.  Yesterday, on my Mom's advice I had talked with the mouse informing it was his time to go or he was going to get it.  With new found resolution I purchased a different brand of snap traps as well as sticky traps.  That night, I slept on a bed of hope dismissing the blur I saw while watching a movie in the TV room.  The next morning, our traps weren't touched.  All the bait was fully loaded.  In one more moment of frustration, I asked my two-year-old in desperation "where is the mouse?".  She answered me plainly, "In the TV room."  Spotting one turd on the couch, I pulled the furniture from the wall revealing trails of excrement.  I furiously moved traps from my studio to the TV room.  I knew I'd have to wait another day to know if my sanity could be salvaged.  It's astounding that something so small can cause me to unravel so grandly.  This mouse clearly has the power of invisibility, I thought.  I laughed at this thought because a couple weeks ago, I found it so charming to witness my daughter feeding her lunch to a make-believe mouse perched on her table.  Who knew her imaginary friend could leave real mouse dung.

Guadalupe

 Last weekend I painted four small (5" x 7") works on canvas paper which I stitched onto fabric which I then stitched onto cardboard.  I popped them into frames and also made prints for a sale in Aurora.  I was thinking of them as stream of conscious pictorials.  I liked their immediacy and flimsy nature.  In the end, I think they resembled cards as in playing or tarot.  Coincidentally a slow art show lead me to a tarot card deck where I had a reading.  Long story short, I'm encouraged to treat my art more seriously.  I feel ready to take the next step whatever that should be except that my studio and house is turned inside out and upside down because of our invisible mouse.  I don't know how much longer I can tolerate the intruder and the upheaval it has caused in my art production.  I will post an update hopefully soon--notifying its death. 

Add caption

Umbrella

Arrowheads

Since I've been a kid, I've dreamed of uncovering an arrowhead.  It would be my sacred totem, my prized magic.  I paced my backyard scouring the grass for archaeological signs, an omen.  On her farm Ann Kuhn told us of her Son plucking unearthed arrows poking from the turned soil.  She said if you walk between the rows of corn and work your toe under the dirt as you go, you might get lucky.  She herself had a large framed display of all the arrowheads she'd collected on her property.  I would gaze at their finely chiseled, symmetrical points longingly.  During vacations at the lake, I would search the beach for interesting stones for my collection.  Sometimes I'd find triangular shaped ones that my brother and I would claim as arrowheads despite our being the wiser.  We wanted to believe in them.  Perhaps I'll find my buried luck on another adventure, but tonight I had loads of fun printing arrowhead postcards with easy cut and speedball ink.  I am a horrible printer--finger prints, kiss marks everywhere.  Nevertheless, I furiously printed a dozen post cards and four poster sized pictures for Magic Bandana.  Now that I see the photos of them, I don't know if they are as great as I had first judged.  Anyway, they were worth every minute. 

printing blocks, I used them like stamps

poster

postcard

Lessons In Pigment---PART ONE

Oakland, Fall 2005

I quickly shuffled up the outdoor, wooden staircase.  My heart kept a nervous rhythm as I entered the lofty studio.  Bathtub-sized skylights drenched the room in California sunshine.  Empty easels circled like wagons around a platform.  My tendency for promptness hadn't failed me my today, but I preferred to speak to the professor without other students around, anyway. 

He was shortish, middle-aged, and his untucked polo shirt draped over his plump belly.  I asked him if we were required to paint with oils in this class.  He stared back at me through round lenses as I fumbled a blustery explanation that I was in my first trimester and preferred a less toxic medium.  I knew that the glazed expression frozen on his face wasn't in response to my articulating a health requirement in a population that prided itself in being a paradigm of healthy living.  My being pregnant was much more problematic.  Still, he congenially explained that we could paint with our preferred medium, and we could paint whatever we wanted.  Furthermore, he generously opened tall doors which unfolded onto a balcony overlooking the city.  Pine trees lined one side of the studio and their fallen needles carpeted the ground below.  I chose an easel near the breeze and squeezed paint dollops in a circular formation on my palette.  Once the live model disrobed, I fumbled with my watercolors in hesitant and futile attempts to capture her grace.

The professor made rounds stopping at each easel.  He commented on the students' work, chatted, and asked questions not necessarily pertaining to their work.  His unabashed directness made me queasy.  Each sentence was like a bolt of lightening turning the world on end.  His candor caught me off guard, but my fellow students who were 7 or 8 years younger devotedly chuckled at his snark and peculiar philosophies.  Standing behind me he asked whether I believed in abortion.  In our earlier conversation, I had let my insecurity surrounding my unplanned but very much desired pregnancy divulge the surprise nature of my situation.  Of course, I supported a woman's right to choose I answered, however, my husband and I want children.  This one happened to come a couple years ahead of schedule.  He replied with an "Oh, I see" and shuffled to the next easel leaving me reeling.  His reaction to my condition was utterly opposite of my other professors who offered their complete support and excitement.  If his goal was to provoke, he was succeeding.

At the end of class students dragged their chairs around the platform where the professor replaced the nude model.  He talked about the time he spent driving Rauschenberg around the Bay and claimed that he was a big drunk.  Was he really name dropping?  I sat with arms crossed doing my best to not roll my eyes.

We were to complete a painting a week painting six hours a day.  It was a summer course, and so it was condensed.  The intensity didn't bother me, but I was skeptical as to whether I'd learn much.  I walked the seven blocks uphill to the brown studio perched on stilts.  I left my watercolors at home deciding to abandon the live model and look inward.  I sketched a primitive shaped woman with a large womb which held nine babies representing the months on gestation.  It looked like a cross between a great goddess and a prenatal care poster.  On Friday during critique, a hipster student who curiously painted Felix the Cat amongst large dripping abstract environments, stated that my painting was too obvious.  She was right.

Oakland, Summer 2006

The People's Park: Part Two

The rainy season hit hard for the people in the park.  Mud and dampness made for a perpetually wet camp and often sent them into the bathrooms adjacent to my office to get their fix.  The acrid smells of chemicals afire hung in the air.  Their marathon smoke sessions infuriated me.  I was being poisoned, and soon their paranoia seeped into my office too.  I was forever denying their accusations that I was a NARC and the existence of cameras in the trees.  But maybe there was some truth to their suspicions. 

As a kid I’d duck below the front windows when Gordy passed.  He was a teen who lived in the corner house.  I’d heard that he’d fried his brain on drugs.  Like Victor he walked around shirtless with unfurled curly hair.  I wanted to catch a glimpse of him, but I didn’t want his eyes to meet mine.  I was captivated and terrified that part of a person could be erased and that drugs could be the eraser. 

After school specials preaching “just say no” only fanned my paranoid flame.  My brother and cousin teased me with such pranks as blowing piles of baby powder cocaine in my face with an oscillating fan.  I screamed in panic, and to this day am unsure how nine year-olds acquired such contraband. In fact, my paranoia lead me to become an amateur NARC.  I’d creep up to my newly renovated bedroom carefully looking for joints in the cracks of the sub-floor.  I’d overheard my Mother worry over the “hippie” painters who looked like they were on drugs.  I was certain I’d find real evidence.

At the park I was among genuine hippies—at least some of them were.  They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers, but most chose at some level to inhabit the park.  Petra, the toughest woman in the park, would often remind me of this saying, “I have a home; I have daughters,” yet she remained in the park as its best hustler and perhaps the most feared individual.

Petra and her entourage would repeatedly and respectfully ask me what I was doing at the Park.  I didn’t fit. They and everyone else could see that I wasn’t from there or even California.  I could never answer their queries.  My supervisor told me I’d been hired because I had character.  I knew they had their doubts about my toughness but I managed to convince them of my desire to work with the homeless.  I thought I saw them differently, had aspirations of community art projects, and a handful of ideals that seemed ridiculous when I looked into Petra’s eyes.  The truth is I wanted a job, but what was I really doing there?  Other than a bus pass there certainly weren’t any perks, and my ideals went up in crack smoke.

Petra wasn’t the only one to question my presence.   I was a cultural oddity.  I spent hours talking to the bike police, the man who emptied the trash cans, local park advocates, passers-by, and park people.  They’d stand in my office door trying to get me to join the police, join the union, or become a customer hustling their merchandise discarded items, drugs, and sex acts. One morning I even let a toothless drunk kiss me on my cheek.  He’d been celebrating all night long.   I’d try to assess their sanity and sobriety---my opinion forever wavering—in hopes that I’d find a reason why I was there.

Eventually a park person torched the free box, and I soon departed People’s Park.  My boss from the deli called the park “a failure of the left,” and I felt his comment could have applied to me as well.  I left the park corrupted.  I had been fried on drugs and left only with additional fear and paranoia.  I was lost more than ever and upon reflection realize how much I had in common with the park inhabitants.  I was desperately trying to figure out who I was, too.  Nonetheless, I closed my office for the last time after meeting my replacement, a happy looking student from the university.  I ran from the park before I could recognize myself in the eyes of its people.

The People's Park: Part One

One Saturday while working at the park, somebody defecated on my cinderblock office.  The tar-stained smear blurred the colorful, yet carelessly painted mural.  Sadly it wouldn’t be the last time I had to purge human excrement from my small stronghold.  A shameless sliver of me smiled at the defamation of the murals, which I had wanted to repaint if it weren’t for anticipated grassroots protest of park advocates like Nathan Nightgown, the “Boobs Not Bombs” lady and Arthur.  The University owned the park and I worked for them, but in reality, the park really belonged to the people and we feared their retaliation.  I hoisted open the wide, garage-like door to my office, put on two pairs of gloves and began my rounds.  The park was beginning to wake up.

I walked counter-clockwise around the public space--the size of a city block-- picking up garbage, debris, and bio-hazards. The empty basketball courts awaited sweaty afternoon pick-up games.  The Free Box sat overflowing with a recent donation.  The deceased man’s possessions were scattered like ashes in the dewy grass.  Vinyl records snapped in half, un-paired shoes, open luggage, and other ransacked personal items were strewn across the park.  The valuables had been plundered for resale rendering the rest useless.  I ceremoniously collected them for the dumpster. 

The tall fennel plants leaked their licorice smell.  Laying belly up near the community garden was Charles Chicken Bones.  His round girth resembling a moon in its fullest phase was partially exposed revealing soft, smooth skin.  With his stocking cap perched on his head and his tight leggings he reminded me of a garden gnome.  Always at the west end of the park and unencumbered by a pillow or sleeping bag he slumbered freely.  Legend has it that he planted chicken bones in the community gardens.  I’m probably just as discouraged by the results as he.  Today, I hovered around him trying not to disturb his sleep while I gingerly picked up wet napkins and squished ketchup packets. 

In the southwest corner between scratchy bushes and a small tree dwelled a patch of land belonging to Victor.  He belted baggy, black sweatpants and wore white sneakers.  Shirtless and in fairly good physical shape, he karate chopped trees and kick boxed thin air.  The majority of the time, Victor was peaceful, but I had seen him retaliate very angrily when someone threatened his territory or crossed him in some way.  I even saw him hurl a stick or two with alarming speed at trees.  Grey haired and bearded he’d press his palms together and bow to me, “Good morning Sister-Queen-Of-The-Universe.”  On my first day in the park, my supervisor introduced me to Victor and asked him to watch out for me.  How do I explain to my worried father the security I felt with Victor in the park.

Ernest slept in the wide-open space in the middle of the park.  He didn’t have anything to hide and his normalcy was a relief.  If he wasn’t in his spot, I’d be concerned.  This central space also housed a stage, which was the site for various special events: battle of the bands, protests, and regular vegan food donations from Food Not Bombs.  I was warned to never succumb to the soup kitchen style handout no matter how hungry I was.  A coworker had once had trouble chewing his salad, which happened to be tossed with a piece of dreadlock.  Is hair vegan?

Aside from renting basketballs to students and chess sets to the brilliant but unemployed, I documented criminal proceedings in the park, presided at special events, and called the police if fights broke out - particularly if weapons were involved. 

With another sort of dread, I plodded to the wooded part of the park at the east end. The extra coverage provided protection, encouraging small groups of young pock-marked kids with rotting teeth to roll out sleeping bags and string up makeshift tents.  With bikes propped upside down, they would tinker endlessly, fashioning elaborate carts to pull their belongings and items to sell at the resale shops.  They’d often exceed the limits regarding creating a campsite, and I hated confronting them about their transgressions knowing that I conveyed an absolute lack of authority.  Though it wasn’t their used needles, which I’d carefully confine to a sharpie box, that I feared most but their gaze.  I was afraid of who I’d see in their eyes and even more scary who’d they see in mine. 

February Mash-Up: an examination of holidays and traditions

Chocolate Valentines

     Valentine's Day is a welcome brightness to a dreary February.  Although I'm not completely devoted to this holiday of romantic love, I do enjoy the cheery colors, cut paper decorations, and the snarky conversation heart candy.  In grade school I was much more fond of the holiday and met it with great anticipation and expectation.  I was an expert at reading into those clever superhero messages.  "You Make My Spidey Senses Tingle" was enough to give me hope for weeks to come.  As an adult the holiday means little more to me than an excuse to put away red and green and pull out red . . . and pink, and purple.  Furthermore, it is challenging to find romance in the thick of the zealous marketing efforts of clever card and candy companies.  So why do we celebrate romantic love on the 14th of February, what is its origin, and what does a Roman, Christian martyr have to do with any of it?
    Actually there is evidence of three St. Valentines, all martyred and possessing legends relating empathy and perhaps romantic love.  However, the establishment of a feast day was motivated by more than their lives and deeds.  It seems that the fifth century Pope Gelasius purposefully declared the 14th of February devoted to one of these martyrs as a counter to the popular Roman ritual of Lupercalia which occurred February 13 -15.  As is often the case, the Christian feast day was established as a means to de-emphasize its pagan predecessor.  Although the two holidays share a day on the calendar, they have little else in common.
     Lupercalia's inception dates back to the 5th century BC, and the tradition endured until 5th century AD with the official initiation of St. Valentine's Day.  In the old Roman calendar, February rounded out the year.  As the etymology of February indicates,  this month was dedicated to purification in preparation for the new year.  (Februa means month of purification.)   Lupercalia's ceremonies referenced the founding of Rome.  Luper meaning wolf, was set in the cave in which the legendary she-wolf nursed the founders of the eternal city, Romulus and Remus.  In the same cave they sacrificed a goat for fertility and a dog for purity.  The blood of the goat was smeared on the foreheads of two naked priests called Luperci and then wiped clean with wool dipped in milk.  The Luperci would then commence in chasing young women around the Palatine hill whipping their exposed backs with strips of goat skin.  This gesture (probably symbolic of rape) brought good luck, purification, and fertility to women recently married or barren.  After feasting and other revelry, some believe that there was a lottery to match eligible young adults together ,and at the end of the year, these pairings would often result in marriage.  In other words, it was match.com for ancient Rome.
     The perseverance  of Lupercalia is stunning.  Although the population who practiced the rituals changed through its thousand years from patrician families to commoners, it survived through centuries of Christianity.  It required banishment dictated by the Pope and the establishment of St. Valentine's day to really squelch the tradition.  Ironically, in 1969 the Pope removed February 14th as one of its feast days and thereby disassociated the church from the secular ritual that has evolved over the last seven centuries.  It was Chaucer and the people of the middle ages who popularized romantic love, and somehow between Chaucer's love poem and the belief that February was the month of breeding birds that February 14th was associated with Romantic love.  In recognition of their popular saint they gifted cards and baked treats for one another in gray Februaries which must have been particularly gloomy in the dark ages. 
     What will happen to our February rituals and holidays over the next centuries?  In what traditions will we continue to partake and which ones will become obsolete?  One thing is for certain, if latest scientific studies are accurate, romantic love is biologically addictive.  Hence, we will be forever finding and inventing ways to get our fix whether it be through the thrill of a chase or the words of a poem.

      A few weeks ago, I had a haunting dream in which I was being hunted by a haggard wolf with a steely gaze.  She watched me very carefully and closely followed me no matter how I tried to escape.  My only defensive action was to shield my toddler from her hungry jaws.  It is only now after researching Lupercalia that I am reminded that the wolf was the Lupa of early Rome.  I have sympathy for her now as I imagine her pulling those quivering twins out of the Tiber and generously nursing them in her protective cave.  Now that is love.    
 
References:
http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/socialcustomsdailylife/a/010908Lupercal.htm
http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/dunkle/romnlife/luprclia.htm
http://www.witchology.com/contents/february/lupercalia.php
    

  

Full of Holes: Part Two

      The girl watched the pop-up camper being cranked up and inflated like a balloon.  She loved the little home it made.  It was so compact and efficient.  Her Mom cooked dinner over the fire while she and her brother made mud pies where the cooler water had been dumped.  They also played army in the woods.  Her brother dressed in full fatigues blending seamlessly into the shrubs and needles.  After burning their mouths on hot pie filling and other campfire desserts, they climbed into the camper finding a nook in which to sleep.  Her sister, sandwiched between the Irish girl and herself in one wing, told her stories of grizzly bears and how they were taller than the van when standing on their hind legs.  The girl ran her finger along the flimsy seams of the thin canvas feeling the whisper of outside air.  Wondering if a grizzly stood on the other side, she was unable to fall asleep.
    In the morning they carefully spat their toothpaste on the fire embers.  The girl sat in her pop-up wing watching her Aunt neatly fold her clothes in tissue and put them in plastic bags and then in her suitcase.  Then her Dad cranked the camper down into a neat rectangle.  Pulling the camper behind them, they made their way to the Grand Canyon.
     She stood with her toes near the edge as she looked into the gaping hole in the earth.  What if she fell?  Her brother chased after a lizard as she listened to her mother inquire about the donkeys.  For some reason we weren't able to ride the donkeys down into the depths.  The girl couldn't decide whether she was disappointed or relieved by this prospect.  She'd overheard her older brother enthusiastically  mention that donkeys were afraid of snakes and upon sight were in the habit of throwing their riders off their backs.  On steady human feet they descended down the narrow trail.  Their steps disrupted sand sending it off the ridge and trickling down the cliffs.  She clung to the wall tracing the layered grooves with her finger trying to comprehend how and when water cut the rock away.
     After a couple miles down, several family photos, and a session watching a squirrel, the group turned around to hike back to the surface.  Her socks loosely encircled her tired legs.  Though thankful there hadn't been a snake sighting, she felt the weight of her exhausted body and dreaded the seemingly endless ascension.  It also seemed impossible to match her stride to that of her parents and siblings.  After struggling to keep up she asked her Dad to carry her on his shoulders.  Her Aunt immediately protested suggesting her Dad's heart would be taxed.  Her Dad was built to carry things----the radio during Vietnam, coolers packed densely with ice and meat, furniture out of the attic or into the basement.  She didn't believe that carrying her would pose much of a challenge.  Still several paces up a steep hill on a hot  afternoon left him winded.   Her Aunt continued to worry over her Dad's heart and insisted the girl complete the rest of the trek on her own two feet.  The girl caught wind of her Aunt's fear and now worried for her Dad.  She asked him to remove her from his shoulders.  Every step was pregnant with risk.  She begged him to let her down.  He refused-- carrying her all the way to the top despite all protests.  As the sun set, the girl gazed into the hole one last time as it now seemed merely full of guilt and threat.
     In San Diego they had a break from the pop-up camper and stayed in the home of her Dad's war buddy.  Although dark had fallen, her Dad was forced to inflate the camper to retrieve her Mom's tampons.  Her sister had the misfortune of receiving her first ever period and was too embarrassed to ask the war buddy's wife to borrow from her supply.  Later that night in her sleeping bag, the girl felt the earth tremble and heard the far off din of her Dad and his buddy laughing through crunched beer cans.
     In San Francisco they visited old and beloved neighbors who now owned a glass shop.  They each picked a memento, a fragile trinket to cart home.  The girl picked a teddy bear holding a heart.  The heart was red glass.  They soon headed home weary and tired of living so close to one another.  Once home her studs were removed from her infected ears, and the holes closed up.  Her hair grew longer, and her Aunt pasted together a thorough log of the trip.  She wouldn't visit the mall to re-puncture her ears again until she was 13.  Accompanied again by her Mom and sister, she'd commemorate the beginning of her first period.

Full of Holes: Part One

Van by: Abe Sluka

      She twisted the tight stud in the raw hole.  Her ear twinged with pain.  The holes, only recently punched out, had been replaced with stainless steel posts and sparkly stones.  She'd have to wait until after vacation to swap them for the plastic hearts she bought.  Her sister had already lapsed in her duty of cleaning and systematically rotating them.  And so, they hurt and were red and swollen.
     At age 6 she had received her first bad haircut from a delinquent basement hair dresser who unevenly clipped her already short hair.  "One ear's a bit too low!" she heard Red say.  It was in the sure hands of Red the barber that her butchered head now rested.  Her Dad joked with his trusted barber as the girl heard the clippers evenly buzz the misshapen mishap.  Red was quite adept at cutting hair for men and boys.  She now resembled the latter.  Even the promise of a Dumdum sucker couldn't quiet the distress of her uneasy stomach.  To counter the masculine fix, she accompanied her mother and sister to the mall to right this gender confusion.  So this was how she came to have her ears pierced.
     Wincing at her tender ears she watched her Dad pack the nude color van and pop-up camper with rolled sleeping bags, boxes of food, chilly, green coolers, and golden suitcases purchased for a honeymoon.  They loaded themselves into the van, too.  A Mom, a Dad, two brothers, a sister, an Aunt, a recent widow, and a girl foreign exchange student from Ireland.  Early that morning they hit the road towing the wobbly camper behind them.
   She sat next to her Aunt in the back seat.  Her Aunt explained to the girl that she needed to carry in her purse salted peanuts encapsulated in an old medicine bottle.  Without a healthful dose of protein she'd get sick.  Shuffling a deck of cards in her small hands, the girl asked her Aunt to play a game of rummy.  Her Aunt declined citing the need to closely follow the Dad's driving route.  She was going to make a scrap book of their trip once home and needed to record accurate data.  So, the girl pulled out a safety pin with embroidery floss and pinned it to the seat in front of her.  She tied knots making stripes of color--pink, yellow and white--as she listened to her Mom read aloud Where the Red Fern Grows.  The book was on her brother's summer reading list which he was trying hard to ignore.  So, the book was passed amongst the literate passengers each reading a page or two.  After awhile the girl grew sleepy and climbed into the rear of the vehicle nesting in a little square which her Dad carved out for her.  Among the stacks of bags and boxed sandwich fixings, she fell asleep  to the lull of the road. 


  

Dishes

Fiestaware

     Whatever my Mom cooks up in the kitchen, my Dad always washes the dishes, and unfortunately for him, she only prepares food in soup kitchen proportions.  He is methodical in his approach, making organized piles with the intention to not merely clean the dishes but sterilize them.  When I was little and dishes meant playing in water, I would stand on a stool at the sink in between my Dad's arms splashing.  Once when left alone, I decided to float my orange Tic Tacs like miniature gold fish in a tiny tank.  Instead, of a small world of wonder, I palmed tasteless, bloated albinos.  So much for science.
     My blind Grandmother would dry, and I'd rinse and put away.  She'd often warn me that a wet shirtfront would result in a drunkard for a husband, and once she scolded me for rinsing the dishes in cold water.  Apparently the cavernous, antique stock pots would transfer the chill right into her body.  However, we both enjoyed listening to my Dad laugh at the old Simpsons episodes playing in the background.
     At 15 I landed my first legal job as a dishwasher at the deli in our local grocery store.  There I'd scrub pots big enough to boil small children. (Ham salad was our specialty).  My shirtfront would be drenched through despite my apron.  A fresh box of Chore Boy scrubbies plucked from the shelves would help temporarily lighten the work.  I was mopping the deli's floor when my Sister-in-law came to notify me that my Grandma passed away.
     As a full-time volunteer at Annunciation House, we'd wash the stains out of each others' mugs--neither a mug or volunteer absent of a chip or crack.  I was always thankful for the enthusiastic guests who'd volunteer to be dishwashers.  They were brave souls confronting skittering cockroaches and a bubbling grease trap.
     When first married, my husband and I would have lavish cooking adventures that would result in a mound of dishes.  We quickly became really good at artfully stacking dirty dishes in our shoe box kitchen.  Dishes were political now.  The first one to tire of eating cereal with a grapefruit spoon would buckle down and suds up.  It was at that tiny sink one Saturday morning, that I stood trembling, tears mixed with the bubbles after finding out that I was pregnant.  In that moment doing dishes was the only thing I could manage.
     Now as I turn my leaky faucet on, I hear my little toddler shout "Bubbles" as she charges the sink with stool in hand.  I awkwardly straddle her as we make our way through piles of dishes.  Together we peek through our kitchen window into the house next door as our teenage neighbors take turns at the sink.  I  wonder what dishes are in my daughter's future.  I think about shouting to the teens that performing an unwanted task slowly only makes it take longer.  But mostly I think about the boys' drunk wives and how happy they'll be that they aren't washing the dishes.

My Best Older Friend --- 1990

Grandma Flip Flops

I've been seriously under the weather these past few days and very behind in my blogging.  My Mom did bring me my Grandma's flip flops and the original essay I wrote about her.  I didn't realize that I was  a couple years older than I had remembered.  Also, it doesn't seem like my writing has evolved that much in the last 21 years.  Grab a tissue for the "cookie/wrinkle" line and stay tuned for my next post.

"My Best Older Friend"

Grandma Schalz is the Grandma on my Mom's side.  She's a lively seventy-six year old.  You would think she would be in a retirement home, but instead she works in one!  She's an immaculate housekeeper.  The residents love every bit of her.  They give her delicious treats, which she shares with me.  

My Grandma enjoys cooking and baking.  She spends her spare time baking the "never-stop-eating cookies. "  You won't stop eating until you see your face in the bottom of the tin.  She bakes the cookies to have just the right amount of wrinkles to match the wrinkles that are worn on her hand.  That's what makes them so good.  


Our family shares a paper route.  Every day my Grandma comes over and helps majorly on the paper route.  I'm sixty six years younger than my Grandma and she can walk faster than I can!


My Grandma makes me laugh.  One thing that makes me smile is her unique "Grandma-slang."  She manages to change a letter or two in a word or name and from then on that's it with Grandma.

She makes me feel good about myself.  Daily she affirms me by telling me "Anna you are fast, just like me."  "Anna you always get your homework done right away."  I'm glad my name is the same as my Grandma's, Anna, "My Best Older Friend."

Namesake

Grandma With Birds And Tree Lungs

When we traversed the river in my hometown, I knew we were heading not only to my Grandma's house but to another world.  The houses on her side of town sagged a little more, were closer together, and sometimes painted hot pink.  Occasionally one of the larger Victorians boasted a cluster of mailboxes next to the front door. Although both of my parents grew up on this side of town, it was foreign and separate from me.  And it felt even more strange to know that there were people and places of which I wasn't a part.

Once we pulled into Grandma's driveway, she would greet us waving through the screen door.  She'd usher us in, whooshing my brother and me onto the davenport.  Before we knew it, we'd have a hot, mushy bowl of goulash on our wobbly metal TV trays.  She'd switch on the TV set and we'd be turned on like automatons while she'd take our Mom out back to marvel at the flocks of flowers and visit with old friends and neighbors.  We sat happily on our thrones only leaving to steal a chocolate covered Graham Cracker from the tin in the kitchen drawer.  Somehow, getting caught never felt like a real threat considering Grandma regularly pushed cookies on us like a --- grandma.

There was not much to do at Grandma's house, but enough to keep us occupied.  Either we played with vintage baby toys, tinkered with the police radio, or drew on envelopes with crayons stored in an old tin.  (During the holiday dinners, my cousins and I would melt these crayons over an open flame creating our own "candles.")  Grandma didn't even have paper in her house, so she saved the envelopes from her opened mail.  This completely baffled me, and I probably secretly resented her not having a flawless, smooth sheet to bedazzle with my drawings.  But, I cherished her teaching me how to draw birds which I am still constantly drawing, painting, and sewing. 

My Grandma was and still is beloved by her neighbors on the other side of town.   She was the queen of a block that organized a community yard sale in the fall.  Mom would empty drawers and closets hauling bags to my Grandma's house.  We'd pile the tables high with items priced from a quarter to a dollar.  I'd sit behind a card table loaded with a muffin tin full of neatly separated coins, homemade muffins and brownies, and brown lunch bags stuffed with freshly popped popcorn which my Grandma popped on her basement stove.  Neighborhood kids would empty their piggy banks to buy these treats.

Though the neighborhood demographic had shifted since my Grandma had moved in, she found common ground with her new Mexican immigrant neighbors.  Her standard remark was that she loved their "peppy" music.  My Grandma never met a polka beat she didn't like.

Whether it was the freshness of the fall air, the vibrance of the neighborhood, or the anticipation of the high-school bonfire that night, I was always left feeling giddy as quarters passed through my hands, clinking into the muffin tin.  In retrospect I loved seeing my Grandma buzz around us like a productive bee around placid flowers.  She worked and served with such pleasure that you felt like you were doing her a favor by not helping.  I've never known another queen bee who earned her crown through a life of servitude.

Out With The Old, In With The New

My Grandma recently asked my Mom to help her clean out her closet.  This is an unusual request for the 97 year-old who has stingily retained Depression Era frugality.  However, together they filled a bag with unused flip flops from the seventies, some old clothes, and at least thirty pairs of nylon pantyhose.  Her one condition for parting with these items was that I use them.  While I am looking forward to receiving forty-year-old rubber flip flops, I am much  less delighted about a fistful of used nylons.  For my Grandma, pantyhose are like gold and never to be parted with.  As a girl, I would stare at the hand sewn mends running the lengths of her ropy calves.  The mends made scarred ridges in nude nylon.   If a pair wore past the point of repair, they were spared the garbage can and instead stashed in a crumpled brown bag in the garage.  Come summer, she would use them to tie back her tomato plants.  Something else belonging to me was in the closet.  Among the old clothing, my Mom discovered a buried essay of mine.

In second grade I participated in the "Best Older Friend" essay contest which was held by my parish school.  We were encouraged to write lovingly about our "older" friend, and whoever wrote the most accomplished essay would win a  day trip to be enjoyed by the writer and her muse.  The previous year an eighth-grader won for writing about his friend, the parish priest.  Everyone swooned; I wasn't impressed.  In fact, I was fairly confident that I would surpass his efforts.

I proudly announced to my parents that I was going to write about our neighbor whom I considered old and a friend.  After all, we would eat loads of popcorn together while watching movies, and occasionally she'd bring me on outings to Pioneer Village or the zoo.  I had a good time.  My intention was dashed as my parents awkwardly explained that I couldn't pick a friend who was merely in her thirties.  I gave it another shot and decided to write about my Grandma.  While "friend" may not be the term I would have ascribed to her, I did see her almost every day when she'd hurry to our house after cleaning the retirement home.  She usually had a sheet of brownies and some stain-free laundry under her arms.  We'd spend the afternoon rolling and delivering papers.  Not that it was a race, but Grandma bested us at both of these tasks.  Yes, Grandma was my new, best older friend.

I knew my essay would have a winning simile that would push my essay onto the shortlist.  I was going to compare the wrinkles in her hardworking hands to those in the perfect chocolate cookies she regularly baked for us.  Curiously, when I read the line,  a tear would come to my eye, but everyone else remained fairly stoic.  In the end I must have been overlooked.  I don't remember, but I imagine that probably a 7th grader took home the prize and enjoyed a delightful day trip with her friend.  I'd like to give it another shot, though, and if worthwhile, I'll post the second grade version.  To be fair, a novel could be written about Grandma, but here is a slice in the next post: Namesake

A Disclaimer for Those Who Know My Grandma:  In writing about someone still living and very close to many hearts, I realize that my perceptions and facts may vary from yours.  In fact, I am very interested in how many differing characterizations can exist for the same person and events.  However, I want to make it clear that I am writing a memoir piece that leans heavily on the arms of fiction.  Please post any corrections, variations, questions, etc.  I'd be interested in learning from you.

Entrepreneurial Name: An Origin Story

Underwood Typewriter--My Lap Top

Those hot summers of youth led to some earnest plan making.  When the dust settled, and all the books were read, and the pool no longer a novelty, my brother and I would start scheming.  How could we earn some real cash?  We'd done the Junk Sale thing which didn't go over very well.  I suppose the junk drawer contents really were junk. "Jonny-down-the-street" suggested we sell hot dogs.  This sounded completely lame to us.  Plus, I am pretty sure we'd have confronted some health code violations.  No, we needed something enterprising--something grand.  Perhaps all those afternoons spent tightly rolling newspapers and lobbing them onto slanted porches seeded the idea into our heads.  Fingers still muddied with ink, we birthed Pinwheel Papers, an original publication produced by us. 

A side note:  Pinwheel's name was inspired by the Nickelodian TV show from the 80's.  In addition the network featured a promo for itself with claymation worm-like shapes that inched along until it formed a spinning pinwheel.  We likened them to pin worms, a persistent threat and affliction that my brother and I shared.

As I mentioned the paper was to be written and published by us, but we did lean on cousins and friends to  write some fluff pieces, however we saved the meat and bones for ourselves.  My brother tackled the hardline current events stories such as when the pigs flew, and I could be found on page two with the recipe corner.  Yes, sexism in the news room was a real concern in those days.  A typical soup recipe would read something like this:  Open a can of soup, Pour into a pan, Add water, Heat the pan, and Stir.  Yes, we were cheeky yet fairly proud of our work.  We were cranking it out when an opportunity to increase our readership came.  

A dinner party brought two elderly women to our table.  In an effort to make her fat, smug children seem more charming, our Mother had my brother and I pitch Pinwheel Papers to our audience.  Yes, we were creative--downright crafty.  We presented our first couple of editions--handwritten in pencil with hand drawn illustrations, and we would make handwritten copies for our readers.  Our elderly guests were very pleased.  Whether they were genuinely impressed or somehow felt obligated is still unknown, but we did cup our sweaty little hands around a dollar each which they paid us for advance issues.  

The next day, all fired up, we marched to the drug store to reinvest in Pinwheel Papers by buying a stapler which we would use to bind the pages together.   But alas, those advance issues would never be written let alone sent to our patrons.  Our business folded without another word written.  Our planned production of Top Hat which was heavily covered in the entertainment section would never be performed.  Only the poster advertising its summer arrival would remain on my bedroom door like a sticker partially unpeeled.  Did our creativity crumble under the pressure of having support or expectations?  Or was there a heat wave that lured us back to the pool?  

At any rate, this blog is a continuation of those Pinwheel Papers, a creative pursuit worth finishing.  Here's to those who believe and encourage us in all that we do, and may the good luck of the pinwheel blow your way.