GROWING UP THE TAGALONG WAY

Today is my brother's birthday--the Big 8-0h! He was born in Belfast, Ireland on Christmas Day on a Sunday. I heard many stories, and sometimes the same story, from my mother about how she and her best friend, Cassie Main, would take their babies to the park with large black umbrellas. Even then, humor and cheery steadfastness helped my mother through what must have been six years of grim days. Being transferred to Brazil wasn't the idyllic solution one might think. Yes, there was sunshine but there was, also, a larger than average bug kingdom; piranhas, anacondas, horned frogs, scorpions, and dragon iguanas were added to her vocabulary. She joked that St. Patrick drove out the snakes in Ireland by deporting them to Brazil. I'm surprised she didn't acquire an Irish accent given as she was to reciting Irish poetry. She was "daft" for Yeats. "I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree." This image of Innisfree and the cabin was obviously a big influence on me because when the opportunity came decades later, I was overjoyed to have a small cabin built in the Blue Ridge mountains. I didn't have the "nine bean rows" or the "hive for the honeybee" but I certainly had the poetry. My mother's idea of avoiding sibling rivalry was to implant a certain star-struckness in me. I became a regular pint-sized paparazzi. When I learned to walk, I followed my brother as if I were his numero uno disciple. One day I was discovered standing in a corner. Everyone laughed. This was the form his punishment took. My brother had to stand in the corner for drawing on the walls. I hadn't made the connection. I thought standing in the corner was part of some prayer ritual. I did make the connection that "Bobby" came from the land of leprechauns and pots o' gold which seemed much more protective than Brazilian jujitsu. He had the Luck of the Irish. It made a lot of sense to hop on his lucky wagon hitched to his lucky star. Looking back on my life, I know it was the best idea I ever had. 

  My brother has come full circle. He often exhibits in Ireland and when in New York, he wanders around the Big Apple, yes, drawing his glyphyti on walls.


This is the bio on the CENTRE CULTUREL IRLANDAIS   Paris site where he was an Artist in Residence in January of 2011:

Robert Janz Robert Janz’s poetic art is a passionate plea for greater restraint in civilisation’s encroachment on the natural environment. His works explore aspects of motion, change and transience. His project in Paris is ephemeral and out in the streets. He will also use his studio, drawing and erasing on the walls every day, a slow kinetic installation. And here is one from the Irish Museum of Modern Art: Humans were once just one animal kind among others. Now dominant, we rule. The quality of life on this planet is ours to decide. We decide whether any animal or plant has sufficient habitat for meaningful survival. We decide whether any empty spaces remain, empty of our imprint. We decide whether there is any place free of our sound, our smell. We are endowed with evolution's greatest achievement, the creative imagination. Yet squander our energies on obsessive denials, on endless tribal wars,on insatiable greed for power. This waste shapes the planet's future. We are the world we inhabit. We decide all. Nature's us. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a boy, his favorite carol was "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Maybe today, in his honor, I should stand in the corner and sing along.

CHRISTMAS 2012

   Living close to where I spent a year of my childhood made me think to post this poem about those days. The Christmas in Tuckahoe where my mother and brother and I stayed while my dad was stationed in the Azores was one of my happiest Christmases. Yes! It snowed. My first snow. In Brazil, my birthplace, snow was only in picture books and December came in summer. I felt I had landed in a picture book. Faeries and elves would surely prance on the top of the chest of drawers dancing a ring around the Nativity set.  I had wanted a doll pram and yes! I received a white wicker doll pram just my size. I was five and I was allowed to, trusted to, walk the pram to the end of the block and back by myself. Such independence! Such responsibility. I walked and walked and dreamed about living in America for the rest of my life. It took awhile.           


        TUCKAHOE

Eureka 2008

Rosalie said it was a Forever Year,
"Because of the way the 8 loops.
   Infinity divinity."
Like a child's train set, I thought.
Tracks, pretend trees, papier-mache blue mountains,
     little figures waiting patiently at the depot,
and the best feature: the light coming through the tunnel.

I've never tired of the light 
 and the quick holding
    of breath at each approach,
       part of a ritual.

Window shopping in the city. 
Della scurrying to find Lionels at Gimbels.
"There isn't a train I wouldn't take
    no matter where it was going,"
  she'd sing-song cheerily.
Her all seasons' quote is especially nostalgic at Christmas,
  as on the first Christmas I clearly remember,
   the train took us from Tuckahoe
      to expansive, wondrous Grand Central.
Snow! Kings! and kneeling camels!

This Forever Year brings olde scenes circling
    in a noisy clickity-clack of memories.
Hurry! Look! The dizzying, dazzling heart-stopping light
  comes this way again.  

...the blessings of seasons and childhood expectations fulfilled

be yours...  

COMING INTO GLAD TIDINGS

I am the workshop attendee type. It's the doing that attracts me. I've been in peace groups, centering prayer circles, writing huddles,  six week singing courses, and painting clay pots for Advent bazaars gatherings. Consequently, when a message came in to mark my calendar for an event at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, an affirming, inclusive sort of place with a Moravian star hanging high in the rafter over the altar, I did so mark my calendar. A man who had known Fr. Thomas Keating led us on this particular day. Fr. Thomas Keating is revered by Roman Catholics for his  books on contemplative practices. I first came across him in Roanoke, Virginia where a friend had some of his meditations. I borrowed Open Mind Open Heart and began calling her up to recite a page on her answering machine which she appreciated. Such a pleasant way for me to feel useful!

The session began with a song composed by the Monks of Western Priory and then we were introduced to a woman from Epiphany Episcopal Church who would lead us in art explorations. There were pastel boxes provided and paper. In the background, soft sacred music played. The highlight was to make a mandala keeping in mind the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace. In the center of our drawings would be the light. She spoke about the whole--light and shadow. She said to pick a color which spoke to us or we could use all the colors. Mine surprised me--oh! the inner depths we have we didn't know about! I titled my mandala Tree of Living with the subheading, Street art of a soaring spirit. The pastels made the strokes delicate, free and I chose green, the color of hope and environmental stewardship. I was done so quickly, she asked me quietly if I would like to do another. I said no. I figured I had had my say. The other participants used the entire forty minutes and all the colors. Their mandalas were beautiful and individual, a true revelation of their personalities. We explained in the closing minutes what had been important to us. I had to leave before the end and was sorry but I had an appointment. Curiously, I thought I would come up with a poem about the beauty of silence or doing but it wasn't the case. Perhaps my heart had been set free with the green lines let loose in my mandela. I have written a Christmas poem every year since I was sixteen. They vary greatly in topic and form. I'm glad that this year's reflects my mood. It's haiku for simplicity and peace/love/joy/hope pops up in its attitude:

Winter is coming!

Red birds sing in snowy boughs

on holiday cards.  

IN THE ARCHIVES

It seems strange to me that my e-mails are archived. Doesn't that sound as though I have been writing for fifty years? At any rate, I decided to look at a couple to see what I wrote back when. I thought I'd post this one for starting December as Eureka, CA seemed like Christmas year round. Even in summer, it has a crisp goodwill sort of feel to it. Coincidentally, this message was written on 12/12. Back when, of course.

" On Tuesday, I boarded the Amtrak bus in Martinez and sat across the aisle from a woman who radiated sadness despite her red velour sweatsuit.After an hour or so I asked if I could borrow her book since she wasn't reading it. It was about how to help people in grief. Ordinarily I read very slowly but I finished the book by the time we arrived in Ukiah for our lunch break. I asked her name (it was Usha) and if she were traveling as far as Eureka and she said, yes, she was visiting her son-in-law who manages the Rodeway Inn. Then she burst into tears saying her daughter had died suddenly of a quick illnesss 15 days previous at age 26. I had just read the book but didn't know what to say. What a shock. I said a few things of no value whatsoever and then recommended page 137 in her book and she said she was going to read it right then. We were quiet for the rest of the trip. The Rodeway Inn is not far from me so on Friday, I stopped for a small living tree at Target and went over to give it to her. The person working at the desk was Devora which turned out to be a name she took up when there were too many Deborahs. It's Hebrew for Deborah. She said she had lived on the same street as Usha in Stockton before moving here and we talked about Usha's daughter.

On Saturday, I walked to the co-op. There was a tired but brave bell ringer. I asked him to sing something. He balked but croaked out two lines of  "I'll Fly Away." I said, "That's a great start!" and went in. I browsed a long time and when I came out, he had a big smile on his face and sang the complete verses of, "Because He Lives." He asked me if I knew it. I said, "Indeed!" He exclaimed, "You're a Christian!" Well yes,  of a Quakery kind. 

Today was mildly blustery and I saw hopelesness on the street and Dog was not in his yard but I was uplifted by having met Usha and the Bell Ringer."

My writing hasn't changed much, has it?