Legacy

As summer starts to fade, and the scent of flowers becomes more faint, I find myself turning more inward, and returning to my small tapestry and embroidery projects. My husband and son are both computer game aficionados, an interest I respect , but that eludes me. My father's mother and his two older sisters are skilled seamstresses, and on my mother's side there are several painters, her mother, and her two older brothers. I decided to combine both legacies and do embroideries of my own design, as a way to pass on both art forms for my son, who also has an interest and talent for art, especially pencil and ink drawings. My husband has a solitary nature, which can prove to be a challenge for my gregarious personality, so embroidery became a way to embrace our quiet life style, and in a way that part of Michael suits my basically Buddhist perspective on solitude. Michael has always been intrigued by Australia, especially the outback, and I can see him there, because his tolerance of solitude is impressive. My embroideries take a long time, anywhere from six to nine months, and the stitches are minuscule, so it takes an excruciating amount of patience, making the experience transcendental and very meditative. Most of the poems I was finally able to release and write after my family fell apart, were written carefully in my head, while working on an embroidery project. In a  world of instant technical gratification, needlework seems outdated , and belonging to a different space and time. But that is precisely why I like the challenge it presents. I am an anachronism doing my painstakingly slow needlepoint, while I hear the noises and sounds from my son's and husband's computer games. I am working on my 7th project, and each project presents a new technical challenge, depending on whether I am working on flowers, animals, an abstract design, depending on the thread I use, and since I draw each pattern myself in pencil on the canvas, that too presents a different challenge each time. It is in a way, like creating a painting, but with needle and thread. I love choosing the colours, the dimensions , choosing the design. It is interesting to be inundated in the language of computer games, much of which I  do not understand, and to have my son and husband attend the PAX video and computer game convention in Seattle for the 4th year in a row, as I work on my embroidery project of a family of red eyed tree frogs, and smile at how our family literally sometimes lives in different worlds.

Manatees

In the Defenders of Wildlife 2013 calendar, there is a picture for the month of November,of a mama manatee happily swimming with her baby. The picture conveys happiness, contentment, peace, but it filled me with sadness, because I thought of my sweet Basset hound Lafayette, who died on March 28th of this year. I loved her passionately, and the last two years she struggled with a bad hip and arthritis. She was no longer able to go for her loved walks, and it broke my heart, as she became heavier than she already was before, her body becoming a prison to her. Her sweet and patient disposition often reminded me of a manatee, and when I saw the idyllic picture in the calendar, I wished for her to be a manatee in a next life, so her big body would be able to feel freedom in the comfort of the water. Like a manatee, Lafayette was very sweet and harmless, often the brunt of jokes at heartless commentary from friend and foe alike. I miss her every day. I am so glad she died peacefully at home when her heart gave finally up on her cumbersome body. I hope animals have a spirit world too, where they are free from the suffering and trials they endured while in their physical bodies. The blissful picture of the manatee family also reminded me of how often cruelty is hidden in its suffering. When we say something hateful or hurtful to an innocent creature, the blow does not show, but the pain is there, in their eyes. The world must be full of blind hearts, because I have seen and see a lot of animals with pain in their eyes that seems invisible to their heartless owners.

Silk Ribbon

I love late summer, when the heat simmers down without losing its warmth, and the sky turns a blinding blue, with a sweet south-western breeze. Our sunflowers tower above us, the morning glory Heavenly Blue trumpets  put on their best and last showing, and there is a silence of peace and acceptance in the air that seems to come with only the last of summer's glory. This morning, the sky seemed a huge liquid silk blue ribbon, stretching over my house and my garden. I thought of a friend of mine, far away, and for a brief, magical moment, it felt like our worlds were next door to each other. As if my friend was able to reach up and touch the same silk ribbon sky as it undulated majestically past his window. It was one of those rare artistically-visually enchanting moments , silent, mesmerizing. When I was a young teenage, thirteen or fourteen, I drew and painted, before I started writing poetry and stories at age 17, and the visual beauty of the mirage of the blue silk ribbon sky reminded me of those days when my favorite way to express myself artistically was with a pencil or a paintbrush. The moment reminded me also of a visually stunning movie, set against the unlikely background of the carnage in Nanking in 1937 during the second Sino-Japanese war. "The flowers of War", directed by Zhang Yimou, and based on "13 Flowers of Nanjing" by Geling Yan, is a cinematographic jewel as it tells the unlikely alliance between an American mortician and twelve prostitutes who risk everything to save the lives of thirteen orphaned schoolgirls who found temporary refuge from the slaughter going on in Nanking by the butchering Japanese troops, where not even children are safe from murder and rape. The courage found by the mortician and  the displaced prostitutes in the face of destruction and brutal death is filmed in a stunning way, and manages to convey hope amidst constant fear and despair. They come up with a cunning and risky plan to guarantee the survival of the orphaned girls by dressing the prostitutes up like young innocent girls to save them from rape and death by the predatory officers. While the prostitutes play the role of the teenage girls, the mortician gets them out of Nanking with an old repaired truck, eluding the Japanese. It is a beautiful film, in story and vision. The cinematography by Zhao Xiaoding is gorgeous, leaving us enchanted by the ability to find beauty in the starkest of realities, war. By focusing on enhanced perception of daily circumstance and objects surrounding the characters as they navigate through the hell of their city's annihilation,  the viewer becomes both a witness and a participant. When I looked at the sky this morning, I too felt both a witness and a participant, albeit of a much more peaceful place and circumstance. By the way, Christian Bale as the mortician and Ni Ni as the de- facto leader of the prostitutes are both brilliant, so is the young actor portraying George Chen, Huang Tianyuan, who plays the young boy becoming in disguise the extra person needed to give the Japanese soldiers the number of girls they expect.                  

The Luncheon

For many years now, my friend Diane has made a gracious habit of having me over for lunch. I usually walk to her house, as it is only two streets over uphill, and makes for a nice stroll. Her house is a quiet place in spirit , even when many people are around. Diane exudes peace at all times, and is a great listener. When I spend time with her, I always feel lighter, like she lifted some invisible burden I was not even aware of. She sets a nice table, and always has something interesting prepared. We talk, share, and I always feel I am in the presence of a very spiritual and wholesome person, who makes me want to be better than what I am. Few people have that effect on me, but Diane does. She lives to serve others, in a quiet, modest and self-effacing way. She is a small person, but is imbued with a relentless spirit of devotion and compassion. Children love her, and she has had and continues to have a healing and loving influence on all the children that come through her house. She does not judge people, she sees the best in very one, and you can trust her with your darkest fear or secret, it will stay in her heart. So lunch at Diane's house is a spiritual experience, because she has such a deep respect for every human being she comes in contact with. She is the closest I think I've come to be around a real modern day saint. If I told her that, she would just laugh in disbelief. But I remain convinced she is, for every one's life she touches, is better for it. She spends her whole life helping others, whether they are grateful or not, and I cannot think of any one else I know that has such a peaceful and loving heart, truly seeing all others as brothers and sisters who she will help at a moment's notice. She really lives the ideal of a gentle humankind, never deterred by the odds or challenges.   

Sunflowers

Each year my husband and son plant sunflowers from seed. They put the seeds in little seed pods in our green house, and I water them faithfully, and when they are big and strong enough, Michael and Nicholas transplant them in our vegetable and flower garden next to the greenhouse. It is one of my most favorite flowers of  summer, the sunflower to me symbolizes the height of summer's glory and generosity. As they grow taller and stronger, and surpass my height and then my husband's and then my son's, who is almost five foot six, I fall in love with these gorgeous flowers time and again. Their hunger for the sun's light and warmth, their gracious stalks, their fiery petals and abundant hearts that allow the bees to feast themselves in to a bacchanalian stupor, and their scent. A friend of mine, years ago now, said about sunflowers: " I like the way they smell." Ever since then I go and smell my sunflowers, and they smell like wild honey, a very earthy, sensual scent that always makes me miss my friend. When my husband and I were camping through Europe on our honeymoon in 1987, we passed by a huge field of sunflowers in southern France. It was visually an ocean of tall flowers, swaying in the gentle southern breeze. Beautiful, overwhelmingly so. As the summer wanes, and the other flowers fade, the sunflowers are still going strong, and the bees  swarm them, eager for their sweet blossoms. Then fall comes, and cooler weather, and the majestic sunflowers start to droop their magnificent heads, their petals dry, their leaves turn yellow, the bees too, fade.  The birds come, small and large, and start devouring the brave sunflowers seeds, tearing at what remains of their glory and beauty. By the time the birds are done with them, the sunflowers hearts gape white, and empty, and their stalks start slumping to the earth from which they grew. Winter comes, and we cut heir skeletons down, and now they give a brief warm fire, before all that is left of them is the memory of their glorious height and color intoxicating summer's warmth and joy. And I start longing, as snow covers the backyard, for spring and the planting of the seeds in the greenhouse, and I long to see the tender sunflower seedlings transplanted by my patient husband and son, so I can start watering them, and see them grow, tall, beautiful, strong again, to grace the summer's rich gift of warmth and renewal.

Tuareg

When I was about twelve, I was going through my father's extensive collection of National Geographic Magazine, and I came across a picture that stayed in my mind and memory to this day. The photographs in the magazine are world famous for their impact and quality, and I remember seeing a close-up portrait of a young geisha that mesmerized me for a lifetime. I remember a photograph of a newly wed couple in Kolkata, and to this day, I remember being transfixed by the abundance of 24 karat gold jewelry, the beauty of the bride and groom, and the striking colors of bright white and red in their garments. I also have a vivid memory of a picture of a young Tuareg warrior, in the dark blue turban many of their men are famous for wearing. He had the most amazing eyes, as his face was mostly covered, and I found it fascinating that their women were not required to wear veils, and enjoyed a high status in their nomadic pastoral culture. He was tall, looked strong,and even though I could only see his eyes, I thought he was very handsome. I have always been drawn to the idea of a nomadic life style, close to nature, and free of the trappings of a sedentary life. The geographic area of the majority of the Tuareg people, whose name means " noble and free men", is in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya. There is also a small community in northern Nigeria. I will always remember the first time I saw a friend of mine who is from Morocco. Before I even was introduced to him via a mutual friend in graduate school, I was struck by his height and features and was taken back to the picture of the Tuareg warrior. I do not know where my friend's family originated, as there are some Tuareg also in Morocco, but my friend struck me by a unique dignity and left an impression long before we even met. This world is such a fascinating place, and I feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to travel and study abroad,and meet people from all over the globe. I was exposed this way to many cultures, and many languages. As an undergraduate, I had a Nigerian roommate for a year, Cordelia O., a bright woman from Lagos who was getting a master's degree in economics. It was fascinating to me to hear her speak her native language when she called home, to learn about her village, her family, to taste some of the food she grew up with. In graduate school I had a Korean roommate, and the following year a Japanese roommate, and a Bolivian and French roommate. It was fun when Yoko would get a call from her boyfriend in Tokyo, and to hear them speak Japanese for sometimes hours on the phone. I was around Hindi through my good friend Raj from Trivandrum in southern India. I was around Arabic  through my friendship with a woman from Nebraska, Lesa P., who was married to an Egyptian man, and through our mutual friendship with a friend from Morocco. Now, I have a hairdresser who is a good friend from Vietnam, and I spend hours hanging around her and her extensive family at their beauty shop, listening to the melodious sounds of the Vietnamese language. I am Flemish, so I was taught French at an early age, and German and English. When I came to Texas for college, I decided to learn Spanish and ended up getting a Master's degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Texas in Austin. I love languages, because it is a way to connect directly to another culture, and learn what unites us, rather than what divides us. I remember the gentle sounds of the Mayan language in the villages close to Chitzen Itza in Cozumel, the sounds of Lingala when I was in Kinshasa a few years later. I remember my uncle Frederic Minne, son of Baron Georges Minne, who was married to my aunt Agnes, my mother's older sister. He had spent 10 years near the Kivu Lake before the revolution of 1964 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He spoke fluent Swahili, and would tell entire stories in the language, and then translate. I would listen to him as a twelve year old, transfixed by the exotic sounds. I am learning about the language of the Magreb region of North Africa, Tamazight, and am fascinated to learn it is one of the oldest languages of human kind. I recently was introduced to the Indonesian language through a fascinating 2011 movie, called "The Raid- Redemption". I was intrigued to learn Indonesian, which vaguely sounded to me in part like Portuguese, has a 1,000 words borrowed from Arabic. And there are hundreds of languages out there. My father once quoted a saying that always validated my travel hunger: "The world is a large book, of which those who never stir from home only read a page." I am glad I still have the fever to learn, to travel, to understand, and to continue to be amazed at the variety of cultures and languages on our planet.

The haircut

For a number of years now, my hairdresser has been Yvonne, a very sweet and energetic Vietnamese young woman who together with her parents and sister Yvette, run a nice hair and nail salon on the West side of Olympia. Over the course of the years, I became friends with the family, and always look forward to get my hair done. Yvonne is a wizard with style and color, and it is always fun to see how she changes my hairstyle just a little to keep the experience fun and delightful. She and her family are very close. I was invited to her wedding, went to Yvette's engagement party, just got invited today to Yvette's wedding in September. I love visiting with their mother, a calm and kind woman about my age. Yvonne just had a baby girl, and I know her husband Richard, and also their young son Andrew. When I go there, I feel part of the family, and briefly forget the pain of no longer having a family of my own , other than my husband and son, and a distant few in- laws. I get to hear about the wedding plans, see the latest pictures of Yvonne's baby, get to share some hot tea and fruit and cookies with Yvonne and Yvette's mother, and they make me feel wanted and welcome. For a  couple of hours, I am in a loving home of an extended family who care about each other. I love the musical sounds of the Vietnamese language, the incense by the Buddhist altar up front, the chanting of the Buddhist monks music tape, the paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. It feels like home, because when I am there I feel happy to be included. If I want to go "home", I go get my hair done. Sun Hair and Nail Salon on Cooper Point Road here in West Olympia. Check it out if you pass through town, and need a good haircut, and a feeling like you just stopped by a happy home.