Raven and Sparrow

Waiting for spring

These are the days that drag you down. Not  severe, not  scary, nothing to join with others to get through together, just dreary, uncomfortable and short. The sky droops low overhead, the water is sullen and choppy, the land is dull and soggy. February in the Pacific Northwest is the best time to go somewhere else. It was so dark today that the lights were on from morning to night. I have some sewing to do on Lisa's napkins, but it will have to wait for a brighter day because the gray of the fabric is just too close to the gray of the sky. Fortunately, there are little hints that better times are ahead. Tiny green beads of budding leaves are starting to stud the underbrush along the driveway and daffodils are pushing their way up through the dead stuff in the garden. It will only be a couple of weeks before the first wildflowers appear as if by magic on the hillside. To remind myself of this miracle, I cut some twigs from the red currant bushes in the woods and stuck them in a vase. The warmth of the house makes them leap into leaf and I can watch it happen right before my eyes. Spring!

 

Exploring Lopez Island

Sometimes getting away doesn't have to involve a lot of distance. Mike and I grew up on the edge of the San Juan Islands and have visited the two largest islands many times and some of the smaller islands occasionally. However, for some reason, neither of us had ever visited Lopez Island, the third largest and the one located straight across Rosario Strait from our home island, Fidalgo. We decided to check it out and booked an airbnb for a couple days in the third week of January. That's an iffy time around here, weather-wise, but we figured it wouldn't make too much difference, so off we went. We ended up in a tiny but charming cabin almost directly across the water from our house. It perched above its own little beach in splendid isolation, offering complete quiet and a gorgeous view of where we had come from.

When I was growing up here, it felt like the end of the world. Even Seattle in those days was sort of small-townish and off the beaten track, and the islands, most of which were only reachable by ferry, were like stepping back in time. They are still at the whim of the ferry system and distinctly less populated than the mainland, but Orcas and San Juan Islands have acquired a kind of gloss as more and more tourists besiege them every summer. Lopez has its share of summer visitors, but even in the winter doldrums it is clear that it has many fewer residents than the others. The occasional drivers on the road always wave when you pass because they assume that they know you. With the same vocabulary of rocky headlands, quiet bays and pebbly beaches with which we are so familiar, it yet has its own ambiance. Its open spaces are extensive and its wood are deep. The shoreline is amazingly convoluted, with the most bays, spits, harbors and headlands of any of the islands, and many small islets scattered off the coast. There are lots of beautiful walks, but the signage is very minimal, so we relied on the kind directions of people that we met to find our way. In the dim light of a Northwest January, we walked and walked, almost entirely alone. In two days we barely scratched the surface so we will have to go back.

 

This was "our" beach beneath our cabin.

We had this headland and little bay completely to ourselves after an extensive walk through dark woods.

Watmough Bay has no houses, amenities or structures of any kind visible from the beach. You can get a feeling for what it was like here before any outsiders arrived.

After-Christmas scrub up

We always have to move the furniture in the living room to make room for the tree at Christmas, so when the holiday is over we push everything into the next room and do as thorough a clean-up as we can. The empty space allows us to bring in the big ladder so we can wash the tall windows on the inside and make a close inspection for dead flies and cobwebs. The rug gets an inch by inch vacuum, then is rolled up so the floor underneath can be washed too. Then we reverse the direction of the rug so the faded patches won't get too noticeable and bring in the furniture, vacuuming and polishing each piece as required. It took three days this year to get the room back together, but it feels so good to know that it is as clean as I can make it. 

Sweeping away the fir needles and all the Christmas paraphernalia is a good way to start a new year. 

The Sabbath

 
     I usually find Ezra Klein's podcasts for the New York Times interesting, but every now and then he talks about something that really draws me in. The recent one with Judith Shulevitz about the Sabbath prompted me to purchase her book The Sabbath World and the book that they referred to many times, The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I read Heschel in a couple of hours and am halfway through Shulevitz. On the podcast Ezra worries about the creeping hold technology is exerting on our lives and wonders if returning to the old "day of rest" practiced by the Jews forever and many Christian sects as well (remember the blue laws?) would help us re-assert our humanity in the face of ever the escalating badgering of phones, computers, texts, emails, and social media and the demands of commerce. Taking a day off from technology and endless striving might be a way for us all to remember that we are not just what we produce and give us time to bolster connections with the people we care most about. That was the purpose of the original Jewish Sabbath...one day out of seven that was dedicated to being rather than doing. This reminds me of the current emphasis on mindfulness and presence in the moment. It seems like working out the balance between one's interior life and the demands of the world is an ancient problem. Reading these books about the Sabbath have prompted me to think about the purposes of religion and the ways that people have tried to incorporate sacredness into their lives. There are a lot threads to pull here and I feel like I have just begun.

     So many of the descriptions of Jewish Shabbat....the preparation, the attention to beauty, the abrupt cut-off to all fussing when the time has come, the gathering, the meal, the feeling of complete immersion in the experience of community....remind me of throwing a dinner party. I do work hard to prepare most of the food ahead of time and of course I always try to make the setting as beautiful as I can, but once everyone has arrived (I don't have a sunset cut-off but it is usually about that time of day) all cleaning, cooking and tweaking stops and the event...the gathering...becomes the essential focus. The emphasis shifts from the ratcheting pressure to provide things (food, clean bathroom, pretty table) to the interaction between people and the dynamics of the group. No matter how good the food is a party is never successful unless the people around the table are joining together wholeheartedly. Their interactions can never be controlled but outside interruptions (checking cell-phones) can definitely de-rail the flow of the party. Sitting face to face around a table makes it possible to tune-in completely to your companions and I think this interaction is holy. Merriam Webster defines holy as: exalted or worthy of complete devotion.  Making space and taking time for extended interpersonal exchange is the kernel of holiness that links a secular dinner gathering with historical religious practice. Setting a whole day aside for personal concerns, including sitting down for lengthy meals, can seem impossible for many of us, nor do we wish anymore to be required to conform to religious requirements, but in our ever more secularized world some of the essential connections are being lost. It seems to me that the dinner table can step in to hold some of the essence the Sabbath used to offer as we rush into our future.

More Ruth

The stranger who appeared in my driveway in search of Ruth Penington's old house pulled me back to my own first impressions of the house, and to the research I undertook at the time to find out more about it. Some of the comments (thank you, as always!!) made me realize that there was now more available on-line than there had been twenty years ago. Ruth even has an entry on Wikipedia, which certainly wasn't there when I was first looking. Or maybe I am just a crappy researcher. Anyway, I found some pictures of her and her work which I hope you will find interesting.

The stones in this belt came from our beach.

The house that Ruth built

Although our long and obscure driveway keeps casual passers-by away from our door, I wasn't entirely surprised a couple of days ago to find an unknown woman standing on our patio peering down at the old house. It has happened several times in the years that we have lived here because people who are familiar with this place are drawn back by their memories. The woman who built it, Ruth Penington, was an art professor at the University of Washington. She bought the property in 1940 and used it as a summer get-away until she died in the 1990's. Lots of students and family members were invited here and she occasionally rented it to sailors stationed at the nearby navy base. This most recent visitor told me her husband had helped build the "new" wing in the 1970's and had brought her down then to show her the beautiful place he was working on. She also was a student of Ruth's at UW, and of Ramona Solberg, who was a Ruth protege. I never knew Ruth and the number of people who did is becoming fewer and fewer, so I was delighted to meet her. Her presence reminded me of the first time I was here and the powerful pull the house and the setting had for me.

It was a cold day in February when we learned there was a house for sale in this vicinity. It had been empty for about three years and was about to be torn down and replaced by something much more grand, but the owner, who had purchased the property from Ruth's nephew, changed his mind and put it back on the market. The doors were standing open, the roof was clearly not doing its job, and the whole place had an air of abandonment and neglect. It was hard to tell how old it was because the design was so contemporary, but there were tell-tale signs (like the light switches) that said it was much older than it looked (the original cabin was built in 1942). Even in its sad condition, it was charming. The windows, and there were so many! looked out towards the fabulous view of water and mountain, and let in lots of light even in the dead of winter. The rooms were pleasantly proportioned and rambled up and down over the topography of the hillside. One interior staircase was built into the rock of the island and ivy grew up the wall indoors. I loved it and I could tell that whoever had built it had a highly attuned aesthetic sense and had loved it too. Her hand was so strongly evident that I became quite curious about her and began to research her life.

If you are interested in metal-working and jewelry you have probably heard of Ruth Penington because she was very active and influential in those fields in the fifties and sixties. She was the head of the UW art department and a founding member of Northwest Designer Craftsmen, a large organization of local artists. Ramona Solberg was probably more famous as a jeweler, but she was taught by Ruth and was her friend. I called Ramona, who was then still alive, and another friend who was important in local art circles, Lamar Harrington, and asked them about Ruth and they each kindly spoke to me for quite a while. They both said that the other was really closest to Ruth, from which I gleaned that Ruth was not deeply intimate with anyone. I heard from more than one person (not Ramona or Lamar) that she was terrifying and my most recent visitor echoed that, saying that as a teacher Ruth was very scary. Philip McCracken, the noted sculptor, said she failed him in the one class he took from her. There were some articles in the Seattle Times about her, including one with a photo of her working in the studio of our house (the windows are unmistakable.) The UW still keeps pictures of some of her work, which was also contemporary in style, and incorporated objects she found around her. One necklace features stones from our local beach. She was a serious and lifelong artist who clearly drew inspiration from the setting we are lucky enough to share. She came here as often as she could for decades, but one day went into a local store and said she couldn't find her house and needed help to show her the way. After that she didn't come anymore, but her house still shouts her name. The place she made was a magnet for many people, and they still think about it and occasionally wander by.

 

Northwest summer

In the news I read of severe weather here and there around the country and the world and I feel the weight of fear settle upon me.  However, when I look outside, I personally have nothing to complain about. After a very cold and rainy spring lasting well into June, the weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been consistently lovely. Even when it is quite hot down in Seattle, up here in the islands the temperature remains in the 70's or high 60's during the day, which is very comfortable, and the sun has been shining. We are having a beautiful summer. No smoke so far (knock on wood) and not too much fog. We have been sticking pretty close to home, but why go elsewhere when it is so pretty here?

The crabbing was really good this year....so good that I am sick of cracking and eating crab. Poor, poor me.

We walked on the ferry for a fun day out. This is the approach to Lopez Island.

We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and my mother's 90th birthday.

Mostly we just hung out at home. This is my granddaughter Sophie and her uncle Brendan. Its hard to beat being together in the good old summertime.

Woodpecker New Year

On New Year's Day I was walking the dog when I came upon a dead bird in the snow. It was a medium sized woodpecker with high contrast black and white bars and stripes on its back, wings and tail, a bright red head and chest, and a warm yellow belly....a red-breasted sapsucker. These birds are indigenous to the area but are not common. It could easily be ten years since the last time I saw one. To find a dead one was sad, but to compound my dismay, within five minutes I found another one, also dead. I held the two colorful corpses in my hands and wondered if I would ever see another. So many signs natural, political and familial point to endings and loss. Couldn't red-breasted sapsuckers come to my woods and live? The foreboding that is always lurking in my heart sharpened my grief, but what could I do? It was too late for the woodpeckers.

Within an hour my mood would turn. Looking out the window past the Christmas tree into the snowy woods, I saw the flash of black and white and red and yellow dipping between the trees and then a red-breasted sapsucker perched on a trunk just feet away. Seconds later another joined it, pecking busily into the bark for food. Both birds were puffed up against the cold, wearing their bright feathers like cheerful hats and scarves under their graphic overcoats. They glowed against their wintery background and were very much alive. I felt such a rush of relief and joy seeing them. It was a reassurance that some loss doesn't mean all is lost. At least for now, woodpeckers are still here.

It took a while for it to register having seen four red-breasted sapsuckers in one day. Wow. An interesting way to begin the new year. I looked up woodpeckers in my animal book and found that they are associated with the power of rhythm and discrimination. Words to meditate upon in 2022.

Happy New Year!

Am I back?

 

I don't know.

Its been many months since I have posted due to the face-slapping return of my auto-immune disease. Spring, summer and most of autumn were spent on the couch listlessly waiting for the drugs to help while enduring the side effects of those drugs. My energy level was so low that, on some days, just getting out of bed was the extent of my accomplishment. The physical torpor was matched or even exceeded by mental shut-down and withdrawal. Some of that was part of the illness, but grappling with the implications of what happened crowded other concerns from my mind too. All of my projects came to a complete halt....even embroidery was too hard. I became uninterested and uninteresting. That doesn't make for good blog content.

The good news is that I am improving. My energy is better and I am starting to pick up the fallen threads of my life...literally. I can do lots more things without collapse and I feel more like myself. The bad news is that I have lost confidence in my own future. The onset of this last round of disease (ANCA vasculitis) was so sudden and devastating that I am left undone. I am going to have to come to some new way of being but in the meanwhile I am very tentative and unsure. I am newly asking what is important to me and how I want to spend my time now that the fragility of life has been so freshly and personally demonstrated to me.

Of course, I am not alone in this place of shifting sands. The shock of a bad diagnosis is all too common and I now have heightened compassion for everyone who feels like their life has been stolen from them by things beyond their control. "Stolen" is the give-away word, of course. We all make complacent assumptions about how our lives are going to go because recognizing our mortality is just too scary, but we don't own our time so it cannot be stolen.

My life continues. We'll see what happens now.

 I very much appreciate the on-going concern of my blog friends through this long absence. Nancy, Marti, Grace, Jude and Liz especially have been so kind with their continued comments and check-ins. Thank you, thank you.

In the deep midwinter

Although the rest of the country has struggled through some nasty cold spells this winter I thought we might get a pass this year after three months without even a serious frost. Nope. No longer. A week ago my fuchsia was still blooming, now it is blackening under a foot of snow. We so rarely get snow that it becomes a wonder and delight as long as it doesn't last too long. This storm is expected to pass tonight so tomorrow we will be slogging through icy slush on our way back to our usual gray normalcy. We have to enjoy it now.

Unfortunately I am at complete leisure for contemplation of the weather as I have been weathering a storm of my own. Ten days ago I went in for a routine blood test and within a few hours found myself in an ambulance on the way to Seattle with acute renal failure. It is a return of the auto-immune vasculitis I struggled with a couple of years ago, this time centered in my kidneys..... a real slap upside the head as I had no idea I was sick and still don't feel any symptoms but fatigue, and now the effects of massive doses of steroids. I am lucky not to be suffering and also to have so far avoided the kind of damage that would result in the need for dialysis or other horrid interventions, but there has been some permanent scarring and I am back on the steroid/chemotherapy treadmill it took me two years to escape the last time. I find it devastating to again be swept over this waterfall without warning. How can I prevent it in the future if I don't even know it is happening? I am going to have to cultivate radical acceptance to reach any sort of equanimity, but getting used to things is what humans do best so the outlook is bright. I am very fortunate and I am trying to remember that.

In the meantime....snow. Oh yeah, and Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.