Raven and Sparrow

Sing we all together

My sons asked me recently what I wanted in the way of a memorial when I died. I was quick to answer that I would like the people who loved me to gather in my memory to mark my life and the leaving of it, but that I didn't want anything in the way of a formal religious ceremony. Then, within three months of each other my father and my aunt died. They were both lifelong Catholics and were each ushered out with a full funeral Mass. I left the church many years ago but I found that participation in these lengthy, time-honored rituals, complete in both cases with beautiful music and familiar call and response was a profound way to release my beloved family members from this life into the next. Voices praying in unison and singing together honored the dead and the mystery of death which will come for us all more powerfully (I thought) than just sharing reminiscences, which we did also, of course. 

This has me wondering about the difficulty of making communal rituals when the institutions like the church which used to weave them into our lives have withered. Ritual is used to point away from the moment to larger or overarching themes that are easy to miss in our quotidian existence. It's not so hard to make small personal rituals which ground us into the circumstances of our own lives, but gathering people together to participate in shared ritual takes quite a lot of energy to plan and promote, and once done the energy dissipates and disappears. There is something about new rituals that people tend to shy away from with jokes and derision. I remember going to an Elks lodge because someone said they had good food and cheap drinks and being surprised by an Elks Club ritual that honored fallen Elks. All these years later I can't remember why it felt so odd, but I clearly remember my embarrassment and the difficulty I had to keep from laughing out loud. It felt farcical, and this to a person used to and appreciative of ritual. Now I wonder why. What is the difference between a powerful communal act and a farce?

There is something instinctively satisfying about joining in unison with others through prayer, song and dance. It celebrates and underlines our common experiences as we navigate these embodied lives. It reminds us that we are all in it together. How can we promote this sense of unity and draw universal themes down into immediate experience when everything seems to be falling apart? What new rituals do we need and how shall we make them?

 

 

Up on the roof

 

We have been enjoying very nice weather here at the end of the summer, a couple of smoke-filled days from forest fires notwithstanding. Now that fall has fallen, the weather report has turned to warnings of heavy rain. Mike and I decided we had better get our gutters cleaned and roofs swept before the onslaught. The large, wind-twisted Douglas Fir trees that surround our house are surprisingly messy. Evergreen doesn't mean that they don't shed a lot of dead bits. In the spring they drop their papery flowers and in the fall, one third of their needles. Every time the wind blows there is a dervish of rust colored detritus that settles on every surface. We have mostly metal roofs which resist the rot caused by moisture retaining windfall, but the gutters clog up terribly. Leaf guards are no use against the little slivery needles, so twice a year we must go up, clean the gutters and sweep the flat portion of our roof clear of accumulated tree stuff. It is surprisingly hard work, but it feels so good to face the rain knowing the gutters are ready to receive it.

The view is pleasant as we work.

 

 

Mojave funeral

In the middle of August I accompanied my mother and several siblings back to the town where I (and my mother) were born to attend the funeral of my aunt. Trona is way the heck out in the Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles, two valleys over from Death Valley. It was the last company town in America, formed to mine and process the borax and potash from the dry lake bed on which it sits. It is an inhospitable and lonely place. My parents met and married there, but then escaped in 1956 to the Pacific Northwest. In contrast, my aunt lived there for almost all of her ninety six years and with her strong personality assumed a major role in the life of the town. In tribute to her and to our own history there in the desert the family gathered to say goodbye.

We were worried about the heat, which had been severe in the weeks leading up to the funeral, but in the four days that we were there it moderated from the 120's down into the nineties, which with air conditioning, was tolerable. We were able to drive around and revisit the places we used to live and the scenic points of interest in Searles Valley. The chemical plant is still operational, but the town is very sad. All the old company housing has been exposed to a century of sun, wind and sand, and many of the houses are empty, some burned out. There are only a couple of businesses still open, other than the plant. The houses I can remember are all still standing, although my grandmother's house with the little covered terrace by the front door is blackened and ruined. I can remember stepping out into the still clarity of an early desert morning on that terrace when I was around three years old. 

We drove the length of the valley up to the Slate Range Crossing where my mother told the story of the time when she lost her brakes heading down the hill. She was a teenager (under sixteen) driving a Jeep alone from Trona over the ridge into the next valley loaded down with beer and supplies. She was headed for the resort her parents ran in Wildrose Canyon, when the car ran amok. She had to keep the Jeep on the rough and very precipitous road as it plunged from the top of the pass shown here down to the valley floor. Fortunately she held it on until close to the bottom, where it bounced off the road into the sagebrush. She sat there all day. Three cars went by. The first one didn't stop. The second one offered to go up to Wildrose and tell her dad that she was stuck, but put their sightseeing first and didn't get to Wildrose until dark. The man in the third car was able to get the Jeep operational and on the road, so about twelve hours after the accident she met her dad in the dark, coming to find her. Lucky for all of us. You can see the old road on the right hand side of the picture.

We also visited the Trona Pinnacles. They make frequent appearances in movies because they are so distinctive and so lonely. The geology of the dry lakes in the Mojave is complicated and fascinating but I can't remember off the top of my head what caused these strange pillars to form out on the desert floor. They are much bigger than they seem in pictures. The glory of this harsh landscape is in the minerals hidden underground. There are all kinds of beautiful and strange crystals, streaks of onyx, gold and silver, rocks that are only found in this one place in the world. It is a geologist's paradise. My grandmother founded the the Searles Valley Rock and Mineral Society and now my cousin is the president, which is creates a satisfying family symmetry.

A lot of my family members are buried in this dusty cemetery, and now my aunt has joined them. It is a strange place to be from.

The week that was

I had been planning to spend the first part of last week getting ready for a visit from the grandkids, but on Monday Mike admitted that he had been having chest and arm pain for a couple of weeks and that it was getting worse. We rocketed off to the emergency room where everyone agreed that it sounded dangerous, but they had no cardiac unit and needed to send him elsewhere. In fact there were no beds available from the Canadian border to Seattle for a cardiac patient that day and Mike spent eighteen hours in the ER before they finally put him in an ambulance and sent him to Seattle. Once there the doctors got right to work, installed two stents endoscopically and released him on Wednesday evening. Dusted and done. Mike was feeling shaky but okay so we let the kids come up as planned until Sunday when we all went back to Seattle for the funeral of a dear family friend. Whew. I am feeling so spacey its almost an out of body experience. I assume the reaction will be here soon. 

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.