Mother's Day 2016

On Sunday, I seemed to have a nice mother's Day, with adult children saying all sorts of kind things about me and grandchildren making me cute cards.

On Monday, I couldn't seem to stop crying.

On Tuesday, I kept thinking of this song my father used to sing to my mother every Mother's Day:

Do not throw stones at your mother
You won't have good luck if you do
Do not throw stones at your mother
For she never threw them at you

Do not throw stones at your mother
For some day dear mom will be dead
Do not throw stones at your mother
When you can throw brickbats instead

Mom would always laugh or groan or both at this song.

Curious, I googled it. Apparently, it was an old childhood song, possibly of Irish origin. Dad didn't make it up. There were several versions, most beginning with "Never throw stones at your mother" and ending with "Throw rocks at your father instead." There is no one left alive who can appreciate the levels of painful irony here.

Actually, It Does Sort of Matter

On further thought, I realize that my last blog post is sort of wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s President as long as it’s not a Republican. Neither Hillary nor Bernie will be able to get much done. But if one of the current contenders for the Republican nomination becomes President, then with a Republican majority in the House, it is possible that some of the worst parts of their agenda could be enacted into law. That’s worth trying to prevent.

So it does matter who’s President, since it should not be a conservative Republican. “Conservative Republican” seems redundant, since I don’t see any centrist Republicans like Eisenhower or Gerald Ford or even Richard Nixon among those running for the Republican nomination. So despite my last post, be sure to vote!

It Doesn't Matter Who's President

Political Rant in the 2016 Presidential Election Year:

The Presidential Election is an Irrelevant Circus

Writer Garret Keizer recently examined why Donald Trump appeals to people whose interests he actively opposes (L.A.Times, January 31, 2016, p. A27). He also raised the question of why so many Americans view the government as their enemy and not the rich and the transnational corporations. His answer was that this belief is affected by people’s self image. To view the government as the enemy is to be oppressed, but also a heroic resister, on the same side as everyone else -- to be “equal” to the rich and the corporations, who are also oppressed by the government. To view the rich and powerful as the enemy is to be a “loser,” a failed competitor in the “Free Market” and therefore inferior to the wealthy, a much less appealing self image. 

Beliefs may determine voting behavior, but the reality is that the ultra rich and the corporations exploit and oppress everyone else in the current system of capitalism (see Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert Reich or Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty). Money equals power, and the super rich and the corporations have managed to arrange the laws of this country to their own advantage and everyone else’s disadvantage. 

The only check on the power of the moneyed class is organized groups of ordinary people working together in unions or to elect a representative government that will actually protect their interests. It is in the self interest of the rich and the corporations to destroy unions and to make sure the government doesn’t work. They don’t actually have to elect or run the government to benefit; all they have to do is render it ineffective so they can pursue their own ends without any regulation or limits. They have been successful in making the government ineffective and inefficient enough that they have also succeeded in making it appear to be the enemy. 

One of their strategies is to starve the government. Since Reagan, the moneyed class has dramatically reduced its share of taxes paid to fund the government. It’s not that they want the money, but rather that it helps reduce the government’s power and therefore the power of ordinary people. They accuse the government of being bloated, wasteful, and inefficient, and stir people up to be upset about paying taxes (though Americans pay less taxes than citizens of most other developed nations). Underfunding the government makes it ineffective, and that ends up annoying people. Anyone who has tried to deal with the underfunded Social Security administration, for example, ends up frustrated, angry, and resentful, and therefore more likely to agree that the government is the enemy. 

The rich and powerful can argue that they are taking a principled stand, that the best government is the one that governs least, that the government should not “interfere” with people’s freedom, etc., but the end result is still the same -- reducing the effectiveness of one way ordinary people can protect their interests.

A second strategy has been to make sure that a Republican majority in the House of Representatives blocks any action by the government. Some wealthy conservatives have managed to gerrymander enough congressional districts that the House will have a Republican majority for several years. It could be argued that they have done it in especially conservative regions that ensure rather extremist conservatives get elected. The moneyed class does not need to elect a certain President or to spend money on Senate campaigns; it only needs to be sure that a Republican House majority blocks any government action. That plus underfunding the government means that all the money they have can lead to unfettered power.

This second strategy has the beneficial side effect of making the government seem like the enemy to ordinary people, since it doesn’t get anything done and seems to be wasting their tax dollars. The very rich and the transnational corporations don’t care who is President. All they need in order to continue to gain wealth and power is for the only check on their power, the government, to be dysfunctional and for it to be viewed by the people they oppress and exploit as the enemy. I have to hand it to them -- it’s a clever strategy and it’s worked.

I Dream of Jeanie

As suggested by one of my art teachers, I have been creating works that are drawn from the memories of my sister or that honor her in some way. I put them all together in a photo book, show in order below. The book began with this poem:

I Dream of Jeanie

Two sisters had thought
They would grow old together
It was not to be

The one who stayed in this world
Made these tributes to
The one who left it too soon

An Old Poem

Rediscovered this poem, written in July, 2000:

Who Says Scientists Aren’t Spiritual?   July 2000

We are all nutrients for one another

Minerals and molecules temporarily organize

Into My Self

A cow

A lettuce

Perish, so that I can use their minerals and molecules

To keep my particular organization of matter

Going

Till I loose them into the cosmic stream

To become

Other forms

This Morning

A bluebird landing

Near my sister's new grave stone

Happily ate worms

Only a Dream

I was playing

cards with my sister

when we were children

and I said

"It's your turn, Jeanie-weenie-beanie"

Earliest Art Memories

Certain experiences with art from my childhood stand out in my memory. When I was in second or third grade, I liked to draw horses, and I was pretty good at it for my age. I turned in a horse drawing with homework one day. The next day, the teacher called me up to her desk for a private conversation about that drawing.

“Who drew this picture?” she asked, somewhat sternly. I was confused, since my name was clearly written on the drawing. I hesitated and she asked again, "WHO drew this picture?" I finally answered "I did," stating the obvious, I thought. 

Now the teacher looked confused. She said, “You didn’t draw this whole horse.” I said, “Yes, I did.” She said, “Didn’t someone else help you with this part?” pointing to the hooves. 

It was beginning to dawn on me that she didn’t believe I could draw a horse like that. I was beginning to feel insulted. After all, everyone in the classroom asked ME to help THEM draw horses. “No,” I said, “I drew the whole thing.” 

She was beginning to look doubtful, but it was clear that she still didn’t believe that I could draw like that, so I offered to draw one for her right there. She finally said that it wasn’t necessary, so I guess she believed me. 

I’ll never forget that moment, when an adult asked me a question that had an obvious answer, when I was accused to not being the author of my own work. 

When I was in the 6th or 7th grade, I was given a series of individual art lessons. I don’t know how this came about, whether a teacher suggested to my mother that my talent be encouraged, or if Mom thought about it on her own, or how my parents afforded it, for that matter. At the end of the first lesson, the teacher told me to sit outside and draw my own house before the next lesson. 

Apparently, even then I didn’t like plein air painting. I thought to myself, “I know perfectly well what my house looks like. I don’t need to go sit outside and look at it in order to draw it!” So I drew a highly accurate rendering of the house we were living in at that time. 

When I showed it to the teacher, she seemed quite bemused and finally said, “You didn’t sit outside and look at your house, did you?” I was quite surprised that she knew that, but I admitted I hadn’t. “But it looks just like my house,” I insisted.

She smiled, chuckled, shook her head, and said, “I’m sure it does, but it shows it from an angle that no one but a bird or someone on a ladder could see. If you were sitting outside and looking at it, you wouldn’t see the entire roof like this, and the house would sort of go up like this.” She demonstrated. I immediately “got it.” I understood the concept of point-of-view and perspective, and I also understood that accuracy is not the only goal of art.

Another vivid memory is taking a class field trip to see a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit. When and where it was has grown dim in my memory. I went online a couple of years ago and found that there had been such an exhibit in about 1958 at the old Los Angeles County Museum of Art or at the Southwestern Museum, but I can’t find that information online today. That date doesn’t fit with what age I remember being or where I remember living. 

Whatever time or place it was, I will NEVER forget the first time I saw a genuine Vincent Van Gogh painting! “Wowee,” I thought, not yet knowing the term “blew my mind.” By that time, I was familiar with many of Van Gogh’s works via reproductions, and I learned that reproductions cannot possibly convey the energy, beauty, and vivid colors of his art. I also remember thinking that I now understood why people liked looking at art, that it IS a worthwhile activity, that it’s worth it to go see the actual works. I was absolutely thrilled and exhilarated by that exhibit.

My fourth and final memory has to do with musical theater. We had an Uncle Bobby McColgin, who had been married for a few years to my father’s sister Ruth. He worked at Columbia records, and he occasionally grabbed a bunch of 33 1/3 rpm record albums  and mailed them to us. They were mostly out-of-date musicals, and my sister and I were always excited to get them. Our Mom liked to listen to them, too. I’m sure this is where my love of musical theater originated. 

When I was in high school, Bye Bye Birdie came to Los Angeles, with the original Broadway star, Dick Gautier, in the role of Birdie. Again, I don’t recall the venue. For some reason, Mom determined to take us to see it. We couldn’t afford it, and Dad would never “let” us go. He hated to drive downtown and he couldn’t drive us himself, so he would throw a fit if Mom tried to drive us. But Mom was determined and decided on our usual strategy -- we didn’t tell him and made up an elaborate story to cover our tracks.

After much excited anticipation, the big day of the matinee came. Mom drove my sister and me downtown, and we actually managed to get there alive. Poor Mom had to buy the cheapest tickets, and we were very high up and behind a pillar. We had to take turns peering around the pillar. But nothing got in the way of our enjoyment of the energetic singing and dancing and the bright colors of the show. When Dick Gautier did his sexy dance in that gold lame skin-tight outfit, Mom put her hands over her face and groaned. Then she tried to cover my sister’s eyes. It was too late for me, since mine were already popping out of my head. We all had a grand time and managed to get home safely without Dad finding out or getting mad at us. Seeing my first real musical is still a vivid memory. 

Now I’m remembering that when I was in the 4th or 5th grade, a girl I knew at school invited me to her house, and she wanted to play a record for me. It was “HMS Pinafore” and that was an ear-opening experience for me. I had no idea such things as musicals or operettas existed, and I absolutely LOVED this one. Another still vivid memory, and I’ll always be grateful to that little girl.

January 1, 2015

Monarch fluttered by
After so long without one
Its beauty blazes

Will I remember
New Year's Day as the last time
I saw a monarch

Grandma's Quilt

My grandmother, Rose Echo (Bonesteel) Brown (1898-1973), made a quilt out of my mother’s childhood dresses. My grandmother sewed all of my mother’s clothes, as I suppose many people did in those days, and she was a fantastic seamstress. She created a quilt with a random pattern, with pieces of cloth of various sizes and geometric shapes, known as a “crazy quilt.” My grandmother was very artistic, so even though the pieces are put together in no pattern, it is clear that she considered shape, color, and texture to create a pleasing abstract design.

This quilt was originally incredibly heavy and warm. I touch the heavy, scratchy, wool cloth and feel sorry for my mother having to wear what I would assume to have been quite uncomfortable, hot dresses. But maybe they were appreciated during the winters in Indiana. I don’t know, and now my mother, Vera Hope (Brown) Todd (1918-2003), is not around to ask. 

I also don’t know when Grandma made the quilt or when she gave it to Mom. Did she make it when Mom was young, to be put into a hope chest? Did she make it after Mom eloped with Dad in 1937 when she was only 18? My parents always indicated that Grandma didn’t approve of their marriage because she didn’t like my Dad, but now I am wondering if she was appropriately concerned that Mom, whose father had recently died and who had just graduated from high school, was too young and inexperienced to make such a decision as to marry my “wild” PK (Preacher’s Kid) father, and during a Depression, too. Maybe Grandma made the quilt and gave it to my parents after I was born seven years later, when she apparently “forgave” them for eloping.

All I know is that the quilt was in our house for as long as I can remember. It was always brought out when we were sick, to keep us warm and comfy. My sister, Jean Ann Todd (1946-2014), especially loved the quilt. It was held together with fuzzy yarn ties, and when she was a child, Jean loved to hug the quilt and rub the yarn between her fingers. She kept the quilt and used it for most of her adult life, until it became very worn. She gave it to me in 2007, and I simply stored it.

The quilt was originally backed with dark brown satin. Hand-tied beige yarn held front, back, and middle together every six inches. The middle was extremely heavy wool quilt stuffing. When I recently took it out of storage, I saw that the satin back was faded and in shreds. There were several rips in the front. I hand-sewed the tears on the front, but it was impossible to save the satin backing.

So I took the quilt apart. The satin backing peeled away fairly easily. I cut away the inner stuffing and tried to preserve all the yarn ties. I found and bought a dark brown sheet, made out of Modal, that matched the color of the satin as I remembered it. I did not replace the stuffing, since the quilt is plenty warm without it and it is bulky enough as is. Since I am not nearly as good at sewing as my grandmother or my cousin Peggy, I machine sewed the sheet to the quilt front, trying to preserve as much of Grandma’s original sewing as possible. It doesn’t look exactly as it did, but it is very close. It is now useable, and I am wondering if one of my daughter’s would want it.

Grandma's "Crazy Quilt"

Grief Another Way

My last "Untitled" post was a poem about the sudden, unexpected loss of my sister in March.  To see a visual expression of those feelings, click HERE.

Untitled

Oh crushing sorrow

Companion of my lifetime

Sister died Sunday

I failed to protect

My baby sister, Mommy

I deserve this grief

Trials of old age

Must now be faced on my own

Us torn asunder

Without her to share

Memories of our youth will

Slowly slip away

If only she'd called

If only she'd heard me say

Let people help you

Musings in a Cemetery

In October we went with the American Birding Association to see birds at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma, San Diego. It was a beautiful day, and the cemetery was full of lively, colorful birds, mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers and Western Bluebirds. At the same time, row after row of graves was very sad, especially when I started reading the headstones and saw how many of the dead were so young. I was moved to write a short poem:

Endless rows of graves
Thousands served and died too young
Stone perches for birds

A Short Poem on the Meaning of Life

Sea to shining sea
All this is your time, your turn
To enjoy and care

Meditations on Extinctions

Recently I began a series of paintings about the loss of bird species, and then I wrote some haiku-like poems on the same topic. (Since I wrote my first haiku, I have learned more about it and realize that mine are not really haiku, but haiku-esque.) I enjoy the challenge of trying to express an idea or feeling in 17 syllables, as well as on a two-dimensional piece of paper. Both are exercises in trying to express a great deal of meaning in a small work.

30,000 BC - 1884

Thousands of Great Auks

Lived eons on far islands

Sailors ate them all 

1870 - 1889

Millions of bison

Extirpated in less than 

Twenty years of sport

Passenger Pigeons

Billions when whites came

Tasty flesh and useful down

Hunters sold them all

Carolina Parakeets

Our only parrot,

Pretty on hats, a farm pest,

We destroyed their homes

The Cause

Habitat loss and

Invasive species cause bird

Disappearances

Blame

Invasive species
The enemies of wildlife
Indeed they are us

Nature in 2100

Crabgrass, cockroaches,

Carbon gas, and coyotes

There used to be birds

A Book Report

Just finished reading “Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter, an absolutely wonderful book, so many interesting fully realized characters, revealed by their behaviors in nuanced and touching scenes; a complex plot with interesting philosophical questions about the nature of time, memory, how our lives are affected by random events, how interconnected we all are. Also, hilarious at times. Sweet, sad, and disgusting at others. All this in gorgeous prose, with an occasional sentence that is PERFECT.

One of the characters is dying of cancer. From pages 314 - 315:

And the truth is, most of the time, she IS at peace, HAS led a great life, IS happy her son has returned. ... But other times, honestly, the whole idea of being at peace just pisses her off. At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?

I loved that sentence -- What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? And that’s why I love a good book like this. For a while I get to live another life, a different life, several lives.

Page 325:

There would seem to be nothing more obvious,

more tangible and palpable than the present moment.

And yet it eludes us completely.

All the sadness of life lies in that fact.                          --Milan Kundera

Page 335:

And it’s a life with no shortage of moments to recommend it, a life that picks up speed like a boulder rolling down a hill, easy and natural and comfortable, and yet beyond control somehow; it all happens so fast, you wake a young man and at lunch are middle aged and by dinner you can imagine your death.

Thanks to my good friend Tere for lending me this book.

Emotional Extremes

This has been an emotionally extreme year, with great joys (a university graduation, two weddings, a new grandson) and deep sorrows (loss of sister's partner and having to put a beloved dog "to sleep"). When I was young and extreme emotions were common, I had thought that in old age there would be wisdom, serenity, and emotional calm. Not so! 

An obvious idea occurred to me today that the extreme emotions of youth and age are simply different. When one is young, there are the highs of falling in love/lust and the lows of breaking up, plus the anxiety and pride of education and work achievements with some failures. As a senior, I find the main emotions are a deep love of family members, with great joy over the new ones, and pride and happiness with their accomplishments. The increasingly common emotional lows are grief and sadness at the loss of friends and family. 

I couldn't think of a way to convey this "insight" in a painting, so I tried a haiku, which doesn't quite capture what I am thinking and feeling either.

Youth's extreme emotions
Are lust, achievement, defeat.
Age has love, loss, joy.

Memorable Moments

We have recently been involved in putting on two weddings. After the months of planning, it seemed that the weddings went by in a flash, and without photographs, I would have forgotten a lot that happened. However, certain moments stand out clearly in my memory and at the time they felt both emotional and meaningful. And they were often the totally spontaneous and unexpected moments. I thought it would be nice to blog about a few of them.

My daughter Emily got married in a beautiful, rustic outdoor setting. As her father was walking her down the aisle, her veil got caught in a tree branch and was yanked from her head. I jumped up from my seat and jammed it back on her head. As I straightened the veil, I was overcome with love for her and on impulse I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Then she continued down the aisle, calling out, "Thanks, Mom!" This sweet moment was well documented:

Another favorite memory was the young couple's first dance. Emily's fiance Nick was NOT known for dancing. As a surprise they secretly had their first dance choreographed by the award winning choreographer Kelly Todd. Several days of practice were involved. At the wedding, as the first dance began and Nick smoothly led Emily around the dance floor, I could hear the crowd gasping and saying "No" and "Wow" and "What?" When they went into their choreographed movements, the crowd burst into cheers and hoots. I was busy videotaping it, but a few photos show the fun:

And of course, it was wonderful to see how beautiful and happy Emily and Nick looked just after they were married:

Our son Matt married Christina a couple of months later. Several unplanned moments made wonderful memories for me:

At the rehearsal dinner on a boat, I tried to get the baby to
smile while two photographers captured parents and baby.

During formal family portraits, Ryan spontaneously
joined the Chavez family!

I finally managed to get a photograph of
all the Kee men!

Matt and Christina had a lovely first dance, but a later dance with them and their baby was incredibly cute and sweet:

And of course, it was wonderful to see the newly married couple so happy and beautiful:

This got me thinking about my other daughter's wedding in 2004. Again, only certain moments stand out in memory. One again involved a veil. During formal photographs of the bride, taken on an outside, upper deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the wind suddenly picked up and Kelly almost lost her veil. She was laughing her head off while she tried to get it back under control.

Of course, Kelly and John, competitive swing dancers, put on a fabulous first dance:

And they too looked happy and fabulous after marrying:

Reviewing one's happy memories is good for one's mental health!

Conversations

Some people complain that Twitter and texting are making the country inarticulate. Here is a verbal exchange between two neighbors that I overheard this morning:

      "Morning."
       
       "Weather."

       "Nice!"

After Reading Heilbrun

I just finished reading “The Last Gift of Time: Life beyond Sixty” by Carolyn G. Heilbrun. Here are quotes from that work:

I was shocked, almost from the moment I left Columbia, by how little I missed it, how relieved I was not to have to plunge, ever again, into that poisonous atmosphere.

I entered into a period of freedom, and only past sixty learned in what freedom consists: to live without a constant, unnoticed stream of anger and resentment, without the daily contemplation of power always in the hands of the least worthy, the least imaginative, the least generous.

[To find meaning in later life,] ...the undertaking ... requires strong effort and the evidence of growing proficiency.

The only cure for sadness, [T. H.] White said, was to learn something.

...one sometimes feels compelled ... to complain ... but does not do so because all the people one sees are sick of it and will visit even less often if complaints or criticisms are forced upon them....

[May Sarton wrote] “We have to make myths of our lives,” she wrote. “It is the only way to live without despair. ...It is only past the meridian of fifty that one can believe that the universal sentence of death applies to oneself.”

Whatever the satisfying and as yet culturally endorsed adventure after sixty may be, its necessary element is the sense of something essential and vital having been achieved or discovered or learned. [Heilbrun argues that romance and sex are the only culturally sanctioned adventures for women, and that’s awkward after 60.]

The secret, however, of successful--and therefore continuing--association with the young lies in knowing that they are more valuable as suppliers of intelligence than receivers of it.

...leave the future to those who will inhabit it.

Here are some thoughts I had after reading her book:

By 60 or 70 we have developed a personal wisdom -- the sum of our experiences, knowledge, and unique view of the world -- and the frustrating issue is that we cannot use it to help our adult children, who want to learn their own lessons and develop their own wisdom. Our value to them is to be present, to observe, to approve, to support, to listen, to appreciate, to love. (Oh, and maybe most important, to finance.)

I like to think another contribution we older folks can make to the lives of the young is to provide a possible model for how to deal with life, since we obviously cannot give them advice on how to do it. If we can make ourselves happy and if we can handle what life deals us, then maybe that can give the young some ideas of how to do that for themselves, when their time comes.

As Heilbrun noted, many old people ask “What’s the point?” and become despairing. Humans are meaning-making creatures, which explains the power of narrative, and our job is to create the point. Make something up!

The adventure I have found for myself after sixty is painting. It meets Heilbrun’s requirements for effort and evidence of increased proficiency. It banishes sadness, because I am always learning something. I can express my personal wisdom with it. It is fun! And it is culturally acceptable, though Heilbrun seemed to think there were no culturally sanctioned adventures for old women. I consider the freedom Heilbrun discussed, the freedom of not caring any more about what people think of me or about what is socially acceptable, to be another adventure for old women. Seize the day!