Mementos

One of my mementos is an old piece of beautiful fabric, shaped like an unusually long scarf, a camaband perhaps. It has vivid stripes of red, yellow, blue and white, and a fringe of gold at either end. I believe it is made of silk, and these days it feels old and fragile. It belonged to my mother, and as long as she was alive she never wore it. It stayed in her bottom drawer, carelessly wrapped in crinkly, aged tissue paper. There was always a delightful smell around it, a faint reminder of mother’s perfume.

When I asked her about the scarf she tended towards obfuscation – dismissing the topic without delivering a clue as to how she got it, or who gave it to her. I gathered that it belonged to a bullfighter in Spain, and she got it from a time before she married my father, in 1940.  That would make the scarf at least 75 years old, and I doubt it was new when she got it.

So I have been left to imagine the details. I see a beautiful woman with raven black hair and aquiline features. She is visiting Spain with her father as chaperone, and she falls for the splendor and excitement of the bullfight. Every time she attends a bullfight there is color, trumpeting music, and the thrill of danger in the air. Before the fight the bull is tested for ferocity, and is allowed to snort his stuff by rocketing around the bullring, kicking up dust and stirring the audience’s emotions. The matador shows off his finery – tight embroidered pants, a short jacket, with a splendid camaband around his waist, tied with perfection. He wears a grand black hat, the spectacular maroon cape embroidered in gold and silver. He carries his highly decorated sword. He preens like a fighting cock, building his courage and becoming ready for the fight.

My beautiful mother catches the eye of the bullfighter. She waves her handkerchief when he passes by her seat, and he accepts it when she gives it to him. This signifies that he is dedicating the killing of the bull to her. Now the thrill is electrifying, and the audience is roaring encouragement and support for the bullfighter. The fight begins, and each time the matador makes a good move the crowd shouts ¡ole! He survives the fight with gallantry and grace. The crowd roars even more as the bull sinks to its knees, clearly defeated. The bullfighter comes back to where my mother has been sitting and presents her with his camaband. She falls in love with the bullfighter, bullfights, and Spain, though she never had occasion to return to the land of spectacle, color and excitement.

I now have the camaband in my scarf drawer and have never worn it. In due course I will give it to my daughter, and she will give it to her daughter after her – a mystery to hand down through the generations.

Mariana Hewson

Saturday, September 20, 2014

GREEN MEMORIAL

                                                                       

The prairie grasslands swelled and dipped in the ocean of green. We wound our way through Wisconsin side roads, looking for the site of the celebration of the life of our old friend. Thirty years ago when we arrived in Wisconsin he was a doctoral student in my husband’s department. He was a Wisconsinite, yet through the Peace Corp he spent nearly 10 years teaching in Kenya. His Kenyan wife and three sons prepared a service to celebrate his life as a consummate naturalist, a devoted teacher, and a loving family man.

Around a corner loomed a huge red barn, not a dairy barn, but one for prairie grass farming. Other cars were parked along the road. All around the barn was prairie grass—lush, deep, and green. The wind breathed through the swaying grasses. Inside the spotless barn were pitchforks, scythes—farming instruments neatly stacked against the walls, and chairs and tables for guests. A poster praised prairie grass. A delightful grassy smell wafted through the barn. As the wind increased the green surf gently roared.

A Wisconsin meal of brats, burgers, and strawberry shortcake helped us to settle down and start meeting each other. At our table we talked about the 1950’s when Norm, his five siblings and the children of the area attended a one-roomed school—a single teacher with 25 students ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade. A woman at our table who also attended this school told of the frigid winter walks to school, the camaraderie, the pranks, the trips to big city Madison, the socializing between the children of the neighboring farms, and the life-long friendships.

I am now thinking of a memorial service held in a local Madison church. Somber organ music, doleful singing of well-known hymns, flowers, bible readings, a sermon, and eulogies dominated. The church tea that followed the service helped cheer everyone up.

This memorial service had no religiosity or spirituality. The barn was the church. The wind in the grass provided the music. It was a musical serenade to accompany and support our communal celebration. The tributes were filled with life-giving humor, shared memories of yester-year, and a recognition of a life well-lived.

MISSION CEMETERY, MADELINE ISLAND

A cairn of stones supports a huge wooden cross in the cemetery. It reaches about 30 feet high and is painted white with many coats of paint. According to the information board, in 1836 the Catholic missions of the earliest settlers in these Apostle Islands, the northern tip of Wisconsin, allowed for Native Americans who had converted to Christianity to have Christian burials.

Scattered around the cemetery are dwarf houses—small roofs about four feet by two feet, with short walls only one foot high. There appear to be windows cut into the dwarf houses, along the walls and some on the roofs. These are all made of wood, and show signs of extreme weathering. I spot a very few classical stone tombstones, and one highly ornate metal cross.

The French missionary bishop allowed Native Americans to build these tombs, but did he know that the dwarf houses signify a place where the Native American spirits could visit the deceased, and be with them for the four days of transition from this world to the next? Did the bishop know that the dwarf houses protected the food offerings put there by the mourners, to support the spirits and their journey to the other worlds? Did they know that these worlds are not heaven, as Christians believe? Rather the Middle World is where spirits of the dead are in transit, and where the spirits of the living beings experiencing turmoil can be found? Did they know that in the Lower World are many spiritual entities, such as Earth Mother, Sun Father, animal spirits, and healing spirits? Did they know that in the Upper World the spirits of the recently departed members of society can be found?

The clear cold waters of Lake Superior lap against this cemetery. It is located in the small town of La Pointe on Madeline Island, the largest of the Apostle Islands. You can drive here in the frozen winter months, when the water between Madeline Island and the shore town of Bayfield is frozen so solid that cars and trucks cross with ease. In the summer, a car ferry plies to and fro, bringing tourists and all the necessities of life to support them.

One hundred and fifty years ago this remote region held great promise for the colonialists who came here from the east. Fur trading was the first focus of interest. Then beautiful red sandstone was used to build a few impressive buildings. Steel from Philadelphia was shipped in. Perhaps this region could become a new westerly shipping destination for eastern materials—coal and steel. The Native Americans happily traded with the earliest settlers, finding a lucrative outlet for their furs. Along with all the fervor of the new settlers came the French Catholic missionaries.

It is hard to imagine the life of the early settlers, but I assume that the winters were as long as they are today, and the summers just as sweet. The missionaries traded their Christian version of salvation, and the Native Americanss offered their survival skills for the harsh winters. It was a fair trade, of sorts.

Looking at the La Pointe cemetery I was impressed by the dominance of the white wood cross over the little burial houses built for converted Native Americans. Although their graves are not marked, Chief Great Buffalo lies in this cemetery as well as his son Chief Little Buffalo. The great white cross dominates over all. I have never seen a cemetery with such a determinedly dominating symbol of one religion over another. The graves of the Native Americans appear modest in death. They reveal an interesting comingling of the white man’s religion and their own beliefs. Admittedly, this cemetery is not well populated. So where are the other Native Americans buried? Are they in ceremonial mounds? Are the bodies hung in trees to feed the birds in ‘sky burials’? I hear a crow calling loudly as I write. ‘Don’t forget me! I am part of the system too.’ This is the ecological system, the source of our survival and rebirth.

I smile when I think of the great white cross standing there in La Pointe cemetery. It represents colonial focus on the material details concerning which types of people can have what kinds of burial monuments. It reeks of racism, even in death. All this can be found on the tiny island that has sustained itself for millennia, without the help of missionaries.

BLUE HERON

The Blue Heron and the cross stand on either side of a crabapple tree in perfect stillness. Behind them is the lake on a calm day, no ripples, no fish jumping, and no boats. The lake is grayish, like the sky. The moment is quiet, reflective.

First the Blue Heron looks westward, towards the cross on her right. After a long while she turns her head to look eastwards, to the left, away from the cross. The mood changes from quiet introspection to hopefulness.

A friend wrote me about the dry and sad places of the soul—his, mine, and everybody’s. I have been ruminating about my own dry and barren places and figured that these are my memories of feeling unfulfilled, like the time when left my final job. What should have been a happy celebration of 8 years of enjoyable hard work turned into a damp squib. The sadness is still there even though the event is well past—an unclear ending.

The Blue Heron looks toward this painful place, and eventually turns her head away, staring to the east where the sun rises. She seems to be looking at the flowerpots on our neighbor’s deck. I find that a profusion of colors is worth looking at, and the colors soak deep into my being. But I wonder what the heron sees there. The cross seems forgotten for the time being.

This cross had washed up on our lakeshore in a storm and planted itself on the rocks. It brought sadness, memories of things lost, people lost and buried. It made me uncomfortable and I planned to go and remove it. But I didn’t, thinking someone else may have planted it there for a reason.  After all, our neighbor’s elderly father had just passed away. The coming of the Blue Heron shifted me to a philosophical level. Like the Holy Spirit, the Blue Heron arrived from nowhere, landed in this very particular spot and spoke to me of redemption and renewal.

QUILTERS

A tumble of brightly colored fabrics, dazzling and disorganized. The proposed picture being created involves the wide-open beaks of 3 or 4 nestlings, yelling for food. The vivid red printed fabrics are for the insides of their tiny mouths and the yellows are for their growing beaks. Most of the rest of the picture is the brown nest and undistinguished surrounds. The quilter tells me there will be magentas and purples in the surrounds, especially purples.

Quilters’ fabrics are usually prints or batiks. The trick seems to be to represent one medium, photos or paintings in another—the printed fabrics of seamstresses. The art is in the transformation, and the creativity of achieving this transformation, thus adding something more.

Quilters can take a year to finish a quilt. Either they can quilt a traditional pattern that hearkens back to early settlers of North America, especially those who quilted to help pass long cold winters when the world shuts down and every living thing rests. Others go for creative representations of nature, people, buildings, events and even more esoteric topics.

These quilters on Madeline Island School of the Arts are doing the representational type of quilting.  As I stroll through their classroom I see mostly bird designs, one crab, flowers, and a significant event of a newly married couple standing on either side of the Kenyan equatorial line. He is in the Northern Hemisphere and she is in the Southern Hemisphere, and they are kissing. ‘This was 30 years ago,’ says the quilter, ‘and I’ve always wanted to recreate this scene in a quilt to hang in my house. Now that our kids are grown and I’ve got an empty nest, I’m doing it at last.’ She smiles with the happy memory of her honeymoon in Kenya.

There is a quiet chatter amongst the quilters, who are mostly on task. They are trying different colors against their schematic maps, ironing fabric fragments, pinning pieces in place, grabbing an occasional drink, and a creativity-sustaining chocolate chip cookie.

I notice that some quilters keep their fabrics in tidy piles, folded, and sorted by color. I return to see the nestlings. The quilter is not at her table. The jumbled fabrics are more jumbled than before. This woman is dynamic and diversified. Out of the apparent chaos will come a beautiful quilt, I am sure of it, but just now it looks like the tangled fabrics might have defeated the quilter, who has walked away to recover her calm.

Sensitivity, creativity, perseverance, accuracy, and gentleness seem to be the hallmarks of these artists, some of whom are men. Quilting is not my medium – it takes too long, requires too much patience, too much planning, and paying painstaking attention to detail. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate this art form and the people who practice it.

STILLNESS

                                                                                  

Listening to the quiet in the north woods is deceptive. All around it is quiet, but not as quiet as it first seems. I hear occasional puffs of wind in the trees that surround this house on the lake. The lake is as still as a sheet of glass, shining brightly in between the trees. Nearby there is a summer camp for children and the happy squeals intersperse the silence. A lone dog barks. Eagles and ospreys occasionally fly past. Turtles linger amongst the water reeds and water lilies. Occasional plops tell me there are frogs here that I can’t see. Sadly I can hear distant traffic, not much, but on such a still day it is there.

This place is quiet and it is quieting. We are visiting pour friends, who built this retreat, mostly with their own hands.  ‘It’s for our retirement’ they say, which seems to be a few years away yet.  But it’s a dream come true--a house on a lake ‘Up North’ in Wisconsin.

Loons are on the lake, and they call to each other in the early mornings and evenings. We all love loons—they are strikingly beautiful birds with white spots on a black background, an elegant long neck and ‘eagle eyes.’ They turn their heads from left to right, searching the wide expanse of the lake. Their sharp beaks serve them well for underwater fishing.

At home in Madison they arrive every year at the time of the equinoxes, about September and March. They settle on our Lake Monona for two or three weeks before taking off, either northwards or southwards.

Loons are my measure of the seasons. At the end of the long winter, their arrival reassures me that indeed, spring is coming. In the fall, they let me know it is time to pull myself inwards, bring in the plants that have been enjoying the long summer days, ‘put our little garden to bed,’ and start thinking about winter clothes again. There is something approximating relief in the fall with the cool days, the oncoming winter, and the beginning of the quiet months. The hectic celebratory summer time is now spent and the children are thinking of school challenges and the thrill of growing up, inch by inch, year by year.

Our grand-girl has a birthday in October. That means she will hold up four fingers when asked how old she is. There will be a party, and gifts. Her preschool classmates will sing for her. We will be festive with balloons and cards, and she will experience the joy of being the focus of everyone’s attention. By October the days will be much shorter and darker. Frosts will come and we will grumble about needing to turn on the central heating. But it will become increasingly quiet without birdsong, without frogs and insects making night music, and without the whining of mosquitoes in our ears.

In the deep quiet of a Wisconsin winter you learn to simply be alive, grateful for the beauty of the white world outside and the central heating that allows us to live here.

OLD DOG

It really is hot today, but I must take old Tess out for a quick walk. If I don’t, she will surely pee on the carpet again. She seems confused and unhappy, but I have no idea what I can do to cheer her up. The day is coming when I will have to carry her up the stairs like a baby. What ignominy for my dear friend. She used to be the smartest dog on the block. In the dog park she would race around with other dogs, always coming back to me when I called. She has been my faithful companion for many years, and seen me through many difficult times, such as when I left town for a new job. I don’t think she hears much now, and I can see the cataracts shining like moons in her eyes. I know we only have a little time left together, and I want to make it good for her. 

*****

Tess: Hot and humid weather has hit us, and today we have to go for a walk again. She pulls on the leash, wanting me to hurry. My left back leg is so stiff and sore I am not sure it will continue holding me up. Can a dog go on three legs? And the other three feel wobbly and unsure. My ears and my tail are drooping but she doesn’t seem to notice. How can I tell her that this is no fun for me? I used to love our walks. We would play together, chase and run, catch the ball, play hide and seek. She even let me sleep with her on the bed. When I was young I could hold my pee for many, many hours. No self-respecting dog likes to foul her own bed. Now she doesn’t let me on the bed, and I certainly can’t jump up by myself. These days my food tastes bland and slimy and I don’t feel like eating much. I can’t help dreaming of a steak—a nice T-bone all of my own. Well, I can dream, can’t I?