Things like this aren't supposed to happen

I'm having trouble breathing past the tightness and the pain. Jude is dead. Now my family has a Jude-sized hole in it. And it really hurts.

Tomorrow is her birthday. She would be 37.

Your children are supposed to live much longer than you.

I didn't give birth to Jude, but she was my daughter... extended families are like that. The strange, difficult combinations and permutations can give us lovely connections that would not have happened otherwise. The pain of the relationships that don't quite work is sometimes offset by the joy that an extra son or daughter or sister or brother brings.

Oh, Jude was clever, kind, stubborn, generous, opinionated, gentle, loving, smart, beautiful... She laughed a lot at herself and rarely at others. She took in strays (animals and people) and loved them unconditionally. Family was everything for her.

She loved her husband. And I believe that he loved her too, but he also hurt her a lot. She came up to Minnesota last year to get away from him. She told me she felt really good with the decision to leave, that she loved him immensely, but couldn't handle the the violence. It seemed like she was in a good place about it all. She hoped to find a job and stay up here.

The job didn't quickly materialize. And I think he started calling her, making promises. He must have convinced her that it really was going to be different. Maybe he said he'd get therapy, seek counseling... I don't know. Jude didn't tell me and after she went back our conversations were mostly Facebook posts - short, funny, trivial... I didn't want her to feel like I would criticize her for a decision I might also have made if I were in her situation...

I guess I'll never understand why anyone would ever hurt someone they loved.

Today we found out that they are dead. We think that sometime this week he killed her and then killed himself.

I really, really cannot believe this happened. Oh, fuck, it hurts. It hurts.
What I really want to do right now is gather everyone close and take care of them, protect them.

Jude - I love you. I can't stand it that he took you away from us.

Encouraging an art-filled life

A friend asked me about art opportunities for her son (who spent his morning making masks)... and I said:

There are some venues around here that offer art opportunities. We can talk about them sometime. But I want to say that while it is grand to get kids together to make art, I think it's more important to make sure that the creative creature that lives inside of each of us has a chance. Parents are the best incubators for that creative creature.

I think that the critical thing is to encourage constant experimentation... making art is experimentation - pure, wonderful, exasperating, beautiful experimentation - it's giving in to the urge to "what if..." something, to take a bit of this and a bit of that and put them together to make a new thing. It doesn't have to be limited to traditional art activities - building a snow fort or baking a pie or making some contraption can be experimental - and if it is, you're feeding the creative creature.

The most important thing for raising a child (or an adult) to live an art-filled life - to be blessed with the indescribable lightness of being that art generates - is to be willing to totally wreck havoc in the name of experimentation, to be willing to put the journey and the finding out ahead of things like order and propriety and everything else that shuts down the creative mind, that forces us to be those cogs in the machine.

I was very lucky as a child - my parents did not have much, but they let us play with almost everything they had. The contraptions we made were applauded and treasured - even when they had to be scraped off the sidewalk, or painted over, or dismantled so that dinner could be put on the table, or, or, or...

I was "sewing" before I started school, "building" before I was out of grade school... I learned how to use tools, how to make stuff from bits of this and that, how to fix things, how to "see" what might be, how to be fearless in my experimentation - to know "I can do that..." whatever "that" was.

And all because I was taught that the creative creature was important, that it was the most important part of me - the part that made me alive - the creative creature was me. Life was all about the making and thinking and looking and finding... All those doings done, all those thoughts thought, they stayed with me throughout my life. Even in the times when I was too afraid to make art, when life demanded too much of me to be able to spare the energy, I still was art-filled.

And one day I came back to it.

So, would I like to make my living making art? Hell yes. I'd love to... and I am really stubborn, so maybe it will happen.

But it's ever so much more important to just be making the art.

They say it's your birthday...

You know, sometimes the down-and-dirty part of life really gets to me... the stupid allergies and the limits they impose on me, the bad shoulder, the bad hip, the whole getting older thing.

And then there are the days when, even though I still feel all those things, I also feel luminous - all brand new and shiny and full of potential.

Family and friends and making art are things that help me feel luminous. Last night it was Wes and Jude and Tinee and the sunset and the moonrise and the change-bringing wind up on Garvin Heights. This morning it was waking up, thinking about my birth 54 years ago (I'm the oldest, my mother was scared - who wouldn't be - and it was a Friday, she really wanted to wait one more day...) and thinking about the births of my kids. Right now it's the early morning bicycle ride euphoria and the flock of geese that greeted me with honks and hisses and much ruckus as I passed by on my way to work that's got me buoyed and calm.

I'm thinking about beauty today.

Blackberry Gluten-free Scones

I don't usually post about food since others do that much better than I ever could, but these gluten-free blackberry scones are (well, were...) worth a few words...

I used to make everything from scratch (strange phrase) -- no mixes, no ready-to-eat, no processed foodstuffs (except Kraft macaroni & cheese), no shortcuts... But between being gluten sensitive, working full-time, and trying to develop my artistic practice I've sort of let go of the food purism.

I have a plethora of alternative flours but gluten-free baking seems to be very hit-and-miss for me -- probably because I don't really have time to do the experimentation that I need to do to figure out how much of which kind of flour and whether to add xantham gum or guar gum or whatever... so I bought Bob's Red Mill gluten-free baking mix (think organic, healthy Bisquick). The scones turned out perfectly...

2 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free baking mix
add 1/2 cup of organic raw sugar, cut in 1/2 cup of organic butter
add 1 cup of vanilla almond milk (was out of the plain variety) stir until all is moist
gently fold in 1 1/2 cups of organic frozen blackberries
press out onto a baking stone, score into 8 scones, sprinkle with more sugar if you want
bake at 375 until browned and flaky
eat while they are so hot you can barely stand it

It's been a gradual relaxation of a set of unspoken food rules I had for myself. I realized I had fallen from food grace when, late one recent supperless evening I found myself standing in front of the frozen food section of Target (egad) eyeballing the frozen veggies (not so bad), and the frozen pre-cooked chicken strips (argh!) and frozen ready-to-heat-and-eat brown rice (bizarre and shameful)... I caved -- mostly because I was starving and it was almost 9pm and I couldn't face going home and either cooking a full meal, or eating a peanut butter sandwich. Got home, dumped it all in the wok with some broth, some shopped garlic and ginger and a bunch of tamari sauce... food in 20 minutes, not delicious, but edible...

When I was a make-it-from-scratch purist I was a stay-at-home mom with 5 - 9 kids in the house and food was my main creative outlet. I made 2-4 loaves of bread every day, baked a dessert twice a week, raised and processed my own meat (lamb and chicken and the occasional deer), gardened and preserved the veggies, made my own jams and jellies and butters...

I guess I could still be a purist if all I wanted to do was work and do foods. But now my life is about more than that, and until someone wants to move into the empty bedrooms and take this task on... well, some convenience foods once in a while won't kill us.

The "I Can't" Attitude

I am always amazed (and not in a good way) at the abundance of people whose first response to any challenge is "I can't..."

To paraphrase my mother, "If you start out with 'I can't' you certainly can't." [She actually used to say "Cain't never did nothing," - she grew up in the deep south...]

As kids we weren't allowed to say I can't until we had given it our best attempt, at least a couple times. It's not that my parents were task-drivers, or harsh; they were very caring and supportive. They just would not tolerate a defeatist mindset. And the result of that was that all of us kids – and most of our kids – are very well equipped to take on the challenges the world throws at us.

I think all the "I can'ts" would benefit from living with my mother in their formative years.

Thoughts on the Death of a Friend

It seems to me, after these past 10 days, that the death of a dear one makes us feel like we are ourselves lost.

Tragic, unexpected, untimely death is much harder to deal with. It is a surreal experience - in some ways - both physically and mentally intense, wretchedly transcendent in regard to the anguish we feel…

For days we have walked around with a kicked-in-the-stomach feeling, breathing deep was difficult, looking in each other’s eyes was nearly impossible. The patterns of our daily life have a new gap in them and our connections with the world are fewer and more tenuous.

I have felt both terribly empty and terribly full, and both are made of pain.

---

Wayne's Sushi & Karaoke Bar

My Las Vegas vacation is just about over. We've been here about a week. We've done some fun things and spent some great family time.

Tonight's wonderful surprise was Wayne's Sushi and Karaoke Bar. I cannot tell you how great it was. Total Food Orgasm. Period.

What we ate:
Appetizers:
Jellyfish, Bean sprout salad, Edamame, spicy Cucumber salad.

Wayne's Special Sushi Rolls:
Lost Wages - California roll wrapped with smoked salmon, topped withSum Young Gai sauce, baked and topped with tobiko and bonito flakes and eel sauce.
Mikey Mikey - Soft shelled crab, shrimp tempura and spicy tuna roll topped with spicy crab.
What Brah, Beef? - Shrimp tempura and asparagus, topped with beef tenderloin and ginger pepper sauce.
Snap Crackle Pop - Shrimp tempura and asparagus topped with baked tilapia and ginger pepper sauce.
Itsy Bitsy Spider - Soft shelled crab, crab mix, gobo, cucumber, sprouts, and massago. Served with ponzu and Sum Young Gai sauce.
Dragon Ass - California roll topped with eel and massago and eel sauce.
Brian & Marsha, Marsha, Marsha - Shrimp tempura, spicy crab, cream cheese and cucumber topped withspice crab, tuna, avocado and eel sauce.
And my very most favorite:
Mango A Go Go Hand Roll - Spicy crab with mango, served in soy paper.

The food was absolutely amazing. Fresh. Made right in front of us.

It's a tiny, small place - very intimate - owned/operated by Wayne and Heidi. We were sitting at the sushi bar and the food was prepared less than two feet from us. They have a few tables too, but if you go, be sure to sit at the bar. Wayne and Heidi have fantastic stories - tales to amaze and entertain, brash and silly, teasing and enticing. It's better than any dinner theater I've ever been to. The constantly running banter between Wayne, Heidi and all of us was such great fun. They make you feel like a welcome guest in their home, a long-time friend, not a customer.

If you're ever in Vegas, you've got to go to Wayne's.

Wayne and Heidi, we'll see you in December! We want to hear you sing next time.

---

Supreme Court Arguments Today

This is being argued in court today.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Hopefully NPR will give have information on air later today.

Damn Ken Starr to the Deepest Hell

This breaks my heart.

I've signed the letter. I don't usually do this sort of thing. I don't know if things like this are effective. It often seems like just a feel good (like driving a hybrid) that really doesn't do what we need (like way less driving around).

This one I signed.

And I love the music.

Las Vegas & Hoover Dam

Over the holidays Abelisto & I drove to Las Vegas to spend time with family. We also took Nova back to Vegas to live. She finished her bachelor's this past semester and her husband Mike had already returned to Vegas so she was anxious to get out there.

We made the drive an almost-straight-through marathon event. After the first 8 hours or so on the road there was usually one person sleeping at any time, preparing to take over driving when the current driver was done in. With three of us to drive we stayed on the road almost constantly, only stopping three times to sleep for around 45 minutes each time.

This meant that we reached Vegas about 10 hours ahead of schedule - but it just about did us in.

In Vegas we mostly hung out with family. I was working most days while I was there, so we did not plan any all day outings. We did take one afternoon and go to Hoover Dam. Abelisto & Taylor had not been there and Aluna hadn't been there in quite a while - neither had I.

I love the Gothic-inspired structures of the dam and all the art deco embellishments. Aluna was fascinated with the future bridge that is being built over the river downstream from the dam. She said she would love to be working on it. Thinking about working so far up in the air gave me sweaty palms and a fluttery feeling...

Tay standing on the Zodiac compass with Abelisto (behind her)

An example of art deco terrazzo work

Another example of art deco terrazzo work

And a third example of art deco terrazzo work

Abelisto, Tay (who is displeased about the sun in her eyes) and me
Lake Mead is in the background - you can see the white drought line

Tay & Aluna, with the future bridge over the river in the background

9-1-2007

I started this blog on August 2nd of last year. I had just learned my father was dying of lung cancer. The bridge in Minneapolis had just collapsed, or was collapsing - I cannot quite remember the order of things.

One year ago yesterday, one year and 12 hours ago, my father died. I was on the road, desperately trying to get there before he passed on. I did not make it.

One year ago today I was helping with funeral arrangements, trying to transfer airline tickets for our daughters and granddaughter to fly in from Las Vegas, and trying to arrange a ticket for our son, Eli, to fly down from Winona (he stayed home since we had more people than would fit in the station wagon and we never dreamed my father would die that night).

Eli's ticket was not a problem. Transferring the girls' tickets was a nightmare. In the end we ended up spending nearly $3,000 for the airline tickets we purchased that day and the ones we had purchased two days before, since they would not let us transfer the original tickets without paying fees and the difference between the ticket prices. That would have been more than buying new tickets, so we bought new tickets. After that we learned that the initial ticket order had been duplicated and so we owned 8 tickets. Nova and Taylor would fly in from Vegas that night. Aluna would fly in the next morning so that she could work her shift (it was impossible to get a substitute at that late notice). Eli would fly down from Minnesota that night, just a couple hours ahead of Nova and Tay. Eli doesn't drive, didn't drive, so Princess and Matt took him to the airport - a 2-hour drive from Winona.

I am amazed now, looking back, that it all worked out.

One year ago...

I made the biggest mistake I can remember making.

My father was dying. We knew this. Over the last few days he had nearly stopped eating. The lung cancer that had metastasized and taken up residence in his bones was winning. We knew it would, he knew it would - but we thought he had a few months to live. They told us at the end of July that he had two to nine months to live.

The 31st was a Friday. Wednesday of that week my mother had called and said she thought he wasn't going to be with us much longer. I called the girls in Vegas right after that phone call and told them they needed to get to Indiana if they wanted to see their grandfather before he died. Nova had been there in July. Aluna had taken a new job that summer and did not feel that she could take time off. When I told her she needed to get to Indiana now, she went to her new boss and got the time off and made plans to fly herself, Nova and Tay out the following Tuesday.

What was my mistake you ask? The mistake I made was putting my job and my normal life ahead of my father and my family. In all honesty, none of us expected him to pass that day. So I went to work in the morning with plans to leave around noon.

It's a 10-hour drive from Winona to my parent's home in Linton Indiana. If I had piled everyone in the car and left early in the day we would have made it in time.

Instead, leaving at noon meant that we were somewhere between Bloomington/Normal and Danville, Illinois when my brother called to tell us that my father had passed away. They told me that he knew - as much as one can know in the final hours of life - that we were coming, but he just could not wait for us to be there. He died at 8:45pm.

I wasn't there. Forever I will know that my decision to work those 4 or 5 hours meant that I was racing down a highway in a futile attempt to be there when my father died.

I hate it sometimes, that my family is so spread out over the country. I know something like this will happen again.

52nd Wedding Anniversary

Today is my parent's 52nd wedding anniversary. Can you still say its an anniversary if one parent has passed away?

Last year, about a week before their anniversary, we learned that my father had lung cancer. He was a smoker - pipe and cigar, never cigarettes - for much of his life.

They were married in 1956. I was born in September 1957, followed by a brother in January 1959, another brother in October 1963 and a sister in February 1968.

My parents moved 7 or 8 times during their marriage, all within the state of Indiana. During most of my childhood we lived on Russell Road in Bloomington.
View Larger Map

My dad had maybe 8 or 9 jobs during those 50+ years; my mother worked mostly in the home until we were all grown or nearly grown.

Level Orange

We just spent 6 wonderful days with Daughter #1 and our 3-year old granddaughter. They flew in from Las Vegas (which Granddaughter calls Lost Vegas) last Friday morning and flew out yesterday.

Picking them up last week from the airport in Minneapolis, I noted that our Terrorism Threat level was Orange. How strange. Orange is the second highest level. If, in fact, we were in that much danger, how come no one was talking about it? Activity in side the airport looked normal to me - no goose-stepping guards, no strip searches, no public warning announcements over the loudspeakers, nothing unusual, nada.

Have we become fearless, or just complacent...? Either way, I do not think that a rational discourse could take place yet about 9/11, the subsequent wars, keeping uncharged people in prison for years, torture, or even what we should do now that we have totally screwed things up for so many, many people (including ourselves).

***************************************************************************************************************

Bindi the jungle girl

Okay, I admit it. I was (am) a fan of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. I know he was a geek, but he was such an entertaining geek. I spent several New Year's Eves watching the 24-hour Crocodile Hunter marathons. Animal Planet and Discovery channel (and maybe the History channel) are the only things I miss about television. Although I thought Project Runway was sort of interesting when I watched it in Las Vegas at my daughter's house.

Anyway, I do not know where Steve Irwin fell on the scale of actually doing good things for the sake of the planet, but he had lots of passion that I do not think was only geared towards making money. I think he was truly moved to work for the welfare of the world and everything in it, particularly animals that most people want to exterminate.

Maybe I am naive, but I liked watching him blunder about in his all-out, wild disdain-for-pain frenzy, finding one more "gorgeous" animal for us to see...

Today I read about his daughter, Bindi. I do not know exactly what I think about her stepping up to the plate in her father's name. I think it is hard for me to disengage the loss of a father with how I react to this story. Thinking about losing a father at such a young age makes me a bit shaky and weepy anyway. It is hard enough when you are 50...

If it is true, as her mother states, that Bindi loves doing this and that if Bindi decided one day that it was not fun any more she would stop doing it, then I think it is okay. Maybe.

Child stars usually make me uncomfortable - or rather the making of child stars makes me uncomfortable. I worry that they do not get the chance to just be kids. Not knowing what goes into all the filming for Bindi's or any other child star's performances, I cannot even begin to evaluate her mother's claims that Bindi is fine, loves what she's doing and all will be well.

The strangest complaint in the NY Times story is the one that people are making about being weirded out by Steve Irwin clips interspersed throughout the show. That does not bother me at all. If my father had left me a legacy, and if I were stepping in to continue it, and if there were film clips of him doing it, you can bet your ass that I would show the clips too.

Do people hold it against the local merchant when they proudly display photographs of the three generations of family who have owned and operated the hardware store? Or use home movies in the television advertisements for those businesses?

Then again, I may just still be enamored of out-and-out audacity of Steve Irwin. Crikey!

**********************************************************