Month: January 2016

Life’s Tapestry

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Woven strings hanging on walls in castles tell us the tales of knights, kings, queens, hunting, war and the need to protect against drafts in large buildings. I’ve been to museums in many places and admired the time and effort to achieve these beautiful tapestries. Then I went to Morocco. Somehow the guide brought us to a carpet dealer. I think there were relations or crossed incentives for each carpet that could be sold to a tourist. They were beautiful, colorful, all handmade by members of what they told me was the Berber tribe, desert people. I am a sucker for a well presented adventure, so we bought one. It was golden, and it became one of the wedding gifts for my daughter from us. It also inspired me.

I was at a fragile state in 2014, both mentally and physically, and I wanted to leave a footprint of who I was in case anything ever happened to me. So I started my own embroidered tapestry. It’s 40 inches by 48 inches on monk’s cloth. It tells a tale of what I love and who I am. It isn’t finished by any means yet. I’m embroidering every single tiny square with flowers and bushes. Add to the gardens and moving up you will find the lighthouses, great lakes and finally arriving in space; beautiful, colorful outer space. I need to add my home, my dogs, more gardens, some fish. The Potomac River and the Mississippi are sure to turn up somewhere. There is no pattern to rely on, and some of the stitches are better than others. It makes for a contrast of the changes in my life. Sometimes I am well organized and a perfectionist. Other times I give a lick and a promise, and just make sure something is on the canvas. The contrasts are so me.

I have to finish this before my reunion in 2019. I started it at the one in 2014 where I was mocked for taking on a project like this. I thought I could finish it in a year, but it has to be done for the next reunion. If nothing else, maybe it will show how my life has twisted from promises of finishing things to finishing things. I have a book to finish this year as well. That will be on the tapestry somewhere I’m sure, somewhere where the fairies and gnomes live in my heart. My dad used to say, “Annie has only one foot in reality, and she hops a lot.” He was right. There will be a hopping Annie with a jump rope and a bit of tar on her knees in the tapestry as well.

A life is worthy of a tapestry. All lives are worthy of the woof and warp that give us flavor. If I could create a tapestry of the world, I would need a much bigger monk’s cloth and a lot more time. I would create the lines of peace and friendship I hope to see develop more fully in the world. I would take the violence, hate and prejudice and cut their threads from the pattern. The three sisters of the fates would be as cousins to me as they weave their patterns. Perhaps I could convince them to cut those threads that I chose to cut as well. Perhaps, but today I will work on my tapestry and try to make it as truthful as possible. I may even become an antique someday and the tapestry, too.

Are there threads you would wish to see on my creation? I’d love to hear from you.

My Snow

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This morning the sun shown on a grey receding cloud, and the winds didn’t arrive. I’m sure they will later, but for now, my small dogs are not pretending to be kites when they go for an outing. My garden is finally, and officially, dead. Well, some of it will be back in the spring. I love perennials, they are repetitive, tough, colorful, changing and much less work. I water them, feed them and ignore them. That’s also my recipe for orchids and african violet care.

The annuals of winter are frosted leaves on a forest floor, snowflakes (if we ever get so lucky), and neighborhood children still in the snowsuit phase. The laughter they give sounds like pearls, or tinkling icicles, or even perhaps, silence. Silence of a winter fog makes the world shake. People rush for their covers, but not me. I like to stand outdoors with the wind in my face, a sweater, sometimes even my shoes on. It’s bracing, something some will never understand. I grew up in Minnesota. Winter was magic. It was pure, untracked (until school kids and dogs created trails), and I felt at home. The cold has always been a sign of peace for me. Trouble goes indoors, fighting takes too much energy, and there is hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane.

I like the end of football. The pause before baseball is only momentary, but that pause gave me skating, sliding, and skiing. I watch other people have fun doing these things these days. The contemplation of the rules of winter never bothered me when I was young. Coat, hat, gloves, scarf, hood, layers of layers beneath the overcoat, lined boots and double socks were my attire back then. San Francisco was tempting wonder which had all of these things within a few hours drive. Virginia was an even greater surprise. My first winter in Virginia, it was in the 50s, like this year. There was no ice, snow, bracing air and I wondered that there was a place on earth like it. Then came several winters of note, two with the high mounds along the community roads that reminded me of snow forts, snow ball fights, walking the ridge to see if we had to touch the pavement on the way to school.

So, what did I do for Virginia snow? I shoveled sidewalks for fun. I was one of the first out the door, if it was light enough with a broom. I actually had to find a shovel to buy. It was bright orange plastic, easily shattered and didn’t live long. It was a needed winter sacrifice. It took me until April to find a good sturdy shovel that would last.

My husband hates snow if he has to go out. He drives a truck, with two trailers usually. He can plow through the snow, but it is amazing at how many small cars rush to get in front of him only to panic because they can’t see, found ice or found fear. Huge brown truck, itty bitty cars. SUVs are worse. They think they can outrun and out perform anyone else on the road. Some are 4 wheel, but not all. They forget that for an SUV to stay on the road, all four feet should be on the ground. I meant four tires, but you get the picture. I loved the old commercial of the “living” SuuVEE giving instructions on how to survive. I loved teaching when there was snow. Feet up, fire lit, eyes on a new book or grading papers that all too often I had fallen behind on. I kept the TV on a music channel. My boisterous children went out to play and returned an hour later for board games, cardboard box castles, and dragon attacks. The dogs were the dragons, my daughter a princess of the castle, and my son a knight in shining armor. My daughter saved the dragon, the castle and my son laughed. He always laughed. He was golden sunshine, but my daughter, she still is her own mystery. Snow.

I have so much to do to be ready for snow. It’s a good thing it isn’t in the forecast yet. I have the removal of the holiday decorations, cleaning, sorting, throwing and napping. The naps are most important because I dream of winter. My past is filled with winter memories. My father leaving at 3 am to make ice for the city children to skate on. It had to be freshened every night to create a safe place with no toe holds dug in. My first ice skates that had been in the warming trailer for over a year with no one claiming them. You rolled up socks and put them in the toes so they wouldn’t slide on your feet. Sliding on ice in the street on the way to school. Stomping through slush that made me feel like a giant. My high school hockey team making the playoffs one year and the band going to play to support them. My mouthpiece and horn never did warm up completely. Walking to college classes with a -20 degree F wind. The campus closing for an entire two days because of 30 inches arriving with wind and a bad attitude.

I’ve been told I live in an alternate universe from the rest of the world. That’s okay. I was always a bit of a dreamer. No, not true, I was always a dreamer. Winter didn’t require friends to make me happy, it just did. It still does. Sleeping dogs and a feisty cat keep me company when I am alone. One catches snowballs. One tunnels. Frankie, the cat, lifts her toes as she walks onto the deck and turns with a sigh of disgust. She doesn’t like cold feet. I lift her, hold her close, and she and I watch the birds. First thing in the morning is the bird food. Then the cat and dogs find their feasts in ceramic bowls I made with love for old friends now memories. They like the bowls.

The sun will set before I am ready, tonight. I’ll keep an eye on the weather channel. I’m hoping for a winter wonderland.

Norma’s Birds
Leesylvania Park’s Jetties

The World Moves, with Force

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I joined the US Army in July 1979. I left the Minnesota National Guard behind me, a series of positive and negative growth opportunity. I believed at the time that a person owed a time of service to their country, and I was the only one in my family who prepared to follow my father’s footsteps. I was a musician in a world that had no way to find opportunities in music, if you didn’t have someone to point you in the right direction. I had no one pointing careers out to me. The Army would give me a few musical opportunities, a few contacts. No mention was made about the bad things that I would learn.

I thought my dad would support my move. He had served during Korea, had played jazz, marched and made the voice of the tuba, baritone, french horn, and string bass ring across two countries. He was a genius in the art of music who was lost to the profession by a lack of contacts, a young wife, four hungry, reading children. He needed a job to take care of us, often holding two jobs until the time that would always arise when his sense of honor was affronted and he would quit. I was sure he would support my move. I was wrong.

It was my mother who glued the family together as we grew; working at jobs, creating works of art, making sure that we would never lose our home, or go too hungry. She was my friend and supporter, but she also understood that I needed the canvas to create who I was and what I stood for in my life. There was the quote, “Oh, Ann” that would follow mistakes I made. That quote follows me to now.

My father told me he would never speak to me again. He did though, calling the Commander of the Naval School of Music and letting him know of our argument. My Commander set me straight about fathers.

My mother stood strong and let me do as I believed I needed to do. None of us knew that music in Minneapolis/St. Paul was about to explode in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. I missed every single one. If only there had been an internet for me, the outcome very likely would have been different.

I went off to the Army. I packed an iron, jeans, a concert dress, a cowboy hat and a faux leather coat that would eventually crack and show it was plastic, “pleather” was the term. What I found was, some of the military are honorable men and women. Some are abusive. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, it’s been this way since the beginning of history. What surprised me was that a peacetime army would have so many heroes, and so many predators, when no one was required to be there. I wanted to serve my family, country, and the goddess music with all of  my heart.

The heroes aren’t seen on lists of heroes. I can name some. Lt. Colonel Tony Cason and his wife. They were honest hardworking people concerned for the lives of those under their command. Wherever they ended up, their standards followed them. Music under this man was a living entity. He also allowed me to believe in a love that was only beginning. He handed me to my new husband with a smile. When Lt. Colonel Cason was promoted, life changed for me.

I, like my father, found myself somewhere I didn’t think I would end up. I was married with a husband who was stationed 3000 miles away. When the harassment and the coverup of the behavior of a second commander happened, all I could think of was to find a band on the east coast. So the Army sent me to Maryland, firstly to get me out of the hair of a band that no longer wanted me to be a member. Secondly, because I was loudly protective of the women I served with, even though there was one who was an old boy herself. I ended up in a band that could have been the most cohesive band I had been in yet, but they had a problem communicating between top and bottom ranks. Shortly after I arrived, several members where prosecuted for possession of illegal substances. The commander of the band decided that because I was nice to these members, as I was nice to everyone, that I must have been a drug dealer. He called me into his office to let me know how miserable he was going to make my life, destroy my reputation, and destroy my marriage to one of Fort Myer’s Charlie Company’s enlisted. I had enough. I laughed. Yes, I laughed. I told the commander he had no power over me. I had just found out that I was pregnant with my first child. I was willing to take any blood test needed. I had base housing, bring it on. And, after all that, I was leaving. I walked down to the Admin building and filed for a discharge. It was granted and I was given time to serve in the inactive reserve. My sense of honor had been affronted, so I did what my dad did, I walked.

I’m sorry I lost my chance of music as a career. It hurts to this day. What I gained was a family with two children, now well grown and establishing their own worlds, who also possess a sense of honor, and the most gracious man in the world. He’s handsome, supportive, caring, intelligent and the hardest working man I’ve had the honor to know. He’s been tolerant of all of my harebrained adventures and given me his smile to bless them. For 35 1/2 years, he’s been here for me.

Eric is a force of nature in a very confused world that seems to be repeating itself. He’s saved my life at least three times. He’s sacrificed his career possibilities to make sure my healthcare is safe because of my MS. He gave me the ability to be myself, although I am rather shy of sharing where I came from  and my experiences. You might not understand that from this post, but my words are stronger because of him.

Don’t let the past surround you to the extent of losing all else. Miracles are born in hard times to good people. We work for them, tailor our lives to them, and if we are very lucky, we become the instrument of our miracle. If we work hard enough, we become a Force to be reckoned with,  as the world repeats the anger and horror of prior generations and the human History. The future isn’t known. It’s a gift that way.