71

Really? A sunny day on the foggy coast of Maine on June 9? All the planets aligned for David's birthday this year and the weather, too. Eliza was at her 5th college reunion at Bates College in Lewiston (where has the time gone!) and Joellen rented again in Small Point. So we all converged to celebrate 71 years. Glorious weather, fruit with a candle and a man with his dog and family. What could be better?
 Carrie was in Israel and Tim in Mexico and Katie in Connecticut but we soldiered on without them.

Maine was at its best for this native.
Yes, David was born in Maine in 1943 while his father was designing ships for the war effort at the Portland Navy Yard.

Happy Birthday John!

To John, who is also a younger brother, a father, a grandfather, a veteran,
an author (Loon, a Marine Story by Jack McLean), a son, a dog lover (yes, Charlie...), and friend to all.
I love you John. Happy Birthday.
Younger sis.
B

Photo: wedding memory: Jack and Ruth and Niko Elmer (not quite one month old) at Carrie and Tim's wedding, May 19, 2012! A good time was had by all.

Leadville memories

Mom and Eli at the Scarlet or "Scar Bar" to the locals.

Pool anyone?

(

Eliza's students, lots of them, at the square dance.

snow capped

Boulder, Colorado!

After my days in Leadville with Eliza, I went to visit Donny and Susie in the big city of Boulder.
It was wonderful to go out to lunch, got to a yoga class with Susie and share a dinner with Jessie and Ruston.
I love having a home base in the west. Thanks, guys!

Ode to Leadville, Colorado

Coffee at "The City on the Hill"
Beer at "The Scar Bar"
 Pizza at "High Mountain Pies"

Elegant old buildings from mining days, not a chain store for miles around. Nothing growing except pine, aspen and sage.

 I love the mountains in every direction, the quiet, the thin air that is oddly invigorating. Life at 10,000 feet is special, everything clear. Light snow on May 15 alternating with sun and deep blue sky.

Eliza is in her element there. She has forged a new life far from the east coast. I was there last weekend and loved the chance to see her in action with colleagues on the faculty and with her teen age students at The High Mountain Institute.

Above is a photo taken on an evening hike with the kids. Breathtaking.

Klickitat Street, NE Portland

 Jude turned ten years old on March 12#daffodils#everyyear

Have you read Ramona the Pest or any books by this author?  Beverly Cleary lived right here in NE Portland. Her books are set in this neighborhood. There is such a power of place in her writing that I feel I am IN her books when I am here. Add kids named Zoe, Everett, Auggie and Jude (above) and you expect Ramona and Beezus to come running around the corner any minute.
Portland is a city of neighborhoods. Quiet streets, gardens in the front yard and small, storybook houses. We stopped by Jude and Auggie's old house on the way home to take a photo and kids and parents appeared out of (seemingly) nowhere.

No snow anywhere!

Teachers find their class!

 Ruth and Barb orchestrated a paste paper making project with Jude's 4th grade. 

Look at the results!!!

East coast barn in west coast condo#oldfriend#lifting quality.

This painting of our Canadian barn was done by my mother,
Martha McLean, on a window screen backed by boards from the barn. Talk about an artist!

 Tuxedo Tuesday.
Volunteer Granny at Alemeda Elementary School, Portland OR#Auggiestartsafad

Multnomah Falls#nodroughthere

Working on Ruth's website at the coffee shop#latte#tutor#bestalmondcroissantever!

Better than Rothko!#kidsarethebestartists.

February 4 and 5, 2014

yesterday

today

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday the snow was melting off the roof of the barn in a sheet of dripping water.  Today the snow is coming down in force and a soft light fills the house.

Snow day! My writing class in Concord was canceled for today and I feel the thrill of freedom, even though I enjoy teaching and will have to add an extra class at the end. But I like the feeling when everything stops.  I remember delivering Girl Scout cookies up and down Oak Ridge Avenue with Gay Parker during a snow storm, pulling a sled behind us, knocking on each door and delivering boxes of thin mints.

What are your memories of a snow day?

January Sunday

2013 word of the year

SELFIE has been proclaimed the 2013 word of the year by The Oxford Dictionary. In honor of the official introduction of a new word, I decided to take one of myself with the dogs on a snowy, freezing walk last weekend. Below: the first selfie of 2014.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Happy Birthday to the Best Sister Ever!

You were always there, ten years ahead of me.  At seven,  I went downstairs every morning to get your freshly ironed Kent Place uniform from the laundry room and even though mom said that I shouldn't do that for you because I would be late for school, I did it anyway.  I would do anything for the chance to enter your room which was filled with all the teen age trappings of a sister who had entered a world I could barely imagine.  You once said, "if you want to know anything about stuff, ask me. Mom won't tell you anything." So it was you I turned to and still do.

When I was thirteen, you were married and drove west for a new life in California. "You will visit me," you announced. And so I did. I got to experience Golden Gate Park in the 60's, where Country Joe and the Fish played free concerts and hippies wore flowers in their hair. At sixteen, we camped in Wyoming.  Years later, I traveled with my young daughters to your Oregon Farm where they climbed trees to pick cherries and rattled the bucket to call in your sheep.

Now it's Portland that we explore when I come west. We take art classes and sit at Townsend on Alberta Street, sharing a pot of  Immortalizer Tea.  More and more we reflect on the mystery of it all.

 Happy Seventieth Rue.
 I wish for you a year of deep peace, good health, and good times.

Christmas Eve morning!

Shopping list divided into three! Power team!

the shortest day

I woke at 6 am this morning to the repeated sound of a great horned owl in our woods. The waning full moon shone in the window creating yellow patterns on the  wooden floor.  How could I not get up in the dark lit by the moon and put the kettle on for a cup of tea?  After doing some writing, I checked The Writer's Almanac which arrives in my email every morning and read what I have pasted in below. I try not to miss a chance to notice what is happening beyond the world of people and Christmas craziness (so many cars, so much frenzy!) 

The earth turns and rotates on its axis, the days will grow longer starting tomorrow, we can look forward to brighter days by February.  Christmas  Day provides a time out from a busy world. It is a time to listen for the owl and each other. May we all listen below the surface of our words to deep knowing.

 Listen, Pause and then Speak.

 We've got plenty of time.

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

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It's officially the first day of winter and one of the oldest-known holidays in human history. 

Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years, before humans even began farming on a large scale. Many of the most ancient stone structures made by human beings were designed to pinpoint the precise date of the solstice. The stone circles of Stonehenge were arranged to receive the first rays of midwinter sun.

Some ancient peoples believed that because daylight was waning, it might go away forever, so they lit huge bonfires to tempt the sun to come back. The tradition of decorating our houses and our trees with lights at this time of year is passed down from those ancient bonfires. In ancient Egypt and Syria, people celebrated the winter solstice as the sun's birthday.

Henry David Thoreau said: "In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends."

the whole family and visitors!

The manger was a crowded place on Christmas Eve!

Taking this photo was challenging, trying to get everyone in.

Kings- move in.

Angels- spread out.

Cows- we can't see you.

etcetera.

I am reminded of those five years that I directed a Christmas Pageant at 

The First Parish Church.

A living creche!

I like the silence of this one.

The only thing missing is chickens.

The South American Creches usually include a rooster.

Of course.

Angels

the new one

The one on the right is the original angel, the one on the left just added. 

They are mirror images, similar but not exactly alike.

I like to wander through shops in Concord at this time of year to just take in the Christmas feeling. There are small trees with handmade ornaments from around the world, there are birds of felt and silver origami stars.

I see miniature snow scenes like the one my mother used to assemble with hand carved figures skating on a round mirror pond dusted with snow.

And of course I seek out the creche scenes; Joseph and Mary bending low over the baby, shepherds and wise men keeping watch and animals all around.  At home I have a creche, each figure carved from olive wood made in the Middle East.  But the one I treasure is the collection of figures that I have been tenderly unwrapping from tissue paper once a year all my life. This is the creche from my childhood.  The camel with his long legs is cracked, but the rest of these figures are fine.

As I wandered through Nesting on Main, I spotted a single angel on a shelf all by herself.  I picked her up and looked at the bottom.  There on the green base was the familiar stamp, "made in Italy" and the a yellowed square sticker with "JJ Newbury...29 cents" stamped in purple ink.  This angel looked similar to the one in my creche at home.  I could not leave her there with no baby to bless, no wise men, no cow. She was without her people! I took her to the counter to buy her and the shop keeper said with authority, "she is part of a classic 40's creche." "I know, I answered, I have one at home."
Classic 40's.  I pictured mom at JJ Newbury's picking out each figure to create the creche  scene that we children would see each year.

"People love angels, she will go soon," the shop keeper continued.  "But what people come looking for most often is the baby.  For some reason, they go missing. Maybe children tuck them into a pocket or they just get lost in the shuffle."

That did NOT happen in MY household,  I thought smugly.
Jesus is alive and well at my house surrounded by adoring figures and now TWO  angels keeping watch!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

December Day