tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81812089781905495902024-03-12T18:29:20.563-07:00Bread on the WaterJeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.comBlogger260125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-47408884147180326002021-09-28T14:51:00.000-07:002021-09-28T14:51:15.118-07:00A Follow Up on those Apricot Trees now almost ONE Year Old<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In my last post, many months ago, I chronicled my adventure with some apricot pits. </div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQTuvVmvQzmnAZWiN6WNWNl9NC1QsQ0AKLkCOuoxq0fVdnbx0FycP600d4Ug2L6KshTsyWk5TrT8xixD674qjLNJbqtgXDDXxYGIl4WWCb-3-EJ4Xwliv77MpKW9-7yzaaBxXV4vCODFQ/s2048/IMG_0880+%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1061" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQTuvVmvQzmnAZWiN6WNWNl9NC1QsQ0AKLkCOuoxq0fVdnbx0FycP600d4Ug2L6KshTsyWk5TrT8xixD674qjLNJbqtgXDDXxYGIl4WWCb-3-EJ4Xwliv77MpKW9-7yzaaBxXV4vCODFQ/s320/IMG_0880+%25281%2529.jpeg" width="166" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>If you would like to read about my adventure of starting stone fruit from pits, you can read about that <a href="https://breadonthewater.blogspot.com/2021/02/my-apricot-hopes-from-jam-to-stones-to.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghg_NoRbOjiFrBJCRfxaEF3kpKpLY8TY2QG9Xa_GLz-wPvSYukM9F7fxvGBLocGkuL5tf9SbzGA02Gul7RngbnhjcHpsVOEz0m2iKmh9bddOMUuLwsu_Fb3AebahR8__s7K87k_wAXH-q0/s2048/IMG_0880.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghg_NoRbOjiFrBJCRfxaEF3kpKpLY8TY2QG9Xa_GLz-wPvSYukM9F7fxvGBLocGkuL5tf9SbzGA02Gul7RngbnhjcHpsVOEz0m2iKmh9bddOMUuLwsu_Fb3AebahR8__s7K87k_wAXH-q0/s320/IMG_0880.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The bag of soil and pits hung out in my refrig longer than they needed to, but it was last October 2020, that I planted the sprouts in soil, making these young trees not quite one year old. I am really pleased with their growth and have enjoyed repotting them several times as their growth spurts suggested.</div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhig7Ic9TU9UgOM-BBWIgb0-hlXmBwtsFDJkYuv0EAIpbiIKJMMImG75n1EiNFEpsX3KrBAR8vNLTfKHudgUYQ0xenTXvpfeWapPTvYJk7HB5dSr8m89vPVVw47MxEnr_XIEUdE-3yWFcod/s2048/IMG_0882.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1212" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhig7Ic9TU9UgOM-BBWIgb0-hlXmBwtsFDJkYuv0EAIpbiIKJMMImG75n1EiNFEpsX3KrBAR8vNLTfKHudgUYQ0xenTXvpfeWapPTvYJk7HB5dSr8m89vPVVw47MxEnr_XIEUdE-3yWFcod/s320/IMG_0882.jpeg" width="189" /></a></div>I am still trying to figure out the ideal spot in my garden so all the trees are still in pots. This one is on my deck and keeps me good company. Many of the little trees have been gifted to grow in friends' gardens and I hope they, my friends and the trees, are all happy. <div><br /></div><div>Wishing any readers that wander in here very best wishes as well... leave a hello if you like! I'll likely respond. <br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-38688248393892425062021-02-15T17:03:00.004-08:002021-02-26T14:31:42.599-08:00My Apricot Hopes: from Jam to Stones to Little Trees<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> I had hoped to make a trip to a few apricot orchards last summer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8IeEglKERO6oIfvudMshDJFVKpraEYt1qs5PARuGkdUM7Axn-xkh6H5ojUfESj1B2dbb-61d91vxJflfazXJnLgxV_z7ADnVk-CGf4S9Dew1qN92mK0ZDmz7hlmXptgEQlCwavC_ZV1EO/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="430" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8IeEglKERO6oIfvudMshDJFVKpraEYt1qs5PARuGkdUM7Axn-xkh6H5ojUfESj1B2dbb-61d91vxJflfazXJnLgxV_z7ADnVk-CGf4S9Dew1qN92mK0ZDmz7hlmXptgEQlCwavC_ZV1EO/" width="210" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Spurred on by blog and cookbook author, Lisa Prince Newman, I had noted the location of some orchards in what people now think of as Silicon Valley, but it was not always so. I grew up </span><span style="font-size: large;">just north of the Golden Gate and remember a family jaunt to orchards south of the city. Little farms that welcome visitors and have ripe cherries and apricots on the trees make a pretty indelible memory. </span><div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pre-covid, back in the last months of 2019 and maybe even a week or two in January 2020, I was imagining an early summer trip to Monterey County to visit friends on the coast south of Carmel. On our return home I had hoped to wind our way to a few orchards I had read about. Timing is everything with apricots; it is a short season and a fragile fruit, but the possibility of tree ripened apricots seemed within my grasp. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly, the 2020 apricot events had to be cancelled and family farms and orchards were not open to the public. Visiting our friends was not an option either. Our trip to the central coast is still a hope for another season. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As the summer of 2020 unfolded, my gratitude for our garden and fruit trees grew, but I was wishing I had an apricot tree. We twice had planted an apricot in our home garden. The first was one of the many fruit trees crushed by a neighbor's giant Cedar tree while we were renting out our house and working in Carmel. The tenants in our house telephoned to tell us of the fearful sounds as the huge tree fell on a stormy night. Thankfully the heavy trunk and long limbs had just missed the house. Everyone was safe; there was much to clean up but more for which to be grateful. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We bought new young trees and made a Saturday trip north to plant them; but alas the apricot replacement was not one of those we found alive when we returned home a few years later. While apricots are available in the markets, they are often either green or over ripe and generally pretty expensive. So why didn't I promptly plant another apricot? Let's just say it was a very busy and complicated time.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Imagine then, my delight, when in the shut-down summer of 2020 the oldest local fruit stand, which has grown over the years into a trendy expensive market, used a notorious social media platform to advertise organic apricots clearly at a "loss leader" price. We donned our masks and headed down the road and were possessed of twenty-two pounds of blushing apricots within the hour. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Oh, and they were good, those apricots, and we ate as many fresh as we could and made jam together in several sessions and felt pleased with the results and ourselves. </span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBKF2kAIIayFLtD0Y4a17PEO4mR7pnLtH-ju_RbCX2V4jjIpKEBtd6u1M3Mt7VHaU15OmnNwjVPsIdbZKIvvUg1qX8MdFs_6kovuZ9eQqvIysW7recCBnjUlFOREO3W3ykj9P1i2GBS50x/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="989" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBKF2kAIIayFLtD0Y4a17PEO4mR7pnLtH-ju_RbCX2V4jjIpKEBtd6u1M3Mt7VHaU15OmnNwjVPsIdbZKIvvUg1qX8MdFs_6kovuZ9eQqvIysW7recCBnjUlFOREO3W3ykj9P1i2GBS50x/" width="299" /></a></span></div><p></p></div></blockquote><div><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Now I had a heap of pits. I just couldn't bring myself to toss them. Many fruit trees grow best from cuttings, but having grown my favorite peach tree from a pit that sprouted in my compost pile, I was pretty sure an apricot stone could yield a tree that would </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: x-large;"> <span>carry on the most desirable traits of its parents. </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqiW-6lTPSeisrcFNWuE_Q7SeTgn6oXPfYMZJDK-omRkBJNxUnxTZ6ISruhtY7YhdAaGuoHbyG64HotOay86_a0Y0zLeVsEzVU5vDfz_PkbywBbCjrIZ-MpE_fLwsPyIgWHcD8TnPyQIAG/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="My favorite peach tree blooming last spring." data-original-height="1026" data-original-width="766" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqiW-6lTPSeisrcFNWuE_Q7SeTgn6oXPfYMZJDK-omRkBJNxUnxTZ6ISruhtY7YhdAaGuoHbyG64HotOay86_a0Y0zLeVsEzVU5vDfz_PkbywBbCjrIZ-MpE_fLwsPyIgWHcD8TnPyQIAG/" width="179" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My favorite peach tree in spring 2020 bloom</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> I knew that different seeds</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> require certain conditions in order to germinate</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"> because as a child I had watched my father. He would admire a tree in Golden Gate Park and gather some seeds and start experimenting. He explained to me what botanists call stratification as a process of tricking the seed into waking up by mimicking the conditions of the seasonal changes of nature. I knew I had to wake my sleeping pits, stir them from their complacent dormant state. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A quick search led me to the <span style="font-family: inherit;">school of "youtube" where I found several generous instructional videos about germinating stone fruits. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">One method was to put the whole pit in some soil in a bag and stick it in the refrigerator, while another proponent said to remove the kernel from the outer shell and store them in soil in the fridge. A third tree sprouter said to put bare kernels alone in a bag and store them in the freezer. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So on July 27th, 2020 I did all three of those things. </span></p></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7rgXe9qG_zktOyZSG0PyImxiU9sNf8QFFiBU8YPN0TRktpvbefySStN4rP0XfpHPzy9aQIRh9GXS52mQIHPVqlGUwzpz3Ya4YGUk4ZbmyaPcJOVzeZZCzrIDXsGUTzTxsWqVh42XuHZb/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7rgXe9qG_zktOyZSG0PyImxiU9sNf8QFFiBU8YPN0TRktpvbefySStN4rP0XfpHPzy9aQIRh9GXS52mQIHPVqlGUwzpz3Ya4YGUk4ZbmyaPcJOVzeZZCzrIDXsGUTzTxsWqVh42XuHZb/" width="180" /></a></span></div><p></p></div></blockquote><div><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">I could've checked them in August. I surely could have inquired on their well being in September. Several weeks at low temp would have been enough to wake them, but it was October 13th before I rescued my bags of moist dirt and pits and brought them to the light of day. The package of soil-less naked kernels is still tucked in the freezer, so that part of my experiment is on hold for now. </span></p><p><span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was excited to find that both whole and naked kernels were sprouting</span>. </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I planted two of each and labeled the pots on 10/13/2020</span></span></p><p><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">On 11/03 I repotted the two viable trees, they were both from whole pits. I think that <i>au natural</i> is the best way to go. I have continued to have success with additional pits from the whole pit bag.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;">,</span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdAwcSPpkc71WvOzcHmPKtLlm1Ic54BP8pPFTZgjVRzp6JRjwkmhKSWJKvc4nB-w3HeA8EDokawUVnFmwZLvknhAssj-7lVr4ehLw-LbodmTqNbFFuRzW9WW1AM2Zbb2IyWw1oFXdQrrO/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdAwcSPpkc71WvOzcHmPKtLlm1Ic54BP8pPFTZgjVRzp6JRjwkmhKSWJKvc4nB-w3HeA8EDokawUVnFmwZLvknhAssj-7lVr4ehLw-LbodmTqNbFFuRzW9WW1AM2Zbb2IyWw1oFXdQrrO/w640-h480/IMG_0060.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">The other pots surrounding the trees have additional sprouters that I have since popped into soil. If you try it, put the root poking out of the now cracked open pit facing down and keep them moist. I have plastic egg crates over my pots to keep them a bit warmer but more importantly to stop the visiting squirrels from digging them up. I have had fun gifting sprouting apricot seeds to nearby friends ... we all need something to watch grow in these strange days. And hopefully we can all look forward to apricots on our little trees, maybe three to five years down the road. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg81umwPapNOFPKa1NnkNIgk1HoiCHm5RZr3Ir6D5hAkA0ezeycbdb1YDbql44u9QmdSJvKr35l_jLq4DpT-A5ZDqnzyc7YWg_jqiKJcOR0vj_Mhhi5-lcwl-y-8vjdq9o8zCQUeSOBpcxJ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg81umwPapNOFPKa1NnkNIgk1HoiCHm5RZr3Ir6D5hAkA0ezeycbdb1YDbql44u9QmdSJvKr35l_jLq4DpT-A5ZDqnzyc7YWg_jqiKJcOR0vj_Mhhi5-lcwl-y-8vjdq9o8zCQUeSOBpcxJ/" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />Today, in between trying to find the hidden typos in this story of pits, cold dirt and hidden hope, I realized all these hopeful trees already need taller pots because they want to put down a nice long tap root, so I transferred them to bigger pots. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">I don't mean this post as instructions for growing stone fruit trees, there are many sources available with more and better information. I'm just saying hello and sharing a little project that buoyed my heart of late. I hope you're finding ways to keep as much of your life on track as possible during these prolonged and challenging days of covid related restrictions. It is so easy to get derailed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">February 15, 2021***UPDATE***13 little trees and growing.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06RXn-xNcB_XRb-ILbSan28B5uMG8c0WFAGdfbtrt4k9FgLZcSqNP3VmEOD1zUj-NjLStbLzvSpIC1b2tdowBzzzkQGvmLHyjQzMBr0pca_WuBWze-1RKcJl8Iewsyh5GF3_yo_RHe0D-/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06RXn-xNcB_XRb-ILbSan28B5uMG8c0WFAGdfbtrt4k9FgLZcSqNP3VmEOD1zUj-NjLStbLzvSpIC1b2tdowBzzzkQGvmLHyjQzMBr0pca_WuBWze-1RKcJl8Iewsyh5GF3_yo_RHe0D-/" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXS3S9XYbjnHxrbaZMKy9Bu3dal5V4fpmlcGx18FT2QwvpNjeDwGIjC4r5aVdJZliG6uIjNU-URqHbeQQ7FB3vmRg6HOmnIBzh1jJVSqrW5Yb9Pi-PqZbLyObMQ8WcoQnsFyMoIUWbl0X/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXS3S9XYbjnHxrbaZMKy9Bu3dal5V4fpmlcGx18FT2QwvpNjeDwGIjC4r5aVdJZliG6uIjNU-URqHbeQQ7FB3vmRg6HOmnIBzh1jJVSqrW5Yb9Pi-PqZbLyObMQ8WcoQnsFyMoIUWbl0X/" width="320" /></a></div><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p></div>Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-10257691098391955962020-04-29T16:35:00.000-07:002020-04-29T16:35:22.718-07:00Sometimes Even a Title is Too Many Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Poppies under my peach tree on an April afternoon....Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-81179809903115349042019-08-31T21:27:00.000-07:002019-08-31T21:28:34.066-07:00In the Western Hills ...a poemFor my friend who has painted many wonderful images...a word picture<br />
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for Daria…</div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: large;">In the Western Hills</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">The road rises</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">through gullies</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">edged with wild seed flowers</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">Queen Anne’s Lace</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">bobs high on slender stems </span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">Atop the rise, on both sides</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">Black cows graze in golden grass.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">Yellow headed daisies </span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">poke through the white lace umbels</span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">Sunshine in a sea of clouds. </span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-family: "papyrus"; font-size: medium;">August 2019</span></div>
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Jeannette</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGzy92Wcz_8W-NataKwPh5zyRPNSv_y7xbWQLLBWCQ7pipx3M8bMYcR9S5UoRIGoxruq5jvAYUcbKIZyYyrCTc7JpNhTIm1JP7IdubYY4yLR6Fv980gCSyhk8MGXjb-3JLmPkwXNj5EZe/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGzy92Wcz_8W-NataKwPh5zyRPNSv_y7xbWQLLBWCQ7pipx3M8bMYcR9S5UoRIGoxruq5jvAYUcbKIZyYyrCTc7JpNhTIm1JP7IdubYY4yLR6Fv980gCSyhk8MGXjb-3JLmPkwXNj5EZe/s320/image.png" width="248" /></a><br />
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painting by Daria ShachmatJeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-37683119074909311932019-01-14T09:35:00.000-08:002019-04-28T14:21:22.915-07:00Today, while it is Yet so Called<span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-size: 14px;">Yes. Pressing on. </span><br />
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One step at a time. </div>
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“At a time.” <br />
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The morning routine is fraught with awareness of time.</div>
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How often is time noted by mortals as “fleeting”?</div>
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Youth, at play, absorbed in doing-exploring-being, does not take note of time.</div>
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Those of us older than a child, those who’ve passed into the realm of self consciousness, also can dwell in deeply immersed doing, but in retrospect are often aware…“Time got away from me.” </div>
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Or, did I get away from time? </div>
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So much time does get away, and then we splash in pools of memories, murky little puddles though they may be.</div>
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I have muddled in my own and others' memories at near expert level, looking for that jigsawed piece that could finish the puzzle laid out on today’s flat surface. What could -should -would such completion mean for tomorrow? </div>
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But fragments of time gathered again, like crumbs of bread brought back to the baskets after all have been fed and are satisfied, speaks not only of brokenness but of the whole always fragrant and new. </div>
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The invitation is ever emblazoned on the morning: ”...today, while it is yet called today...” </div>
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-88506057057371672732018-12-24T11:59:00.001-08:002018-12-24T19:20:15.970-08:00The Madonna and Child <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">by Sebastiano Conca ( 1676-1764)</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Such a lovely depiction this is...in the years I was privileged to see it daily, it never failed to touch me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Joyous Christmas Tidings</span> </span></div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-2443836571950763822018-09-25T12:16:00.001-07:002021-02-18T10:51:16.755-08:00Book Review: Americans and the California Dream by Kevin Starr <div dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px; line-break: after-white-space; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
I read Kevin Starr’s <u>Americans and the California Dream </u>very slowly, in small passages and with no sense of pressure over a period of 8 months. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMl5pB28_yCJ52NkQar0ISX5KH8jRXbaVGBCvrCvSVReNtYazYIvnKBl9jp7POndlY80JuxPVL3TbYtXiVVokxPUF22R7BmaCAznjfEY1FjIgD9HRLiT0njGsAYID6qf8BTRuuuqwuWCrN/s1600/IMG_6947.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMl5pB28_yCJ52NkQar0ISX5KH8jRXbaVGBCvrCvSVReNtYazYIvnKBl9jp7POndlY80JuxPVL3TbYtXiVVokxPUF22R7BmaCAznjfEY1FjIgD9HRLiT0njGsAYID6qf8BTRuuuqwuWCrN/s320/IMG_6947.jpg" width="240" /></a>It’s not a chronology of large happenings, but rather a record and Starr’s literary cultural analysis of what others thought and wrote in and about the California of 1850-1915. Starr had, as his vantage point, substantial historical knowledge and a native son’s heart for ferreting out the antecedents of subsequent events and dynamic on-going consequences intended and otherwise. </div>
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In Starr’s words from the last page, he selected "acts of definition, moments when vision and event betrayed their interchange, and the aesthetic pattern and moral meaning of social experience became clear. History grants few such occasions.” (P. 444) </div>
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I construct a timeline for myself as I read any history. As much information as I am able to retain, dates often escape me. Starr presents his narrative as an ”act of memory” rather than a classic or linear analysis. It might help some readers to read the final page reflections in conjunction with the introduction to avoid what some reviews express as frustration with and disappointment in this approach to history. </div>
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Any study of people, time and place is best done through the politics, history and literature of the period. Starr’s book is best read as an adjunct to both linear historical documentations and first hand accounts, journals and essays of the time. I have read many of the accounts to which Starr refers with some notable exceptions. I have never been able to read Gertrude Atherton and Starr’s assessment of her outlook helped me understand more clearly why I have resisted both her “history” and her novels. “For the sake of the establishment myth, and for the sake of her own role as a writer in that establishment, Gertrude Atherton did her best to sustain an illusion…” </div>
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And then there is a book to which Starr has alerted me that I plan to seek out. <u>California Coastal Trails, </u><i>a Horseback Ride from Mexico to Oregon</i>, by J. Smeaton Chase, was published in 1913. Mr. Starr says that past, present and future converge in this elegant narrative and he likens it to an elegy and yet Chase shares his hope. In Starr’s words, “In 1913 California-as-nature yet seemed capable of coping with California-as-history.”( P. 438)</div>
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Kevin Starr researched and wrote with hope himself and his work is testament to his belief that commitment to California does not preclude scrutiny, nor does admiration always blind one to her faults. <u>Americans and the California Dream</u> is work to read, but it is a worthwhile work.</div>
Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-354356038013011652018-09-12T19:42:00.000-07:002018-09-12T19:42:50.118-07:00The Body of the Earth<br />
The body of earth,<br />
our patch of garden,<br />
makes mottled pears and<br />
raspberry red juice run up thorny vines.<br />
Flat white flowers turn<br />
into strawberries.<br />
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Slowing down<br />
time will come<br />
a flutter of falling leaves,<br />
short waves of heat,<br />
strong winds,<br />
migrating birds.<br />
The fruits of summer,<br />
stung by the wasps,<br />
bitten by the squirrels,<br />
will be gone.<br />
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Today the figs are still plumping<br />
purple lines of sugar. <br />
Apples sun their cheeks<br />
for just a bit more color.<br />
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I like them all best<br />
standing on the skin of dirt,<br />
eating them before they know<br />
they have been plucked.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCk4zrqxsQ3WOxBhmhQx9XAjZr8WIRtSoUqBunrEvdanmaYAq6u5_JKE3somkoDtChjYM68E_Xw1UArGWLJiMkJ9YwbTCL6BkbbncQ1NB6e83D-Ji1lxTKqy4nehcDvbhVkoPNvbLHejIV/s1600/IMG_5730.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="1600" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCk4zrqxsQ3WOxBhmhQx9XAjZr8WIRtSoUqBunrEvdanmaYAq6u5_JKE3somkoDtChjYM68E_Xw1UArGWLJiMkJ9YwbTCL6BkbbncQ1NB6e83D-Ji1lxTKqy4nehcDvbhVkoPNvbLHejIV/s320/IMG_5730.jpg" width="320" /></a>Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-75036380185488162642018-08-11T18:59:00.000-07:002018-08-11T19:10:33.278-07:00Notes from the Smokey West<span class="oWh3Ld" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #3c4043; display: block; font-family: "google sans display" , sans-serif; font-size: 1.4rem; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "lucida grande"; font-size: 14px;">I saw with delight that the forecast for tomorrow is for cooler weather. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-size: 14px;">I hope that is really true....from 95* F down to 79* F. It would be some help to those fighting the fires and those perched waiting to learn the fate of their homesites. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Just the smokey air makes me lethargic and combined with the heat I could become truly cat like. Phoebe the cat moves from one cute position to another on her little pillow. I try to move around and be a bit more functional, but I did take a nap I hadn’t planned on. </span></span><br />
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The strawberries were abundant again today and Mark picked quite a lot of tender little green beans. We have been trying to keep up with them and not let them get big. I have some blanched and frozen already and we have eaten quite a few. </div>
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The peaches are such a gift; one night we just had piles of peaches and yogurt for dinner and we were quite happy. Then there was the night we made a peach pie…oh my. </div>
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Our daughter - S.B.- gave Mark some colored corn seeds last year for a present and he gathered in his harvest today. <br />
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We sat in the shade and pulled back the husks; it is so beautiful. It was like a treasure hunt, not knowing what colors of jewels we would uncover. The colors are deep burgundies and gray blues, orange and golden yellow and these colors mingle in variations that say that summer does not last for ever…</div>
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Fire is certainly a phenomenon that forces much perspective on you even if you only get the smoke from afar. I smell it and think of the those up close and laden in protective clothes and heavy gear fighting to corral the flames. I think of those evacuated from their land and homes, the short term times of wondering if it will be a long term displacement.</div>
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And for some,<br />
no matter how the restoration takes place, is feeling at home ever quite the same? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE5VOovrvltQeTtSb_IwdxT4UDwicTIL2h46N8G1t4h1DKDfplYs70DVNeov9eYlJ63fYGrAWR5oYdsW_I8EnAsXf_rUQTGY3534RojMRvtMYLjxR_DDqND6SoxK8adtGWYPyHwMmowr1/s1600/39012873_2080488532211065_6004452498436259840_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE5VOovrvltQeTtSb_IwdxT4UDwicTIL2h46N8G1t4h1DKDfplYs70DVNeov9eYlJ63fYGrAWR5oYdsW_I8EnAsXf_rUQTGY3534RojMRvtMYLjxR_DDqND6SoxK8adtGWYPyHwMmowr1/s320/39012873_2080488532211065_6004452498436259840_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
I was truly touched by a man who wrote an on-line thank you to firefighters with a picture of his gracious curved patio stairs, the stones littered with the ashes of his family home and the current site of his survivor chickens scratching through a feast that had been scattered for them by the firefighters. Yes. He has encouraged me and I haven’t even lost anything. </div>
Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-2595266939381652212018-05-14T12:36:00.000-07:002018-05-16T17:37:56.793-07:00The Governor and the Chicken LadyA True Story Retold...<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Christian Archibald Herter, who lived from</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> 1898 to 1967, was </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Governor of the state of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957. This is a story he told on himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I heard a version of it in a sermon in the 1980’s from a dear Anglican priest, Fr. David Schofield, who used it to illustrate how important it is for us to know who we are. Although I remembered the story vividly, I wanted to be sure I had the Governor's name right. When I checked it out on the internet I found the tale has been repeatedly used to make many points, but I think it hardly needs any amplification to be of great value. Here it is as I remember it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">~~~~~</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Christian Herter, a graduate of Harvard and the governor of Massachusetts mid 1950’s was seeking re-election. He was having one of those really hard days on the campaign trail. He had spoken at a morning breakfast meeting where he had no more than a cup of coffee while his listeners ate. He had then skipped lunch altogether to meet other duties, consoling himself that his last scheduled event on the trail was at a church barbecue. He arrived a bit late and was relieved to see food was still being</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> served. The Governor was really hungry. The queue was quite long but he resisted the temptation to be recognized for special treatment and stood at the end of the line. The day was coming to a close, he was tired, he was hungry and everything smelled so good. As he moved down the serving line he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said. “Do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“But I’m so hungry, I </span><span style="font-size: large;">haven’t had a bite all day.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I’m sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one piece to a customer.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Governor Herter thought of himself as a modest and unassuming man but he suddenly decided to throw his weight around just a little bit. He pulled himself up to his full height and asked the woman behind the platter of barbecued chicken, “Excuse me, but do you know who I am?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Why, yes, Governor, sir, I do. Do you know who I am?” she replied. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Governor Herter had to confess that he didn’t have any idea who the lady was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Well, I’m the chicken lady, and it's one piece per person. Now please, sir, kindly move along.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<br />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-43889373104369646992018-03-21T12:31:00.001-07:002018-03-23T18:21:23.458-07:00A thought or two on "Charles Dickens A Critical Study" by G. K. Chesterton<br />
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<br />
I did , in January, read this <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidELlwB8DdSIenECThpiton5h9wpqQPZNmPjQyLK8Xr73_Z9kjGL13Bx2_5ItLJgN9S71OkF_0sMEFCuW5sX8t9jhW_UKg2sDnmDNyGnpwUaiUFqRpiQgq0FtYOT6t2X6LYPx1UjtSQ6UH/s1600/IMG_6653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1420" data-original-width="1600" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidELlwB8DdSIenECThpiton5h9wpqQPZNmPjQyLK8Xr73_Z9kjGL13Bx2_5ItLJgN9S71OkF_0sMEFCuW5sX8t9jhW_UKg2sDnmDNyGnpwUaiUFqRpiQgq0FtYOT6t2X6LYPx1UjtSQ6UH/s320/IMG_6653.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
1929 Dodd Mead & Co printing<br />
of the 1906 copyright of<br />
<u>Charles Dickens </u><br />
<u> A Critical Study</u><br />
by G. K. Chesterton.<br />
<br />
Thumbing through my notebook I see that while I fell short of writing a proper review of it I did jot down a few thoughts.<br />
<br />
I was given this book a number of years ago and it has languished on my shelf primarily because I have not read much of Charles Dickens. <br />
<br />
Mr. Chesterton's writing often references<br />
the luminaries of his day and the political social and literary climate of the time. In addition to not knowing much about Dickens, there is all that I have never learned about England's history, as well as that which I may have once encountered and have now forgotten and yet, I was amazed at how much there was to glean, how much was still available to me in Chesterton's narrative, even when ensconced in specifics for which I had little reference. Though I often couldn't place or affirm many of Chesterton's allusions and references, I was, like a bird at picnic, well fed on crumbs.<br />
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Take for example this little gem found on page 161:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He could not help falling into that besetting sin or weakness of the modern progressive, the habit of regarding the contemporary questions as the eternal questions and the latest word as the last....He could not help seeing the remotest peaks lit up by the raging bonfire of his own passionate political crisis." </span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">~the contemporary questions as the eternal questions and the latest word as the last~ </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQj-zotS1BolJFNNYPWYF33ZW50VAZAbFqEjPbpjMzvlOO3kb3eis8RZAAE1C9r1SmjxUck3Vk6vb6NJaSdcjLtTFitLidzN0EJf1kqAd6ZZYQQFk6QNBVZYMrRSH18xDxXd1DGvDxy6e6/s1600/GK_Chesterson_signature.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="62" data-original-width="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQj-zotS1BolJFNNYPWYF33ZW50VAZAbFqEjPbpjMzvlOO3kb3eis8RZAAE1C9r1SmjxUck3Vk6vb6NJaSdcjLtTFitLidzN0EJf1kqAd6ZZYQQFk6QNBVZYMrRSH18xDxXd1DGvDxy6e6/s1600/GK_Chesterson_signature.svg.png" /></a></span></div>
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There is just a big lovely breath in that little phrase, isn't there? </div>
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Here is a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PcAEAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=Western+europe+has+had+a+fancy+for+this+thing+called+fiction&source=bl&ots=KY2Sd9_zgW&sig=PRoMMNhByVZoh89hcOPxORRcuxQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWo6CEj_7ZAhXq6oMKHY7YDhYQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=Western%20europe%20has%20had%20a%20fancy%20for%20this%20thing%20called%20fiction&f=false" target="_blank">link</a> on google's free Ebook site to some pages where Mr. GKC discusses "this thing we call fiction." Peek in around page 83. The whole book is available there. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Well I must away...and make some serious preparations for some very special visitors! </div>
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Until next time....</div>
Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-7743588560849607412018-03-14T10:27:00.001-07:002018-03-14T10:27:41.373-07:00You are alive...be happy! To Paraphrase G.K. Chesterton<div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
I came across a quote this morning that has piqued my interest in reading <u>The Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton</u> (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006.)</div>
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In his <em>Autobiography</em>, Chesterton writes that</div>
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 3px; color: #878787; font-family: Times, serif; font-style: italic; margin: 1em 1em 1em 2em; padding-left: 1em;">
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“At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder; so that a man sitting in a chair might suddenly understand that he was actually alive, and be happy” (99).</div>
</blockquote>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
"...submerged sunrise of wonder..." yes...<br />
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<br />
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<br />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-22550591774491326532018-03-02T19:23:00.001-08:002022-04-21T12:58:07.919-07:00May Thoughtful Honest Public Dialogue Prevail<span style="font-size: large;"> It's generally considered a good thing to be an assertive person; </span><span style="font-size: large;">I don't mean aggressive, that's different. If being assertive looks like standing up straight, aggressive would be a forward lunge and passive might be leaning backward.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> And me, I must admit that I find myself leaning back in the public conversations of the day. I find myself wondering about the scope of my vantage point, the validity of circumstances as presented and the possibility of hidden implications and unforeseen consequences of the proposals and platforms of the day. It is a lot to sort through.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> I find myself listening carefully to others' assertions and though I believe that </span><span style="font-size: large;">well-honed common sense is often enough, I recently ran across some notes from a class my husband took years ago with a more formal review of how assertions can be sorted out. I decided to flesh the notes out with some examples and found it helpful to put names on what I tend to do intuitively. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps you might find it helpful too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">To begin I started thinking about the word "assertion" and made a list of synonyms: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a declaration</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a contention</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a claim</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> an opinion</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a pronouncement</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> an avowal</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a protestation</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> or simply a statement. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Judging the acceptability of specific assertions begins with recognizing what type of statement it is.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;">*What's the assertion based on?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">* Is it a </span><span style="font-size: large;">description, an interpretation or an evaluation? </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <u>Three general types of Assertion</u> <i>with an example in italics</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1. Description (based on the senses, or experience)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a. 1st hand <i>This is what happened to me...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> b. 2nd hand <i>This is what he told me...</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2. Interpretation (based on various derivations of meaning)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> a. Internal states <i>I know what he was thinking.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> b. Causal relationships. Causality is, by definition, interpretive, the answers we can give to "why" questions involving such causes as material, form, agent and end. In other words, physical realities, circumstances, human actions and choices, overarching purposes or agendas. <i>I had no choice,</i> <i>I had to build the fence strong enough to keep my cows home and it was the only material I could afford. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> c. Comparisons and contrasts Scales of 1-10, less or more...<i> This is more important than that... </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> d. Categories or alternatives: qualities or chain of events </span><span style="font-size: large;">according to type<i>. What might be appropriate for adults may not be for children.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">3. Evaluation (based on approval or disapproval - emotive </span><span style="font-size: large;">language) <i>I don't care if it is legal, it still isn't right.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course one assertion could and often does involve all three types of assertions; a first or second hand description, interpreted and emotionally evaluated. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>And then there is the matter of whether a statement is:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1. Presumably true ( <i>in favor</i>) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">2. Questionable (<i>creating a burden of proof</i>) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">3. False</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Vouching sources for determining validity include:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A. Our own sense experience/ reason</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">B. Personal Testimony </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> (<i>While sources A & B can receive</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> presumption, that is, be assumed true unless further information</i></span><i> <span style="font-size: large;">proves otherwise, neither A nor B sources can speak for</span></i><i> <span style="font-size: large;">assertions of interpretation or evaluation.</span></i><span style="font-size: large;">) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">C. Common Knowledge</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">D. Expert Opinion ( <i>sources C & D can ameliorate the burden of </i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;">proof</span>)</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The likelihood is, even without formally thinking about such distinctions, they are operating in your daily listening and responding; but if you'll allow me an assertion of opinion, it's worth the effort to renew and increase our communication skills consciously, for no matter the issue, our public dialogue needs thoughtful and honest tending. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-56325575360797660172018-02-26T15:04:00.000-08:002018-02-26T18:04:06.979-08:00Nicolás Gómez Dávila...writing to fix one's thoughts<div class="text_exposed_root" id="id_5a90484be31de7894804512" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Colombian philosopher, Nicolás Gómez Dávila ( 1913-1994) whose works consists almost entirely of aphorisms had this to say about writing: </span></div>
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<span class="_50f4" style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">" The pleasure of writing, when we lack all talent and ambition, is the pleasure of knowing clearly our ideas.<br />Drafting our thinking is, perhaps, creating it; in any case, it is to acquire a full consciousness. The vague and confusing idea is a mere promise; a promise that is not fulfilled and that is soon forgotten if words do not detain and fix it.<br />It is true that almost all of our ideas seem to be diminished by being written and that, in the light of that changing, rich and fruitful context of thought, they lose the life that stirs them in the warm shadows of consciousness; but it is only when they are of verbal pulp that we can know them and like, reject, or welcome them according to their excellence." </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="_50f4" style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> (*</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is translated from Spanish, which original version is included below. )</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"> I know that experience, where the glow that appears warm and steady </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">within</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"> flickers in me as I attempt </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">to drag my thoughts word by word into daylight. Is this all there was? What was I thinking? </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"> It is a </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">pleasure, those glimpses I sometimes have, thoughts which seem in the moment most excellent while in a hot shower or on my knees and my hands muddied in the garden, or in those first waking moments when the door to dreams is still open. It can be a bittersweet process, but clarity is worth struggling for.</span></span></div>
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<span class="_50f4" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><u>Original from <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Notas, (p. 106) </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Villegas, 2003) (1a ed. 1954) </span></u></span><br />
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<span class="_50f4" style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"El placer de escribir, cuando carecemos de todo talento y de ambición, es el placer de conocer claramente nuestras ideas.<br />Redactar nuestro pensamiento es, quizá, crearlo; en todo caso, es adquirir de él una plena conciencia. La idea vaga y confusa es una mera promesa; promesa que no se cumple y que pronto se olvida si las palabras no la detie nen y la fijan.<br />Es cierto que casi todas nuestras ideas parecen disminuidas al ser escritas y que, al extraerlas de ese contexto c<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ambiante, rico y fecundo del pensamiento, pierden la vida que las agita en las cálidas penumbras de la conciencia; pero es sólo cuando se revisten de pulpa verbal que las podernos conocer y, así, o rechazar, o acoger según su excelencia."</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="_50f4" style="line-height: 18px;">If you would like to read of <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nicolás Gómez Dávila</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">there is a very organized page of English translations of his aphorisms here:<</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://don-colacho.blogspot.com></span></span></div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-78429926326798599612018-02-13T19:26:00.000-08:002018-03-02T16:53:07.725-08:00Dictation for a second draft!I'm wondering if the music in the background, it's live guitar music, will affect the ability of this program to work? I'm using the dictation program and it makes some interesting decisions as to what it is I've actually said. We are learning to get along with each other. That is to say, I am learning to enunciate more carefully than I might otherwise. <br />
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As regards the last question I posted here, I decided to simply keep writing; cull a little and not burn it all. Of course first drafts do need and get a rough chaffing up that could cause enough friction to almost set them on fire. <br />
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Reading hand written pages into the microphone provides an initial smoothing out. If it doesn't read well out loud, it's likely needing clarification at the least. I also find words missing that I thought but did not write down. <br />
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Pen on ink still seems to be the way feeling and less obvious elements are conceived and I need to be careful, while editing, to not squeeze the life out of any of that protoplasmic ooze.<br />
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I felt silly not having found the dictation on my iMac sooner, it was hidden in plain sight. All I needed to do was go to the keyboard preferences. Once I chose whether I wanted to dictate offline on via the cloud, I chose offline and downloaded what was necessary, it is a simple matter of putting ones cursor in any text box and hitting the function key two times. Of course I also need to remember not to say anything I don't want typed into the box in question. Ahem, clearing her throat, she wondered whether this tool would make new paragraphs on command?<br />
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Yes, it does. <br />
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<br />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-11749226063690571302018-01-21T21:15:00.001-08:002018-01-21T21:17:22.132-08:00Journaling: to cull or to burn?From My Journal: December 29, 2017<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijos4JVRi9fFqG9DwLzK4CQ72PA_t6YoHzelMS4al2OwgZAdAtSvw73FOXsM27SpEy_QdmbR0Q4WEWWagZC6QgBpAJ5zrcGxhXa5JT-dT692EumEAjnZQOvHwSlPtCH8iL0G_ckRLgB0fx/s1600/IMG_6438.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijos4JVRi9fFqG9DwLzK4CQ72PA_t6YoHzelMS4al2OwgZAdAtSvw73FOXsM27SpEy_QdmbR0Q4WEWWagZC6QgBpAJ5zrcGxhXa5JT-dT692EumEAjnZQOvHwSlPtCH8iL0G_ckRLgB0fx/s320/IMG_6438.jpg" width="320" /></a>"I'll end this year's journal with a joke...I'd like to sort through and organize my years of scribbles and redact as might be indicated. In other words, I would like to do something with them. "<br />
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A fire at the beach is one possibility as organization doesn't seem to be my strong suit lately and yet they are collected chronologically at this point; a full step away from simple chaos. I also think of typing up ( is that even a verb anymore?) excerpts. So to cull or to burn, that is the question. It frightened me enough that I went right out and bought three blank books yesterday and wrote 2018 on the cover of one of them.<br />
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And now....I have typed up and edited an excerpt, haven't I? If I am sensitive about conditions changing, even this small change I have made may be a big enough perturbation in my original trajectory to lead to something other than a bonfire. I am not, however, predicting anything.Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-26651563928008892262017-08-02T21:37:00.000-07:002017-08-04T11:31:32.336-07:00Fictive character spills on author: try it, it's a helpful exercise.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When you write stories you get to create characters, but w</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">hat would one of your characters have to say about you? Here's <i>Ruthie</i>, circa a few years back, on Jeannette:</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hi, my name is Ruthie and I got picked to be the character that tells you about </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">Jeannette. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">Amazing, she picked me. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">I wonder what she thinks I’ll tell? Not that I don’t like to talk, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you, but I’m a good listener too. I like people. People </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">are always welcome at my door. They come, I feed them, we talk. I could have been a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">psychiatrist or a hairdresser maybe that would have been just as good, but me, I </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">stayed home on the ranch. But I’m getting off the subject; this is supposed to be about </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">Jeannette.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s a shame she doesn’t have a better memory, and she could be just a bit more </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">industrious. All right, so she already has the stress from her job. I know what that’s like </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">because my son, he’s a very important person, he has the professional stress. Anyway, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">so it takes it’s toll, but a persons just got to decide, what are you going do? So if she </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">wants some advice from me I’ll give it to her with strudel and tea, “If you want</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">to tell a story you got to get to it.” But maybe she’ll listen to you people better. Who </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">knows what difference you make in a person’s life? In one ear and out the other they say,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">but with her I think some of it sticks.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But as I was saying about her memory, just the folks she met at my table, oh the history </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">it all spans, she should remember it all. Okay, I’m not really someone she knew…and </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">yet I didn’t spring from thin air either. I suspect some of the stories she could tell just the </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">way she heard them, but she’s got these notions about fiction being able to tell a truth in </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">a special way and fiction needs characters and I </span>don’t know about you but personally </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">I’d rather have character than be one. But a character I am and what she’s going to ask of</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">me next I don’t know.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I know that I’m putting some pressure on her. Sometimes I'd feel like the ladies that </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">inspired me were my Siamese twins, like we were joined back-to-back and trying to walk </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">opposite directions. But I’m learning to just speak up and let her know, “That’s not what I’d </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">say, I’m not as nice as those old friends of yours that you hold so fondly in your heart. I’d</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">stand up to that challenge.” And sure enough, she lets me go.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">So while I got the chance, what was it you wanted to know about her? I never could </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">understand her love affair with writing. Talking it out is what I love to do, but she sees </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">something and down it goes into words on a page. One day she found a notebook that </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">was the perfect size for the inner pocket of her purse and she bought five of them. No </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">bells on her toes, she just has paper and pen wherever she goes. I think she actually </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">does her best work in dark black pen on paper, but as you know, she’s using a </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">computer. You got to watch her if she’s doing rewrites, a couple times she’s squeezed</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">the juice right out of me. Oh, here she comes now, I </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">gotta go. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Ruthie, what have you cooked up now? She’s stirring so many stories she gets them mixed up sometimes so you needn't quite believe</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span>everything<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> she tells you, besides, she almost always exaggerates about me. Jeannette </span></span></span></span></div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-80405537834491397352017-03-24T21:14:00.000-07:002017-10-31T17:30:32.687-07:00Always Expose for the Shadows of the Subject even When you Aren't Taking PicturesA reposting from a few years back...<br />
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"Always expose for the shadows of the subject..." so says my 1948 focal guide retrieved from storage a few weeks ago. Somehow the advice suggests other connotations....the realms of metaphor... " always expose for the shadow of the subject."</div>
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The other day it was the Walter T. Foster painting book <u>Seapower</u> that got me thinking this way.<br />
I had looked at the 10" x 14" teaching book with absolutely no intentions of trying to paint the ocean or the cliffs I live above and yet<br />
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I enjoyed perusing the step by step paintings and the tips and clues to doing the same.<br />
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"If you continually think in large masses of light and shadow ..." "Always think and paint the large masses first..." "...pick out the lighting...then you will know exactly where you are going."</blockquote>
So if you know from where the light emanates, you will know where you are going.<br />
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That makes more than sense to me. </div>
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Later in the day, out and about on the land, I found the painting advice impacting how I saw the ocean waves, the light on the rocks, the blue of the sky. Lessons for painters are first and foremost, lessons for the eye.<br />
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Writers must see carefully too and one's eye must be attuned to many realms. It's good to be able to see one's own framework of understanding, to filter the light from the dark. Every heart frames reality in its own terms, its own limits. To have an impact it needn't be large, but there must be an intersection with other frames of reality other than one's own.<br />
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I look at the sea. Clouds are stretched like peach tinged taffy along the horizon. Light is scattered across the waters so white and shimmering in areas that the eye can barely absorb the beauty without reflexively looking away. I can change my visual perspective and for a moment the waters in front of me appear like a bowl, but I know the horizon is distance beyond my scope.<br />
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There's a boat out there carrying its own reality across the waters, but to me it is little more than a dark speck. We are often in each other's view, but seeing eye to eye, well the eyes and the heart can take a lot training.<br />
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Such are the topics that have been on my mind lately. You might enjoy the essay I wrote this week and posted on <a href="http://writepurpose.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-do-we-do-things-we-do-basic.html">Write Purpose</a> "Why We do the Things We Do "<br />
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Now that I have read my old focal guide, I want to see if I can translate it to my digital camera. My notes to my self need to say.."Always be aware of your tendency to just point and shoot on automatic..." and of course that too has metaphorical implications; I'm not just talking about taking pictures.<br />
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-88206448115850137412017-02-09T21:59:00.000-08:002017-03-02T16:05:44.640-08:00Black Butterfly Hatches while it Rains and Blows...female pipevine swallowtail <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLPa2f31RZbZz-jahEFFpEMy2EsSECoXJTrG-QGSbClUi_VRc8x4iszEf3lCLEjKHsCXzzVYiLYbgp-4YKdgWpI4X7tMQ9pjteYxkyX0zMtBUFkweUncYjMurBe9_QxzCExZw0zD7zvN4/s1600/IMG_5203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLPa2f31RZbZz-jahEFFpEMy2EsSECoXJTrG-QGSbClUi_VRc8x4iszEf3lCLEjKHsCXzzVYiLYbgp-4YKdgWpI4X7tMQ9pjteYxkyX0zMtBUFkweUncYjMurBe9_QxzCExZw0zD7zvN4/s320/IMG_5203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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On January 23rd, picking out spent leaves on a potted pelargonium I snapped off a brown stem. As I went to toss the leaves in a bucket, I looked down in my hand and saw what I thought at first was a leaf rolled up. I had inadvertently plucked some little critter. I realized it must have been attached to the stem I had broken; it was a chrysalis. I wish I had been more careful because now I couldn't string it back to the plant the way it must have neatly spun itself on a twig to swing and sway in waiting. I brought it inside and marveled how its colors were so similar to the leaves of my plant. I later read that they are often the color of the leaves they have eaten.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDSwNC74FAxllcAfIjenI9UDm0wmqHztZxAvipUSoIXNd9291ILGshPVOvB9mmLFtM4krhaOiTDL88gqwI4CW8DM2zfLA7ht3PfHUakSdwJFYFd1xfbwR0Ct-D3ePzqwrGYLdb5Ub65Z_/s1600/IMG_5212.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDSwNC74FAxllcAfIjenI9UDm0wmqHztZxAvipUSoIXNd9291ILGshPVOvB9mmLFtM4krhaOiTDL88gqwI4CW8DM2zfLA7ht3PfHUakSdwJFYFd1xfbwR0Ct-D3ePzqwrGYLdb5Ub65Z_/s320/IMG_5212.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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I set my displaced friend with a leaf or two in a glass jar with a vented lid and put it on my desk. I was pretty sure it was a future butterfly, but I hadn't had any close encounters with a chrysalis for many decades.<br />
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I took a peek at it most every day. It never answered any of my questions as to whether its accommodations were satisfactory or let me know if my assurances of good intentions were penetrating. I took this picture on January 27th. It was hard to tell if anything was going on. The leaf was drying up, but the chrysalis looked about the same. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1M9AX5RVd4b9mQsdpONLh9_xBATojm2BULVAJ7Mtn_eNxyzLIkXQZ0s_NxHMwN4bCVaUeuKsEcKL7UIxnIH1mBJkTpOj6fwc5hyphenhyphen2aav4xCEWI7JLK2NZYmhOULPW88dfp7vUnqLljuFw/s1600/IMG_5230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1M9AX5RVd4b9mQsdpONLh9_xBATojm2BULVAJ7Mtn_eNxyzLIkXQZ0s_NxHMwN4bCVaUeuKsEcKL7UIxnIH1mBJkTpOj6fwc5hyphenhyphen2aav4xCEWI7JLK2NZYmhOULPW88dfp7vUnqLljuFw/s320/IMG_5230.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I decided it deserved more of the plant in the jar and I nestled it on a new leaf on February 5th. They really do have a matching color thing going on together, don't they? I was prepared to wait. One friend suggested to me it could take months to manifest.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF21ywOtnOdZOrPdJ-9N0AB9MGZN-mBEFjjDDjEFpdn1XM0yIRym6v43w5euxMcE8laGTw1-lbfmSR8nU01RP5X_nMDFUFYeJMGDBREBqKBMk6pERNLlLcUStTfQKeMMt01k5RTclbJdi-/s1600/IMG_5245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF21ywOtnOdZOrPdJ-9N0AB9MGZN-mBEFjjDDjEFpdn1XM0yIRym6v43w5euxMcE8laGTw1-lbfmSR8nU01RP5X_nMDFUFYeJMGDBREBqKBMk6pERNLlLcUStTfQKeMMt01k5RTclbJdi-/s320/IMG_5245.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Then this morning, February 9th, as I approached my desk, I saw my cat standing over the jar and sniffing at the lid. I knew at once that movement must have drawn the cat, something was changed. I had missed the moments of emerging, eclosing, hatching. While I had slept, the last transformations had been going on inside this quiet package. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-8pLs-leQn4lKUHQ1rbjGrrSMDmlJefR2GrRjv8xp9h7S6R8pbt6cGmH2O6wbO__om-0OmH9mjUzCPdJO_ATtaNDigMAJsvuKN680yPU8aDItcMgzRvkFURtYQu3Z1r5Quinv4vUEpz_N/s1600/IMG_5250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-8pLs-leQn4lKUHQ1rbjGrrSMDmlJefR2GrRjv8xp9h7S6R8pbt6cGmH2O6wbO__om-0OmH9mjUzCPdJO_ATtaNDigMAJsvuKN680yPU8aDItcMgzRvkFURtYQu3Z1r5Quinv4vUEpz_N/s400/IMG_5250.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lifting by the stem of leaves, I helped her out of the jar right away. I was excited and wanted to return her liberty to her at once. I took her out to the front porch and set her on the wooden arm of a chair. The wind was blowing and the rain poured down. What a morning for the birth of this beautiful black swallowtail butterfly.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyGkD54fsjQamRjxYZyoJiDvkcKLsR_fqtMIvyf42DDm4gpzQrSpUX1yE5FvIqz944bcdg0Yy08OxIuhNMubzm6kf0ILaK-SuwWatbF7fry9RiHg-hzFzs0GnRd8nZeXQfPOmEeJppNlX/s1600/IMG_5254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyGkD54fsjQamRjxYZyoJiDvkcKLsR_fqtMIvyf42DDm4gpzQrSpUX1yE5FvIqz944bcdg0Yy08OxIuhNMubzm6kf0ILaK-SuwWatbF7fry9RiHg-hzFzs0GnRd8nZeXQfPOmEeJppNlX/s320/IMG_5254.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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She continued to cling to the leaf. I picked a new wet stem of the same plant and she gravitated to that and seemed to drink.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-YOPSh2oqxtQtOHRa0MtOZIF4lnWcUcCN77HN4d-v6fK73SrFUH7bKpIvE_M5oOxZiNrCgi2dVpqAHaG8w-zGeNVGSpFSWhdCe64utspOYfBRMzwBrzZK-UhM8MBUa97RcRQUor-e7Mjs/s1600/IMG_5272.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-YOPSh2oqxtQtOHRa0MtOZIF4lnWcUcCN77HN4d-v6fK73SrFUH7bKpIvE_M5oOxZiNrCgi2dVpqAHaG8w-zGeNVGSpFSWhdCe64utspOYfBRMzwBrzZK-UhM8MBUa97RcRQUor-e7Mjs/s320/IMG_5272.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Still in my robe, I left her on the window sill and I went back inside. The husk and original leaf on which she had rested, brown now, lay in the bottom of the jar. I got dressed and went back out to check on the winged beauty.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwOU-yMC5Q_gp9a0ry4CTziWD8PW7mt8BpsDcE9H713Y1LQuvzZXJib-GiMHjqKlb6QSA56R9j6PZLZaCnh4uCZws2nwsv4Ej4S4KMfwhtJOUHAEFnN51hnDxSGi2ppsqX6h-5cPUoZKc/s1600/IMG_5269.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwOU-yMC5Q_gp9a0ry4CTziWD8PW7mt8BpsDcE9H713Y1LQuvzZXJib-GiMHjqKlb6QSA56R9j6PZLZaCnh4uCZws2nwsv4Ej4S4KMfwhtJOUHAEFnN51hnDxSGi2ppsqX6h-5cPUoZKc/s320/IMG_5269.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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She hadn't flown away. One could hardly blame her. We are in the middle of what the weatherman has called an atmospheric river. I decided she might need to shelter for a time, so I moved the very potted plant on which we had first met up under the cover of the porch roof and set her cut branch in the living plant.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZLzcGeMes2ccHwljhSUIHsIKX3WGyzMFudSuUa87jhlYT60nXqg_AgQKJtRKZXjKa_hz_G1OSrYPGmOdIYuFfPT595P0nm6X2El_8p2Zvmi7QjKDNFNt1pzxXcmTzWzisKxLX5Xxbkg9/s1600/IMG_5270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZLzcGeMes2ccHwljhSUIHsIKX3WGyzMFudSuUa87jhlYT60nXqg_AgQKJtRKZXjKa_hz_G1OSrYPGmOdIYuFfPT595P0nm6X2El_8p2Zvmi7QjKDNFNt1pzxXcmTzWzisKxLX5Xxbkg9/s320/IMG_5270.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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And there on a potted pelargonium on my front porch she has spent her first day. I should go see if she is still there...It is now 9 pm and she is still on the potted plant. I do hope she is viable. Perhaps tomorrow there will be a spot of sunshine, something this butterfly has to yet experience, and with wings warmed she will venture out into the garden. <br />
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FRIDAY MORN UP DATE: Sunshine was the secret ingredient for this butterfly to take wing. As soon as a few weak rays broke through this morn, I moved the potted plant and inhabitant into the light and several hours later my friend had flown into her life! Maybe sometime she will make me a visit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZeFNaQA0uKTd7HcrNj3TLq47JAc33LWJIodwR9kNsZINU9C_EPa8kFxMoI_C1SYhp4Cla1Qqtvo_s-tTzRn1MzTxG6orbYFogeKXwkSdj7bomrMdX06vRgNEP9GxhLsJ77DKYym8jw7_/s1600/IMG_5278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZeFNaQA0uKTd7HcrNj3TLq47JAc33LWJIodwR9kNsZINU9C_EPa8kFxMoI_C1SYhp4Cla1Qqtvo_s-tTzRn1MzTxG6orbYFogeKXwkSdj7bomrMdX06vRgNEP9GxhLsJ77DKYym8jw7_/s400/IMG_5278.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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February 9th in a ray of morning light.</div>
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February 14th UPDATE: PROPER IDENTIFICATION AND LEARNING MORE ...</div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">from friend Katie who has studied butterflies: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> "<span style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">We don't have black swallowtails in our part of CA. It looks to me, you have a female pipevine swallowtail (</span><a href="http://butterfliesofamerica.com/battus_p_philenor.htm" style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">http://butterfliesofamerica.com/battus_p_philenor.htm</a><span style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">), which feeds only on pipevines (</span><a href="http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=674" style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=674</a><span style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">). Do you have some pipevine, native or cultivated, nearby? Caterpillars of all sorts of Lepidoptera tend to roam around before they pupate, hence why you found yours in your geranium. And, they also tend to eclose early in the morning, maybe as protection from hungry birds, considering leps are so vulnerable when their wings pump out and harden.....and really </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">you should let them rest outdoors to get the winter chill and emerge at the same time as their cohorts for mating purposes."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">~Thank you Katie~ I haven't seen the pipevine plant in our environs, but one can always stand to become more observant and it isn't as if I can trek around in all the places this beautiful butterfly can go. I wonder how far the caterpillars can crawl? I hope she wasn't too coddled and thereby premature in my warm house...learning...learning. It is always good to learn!</span></span></div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-52569342217313599642016-11-29T11:14:00.000-08:002016-11-29T11:30:27.036-08:00The Shelf Life of Love<br />
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A friend recently asked me to remind her where my blog sits. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing, but I haven’t been posting. I write and read to Mark and he tells me “ put that on your blog…” I think about it and then the day passes and the world’s crazy energy swirls me around and I think how weak my words are and I leave them, just ink in my notebooks. But I know that it isn’t good to capitulate to the thought that small offerings don’t matter. I have received single sips of water from others that made all the difference in difficult terrain.</div>
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To overcome my “sharing block,” today I took a photo of my morning’s scribble :</div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-17573974577057183922016-06-12T09:18:00.001-07:002016-06-13T09:08:12.525-07:00A Passage of Light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Morning shadows of the trees and birds outside the small high eastern windows that flank our fireplace are cast on the inner wall. </div>
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As the sun moves slowly day by day the morning picture moves through the house. <br />
<br />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-72074105028169215222016-04-14T11:02:00.000-07:002016-06-17T21:34:01.366-07:00An Introduction to Poet and Songwriter Malcom Guite <div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_51" style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.38; overflow: hidden;">
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The written word waits quietly for us and I so appreciate the "friends" I have made solely through the immense window of their words page after page. I met a new friend of words - <a href="https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/">Malcom Guite</a>- this last month whose words sing plenty right off the page...and yet he is so generous as to also publish an audio file of his reading his and other poetry on his blog as well.<br />
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The other reader of our household has been leaving his paperback Penguin classic <u>The Portable Dante </u><br />
in that room where one is sometimes wont to sit and so I had just been dabbling in a bit of Dante's "Inferno" before I came upon Malcom Guite's verse, Dante and the Companioned Journey 2: through the Gate.<br />
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In his introduction Mr. Guite explains, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;">So Dante begins again, accompanied by Virgil and they come to the very gate of Hell, with its famous inscription ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’! "</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;">But they don’t abandon hope, and that is the whole point. It is hope that leads and draws them on, hope inspired by love.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"> </span><br />
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This poem is from his collection <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Singing-Bowl-Malcolm-Guite/dp/1848255411" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'bitstream charter', serif; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Singing Bowl </a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"> published by </span><a href="http://www.canterburypress.co.uk/books/9781848255418/The-Singing-Bowl" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'bitstream charter', serif; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Canterbury Press</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"> and is also available on </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Singing-Bowl-Malcolm-Guite/dp/1848255411/ref=zg_bs_277299_16" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'bitstream charter', serif; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Amazon </a><br />
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You can read more of the poet's introduction to the poem on <a href="https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/dante-and-the-companioned-journey-2-through-the-gate-2/">his blog</a> and hear him read his poem to you.<br />
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<a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/1203256-dante-part-2-through-the-gate" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Through the Gate</a><br />
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Begin the song exactly where you are</div>
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For where you are contains where you have been</div>
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And holds the vision of your final sphere</div>
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And do not fear the memory of sin;</div>
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There is a light that heals, and, where it falls,</div>
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Transfigures and redeems the darkest stain</div>
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Into translucent colour. Loose the veils</div>
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And draw the curtains back, unbar the doors,</div>
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Of that dread threshold where your spirit fails,</div>
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<br /></div>
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The hopeless gate that holds in all the fears</div>
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That haunt your shadowed city, fling it wide</div>
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And open to the light that finds and fares</div>
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<br /></div>
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Through the dark pathways where you run and hide,</div>
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through all the alleys of your riddled heart,</div>
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As pierced and open as His wounded side.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Open the map to Him and make a start,</div>
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And down the dizzy spirals, through the dark</div>
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His light will go before you, let Him chart</div>
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And name and heal. Expose the hidden ache</div>
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To him, the stinging fires and smoke that blind</div>
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Your judgement, carry you away, the mirk</div>
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And muted gloom in which you cannot find</div>
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The love that you once thought worth dying for.</div>
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Call Him to all you cannot call to mind</div>
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<br /></div>
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He comes to harrow Hell and now to your</div>
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Well guarded fortress let His love descend.</div>
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The icy ego at your frozen core</div>
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<br /></div>
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Can hear His call at last. Will you respond?</div>
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~~~~</div>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-48064811960235802002016-02-17T12:35:00.003-08:002016-03-03T17:54:59.156-08:00The Free Milk of Human Kindness ...from Silicon Valley to RwandaFriendship is certainly boosted by proximity, but over my lifetime there have been a number of people who I have been destined to respect and love and yet not get to have anywhere near my neighborhood. Such are my friends Roger and Faith Shaw.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJx-jKvpAchLoV8ApWPA_etXeev18DsCRaTHhCnY2Wu69LSo71uCA7n5kUGBnw3gfUhI3dekeue0tlM_lbfHzNcgj296ho0o6gq1CGEOnFdCfS6iQPW9qiJVGuN_KBV2qILOnciKKl_Q4/s1600/IMG_2835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJx-jKvpAchLoV8ApWPA_etXeev18DsCRaTHhCnY2Wu69LSo71uCA7n5kUGBnw3gfUhI3dekeue0tlM_lbfHzNcgj296ho0o6gq1CGEOnFdCfS6iQPW9qiJVGuN_KBV2qILOnciKKl_Q4/s200/IMG_2835.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visiting with Roger and Faith in 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When we lived in Carmel on the cliffside estate, our employer had us host a fundraiser for visiting Rwandan cyclists who spoke every manner of smile but very little English. Faith, who at that time lived in San Jose, was hired to translate their Kinyarwanda so the guys could tell their stories to the invited guests.<br />
<br />
Faith and I had one of those instant bonds; we found that we spoke the same language indeed. Over the next few years my husband and I had some very dear encounters with Faith and her husband, Roger. For a time we lived close enough to visit each others homes.<br />
<br />
While time and distance came between us, for Roger and Faith left California and moved to Rwanda, my appreciation of who my friends are and what they are doing continues to grow.<br />
<br />
I hope you will watch an unsophisticated but fascinating <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn21YpoJMRc">video</a> of Roger, learning about his larger neighborhood and showing why he wants to give milk to Mwendo neighbor children, but before you do, from their <a href="http://www.ishimwe.org/">web page</a> in Rwanda, here is a bit of Faith's background:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">First and foremost, she herself was a refugee separated from her parents after fleeing Rwanda's first genocide. She was taken in by another family, but was shamelessly exploited. They told her that her parents were dead, that there was no hope and they forced her into servitude.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A year later, Mrs. Hindley, an English missionary rescued Faith and hid her under blankets in the footwell of a vehicle and drove her to freedom. Mrs. Hindley re-united Faith with her parents. Later, growing up as a refugee in Uganda with very little money in the family, an unknown sponsor paid her school fees. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Faith eventually attended Makere University. One evening, outside her college dorm, she discovered an abandoned baby crying in the trash. She took him to hospital and made plans to adopt him. Unfortunately, despite Faith's efforts, the little boy died a few days later. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Sometime after graduating, Amin's soldiers arrested Faith on trumped-up charges and held her in a cell where she was certain to be raped that very evening. However, a man who described himself as a friend of her father's saw her in jail and somehow negotiated her immediate release. Neither Faith nor her father ever identified the man. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Faith left Uganda and moved to Kenya and took a job as a teacher. Later she won a scholarship for post-graduate education for refugees. She moved to England to become a student again. It was here that she met and married her husband, Roger. They had two daughters, Zoe & Murika, and later the family relocated to the USA. In 1994, they watched Rwanda's second genocide unfold on the TV news. It was a horrifying event resulting in the murder of 800,000 people. The aftermath was heart breaking. Among many awful tragedies, thousands of children were left without anyone to care for them. This painful reality weighed heavily on the hearts of Faith & Roger and they recalled how someone had helped Faith when she had been a child in need. They couldn't quite reconcile their comfortable family life in California with the suffering of so many abandoned children in Rwanda.</span></blockquote>
In 2000 Faith visited her homeland and saw children in need in the aftermath of war.<br />
In 2003, Roger and Faith bought a four bedroom house in Ruhengeri.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">They hired a nanny - Judith, and a cook - Gatzinzi, and they accepted the first four orphans, Ruzindana, Anne, Mutoni & Alice. Faith's dad did a great job of running the home and being a role model for the children and staff to look up to. Sadly for all of us, he passed away in 2006. </span></blockquote>
In 2006 they incorporated and children kept coming...if the cook<br />
didn't find another orphan, one of the children did. Faith sold her paintings and jewelry she made to support the children and her church helped too. She would fly back and forth from their home in San Jose, California where Roger was still working in Silicon Valley... but it wasn't the vision they had. They wanted the children to live as a family and they decided together to give up their work and home in California to become Mom and Dad to an ever growing family in Rwanda. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBNWFTRFmF5ZN7y3HdRfatt7do2vVB4vQ-sdNk51OlGbxqUAm7apyMLcs6WKR0Wuh7BrF_GjvUPx7eZxJwzzscqZsIMLeOf-ueiCQ-Ysq0tCYOoLQBBJR7cRXjBX5ZD2YPcH6pwY9RowFs/s1600/1985114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBNWFTRFmF5ZN7y3HdRfatt7do2vVB4vQ-sdNk51OlGbxqUAm7apyMLcs6WKR0Wuh7BrF_GjvUPx7eZxJwzzscqZsIMLeOf-ueiCQ-Ysq0tCYOoLQBBJR7cRXjBX5ZD2YPcH6pwY9RowFs/s200/1985114.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
In 2012 they relocated the rescue home to Bugesera. The website has wonderful pictures of the home they built there and the children who are growing up. It isn't accurate to call the Ishimwe rescue home an orphanage, for the children who live there are sons and daughters. Faith and Roger have eighteen children!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil6fEAi5CIMWqCtEH4AtQqeoCHwYZ865_74AjLmPD5d4HSFd-l21e5QV4TLn1bvqc1nHMI41ReATN7d9ZOrYJEa6foQwP9xDNpBvNKxoRKltr34nWX2Fyt-uosdZSfDpc5FH4qlGzLLKJ9/s1600/9199148.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil6fEAi5CIMWqCtEH4AtQqeoCHwYZ865_74AjLmPD5d4HSFd-l21e5QV4TLn1bvqc1nHMI41ReATN7d9ZOrYJEa6foQwP9xDNpBvNKxoRKltr34nWX2Fyt-uosdZSfDpc5FH4qlGzLLKJ9/s320/9199148.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
In the years since, Roger has built a fish farm, a whole other story in itself, to help the area be more self sustaining. Faith started Pioneer School, a place where the Ishimwe children can learn amongst other children of the community, broadening their sense of belonging and purpose. The Ishimwe children learn at home to grow their food, and raise animals. At school they study reading, writing, arithmetic, computers, music and art and they are learning how knowledge, work and cooperation can call forth abundance enough to share.<br />
<br />
Which brings us again to <a href="https://www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/free-school-milk-rwanda--3">Roger's latest hope and his video.</a> The children at Pioneer School all get a big fresh glass of milk each day from the cows at the Ishimwe home. Roger wants to bring free milk to the neighboring school and several homes where the children are not able to attend school. <br />
<br />
After watching Roger's video, I remembered an advertising slogan from an American bread company of the 1950's, "build strong bodies twelve ways." We can laugh now at white Wonder Bread with its 12 added nutrients, but Roger's milk will build strong bodies and it is also likely to kindle love and good purpose in the grateful recipients. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCyU9xN7RP1YzeH9ysCJqTC-sIhhCBpYOBn9NHGQ4hi5DJcJimM_fv-iy4xK_70TZga_tSVX1G8liUmnqQsRpSajV8WsytN5bJvzPBcd4un4E7H_oAnqy9vK2h3NQ_fY2DaI1PqqDlnWg/s1600/IMG_4069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCyU9xN7RP1YzeH9ysCJqTC-sIhhCBpYOBn9NHGQ4hi5DJcJimM_fv-iy4xK_70TZga_tSVX1G8liUmnqQsRpSajV8WsytN5bJvzPBcd4un4E7H_oAnqy9vK2h3NQ_fY2DaI1PqqDlnWg/s320/IMG_4069.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And to think of the promise that is attached to giving even a cup of cold water to a little one.<br />
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hoping the best for you,<br />
<br />
Jeannette<br />
ABOUT DONATIONS!<br />
Some people have asked if they can donate...yes, that would be lovely!<br />
If you click on the video link that is in the story and I will provide it again <a href="https://www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/free-school-milk-rwanda--3"><span style="color: red;">HERE</span></a> you will see to the right of the video picture is a donate button through an organization that Roger chose called Generosity. They do not charge a fee to either side, but they do make a space to give Generosity a donation as well, if you so choose. This site requires a credit card.<br />
<br />
I gave my donation via PAYPAL to the <a href="http://www.ishimwe.org/donate.html"><span style="color: red;">Ishimwe website</span> </a> with a note to specify that this particular donation was for MILK MONEY for ROGER, You simply click on the button to make a single donation and the option for PAYPAL will come directly up as well as other choices.<br />
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<br />Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-14672644603015521572016-01-12T10:38:00.002-08:002016-01-17T12:03:25.502-08:00Over the Threshold...When Does One Grow Up? <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Girl child"<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, a very free verse poem that I wrote last century and then left buried in one of my many notebooks, surfaced in my mind today because of a friend who is </span>generating<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> conversation on that notorious platform called </span>Facebook<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> with this question:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> "</span></span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">How does one know when one has crossed the threshold into adulthood? An act, a thought, a rite of passage, an event, a milestone...Thoughts?" </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #141823;">My poem was in response to a similar query in a writing workshop I took to meet continuing education units that the state required of my profession. The workshop leader shared a prompt and set a time limit and participants scribbled away. After the set ten or twenty minutes of writing we were free to share or not what one's heart and pen had produced. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #141823;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #141823;">Queried, "When did you know you had become a woman? "</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #141823;">this is likely only one of my answers,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #141823;">but that day, it came out, just like this:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">GIRLCHILD</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was very clear about being a girl child,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a girl child who could run and climb and dig and build,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a girl child who could sew and color and read and write poems.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A girl child who must come in now</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and wash your hands and help</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in the kitchen cutting piles </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of even circles of carrots, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">tiny disks of burning color </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">while </span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the orange sun sank </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">without me </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">into the Pacific fog of hill and shore</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and </span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the thin blue line of the horizons,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that by their very unattainable distances, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">were always inviting.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then childhood itself was torn asunder,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or was it rolled up like a rug?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No, the carpet lay on the floor, dirty and now mine to clean. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No woman in the house </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">but this thirteen- year-old girl no longer a child </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with the work of my mother fallen to my limbs. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How did she make that sauce? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Do I unplug when the washer overflows? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Will it electrocute me? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Run to the neighbors. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Oh honey, why doesn’t your father hire a woman to help you?” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was no woman that could be hired</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">to help this girl at her real task.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What could make me a woman? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Was it shoes with heels </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that made me feel the strength and length of my legs? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Was it the jobs in the city,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the hunger in men’s eyes? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The woman was hidden</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in the girl child,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">but the child fled</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and no woman appeared. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suppose there were glimpses of her along the way</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that a keen eye might have seen,</span></div>
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">but she snuck up on me, </span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">sometime after college. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When the ardent second childhood waned, </span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">she emerged;</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">neither as optimistic nor as angry, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">neither as guileless or as selfish,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">not as foolhardy or as frightened. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What made me a woman? </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When need gave way and </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the force of love </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">forged through me</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with eyes for others, </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and I forgave.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOfkyCFsvLAdhQCIBhKJ-xxHXWWBQzecaFcf2ODjOSgB7zY_N04HRDS9LwK4oQsy_dAS7GApz_4NHkIhBix8gDaKU_gjsYttTFSyzSmpyw-iPlYzEzwk1tTyp1yBg77hn-bDRpkHKnYvj/s1600/IMG_3916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOfkyCFsvLAdhQCIBhKJ-xxHXWWBQzecaFcf2ODjOSgB7zY_N04HRDS9LwK4oQsy_dAS7GApz_4NHkIhBix8gDaKU_gjsYttTFSyzSmpyw-iPlYzEzwk1tTyp1yBg77hn-bDRpkHKnYvj/s320/IMG_3916.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't mention playing dress-up with my neighbor, but I did that too.</td></tr>
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Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8181208978190549590.post-19783256644635964202015-12-25T07:18:00.002-08:002016-01-09T18:53:52.464-08:00<h1 style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<a href="cid:F4A5D51B-7805-43B5-9405-596A47BF67CE@att.net" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8iJF9eGb68yaBPw1pgJNR0McdaaVJoQf1xz5b6UaFlKpJ0U1eDs4gReWdMYRNzwcHICKUid8exqBz_JhcWZfmzneQ3X6Iy9PkgmktpT1dsjq0lD7aUiGQIa1b4QWI-sTFQg-a96ZJZnje/s1600/Christmas+Card+2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8iJF9eGb68yaBPw1pgJNR0McdaaVJoQf1xz5b6UaFlKpJ0U1eDs4gReWdMYRNzwcHICKUid8exqBz_JhcWZfmzneQ3X6Iy9PkgmktpT1dsjq0lD7aUiGQIa1b4QWI-sTFQg-a96ZJZnje/s400/Christmas+Card+2015.jpg" width="311" /></a><br />
<em><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">A Prayer for </span></em><span style="font-size: small;"><em>Christmas Morning by </em><span style="font-weight: normal;">Henry Van Dyke</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">T</span>he day of joy returns, Father in Heaven,</div>
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and crowns another year with peace and good will.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">H</span>elp us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus,</div>
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that we may share in the song of the angels,</div>
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the gladness of the shepherds,</div>
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and the worship of the wisemen.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">C</span>lose the doors of hate and open the doors of love</div>
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all over the<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> world…</span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">L</span>et kindness come with every gift</div>
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and good desires with every greeting.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">D</span>eliver us from evil, by the blessing that Christ brings, </div>
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and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">M</span>ay the Christmas morning make us happy</div>
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to be thy children, and the Christmas evening</div>
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bring us to our bed with grateful thoughts,</div>
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forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake.</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"></span></span><br />
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<strong>Amen.</strong></div>
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<strong style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></strong></div>
Jeannettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06115410908800997558noreply@blogger.com3