A pleasant day...

Slept in until seven a.m. - comfortably and with no little guilty feelings prodding at me.

Awakened to the promise of blue sky and sunshine, and indeed the sun did shine. But strangely.

No. 3 son called to alert me to the interesting ring around the sun, so I grabbed my inadequate camera and did the best I could to get a picture. By putting on my rose coloured glasses and squinting sideways at the sun I was able to see it distinctly, glowing in all it's splendor in the midst of a hazy ring, surrounded on the outside by quite a distinct halo.



Our artist daughter called to ask me to have lunch with her, and sent me home with three interesting gourds, - one in the shape of a perky long-necked goose, beautifully mottled and covered with little knobs.



About four or five prints of work in progress (copyrighted) which she kindly gave me permission to reprint here.....





And a VHS on Crop Circles, which led us into a discussion on the future, and the changes it holds for mankind, - the end of the age of logic, quantum physics and a few other things that I find extremely puzzling and out of the bounds of my understanding. But she knows that, so we parted amicably.

When I went to shop the young man behind me at the check out counter was buying four bouquets of spring flowers and carnations, which piqued my interest approvingly. More men should buy more flowers whomever they might be for!

The sun was still shining when Casper and I went out for our late afternoon walk. The air was mild, and I'm sure Spring was at least scouting things out. The ice which formed a tiny skating rink had melted, and there was a puddle in its place, but the snow still continues in the garden.

I fed the birds and then poked around the Lenten Roses, which are still partly encased in ice. However, I found two green fingerlings pushing through the skim of ice on the sunny side of the plant, and my heart smiled!

On the window ledge over the big bathtub three of the amaryllis that were potted after Christmas are almost in bloom.

I told you it was a pleasant day!

At one time I had both Volumes of the Collected Grooks of Piet Hein. Now I find only Volume 1 on my bookshelves (which are scattered hither and yon around the house).

Did I give the other away? It is quite possible that I slipped it into a gift of books and sent it off in the mail. It would be something I wouldn't mind sharing.

I have always been delighted with Grooks, - well, more than delighted... Behind each verse is a serious thought; a tantalizing expression of common wisdom, - something we all know, and in which we find wry humour.

The Cure for Exhaustion

Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.

Makes you perk right up and enjoy each available moment!



Piet Hein was known as Kumbel Kumbell when his Grooks first were published in 1940. When the German occupation of Denmark became more than an administrative effort, and the dark side of the German agenda became more apparent, Piet Hein disappeared into the Underground Resistance. His Grooks became messages of encouragement to the Danes who were enduring this menacing occupation.

A highly intelligent man with common-sense, Piet Hein, it is said, compares favourably with Albert Einstein and Buckminster Fuller.

Among his inventions:

The Superellipse, whose shape was adopted in Danish furniture, in parks and stadiums and in city planning, - and whose equation is a little beyond my ken, although I understand the concept.

The Soma Cube - "he conceived the idea of the SOMA cube in 1936, during a lecture on Quantum physics by Werner Heisenberg" and if the link works there are a lot of fascinating details about this addictive combination of shapes.

The game of Hex was invented in 1942 by Piet Hein, and then reinvented in 1948 by John Nash. It got its name in 1952 from a commercial distribution by Parker Brothers and was popularized by Martin Gardner in 1957. Piet was a whizz at formulating mathematical games and engineering mathematical shapes - here is his concept of a free standing egg....



All very astonishing, but my bent is more literal than mathematical, and so I appreciate most his words on The Miracle of Spring..

We glibly talk
of nature's laws
but do things have
a natural cause?

Black earth turned into
yellow crocus
is undiluted
hocus-pocus.

Born February 16th, 1902

In one of the stars, I shall be living.
In one of them, I shall be laughing.
And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night.
~ The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In loving Memory of our Mother, Dorothy Emily Grace Clark
who lived her life with grace and courage
Day by day.

Twilight fell with the snow clouds gathering and a slight scattering of flakes.

The birds all left early for secure nighttime accommodation. Just underneath their feeders, and slightly to the right the snow has drifted about two feet deep, and is frozen solid. Underneath it lies the rhubarb plant. Hopefully its sweet and stubby red roots are beginning to push underground. The ground is still frozen where the ice and snow resist the few hours of sunshine we are getting here in the Similkameen.

Tonight, in Blogland, I read about someone's first pick of spring rhubarb simmering on the stove.

It nigh on sent me out with the pick-axe to clear the snow and ice away, and let the scarlet rhubarb stubs reach for the sunlight and the mild, clear daytime air. I know that the Lenten roses are in the same predicament, and long to open their petals to the sky.

There are promising puddles in the afternoon, as the sun warms the earth and the air, but at night the frost comes again, and in the morning there are small skating rinks all around the yard. If I could return to the days when I was small and bob skates were still an excitement to me, I could have a jolly time out on these little patches, red scarf trailing and rosy cheeks and ears.....

We have the occasional fiery sunrise, and for a little while each day there are small bits of bright blue in the sky, but on the whole the clouds hold sway.








A few days ago, as I rose in the morning, I caught a glimpse of the moon, just slipping away in the west, all glorious and glowing and in a marvelous shimmer. I wished for a camera that could capture its beauty.



We are fortunate in this valley, where the hills protect us from great extremes of weather, and sometimes the winters are open and mild. The year we left the farm and went to live by the river we planted potatoes on the 4th of March...

I have a few packages of rhubarb left in the freezer, - we will have to be content with a bit of last year's fruit, with some nice creamy custard....or maybe a pie!

P.S. Overnight Winter crept back softly, but with some determination, and we woke to this February fairyland.

Sweetheart

It seems like only Yesteryear

I met you by the river, dear...

And all the moments in between

Have bound you to my heart poltreen******

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY LOVE


****** an Irish term of endearment designed to rhyme with 'between'

www.clintondeckert.com

After dark, when all the mystery happens, I put away my daily persona and with a touch of the magical mouse I turn into a wanderer of the night, - a Nomad in Blogland. An enchanting country where I find the most charming illusions, the most captivating word pictures and the most imaginative and creative stories.

My world expands as the magic mouse leads me down the lists of Spectacular Blogs, and a click of his little left ear takes me into posts of such beauty and detailed description that I turn crimson with pleasure and green with envy.

I am intriqued with my journeys to different lands, to the writings of different generations, to the appealing way certain writers have of interpreting the world of their imagination. And the marvelously commonplace words that invite you to share the smallest of details in their lives. I am sometimes absorbed in the knowledge they impart, and sometimes buoyed by the light-hearted and humourous posts. And the pictures! There, - look at that wonderful composition, see the brightness, the mysterious, the prosaic, the pastoral, the sea, the sky, the rocks, the hills, the architecture, the land, the flowers and the trees, - and the beautiful faces.

It is mesmerizing to be moved a world away to a farm, a stream, a village or a city, - to find oneself absorbed in the intimate atmosphere of a family, and to be enchanted by so many diverse ways of living, of thinking, of place and of language.

For the 'ancients' it is an incredible place to be, and the technology that joins the world together so awesome as to be almost unbelievable.

I give great thanks that I have lived so long that I am able to make these fascinating journeys, and I come back to bedtime with a smile on my face and great satisfaction in my heart. As well as a comforting realization that the more things change the more they remain the same, - and that in the very depths of it all there is a bond that holds us all together in kindness and generosity and a wonderful spirit of acceptance.

Hysterical Times

I was buoyed when I read an article by Kevin Libin in the February 6th issue of the National Post. If anything is capable of buoying one in these days when we are bombarded on all sides with news of calamity and rhetorical disaster.

Kevin Libin, in an article in The National Post entitled Making the Worst of It injects a voice of reason and encouragement into this daily drama of economic catastrophe.

He quotes Amos Kiewe, a professor specializing in presidential rhetoric at Syracuse University. "I wish they would induce more confidence".. Indeed, the media and politicians have much to answer for as they promote a hysterical response to present day economic problems.

Libin points out that "these times are not 'unprecedented'. This is not unlike anything we've seen. Serious economists do not call this a 'depression,' or predict a return to bread lines, work camps and street urchins peddling apples on the streets."

Unemployment rates in the U.S. are expected to peak "somewhere shy of 9%, jobless rates won't match the nearly 11% reached in 1981/82, let alone the peak of 25% during the Depression". What we have here is a rather bad recession, - but certainly more in line with 1975, 1981/82 and the early 1990's. The future of this recession bears little resemblance to the Great Depression of the 1930's, and when politicians and newspapers and TV heads shriek disaster and desolation it is wise to keep the statistics relevant.

It's always a mistake to do the ostrich routine, and hide one's head in the sand, but on the other hand when hard times strike it is fatal to collapse and wait for the catastrophe to rush over one.

Confidence, if not a miracle worker, can set a country on the right track. Libin cites a nationwide fireside chat that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made in 1933, when America's banking system was on the brink of collapse and a fifth of the country's financial institutions were out of business, - when people had started a run on the remaining banks' cash, preferring a bird in the hand to one in what they perceived to be an unsafe bush in the banks.

"Roosevelt, having ordered the banks closed, spoke to a rattled and frightened nation.....he explained the basics of how banks worked, why they needed cash deposits, why most remained sturdy and the plan to gradually reopen them.

He concluded "You people must have faith, you must not be stampeded by rumours or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. Together we cannot fail.

When the first banks began to reopen the following day, thousands of clients were lined up outside, ready to redeposit their money. America was soothed."


I am dismayed that the world has, unconsciously, become so materialistic. And I think about the 'simple' life and the virtues and peace it brings with it. What we need is basic food and shelter. What we have in addition are the safety nets of Unemployment Insurance and Medicare.

Why do we want so much more? We struggle to obtain luxuries, and call them our 'standard of living' - we put all our energies into accumulating 'things' and are terrified at the thought of doing without them.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
William Wordsworth



People do live 'marginal' lives quite happily, - even now.

I had a beloved friend whose motto was 'things will always be someway', - and that is true. Things will always be someway, and if we have courage and confidence we will cope with whatever way they are.

Keven Libin's article did not linger long in the paper. It did not inspire too many comments, - certainly not the comments that bad news and startling statistics engender, - alas!

It is time to strengthen the sinews of our hearts, embrace a ton of confidence, be unafraid, live prudently, but not miserly, enjoy small pleasures, be happy... and remember that Roosevelt, in his inaugural address in 1933, also made this statement

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

These words of Emily Dickinson, - I find them poignant and am mindful of them as February advances slowly and erratically into spring.

Last night I slept fitfully. When I wakened early in the morning, about two a.m., the moon cast a bright light to the north, and I lay watching it through the upper window, enchanted with the porcelain glow.

I didn't fall back to sleep immediately, and when I finally closed my eyes I drifted into that state of wakeful sleep, where you are conscious of being on the cusp, and your mind is still busily sorting and shifting and filing the day into the little drawers of the brain (or the heart, or the soul - I am confident that some things we remember in the heart and those are the things that stay with us to the end).

I woke, again and again, and then drifted back into the same dreamlike state, until finally I was conscious enough to control my thoughts and began to plan the coming day.

I would go into the garden! And so was born Hope. I would go into the garden with a shovel and move some of the drifted snow off the patio and the pathway, and perhaps a little where the bulbs are planted and where the Lenten Roses grow, to see if spring lay waiting beneath the snow that melts by day and freezes by night.

What a lovely plan, but first of all I must feed the birds, and make some vegetable soup for lunch and change the linen on the beds..and then I must go and pick up a friend to go to a ladies' meeting. And then, of course, it was time for happy hour, and dinner, and I never did get into the garden, even though I dreamt and hoped that life was stirring beneath the softened snow.

Well, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings...." and tomorrow is another day.

September Day in the Garden

Early this morning when Caspar and I went walking there was the faintest aroma of skunk, again.

Can this be considered a sign of spring, - or was Mother Skunk just turning over in her comfy bed under the neighbour's outshed?????

No matter, the Groundhog saw his shadow, but my sister and my husband both discount the Groundhog's influence over the weather.

So I will go with Maw Skunk, and look forward to seeing her soon on her daybreak stroll, - with her little ones trailing behind.....

Let me tell you, nigh on to sixty-four years of marriage and six children can engender a rattling number of pictures, photos, snaps - and this is not counting the years we used a movie camera!

Nigh on to sixty four years of marriage and six children, (plus the cows and the sheep and the orchard and the work outside the farm and husband's fatal attraction to Directorships) - well, it doesn't leave much time to sit down and organize the pictures.

They get left out to look at, and then finally are put away (neatly) in boxes. However, by the time they have been riffled through by various children, or parents, the lack of organized filing is sadly apparent.

I think that probably in the last ten years I have been nudged by the urgency of 'getting things in order' at least a dozen times. I make a start on the job, full of enthusiasm. But you know how it is looking through pictures, - you linger here, over a long forgotten picture, and your mind wanders back as you reminisce about the time and place and the people and the circumstances.

Soon it is time to get supper, or go to town, or someone visits, and everything gets shoved back into the box until another day.

Now that age and mobility preclude us from cross country skiing or any of the other winter pleasures we used to indulge in, there is more time to poke through the pictures boxes and reminisce.

And that is what Charles and I did for a good part of the day.....

To get to the nub of the matter, - last July, when I wrote about cherry pies, and the picking of cherries, I looked for a picture of my father-in-law, taken when he was cutting down one of the large Lambert cherry trees in his orchard.

Today I found the picture.....



At the time of this adventure at the top of the cherry tree my father-in-law was past his mid sixties! Charles says his mother probably took the picture, all the while muttering imprecations. And small prayers, I would think....

The 20 foot ladder set half way up the tree is the base from which his father started his climb, sawing off branches as he went. A brave and careful man, - he lived to 102.

Cherry trees then were much larger and more robust that the convenient espaliered rows you find today. And as a consequence orchardists, if they were not larger and more robust, had at least to be sure of foot, nimble and finely balanced!

He who was chosen to pick the top of the tree had to have an accomplice. They went out early in the morning, equipped with pails and ropes, and the cherry picker passed his full buckets down to the ground where it was emptied and sent back up to be refilled. All morning, until noon, his deft fingers gathered the fruit, running the round, sweet cherries along his hand and into the bucket.

As I remember the children always came in with wine stained lips at cherry picking time, and although I didn't eat many cherries while picking them I was a devil when it came to tree ripened apricots!!

O what would the fellows who come around with booms and trucks to tidy up trees say about this daring entrepreneurship.


(When questioned as to what his father was carrying, up there in the blue, Charles replied, ' probably a parachute'.....)

We will be back to the pictures and the memories again tomorrow,,unless the sun shines and distracts us!

A week ago today we climbed the pass, searching for sun and blue skies, and here at the top we found not what we were looking for, but beauty nonetheless...



"...the hand that shaped the rose has wrought the crystal of the snow, has sent the silvery frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed, and laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field" Frances Whitmarsh Wile, 1914


This morning's sunrise heralded a day that gradually grew warmer and kinder to old bones and spirits grown weary of Old Man Winter roaring around the hills, and the biting wind that accompanies him. A mild day, - even the faintest and first intimations of February thaws.



A good day to see things settling down somewhat in Parliament, but at what cost???

Last night I watched the media interview an auto worker, laid off. His wife had also lost her job.

Well, to be generous, he may not have been one of the autoworkers who have been making $70.00 and hour, - he may have only been making $50.00 an hour, - but it makes me very uncomfortable to think that a couple who have had two incomes and who are both drawing Unemployment Insurance should be in such dire straits that they expect the government to rescue them, and the industry that supports them, with a wildly indulgent, throwing-all-caution-to-the-winds-budget.

Hard times come to most of us sometime in our lives. And how we accept them and cope with them is surely indicative of our inner strength.

It dismays me that materialism has become a way of life, - that the thought of having to lower our standard of living is so terrifying.

There are not many still living who struggled with the hardships of the Dirty Thirties. What was there to relieve the dreadful economic times? There was no Unemployment Insurance, but there were Work Camps.





There were no great Infrastructure plans, but you could work on the roads for a few pennies a day...

Thousands of men traveled by rail, searching for jobs....



My grandparents lived close to the rail yards, - their gate was marked with the hobo symbol indicating kindness and generosity within.

Out on the farm if you had no gas to get to town, there was always the Bennettbuggy..



These are the days that not one of us could wish back. These are the days that cause the 'ancients' to still save string, and to fix and mend and make do. But amongst the heart ache and desolation that those years brought there was a strengthening of character, a bonding, a sense of community and an awareness and compassion for each other that inevitably resulted in good times and laughter and appreciation. And a pride in being able to withstand, - a knowledge of your own strength and your capacity to persevere and endure.

I ask myself if this childish reliance on government will at sometime destroy our civilization. O morbid thought....

If we could only temper our 'wants' and be content with our 'needs'.

Oh how does one pass the winter months when the joys of ice and snow and clear cold air and prairie sunshine and blue skies and the band playing on Wednesday night at the skating rink are all just a fond and faded memory??

Well, one can bake - muffins usually.

Or read - still devouring Ackroyd's London Tome and his history of the River Thames. To embellish these I have The Golden Age of the Thames by Patricia Burstall, an entertaining story of the frivolous life on the Thames above Richmond between 1870 and 1914. It is 'a poignant evocation of a golden age before the carnage of World War 1 made a mockery of its innocence'. And the pictures are delightful. I especially look for references to Teddington, where my grandparents were married and where all their children were born and baptised, including my mother, of course.

They lived on Luther Street, and just around the corner was the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, - this is the new version. The old church was damaged and demolished in the Second World War. As was their home on Luther Street.



And as a little light dessert after a reading of 'London', I have 'The Four Londons of William Hogarth', - a gossipy little tale of London in the mid 1700's.

I read with interest -

"This corner of London, near to St. Bartholomew's, was where the weavers had settled, as you could tell by the steady clack-clack of heddles, the regular thump-thump of batten on beam. Even had you been deaf as a post you'd have known by the street names, Cloth Fair and Cloth Court, and among these of old taverns and inns, long vanished, such as Rising Sun Court, Barley Mow Passage and Half Moon Court. The houses, wattle and daub, half-timbered as in the days of the Tudors, had escaped the Great Fire of 1666, and leaned their heads across the narrow passages, seeming to gossip of time long gone when London Town had liv ed almost entirely within its protecting walls. Now it was spreading outward, a rising tide, north and west, embracing moor and marsh and farmland as the lusty thriving population expanded year by year and the beginning of the Inclosure Acts deprived the country folk of wood and grazing ground, bringing them hopefully to London to seek new livelihoods.

But the weavers had been here for a hundred years and more; they were cockney born, though many still spoke their native tongue and the powerful Cloth Guild held a mort of Flemish members. There was a song they sang sometimes; they were singing it now, to the thump of the treadles.

'The weaver knows his shuttle
The shepherd knows his dog.
Clack, clack, clack! Bow wow wow!' "

Having both a shepherd in the family and a weaver I have an empathy for those East Londoners who worked so hard at their trades, whilst to me weaving has been a wonderfully fulfilling hobby.

My grandfather was a Milk Boy in Hammersmith in the latter part of the 19th century. I am fascinated to read of the villages, the streams and the country-side that gradually disappeared as London stretched and grew.

These are both mighty weighty books, and in between I knit (socks) and lose myself in technology that enables us to transfer taped interviews with pioneers to more permanent and secure CD's. I am blown away by the advance from the ham radio my father had in our basement to the fabulous cell phones my grandchildren sport, - and which I also covet!!

I also dream about gardens, tend the recalcitrant amarylis and Christmas cactus, wash a little woodwork now and then. I play a bit of Scott Joplin and skim over the hymns for Sunday organ playing. We watch the birds, and feed them copiously, and somehow the winter passes. As the days grow longer our spirits rise, and the lengthening light strengthens the sinews of the soul....

Well, it is time to go and play cards and feed the little dog his biccies before we go out for a small walk...and so to bed...

Blue skies.
Smiling at me....
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see.

Happy faces hereabouts, - even the dust is lying around smirking in the sunshine....

Some thoughts...

My days seem fractured, - a week of damp, gloomy, shrouded weather have left me feeling sapped of energy and enthusiasm. Not despondent, not despairing and not dejected - just entertaining a little melancholy.....

I play a little music and read a bit (The Last Lecture and Peter Ackroyd's 'Sacred River).

Thoughts of warping the loom pass through my mind, but before I can do the math they dissipate amongst the clouds.

I contemplate the state of the kitchen cupboards and my bureau drawers, and if I tackle one I am momentarily exhilarated, but alas, not enough to engender a full blown clean out.

Husband is attempting a DIY method of transferring some precious pioneer tape interviews to CD, the better to preserve them. I call upon all sources of grace to preserve my patience and contain my frustration. I have so little knowledge to help him, but search the net for answers, - suspecting all the while that the only sane answer is to go to an electronic shop and buy a dratted machine that does the job in the wink of an eye, and with as little effort.

This project takes up many a morning hour, and I suppose at one and the same time it is a bane and a blessing to have this 'togetherness'......if you know what I mean!

I made a couple of apple pies the other day, and that lifts the spirits. So does the eating of them, but alas, they are all gone now.

I have a little bowl of creamy hyacinths just coming into bloom, and the late potted amaryllis are starting to thrust the beginnings of sturdy green stems through the round, rough bulbs.

The Christmas cactus, which refused to acknowledge the season, has lovely quarter inch buds on it...and the quail come twice a day to feed...

All is not lost, - the sun will return, or we will go to Penticton and search it out where it shines on the high passes. And Groundhog Day is only a couple of weeks away. I will be very cross if we have endured all these dark, glum, shadowless days only to have it bright and sunny on the 2nd of February.

I yearn for spring and early mornings in the garden....

Well, so much for the weatherman and his forecast for Sunshine in the Similkameen - the digital sun glowed on his weather map, promising a bright and energetic day.

But alas...we wakened to fog and frost.







About ten-thirty a frail, veiled sun momentarily broke through the clouds, and looked mournfully down at that silly woman hurrying to get a picture of Sunshine in the Similkameen....



Husband and I are sitting back to back in the computer room, sorting through drawers and disks.

A treasure, - we found a dozen or so glass magic lantern slides from his childhood, - held up to the window images of Winnie the Pooh and his friends, gamboling on a green meadow from long, long ago!

Growing old holds many pleasures, and memory has a favoured place....

To lift the gloom of mist and fog a trip to town this afternoon took me through a fairyland of frosted trees that reminded me of Narnia when the Ice Queen reigned, - perfectly splendid and perfectly romantic in an ethereal kind of way.

Finally, - a sunny day.



In the mornings the mist has been gathering along the Similkameen, rising skyward until it hid the hills. Above the low, thin cloud that shut off the light and brought an eerie gloom to the valley the sun shone brightly on the upper hills and over the passes. I thought about my prairie childhood, where the sky was blue, the snow glistened and crackled beneath your feet, and the sun cheered you along your way as you walked in the frosty air.

The quail that live in the big brush pile came regularly for wheat, making their way across the pasture, oblivious to the mists that swirled and intent only on breakfast.
The small birds hover above them pecking at the wild bird seed and spilling a few seeds for friends on the ground. They were joined by a redheaded woodpecker, not interested in the wheat, but pecking in the gravel of the roadway, free of snow.



The day started with a gentle pink flush...



Along the river the mists gathered and rose with the faint air currents.





By mid morning the trees were still frosty, but the hills were shining under a blue flax sky.



Caspar and I strolled leisurely, enjoying the the sun, - and he slipping and sliding on the ice at the side of the road that soon grew soft and mellow under the sun's rays.

When we arrived at the door he went along in and I dug a little pathway to the loom room trailer and went in and retrieved the table loom, - filled with enthusiasm to make some crib blankets for the little guys who will soon be having birthdays.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring more sunshine to the Similkameen.....

The Frailities of Memory

In the foreword to his Collected Stories Wallace Stegnor says of autobiography:

'I am not to be trusted with it. I hate the restrictiveness of facts. I can't control my impulse to rearrange, suppress, add, heighten, invent and improve. Accuracy means less to me than suggestiveness; my memory is as much an inventor as a recorder'.


And in his foreword to 'Trying to Save Piggy Sneed', an autobiography, John Irving writes:

'This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false. A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have. Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.'

A few years ago I put together a small book of childhood memories as a genealogical effort. I was inspired by the excitement and satisfaction I had experienced whenever I found a tidbit about the life of one of the ancestors, and the yearning I felt to know more of the times they lived in, of their personalities, their passions, and the circumstances of their lives.

I tried very hard to write things as I remembered them; not to embellish or rearrange or invent. However, even then I was painfully aware that the integrity of our memories does not always bear up with those who have shared the same childhood experiences, and I have long been puzzled that memories of the same childhood experiences can be recalled positively by one person and unhappily by another.

Recent neurological research into the process by which the brain stores both working (short term) and long term memories are fascinating, but I have yet to read anything about the interpretation of the memory in respect to the way we receive it and the effect it has upon our lives.

Suzanne Warren, while a student at Bryn Mawr, expands upon the contents of a book 'The Society of Mind' written by Marvin Minsky, a philosopher and scientist and a leading expert on artificial intelligence. In this book he presents his conception of human intellectual structure and function, and defines memory as a holistic neural activity, involving many different areas and processes of the brain in an intricately choreographed dance. .

I have taken part in a U.K. online experiment to test Short Term Memory, and discovered the secrets of remembering small lists, and whether, when I pause on the landing, I can remember if I am going upstairs or downstairs.

But it is the secrets of Long Term memory that intrigue me.

I am sure that my childhood engendered unhappy memories, but it is the happy memories that are prevalent in my recall. Why is this so? I have a feeling that it is all caught up in the controversy regarding spiritualism/materialism and the argument concerning the existence of a Soul.

A great number of years ago I attended a class on creative writing, and was criticized for the lack of a counterpoint of laughter and tears, and of 'hurt' flowing through the pages of a project on childhood memories. Probably a very valid criticism when considering the quality and appeal of the writing, but I can remember at the time questioning my memory and searching for the hurt and tears which would have made my writing more acceptable.

I continue to be mystified by the relative qualities of our long term memory, and uncomfortable when I consider that the memories that are dear and familiar to me are not necessarily the plain unvarnished truth! When a tune, or a fragrance helps me to re-experience a moment from the past I would like to think that the happiness it engenders has some integrity!

Here is a picture from the past that makes me smile, an affectionate memory of a day of cousins that brings me pleasure.



Were we really that sunny, or were there small slights and hurts that happened that if I had been of a different disposition would darken the memory for me???

Nice that there is time to contemplate these questions.

And to discover more about Marvin Minsky. After a cursory perusal of his writing and his thoughts I am considering that Marvin Minsky has many theories to de-mystify the human experience. Is this good??? Well, probably quite splendid to a humanist.....

The rising sun caught the clouds,




and the quail came up from the meadow to breakfast alfresco in the mild morning air



a heavy mist rolled in from the south, but the sun worked his magic



and turned the fog to whipped cream clouds in a beautiful blue bowl




And all before ten o'clock this morning......

Amazing!

How go the Resolutions, Horatio!!!

The Resolve : to live a focused life...
a simpler life.
A cleaner life (that refers to my careless housekeeping)
and a more mindful life.. (translated: don't forget to take bags to the grocery store, - you will never be able to recycle all those plastic bags into doormats!)

Well, yesterday I took five cloth bags to the grocery store and felt immensely 'green' as I handed them across the counter. Virtuous, and pleased with myself.

When I came home and unloaded them, still feeling pure and Polly Anne-ish, I left them in an accessible place for next time shopping.

One swallow does not a summer make, and I can see I am going to have to nurture this habit before I can feel truly righteous.

For some time I have been examining the kitchen cupboards, the linen closet, the cobwebs on the ceiling, - all with my Company Eyes.

This morning, when Husband went singing (as a matter of fact I didn't hear him leave, I was so enthusiastically hauling things off the pantry shelves...) I planned to be doubly efficient. I would do the Pantry, which has been all higgeldy piggeldy for too many moons, and Roomba, the Christmas vacuum, would do the carpets....

I went to tell Ruumba the plans! She was plugged into her Port, but sadly, someone (Husband says it was the Cat) had knocked the electrical cord partly out of the wall, and instead of her green light shining at me all was quiet in Roomba Land. I plugged her in, and the orange charging light came on.

Nonplussed (well, fairly nonplussed) I returned to the Pantry while Roomba charged her batteries.

What amazing things I found tucked into corners and behind the front six inches which is the most active part of the Pantry shelves.... I threw things away, wiped down containers, found two jars of Mincemeat in addition to the one I bought this year. Every once in a while I would go and check on Roomba, but she seemed to be enjoying herself with the recharger, and was taking her time about getting ready for work.

Half way through I heard # 3 Son plowing the snow around the house. Once more into the breach, dear boy. Yesterday's snow piled another few inches on the road and it seems a never ending job to keep it clear.

I ran from window to window, and finally caught his eye to wave our thanks.

Eventually Roomba reluctantly turned on her green light and declared herself ready to work. I returned to the pantry while she scooted around and around the floor. The Dog found a safe spot out of her way. The Cat was terribly curious at first, and I thought she might jump on for a ride, but in a while she turned away in disdain and got up on the top of the couch to watch the quail eating under the bird-feeders.

I was through in the Pantry before Roomba had barely got started, so I had a shower, and when I came out I could hear her gentle hum, but couldn't see her, - until she came whizzing out from under the buffet.....

After a while she stopped, and when I went to investigate a pleasant voice politely asked me to check and clean Roomba's brushes, - which I did and soon she was back doing her cheerful merry-go-round act.

Time for Husband to come home from his morning outing, - I put the soup on to heat, - Roomba went back to her Port to rest, - every once in a while when I went past the Pantry I opened the door and glowed at the neat and tidy shelves.

A good morning's work, and that took care, momentarily, of the housekeeping Resolve.

I still have the Simpler life and the more Focused life to deal with, but I think that getting ancient eventually ordains that we shall not run around wildly doing myriad things that tire us out and distract us from the Mindfulness of life.

Had a nice nap this afternoon, and then Caspar and I went for a Simply lovely walk...
while the pleasures of a clean and tidy Pantry kept popping into my mind....



Perhaps I should just leave the door open so that I can be inspired about the Linen Closet, too.