Saint Paddy's Day

"Drink! Drink! Drink! St. Paddy's Day is here! Drink!Drink! Drink! I'll now enjoy some beer. Drink! Drink! Drink! and when the day is done, I'll rest a bit, put on me hat and have some Purim fun!!

This year Saint Patricks Day is followed on the heels by Purim. Two wild days. I thought I would have time to spend on my island work, but that was not to be. I was too tired..

So I gaze into the shadows once again..my memoir sprawls across a table, piles of papers, memories, photos and albumns. I must have faith that it will see the light of day, even as it is submerged in the shadows now..

faith, so I must.

Shining a light

Not much to say.. it is deep winter now..the blizzard buried us, we shoveled out and here we are.

Tonight it has been raining....and soon it will all freeze.

I honor winter's deep internal time and rhythms. I usually return to my island musings in the winter and now I feel the clock tick again, as usual.

But...I am busy helping and being with my parents. So all I do now is shine a light on my papers and photos and drawings. I turn on a small lamp with mirrors on the lampshade and keep it lit as I sit here typing.

It is a small symbol for me...a beacon of hope and light that I will find time to turn to it once more.

I shine a light on that archive of work.

If I had stayed.

My huaband and I go out to our country place for a day. It's been a while since I was there and I am eager to see our place again, even though it is falling to the ground.

Our wonderful neighbor has a house that is more like a museum. It is a folk art assemblage of fantastic pieces he has collected over the years. Truly amazing pieces that are arranged fastidiously.

He is a generous person who always has a little mini rummage sale and free table on his front porch. I gaze over the assemblage of objects and pick out the well carved wooden piece of an old woman. A carved piece of wood of an old woman clutching her shawl about her. She gazes at me, smiling with her wrinkles lined up with the grain of the wood.
Smiling and old, just the way I would look had I stayed. Had I stayed in the old cottage that would be me now. Walking the island byways and paths with my old shawl clutched round me.
would i be married? ( ah..that handsome redhaired man I fancied?) or would i be a single woman, living out a hermit's life in my old cottage...
"ah faith going on 30 years now, the creature...ah yes, she came years ago and just never left...ah the creature...she goes to mass regular...she does...some say she's an american..but faith if she isn't an islander now."

yes. Thirty years could have passed on by, and I could still be there. Tending my fire, and perhaps having written my book I would be fine so.

There in wood is carved the life I never led, had I stayed on the island...yes, carved in wood there is the woman I never became.

she rests now, on my table, in a small beautiful bowl of walnut halves...kind of an Irish Venus rising up from some kind of inner beauty....all carved and wrinkled...lines in her face like the grain of wood she is carved from...

That could have been me. Instead I pick up a reminder from a friend's table. Musing on what might have been.

The Forager

It's an early spring here in the Midwest. We are all led outside into the bright sunshine....and I linger by my favorite swimming beach...pushing ahead the date of my first swim because it is already so warm.
I take a short walk by the lake. There by the side of the path are young nettles. I gingerly gather a bunch and bring them home in a plastic bag. On my next walk I gather more and finally I set out one evening last week before the sun set to gather a whole bag.
That bag waited in the refrigerator for two days. I googled "nettle soup" on the Internet and ended up on a Romanian blog. Just to think that my ancestors in far off Romania probably gathered nettles to eat in the spring gives me some kind of comfort.But the labyrinth of the Internet is somehow funny to me. Just google a word, and click a link and who knows where you will end up.
I recalled the recipes I had seen and chopped the onions, the garlic and potatoes. All this went into an old dutch oven that sat on top of the stove..Soon I added in the green nettles to simmer a while...and so they did...memory simmered too..and soon I was recalling my life on the island as a forager of seaweed, limpids and blackberries. Whatever the season brought I gathered. The old islanders told me the good times, the good tides and so off I went with my bag, my dog to the back of the island. There I waded into the low tide to gather carrageen, to gather kranach. Seaweed writhing in the low tides. My dog sniffing around. And once in a while my gaze drifting to the far off shore that I knew was out there. America. Somewhere far away...
Bright sunlight, low tide, me clad in my simple clothes picking the seaweed. Musing now on that moment I feel a sense of wonder at the simplicity of it all. Little did I know the mermaid of musing and recollection drifted nearby...that the particular moment I waded into would be retrieved decades later on a laptop only to be posted to a blog on the Internet. Innocence was mine.

Walking back I carried my heavy wet sack of seaweed back to the old cottage. If I met anyone they would smile and sure didn't I know then that the whole island would soon know where I had been and how much I gathered. My life as a forager.

Back at the cottage I either spread the carrageen out on the wall to dry and bleach to a white brittleness or I spread out the purplish kranach to dry. I would boil up the carrageen with milk and strain out the sand to make a crude pudding. The kranach would either be boiled up into a bright green mass that I ate hungrily with my potatoes or I would munch on the dried strands. Protein and calcium and salt.

An anguished foraging took place when I gathered limpids. Down by the sea's edge I pried the shells off the rocks and threw them into a bucket. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Back home I poured boiling water over the little creatures and then boiled up the lot of them in my iron dutch oven over the fire. Not unlike the one I made my nettle soup in. One batch of limpid soup turned out delicious, the other one like rubber bands. Such is the unfortunate life of a forager.

Now I forage for more memories of my island life and I recall my dear friend Noni.
She was the wise spinster sister of my landlord who knew every bit of news on the island. She was my friend. I recall going out to pick periwinkles with her at the western side of the island. With a wry smile she told me how the old people used to gather them for food. So here I was, a 23 year old foraging with her at the sea's edge for a meal. We gathered up the precious spiraled shells. Back in her old thatched cottage we poured boiling water over them. She showed me how to carefully remove the sliver of scale from the edge with a needle and then pull out the membrane. Not as tough as limpids, more delicate and somehow kind of good with butter over them. She told me more tales of island life as we ate the periwinkels.

Now she is long gone and I sit here remembering. Knowing that as I forage among my memories, there is a lot more to say....

The nettles cooked up great. I pureed the whole batch again and again, ending up with a thick green soup that was actually very delicious with some salt and pepper and tamari. Full of green vitamins, I felt revtalized eating it!!! Nourished by my foraging at the side of the road....and now nourished by my foraging among memories from long ago.

The Wake

Here in 2010 I find myself very busy in March as the snow melts and spring starts to appear on the horizon. My cell phone rings all day long and I drive here and there. I look back to my quiet island life with some solace thinking of it's utter simplicity now that my life is so complex.

My life then, my life now.

My life then: solitude, coal fire, daily weaving, letters from my parents who were busy with their lives, a kind of wistful longing, walks to the shore, meals by myself.

My life now: so many doctor appointments for my parents, watching them age, living with my husband, meals with him, our own house, driving, Internet, cell phone, wistful looks at the pile of island memorabilia on the table by the stairs.

I think back to my island life. How deeply it acquainted me with solitude,and death.
So now, I think back to the rhythm of island life. I am back on the island in early march. Everyone is busy getting the gardens ready for spring, hauling seaweed up in baskets on the back of a donkey. Laying that seaweed down in rows. Cutting the seed potatoes just so. The island stirs back to life. A few tourists are seen. And in the midst of the cycle of the island coming back to life old Petey dies. In fact, right in front of me as I make my way to Mass. There I am walking to mass that Sunday and faith if he isn't walking ahead of me.So he is...And then he falls, and that's it.
Ah sure, the word goes around fast, faith Petey's dead so he is. Petey is a fine strong man from the Formna village. His face had been creased in grief for a long time over the untimely death of his wife...and now he finds his peace.

Somewhere on the island a simple wooden coffin is pounded together. If you listen carefully you can hear the nails being pounded into the sides...and soon, all too soon, the lid.

But first the wake. I know the island rhythm now and I walk carefully up to the house where the wake is held. I push open the door and walk in. A solemn atmosphere fills the quiet space. I am handed a glass of whiskey, or sherry. I sip it quietly, knowing what to do next. Yes, I am now woven into island life and so it is that I am woven in.

When the time is right, I go into the back bedroom where a woman sits with the body. There he is, old Petey. All quiet and at rest, Catholic rest. He has the traditional brown cassock worn by the faithful at the time of death. His cold hands are clutched round the rosary and sure when the talk went round about Petey's death wasn't everyone after saying...that ah sure Petey died on the way to mass....and faith he never missed a day of mass...ah sure, tis how it tis so...what a holy man. and now he lies there.

I take my seat in the aft room again. Eating the proffered cakes and drinking another glass of something strong. I am sure I say the right things, or at least I try to.
Even though I was a single woman I had visited Petey several times on the island. A glint in his eye and a glint in the eye of other's that, faith, now there's a good match for you.
But not even a fledgling romance occurred and now he's dead. And I have taken my place at the wake. Solemn and sad.

Somewhere in my soul there is a Jewish spark flying around, even at that moment. Wondering and wandering, I know my soul is from somewhere else, but where will it land? There's a similar relationship to death between the Catholics and the Jews. The body is never left alone and is placed in a simple coffin. Catholic, Jew, Christian. All, all of it ends in the great mystery. I attend to that moment now, here as winter ends on the tundra.

I walk by the creek here in Minneapolis. There is a lovely reflection of the trees and the melting snow in the waters that are starting to rush by. I sit down and look into those waters. I sit there quietly as spring starts to warm the ice and melt it. I sit there as memory rushes by. I am lucky. I have my memories and my reflections of my island life. Perhaps it all starts to thaw now. The creek of memory is full now, it rushes by and then I am carried away by it...tumbling, tumbling all the way down to the great river which I fasten myself to all the way out to sea.

What you find in old boxes.

Yes it's a long winter. Long as in long. February 17th and I have worked a long day. My distractibilty is a symptom of my fatigue, but I follow it.

Instead of finishing off those paintings of my cat that I started the other night in order to commemorate him...finally, or just watching the Olympics or preparing my props for the Rumi show I am doing in a few days I just drift...Yes, I just drift like a mermaid and go upstairs to the watery place of memory and my island life.

It's crowded in that corner of the house. Is it the boxes of letters and outlines for my memoir? Or is it just the way emotion crowds in for me around that experience? Both. It's dusty. I have not sorted things out and my years of journals shout from the corner.

I won't attempt any organizing tonight. I'll just dive right into a box and see what I find. I am a deep sea diver and the box I choose is a long one. It says Dining Room on it...marked from our move of four years ago. I have a feeling I know what's inside...some rolled up paintings and what else?

There they are are, the most humble drawings I've done. Simple drawings on cardboard from boxes sent to me....Drawings on cardboard of the interior of my old cottage.

I took some photos of them and will tell you about them now. Ah, sure here they are for the tellling..the most simple, humble drawings a person could do.

A drawing of the side room with Joe's hat and a wooden hanger on the wall. Lace curtain at the window.

One small drawing of Joe's hat.

An easy to read drawing of the church and environs.

The most simple drawing of them all. A bag of coal and my pile of coal outside the back door.

What else is in the box? Other paintings I did not even photograph.

A whole collection of cardboard objects that I carefully drew all over....with loop de loop lines.

Crosses, lots of crosses..I was so trying to be Catholic then. Lots of hearts, some with crosses, an anchor and other mystical symbols that I am not even sure about. I did not photograph this collection yet.

And there. The simple handmade blouse with heart buttons that I made for myself. Stitched, stitch by stitch with flowers and utter simplicity and modesty. No bosom will show. Wearing this simple garment I will be as utterly modest and forsaken as any island woman could be.

I will post these items now.

Is there an interested PUBLISHER out there for this project?

Greetings. In the midst of posting these new and old entries from my past I would like to put it out there that I am very interested to find a publisher for the Memoir that I have compiled about this long ago experience in my life.
I have organized memoir essays that detail my life on the island as well as reflecting on the present moment I am in. I have a cartoon graphic novel about my relationship to the storyteller whose cottage I lived in. Fortunately I also have lots of photographs and more drawings than you can shake a stick at. (every brushstroke is a blessing!!) I have worked over this material for years. It is ready to be delivered to the public. Who will be the mid wife? Who will help me?

In the meantime it is winter. I rest inside my memories, my sweet dear memories of Inisheer from so long ago.
Now here I sit at my laptop computer, my cell phone rings, the CD music drifts up from downstairs. I recall my simple existence with no running water or electricity. I remember sitting by the coal fire in the long evenings reading War and Peace or drawing the intricate details of my beautiful cottage....the cottage of the old storyteller...I recall listening to the radio with exactly one choice of station..I remember it all and I fan out my peacock tail of stories...ready to tell you...ready to publish..ready for completion.