Portrait of my sister

Portrait of my sister
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

Jeanie is a quilter. We're putting together her website, but since I only know the long, ancient kind of coding and she is prolific, it seems to be taking—well—years. This one, I Think of Merlee, is hand quilted (she can't help herself). Her first class was in 1983, and now she herself teaches. She doesn't have the luxury of doing this full time, but over the years she's created many beautiful quilts from bed size to small wall hangings and pillows.

Often in a large family, each child gets known for a particular skill or talent. I was driven inside to draw and paint as a kid, so everyone called me an artist. Jeanie was accomplished in many areas, and had lightening fingers when it came to typing. After college, she emerged as a star tennis player and coach. Had her own typing business. Her ad said, "People I type for come back." And they did for years, here in this university town. Now she works at a Montessori school.

But inside her there's always been an artist. Always looking and learning and questioning, with ideas to express and no end in sight. And if you are someone who must make what you envision, then most often, somehow, you've got to sell it. For most of us a it is a hideous interference with what we really want to do. Nevermind competition, trying to make shows, become known. Now cheap quilts from China on sale everywhere .

I never stop being amazed at her versatility, her ability to choose from stacks and stacks of fabric, to make the hundreds of decisions required, step by laborious step, to create her vibrant designs in cloth, each with a life of its own. And the diligence needed to quilt endless roads of perfectly uniform stitches. Her quilts bring me joy. She continues to inspire me.

Sunday night dinner

Sunday night dinner
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

The subject is horses

The subject is horses
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

This morning, while Jeanie sleeps in their Argosy trailer, and Andre relaxes at the computer after chasing down runaway Sam in the next block, Bob feeds his newest of three horses. You know what I'm doing. And yes, there is a fence between them and me.

These things made me feel good on Friday:

• Searching for the repair shop in the morning, I saw three kids walking slowly by the road in town. Two girls—an older brunette teen and a blonde younger one, unsmiling. Desultory, and sultry—both in skirts, both with huge orange tiger lillies in their hair. The blonde 9 year old brother, head down, smiling about something, following.

• We stopped at the family restaurant in the truck stop. Went into the now familiar smell of cigarette smoke and food. Passing the salad bar, I spotted homemade. Homemade coleslaw. That's what I ordered. Then the french fries I saw on their way to another table. Since Andre had finished his peach cobbler a la mode, we shared the fries. Another gray-haired couple, older than we were, sat down together. When she got up to go to the salad bar, I saw her from the back, long-legged in jeans. I traveled right into the wide open spaces of her brown-toned western shirt: one horse, some mountains, big sky. Perfect. After awhile he got up and headed toward the salad bar. Same shirt. Same strangely engaging fantasy.

• I drove in the heat, wind and passing tractor trailer trucks tearing at me. No other music. The Bounder held steady at 58mph. Even following, I was so free. The sun got redder and redder. Sank. Dusk returned. We made it to Joplin. Past Joplin. No traffic, no towns. Near the Arkansas state line, the air, already smelling more familiar since Missouri, changed. In the dark that smell took me home.

• From the McDonald's parking lot in Arkansas, I took the lead. It was dark. Traffic was heavy. I left messages for my sister, We are coming tonight after all. And I looked again at the directions, and remembered park near the gas pumps. The Bounder followed so slowly, the Friday night traffic speeding by. Familiar towns. Then Jeanie called back from the mall, and they're on the way to meet us. Six exits for Fayetteville. Finally ours, right turn at the end. Straining to see, to find the Wal-mart sign, the last stoplight, the last turn into the lot. Parking beside the Bounder. Andre comes out smiling with Elvis. I get the eager Sam, then Phuphuu. No sign of Jeanie and Bob. Sam happily exploring dark patches on the asphalt, snatching something up and gulping it down, moving on. We stand between the car and the Bounder. A van noses up the steep lane by the gas pumps. I see the outline of my sister, her hand waving. Bob at the wheel. The doors open. She is tall, cool in her shorts and t-shirt, her beautiful gray hair just cut. Smiling. Hugging me tight. Bob and Andre hugging. Bob and me hugging. Jeanie and Andre hugging. Happiness and relief bloom in a parking lot. Later, Jeanie tells me— touching her chest—she told Andre, you will have a special place in my heart. She says he said, I delivered her to you. Something like that.

Following, at sunset

Following, at sunset
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

Happy Valley RV Repair, no, Purcell's, no, Cole 'N' Sons' Tire & Auto

So it's like we're on a cross-country treasure hunt, charged to find out what the Bounder's real problem is. We left Price Automotive in Eureka in high spirits around 1pm thursday. The paid bill must have left them in high spirits too. I have to admit to a fleeting burst of sadness as we knew we were truly leaving the area and Price's hospitality.

Oh so hot out. The buffet at the Flying J down the road in Sullivan was delightful. Melon, white cake, enchiladas, green (truly) beans almondine, coleslaw. Ah. Those few moments of innocent pleasure before the anxiety began. Again. The same rigamarole started somewhere near the Ft. Leonard Wood exit of I-44. The mechanics we consulted there guessed vaporlock. Bounder literature warns about gas with methanol in it, and it's in all the gas we can get. So we parked for a few hours there in a truck stop and let everything cool off. We took off again and the first hill brought problems. Or the second. We're in hill country here. But everything is fine. It is. We were able to sputter into a great little RV park and had a good night there.

When it began acting up the next morning, we separated. I followed in the car and we began our wild goose chase to garages and landed in Lebanon at Cole 'N' Sons'. Not long before our repair appointment, Andre suddenly got into a wireless network. I rushed to my computer, got a signal, but no connection. We surmised it might come from the library. Frustrated, I walked across the hot asphalt of the shopping center parking lot and entered the new Lebanon library. Cool. Beautiful. With a souvenir shop. A small cafe. And a Route 66 museum! Luxurious upholstered sofas and chairs that match. Computers galore. A Computer Training Lab! Even books. Where, oh where, do they get their funding? There's no place like home—Arms Library—but Phuphuu and I are not in Shelburne Falls anymore.

Waiting time again. Wanting so much to finally see Jeanie and Bob, and Dad. Instead, waiting. But in these forced stopovers we tourists float more deeply into other rhythms, other lives. The daily life of the repair shop: phone calls, parts ordered, wives calling, talk of children, the weekend at the lake, people like us coming in wanting to be anywhere else, waiting to hear How Much $$. Stacks of old magazines. The mechanic's wife home with a broken air conditioner and five children. Closing down for another weekend.

At Cole 'N they were convinced it was a fuel delivery problem. Not carburetors as others suggested. Found water in a fuel filter. (There had been water in the new tank they couldn't get out. But we put in dry gas.) Changed the filter. We paid and left. No go. Came back. Removed a check valve. Ran a test. No good, back into the bay. Found an unexpected nubby little filter on the auxilliary pump. Full of water. Changed it. Another test. No go. By this time, after trouble since the day we left, Andre begins to get to the end of his rope.

The mechanic talks to the Larry, the owner. Larry says there's gotta be another reason. A hidden filter, or a crimped pipe. Steve went under on the crawler and found the hidden filter. Looked straight up, mid-way, and there it was. He could have missed it. Rusted and plugged. Probably in there since the Bounder was manufactured. After that, Larry (Daddy Cole), took it for the test drive himself. Alone—we couldn't face another failure.

When Larry pulled back into the lot, it didn't pull into the repair bay. He stepped out of the Bounder smiling. Andre paid again. And they shut down for the weekend. Friday, 5pm. We set out again, unattached; Andre in the Bounder chooses the airconditioning. I choose the wind.

Andre says it cost $200 to find that filter. At Cole, step by step. The right place, at the right time. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Larry.

So sometimes I wake up in the night in a cold sweat. Different from the usual hot sweat. Thinking what can you be thinking, blogging away, writing and posting for all the world—really—to see? Like standing up in town meeting and talking. Like speaking up pro or con about anything in public. Different from volunteering to bring the cookies next time, or head the committee.

Who cares? Like my favorite blogger wrote , "Just what the World needs... You, talking to yourself. Signifying nothing." But I want to know anything he thinks. I want to read Lisa, Erin, Colleen. Barbaraw47, spyder and countless others over on Blogster, see the photos on photo blogs. My life has been about wanting to know what others think or feel. People all over, out there, are tapping away. Way beyond the station agent and his morse code. Western Union. The postman. Way beyond books and movies.

And why should I care about revealing myself—or one of my selves—when there could be an invisible but highly sophisticated camera in any bathroom stall anywhere? In the store, on the street. Or someone in India selling facts about our lives including social security number for $5.50 a name? There's nowhere to hide. So publish publish publish. And step inside the lives of so many amazing others. No need for an agent. No board of bored professors judging. No degrees or credentials. Just each of us, scanning, choosing. Paying as we go with perhaps the most valuable currency—our time.

Put it out and move on. Travel anywhere, and move on. Somehow, no matter what I read, I recognize parts of myself.

Econo Lodge welcomes us again

Econo Lodge welcomes us again
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

So the bad news is we can't leave today. The good news is we're back at the motel, and legitimate wi-fi users. We're not doubled over in the car, and there's a tv and shower. The dogs are a little confused. But today they must appreciate the air conditioning too.

After we checked in we went out and tried a new place only open for dinner. Slowly I lifted the dark green napkin covering the crusty warm rolls. Three golden rectangles glittered and winked back at me. Eureka! Butter! And a great meal.

We dare to dream that around noon tomorrow the repairs might be complete, and we'll drive away finally understanding what the problem was.

Last Wednesday we spent our first night here at Price's, towed in after dark. Now it is Wednesday again and the truck has just delivered our gas tank shipped from Joplin, Missouri. We have a wait before they actually start working on it, but it should be soon. Of course today feels unbearably hot and we're forced out of our air conditioned box with electricity and a bed at hand; jubilation and disbelief should carry us for a while. We'll have our last chicken caesar salad at the Solid Rock Christian coffee house. Meanwhile the chamber maids are busy here at the Holiday Inn, and we've found a shady spot. And the air conditioner works.

I've been especially conscious of the birds here, and their songs, which sound unfamiliar to me. But I am someone who has mastered only the most familiar names of birds, trees and stars. I'm especially bothered that I'm not sure if I'm seeing red-winged blackbirds, or Baltimore oreoles. Although I find both of them thrilling. I remember my older sister, Ann, having a bird book when we were kids. She knew about birds then, and practically everything else; she'd tell me immediately which is which. My sister, Jeanie—in Fayetteville, Arkansas, expecting us since last week and modifying her work plans daily based on our repair progress—knows birds too. And I think of Lana who loves all animals so, and Margaret, together watching the birds on the Deerfield River and Margaret's porch, bird book on the window sill. Then there's Dad. The things he knows. He's a man always studying and learning, who often keeps his mouth shut when people talk politics or criticize others. But if you're walking around the block with him, tree names are released to the air to ride the same wind the leaves do. The things he remembers and shares, and one of the best storytellers around. A listener and a gatherer.

How Mom loved naming. Loved words. Loved the color of them, loved forming them with all the parts of her mouth, enunciating, releasing. Sometimes used the second or third accepted pronunciation accepted by the dictionary, simply because the sounds pleased her so. Like the plural of gladiola. Gla-die-oh-lee. And the red Christmas flower. Poin-sett-cha. Just now I see that some of my rebelliousness, my urge to do something differently, could be inherited from her. Today, I am so grateful for her desire and commitment to be herself despite what others thought. I treasure that legacy, along with many others from her.

But now, we are almost on our way again, to see my sister and her partner. To see my dad. Before we head toward Canada and then Alaska. This is the month of my parents' marriage, June 20, 1942. This is the month of my mother's death. The last time I saw my father, brother, nephew, nieces, sisters and sister-in-law. I look forward to seeing family again, and carry the living spirit of my mother with me.

Leaving Home

Price-Jesus1948
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

We've headed out many times this week, exploring, getting dog food, lettuce, shoes, finding a place to eat. A gallery where Andre bought a doggie coat rack. Oh, yes. And the little doggie statue. Now, we might actually be leaving. Don't know when we'll find the wire again. Plugging in, for sure.

Andre enjoys his vanilla malt

Andre enjoys his vanilla malt
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

Ahh. And I enjoyed mine. A retreat into cool nostalgia.

The road in Pacific

The road in Pacific
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

This sculpted earth. Here, in Pacific, Missouri.

I am struck by this flower in the sun

yuccaflower
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

Walking in a dress

050619-1916
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

Thought I'd insert a self-portrait. This was at the cemetery. I riched myself with the last strong sunlight, saw the expanse of time in this one place spread on a carpet of mown green. I saw yucca and daylilly, and a host of plastic flowers snuggled next to all kinds of headstones.

Today I'm back on the hilltop of Holiday Inn, sweltering again, with a cool breeze washing over me now and again. Twice at breakfast at the Huddle House in Pacific (6 miles from Eureka) I've had luxuriously good water along with the fake syrup for my waffle. We're hoping the tank arrives today. We can't find a pat of butter in any restaurant in the area. But we have entered hash brown country. Every place has its own drawbacks and rewards.

We feed the dogs and get all three of them outside regularly—mostly in time for Elvis. We did laundry yesterday in a brilliantly clean and white place with a fantasy of available driers. We eat. In-between, I appear to be writing madly, often about nothing much, from my spot in our part of this world. Thinking of loved ones we left and move toward.

St. Francis Grotto

St. Francis Grotto
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

"The statue of St. Francis reaching up to Christ Crucified is called the Vision of St. Francis. Vandals smashed the glass [bottles that colored the sunlight on the statue] and stole the statue Bronislaus set in there. The statue was donated in 1997."

A winged bird is part of the statue, on the Saint's right foot. And on his left, wedged between two toes, the newest shiniest U.S. nickel.

The Black Madonna, in Missouri

The Black Madonna, in Missouri
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

I think about the pleasure of entering for the first time into a very old story. This story.

"Why is She referred to as The Black Madonna?" asks the brochure. The simple black on white brochure that I want, instinctively, compulsively, to set right. I want to make neat margins around the text that almost leaves the pages at its right edges. But luckily, I am on vacation, although the obsessions of my work trail after me. Besides, the story is too rich for the distractions of design, illustration, and textured papers. The history of the painting of Mary--executed by St. Luke in oil paints on a cypress wood table top, from life, leading to miracle after miracle, hidden and found over centuries, attacked and scarred but indestructible, moved to Poland where more protections and miracles occured until Our Lady of Czestochowa was crowned as Queen of Poland--is far too long to relate here.

"Black Madonna is a nickname. It refers to the skin tones of Mary and the baby Jesus. We must remember that Mary, Jesus, St. Joseph lived in a hot arid climate. Their skin tone would be dark brown or olive in order to survive the intensity of the sun and avoid skin cancer.

It wasn't until the Renaissance that we begin to have paintings of Jesus and Mary with alabaster skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. Previously, all religious artwork reflected the olive skin, black or brown hair and eyes of the Holy Family and the Apostles.

...

Also, the painting was in a major fire in Constantinople. Tens of thousands of pots of incense were burned before the painting while it was in the Eastern Orthodox Church. And, it has had millions of wax candles placed before it as prayerful offerings.

All of these have gone into the darkening of the Holy Image of Our Blessed Mother Mary." End of quote.

There seem to be 3 images of The Black Madonna in the Open Air Chapel of the Hills, and despite the brochure, I don't understand the origin of each. The one in this picture is above the altar. Below it on the table is a picture of Pope John Paul.

reminder of Margaret's poem

reminder of Margaret's poem
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

I believe the name of the poem is "The Question". But I could be wrong. I carry essences with me. The narrator is walking outside just before sunset with a Brother. She is disquiet and looking for answers. Just one line or thought in this poem is about the gardener, who is nowhere to be seen, but has left his gloves or something behind. It calls up an eerie feeling in me. The poem proceeds, answers come in the quiet of nature and the narrator's innate wisdom.

This scene: I alone am walking in the expanses of green, past the grottos and shrines, the row of pink flowers just planted in the dry soil, and watered, the wheelbarrow turned over, no one in sight but the still statues...And what of the gardener?

Of course I don't do justice to the poem. But what I felt walking through this scene attests to the power of stories told. What we carry—no matter the form it enters us—from everyone, everything we meet. How we see not only with our own eyes. How even when the paste jewel has fallen from its setting, we can still see it flashing in the sun.

Margaret's candle

Margaret's candle
Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

I picked up the long match and crossed to light it from a candle on the far side of the chapel. Then I walked back to the nearer side. Why?

Margaret's candle is second from the left. Since I think about her so much, does lighting a candle turn that thought into prayer? After I lit the candle I decided to enter into the spirit of the place and read the prayer printed on the sheet by the donation box. Did the candle burn long, or burn low? I'll never know.

I know that Pat B. has lighted candles for Margaret for years. Initiated prayers on her behalf from all over. When I see on Margaret's table a greeting card—with roses, or one of the saints—that looks as if it was mailed 40 years ago, I know that somewhere, more prayers are being said for her. It is a special world that I don't move in, but I'm always glad that Pat does. It's a secure feeling to know she's taking care of those things.

And since Pat has Polish roots, it makes me feel good to be here, fans blowing in the motorhome, reading the Franciscan Brothers' pamphlet about magical things in Poland, and how magic spreads. Or Mystery. Isn't it all the same? If I say "magic", I myself do not see the white sleeves of the trickster fluttering from his black cape, white-gloved hands faster than my eye. For me it is much bigger. Today, in the hot sun, I marvel at the intensity of What moved Brother Bronislaus to spend a life on the rolling Missouri hills creating poem after poem with millions of silent stones.

Evening

Originally uploaded by wethreedees.

It was cool last night when I walked from the Bounder to this cemetery up the road. Just past the big KOA campground. Past houses set back from the road, all green and shade front and back. Now, I sit sweating in the RAV. Do you detect a fondness in the way I must say "Bounder" and RAV? Or should I say "shelter" and "freedom"?

For now all I can say is sweat. Sitting here on the hot asphalt of the Holiday Inn parking lot. Outermost boundary. The signal still comes in strong here, and there's a nice breeze blowing in the window at times. And I do admit the sweat is in part from madly fumbling and opening windows, trying to figure out how to post pictures. So it seems I've just done it. I'm even blessed with some sun behind a cloud.

Last night's session was lovely at the Econo Lodge. Decent reception bringing in a bounty of wonderful emails. One contained a moving short story by Heath author Amy M-C. Another poetry by the Deerfield River poet, Margaret R. As we drove away, at sunset, an Indian woman in a beautiful red sari holding a young child, stood at the end of the driveway by the road, smiling. She and her two other children standing beside her smiled and waved as we passed. Then the woman, perhaps noticing the sweet blue glow of monitor on my face, suddenly pointed. I guess that ended our relationship with Econo Lodge.

So I'm here now at the Holiday Inn, computer in my lap. What a world. To sit on this slight rise facing Six Flags park roiling with rollercoasters, interstate to my right,groups of teenagers strolling by laughing and talking, and gas at the corner $2.09 today after rising to $2.14 during the weekend. Being in touch with those dear to me back home. Despite all these marvels, my battery is now showing 61% and although I am desperately in love with this laptop, it is heating my thighs to the extreme. Now to pull myself together to thread my way to Shnugs grocery store. That rap music coming from the car that just pulled in announced my departure.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

So we've come to a stop in Eureka, MO. The water. It feels thick. Tastes sulphuric, or full of unfamiliar minerals. Not chlorine. Hard to describe this water. Even harder to drink it. This morning we had to start filling the tank with water here. I filled every possible container with the elixir of Colrain. What's left is mixed and corrupted.

There's limestone everywhere. Once ocean, we think. Silica plant nearby. Mining has left monumental columns in cliffs by the roadside. A marvel to me. But the water. Merrimac River nearby. The famous caverns not too far down the road.

We're here at Price Automotive. Still enjoying their hospitality. Plugged in, the satellite dish is out so last night I watched "Into the West." Wagon trains, Indian camps, struggles all around. Quite the contrast to our experiences. The salvage folks in Joplin were draining and washing out our replacement gas tank only yesterday. They promised to get it out today, but who knows. So we're here until it gets here hopefully Monday, and then the work needs done.

Yesterday we drove around, up and downhill. Somewhere in the green countryside we saw a little sign with an arrow, "Shrine". We followed it because it was the one place I'd seen in the tourist racks that I wanted to go. Because of Margaret and Pat B. I wanted to see it fro them—and because of them. The Black Madonna shrine and grottos.

Short story: a Franciscan brother, Bronislaus Luszcz, from Poland was invited here to create an infirmary for men. As a child in Poland he had watched pilgrims pass through his village on their way to the Jasna Gora (Bright Hill) monastery in the town of Czestochowa, where they would honor Mary as Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna. Brother Bronislaus wanted to share his faith and spread the glory of the Black Madonna, so in 1938 he began “his lifetime labor of love”, clearing the wooded land, building a beautiful cedar wood chapel, and hanging a painting of Our Lady there. Arsonists burned it to the ground in 1958, and in 1960 an open air chapel was built. But the bigger attraction for me were the grottos, constructed by hand without power tools by Brother Bronislaus alone. Built of native Missouri tiff rock from 30 miles away.

These grottos and shrines are the kind of construction I have loved all my life: shells, rocks eaten through by time, colored bottles, bits of jewelry, porcelain figures, concrete flowerpots made from jello molds and flowers from paper cupcake molds. Arches and niches, stone rickrack decorations, columns. stone on stone on stone pressed into concrete. Sun and shade. Jesus kneeling in a flowered Gethsemane, looking to the angel above him. A hot day, and cool in the shade. A stalled car in the parking lot, the owner trying to reach his wife for help with his cell phone (can you hear me, did you hear anything I said?), Andre hooking up the cables, trying jump after jump. Nothing worked. I took pictures as I could: deep shade, washed out angels and stone walkways. I timed my walk over wet green grass past the revolving sprinkler to visit the Mothers' Sanctuary, am surprised by a small fish pool with goldfish moving in the sun. Later I see the 2 giant orange and silver fish at its edge. In the cool leafy shade next to the slim white statue of the mother (donated, I assume, by a mother) the plaque says: “Mary Mother, through my pain and fear, show me the loving way. Connie Jones, 2001” I wonder about the pain of Connie Jones. I think of Margaret. I think of Pat. I think I could pray that prayer. And in her life as our mother, my own mother surely found a similar prayer.

The sun grew hotter and my soft headache told me I needed, I wanted water. We talked with the man waiting for the tow truck sent by his wife about our own mysteries. He took half a day off work to come to this place “and pray” and his car broke down. I needed dollar bills to light a candle for Margaret and he offered a dollar. We said no thanks. I lit the candle. The tow truck came. It felt good to drive away having left the candle burning before the altar, cool breezes blowing beneath the metal roof, the grottos and shrines waiting peacefully beyond.

It is only now that I read the tour brochure I found after my walk. Detail after detail missed, my fondness for Brother Bronislaus growing. He died of sunstroke near the Fatima shrine. The current picture of the Black Madonna arrived only weeks prior to his death.

The sun is heating the top of our home here. Soon, we will drive to the EconoLodge (where we spent one night cruising on precious wireless), park somewhere very close to the building, and see if we can fly…

Just starting now. On the road. Breakdowns. Motel sleeping. Stinky.