My Answer To An Old White Well-Off Redneck Voter I kind of figured that you must be doing well. That's good. We are OK but we are hurt by what is happening around us. It's more incredible, in every sense of the word, than your "interesting" take on it. For the philosopher/writer or humanist, given that they are not poor, this spectacle shows just how low it can get. If they are poor or sick, most likely they are entering what is euphemistically called the end of life cycle.
I was pissed off and hurt by this country after Vietnam, but comparatively that feeling now seems rather moot. At least back then one's service held a smidgen of truth. If you died in the war there were no freight charges to exit the country. I know, because I flew next to tons of those dead. It was a truth to one's U.S. service. Not one's service to another country that holds a particular loan. Nihilism has always, to some extent, piqued my interest when writing about the cast out or moralistic of our culture. But what I'm seeing now makes it impossible for me to draw a like-perspective. It seems that only those who will agree with me can try to bale out of this mess by calling it a "movement." However, ultimately, they will be unable to do this. Proof of this will be painful when it comes. More than the old "we had to destroy it in order to save it." Sadly, I wait for another war of distraction that will show the damage of such a "movement." Initially the first stings will come with health care for the less than well off Trump voter. Later, beyond the nihilistic anarchist, Russian Oligarch, or them that ironically protest the elite, the sting will be felt by virtue of the old "what goes around, comes around.” Gird thyself. And if you have loved ones in the military, or close thereby, buy them protection. There will be none coming from their government. And take your blessings more vigilantly than ever. And please be careful of what you wish for.
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My Second Answer To An Old White Well-Off Redneck Voter |
Clemencio Montecillo Bascar was a former Professor and Vice President for Corporate Affairs of the Western Mindanao State University. He is a recepient of various local, regional, and national awards in songwriting, playwriting, poetry, and public service. Several of his poems had been published in international literary magazines and journals such as, Foliate Oak, BRICKrhetoric, About Place, Torrid Literature, Mused-theBellaOnline Lietrary Review, and The Voices Project. He had written and published by the Western Mindanao State University two books of poetry, namely; "Fragments of the Eucharist" and "Riots of Convictions." In the Philippines, some of his poems appeared in the such magazines as Women's, MOD, and Chick. At present, he writes a column in the Zamboanga Today daily newspaper and resides at 659 Gemini Street, Tumaga, Zamboanga City, Philippines. He is married to the former Miss Melinda Climaco dela Cruz and blest with three children, Jane, Lynnette, and Timothy James. |
MINDANAO AND SULU NOT PART OF P.I.
More than 15 years after the fraudulent sale and cession of Mindanao and Sulu to the United States by Spain under Article III of the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris which led to the unlawful occupation of these monarchical state territories by the American forces starting May 19, 1899, Gov. Frank Carpenter of the Moro Province still considered Mindanao and Sulu as separate territories from the Philippine Islands when he officially issued the following statement:
"Any study of the matter, however, superficial, cannot but bring forth convincing arguments that it is to the material interest of the Philippines that Luzon and the Visayas make whatever of present sacrifice maybe necessary to extend such financial aid to the public services in Maguindanao-Sulu that the latter may quickly be made in fact a part of the Philippines." Source: Peter Gordon Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, 1983, p. 267.
This is another corroborative written statement by the top American administrator of the Moro Province pointing to the fact that Mindanao and Sulu were not colonial possessions of Spain and were not political sub-divisions of Las Islas Filipinas or Philippine Islands. Frank Carpenter, a civilian, served not only as the last Governor of the Moro Province from December 15, 1913- July 23, 1914 but also retained the governorship of the Moroland when it was renamed Department of Mindanao and Sulu which included the whole of Mindanao, except Lanao.
Gregorio F. Zaide who is popularly recognized as the Father of Philippine History and internationally renowned and multi-awarded historiographer, researcher, and author, confirmed the fact that most of Mindanao and Sulu were excluded from the Philippine Islands during the Spanish colonial period when he clearly wrote the following narration:
"Most of Mindanao and Sulu were excluded from Philippine territory during the Spanish times. Spain claimed sovereignty over them, but only a few coastal areas were really under its control. The Moros were not conquered." - Source: Philippine History and Government, authored by Gregorio F. Zaide, Copyright 2004, p. 63.
While it was very evident that Governor Carpenter vigorously wanted the quick incorporation of the Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu into the body politic of the Philippine Islands, taking an entirely opposite political proposition was the second Governor of the Moro Province, Tasker H. Bliss who ardently and forcefully advocated for the creation of a separate politico-military government for these two ancient sovereign states. Governor Bliss' administration of the Moro Province was popularly dubbed as "The Velvet Glove," 1906-1909.
Governor Bliss was so convinced that the emnity between the Moros and Filipinos constituted an insurmountable roadblock if the Moroland would finally be incorporated into the body politic of the Philippine Islands. The conviction of General Bliss up to the present remains an incontestable socio- political reality since he was appointed and officially assumed the governorship of the Moro Province on April 16, 1906 more than a century ago. This must be one of the reasons why the former Governor- General of the Philippine Islands at that time, John F. Smith, recommended for the exclusion of the areas inhabited by Moros and other non-Christian tribes from participating in a popular election for the choice of delegates to the Philippine Assembly which was approved by then President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House on March 28, 1907.
The Philippine Assembly whose members were chosen through popular election from the different areas not inhabited by Moros and other non-Christian tribes was the first legislative body of the Philippine Islands created by the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 by the American Congress in the early years of the American occupation. The election was held on July 30, 1907 in compliance with the Proclamation issued by the Governor-General, James F. Smith about nine years after the Philippine Islands was sold and ceded by Spain to the United States in Article III of the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris for $20-Million. Deductively, the Philippine Assembly was purely composed of delegates coming from areas inhabited by Christians in the Philippine Islands which virtually denied the participation of Moros and other non-Christian tribes; again pointing to the fact that Mindanao and Sulu were not really component political sub-divisions of the Spanish colony called Las Islas Filipinas or Philippine Isands.
Governor Bliss' idea of Mindanao and Sulu as independent and separate territory from the Philippine Islands under the American Flag was vigorously endorsed favorably by the Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce which at that time was made up mostly of American businessmen. The Chamber presented a Resolution to the Secretary of War, William Howard Taft and several visiting US Congressmen appealing that Mindanao and Sulu be formed into a territory of the United States by act of Congress.
Based on the historical accounts of Peter Gordon Gowing, noted American researcher and author of the book entitled "Mandate in Moroland," in August, 1906, the Americans residing in Mindanao expressed their strong collective desire not to be included in the government of the Philippine Islands. This was published in a strongly-worded editorial of "La Vida Filipino," a Filipino newspaper in July 1906 which questioned the Americans for the creation of the Moro Province. Part of that editorial, is quoted as follows:
" The Commission (Philippine Commission) in creating the Moro Province, evidently wanted Mindanao and Jolo considered separate and almost independent territories from Luzon and the Visayas. This has been accentuated by the passage of the Philippine Bill by Congress which specifically placed the affairs of the province outside the jurisdiction of the future assembly. Then there is this petition presented by the American residents of Mindanao to the members of Congress who visited the Philippines in August last, in which they ask for the creation in Moroland of a government independent from Manila."
Although some contradicted the report that it was during the governorship of General Bliss that Mindanao and Sulu experienced relative peace, written accounts substantially pointed to the fact that it was only he who manifested extraordinary and determined effort to put an end to the bloody confrontations between the Moros and the Americans giving his biographer the literary discretion and privilege to confer upon him the much-desrved distinction as "The Peacemaker."
"Any study of the matter, however, superficial, cannot but bring forth convincing arguments that it is to the material interest of the Philippines that Luzon and the Visayas make whatever of present sacrifice maybe necessary to extend such financial aid to the public services in Maguindanao-Sulu that the latter may quickly be made in fact a part of the Philippines." Source: Peter Gordon Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, 1983, p. 267.
This is another corroborative written statement by the top American administrator of the Moro Province pointing to the fact that Mindanao and Sulu were not colonial possessions of Spain and were not political sub-divisions of Las Islas Filipinas or Philippine Islands. Frank Carpenter, a civilian, served not only as the last Governor of the Moro Province from December 15, 1913- July 23, 1914 but also retained the governorship of the Moroland when it was renamed Department of Mindanao and Sulu which included the whole of Mindanao, except Lanao.
Gregorio F. Zaide who is popularly recognized as the Father of Philippine History and internationally renowned and multi-awarded historiographer, researcher, and author, confirmed the fact that most of Mindanao and Sulu were excluded from the Philippine Islands during the Spanish colonial period when he clearly wrote the following narration:
"Most of Mindanao and Sulu were excluded from Philippine territory during the Spanish times. Spain claimed sovereignty over them, but only a few coastal areas were really under its control. The Moros were not conquered." - Source: Philippine History and Government, authored by Gregorio F. Zaide, Copyright 2004, p. 63.
While it was very evident that Governor Carpenter vigorously wanted the quick incorporation of the Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu into the body politic of the Philippine Islands, taking an entirely opposite political proposition was the second Governor of the Moro Province, Tasker H. Bliss who ardently and forcefully advocated for the creation of a separate politico-military government for these two ancient sovereign states. Governor Bliss' administration of the Moro Province was popularly dubbed as "The Velvet Glove," 1906-1909.
Governor Bliss was so convinced that the emnity between the Moros and Filipinos constituted an insurmountable roadblock if the Moroland would finally be incorporated into the body politic of the Philippine Islands. The conviction of General Bliss up to the present remains an incontestable socio- political reality since he was appointed and officially assumed the governorship of the Moro Province on April 16, 1906 more than a century ago. This must be one of the reasons why the former Governor- General of the Philippine Islands at that time, John F. Smith, recommended for the exclusion of the areas inhabited by Moros and other non-Christian tribes from participating in a popular election for the choice of delegates to the Philippine Assembly which was approved by then President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House on March 28, 1907.
The Philippine Assembly whose members were chosen through popular election from the different areas not inhabited by Moros and other non-Christian tribes was the first legislative body of the Philippine Islands created by the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 by the American Congress in the early years of the American occupation. The election was held on July 30, 1907 in compliance with the Proclamation issued by the Governor-General, James F. Smith about nine years after the Philippine Islands was sold and ceded by Spain to the United States in Article III of the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris for $20-Million. Deductively, the Philippine Assembly was purely composed of delegates coming from areas inhabited by Christians in the Philippine Islands which virtually denied the participation of Moros and other non-Christian tribes; again pointing to the fact that Mindanao and Sulu were not really component political sub-divisions of the Spanish colony called Las Islas Filipinas or Philippine Isands.
Governor Bliss' idea of Mindanao and Sulu as independent and separate territory from the Philippine Islands under the American Flag was vigorously endorsed favorably by the Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce which at that time was made up mostly of American businessmen. The Chamber presented a Resolution to the Secretary of War, William Howard Taft and several visiting US Congressmen appealing that Mindanao and Sulu be formed into a territory of the United States by act of Congress.
Based on the historical accounts of Peter Gordon Gowing, noted American researcher and author of the book entitled "Mandate in Moroland," in August, 1906, the Americans residing in Mindanao expressed their strong collective desire not to be included in the government of the Philippine Islands. This was published in a strongly-worded editorial of "La Vida Filipino," a Filipino newspaper in July 1906 which questioned the Americans for the creation of the Moro Province. Part of that editorial, is quoted as follows:
" The Commission (Philippine Commission) in creating the Moro Province, evidently wanted Mindanao and Jolo considered separate and almost independent territories from Luzon and the Visayas. This has been accentuated by the passage of the Philippine Bill by Congress which specifically placed the affairs of the province outside the jurisdiction of the future assembly. Then there is this petition presented by the American residents of Mindanao to the members of Congress who visited the Philippines in August last, in which they ask for the creation in Moroland of a government independent from Manila."
Although some contradicted the report that it was during the governorship of General Bliss that Mindanao and Sulu experienced relative peace, written accounts substantially pointed to the fact that it was only he who manifested extraordinary and determined effort to put an end to the bloody confrontations between the Moros and the Americans giving his biographer the literary discretion and privilege to confer upon him the much-desrved distinction as "The Peacemaker."
Late Afternoon: On the Passing of a Coworker
A peaceful moment can be broken so quickly (and easily) by the incursions of life, interruptions we know to be possible but generally do not anticipate as we chat with colleagues, rummage through refrigerators for lunch, and hope for an easy commute back home. As they say, everything can change in a single moment. These thoughts accompany me, as I look back on the sudden passing of a coworker and recall the day’s events, a few haunting moments that arrived late one afternoon.
In a blur, one of the department supervisors had approached me in a stairwell and calmly asked for a cardiac rescue device, all the while motioning towards the parking lot. Upon retrieving the unit from a nearby lobby, I ran outside and found ten maintenance workers, tired and sweaty from the day, gathered near a parked car, where their colleague lay on the pavement in a pool of urine and vomit, turning purple, as two crew members performed rhythmic cycles of chest compressions. The experience did indeed have the texture and feeling of a dream. I administered the resuscitation device, and we continued our efforts, until the fire department arrived for a sustained and more professional attempt to rescue the man. Our part was soon over. We stood by in disbelief, as a light breeze moved through a labyrinth of high tree branches, and the interminable chatter of police radios eroded the silence.
Each moment seemed out of step with what should have been taking place in the late afternoon, the routine departure of a work crew after their long shift had ended, the gradual darkening of the sun,
2
anticipation of an evening meal, all the things we expect to enjoy as the day unfolds. However, an incursion of reality had different things in mind; we found the end of life taking place before our eyes.
We had done all that we could in the face of things, managing to win for our colleague a few more precious moments of life before the end, which came shortly thereafter at a local hospital, his wife standing nearby. In poignant fashion, he had fallen near his little pickup truck, the dented, dark green vehicle which seemed so aptly to reflect his personality as it heralded his daily arrival and departure.
In the end, there was little to say, as we stood in shock and watched teardrops falling from the cheeks of large, hardworking men. It was simply all over, and there we were.
Someone with feelings and thoughts and the tangible aspects of personality had left, and we encountered the loss on a deep and powerful level, perhaps even thinking ahead to our own time of passing, late in the afternoon of an otherwise ordinary day.
In a blur, one of the department supervisors had approached me in a stairwell and calmly asked for a cardiac rescue device, all the while motioning towards the parking lot. Upon retrieving the unit from a nearby lobby, I ran outside and found ten maintenance workers, tired and sweaty from the day, gathered near a parked car, where their colleague lay on the pavement in a pool of urine and vomit, turning purple, as two crew members performed rhythmic cycles of chest compressions. The experience did indeed have the texture and feeling of a dream. I administered the resuscitation device, and we continued our efforts, until the fire department arrived for a sustained and more professional attempt to rescue the man. Our part was soon over. We stood by in disbelief, as a light breeze moved through a labyrinth of high tree branches, and the interminable chatter of police radios eroded the silence.
Each moment seemed out of step with what should have been taking place in the late afternoon, the routine departure of a work crew after their long shift had ended, the gradual darkening of the sun,
2
anticipation of an evening meal, all the things we expect to enjoy as the day unfolds. However, an incursion of reality had different things in mind; we found the end of life taking place before our eyes.
We had done all that we could in the face of things, managing to win for our colleague a few more precious moments of life before the end, which came shortly thereafter at a local hospital, his wife standing nearby. In poignant fashion, he had fallen near his little pickup truck, the dented, dark green vehicle which seemed so aptly to reflect his personality as it heralded his daily arrival and departure.
In the end, there was little to say, as we stood in shock and watched teardrops falling from the cheeks of large, hardworking men. It was simply all over, and there we were.
Someone with feelings and thoughts and the tangible aspects of personality had left, and we encountered the loss on a deep and powerful level, perhaps even thinking ahead to our own time of passing, late in the afternoon of an otherwise ordinary day.
Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.
Touch
Sections were settled on the edge of a workspace. Informative but not newsworthy, they’d be spread on my kitchen table and looked at when I wanted; the first segment of the paper was political, or eventful, or reportage insisting on attention.
As the milk was making my cold cereal slightly soggy, I read worldly incidents and continued to wonder why only the years are different as people hurting other people plus power were not really changing. The methods from bows and arrows to nuclear seemed to show that one finger on a button could eradicate en masse without even having to look into the eyes of a targeted person.
My husband’s breakfast news comes from the voice of Alexa; this pretend-human briefs him on local and national occurrences. I continue folding the large newsprint bending into smaller segments; often, with some editorial’s words, I use an orange-color highlight pen to later discuss with him.
A ballpoint plus a highlighter are included in my routine as I discard the universal news and pull out the Arts, for example. I’ll notice, then remember the color photo from my Art Minor days in undergraduate school. I tint many sentences knowing I’ll discuss them with my younger sister, a docent at an established museum. In a margin, I’ll note that this was not impressionist work and why was the artist considered part of that genre! Pulling out decades-old art books, with black and white pictures, I’ll look up the painter. Oh, he was friends with impressionists and, therefore, part via association. I’ll mark up the margin again with my thoughts. That old textbook is also marked in margins but no highlight pen existed then so only my underlines in South Sea blue liquid ink denotes what seemed important or needed to be questioned.
A play is being reviewed; the person traveled to another state to see it performed and wondered why it had not been revived on Broadway. He seemed to want readers to know if any were in driving distance that the trip was worth the effort because the production plus subject matter was so excellent. I’m remembering summer stock theatre so very long ago, just about the time that television was beginning to appear in some homes. A venue in the Pocono Mountains accepted my older sister, then a teen, for her talent. A barn was the theatre; I went horseback riding not far from the barn during an afternoon we’d driven to see an evening performance in which she appeared. Names that were destroyed later by McCarthy were fine actors and accessible people. The place even performed a musical called “Good News” although dramas or comedies were easier to stage. I might have asked my older sister now if she remembered, had she been alive.
As these sections, selectively saved, lower in height, a new batch begins weekly and, in many cases, I tear out a complete page putting it aside for more detailed reading, and, of course, arguing or agreeing in the margins near each paragraph.
I do embrace technology when it either enhances my life or makes me more physically comfortable. If it helps tasks, or offers emotional security, it, too, is welcome. I taught myself to use the first IBM-PC in 1981-82. As a writer, and then college teacher of English Composition, it was worth the struggle, and the 9-pin dot matrix printer was as much a wonder as the very first television set that came into my parents’ home. My students knew nothing yet of this device. An untethered land-line phone, that had a speaker enhancement, allowed me to cook a meal while speaking to someone. The pager my husband carried at work meant instant communication even though it was merely a signal to call home. Air conditioning stretched comfort, and hard-drives with laser or dot-matrix printing altered computer’s difficulty. Who could have imagined useless 78 rpm records, or pay telephone booths being obsolete?
Yes, the traditional newspaper is on Artificial Intelligence. But I can’t ‘save’ the data, or write on that device, or tear out a page with sections so important for the moment that I want to share them. Still able to be delivered to my door, print, for me, is still...well, tangible.
As the milk was making my cold cereal slightly soggy, I read worldly incidents and continued to wonder why only the years are different as people hurting other people plus power were not really changing. The methods from bows and arrows to nuclear seemed to show that one finger on a button could eradicate en masse without even having to look into the eyes of a targeted person.
My husband’s breakfast news comes from the voice of Alexa; this pretend-human briefs him on local and national occurrences. I continue folding the large newsprint bending into smaller segments; often, with some editorial’s words, I use an orange-color highlight pen to later discuss with him.
A ballpoint plus a highlighter are included in my routine as I discard the universal news and pull out the Arts, for example. I’ll notice, then remember the color photo from my Art Minor days in undergraduate school. I tint many sentences knowing I’ll discuss them with my younger sister, a docent at an established museum. In a margin, I’ll note that this was not impressionist work and why was the artist considered part of that genre! Pulling out decades-old art books, with black and white pictures, I’ll look up the painter. Oh, he was friends with impressionists and, therefore, part via association. I’ll mark up the margin again with my thoughts. That old textbook is also marked in margins but no highlight pen existed then so only my underlines in South Sea blue liquid ink denotes what seemed important or needed to be questioned.
A play is being reviewed; the person traveled to another state to see it performed and wondered why it had not been revived on Broadway. He seemed to want readers to know if any were in driving distance that the trip was worth the effort because the production plus subject matter was so excellent. I’m remembering summer stock theatre so very long ago, just about the time that television was beginning to appear in some homes. A venue in the Pocono Mountains accepted my older sister, then a teen, for her talent. A barn was the theatre; I went horseback riding not far from the barn during an afternoon we’d driven to see an evening performance in which she appeared. Names that were destroyed later by McCarthy were fine actors and accessible people. The place even performed a musical called “Good News” although dramas or comedies were easier to stage. I might have asked my older sister now if she remembered, had she been alive.
As these sections, selectively saved, lower in height, a new batch begins weekly and, in many cases, I tear out a complete page putting it aside for more detailed reading, and, of course, arguing or agreeing in the margins near each paragraph.
I do embrace technology when it either enhances my life or makes me more physically comfortable. If it helps tasks, or offers emotional security, it, too, is welcome. I taught myself to use the first IBM-PC in 1981-82. As a writer, and then college teacher of English Composition, it was worth the struggle, and the 9-pin dot matrix printer was as much a wonder as the very first television set that came into my parents’ home. My students knew nothing yet of this device. An untethered land-line phone, that had a speaker enhancement, allowed me to cook a meal while speaking to someone. The pager my husband carried at work meant instant communication even though it was merely a signal to call home. Air conditioning stretched comfort, and hard-drives with laser or dot-matrix printing altered computer’s difficulty. Who could have imagined useless 78 rpm records, or pay telephone booths being obsolete?
Yes, the traditional newspaper is on Artificial Intelligence. But I can’t ‘save’ the data, or write on that device, or tear out a page with sections so important for the moment that I want to share them. Still able to be delivered to my door, print, for me, is still...well, tangible.
Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.
Sewing together
“Why is that called a Sampler?” I pointed to a framed hand-stitched picture with words under a designed basket of fruit.
The small museum room with a musty smell reminded me of my elementary school tour of a 17th century place; I liked the aged Weeping Beach tree outside rather than the physical dwelling.
“Want to learn to do that?” My mother could do anything with a needle.
I said I could draw a ‘Sampler’ and hand-paint scenes with words rather than sew it, but wanted to know why there many on these walls. An exhibition-guide, dressed in period costume, informed me that young girls learned necessary needle skills while showing they had patience and talent working elaborate images. And did I know Loara Standish is recorded to be the first woman who made one in America, around 1645; she was the daughter of Miles Standish, a Mayflower passenger. Of course I didn’t know that as I didn’t even learn the man had children!
“Teach me cross-stitch and I can decorate my pillow cases!”
A wood hoop held the cotton in place. My mother showed me yarn, insertion of thread into an eye of a metal needle, and a personal handwork-journey was starting. With tiny ‘x’s’‘ on linen, I went from bedding to table and I was shown how to make even the back of a cloth look pleasing and not a jumble of threads. Ironing the linen was okay with a card-table size, but when I moved into dining room length I gave my mother the ironing chore.
Never without a project in her hands during the hours she sat listening to her daughter’s piano and singing lesson practice, or family time around the radio programs, I wanted to learn everything she did. I hand sewed an apron. The stitches to hold the seams were different from the hem, and I learned to make hem ones so tiny that they were almost invisible. Skirts with gathered waistbands were different from pleated ones, and we sewed together often. I began to design my own creations, and she taught me how to make a pattern; the mahogany dining room table became a tabloid in Braille as my marks were made from shears and such that recorded life.
By high school, I’d created special half-aprons as was the custom for women to wear such when entertaining. Satin formed the waistband and bottom, and I’d sew tiny beads on sections. I created eyeglass cases from pieces of wool-felt, then adorned with accents of glitter.
Knitting came next. Sharing was part of the pleasure. I had trouble with the grosgrain ribbon needed as a backing for a cardigan sweater’s buttons, and said that was her job. We laughed.
She was doing needlepoint for a chair. Heavy wool yarn was used to go through a grid-like large piece that did not need more than repetition of a stroke, but I just had to learn that and started with the canvas for a footstool. Once completed, we bought an oak footrest. My mother taught me to stretch my completed needlepoint canvas, and to mount it on top of the fabric that was already on the stool. Basic thumb tacks adhered my work to the stool’s top. She always had, with what was on-hand, a solution to any problem!
She crocheted. I just seemed to have trouble with just one little metal item the size of a pencil, so I decided I’d learn crewel embroidery by myself and tell her about it. She’d have one needlework I couldn’t do and I’d have one she preferred not to do but, of course, could!
In college, as I knit argyle socks for male friends, she crocheted afghans, and knit hats/ mittens/ sweaters for me using bright colors to compensate for the often sunless days as I walked to classes in the cold.
I recently saw a Sampler in an inn that was once a stop on the Erie Canal; a historic-preservation structure, it made me smile with remembrance of the first Sampler I’d ever seen in a building similar to this one.
A granddaughter asked for a tablecloth I’d embellished with cross-stitch during elementary school; I was showing her items I’d made and used over the decades. I mentioned that linen would need starch to look crisp; she wanted it. Her sister noticed my two of my framed crewel-embroidered pictures showing vases of flowers; I loosened them from their hooks. She wondered about a large needlepoint I’d made; I had considered using for a chair but, at the time, with then three small children, I decided to frame and work on other needle-projects smaller to handle. These belong to her now.
I designed the dresses I wore for each of my three children’s weddings, and hand-work has been satisfying and fulfilling all of my life. One of my great-grandchildren has the crib-size afghan my mother’s fingers so long-ago crocheted; her afghans continue to be the warm blankets on her unseen descendants’ beds.
Isn’t family history often written in needle and thread than in pen and ink?
The small museum room with a musty smell reminded me of my elementary school tour of a 17th century place; I liked the aged Weeping Beach tree outside rather than the physical dwelling.
“Want to learn to do that?” My mother could do anything with a needle.
I said I could draw a ‘Sampler’ and hand-paint scenes with words rather than sew it, but wanted to know why there many on these walls. An exhibition-guide, dressed in period costume, informed me that young girls learned necessary needle skills while showing they had patience and talent working elaborate images. And did I know Loara Standish is recorded to be the first woman who made one in America, around 1645; she was the daughter of Miles Standish, a Mayflower passenger. Of course I didn’t know that as I didn’t even learn the man had children!
“Teach me cross-stitch and I can decorate my pillow cases!”
A wood hoop held the cotton in place. My mother showed me yarn, insertion of thread into an eye of a metal needle, and a personal handwork-journey was starting. With tiny ‘x’s’‘ on linen, I went from bedding to table and I was shown how to make even the back of a cloth look pleasing and not a jumble of threads. Ironing the linen was okay with a card-table size, but when I moved into dining room length I gave my mother the ironing chore.
Never without a project in her hands during the hours she sat listening to her daughter’s piano and singing lesson practice, or family time around the radio programs, I wanted to learn everything she did. I hand sewed an apron. The stitches to hold the seams were different from the hem, and I learned to make hem ones so tiny that they were almost invisible. Skirts with gathered waistbands were different from pleated ones, and we sewed together often. I began to design my own creations, and she taught me how to make a pattern; the mahogany dining room table became a tabloid in Braille as my marks were made from shears and such that recorded life.
By high school, I’d created special half-aprons as was the custom for women to wear such when entertaining. Satin formed the waistband and bottom, and I’d sew tiny beads on sections. I created eyeglass cases from pieces of wool-felt, then adorned with accents of glitter.
Knitting came next. Sharing was part of the pleasure. I had trouble with the grosgrain ribbon needed as a backing for a cardigan sweater’s buttons, and said that was her job. We laughed.
She was doing needlepoint for a chair. Heavy wool yarn was used to go through a grid-like large piece that did not need more than repetition of a stroke, but I just had to learn that and started with the canvas for a footstool. Once completed, we bought an oak footrest. My mother taught me to stretch my completed needlepoint canvas, and to mount it on top of the fabric that was already on the stool. Basic thumb tacks adhered my work to the stool’s top. She always had, with what was on-hand, a solution to any problem!
She crocheted. I just seemed to have trouble with just one little metal item the size of a pencil, so I decided I’d learn crewel embroidery by myself and tell her about it. She’d have one needlework I couldn’t do and I’d have one she preferred not to do but, of course, could!
In college, as I knit argyle socks for male friends, she crocheted afghans, and knit hats/ mittens/ sweaters for me using bright colors to compensate for the often sunless days as I walked to classes in the cold.
I recently saw a Sampler in an inn that was once a stop on the Erie Canal; a historic-preservation structure, it made me smile with remembrance of the first Sampler I’d ever seen in a building similar to this one.
A granddaughter asked for a tablecloth I’d embellished with cross-stitch during elementary school; I was showing her items I’d made and used over the decades. I mentioned that linen would need starch to look crisp; she wanted it. Her sister noticed my two of my framed crewel-embroidered pictures showing vases of flowers; I loosened them from their hooks. She wondered about a large needlepoint I’d made; I had considered using for a chair but, at the time, with then three small children, I decided to frame and work on other needle-projects smaller to handle. These belong to her now.
I designed the dresses I wore for each of my three children’s weddings, and hand-work has been satisfying and fulfilling all of my life. One of my great-grandchildren has the crib-size afghan my mother’s fingers so long-ago crocheted; her afghans continue to be the warm blankets on her unseen descendants’ beds.
Isn’t family history often written in needle and thread than in pen and ink?
Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.
Dignity Is the Choice Any One Can Make
I've read about Living Wills and death with dignity. I've heard of hospices, wondered about brain waves and respirators, argued with friends about moral vs. legal laws. But I hadn't really addressed dying with self-respect --until it became an emotional reality.
Technically, my mother's 1980 open-heart surgery was successful. She handled the body's pain with her usual optimism and gratitude. How was she to know that the transfused blood was a silent killer?
Into her arm dripped fluid that infected her liver: Chronic Active Hepatitis, Non-A, Non-B. There were no tests ahead of time to determine if a blood donor was a carrier of such. I knew that Chronic Active meant death within five years; if only she’d had Chronic Persistent Hepatitis! I didn’t tell her what I knew.
My moist palm clasped my husband's as we talked during the 3000 mile trip to California in November 1984. Our weekend meant letting my parent complete her life as she'd lived it---never calling attention to her ailments, real concern for others, having a sense of humor, believing she can work/fight to survive any misfortune, sending her family away with no guilt always thinking to ease THEIR pain and not her own.
I wanted to discuss her dying, my anger, say goodbye. These were my needs. She wanted me to see her cheerful.
Years before, while on a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, she had a massive myocardial infarction coupled with pulmonary emboli.(blood clots in her lungs) In the San Francisco Coronary Care Unit, she displayed a smile, admired my blouse, wondered why I'd come all the way to see her in a hospital bed. When I left for some sleep, I looked at the hills and bay and felt confused that anyone could possibly be dying when so much light and beauty was outside.
Blood clots in her lungs and a massive heart attack were survived, yet open-heart surgery was eventually a necessity. The surgery was successful. How was she to know the transfused blood she received was a silent killer? My husband, an internist, wondered how he’d answer that question, if she asked; she didn’t ask.
In the Los Angeles hospital, I saw a fragile woman with a swollen abdomen too toxin-filled for her deteriorated liver to process. The healthy, 1925, Miss Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, beauty queen whose shapely legs her daughters inherited had wasted from the disease's devastation.
She strained to get on her feet. She forced herself to sit to have her hair done. She talked about the trip she'd make to my son's wedding that May, worried about my bad back during the forthcoming flights home. My mother, widowed for thirty-two years, set an example of cheer, endurance, snap-back after falling with life's shoves; she needed to continue to play this role while dying. I had to grant her this for had I whispered "why you" she would have responded "why not?"
I understand the concept of death with dignity now. Terminally ill people should pick how they want OTHERS to treat them plus how THEY want to act. As I stroked my spouse's finger, I allowed myself the luxury of tears knowing, shortly, I'd bury my mother in sandy Long Island soil--beside my father. She was placed there January 1985; I never saw her again after that November journey as I was to carry out the charade that she’d be well enough to come east for her grandchild’s wedding. Had I flown back, we would have had to speak of her illness causing me to fly another 6,000 miles round trip, and she wanted to share life and hope. I accepted what she needed.
In 2004, my older sister had sustained, just in her last couple of years, strokes, heart attacks, open-heart surgery, two cancers of the stomach, heart failure, pulmonary emboli; she was frail and confined to a wheelchair but kept a sense of humor, interested in others, would not talk about her condition. She spoke of the future with wonder and enthusiasm. Once again, I had to accept, this time with a sibling, what she expected of me, and allowed her to choose. My personal need to display tears had to be controlled. She insisted on dignity, as our mother had done almost two decades ago. For ‘why me’, she also would have replied, ‘why not’.
©1991 The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Page August 10, 1991
reprinted (with the 2004 paragraphs) by The Humanist in Jan.-Feb. 2005 issue
reprinted by Clear Mountain 2009
Technically, my mother's 1980 open-heart surgery was successful. She handled the body's pain with her usual optimism and gratitude. How was she to know that the transfused blood was a silent killer?
Into her arm dripped fluid that infected her liver: Chronic Active Hepatitis, Non-A, Non-B. There were no tests ahead of time to determine if a blood donor was a carrier of such. I knew that Chronic Active meant death within five years; if only she’d had Chronic Persistent Hepatitis! I didn’t tell her what I knew.
My moist palm clasped my husband's as we talked during the 3000 mile trip to California in November 1984. Our weekend meant letting my parent complete her life as she'd lived it---never calling attention to her ailments, real concern for others, having a sense of humor, believing she can work/fight to survive any misfortune, sending her family away with no guilt always thinking to ease THEIR pain and not her own.
I wanted to discuss her dying, my anger, say goodbye. These were my needs. She wanted me to see her cheerful.
Years before, while on a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, she had a massive myocardial infarction coupled with pulmonary emboli.(blood clots in her lungs) In the San Francisco Coronary Care Unit, she displayed a smile, admired my blouse, wondered why I'd come all the way to see her in a hospital bed. When I left for some sleep, I looked at the hills and bay and felt confused that anyone could possibly be dying when so much light and beauty was outside.
Blood clots in her lungs and a massive heart attack were survived, yet open-heart surgery was eventually a necessity. The surgery was successful. How was she to know the transfused blood she received was a silent killer? My husband, an internist, wondered how he’d answer that question, if she asked; she didn’t ask.
In the Los Angeles hospital, I saw a fragile woman with a swollen abdomen too toxin-filled for her deteriorated liver to process. The healthy, 1925, Miss Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, beauty queen whose shapely legs her daughters inherited had wasted from the disease's devastation.
She strained to get on her feet. She forced herself to sit to have her hair done. She talked about the trip she'd make to my son's wedding that May, worried about my bad back during the forthcoming flights home. My mother, widowed for thirty-two years, set an example of cheer, endurance, snap-back after falling with life's shoves; she needed to continue to play this role while dying. I had to grant her this for had I whispered "why you" she would have responded "why not?"
I understand the concept of death with dignity now. Terminally ill people should pick how they want OTHERS to treat them plus how THEY want to act. As I stroked my spouse's finger, I allowed myself the luxury of tears knowing, shortly, I'd bury my mother in sandy Long Island soil--beside my father. She was placed there January 1985; I never saw her again after that November journey as I was to carry out the charade that she’d be well enough to come east for her grandchild’s wedding. Had I flown back, we would have had to speak of her illness causing me to fly another 6,000 miles round trip, and she wanted to share life and hope. I accepted what she needed.
In 2004, my older sister had sustained, just in her last couple of years, strokes, heart attacks, open-heart surgery, two cancers of the stomach, heart failure, pulmonary emboli; she was frail and confined to a wheelchair but kept a sense of humor, interested in others, would not talk about her condition. She spoke of the future with wonder and enthusiasm. Once again, I had to accept, this time with a sibling, what she expected of me, and allowed her to choose. My personal need to display tears had to be controlled. She insisted on dignity, as our mother had done almost two decades ago. For ‘why me’, she also would have replied, ‘why not’.
©1991 The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Page August 10, 1991
reprinted (with the 2004 paragraphs) by The Humanist in Jan.-Feb. 2005 issue
reprinted by Clear Mountain 2009
Dan Morey is a freelance writer in Pennsylvania. He’s worked as a book critic, nightlife columnist, travel correspondent and outdoor journalist. His writing has appeared in Hobart, Harpur Palate, McSweeney's Quarterly, decomP and elsewhere. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Find him at danmorey.weebly.com. |
Welcome to Dublin
The Irish are a chatty and inquiring people, traits I’m capable of enduring under normal circumstances, but after flying over an ocean with my knees jammed against a seatback and a gang of hooligans lobbing Guinness cans over my head, I felt—justifiably, I think—that circumstances had gone well beyond normal.
Unfortunately, my Dublin cab driver—bright-eyed, chipper and reeking of coffee—was unable to adapt his conversation to my sleep-deprived torpor. His barrage of questions was unrelenting:
“Where ya from?”
“First time in Ireland?”
“What brings ya to Dublin?”
I didn’t quite know how to react to all this. As an American, I’m not accustomed to hearing English spoken in taxicabs. I answered as best I could, but my groggy “arghs” and “umns” failed to deter the inquisitor:
“How long will ya be away then?”
“Jaysis, that long?”
“No wife? No kids? No job?”
This was going too far.
“Job?” I said. “What a distasteful notion. And as for family, I managed to rid myself of them years ago in Rangoon. The Burmese are very tolerant of white-slaving.”
The cabbie took this to mean I was ready to engage him in a spot of witty banter, or craic, as they say in Gaelic.
“And how much did they bring, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said. “The way my wife eats, I might just consider it.”
As the ride wore on, I became increasingly lightheaded, and my tongue began to loosen. Why was I letting the cabbie do all the questioning? I was the visitor, after all. It was high time I pumped him for a few touristic tidbits:
“Does it rain as much as they say?”
“What’s good to eat?”
“Is everyone really drunk all the time?”
“Are you drunk now?”
The driver was amenable to this line of interrogation. His answers were charming and informative, and I’m sure I would’ve learned a great deal had my brain been capable of absorbing anything. Instead, I left the cab having retained exactly one recommendation (bowl of coddle) and the driver’s comical greeting: “Welcome to Dublin—the world’s only open-air asylum.”
Unfortunately, my Dublin cab driver—bright-eyed, chipper and reeking of coffee—was unable to adapt his conversation to my sleep-deprived torpor. His barrage of questions was unrelenting:
“Where ya from?”
“First time in Ireland?”
“What brings ya to Dublin?”
I didn’t quite know how to react to all this. As an American, I’m not accustomed to hearing English spoken in taxicabs. I answered as best I could, but my groggy “arghs” and “umns” failed to deter the inquisitor:
“How long will ya be away then?”
“Jaysis, that long?”
“No wife? No kids? No job?”
This was going too far.
“Job?” I said. “What a distasteful notion. And as for family, I managed to rid myself of them years ago in Rangoon. The Burmese are very tolerant of white-slaving.”
The cabbie took this to mean I was ready to engage him in a spot of witty banter, or craic, as they say in Gaelic.
“And how much did they bring, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said. “The way my wife eats, I might just consider it.”
As the ride wore on, I became increasingly lightheaded, and my tongue began to loosen. Why was I letting the cabbie do all the questioning? I was the visitor, after all. It was high time I pumped him for a few touristic tidbits:
“Does it rain as much as they say?”
“What’s good to eat?”
“Is everyone really drunk all the time?”
“Are you drunk now?”
The driver was amenable to this line of interrogation. His answers were charming and informative, and I’m sure I would’ve learned a great deal had my brain been capable of absorbing anything. Instead, I left the cab having retained exactly one recommendation (bowl of coddle) and the driver’s comical greeting: “Welcome to Dublin—the world’s only open-air asylum.”
George Zamalea is a published author who lives in Mojave Desert of southeastern California, USA. His poems, short stories, and nonfiction have appeared online magazines and printing literary journals such as the Taft College Press, the Literary Yard, and the Scarlet Leaf Publishing House among others. In additional, he is an awarded author by the prestigious International Latino Book Awards. He is currently working on “The God Gender”. |
MS. RICHFIELD'S HANDS
A feeling for how I approach life,
is the quality for how I shall be born.
--Helen Richfield
When it comes to lovely hands, living hands, comprehensive old hands, there are no one like Ms. Richfield's hands: Large, bony, white, escaping once from a terrible disease when she was 2 years old; I acknowledge her hands as they are exceeding the talent of growing things. Things—such as bulbs, corns, tubers, strawberries, prunes, apples, raspberries, blackberries and grapes. In the early summer, her hands make them growing in a cool greenhouse, the frameworks of smell and the well-drained humus-rich soil, gives us the delicious welcome to eat all of them. The living pleasure, however, is the well-stocked quality her hands have that the treasure of glowing flowers. Few insight God's given to this unusual touch, leaving nothing but the pure magic popping bulbs in early or late summer or the herbs growing in moist and double sexy scent and the attractive festival feathery.
"There is no magic," she says as she spots a hornworm climbing slowly up along a curled leaves of an apple tree. She takes the hornworm with a handy picker and drops it into a jar of oily water. "There is only one thing. Patience. And I've that for years."
There is the hazard of highly bred cultivars that makes her hands to have such ability to form root initials and to bring the rhododendron leaves to its splendor or the sun-loving flowers or the super camellias along the fences.
One can see her hands seem to test from the seeds, the roots, the bulbils, and the bulblets or feel the cormels and the tubers with extraordinary calm. All under her hands bring life—in which dangerous creatures keep out harm. Gradually her hands become two living organisms, challenging the propagation that somehow has witnessed it for so long.
How long? She can't tell. Maybe it does not make any different. Very few old people want to say it happened long time ago. I must have forgotten, they would say and the mere fact that it had been so long, they must remember how they started.
She takes a root of raspberry as she begins to plant it gently into a server.
Ms. Richfield: "Where is the beginning? There is no such thing. The beginning has nothing to do what we are and what we do. It strikes easily from where it is. The most important is where we'll begin if that chance of getting there has been broken."
However, like Ms. Richfield's hands. It was the beginning of an unsophisticated disease that has to do with the joins that in winter days squeezed her painfully and there was no joke or anything else to bring her deeply moment of life to a mold pleasure -- until this monstrous pain go away. I must say some arthritic nightmare, she says, shaking her head.
In the summer of the Californian weather, on March 18, 1907, this old woman was born. She does not understand why people emphasis too much it as a ritual of the dates they were born, especially when each one of us still have a beginning until we die. Every day is a season, she told me. One that each minute it is growing into "something" more solid or it will be the end of this beginning. One day, this young woman was unable to help her mother in the field or the simple round-to-round house's duty or to plant potatoes into the ground and pick up the eggs from the chicken house. Barely perceptible, unknown what wrong with her hands, day after day, night after night, this aliveness pain with the fear that she had wasted all her prays before God, she set herself out an abyss of wondering. She also tried to look at any site that she could die beautifully, focus nothing else than what she tried so hard to act as a normal kid.
That day was cool. The wind was moldering her body and mind; calm, the praised in every paradox was just a late conversation under the moonlight. Too sticky to God to perceive He was difficult to hear her; all of which end up in her soul that there was nothing wrong with her. She admitted it and the precious mixture of the camp, the pictures of sadness had housed themselves firmly within her, with her hatred or an aversion toward all the things, and she recognized once more that this was another beginning of life.
"Faith created a path and this path creates this enormous expectation," she says, selecting a crown shoot. "In that expectation there was a grave of perception far better than the same attachment of death. I am on such friendly term, including this enfeebled path, and I think, the whole thing is more deep that the memory I have. I ought to say it is my beginning to see and to hold until it comes. This waiting is the most beautiful what we call 'life'".
At first, as a girl, then as a grown woman, defined herself lonely after her mother died in 1944, and without gusto, she received the last destiny of summer spring. Loves came and love goes. There was no baby crying, but a notebook filled of poems from 1945 to 1946. It belongs to her sweetheart. He will tell her among “prune” and “thanks” what much the war had rotten him away and what much he had been in his thoughts away from her. The sentiments, mixing by a healthy eroticism and convertible touch made her to live through these periods of war:
Here, naked, laying on this rocky bed,
Watching the moon, drinking my Martini.
How I wish to have you, my love!
Without altering anything else than our bodies,
Our lips, our way of touching repeatedly!
Ah, where are you, Richfield? Summertime is here!
Then all silenced.
Robert Jones Simon's voice had gone. The last news was in the following spring of 1946, when a tall-red-white-uniformed man brought her all his belongs. He, too, was a lonely soul. If at all uncertain and digging up into her heart to what she could discard, that was it because she loved him. She was ready for him. She was ready to learn how to make a dinner, clear the dishes, inquires where she could find more happiness to give it to Robert Jones Simon. Most importantly, how to be a mother. What a drastic disappointment! What a waste of that reality! If that could be the suitable of a hybrid end, it was then the beginning a stake, the beginning of a "start" over again.
She remembered she wrote this to her dead lover:
The old & new love is gone!
And like the wind along with the waves of the Ocean,
As they are licking from your feet & drinking
The wet of your petals, beyond all Change & Mortal,
I am here to love you!
Open along the blue cascades, your mind to me,
Your cherry-soul, your body marked by the comforting
Feeling of cupping your dream!
Open the season with the night my tears!
Later, like an impetuous, virgin, enthusiastic, belligerent, but a lonely woman, she took refuge in this place around the San Fernando Valley’s landscapes, where she would begin to take slowly her life back. Just as she takes, also one minute or two to see what she has done none. There is no excitement, while the ground begins to open underneath her feet. Now it is the moment to write a memoir or wait quietly the color-blindness of Death.
As she is listening, in 1990 at the height of changing began to take form, seeing these moments unfold apart, rather thing trying to recreate them, a tinny bird fallen from the near tree in front of her. What a straight out of line! What is the message? Where is the apparently barrier between death and life she would face it? Carefully, however, she took the bird and cared for him. Hope, love, patience, this tinny bird overcome all of that -- a change! While her, Ms. Richfield, who has suddenly taken up this for something more hieroglyphics, it illuminates her with such intensity.
Ms. Richfield: "I considered it as an unusual given. Just imagine the patients who want to die, who has this deep depression or they may find a way to denial all this as a pleasure. When your mind is wandering filled of choices, who give too much hope an unrealistic assessment of what they went through. Now here is an old woman who has 86 years old, who does not know anything but this isolated ground with the most toxic remembrance of denial, still believing that love will come one day. Not this kind of propagation. A love of belief, a love that I never give to my poor Simon or to any man because of this halfway to see myself part of this big picture."
Now in her later 90s, while she is maintaining her focus as a mountebank of easy challenge, Ms. Helen Richfield does not think it a turbulent past or a supply line for a novel. She thinks it as a train of living, and what happened to her hands, and that count, for her present attitude, would never have the notion to understand it fully. It likes every day being carefully to step out of the cottage she does it just like that. She does not think what it is; she thinks in terms that her hands have given her a memory to be special. Like this letter from July 1946:
Dear Simon:
I read your poems and they are, well, exotic! Nevertheless, there is no necessity
of giving it a reply, you say. Silly! I think about it. Life is tough, even
if the suckers are apparently healthy. How much I wish to go there and show
you I have more guts than you?
"This letter never goes through," she says, fully intended to given this petiole a tinny cut. "The letter was returned back when he died near the capital of Italy."
Suddenly there is a sensation of worry through her slow moment or acting out to win the last lap of a speed platform. An action that are sitting movements, gestures, goodwill, you must say, along with all of these fact of that in which she knows she could not move fast enough to be there. She becomes unless a symbol of time and space, where her hands refused to go ahead. If that happen, she would break a smile across her face, she would take her time over the plants as a taster, using her eyes only; but if it does not happen, her hands then become a body language in a unique absorber of accountability to select the best approach -- or simply to touch it for a good effect.
Author's Notes
Helen Rogers Richfield died on September 21, 2008. Age 99.
is the quality for how I shall be born.
--Helen Richfield
When it comes to lovely hands, living hands, comprehensive old hands, there are no one like Ms. Richfield's hands: Large, bony, white, escaping once from a terrible disease when she was 2 years old; I acknowledge her hands as they are exceeding the talent of growing things. Things—such as bulbs, corns, tubers, strawberries, prunes, apples, raspberries, blackberries and grapes. In the early summer, her hands make them growing in a cool greenhouse, the frameworks of smell and the well-drained humus-rich soil, gives us the delicious welcome to eat all of them. The living pleasure, however, is the well-stocked quality her hands have that the treasure of glowing flowers. Few insight God's given to this unusual touch, leaving nothing but the pure magic popping bulbs in early or late summer or the herbs growing in moist and double sexy scent and the attractive festival feathery.
"There is no magic," she says as she spots a hornworm climbing slowly up along a curled leaves of an apple tree. She takes the hornworm with a handy picker and drops it into a jar of oily water. "There is only one thing. Patience. And I've that for years."
There is the hazard of highly bred cultivars that makes her hands to have such ability to form root initials and to bring the rhododendron leaves to its splendor or the sun-loving flowers or the super camellias along the fences.
One can see her hands seem to test from the seeds, the roots, the bulbils, and the bulblets or feel the cormels and the tubers with extraordinary calm. All under her hands bring life—in which dangerous creatures keep out harm. Gradually her hands become two living organisms, challenging the propagation that somehow has witnessed it for so long.
How long? She can't tell. Maybe it does not make any different. Very few old people want to say it happened long time ago. I must have forgotten, they would say and the mere fact that it had been so long, they must remember how they started.
She takes a root of raspberry as she begins to plant it gently into a server.
Ms. Richfield: "Where is the beginning? There is no such thing. The beginning has nothing to do what we are and what we do. It strikes easily from where it is. The most important is where we'll begin if that chance of getting there has been broken."
However, like Ms. Richfield's hands. It was the beginning of an unsophisticated disease that has to do with the joins that in winter days squeezed her painfully and there was no joke or anything else to bring her deeply moment of life to a mold pleasure -- until this monstrous pain go away. I must say some arthritic nightmare, she says, shaking her head.
In the summer of the Californian weather, on March 18, 1907, this old woman was born. She does not understand why people emphasis too much it as a ritual of the dates they were born, especially when each one of us still have a beginning until we die. Every day is a season, she told me. One that each minute it is growing into "something" more solid or it will be the end of this beginning. One day, this young woman was unable to help her mother in the field or the simple round-to-round house's duty or to plant potatoes into the ground and pick up the eggs from the chicken house. Barely perceptible, unknown what wrong with her hands, day after day, night after night, this aliveness pain with the fear that she had wasted all her prays before God, she set herself out an abyss of wondering. She also tried to look at any site that she could die beautifully, focus nothing else than what she tried so hard to act as a normal kid.
That day was cool. The wind was moldering her body and mind; calm, the praised in every paradox was just a late conversation under the moonlight. Too sticky to God to perceive He was difficult to hear her; all of which end up in her soul that there was nothing wrong with her. She admitted it and the precious mixture of the camp, the pictures of sadness had housed themselves firmly within her, with her hatred or an aversion toward all the things, and she recognized once more that this was another beginning of life.
"Faith created a path and this path creates this enormous expectation," she says, selecting a crown shoot. "In that expectation there was a grave of perception far better than the same attachment of death. I am on such friendly term, including this enfeebled path, and I think, the whole thing is more deep that the memory I have. I ought to say it is my beginning to see and to hold until it comes. This waiting is the most beautiful what we call 'life'".
At first, as a girl, then as a grown woman, defined herself lonely after her mother died in 1944, and without gusto, she received the last destiny of summer spring. Loves came and love goes. There was no baby crying, but a notebook filled of poems from 1945 to 1946. It belongs to her sweetheart. He will tell her among “prune” and “thanks” what much the war had rotten him away and what much he had been in his thoughts away from her. The sentiments, mixing by a healthy eroticism and convertible touch made her to live through these periods of war:
Here, naked, laying on this rocky bed,
Watching the moon, drinking my Martini.
How I wish to have you, my love!
Without altering anything else than our bodies,
Our lips, our way of touching repeatedly!
Ah, where are you, Richfield? Summertime is here!
Then all silenced.
Robert Jones Simon's voice had gone. The last news was in the following spring of 1946, when a tall-red-white-uniformed man brought her all his belongs. He, too, was a lonely soul. If at all uncertain and digging up into her heart to what she could discard, that was it because she loved him. She was ready for him. She was ready to learn how to make a dinner, clear the dishes, inquires where she could find more happiness to give it to Robert Jones Simon. Most importantly, how to be a mother. What a drastic disappointment! What a waste of that reality! If that could be the suitable of a hybrid end, it was then the beginning a stake, the beginning of a "start" over again.
She remembered she wrote this to her dead lover:
The old & new love is gone!
And like the wind along with the waves of the Ocean,
As they are licking from your feet & drinking
The wet of your petals, beyond all Change & Mortal,
I am here to love you!
Open along the blue cascades, your mind to me,
Your cherry-soul, your body marked by the comforting
Feeling of cupping your dream!
Open the season with the night my tears!
Later, like an impetuous, virgin, enthusiastic, belligerent, but a lonely woman, she took refuge in this place around the San Fernando Valley’s landscapes, where she would begin to take slowly her life back. Just as she takes, also one minute or two to see what she has done none. There is no excitement, while the ground begins to open underneath her feet. Now it is the moment to write a memoir or wait quietly the color-blindness of Death.
As she is listening, in 1990 at the height of changing began to take form, seeing these moments unfold apart, rather thing trying to recreate them, a tinny bird fallen from the near tree in front of her. What a straight out of line! What is the message? Where is the apparently barrier between death and life she would face it? Carefully, however, she took the bird and cared for him. Hope, love, patience, this tinny bird overcome all of that -- a change! While her, Ms. Richfield, who has suddenly taken up this for something more hieroglyphics, it illuminates her with such intensity.
Ms. Richfield: "I considered it as an unusual given. Just imagine the patients who want to die, who has this deep depression or they may find a way to denial all this as a pleasure. When your mind is wandering filled of choices, who give too much hope an unrealistic assessment of what they went through. Now here is an old woman who has 86 years old, who does not know anything but this isolated ground with the most toxic remembrance of denial, still believing that love will come one day. Not this kind of propagation. A love of belief, a love that I never give to my poor Simon or to any man because of this halfway to see myself part of this big picture."
Now in her later 90s, while she is maintaining her focus as a mountebank of easy challenge, Ms. Helen Richfield does not think it a turbulent past or a supply line for a novel. She thinks it as a train of living, and what happened to her hands, and that count, for her present attitude, would never have the notion to understand it fully. It likes every day being carefully to step out of the cottage she does it just like that. She does not think what it is; she thinks in terms that her hands have given her a memory to be special. Like this letter from July 1946:
Dear Simon:
I read your poems and they are, well, exotic! Nevertheless, there is no necessity
of giving it a reply, you say. Silly! I think about it. Life is tough, even
if the suckers are apparently healthy. How much I wish to go there and show
you I have more guts than you?
"This letter never goes through," she says, fully intended to given this petiole a tinny cut. "The letter was returned back when he died near the capital of Italy."
Suddenly there is a sensation of worry through her slow moment or acting out to win the last lap of a speed platform. An action that are sitting movements, gestures, goodwill, you must say, along with all of these fact of that in which she knows she could not move fast enough to be there. She becomes unless a symbol of time and space, where her hands refused to go ahead. If that happen, she would break a smile across her face, she would take her time over the plants as a taster, using her eyes only; but if it does not happen, her hands then become a body language in a unique absorber of accountability to select the best approach -- or simply to touch it for a good effect.
Author's Notes
Helen Rogers Richfield died on September 21, 2008. Age 99.