Too Special to Use

You received it as a gift--right?  And it's so beautiful and special that you want to keep it that way.  Or--you bought it on a whim and are saving it for a special occasion.  

And there it sits--on a shelf in your closet or in your desk drawer.


That is the story of this pen that was still tucked away, unused, in my mother's kitchen drawer many years after she died.

I had bought it for her sometime in the 1970s, when a $25 Cross pen was, for me at the time, a fairly hefty expense.  Of course, Mother appreciated it, recognizing it as something special.  So she labeled it and set it aside to keep it nice and new, using "ordinary pens" for her letters and grocery lists.


Recently, I came to recognize a similar behavior in myself.  When sending packs of photo prints to friends, I wanted to include just a short note.  My desk drawer seemed to offer the choice of a folded notecard (a bit too formal) or a piece of paper from one of those notepads that always come in donation requests (a bit too impersonal).  Looking further underneath, though, I noticed a set of post cards that I had bought years ago, just because I liked the whimsical artwork.  But, since when do I send postcards?  

What if, at the time when I'm no longer on this earth, these were still sitting in my desk, waiting for somebody to clean up?  Would I then be lucky enough for that somebody to appreciate the humor that I saw in them?  Or, more likely--would he/she say, "These are weird!  Why in the world did she keep them?" before tossing them out.

So, I wrote my note on these postcards and sent them along with the photos.  Would the recipients appreciate them?  I have no idea, but at least I gave them the chance.  That's two of them used!  Only a half-dozen to go.  Now, if you someday get a note from me, written on a postcard published in Germany, you'll understand why.

Here's one of them--from a set called "Birds in Shoes," published by Inkognito. In case you appreciate the whimsy and the colorful artwork and want to follow up, you can find them and other such humor by clicking on their website here.  This link will show you another "bird in shoes."  Click on the online picture to enlarge it.  

If, on that website, you go to the list on the left and click on the topmost subject "Postkarten" (postcards), you will see that the world is indeed a small place.  In the first postcard, the German man at his computer has a hard drive that crashed, and he is calling NSA for a backup from March through July!  The last card on that page, titled "Oh, Oh, Oh,"  needs no translation.

Even if you don't know any German, you can have fun exploring some of their hundreds of cards.


And now -- I'm going to go through a lot more of my stuff to see what I can put to use rather than let it gather dust until somebody else throws it away!

Blessings of a Summer Cold -- R.S.V.P.

All right!!  Due to unusual circumstances, I was going to have a long weekend with few demands on my time.  Finally, I would have several days to go through my home office, clearing out and reorganizing!  

Then right in the middle of the weekend I was hit with a vicious cold that left me feeling worn out, droopy--absolutely no energy.  "I'm not supposed to catch a cold in summer!"  Now this was really putting a kink in my plans.



So, Plan B--Take it easy, take the day off, then I'll feel better for tomorrow.  "At least I can read," thought I.  Then another glitch--one side effect of the cold was the feeling of gravel under my contact lenses.  Reading would be very uncomfortable for awhile.

Plan B, Part 2--Sit back and listen to music with no distractions.  That would be a luxury, since music is usually a background while I am doing something else--reading, housework, driving. 

I picked out a CD (yes, I'm old-fashioned that way) that I'd had for awhile, one from a vocal group that I love.  I had never learned to fully appreciate this particular CD, though, because I had played it only through speakers, either in the car or while working at the computer.  I put on my headphones, since I have learned from experience that the sound is much better that way, thinking that I might pick up some beauty that I had missed previously on this CD.

And did I ever!  This music totally wrapped itself around my mind, immersing me in a cloud of gorgeous sound.  What was it?  The name of the album is "Fine."  The group goes by the name of RSVP (Reconciliation Singers Voices of Peace).  This is a choir of 16 singers from the greater Sacramento area, all of whom are trained musicians with excellent voices.  They donate their time and talent so that the proceeds of their concerts go to local charitable organizations. 

With my undivided attention I was able to focus on the words and the gorgeous interplay of all the voices.
  
 

The first song, "Heavenly Crystal," lived up to its name with the crystalline sparkle of sopranos over the lower voices reminiscent of a flowing brook, as lovers sing their dream of an idyllic future together.  
                                
                                       * * * * * 



 How well I could identify with the lyrics of the title song, "Fine"!  

            Tryin' to walk my troubles away,
            My thoughts are heavy at the end of the day,
            O this weary heart of mine,
            If I start singin' then I know I'll be fine.
            .......
            If I awake and I'm still alive,
            I've got my problems but I'm gonna survive.
            I take a breath and open my eyes
            Then I start singin' and I'm gonna be fine.
                              
                                       * * * * *


And I just have to smile while listening to the bouncing, joyful notes as the singer remembers a childhood of knowing only love in the care of a grandmother who kept any negative self-images far removed from her home.

           There were no mirrors in my Nana's house,
           And the beauty that I saw in ev-er-y-thing
           Was in her eyes, was in her eyes ....



If you appreciate good choral music, you will want to visit the RSVP website and hear a sample of their wonderful sound.  In addition to "Fine" they have two other albums, "The Road Home" and a Christmas album, "Heavenly Peace."  Go to their Store link, and you can buy any one of them for the best ten-dollar bargain you'll ever get.


And in the spirit of R.S.V.P., please write back with your own suggestion for some favorite music.  If you can't figure out how to leave a Comment, no problem.  Just email me at the address from which I sent you the notice of this blog.  It would be fun to hear from a number of you, and I'll put together a whole list of your suggestions on a future blog entry.

What a wonderful, unexpected outcome of that unwelcome summer cold!  From now on I promise myself to do this more often--sit back, close my eyes, and just listen!

Mary Austin -- Part 1: Seeking Herself

Mary Austin knew what it was like to be an outsider.  Born in 1868, in Carlinville, Illinois, the second of four children of George and Susanna Hunter, Mary spent her childhood trying to figure out how to fit into a world of rules and restrictions that she could not understand.

For example, Mary, at about age four, heard about an incident in which her older brother fell out of a wagon and came home covered with mud.  But, when she related this happening, she was scolded by her mother for making up a story, i.e., telling it as though she had seen it when she had not.  Mary couldn't understand the distinction because, in her very active little mind she could clearly see, and react emotionally to, the entire scene.  What was the difference between seeing an event with your eyes or living it in your head after you heard about it?  

By the time she started first grade at age five, Mary had already learned basic reading from listening to her brother and from possessing a native talent for absorbing sounds from the printed  words.  The teacher, however, insisted that Mary could not possibly read because it had not been taught her yet, that she was making up a story. (There was that "story" problem again!).  Mary, subject to the snickers of her classmates, couldn't understand what the teacher meant by telling her that she could not read when that's exactly what she was doing.

In her autobiography (Earth Horizon,1932), Mary remembered her father (who died when she was nine) as someone who appreciated his lively and intelligent daughter.  Not so her mother, who Mary recalled as a parent trying her best to do her religious duty toward a daughter whom she regarded with distaste because Mary didn't conform to her expectations of reticence and respectability.  The only one of her siblings that she truly loved and who loved her in return was her younger sister Jennie, who died in childhood of diphtheria just after Mary recovered from it.  Although later in her life she had forgotten the faces of other family members, she wrote of Jennie, "She was the only one who ever unselflessly loved me.  She is the only one who stays."

From childhood Mary had known two things about herself: (1) she would be a writer and (2) nothing made her happier than her interest in nature.  However, when she enrolled at Carlinville's Blackburn College, she chose science rather than English, explaining, "English I can study by myself; for science I have to have laboratories and a teacher."  By the time of Mary's graduation at age twenty, her mother had decided that the Hunter family would follow the older brother, who had moved to California with a dream of farming in the dry eastern San Fernando Valley.  Susanna never gave any support to Mary's dream of becoming a writer.

The farming venture was a dismal failure, but Mary found work as a teacher while immersing herself in the study of the desert land and the people and animals living there.  Perhaps as a way to become independent of her family she married Wallace Austin, who turned out to be no more successful financially than was her brother.  The Austins moved to the Owens Valley, a remote area of California north of Death Valley, where Mary gave birth to a severely handicapped daughter, who was rejected by both Mary's husband and mother.  Leaving her unhelpful husband, she supported herself by teaching in small towns.  During that time she taught herself about the plants and geology of the area and listened to stories told by the local Indians and the Mexican sheepherders.   Putting all this together in her own captivating style, she wrote the stories which have earned her the distinction of being one of the most important writers of California history.

[In the next installment, I will delve into Mary Austin's writing and the people she met later in her life].