DUCK and COVER

August 6th 2020

"Duck and Cover"

We were told to get down under our desks and cover our heads with our arms. My classroom had a wall of windows and my desk was near them. Why we were having an atomic bomb drill, I don't recall. It was grade school.

"If I'm going to die, please send me home".

Have you noticed that some memory details get melded together? I mention it because these memories float within  shifting landscapes of place and time.

1955

I was eight when I saw this film of the H-bomb test in Nevada; there was a set; homes in the desert, with 'dummy' family (mother, father, sister brother) in residence and there were also live pigs in a pen. When the blast went off, everything was blown away. 

https://youtu.be/DXg2P9dx-GM

In Hiroshima, real bodies evaporated,

leaving only shadows on the ground.

 

I was only two when it happened, but it was strongly present in my childhood and throughout my adolescence - a significant turning point; the moment when I understood 'the grownups' were crazy.

1945 

 August 6th at 8:16 in the morning, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The American B-29 bomber Enola Gay released the bomb, which was nicknamed “Little Boy”. Sixty two thousand buildings were destroyed by the blast, which was equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT. Eighty thousand people were killed on impact, and 35,000 died over the next week of their injuries or radiation poisoning. Sixty thousand more died over the next year. The bomb exploded over a hospital, and 90 percent of the city’s doctors were killed in the blast. It was the beginning of the end of World War II; Germany had already surrendered and Japan would follow after the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later. A year later, The New Yorker devoted an entire issue to the publication of an article by John Hersey. The article, called simply “Hiroshima,” followed the lives of six survivors of the blast.

READ

"Hiroshima"

by John Hersey

 

(will open in a new window)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima?goal=0_c98caf23a9-530548a4d6-11875517&mc_cid=530548a4d6&mc_eid=d800919f51

<<<>>>

REMEMBERING HILL HOUSE WITH LOVE ONE LAST TIME

Her shining, generous presence, those wonderful eyes and that smile.

The records played all day long.
We danced to Linda Rondstat: She led. I led. No one led. She sang  Blue Bayou high and thin. I sang too--sang along--low, then we sang together

https://youtu.be/lBHRJmW7bVo
"You better let somebody love you
before its too late."
~*~
She made us eggs, toast, buttered bagels and tea and washed every dish immediately.

We watched a scarecrow being made.

Her past pastel delighted me:
'kittens' 

She put a Teddy bear on the bed for me,
two extra blankets, towels and a washcloth. It was fall and the church next door sold pumpkins and gourds.

The garden then

Glorious, the Correopsis

The ancient oak trees

Dusk

Waving as I departed, she said:
"Be good"

"GODS GARDEN"

"Gods Garden"
by M. Slater

It is hard to love a garden well
once you've actually lost one,
watched it destroyed,
first by neglect,
then dug up,
discarded.

It was a real beautiful space
eight X twenty plot on the
Epiphany church plaza.
Emily named it first:
"Gods Garden"
for worship.

In dreams sometimes I recall
the long line of black sage,
its miraculous blue
just springing up
annually, lasting
past first frost.

Golden Coreopsis in profusion,
branched and spreading
as regular as the moon,
drought tolerant,
brave and true.
So reliable.

Emily was the first creator-Mother.
When she retired I kept up.
Twenty years with her
fifteen for me alone;
thirty five years
of loving care.

All the weeding, pruning, planting,
seed spreading, mulching,
feeding liquid seaweed,
watering labors, love,
so suddenly
gone.

This sad story has a happy end.
It was the right time for me
to let go and move on
and I would not trade
one millisecond of it
for a pot of gold.

I have the image of field daisies
glowing in the dark city night,
nothing so rewarding as it.
Oh, scent of Phlox blooms
perfuming mornings
shamelessly!

I can still feel the softness of ferns
holding waving stands of Astilbe
and big cone flowers too.
There's dried fever-few
in musty closets
still working.

Every garden is a grand cathedral,
an altar dedicated to the earth.
From simple flower pots
to window boxes to
little patches or
full acres.

I retain the whole of the experience
in every single cell of my being.
All I gave, gave me more.
The light in my eyes
is sunrise held,
sunsets too.

If you're wounded or well my friend,
go to a garden and join in.
Bring friends as well,
share what is good.
Give it away and
nothing is gone.

~^~

IF ONLY

IF only I were not as mortal as I am. If WE were only not their fools and THEY (the famous they) were not so very precisely what they are, IF hyperspace were a skill that could be mastered--flight MIGHT be an option. If only that, THEN relief could follow quick enough. If only, only THESE things were true, TIME would lay down it's arms, clocks stop ticking, beings cease rushing, and grabbing.

STOP

~*~

MEANWHILE

The 2016 Lunar Phases Calendar ends when November ends. It was a gift from Peggy dear of Woman with Wings

http://womanwithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-hermit-month.html?spref=fb 

~*~

These little Organic Potatoes will be transformed into finger food treats by being roasted in garlicky butter for a friends Thanksgiving I'll be attending this coming week. I think of Grace Forest, her Thanksgiving preparations for her friend's imminent visit.

http://windthread.typepad.com/windthread/2016/11/ready.html

~*~

I sit staring here at this framed flyer from "Will Beauty Save The World?", a poetry show we did years ago--that deer antler, found on the forest floor during a visit upstate decades ago--the books and cards from friends; think about each of them, picturing them until thinking evaporates into just being.

~*~

Returning to nourishment, I process arugula with lemony vinegar until it's green goop, add a dash of stevia, a few pinches of salt, bottle and store it in the fridge to spread on toast in days to come.

~*~

Remembering
Thanksgiving in Massachusetts

 Two years ago.

Ha!

~*~

My all time favorite Thanksgiving desert
New England Indian Pudding

https://youtu.be/npw8h1sd2Qs

May you be happy

TWO PARTS

(Part One 2016)

Dark

 Animal Dreams

 Dreamer

~*~

(Part Two 1979)

Memory

"The past is not a book.    yet change goes on

 Freedom.  It isn't once to walk out

under the Milky Way, feeling the rivers

of light, the fields of dark--

freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine

remembering.  Putting together, inch by inch

the starry worlds.  From all the lost collections."

~*~

(last lines from "For Memory" by Adrienne Rich)

GOOD MORNING-AFTERNOON-NIGHT EQUINOX

This planet has it's own agenda.
It's not personal no matter what our neurons tell us.

The sun is directly above the equator, and the hours of day and night nearly equal. They rub against each other like old friends to talk of many unseen things.

Waves of energy pull at all matter in this moment and I feel it even here encased in brick, surrounded by glass and steel, and wrapped in endless cables. I feel the pull of green going, of rot, re-purposing and rebirth, so mind churns up a memory  of Winter.

Turn the globe 360 degrees,
Spring arrives elsewhere.

It's been an ordinary day, telephone and doorbells unplugged, I puttered around sorting useful things saved,

assessing works in process and making some progress.

Electronic church bells toll six O'clock and the aroma of what's been steamed permeates my skin. I sweat organic chicken, ghee, potato, carrot, onion, garlic and turmeric.

 I exhale wild-caught Alaskan codfish.
I'm pickled in sweet soy and vinegar...

pepper and Salt preserved, and overflowing with gratitude for these and all the gifts sent by generous friends...the four cameras when mine crashed and burned (two from writing pal Barbara Hohenberg, two from blog buddy Deb Lacativa), and this quilted journal cover with two journals (from another blogger Laura osbun)

and when I opened the mail a short while ago 
this book (from my dear friend Nayra).

Whew.

Night--A familiar silence vibrating,
reminding me that balancing is a practice that lasts,
that nothing is lost, that the past is present even as this moment slides into the future, that there's only now, and now, and now and now again.
~*~

TWO MORE DAYS

Wednesday?

I have to struggle to remember it. I might have even slept through it, though I know at some point I must have gone for groceries, because they're here today and were not here Tuesday.  A book idea made itself known late in the evening:

This 'generic' Buddha knows what happened to that day.  That's the central premise.

Why not?!

 Now, the choices are huge--what genre, what narrator, what location, what happens and why, and Isn't that some big bird on his head??????  Is it metaphor or magic at work?

To be continued...maybe.

Thursday Morning

I made a list of what's broken or just barely functioning: Dead answer machine, Dead printer, Keyboard whose numbers and letters have to be 'sharpied' in every few days, Very outdated computer model that often fails (also it lost it's DVD and CD applications), Broken ceiling light fixture in the 'closet' room, Dead savings account, One bad eye in need of cataract surgery, Reduced finances (rising price of everything).  That's enough. I will not subject you to all that is working just fine because it would eat all the space.  Besides, it might just be time to be 'practicing' detaching from all these machines.

Afternoon

I had some happy-time in the library returning two audio books (I'm abandoning Dan Brown, there's enough real Vatican news about corruption), and securing two large print books and two audio books:

David Sedaris is just plain funny.  No, searingly, brilliantly funny.  Hearing him perform his stories is worth any ones time.  No one does Sedaris better than Sedaris.

Love Louisa, and the Massachusetts setting, and the blurb says "Susan Cheever brings a unique perspective to Louisa May Alcott's life as a woman, a daughter, and a working writer".  Worth a try. 

Amy Tan delighted me with her "Joy Luck Club", so I have her "The Valley Of Amazement" now and can look forward to "a deeply evocative narrative about the profound connection between mothers and daughters", and a good deal of Chinese history as well.  "The Red Garden" by Alice Hoffman is set in the 1700s in Massachusetts.  Two assets.

Evening 

Grilled cheddar cheese on a bed of spinach and tomato with sesame-ginger dressing.

Bed.

FLAGS FLYING

Look!
What's hanging off a building across the street?

Colorful, and reminiscent of prayer flags.

A closer view shows no inscription.

Silent prayers perhaps.

I like thinking about prayer flags next door to the police precinct, and directly across the street from the Catholic rectory and office.  It occurs to me the Dalai Llama may be in town for the United Nations General Assembly this week.  Everyone who is anyone has come to New York to attend or report on it.  Grid lock is predicted for the East side of town all week.

I've been shredding and sorting,

record keeping, putting the business of life in some order.

 It's tedious, as you know.

 Satisfying when done.

  Since my physical prowess has been mitigated by twisted muscles, and since movement is limited,
it just seemed the perfect time.

My shoes don't get much of a workout.

 I visit often to commiserate with them, and nightly, I give my elastic  pelvic brace, my knee wrapping, and my helpful cane, a hearty thanks for getting me through another day.

They shepharded me to my writing group Monday night, got me a seat on the bus, and a hand down to the street at my stop, then safely home again.

An old, smudged, mixed media drawing
resurrects Madame Ramonde Collette

 She was in her eighties when I arrived here in the Fall of 1969, and we became friends.  Soon I became a helper who could be counted on to do her bills and her banking once a month.  I still see her sitting in her front room leaning in her open window sill, reading "Hollywood Babylon", the sun shining on her white hair and her aged blue eyes all aglow.  She was fond of gossip and scandal, and hardly ever left the apartment.  Born in France, twice married and widowed, without children, she lived on the first floor front with her younger sister until that sisters death, then alone.  That's how she was when we met.  Everyone knew her, and neighbors were often sitting around her kitchen table of an afternoon.  She kept a tidy, spare place, cleaned and cooked on the same days, as regular as a clock.  When she fell seriously ill, family who had never visited, appeared, and took her to live out her remaining days in Michigan where no one knew her.  She was in her mid-nineties when she died,  and left all her money to the church.  The landlord soon cleared her rooms out to the good will thrift store, and I haven't known a single occupant of that apartment since.  It is so much less a community here than it was then.  I miss her gaze. I miss the past every Fall, I think.
   
Falling back a bit before cocooning into Winter.  I'm spinning a kind of comfort, opening the memory vault, dipping into file drawers and letting the old names surround me once more.  There was Lena Levaca who's television was always on, and Erna Tross who survived the Nazi's, and showed me her missing breast, and wept.  Inga Borg lived across the street with her dependent adult son and several dogs, in that flag sporting building above, and was a frequent visitor to the other elders here, and Fanny and Sidney Raphel who shared Kuggel with us.
More...many more, but that's enough.  I'll stop before getting into the tragic love stories, the amazing dramas, the way we all mixed and mingled in together in those days when 'neighbor' didn't just mean the strangers next door, and 'neighborhood' meant shared turf, not just real estate.