Golden Retrievals

From Spring 2009 issue of Tricycle Magazine.

Golden Retrievals
Fetch? balls and sticks capture my attention seconds at a time. Catch? I don't think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who's - oh
joy-- actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I'm off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you're sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back.

or else you're off in some fog concerning
--tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving
my haze-headed friend, you. this shining bark,

a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

From "Sweet Machine: Poems" by Mark Doty

Hot Summer in the City

Hello Patrick, Erin, Steven, Kelsi and Corey!

It's feeling like summer here in the deep South. High 80's and 90's for several weeks now. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I DO LIVE in the deep south! Strange, those twists and turns that bring you to a place you never that you'd be. I guess keeping open to the possibility of adventure will take you many places.

Well, I have done it. I found myself a country music station and have saved it to a button on my car radio! It all started with that trip to Wyoming CD provided by the bride and groom last July. And now I play my Garth Brooks 2CD edition Steven gave me REAL LOUD in the living room...I sing along, especially when he is saying "Bat - tawn Rouge!" Friends and family worry, but I'm hooked. And you guys would be totally embarrassed. Lori and I took Corey out to dinner thursday night as a send off - he leaves Sunday for a month at the San Francisco Art Institute as an intern. He was only semi-embarrassed (he's used to us) when, after drinking two Margheuritas (I KNOW that's spelled wrong), we started singing some oldies but goodies. The embarrassment goes on...

So glad our Erin is safely back on the continent. I bet you'll be having fun unpacking wedding gifts you had to leave in Fort Collins last year.






I just LOVE this job I have, and a good part of the reason is the variety of people I meet. I am now doing a website for Birmingham Bad Boy Buggies (ATV's), a psychiatric group whose site has beautiful seasonal photos, a carpet place and a woman who does voice work including radio ads, animated voices and the voice on the telephone that takes you from menu to menu. Talk about variety! It's so interesting learning about their line of work.

The voice lady is one of two people in town who have taken the "Climate Project" training with Al Gore in Nashville two years ago. They give talks all over town and have learned how to respond to those who don't believe climate change is happening. This is the other lady, Joyce Lanning, who is a friend of mine...you can hear her give a 20 second intro on this national website! http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/whyjoin/

And she went to Antarctica in December to look at the melting for herself. I hope I'm am half-engaged in the world as she is when I'm in my seventies!

My "Notebook Project" for all of you is taking longer than expected because as I dig for more family information and photos I keep coming upon more treasures. If you recall, I'm putting together notebooks with memorabilia, geneology charts and OLD family photos. I spent an afternoon sitting on Mimi's living room carpet pulling old sepia colored photos out of files and having her identify the people. We're talking photos from as early as 1916! They will be scanned and labeled for your notebooks. I have to admit that this stuff was of little interest to me at your age...but do keep hold of them; they will have meaning some day when you want to get a sense of where you came from!

This is Dudley (yes, Dudley!) and Ella Morton from Kentucky. Who are they? They are my grandfather's ("Pop" or Earl Morton, Sr.) parents, which makes them your great-great-grandparents. I never even knew their names before. Pop is of course, Mimi and Uncle Earl's father. Corey thinks Patrick has some of Dudley's looks.

So, as I said, Corey leaves tomorrow for San Francisco (do they still make Rice-s-Roni?). He'll be living a few blocks from Lombard Street (the twisty street) and Fisherman's Wharf. I would love to go back and see the city again. If he likes the Art Institute and IF he can get scholarship money, he may go there for school. But then he's also looking at MICA, near Baltimore as well as schools in NYC and Chicago. The boy wants to get out of Dodge! Lori, Steve and I are already feeling heart pangs and he doesn't even leave for college for a year! guess I'll have to get another cat.

Well I'm off to our monthly "Social Action and Spirituality" Saturday morning gathering. We drink tea and coffee and listen to audio tapes on lots of different topics, stopping and starting the tape when we want to have a "lively discussion" about something that speaker just said. Today, we're listening to a program taped at NYC's 92nd Street Y (it looks like a very cool place...check out the website especially the events on the right sidebar). The program is called "The Trouble with Islam" which is an interview with two American Muslim women. Irshad Manji is the best-selling author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the author of The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, in case you are interested!

Hope everyone is well. Let me hear from you.
Love,
Mom

He's Come A Long Way, Baby!

Corey is really turning into quite the artist. He has learned so much at Alabama School for Fine Arts, which is his high school. It's a public school but is very difficult to get into. He's planning to go to Atlanta in the spring where art schools hold a "Portfolio Day". He will be able to meet with up to four college representatives and show them his portfolio. Although he is only a junior he has been avidly researching art schools. He and Steve visited MICA last summer - Maryland Institute for ....something. I forget! It's in Baltimore. And he's also looking at schools in New England and Chicago. So looks like he'll be moving away from us in a year and a half.

This is a self-portrait done in oil or acrylic. I love the colors he has used in his hair.












This is done on a piece of ply wood with acrylics.





























His unusual pottery creations are influenced by the style of his pottery instructor, Scott Bennett. Scott and his wife Dori have become very good friends of Steve and Corey. They own The Red Dot Gallery here in Birmingham and their work goes for. Dori is an oil painter and tile maker and her work can go for 4 figures.







I believe this piece was his entry into a National Teen Pottery contest for which he won an honorable mention at the show in Louisville, KY. Steve and he went up for the show last summer.















This is a huge acrylic he did that hangs in their home office. I don't know why, but I really like it! Notice the people on the cow's tongue. It's meaning? You've got me!

Granted, his style is a little way out and reflects his youth but it's obvious he will only get better. So, the lesson to be learned is get your piece of artwork by Corey now...it may be worth a lot later!

Love to all,
Mom

I've Been Taking Photos

Do you realize that we haven't actually seen the inside of any of our present domociles? We have all moved in the past year! I really appreciated the photos of your apartment in Berlin, Erin. Actually I had started taking photos a few weeks ago but then decided to wait until I got my purple curtains up...yes, PURPLE!

You may have seen these outside photos before....I feel like I live in a cottage in the woods. It's an old in-laws quarters that has been added onto. The addition gives me a great place for my home office.

This one looks sort of plain...but I had huge bloomin' pink impatients in the window boxes. Dan took the window boxes down for me last night so I can plant pansies in them for over the winter. Yes, they plant pansies down here in November and by March you have a big mound of them. It's cool!

Now guys, I just know you are going to want to see every room in the place...NOT. But here goes anyway.

This is of course, my office where I spend A LOT of time...but it's great looking out the window and I'm high enough that I feel like I'm up in the trees. The cats sit to the left of my computer a lot and look out until they start walking in front of the computer and plop themselves down right on my papers so I can be sure to know they want some ATTENTION! :)

Look! I have an old claw foot tub..

And speaking of cats...yes, Jesse is still a bit, shall we say, CHUBBY. But he is much more social than Wade these days. Jesse hangs with me. Wade is getting older and likes to nap...a lot. Of course, that's after he has gone out through the doggy door and caught his chipmunk for the day which he sometimes brings to me as a present. Then I scream at him and he gets all hurt. I've become fairly good at picking up the little critters by the tail while they are still in shock mode, and carrying them outside. I also find that those that revive too quickly run behind the fridge, so I stick Wade in the bedroom and leave the back door open a crack. They figure out the escape route pretty fast! Others haven't been as lucky...

Wade just after his nap...

Well, there will be more later. And I have to tell you about seeing Lily Tomlin live here in Birmingham Saturday night!

Generosity Bonfire - what a name!

The vow ceremony was beautiful and moving. We had just spent three days with Acharya Arawana Hayashi and thirty others (5 came up from Florida to hear her teachings) and the Boddhisattva vow ceremony was the culmination of the weekend. Four of us took vows; seven others took Refuge vows. The big excitement was to hear what name Arawana had chosen for us. When my name was called I walked up and we bowed to each other as she handed me a paper with my new name she had chosen for me in both Tibetan and English done in calligraphy. Was I ever surprised when she read out loud - Jinpa Mepung or Generosity Bonfire! It must be my red hair or something. :) Anyway, it's something to live up to.





Here are other photos of the weekend so you can see my "community". They are all wonderful, thinking, fun people!

My good friend Phyllis who you've probably heard me speak of is on the right.












And on the left is my
other good friend Janet!

A Special Day

Good morning! Today I take my Boddhisattva vow with Acharya (means senior teacher) Arawana Hyashi who is visiting us from New York to give us teachings all weekend. This is my second Buddhist vow, having taken the Refuge Vow in 2004.

A Boddhisattva is one who puts service and compassion for others ahead of themselves. Seems like a simple enough thing but in actuality if one believes in reincarnation, a Boddhisattva is, in essence setting aside his or her time for enlightenment, agreeing to be reborn into the cycle of life with its joys and sufferings, over and over until ALL sentient beings are enlightened. (Wow! That makes me nervous just thinking about it.) But this path feels right to me.

Enlightenment comes when one sees the futility of samsara (living with self-centeredness, bewilderment, greed, pride, envy, clinging to objects and people) and comes to understand that it's all these things that create suffering in our lives.

There will be a vow ceremony in which I and three others from our community or sangha, will be given our Boddhisattva names, chosen by Acharya Hayashi. My refuge name chosen by another Acharya is Champa Metok, in Tibetan, or Loving-kindness Flower.

I know all this must seem strange to you, but for me Buddhism is a philosophy, a way of life, learning how to know how to act in the world to relieve one's own suffering as well as that of others. It has changed my life.

Just wanted to share this important day with you all.
Much love,
Mom

Sunday morning

Hi you all,
It's been a good week. I'm finishing up a website for the campaign for a new library in Vestavia Hills ( a town named for the Vestal virgins...but that's another story). There are a lot of very cool libraries around the county but Vestavia's is definitely lacking. It's to be a Library in the Forest..literally. They need $5.5 million and the city will match that dollar for dollar. I tested the payment (donation) system I set up for them and gave a few dollars in memory of Granddad who of course, had such a love of books all his life.


Next I'm doing the Alabama Head Injury Foundation, a pilates studio and the Char House Restaurant...never been there, but I guess I'll see it this week. Sounds like lots of steak and fat doesn't it?

Well, my latest environmental pet peeve is bottled water. I read in Time magazine that the US spends $10 BILLION each year on bottled water. It apparently takes oil to make the plastic and then oil to transport the water from Fiji, France and Italy to the US. All that of course generates tons of CO2 and increases global warming. So I won't buy the stuff....although I certainly did on those long drives in Wyoming. Water is basically free (well not with water prices in Bham!) but you can add a filter and just put the water in a travel mug. Only 25% of bottled water containers are recycled. So 75% go into landfills. Something to think about.

Corey has been talking about his Mom more lately, so I'm having him come over today to watch that outrageously funny Christmas video that Uncle Steven and Aunt Carolyn made in 1989, the year before he was born. (Erin, the video was a greeting to all our relatives with Carolyn in her bridal gown baking cookies, Steve's video tour of their "estate", actually apartment, and cat tricks by Max the orange tabby - sounds silly, but it was really a riot.) Corey's almost 17, so of course he's curious about her...says he doesn't really remember much of her personality. I'm hoping this video will bring back some memories and we can talk about her. He was only 10 when she died.

Guess what! We're having a cold spell...it's only in the high nineties now, down from all those 100 degree days.

Steve, my computer arrived Friday....yay! Apparently there is a Wizard for transferring files. I'll probably do it with my jump drive or disks. May be calling you.

Will it be snowing in Berlin at Christmas?

Love to you all,
Mom/Pat