A Short Selfie

A few pounds and born early

Make for a "hopeless case."

My mother prayed to St. Jude.

I lived.

As a kid I got car sick, 

Preferring the shade of forest trees,

Splashing in the salty sea or

Alone in a field

Fingers pink with wild berries-

I ate them as I picked.

I sing with the radio

Often the wrong words.

Baking pies is not my thing,

Picnics are.

I have slept

Floating in the middle of a lake,

Watching the stars fall.

War scares me.

I am not afraid of the dark.

Reading five books at once

Makes me nuts.

I like naps

And I consider myself 

Among the few 

Lucky enough to have found

True Love.

(Inspired by and Adapted from: A Short Collective Biography-Amy Krouse Rosenthal found in Textbook)

Gone

The Shore Path crawls with strangers and their dogs.  Rex breaks the ice as he wags and sniffs.  We strangers laugh and smile. What would we do without dogs and their non snobby ways?  The Shore Path would crawl with strangers minus the dogs.  With hands in pockets, the strangers would brush pass each other looking at their feet. The potential for connection is gone.

Paradise

Driving along the rolling hills between Bangor and Bucksport, I noticed green. Seconds later I got my first whiff of cut grass.  Near the road a man was on the slant of a hill pushing something. At first I thought it might be one of those grass seed spreaders or push fertilizer mechanisms.  The aroma that never seems to grow old confirmed that he was cutting his grass.  A few doors down, two elderly men were talking as one sat on a ride-on  mower while the other stood near.  They were either contemplating cutting the grass or just taking a break.

Driving along with my driver-side window opened; heightens my senses of smelling and hearing, whether it be the smell of freshly cut grass, the clam flats as I cross the bridge or the sound of cardinal song as he is perched atop the highest branch. These experiences help me to appreciate the ever-changing cycle of time. Truly, we live in paradise.

the quest

The winter layers finally shed, we walk in the woods dressed like spring,  REAL spring.  Tails in wag, nose in sniff, hyper-vigilant puppies in a quest to not miss a thing. Each step  slows to the present.  Birds welcome in song.  Trees dormant all winter wear buds tightly wrapped, just in case it snows in May.  Uncertain times.  We press forward along the path of mottled light, trees cast shadows, but the sun warms.  My eyes and ears open to this moment. The only one that matters.  Now.  This day. And all is perfectly as it meant to be.

Ode to the Egg

Unlikely place to find comfort
In the sink while water runs
Between white and membrane
With gentle hand the shell releases
Presenting a perfect protein,
Gifts from our hens.

the risk

                                                                                           Copyright: Travelinma


Is it possible to feel too deeply?
A heart that aches incessantly,
Holds room for joy too.
Cannot sorrow and joy inhabit the same chambers?

For what is a life without the highs and lows?
The fullness of heart is preferred,
Over hollow.
Is it not worth the risk?

top ten things I love today

10.  The fact that I still have wool socks in my top drawer for a quick change of "season."

9.   Watching how a charcoal sketch develops when I really don’t have a clue.

8.   Seeing a dear friend who kisses me on the head after a long, long hug.

7.   A hot cup of tea with soy, sometimes honey.

6.   Being surrounded by photos, paintings, sketches, carvings and pottery.

5.   Learning new things and recognizing the incredible capacity of my brain.

      (It still works!)

4.   Sunny, warm days, without black flies.

3.   Kitties, doggies and husbands who snuggle.

2.   Sunday morning waffles with a big crowd-my family.

1.   Rainy day naps.

Waiting

We waited for days like today.  Reluctant mounds of snow melting.  Puddles.  Mud.  With the first few days of spring, sometimes earlier we knew it would come any day. Bike riding weather.  At least a month before we would shine up our bikes, inflate the tires and sometimes add a horn or glittery streamers for the handle bars.  

Every kid in the neighborhood had a bike with a banana seat and sissy bar handlebars.  Despite urging my mother to conform, I rode my second hand, heavy red bike with fat wide tires. Hand brakes were fashionable, but I had a one speed with a mechanism that activated the brake with a backward stroke of the pedals. The weight of the bike made it difficult to keep up with my friends. It seemed that I worked doubly hard with others who had three speeds- I had one speed:  slow. My mother held onto the belief that, “if it's not broken, why replace it.”  Quinn’s Bike Shop was near St. Mary’s School and I would start my journey home window shopping.  Sometimes I would go in and stroke the gleaming bikes. Then check the price tag.

When I was in 6th or 7th grade, I saved babysitting money I earned to buy myself a three-speed blue bike from Sears.  That bike frequently took me to the beach 15 or so miles away.  The hours it took to get there and back required short liberated visits, a quick walk on the beach followed by a picnic lunch.  It was nearly an all day excursion.   I went alone, frequently trying a different route and discovered that all roads have their share of hills.

On days like this-sunny with the earth thawing I think of the thrill of those first bike rides.  Soon the carriage roads, now soft with whispers of winter will be ready for riders.  I sure could use my rugged, red bike with wide tires.  

Living

Just when did fear seep into my life?  Is it the normal condition of a reasonable adult? A young colleague of mine is planning a trip across the country.  By herself.  At one point I wanted to walk the Appalachian Trail, bike long distances and to explore this country. Two summers ago, I thought about going out into the woods and camping by myself.  The thought terrifies me. All the ‘What if’s….’  begin to activate and my logical brain twists into one big knot.  Could I do any of these things by myself?  After almost thirty-five years of marriage I have come to rely on company.  My husband helps me out of fixes on a daily basis and my tall children reach things for me. Could I survive being alone for long periods of time?  Is this really all about fear?

I must challenge myself.  Although I have been in the same skin for more than ‘half-way to one-hundred’ years, there is more to discover about me. I continue to learn everyday.   There are more chances to take.  More adventures.   Trust trumps fear because I possess the inner resources and strength to live and love fully through the joys and heartbreak. I want to feel it all.  Only then will I know that I am living and bust through the fear.

Happy

                                                     -Barbara Keene (Graphite, Watercolors) 3/17/14

Why do I do it?  I wonder as I push the tiny brush around the paper.   I have no formal training. The results are not always pleasing either.    Holding a paint brush, a graphite pencil or a ballpoint pen to paper does something to me emotionally.  I am happy.

Against darkness I push the heavy carved wooden doors opening to sunshine.  The outside seems all the more brighter compared to the dark, solemn corners of the church.  Parishioners stream out and onto the granite steps squeezing passed me, some making gentle contact. Suddenly the humming that vibrates within turns into song. Church is over.  I am singing and I don’t care who hears me.  Adults mingled in small groups down the steps and onto the large area leading to the curb.  Small children shrieked while they raced playing tag, running in and out of the crowd. If only I could sing.  Always. Forever.

In my decades on this earth, there have been periods of my life which have been disappointing and have filled me with anguish and sorrow.  Emotions have weighed me down and kept me there.

As I push the paint brush and pigment along the paper, I think of Sundays when I sang.  Actively creating keeps me alive.    It is the process, not the final product that makes the difference.  I don’t sing much anymore, my voice cracks, idle.  Mostly, writing has become my song and sometimes, I drag out the sketchbook and find myself deep in the creative process.  Humming-a song comes to mind and I elevate to song and find myself happy.

Smiling Lessons 102

I have all I can do to contain my laughter.  My 13 year old caught a glimpse of the above self-portrait (Day 15) and without prompting demonstrated various techniques to enhance my photo with a smile.  "Look Ma, do it like this," she said demonstrating the preferred smile while explaining the "how not to smile" techniques.  Apparently one should never smile with  the teeth  together nor should  the top teeth ever overlap the bottom, which is my usual strategy.  I guess I've got it all wrong. The following photo is post smiling lessons.  I have my daughter Eddaejia to thank for today's selfie!

My mother must be so very happy. See the post about my mother's failed attempts at smiling lessons here:  http://travelinma.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-black-box.html

The Nature of Things

This morning, every flat surface in the house seemed to have a teenage boy snuggled under a blanket.  What a wondrous way to wake, so we set about to make them all feel at home.  Pounds and pounds of bacon sizzled in the pan sending a lingering wake-up smell in the house and a waffle recipe that multiplied by five times for all these extra mouths, plus the adult children and significant others who normally join us each Sunday.  The house was filled with food and people.

It was cold and drizzly and some folks in the state woke to snow.  My trusty Sue-Baru would get us to Bangor (running some errands) and then to the Augusta area to visit with my dear aunt.  This trip was long over-do and I was able to catch up on the welfare of all my cousins who have been lost in the decades of adulthood.  Photos along with my aunt's commentary provided me with a glimpse of their lives with children and grandchildren since my younger wild days of chasing my boy cousins for hugs and kisses.

Later in the afternoon, as I sat on a bench in the middle of a large square room (facing what I thought at first was a self-portrait taken with a camera), I was in awe that this piece of art that was two stories tall was in fact a tapestry.  My daughter, who is an artist told me that this particular artist is confined to a wheelchair and has designed a lift to hoist himself up to meet eye to eye with the line he is working on.  Such tedious work. It puts a ridiculous touch on my little self portrait project and my hesitation to share art depicting myself.

Today after the visit with my aunt and a brief stop at Colby College's Museum of Art, I realize that my life is full of possibilities: the human connection spawning love and the divine connection unfurling creativity and love.    I sometimes fail to recognize these.   Both experiences were of a Divine nature.  Love and creativity.  'Can't miss.

Creating History

There are a few things that change around here as soon as the cold weather arrives-the wood stoves are cranking, I have all I can do to stay up until 9 p.m. and the family gathers for what has become traditional Fall and Winter meals.  Thoughts of Friday night conjure up testing yeasty dough for proofing and using four hands to decorate the pizza pie.  Some weeks the house is filled with hungry teenagers and older Keene children with significant others, while other Fridays are pretty quiet with wedges of left over pizza available for a snack late into the night or for the perfect "take and go" breakfast in the morning.  Food does not last long around here.

My childhood Sundays were filled with mass at St. Mary's Church in Biddeford and then a big family brunch at my home on Dearborn Avenue.  I think that is where I learned to overeat.  This meant that family was gathered around the table eating and chatting until everyone was finished.  The longer I ate english muffins slathered in peanut butter and bacon (after a course of bacon and eggs) the longer I had to listen to family stories.  These tales uniquely bound us together.

My children are big story tellers.  Recently, Jerry and I learned over Sunday waffles (homemade by the way) that Gabrielle was the scape goat for many escapades instigated by her older brother Alex and twin sister Elizabeth. No wonder Gabrielle was always in trouble, I ponder as I toss a few fresh strawberry slices on my blueberry waffle.   Of course, no one else was there on this particular Sunday to deny or to support this point of view, but nonetheless the stories flow freely among the Keenes and their significant others or friends who choose to join us.    

While writing about my childhood and family through the years, I realize that what has been most important to me has been the constancy of traditions and routine.  Over the past week, we have jostled between summer like temperatures in the mid-60's or have endured the frigid task of scraping frost off the car windshield when the thermometer read 23 degrees.  This is our season of gathering and telling tall tales over some mighty good homemade food which is part of our family history. I am ready.

Behind the Brick Facade

Ignorance is bliss. I know nothing about engineering or architecture, yet I can't help myself from collecting photos of buildings, mostly brick buildings. Brick buildings of my youth include the bank with smooth rounded veined marble pillars.  Somehow my cheek would find a way to access the coolness of the rock.  The ceilings high making the building hollow and echo.

Perhaps my affinity for brick, aged buildings comes from after church Sunday visits to Auntie and Gene's in Portland.  There was always lots of food.  Not the meat and potatoes that graced my table at home, but fresh produce from the farmer's market and pickled vegetables. I developed my sense of culinary adventure behind that brick facade.   Often we would bake short cakes to go with fresh strawberries or blueberries. I would walk down to the tiny store around the corner with my big sister to get a carton of cream that would be whipped into sweet peaks of delight.  Auntie's was the first place I had a taste of loose tea, mostly milk and spoonfuls of sugar.    Family stories, secrets between adults in French and food.  Auntie's was a place of constancy and love.

The Light Within

The thin curve of my upper lip,
The nose that looks like the milk man's.
Bit by bit,
Learning to love it all
Through the Light within.

Loving Through Images

Thumbing through stacks of photos while visiting my childhood home recently, reminded me just how important it is to preserve and treasure family history through images.  I found images of my father as a pudgy five year old in knickers with a pageboy haircut. In another photo my mother at about the same age, smiles in the direction of the camera the blue of her eyes lost in the black and white processing.  There were decks of newer photos too.  My mother was the photographer,  that is when she remembered the camera. She captured mostly holidays or special occasions.  The composition of all her her photos were problematic, the subjects rested on the bottom eighth of the photo showing the tops of heads, while most of the square print was wall and ceiling.  Standing in the middle of my old bedroom, holding the image of Auntie and Gene with their smiles running off the edge of the photo made me smile. Suddenly, I recalled that despite protests (my mother painstakingly took forever to snap a "bad" photo) she continued to be the family photographer.  When I was old enough, I  wrangled the camera from her. From then on I was absent from family photos.

I have a friend that takes self-portraits almost daily.  I stare her image. How does she do that? I couldn't. I thought. She holds all that she has become until that moment in the image. All the joys, the lessons and the pain.  I realize for the most part, I remain absent from photographs.  Although said to be photogenic, I do not like to like to have my photo taken.  Hyper-critical, whenever I am forced to be in front of a lens I hide behind the torso of another and peek. Just little bits of me show.

What would happen if I began the practice of a self portrait a day?  Would I come to discover the light within and learn to accept myself as I am?  Does how I look really have much to do with all the "inside" work?  I could learn to love.

One day my daughters may discover the series of self-portraits and hold them tightly and view them as gifts to be treasured.

Beginnings

It was about this time of year when my husband and I learned that I was expecting our first child.  Often, I felt a  spine tingling sensation  the same I felt when rising up the crest of a hill and careening into the air of nothingness, an abyss.  Parenting certainly was an unknown.  I had never been one before and I had a mere nine months to prepare.  I wanted my child to have every advantage.  My body was supporting another life.  An appointment was made with a nutritionist, I did not ingest anything that might harm and I walked each day.

My pregnancy was unremarkably remarkable.  It was in the warmth of a late spring day that I began feeling a tightness. I was in labor- a slow labor.  My husband and I arrived early, my in-laws going about their morning routine. They lived nearest the hospital.  My father-in-law had been working for hours already hauling wealthy and common folk's trash to the dump.  He had come home to take care of some billing and was sitting in his plaid rust colored chair, peering over his spectacles as we trudged through the door.  My mother-in-law, drying her hands on a dishtowel cleared the couch and fluffed up some pillows.

The T.V. was forever droning in the background-white noise for living that did not seem to require attention.  That day I was in labor and I felt I needed attention!  Raquel Welch as a cave woman did not amuse me. "Turn that thing off, " I insisted, "I'm having a baby now. Here!"

Normally argumentative in a traditional controlled way, my father-in-law turned off the T.V. and all was quiet for the longest time.

Mothering Big

A decade ago, I made one of those death bed promises that I don't regret, "I'll take care of him, don't worry Ma,"I reassured as I referred to my brother choking back tears.   My mother had always taken care of all of us.  Despite the miles that separated as I grew into adulthood, I knew that she was only a phone call away.  She was there during my most troubled years as a young wife with young children and two full time jobs.  I worked day and night with little sleep or rest.  During periods of great joy mother was there to celebrate births, little dimpled hands wrapping around her gnarled fingers as she rocked and cooed.  She had a great capacity for love. She was always there for me.

For nearly thirty-two years I have mothered.  When life is care-free it is easy to remain filled with love, hope and great joy.  It is during those times when you fear that you will fall to your knees collapsing under the weight of stress, anxiety, frustration and anger that living in the shadow of the most perfect mother becomes challenging.  

It is not fair to compare myself with my mother really.  We live in a different time. Parenting feels a bit more challenging than when I was a kid.  I rode my bike everywhere, the phone was connected to the wall and I could not go far in having a private conversation.  Life today seems more complex and tenuous.  Is that only because I am an adult and a responsible one?  Mothering is a complex job.  Certainly not for the faint of heart.

After my work is done on this earth, it is my fervent hope that  my children will look after one another.  It is in the act of mothering that our children begin to make connections for how they can move about the world nurturing in big ways.

 

Each Moment

This is a portion of a letter to my brother:

The gardens are preparing for sleep.  We ate breakfast on the porch watching the leaves of the nearest tree tumble to the ground.  Gold finches visit the sunflowers heavy with seed.

We push through another season.  Time a blur akin to racing for the next connection, rushing on the airline's mechanical walk-way.  Everything a blur in our frantic pace.

Slowed down the joy of contentment and gratitude seep into every atom.  Each moment deserves attention.

Fried Chicken Dreams

We knew it was bad for us, but we ate it anyhow because it was what we packed on our annual excursion up to the White Mountains.  Auntie would get the cast iron skillet hot and her husband Gene would dredge the chicken in flour, salt and pepper and perhaps a few secret ingredients. Certainly, the basket was filled with other goodies, most likely from the farmer's market, but I don't remember.  All I remember was the fried chicken and the years that I saw the crumbling nose of the "Old Man in the Mountain" through a thick fog.  Some years the foliage was so brilliant that we would pull the car over to the side of the road and just gawk with a chorus of "Ooohs and aaaahs."

Only as an adult do I now realize how important those traditions and annual family outings are to children.  Those are the memories that after all these years make me smile and wish I could recall all the fine details.  Auntie was a spontaneous free spirit who engineered a good number of my childhood memories, including dreams about her fried chicken.   Most importantly she loved life.  I just hope a little of her rubbed off on me.