Writing

A New Year’s Resolution

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number 2024 set against a white and gold background

It has been years, even decades since Richard and I made New Year’s resolutions.  We are just not that kind of couple.  If something needs changing, we don’t wait for a noteworthy date, we just do it.  And, if everything is going fine — well — no resolutions are necessary.

This New Year’s Day I feel ready to commit to more writing.  When I began this blog in May 2020 (during the early days of pandemic lockdown) I was simply seeking a creative outlet.  Surprisingly, I discovered I enjoy this artful activity and 206 blog posts later, I feel my writing skills have improved.  During the past few months, writing and posting have been irregular as life happened, Richard’s broken foot and planning Momma’s 100th birthday bash but I promised I would not apologize should posting slack off, so no self-recriminations, only a resolution to write more.

Happy New Year!

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100 years ago, today…

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black and white photo of a young girl
Emma Kuster in 1931
white haired older woman
Emma Barnett in 2023

This story began long ago, 100 years ago today, when Momma was born on December 29, 1923, in a little house on 8th Avenue in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  It had been the caretaker’s residence for the big house next door.  It did not have running water and Grandpa had to go to the big house with a bucket.  He always talked about how tiny she was and how cold it was that day – so cold that ice formed overnight on the water in the bucket.

The changes in those 100 years are so numerous as to be impossible to inventory.  Momma remembers riding in Grandpa’s Model T and there is picture proof; their family got their first phone when she was eight, a party line when each household had its own set of rings.  (Not unlike today’s customizable iPhone ringtones – the same but different.)  A time when train travel was the norm, and it took 400 minutes from Chicago to St. Paul.  Men on the moon and women in space.

A grand adventure took her to Washington, DC as a “war girl”.  She lived with seven other young women all working for the war effort.  It was while living at the 5506 House that she met a sailor from Alabama.  Dad was stationed at Patuxant River, Maryland and while on switchboard duty he called the cousin of a friend.  Instead of the cousin, Momma answered the phone and that serendipitous conversation became a lifetime.

If I give into the temptation to chronicle her life this will appear more like an obituary rather than a simple celebratory blog post – so just some highlights that will bring us to today.

Two children – My sister Mary Pat (1962) and me (1952); one grandchild, John Lac, a lovely assortment of nieces and nephews now counting into the greats, great-greats, and even the great-great-great generation.

Four houses – 1226 Vine, the red brick house on 14th Street, The 40 (now owned by good friends) and the lake house, Inseli.

Travel that took her to foreign places – Australia, Egypt, Greece, New Zealand, Switzerland, Venice, and the Virgin Islands.  Visits from Swiss cousins brought family connections to Wisconsin.  The first two to visit arrived in 1972, not speaking any English, and just last summer, we hosted ten cousins, all of whom spoke English which made easy laughter.

This weekend there will be a party but no ballons.  The students at St. James School, where she volunteered in the library for 57 years, sang a birthday blessing; there are jars of Smuckers seedless raspberry jam customized with her picture; and there has even been TV coverage!

Happy birthday, Momma!

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The colo(u)r of peace

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blue hydrangea, green leaves and white fence

A Project Peace meditative nugget asked readers to ponder the color of peace. My immediate thought was blue – like dusty hydrangeas in Gloucester, crisp winter skies after a snowfall on a below zero day, or skeins and skeins of yarn. On deeper reflection, I must admit that I do not ever recall assigning color to such inherent values as peace, respect, or trust. Rather, my mind recalled those places, deeply imbued with color, when I felt peace.

  • Standing on the edge of a granite precipice jutting into Lake Superior and watching the waves far below shift from glittering copper to root-beer frothy to deep steel gray while pewter gray rain moved across that inland sea.
  • Sitting under a vibrant green canopy of leaves while John Lac read a book and I attempted to write poetry, albeit bad haikus.

Afternoon 2

vibrating grass blades

mossy oak stretches skyward

dragonflies skim by

Knitting

Project Peace 2.0 – Pathways to Peace

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Green knit shawl with multicolored pink border on hanger
Peace In Place Shawl – a 2020 Project Peace Knitalong with Christina Campbell

A little bit of joy arrived in my in-box this afternoon with an email from Christina Campbell.  Her knitting patterns always offered that perfect blend of artistic interest and gentle repetition that encouraged self-care, meditation and, yes, peace.  Between 2016-2020, I participated in four Project Peace knitalongs (KAL).  Then life intervened and her blog was silent.  But she has returned letting her readers and fellow knitters know that “… after two years of reading, writing, time in Shetland, walks in the woods, and releasing a lot into the compost pile, it is time to emerge.” 

Her 2023 Project Peace theme will be Pathways to Peace.  While she will not be releasing a new pattern, she has promised a daily blog post to help guide our steps on that path.  She is encouraging knitters to choose their own pattern, possibly one of her earlier designs, like my Project Peace shawl from 2020.  Back then we were slogging through yet more days of pandemic distancing and the theme Peace in Place created a textured triangular wrap with a lacy contrasting border.

Happy knitting!

Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | November 2023

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blue vintage china, loaf of bread, and tin coffee pot sitting on a wooden table by a window

I recently found A Gathering of Poetry which encourages poetry loving bloggers to offer a personal salute to a favorite poem or a recently discovered poet by sharing the verses on the third Thursday of the month.  (If this is not correct, I hope Kym or Kat will gently nudge me in the right direction.)

As I will help with Sunday morning worship on Thanksgiving weekend, I moved from poem to poem this week seeking that “perfect” reading suitable for this food focused holiday but with a goal not to mention turkeys, pumpkin pie, or marshmallow sweet potato casserole.  Our former poet laureate, Joy Harjo, provided the inspiration.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Bibliographic notes:  From The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (W. W. Norton, 1994) by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo.

Photo credit:  Pexels-pixabay

Knitting

The Tuesday Night Wrap

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handknit lace scarf in two-toned gold yarn draped on a wooden hanger

A mystery knit-along (MKAL) requires confidence in the designer that your time and (more importantly) your precious yarn will not be wasted.  As I was very pleased with my version of The Aquarelle Shawl (an April 2022 MKAL), I cast on The Tuesday Night Wrap the very afternoon the first clue dropped. 

The early details alerted the 100s knitting along that the pattern would be released in four parts, create a rectangular wrap in two sizes (either scarf or larger shawl), and require two different yarns (one fingering and the other a lace weight mohair) best if undertaken in complimentary colors.  With Miss Marple serving as the pattern inspiration, lace work was a must as her character is always adorned in lace – lace collars, lace gloves, even lace wound in her hair.

With finished dimensions of 16 inches by 67 inches, this scarf is wider than I would normally feature.  Although the softness of this lovely merino fingering yarn, hand-dyed by Heather Best at Sew Happy Jane, will wrap nicely for squishy, cuddly warmth.

Librarian’s bibliographic note:  Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s popular knitting sleuth, was introduced to readers in a short story published in 1927 and entitled:  The Tuesday Night Club. 

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November Blues

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close up of a walking ankle boot and a blue jean leg

Both Richard and I survived decades – he nearly eight and me (halfway through six) – without a broken bone.  Now, both our medical histories include right foot fractures although different bones, five years apart but with the same hobbling.

My break was totally my fault as I focused on taking that perfect picture of the centuries old monastery, tucked high in the Moldovan hillside and visible across the deep valley; totally inattentive to the surface change from pavement to gravel with a drop significant enough to turn an ankle and (as discovered later) fracture a bone.  With the support of my travel companions, one of which was a Mayo orthopedic nurse, I preserved.  After all, what else is there to do 5,200 miles and eight time zones from home with a “transverse nondisplaced fracture at the distal aspect of the lateral malleolus”?

Fast forward from October 2018 to last week and a facture of Richard’s fifth metatarsal.  The loud thump had me running from our computer room at the back of the house to the front TV room.  At first, we both thought everything was just bruised, his left shoulder, elbow and hip and his right foot.  After three days, his left side soreness had noticeably diminished but his right foot was still quite swollen, and walking was painful.  Time for a Sunday morning visit to Acute Care.  He walked in wearing both shoes and, just like the Diddle, Diddle Dumpling nursery rhyme, he left the clinic with one shoe on and one shoe off, wearing instead a short ortho air-pump walking boot.  The doctor ordered a follow-up X-ray in four weeks to check progress. We anticipate he will be booted and hobbling for six to eight weeks.  This is one of those shared experiences I wish he could have missed.

Photo credit: Richard Hutton

Writing

Lean into Generosity

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blue sky with clouds, prairie with trees on the horizon

Stuffing or Dressing?  When planning holiday menus at my mother’s house, we call the herby bread mixture “stuffing” even though it is usually never stuffed but baked as a side dish, which technically makes it dressing.  This is one of those times when the word I use doesn’t really matter other than to clarify or maybe create culinary confusion.  But there are times when the words I chose are important and I appreciate the generous nature of my building team members who, with gentle nudges, assist in broadening my vocabulary.

Initially, I referred to the land at the corner of Viola Road and East Circle Drive – the location of our new church home – as property.  After all, our elected board president and treasurer signed legal documents, F&M Bank holds a mortgage, and we are already making improvements to the site as we mow hiking paths and undertake buckthorn eradication – all actions associated with owning “property.”  But we are not so much the “owners” as the stewards, the caregivers, especially when we consider what the land generously offers to us – the wonder of the wetlands, the bounty of old apple trees, and the glory of an oak savannah. 

Even as I am successful in this naming or re-naming feat there are more language challenges.  There are ongoing discussions as to how we might generously allow access to the land but still be mindful in preserving the fragile ecology of the sedge meadow.  How to minimize our liability without posting No Trespassing signs, especially once we recognized the racially charged history surrounding the posting of land; how this practice only began after the Civil War to prohibit the movement of recently emancipated slaves, to make their journey to safer territory longer, as well as offer legal recourse to incarcerate those individuals of color who were caught trespassing.  How can we be generous in sharing the uniqueness of nearly 40 acres of wilderness within the context of our litigious society?

When faced with these and other niggling questions I take consolation and direction from the words Rev. Michelle Collins offers in her blessing entitled Freely Shared:

Let us be reminded of the many things that are freely shared with us
And that we freely share with others.
May we lean into generosity shared from the hearts.

I love that phrase “lean into generosity.”  Our principles encourage us to share from our abundance and our church mission challenges each of us to generosity.  There are times when we may plunge headlong into a fight against injustice and there are those times we can move with care “leaning” into the questions with mindful deliberation.  As our congregation continues its journey of Building Our Future – Beyond Ourselves and I participate in tough discussions, I do so with the knowledge I can lean on the kindness of others freely shared and offer my support generously from my heart.

Photo credit: Robin Taylor

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It all began with a bat…

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basement construction with open trough criss crossing floor
basement construction with new sump pump installed

I was already upstairs and Richard had nearly finished brushing his teeth when he caught a moving shadow in the corner of his eye.  A bat was making sweeping figure-8s from one end of our galley kitchen to other.  While Richard stood in the open archway between kitchen and dining room, waving his arms to deflect possible sonar waves, I dashed to the garage for a snow shovel (in hindsight a broom might have been the better tool, but I admit to reactionary thinking.)  Whether or not the arm and snow shovel waving created the desired interior air current, we were successful in directing the unwelcome visitor into the night.  Thus began our most recent construction job which has included:  bat extraction from the attic, remedying a damp basement with a WaterGuard® Below-Floor Drain system, and hiring an electrician to bring power to the sump pump. 

Prep work for the new drain system required handling everything in the basement to create an 8-foot open corridor around the perimeter, including five trips to the county waste-to-energy center.  Once the work was completed, (jack hammering, old concrete removed, and new concrete troweled into place) everything was handled a second time to remove the thin layer of concrete dust that coated every surface.  We spent September getting ready for the contractors and it feels like we will need all of October to recover.

Spirituality

A Year of Choices

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architectural drawing showing the potential layout on the new church property prepared by Locus Architecture
A preliminary design from Locus Architecture and one of many choices

After years of discernment during which we studied what was merely possible, defined what might be potential, and created a long wish list, 2023 has become a year of choices.  Two congregational votes clearly defined our direction.  Our first choice being the “stay/go” vote in January which set us firmly on the path to leave a building that has been home for 55 of our 157 years in Rochester.  Then came the second and equally momentous April vote authorizing the purchase of 38 Acres on Viola Road – that intersection of public witness and preserved wilderness – our choice of place where this liberal faith community may thrive.  And, our choices continue.

Locus Architecture presented two preliminary designs earlier this month after wading through a very long wish list, reviewing pages and pages of notes which captured the ideas voiced at more than 15 listening sessions held this spring, and participating in hours of conversation with the Building Our Future team.  The emphasis being on “preliminary” since our task of choosing continues:  1-story or two?  What constitutes the best blend of adjacencies?  Sanctuary and large gathering space on one level or large gathering space leading directly to the wide outdoors?  Ground or roof-mounted photovoltaic system or a combination?  Do we simply meet “code” or exceed minimum building requirements, especially if we feel the code crimps our values.  And, through all these discussions, just out of sight but waiting in the wings, are the financial decisions.  Just what will it take to realize our choices and turn our vision into constructed reality?

Based on the voices of the congregation, the Building Our Future team crafted a Vision Statement for the Building and the Land.  This statement introduced the architects as they presented their preliminary designs to the congregation; it was shared again at the dedication of the land on a sunny Sunday afternoon, September 17, and it is frequently chosen as chalice lighting words to focus our work at building team meetings.  Every day these words guide our choices.  In the days, weeks, and months ahead, more opinions will be needed from each member and friend of the congregation before we break ground in September 2024 and dedicate a new building a year later.  We do so with the hope that each choice will work towards our vision.

A Vision Statement for the Building and the Land

May we:
Welcome people with inclusive spaces and universal access.
Nurture spirituality and personal growth with beauty, art, and inspiration.
Practice justice with eco-restorative design.
Expand our community with flexible and multi-purpose space.
Create joy and resilience with places for play.
Care for sacred space to honor ancestors and nature.
Grow by embodying the intersection of public witness and preserved wilderness.

May it be so.  Amen.

Graphic credit:  © Locus Architecture