Elvis waz here

We're in Mississippi, tucked up in bed in a lovely old hotel built on the edge of the bayou. We may be sleeping in the same room Elvis slept in--who knows? I do know that he frequented this hotel from 1951-1957. He had a girlfriend down in Biloxi who "was a knockout in her black suit" as the hotel manager told me (she worked here in the 50's). Elvis played gigs at the same restaurant where we ate a pile of fried seafood tonight.

The hotel was built with mob money and appears in PBS specials about Al Capone. It seems to have quieted down quite a bit now, and the fabulous old pool that looks like it's right out of a Poirot set was filled with laughing children this afternoon.

We visited downtown Ocean Springs and explored an art museum full of pieces by a man named Walter Anderson. Some of his watercolors had been damaged in Katrina. Martin talked to his cousin about the hurricane, which was even more devastating than anything we could have imagined up in the east where we watched the coverage on TV. He has a scar on his arm from a flying piece of roof--he ducked out to try to move his truck and the air was full of debris, like mattresses. His friend actually floated for hours and then swam about a mile to reach his mother's house, where, three days later, he died from water contamination--and Martin's cousin says these stories are common. He describes it as seeming like the end of the world.

Martin, his sister and husband, and I wandered around a neighborhood this afternoon looking for Martin's cousin's old house, and we noticed that the streets, so shaded in Martin's memory, were flooded with hot sunlight; and then we noted the roofs of the houses were all new and the trees were almost all small. Evidence of Katrina is everywhere, not in debris or mess, but in small attentions, like the single red line drawn on the wall of the seafood restaurant we ate at the first evening we were here: Katrina, a red pen had noted, about eight feet up the wall.

Well, the children have fallen asleep, and I'm rather tired myself from swimming and walking and visiting, so I may follow. It's wonderful to be in such a different, fascinating, and beautiful part of the US with such good people. Maybe I'll dream of Elvis tonight.

at the beach.
sitting in bed,
tea at our elbows.
the wind just blew over a rocker on the porch.
several rounds of rummy with my brother and his girlfriend.
brother's rummy name: Mr. Beardsley
martin's rummy name: Mr. Braveray
two days of driving in the blue subaru
three girls
two dvd players (I hate to admit it but it is true)
endless snack bags
a quick but beautiful visit to my auntie and uncle
and their whimsical garden
one stop at Superwalmart--two carts of groceries,
three girls, my mom and I, crammed in the blue Subaru
coasting over the causeway
blue blue blue water, white foam, two pelicans
beatrix running down the sand chanting:
we're at the beach! we're at the beach!

Someday We'll Find the Rainbow Connection

Darkness is falling and Kenny Loggins is singing.

You probably have one of two reactions to Kenny Loggins (not classic, but after he went through his new agey transformation). It's probably a reaction similar to your intense hatred or melting love for the music of Neil Diamond. The girls seem to be calmed by his kid's album. Playing now: a cover of the Willy Wonka song, "Pure Imagination."

Somebody stop me--I'm just blathering on. This is probably because the real me is completely distracted and rather wound up with leaving the house and garden and packing up for the summer. Doubtlessly the summer away will be enchanting and lovely, but the process of leaving is not as much fun, especially when you come from genetic stock that makes you feel that everything must be neat and clean before you leave (just in case:
a. you are tired when you come home (given);
b. you never come home and you don't want the people cleaning out your house to be grossed out;
c. the house just feels happier that way.

I'm still mourning the fact that I will not be able to mulch the rest of garden before I leave after spending endless days weeding. How the wicked weeds will thrive as soon as they see me drive away! And the rabbits seem to be attacking the vegetables--they're even munching the zucchini vine, for heaven's sakes.

Currently Kenny (in a duet with Amy Grant, of all people) is crooning the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Pooh Corner." I know this pains some of you acutely. Ooo. Mellow guitar solo. (Children laughing in background?) It's good stuff.

Schedule for summer is as follows: Drive to beach, NC. Drive to Mississippi, then to Texas. Drive all the way home. Repack and shake head over garden for one day. Fly out to WA the next morning. Drive to MT. Drive back to WA. Return home.

Books I must read/reread: Essays, ed. by Annie Dillard; Flame Trees of Thika, Elspeth Huxley; Woman Warrior, M. H. Kingston. Columns to write from interviews I've already recorded: plenty.

Indeed, we are incredibly lucky folks to be able to visit our wonderful family scattered over the country. Please come and pick the raspberries, those of you who live close. And the flowers. Is it Kenny singing "The Rainbow Connection" that makes me sentimental for you good folk? We'll miss you.

I just got a story, "Birds in Snow" published at Midwest Literary Magazine. You can read the entire issue, including my story, for free at their site by clicking HERE. Then click on "Magazines" for the May 2011 issue.

It's a funny little story, almost a fairy tale, that I wrote after I inexplicably found a child's tooth on one of our area rugs--and nobody would claim it. It remains an unsolved mystery.

Martin and I had the funniest time ever editing this story, especially when he started play-acting the part of the old man to make a point (apparently, a description I'd written was actually ridiculous when performed). That man makes me bust a gut, especially when he's ripping one of my stories apart :).

Who needs GPS?

My mother and I, in the car with three girls. No map. A gut feeling about each turn we should take, according to our recognition of familiar landmarks. Goal: drive from Pittsburgh to Painesville, OH. Expected time for trip: Three scant hours each way, six hours total over two days.

Add all of the above together and you get: several wrong turns, almost a tank and half of gas, and a minimum of nine hours on the road.

Count them. Nine hours.

But the girls were pleasant and happy and even excited every time we told them to get back into the car and buckle up. And the garden was even more beautiful when we finally pulled into the driveway, stained with weariness and smelling like Bea's pee, but giddy with an overdose of silly.

And now we're drinking tea and warming up the TV for some good down time.

O wise bird guru, show us frustrated plebians the way

Beatrix just pushed one button and erased my entire blog post. I feel downcast, especially since I'd paused twice to stand up and help the children with various tasks. Good deeds are not always rewarded. There you have it. Solomon was right all along.

Once, in the dark ages of computers before "Autosave," I was typing an enormous research paper for a college class when the electricity blinked. In one terrible instant my entire paper vanished. All those polished, carefully chosen words--gone. I shook with anger, tears streamed down my face, and I cried the entire time I rewrote the paper. Determined, not broken, but deeply grieved.

Now why would Blogger set things up so that one mislaid finger from a three-year-old whom you've just convinced NOT to sit in your lap so you can read a Richard Scarry book yet again would ruin everything? That's what happens when you're all full of your own rhetoric instead of vacuuming the house before your mother comes to visit.

Well, here's the summary of my last blog post, just the bare bones with no embellishment:
It was hot and humid
It rained
I slept
Martin's in Louisville with thousands of penniless English professionals grading GREs and sampling bourbon
I wish I could sample bourbon
I forget the names of things (such as the Bird Tree and the black and yellow birds)

I think that's it.

O, wow. A beautifully patterned, solitary robin stands calmly on the low porch roof, his black beak in the air. Occasionally he turns his head as if to assess the change in the air after the storm. No feathers ruffle; he is strangely unaffected by the screams of the girls and the rumbling of Bea's ride-on bus as she rattles through the dining room. He looks wise beyond worms or nests, a bird guru. Maybe I'll ask him a question. He will show me the way.

Sweat and Mulch in Your Eyes

Our living room clock permanently reads a quarter to twelve, but I know that it's ten o'clock here at Wazoo Farm, and the night is still and warm. If I could listen over the steady whir of the window fans, I'd hear the sound of rocks clunking and the soft murmur of the radio. Now, the cough of the pick-up's motor--Martin must be packing up for the night.

It's been a terribly hot day, but the garden called us nonetheless. Martin finished his rock wall, and it is beautiful. I planted six rough-leaved verbena and four large yew bushes, which will grow into a lush, brightly-berried hedge between the main garden and the children's garden. As far as evergreens go, the yew is pretty, with finely textured frondy leaves. They've been sitting in our garden ever since we bought them, and I knew the bell tolled tonight as the heat became less intense. The bell tolled for me, because Martin was so wiped out by then that he stopped transplanting trees, stripped down to his boxers, and sat in the kiddie pool with Bea.

The hapless trees Martin began digging up are three ornamental plums, which flower so promisingly in the spring but which we realized would someday grow behemoth and swallow our garden with their glossy purple leaves. I looked up from fighting the earth with the spade to see Martin, entire plum tree shouldered like a fishing pole, striding down the side yard toward our "prettyish bit of wilderness" down at the foot of the hill, where we plant trees that shake our confidence for one reason or the other. (This last paragraph I give to my sister and her husband. Heather and Luke, there are two things here that will please you immensely. What are they?)

Planting in our garden means swearing at the layers of clay, which your shovel hits almost immediately. You must import significantly better soil from elsewhere and then heavily layer newspaper and mulch so roots don't bake like pots in a kiln.

I have almost decimated the load of undyed mulch in the bed of the pick-up truck; now I have to stand at the edge of the bed, shovel in my hands like I'm holding a canoe paddle, and shove the mulch to the end of the bed so I can fill a gargantuan bucket with the utility shovel. Then I carry the load up paths littered with project bits and pieces to my final destination, where I dump it with unbecoming grunts.

Needless to say, it's good exercise. I too joined the girls in the pool today, where I sat as water spread up my shorts, chatting with Merry about our holiday plans this summer and reminiscing of past summers. Elspeth picked us a basket of strawberries and we were very mellow together. And besides the fact that a critter (maybe Grassy Sam the Groundhog?) topped two more tomatoes last night, we're pretty content with garden. Too bad we won't be around to enjoy it; we leave for our sojourns soon. Come by, then, and cut yourself a bouquet of herbs, roses, and yarrow. And the zinnias are up, too.

Spring Harvest

Spring Harvest
photo arranged and captured by Elspeth (subjects picked and eaten by artist)

Merry, after a long afternoon weeding
(I took this one)

Advanced June Cooling System(photo by Elspeth)

Spring Journals

Martin just finished stacking enormous rocks near posts that will become our short, side garden fence. These rocks are HUGE, each one won with sweat and a great deal of grunting last summer when he and my brother-in-law heaved them out of a state forest (they had a permit, of course, likely the only 'rock-picking' permit issued last year).

After a day of newspapering and mulching beds, I was covered with a fine layer of black dust, which I finally and gratefully washed down the drain. Showers must be one of life's finest pleasures. And now I am listening to a maddening fly and trying to build up enough gumption to fit in a little more work tonight--this time on the computer on a story that was just accepted provided I revise a few things. I would have had it done by now if it weren't for the long beautiful sunny days.

Here are a pictures of a few journals I've received this spring with my work printed inside them. The links to the websites are below right under "My Scribblings."

No. Gumption.

Up the Garden Path

This morning was so cool that we wrapped ourselves in sweaters for tea, but it quickly warmed. In fact it was so lovely that the girls inaugurated a new blow-up pool. I hope the raccoons don't rip this one to shreds. If weeds are the frat boys of the plant world, raccoons are the irresponsible partiers of the animal world. Once I gazed through the dusty window of a handsome historical house downtown; the old pocket doors were punctured, as if a person had been thrown through one, the rooms were in chaos, and all that was once elegant was destroyed. "Football players lived there," Martin muttered in my ear. Not all college football players are destructive, irresponsible maniacs, and maybe not all raccoons are raccoonish, but I have my doubts. Something about their eyes makes me suspicious, as well as the fact that their idea of a really great time is to nose through diapers and rotten meat in our trash. Not ideal weekend guests.

Martin has been incredibly, happily busy on his latest project: creating a brick and stone path leading into our garden. While I have endured the chaos that is our children as he feels each rock with his hands, making lifelong friends before he eases it into place in the puzzle of sand and gravel, I am not bitter. Rather, I am delighted with his progress and his prowess at this art. . .

Above, see the area before the path, in early spring a couple years ago.

First we had to move a garden bed; then the really hard work began. From a heap of clay, which Martin dug out to level, he lined it, lay gravel, then sand, and then finally began painstakingly tapping in each brick, equipped with his handy level. He is a perfectionist. One day I'll show you a "path" I've made, and you can compare.

The proud goof-ball with his path, completed late last night. I'm afraid the lighting this morning was incredibly harsh, but we'll get a better photo soon. I love the steps!

Leveling is no simple job in our part of Pennsylvania. For instance, I meant to take this photo straight, but our garden slopes up, up and away!

Some of my favorite flowers are blooming--roses, so unashamed to be bright and splendid, the intricately patterned heads of yarrow, maybe my all-time favorite.

Yellow yarrow and white yarrow. . .

No, like a jittery Mennonite forced to hold a creed just for a second, I don't want to exclude anything. The hedge of russian sage, reliably flood our front path with tiny blue flowers, is a close second. They're growing strong and will flower soon. And look at our peach tree. We'll have our first peaches this summer!

Alliums. Blue flax. Feverfew. Cosmos. How could I forget zinnias, the swirling skirts of summer? Lavender.


And look how the rose has climbed right over our porch wall. You can climb over the porch wall, too, and take tea. Or be conventional and come through the front gate. Karibou, welcome.

You don't even have to wear a hat.

Hot Days and Poetry

Remember how I waxed eloquent about open windows and breezes and the scent of peonies? Well, folks, that was before the weather turned ballistic on us. August temperatures and as humid as Pennsylvania can be.

I went out last night and when I returned the house felt like an oven, so I finally pulled down the attic stairs and installed all the fans. Usually late May and early June peak in the high 70's. This season, we're peaking in the low 90's. Yes, it's a little warm 'round these hills. I waffle between loving the garden and wishing it were a little bug I could flick off my arm. It would help if it were a bit more in control, less glutted by mid-May rains followed by the scorching temperatures that made the weeds think they were at a frat party. They're having a grand old time.

I kept about a dozen tomatoes alive--brought them back from the brink, no less-by watering, and then this morning I found them all topped by deer. Arg.

Enough of that. Martin's just had some wonderful poetry published at Connotation Press. A few of my all-time favorites appear. . .Photograph, Arizona, 1914 begins:

The well is dry, and the women
who once drew water are stones
silent as those who lived before them

A few months ago, Martin and I were charged by a friend of ours to write poems sparked by the image of a woman at a well. I dove right into the task, writing multiple poems of varying uneveness over a course of weeks. Martin waited until the last minute, sat down and wrote that jewel of a poem, with simple, spare language, rounded images, and startling, haunting lines. . .I almost shiver when I read this poem. Sometimes you get lucky. Martin gets lucky quite a bit; it must have something to do with more than luck.

Then there's "A Day of Mourning." Reading this poem is like hiking through a desert and finding bleached bones laid in the sand in a perfect pattern.

Finally, get your groove on by reading "Proposal." I LOVE this poem--Martin read it some months ago at a local poetry reading and I enjoyed it even more out loud, so read it to yourself, but not silently. Even better, read it to someone you love. The last lines are magnificent:

For these investments we must have a proliferation
of pockets: pockets for money,
for marbles and mice and other small things.
We all must give a little.

Please note the borrowed "mice and other small things," which Martin scooped up from this blog. "Marbles and mice and other small things--" who doesn't want a "proliferation of pockets" for all such lovely things?

Read Martin's poetry by clicking HERE, and visiting CONNOTATION PRESS. If you find some gibberish at the top, just scroll down until you find a hilarious James Bondish photo of Martin, and then enjoy his poems!