Back from Seattle

Seattle.

It's GORGEOUS (just like my dear friend Kara who drove up from Missoula to join me there for a few days).

My parents live in a perfect little seaside town, Edmonds, three blocks from the Puget Sound and just around the corner from a fabulous Thai restaurant (among many other amazing eating establishments and endless coffee bars).

A five or ten minute stroll out Mom and Dad's front door takes you down to the coast, which is unlike other US coastal lines in that it is free from horrible, towering commercial establishments and instead sports walking paths, a swimming beach (complete with underwater paths that twist around a sunken ship), and beautiful sculptures thrown oh, anyhow, around the place. Here's a favorite:

On a Saturday morning, my parents can rub the sleep from their eyes, pop down to the corner pancake house, whip through the incredible farmer's market, snatching up some plump cherries and a huge bouquet of purple balloon flowers and brilliant orange poppies, and then, hungry for fish and chips, take the rather clean, rather sophisticated ferry

where you can watch dolphin fins rising out of the rolling water or try to make sense out of the unbelievable size of

Mount Rainier in the distance on one hand or the Cascades rising like imperial sisters on the other.
Or you can just enjoy the wind in your hair.


My main porpoise (ha!) in Seattle (besides drooling enviously all over the bugless, diseaseless flowers--unbelievable roses, lavender--on every corner) was to settle my parents' little condominium. It's not the first house I've decorated for them, and I was lucky enough to get this one--a challenging downsize from their large Baltimore suburban house. (Here's a before:)

My parents wanted something a little more sophisticated than their last house and so we opted for a blue/black/white scheme, appropriate to their proximity to the beach (without being "beachy--" ug).

We put together endless flatpacked furniture, installed endless curtain rods, opted for endless smart storage.
We even tucked my father's office into a (now doorless) closet.

And now they are ready to party.

I arrived back east to sweet, fresh-faced girls and a champion Daddy who had taken said girls camping in my absence. The garden exploded in my absence (in a industrious way), and I am happy to be home. Seattle leaves me with a want for more sophistication, a longing for Thai food, my parents, and the ability to walk everywhere, but with a sense that I am in the right place, too, among the warm green hills of Pennsylvania and my own community.

June

I do love summer.


Love is in the air, mon cher. . .

The perennial hibiscus are lookin' spiffy. . .



Everything runs amok, though yarrow is like Bach: always neat and well-organized, even in the midst of sage gone-to-seed.



Everyone (including bugs, groundhogs, and small children) feels well contented with fresh food. . .

dill-biscuit topped potpie with fresh chard

& red leaf lettuce from our friend Nancy Greenthumb

Note: Beatrix LAUGHS

And when I say laugh, I do not mean a mere Ha! I mean, a full, hearty laugh, spurts of it, over and over again, as only babies can manage. I remember that Merry laughed this way the first time she saw Owen, the midnight-black retriever (Owen of godparents Montana Lindsay and Tim). What jollity! What guffaws!

(Dear me, I can't remember when Elspeth first laughed. The middle child phenomenon starts already. Hmmm. I know it well. I think my mother could sooner climb Mt. Everest with a millstone around her ankle rather than conjure up when I first laughed.)

Beatrix's peals of giggles ensued when her little friend,

Ethan, waved a sort of kite attached to a pole in front of her. At first I wasn't sure what I was hearing, but then Sally (E's mother) and I started cheering, "Do it again, Ethan, do it again!" And sure enough: HA HA HA HA HA, in that funny baby way, where the baby goes dead serious in between each episode and then spurts out with another dimpled display of mirth.

Weren't we all pleased with our bonny Beatrix, and wasn't she pleased with Ethan and that funny kite-thing.

Community

This evening we attended a visitation for a very young woman, L, who was killed suddenly and unexpectedly in our community. The line of people waiting to see her parents and sister stretched the entire length of the large room, looped into the hallway, and doubled back. We had all three girls with us; Beatrix fell asleep almost immediately; Merry, who had been affected by the enormity of event and had withdrawn, found her babysitter and brightened; Martin took restless Elspeth into the banks of seats where they could watch a slideshow of L laughing, blowing out birthday candles, and hugging friends.

I stood in that long line, watching people in the sea of black clothes embrace one another, laugh, suddenly weep--and I thought many things. Perhaps the strongest image that came into my mind was my palm, flattened, as I stood in the garden and blew light soil from it; and the soil blew away so easily, dispersed in one breath--Fragile, was what the woman's mother said as we reached her. "We used to work all the time in the garden with our children," L's mother has often told Martin, "And when we drive by your house we remember ourselves at your age, out there with our kids, trying to plant the garden."

On the way down the stairs, Martin and I were flushed with grief for this family, and for the fragility of our own lives. Merry talked loudly about the fun she'd had seeing her babysitter, but when we were sitting in the car, she began asking detailed questions about how L died. Cool breezes filled our car; gardens of our neighbors, bright green, flashed by our windows.

We arrived late for our small community potluck at the park. Children we know well and have come to love ran around in circles around our legs, yelling bits of information about their days.

I'm saying things badly, but what I mean to say is: I am deeply thankful for my community of friends. There is so much unseen that happens between people: a friend's hand on my arm is heavy with much care and love. I am grateful. There is so much--I know as I remembered the picture of the mother and child at the visitation--an infant's sweet, soft head touching the chin of her mother--there is so much that is given to us, that we never ask for, surprises of joy--and so much taken from us as well. These people I love, who are not my family but with whom I share my daily life--they are like the branches of a deeply rooted tree, blowing in summer wind, standing solidly against a winter sky. They are those who have otherwise secret gifts and sorrows, but choose to share them, to celebrate and bear them together. All this is good, and I am thankful.

Father's Day Pumpkin Planting

For Father's Day, after a delightful potluck with the Mennonites, I whipped up some mango smoothies (Here is the happy family; the girls are shouting "Sisu!") and we went out to plant pumpkins and gooseneck squash in what will be the pool garden (named so because this is the site of the abomination of the previous owners: namely, an aboveground pool, which we had hauled off in pieces).

This perfectly circular, level site will someday receive Martin's full attention and become an herb garden, complete with bricked pathways. . .for now, so as not to waste the space, we'll let the vines ramble all over while we build up the beds for a possible winter potager.

The girls, all at their own important tasks.
* * *
A happy, happy Father's Day to all you good dads, especially our dear ones: Ken C & Meredith L. We love you!

Beatrix & Bouquet 2

Beatrix, Roses and Yarrow

Here's another installment in the rather strange series of Beatrix & Bouquet. (Martin observes it's a slippery slope into Anne Geddes, but I'll never go there. No babies in cabbages. No way. Heaven save me.)

This gorgeous dress Beatrix wears here was made by a childhood friend of mine, Rita (her sister and my brother used to communicate by tincan phone strung betwwen our whitewashed maisonettes in Nairobi, Kenya.) Lovely.

Roses Out the Wazoo

A thorn jammed under the skin of my fingertip this morning as I was pruning back black-spotted canes left me rather grumpy. Aphids make me belligerent and Japanese Beetles leave me in despair. Sometimes I feel that life would be so much simpler if I stuck with sure-fire perennials like Russian Sage and Coneflower and Yarrow.

But then I slip roses into a vase on our supper table, or breathe deeply of an heirloom, and I change my mind.

I didn't get my fussier tea roses photographed for this entry (later?) but here are a few toughies elsewhere in our garden.

Chamomile, Evening Primrose, Roses in Background: Laundry Garden



The "Fairy," Laundry Garden


Back Pool Garden, With Lamb's Ears and Evening Primrose

A rambler on our back deck


Climbing "Blaze," Pump Garden

Blackberry and Assorted Landscape Roses, Thistle Hill

On our table at the moment. . .
David Austen, a favorite. . .what gorgeous, Peter-Rabbit-illustration shape and ruffled petal pattern

Heather Letter Six: In Which I Fudge Hans Christian Andersen

Dear Heather,

In the spirit of roses I thought I'd read "The Elf in the Rose" to Merry tonight. Also, it was one of the shorter tales in the bulky Hans Christian Andersen book. Merry is seduced by the PreRaphalite artwork and the excitement of a new cache of fairytales (she's given Laura I. Wilder a break--we always seem to peter out after the first two chapters of "The First Four Years").

Anyway, I should have known to read ahead and do a little detective work before plunging blindly into a Hans Christian Andersen with a six year old, right before bedtime. Here's a brief synopsis of the story, as told by the elf, who keeps flitting nervously from flower to leaf to counterpane, etc. I'll give you scene sketches:

Two lovers in a garden, passionately embracing.

The lover is murdered by the woman's brother. Evil fiend brother cuts off lover's head and buries man's body (head separately) under a linden tree. [I leave out decapitation part. Yuk.]

["I don't like this one very much," I say. "Go on, go on!" Merry says. "I LIKE it."]

Elf murmurs in sleeping woman's ear where to find her lover. Evil fiend brother enters and exits: very mean, very despicable.

Night falls: woman slips out, unearths body and head of lover. Wants to carry body home, but settles for the head. Plants head in pot and covers with jasmine plant.

[My version: Woman cuts off piece of lover's hair and buries that in the jasmine plant.]

Evil brother unsympathetic. [Big surprise there.]
Woman waters jasmine with her tears, grows ever paler; jasmine grows ever better; woman dies.
All elves and spirits jab evil brother to death with spears.

[My version: The woman cried and cried on the jasmine plant. The evil brother went away and was never heard from again. One day the jasmine plant sprouted the lover. They got married and lived happily ever after. The end." "That was short!" Merry protests. "Can we read another one?"]

I'm not usually a proponent of censorship, but REALLY. Before bedtime? I think not. I told Merry, happy to find a less gory alternative, that we would read "The Princess and the Pea" tomorrow. That and "Thumbelina" are more our speed, I think.

Wish you were here too--but be glad for the option of air-conditioning!

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

A Virtual Strawberry for Aunty Heather

PS. (PreScript, in this case): Please take another look at the letters below--I added pictures!

Dear Heather,

If you were here today you and the kids could have helped me pick the thousands of strawberries that ripened in our short absence. I planted these strawberries in a very grumpy manner last year and then pinched the blossoms to encourage a good crop this year. Seems to have worked. We've been grazing on our strawberries for a couple weeks, but suddenly they're mostly ripe and ready to eat or make into freezer jam.

A close look and you see they are pesticide-free and organic--a few bug holes in some, an ant traveling the red, bumpy surface--but the bad parts we just cut out or throw on the compost pile. I often eyeball the location of holes and try to eat around them, hoping I'm not ingesting ants or other little critters.

The girls ate a wealth of the berries on their yogurt after dinner tonight.
Merry,

Elspeth,

and Sadly-Not-Beatrix. She has to be content with her fist and numnums.

Prior to sleeping, the girls and Martin are, at this very moment, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," followed by "O Christmas Tree." Very odd.

Wish you were here and could help us eat the bounty,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter: Five and 1/2

Dear Heather,

As the wise woman once said, Tempted to travel? Travel with children. This will cure all temptation.

Nuff said about that.

Honestly not so bad at all--we even went for a hike on the way back: Nelson-Kennedy Ledges State Park, where glaciers once thrust up huge wedges of rock, forming natural trenches now covered in maples, beeches, deep green ferns, and graffiti.

The house was stifling at arrival, but the fans are running and things are cooling off. We piled out of the car and inspected our garden first. The roses are absolutely stunning. Something is eating my basil and my leaf vegetables to shreds. The grass has sprouted everywhere. Honeysuckle breeze filters in the windows; the broad, handsome wood trim smells full and hot, shut away from the night breeze for too many days.

The climbing roses especially are brilliant, ravishing, embarrassing.

Surely your two-year old is not as wild as ours'.

Wish you were here and we could eat big congratulatory bowls of ice-cream together,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Five: In Which it Continues Hot, and We Are Not Amish

Dear Heather,

It is so hot here today that I am having trouble forming thoughts coherent enough to report on paper. Here are a few, though:

1. After watching the laundry flap on long, neat lines, and seeing approximately ten horse and buggies and a Grandma plowing a garden by hand tiller with a little boy in suspenders, Merry wants to be a little Amish girl. Barring that, she wants to become an Amish Mommy when she grows up. We were sorry to tell her that she may be out of luck since she was born to us and our Blue Subaru, but there are many principles we can adopt from the Amish. Neatness of yard and farm eludes us, I'm afraid, but simplicity, laundry on a pulley system, and slow-cooked food may be three we can hope for.

Later in Grandpa's back yard, Merry and Elspeth put their faces close to the hose, sipping in water and spitting it out at each other with many giggles and nose-scrunches. I think we must have been sisters like that, running around soggy and laughing together. They remind me so much of us.

2. One of my favorite memories of being with you (just us) is driving around Lancaster, following long roads past white and green farms and high crops that rippled like water. We'd get to another road and you'd pause, hands on the steering wheel, and ask, "Which way now?" We stopped briefly in the gravel driveway of a church; there wasn't a soul about except us, and farmland rolled in every direction.

2. Today I sat with Beatrix on my lap, reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (I too want to make my own cheese!), and kept an eye on Grandpa. Beatrix fell asleep with her mouth on my breast, and Grandpa twitched and scratched in his sleep. It was quiet. I thought: here I am with two completely dependent beings. Beatrix is not important merely because she is a seed, bursting with potential to become a contributing member of society. Grandpa is not a worthwhile part of the world merely because he once produced, worked, and spoke with a strong voice. Both baby and old man, at opposite ends of their lives and both vulnerable, are vitally important simply because they are people, and the spirit of God lives and moves and breathes in them. It is a good lesson for me to remember, I who often measures my worth (and other's worth) by what I do and how much I accomplish.

I do think the heat will break tomorrow. I love you.

Wish you were here with us even in the sweat,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Four: In Which a Storm Brews

Dear Heather,

Jesus could have had a whole lot on this earth. He could have gathered his posse around him. . .This from the sermon given by the sweet, earnest youth pastor at the Southern Baptist church we attended this morning. Another memorable bit of wisdom: "Happy wife, Happy Life." Pass that on to Luke for me.

Heather, as I write this, the maple outside the window (the one with the clothesline attached) bent double in a furious wind. Everyone but Grandpa and I had just gone out for a walk but returned almost right away--Martin checked the radar and observed that though nothing threatening shows there, it looks tornadic outside.

Merry's screaming in anticipation on the porch. She's a lot like you--thrilled and terrified witless at the same time by bad weather and natural disasters.

Well, we will just eat our chocolate cream and banana cream (yum, you'd love it) pies and hope the windows don't get blown out.

If you never hear from us again, we've been lifted by the wind to Oz.

Wish you were here,
xoxoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Three: In Which I Am a Finn

Dear Heather,

"Young lady, were you born in Finland?" this bearded, wild-eyed fellow asked me today in Fairport Harbor at the Finnish museum. He pointed to my "conservative hair style" (I had it twisted back like a Mennonite girl at our school in Kenya used to wear hers', mainly because I had just showered, brushed it in the car, and it was wet). He squinted his eyes shut in concentration as he talked, and quickly connected me to my Finnish relatives in the room: Aunt Elaine, the lady showing the slides of Finland, and Cousin Jim, who looks like his brother.

The Finnish museum is pretty impressive, Heather--and they serve nisu (heavy on the cardamom--Luke would love it) and coffee to you while you sit at little tables. There are startling blue walls as accents, color of the Finnish cross-thing on the flag, and you can find our Greatgreatgrandmother Lempi's family photos under "Sironen" on the wall next to matted photos of other Fairport Harbor families. In the gift store there are various mugs, T-shirts, and other objects inscribed with "SISU" (I looked for a bumper sticker but was unlucky)--the good Finnish vigor, determination, and vim that have ignited our Tikkanen ancestors (those tough women with thick arms and fixed looks in their eyes) for generations. In fact today over lunch at the Lighthouse Grille Aunt Elaine told me how Greatgrandmother Muma Tikka chased a neighbor out of her house with a broom. That neighbor had just suggested that they use the Tikka's house as a selling place for bootlegged liquor. "Actually, she was a very mild mannered woman," Aunt Elaine said. Mild-mannered or not, she didn't stand for anything--Nana told Mommy how Muma Tikka chased her husband, Bapa, around the barn with a broom when he came home drunk one day--I observed that her broom must have been a great deal more impressive than mine, but Mommy pointed out that it was force of character behind the broom that counted.

Oh, also, I took a photo: it was Greatgreatgrandmother's husband who missed the Titanic and had to take a different ship across to America. . .and so here we all are, alive today.

Just down the street is the old lighthouse you and I climbed up into a long time ago. Martin took the girls up while I fed Beatrix and looked past the industrial yards to the beautiful lake.

This afternoon I found out more about Grandma Irene, how she worked the night shift at a factory for 20 years or more while she brought up six kids at the same time.

Nana bashed out a hole in the wall of their house to make an archway while her father was away and when Bapa came back he congratulated her on her work.

So there's a few more pieces of family history for you. Our heritage.

So, SISU to you, sister--

Wish you were here,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Two: In Which We Drive

Dear Heather,

A three hour trip is not a three hour trip with three children, as I am sure you know.

A few of our friends have minivans and DvD players. Elspeth and Merry can easily touch, tickle, and swat Beatrix in the back seat of our snazzy blue Subaru (it's the girl sandwich), and a while ago our CD player broke, so we've been listening either to the radio or a motley collection of tapes. We've got Chopin, the Mamas and the Papas, Cole Porter, Wee Sing, Marvin Gaye, and in honor of you and I and to get Martin's goat, Roger Whittaker.

Since the radio didn't have too much to offer (fundraising time for Pittsburgh's NPR--YAWN--and guilt-inducing, even though we don't even listen to Pittsburgh's station except when driving that way once in a cow's moon), we started on tapes, and then Martin expressed a desire for something less grand than Handel's Water Music, we popped out the tape and popped in Al Greene. And that's when nothing happened. So we had NO sounds except the soundtrack of our own lives for the remaining trip, and since Beatrix had stopped wailing and Elspeth and Merry were finishing off the big bag of pretzels, it was fairly smooth sailing. We arrived a little late for dinner, but arrived here at Grandpa's nonetheless.

It's super hot here (Martin almost passed out after finishing the hill grass this morning prior departure), and I think, though you would probably dispute it, that humid steaminess is worse than dry heat (you say, there in the desert, grass! we say, too much grass; you say humidity! we plug in our dehumidifier). . .but the house is fairly cool because Grandma Irene has the fans going. Remember the little white lamp in the shape of the pitcher and basin with the silvery pull chain that used to stand in between our beds when we were little girls staying at this house? Well, it's still here, in the other bedroom now. The rhubarb in the backyard grows ever bigger and more ruffly.

Wish you were here too,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby