FAMILY

MARRIED

/ janpriddyoregon / 8 Comments

Our 52nd anniversary is coming up in twelve days. We’re going out for an early dinner that night because I have to be home for a Zoom meeting of a nonprofit. That’s okay. We are nearly always together. He’ll probably go for a walk during my Board meeting, and return in time to watch a show and the next day we’ll drive back to the beach. We figured out long ago that no one else will make time special, that’s on us. We tried for a “special” vacation for our 50th, and when we discovered our favorite restaurant had closed and our favorite hotel had new owners, we laughed and drove home. We spent at least three anniversaries in the ER with my mom. Those special days are unreliable, I’d say. It’s my husband I rely on.

Every time.

Two old people who still love one another. Gary’s straining not to pull another face, and look! Our hair is the same color. I tease him because when his hair was as long as mine in the early 1970s, women used to cross the street to pet it. He needs a haircut.
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WILL BOB FOR AGATES

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On beach runs, I cannot resist the amber agate, striped limpet, or rare bit of glass. I circle, bend to pluck them from the ground, and bring them home. I pile stones on the coffee table, line limpets on the kitchen counter, and upstairs too, beside the sink and on either side of my computer—the irregular translucent quartz and smooth flat ovals of jasper and agate. The baby sand dollars. Eventually, they find their place in bowls and jars. A couple of decades ago I collected more than a dozen Coach bags by bidding on Ebay. I carry a flat red bag on weekends. I pack another large bag for overnights. But there is also the brown bag I bought for my first teaching job. The rest were pointless accumulation. My mother would have understood.

Do you see the eagle at the headland a mile and some north of our home? She used to rest in a snag, but lately she’s chosen a higher perch.
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MY FIFTIES

/ janpriddyoregon / 9 Comments

An article in The Guardian details Fanny Johnstone’s experience caring for her father in the last year and a half of his life. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world’: 10 things I learned when my father had dementia.”

Illustration: Ula Šveikauskaitė at Synergy/The Guardian; used here without permission. This is a not-for profit site.

It is a healthy and generous story, rich with laughter and grief and kindness and family support. I wish my experience had been like hers, but it wasn’t.

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THE MESS

/ janpriddyoregon / 22 Comments

The blanket will only be 45″ by 85″ unless I put on a second warp and weave another (third) length. I could do that. I still have some handspun. As I work on the second length of this warp, I think more and more that I want that third length. It is a goal, and I need goals just now.

There are the needs of my husband, children, grandchildren, friends, students—the people who matter most—and then the things I do—reading, writing, playing with color and making meals. I read the newspaper every morning online—several newspapers. I look at real estate I cannot afford, I draw houses, something I have done since I was a little girl. I have worked for contractors and architects and directly for clients, and I have seen my plans built, but it won’t happen again. Next door someone is shoving mud around in the rain. It is a messy job. And my brain feels a little like that sometimes.

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PICTURING HAPPINESS

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The Reading Under the Gun (or RUG” was a timed writing assignment. I gave students a limited period of time, a short text, some provoking questions, and required them to write until I said stop. The assignment was worth five points. Even if you answered the questions wrong or went off topic, so long as you wrote, you got the points. Sound simple? It was harder for some than you would think. Some didn’t want to do more than the minimum, they filled a page and then wanted to stare into space. I could be sticky about it.

It was a grade-builder, rewarded for effort. If I did my part well enough, they learned how to read quickly and think deeply about texts. They observed and recorded the obvious. They took risks and made personal connections. They didn’t always appreciate it. Regardless, they almost always liked the particular reading below. It was often their favorite of the year.

Some of my students were lucky people and had been protected and blessed all of their lives. But that good fortune doesn’t last for anyone. We do not get to live pretty lives all of the time. All of us suffer and change happens and we grieve for what is lost or never arrived. But every one of us has moments worth treasuring. The snapshots we hope are true.

From Life magazine, September 1991, “Picturing Happiness” by Lynda Barry:

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“Happiness is happiness, no matter how things turn out. It still counts. And when you see it caught perfectly in a picture taken nearly 40 years ago, look closely. You’re holding a fragile, sweet, gorgeous bird in your hands.”

We saw the black oystercatcher baby yesterday morning and it’s doing fine, my center panel is joined together and the 3″ frame is cut and pieced, the next quilt is already in planning, and I made blueberry crisp.