Zing! can't get past the cover

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I love my Sundays, even if they happen on Monday.

That was today — uneventful, unless you count that I drew an apple and finished a book — The Ten Thousand Things by John Spurling. It’s for the Crocker art book discussion — fiction about a famous Chinese artist drawing all the things in the universe, or at least his universe, and everything else that is happening around him at the start of the Ming Dynasty. Talk about "lost in a book" — I was just lost! I need to read it again, with a map of China and historical timeline. I like the apple, though. I guess I have 9,999 things left to draw.

Love,

k

Just a simple Sunday visit

Written last night: 
Dear Friends,

Tonight Zing! and I are tired, and so must Wes and Jennifer be, because they've got jet lag as well  They are long-time Tallahassee friends — mother and son —  who stopped to see me on their summer California visit. I know they came to see me (well, Zing! more than me, maybe!) because today I learned once again that — much as I love it -- there is not a lot of allure to Sacramento itself. We had lunch at dog-friendly Zócalo restaurant and then wandered around the Golden 1 Arena plaza and over to Old Sac, where Jennifer somehow got us the last tickets on a riverside train ride. Yes, we could have gone to the museums, the Capitol, the Zoo … but this was enough, when what you want most is just to talk to old friends anyway. 

Tomorrow they head to more “interesting” spots. Today was great.*

(On re-reading this, I see I haven't -- maybe can't -- convey how deeply I feel about what seems to be just a simple Sunday visit. Thank you, Jennifer and Wes!) 

Love,

k

* I shouldn't disparage Sacramento too much -- they did get the general feeling that California might be a little bit ahead of Florida -- appreciating our many midtown murals, the Mexican music at Zócalo, skateboards as regular transportation, and the rolling watchdog/ computer-guard at Golden 1 Plaza. 

I'm scared of the small stuff

Written July 23, 2018
Dear Friends,

Today Patrice asked me  — what was it? I’m not exactly sure the words — but we were talking about how my life has changed, and I said I don’t yet feel quite complete over here in this new skin. She said Why? or What?  What’s not complete? Well, for one thing, I want to be able to rent a car without shuddering. Then I thought, hey, I don’t even need a car while they replace Rosa’s hood. There’s Uber and Lyft. And yes, that’s true, but no, I’m not going to try the car-less experiment (tempting though it is). I want to do those normal things that Clark took care of; some are new and scary to me. But it’s OK. Patrick’s going to be there with me at Hertz.

Love,

k

Written July 24, 2018
Dear Friends,I got the rental car today, with the reassuring presence of Patrick. 
Yes — it was easy. You knew it would be!
Love,
k

Pure Hula

Written Saturday, July 21:
Dear Friends,

At the hula competition today I was like a bee among tropical flowers. I didn’t exactly belong, but I was getting something out of it.  All the other women had flowers in their hair. The men wore flowered shirts. Baby strollers were shaded by flowered shawls. Food carts outside sold Spam and shave ice. I felt too tall, thin, and drab. But nobody cared, and soon neither did I. They closed the doors, told us not to take videos. Little girls came on stage, six or eight in a group, swaying the hula in full skirts and flouncy blouses, chanting, not singing, in their own language, in the way of Hawai'ians from before the Europeans sailed in. There were no ukuleles, just sticks keeping time and other rhythmic instruments. It was haunting. I stayed for three groups. There were many more, plus adult solos (men too). Lots of performers were from California and some were from Hawai’i as well. I’m glad I went.

Love,

k

Hula in the Plaza

Dear Friends,

Wednesday, while walking near the arena, I talked to some women with flowers in their hair. They were here for a hula competition. Naomi, our ukulele teacher (also a master hula teacher) mentioned it too. So Friday Zing! and I walked over to the Holiday Inn, where the event is being held, to learn more. On the way we passed hula dancers practicing in the plaza outside arena. I am learning that hula isn’t just a Hawai'ian tourist attraction. It’s communication. It can be spiritual. And, no, it doesn’t need ukulele music. To me it seems like sign language and is an expression of native Hawai'ians. I love the strong island influence here in California.

Love,

k

Below, one group practicing in the plaza

Sunflowers are drooping early this year

Dear Friends, 
Last weekend Zing! and I went to the fields outside Winters, CA, to paint sunflowers. It’s been a year since I took photos (check out my July 12, 2017 blog entry.), and I’ve been planning to sit out in the country to paint them this season. But today the fields were full of drooping and drying sunflowers. “Two weeks ago they were beautiful,” a woman at a Winters farm stand told me. “I wish I had taken a photo then.” Me too.


Love,
k

Sitting around the poem table

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I walked over to the monthly poetry hour at the library. You know I love it. Many people brought poems relating to independence and freedom — the July theme. None were overtly political. Here’s a sampling:

“Blessings/ Beannacht” by John O’Donohue

“Moths” by Jennifer O’Grady

“I Love Uncertain Gestures” by Valerio Magrelli

“Politeness” and “Independence” by A.A Milne

“A Headstrong Boy” by Gu Chen

“Immortal City” by Indigo Moor, who is the poet laureate of Sacramento  I can’t find the poem online — It’s in the poetry collection Tule Review— not sure which volume, but suspect the most recent. Here’s an interview with Moor.

“Learning to Read” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

“Rivers Run Through Me” by the Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli (My selection. Can’t find it online. It’s below.)

Rivers run through me

mountains bore into my body

and the geography of this country

begins forming in me

turning me into lakes, chasms, ravines,

earth for sowing love

opening like a furrow filling me with a longing to live

to see it free, beautiful,

full of smiles. 

I want to explode with love ...

Love,

k

Feeling at home here and also there

Dear Friends,

A sure sign it’s home is that it is good to get back there, and I was glad to be back in Sacramento yesterday afternoon. I had a great visit in San Francisco, and am beginning to feel at home in that city too. Lesley (who spent the SF time with me) and I first met in a Miami writers' group, and we’ve been friends for more than 40 years; we hope to get together at least once a year from now on. Lesley is a musician as well as a poet, and it was new to see the world through her eyes: she told me serious musicians practice five-plus hours a day; she loves Bach, then Mozart (or was it Beethoven?), then someone else, whose name I forget. In addition, she named her favorite poets, and we discussed how art relates to contemporary events. Whew!

Oh, and we walked and shopped and enjoyed great food.

On the train home I read, then napped, then drew buildings as we quickly passed them, using simple lines and shapes before they disappeared from my memory. Then I napped again.

Love,

k

San Francisco Bay from the Bay Bridge yesterday

Farmers Market Poem Sale

Dear Friends

Yesterday morning at the farmers market I bought a poem. Also some cauliflower. William Curius, the poet, set up his typewriter by the veggies and wrote poems on demand. You give him the subject (I said Zing!) and after few minutes -- voilá — your very own poem. You pay what you can. “Give me about 10 minutes,” William told me. “I’ve got another one ahead of you.” 

Love,
k

Artist Eduardo Carrillo, 1937-1997

My drawing of the artist Eduardo Carrillo — I was looking at one of his self-portraits at the Crocker Museum. The exhibit includes surreal oil paintings and large work celebrating Chicano life, but I prefer his more intimate drawings and watercolors.

It takes a week to fix a dent

Rosa update
Written Monday, July 2, 2018

Dear Friends,

Saturday’s tree crunch meant that today I had to take Rosa to the body shop, for what I supposed would be banging out the small dent in her hood. How naive. The man, whose name is Clark, told me car parts used to be made to be repaired, but now they’re made to be replaced. My hood is too sensitive to be banged back into shape, he said, and so he’s ordering a whole new hood and what I supposed would be a small job will take a week. No hurry. Rosa’s fine except for the dent; she's scheduled for her R&R at the end of the month.

Rosa's embarrassed, but I took a photo of the dent anyway.

Love,

k

Unlit on the 4th of July

For some reason early this morning I threw my sparklers in the trash. Unlit. It didn't feel right -- yesterday's combination of church and fireworks was abrasive.

Then I heard about the stupidity of lighting fireworks -- legal or not -- in our dry, fire-prone state. And then I read Monday's Sacramento Bee editorial saying the same thing.

Count me anti-fireworks from now on.

(Zing! has tried to tell me this for years.)

Really? Fireworks?

Dear Friends,

Yesterday afternoon I sold fireworks. Yes, I was that white-haired woman bobbing behind the big red TNT Fireworks sign at the intersection of Alhambra Boulevard and the Safeway parking lot. I tried to look like a grandma you would want to buy fireworks from. “Yeah,” a young man laughed as he walked past. “Let’s blow things up!”

I’m not really active in my church, but when I heard the call for volunteers to sell fireworks I couldn’t resist. Soon after I showed up, my co-workers sensed I was unfit for the sales part — I overcharged a nice man by $20.("Good! at least you over-charged him!”) So they sent me out to be the bobbing sign by the street. It was hot and maybe pointless — not fun. But I did learn stuff. Like there was a woman who rolled her cart by me on the sidewalk. She dropped her empty plastic water bottle and it rolled away in the wind. She was limping, so I ran ahead and got it. She tucked it away and then lingered, studying the pile of free community newspapers stacked inside a dispenser. When I had turned my back she quickly scooped up all of them but one. Maybe they are her sidewalk mattress tonight. 

I did buy some sparklers.

Love,

k

Trees and angels appear

* Dear Friends,

It was a quick trip to the grocery. Saturday.  On the way home, at a red light on P Street, I heard above Rosa’s head (and mine) sounds like birds cracking nuts while flying. In a second, a shower of shards bounced  off the roof over my head and my poor car Rosa shuddered.  Then, I think, the light turned green. But I couldn’t go anywhere because a large piece of tree had crashed down on us. (In dry weather they're brittle.)  Shocking to suddenly have a tree on your head. At least, that is what Rosa told me. But this is where the good part happens: 

I love how people come from nowhere just when you need them. 

Before I even got out of the car, a man and a woman ran from the apartment building on the corner and lugged the tree off my car, dragged it to the curb, and then solicitously questioned me.  Was I OK? Was my car OK?
And just as fast,  a car rolled up beside Rosa. The window went down. It was Jeremy from our building. He must have seen the whole thing from a block behind us. He stopped his car in the middle of the street and persistently questioned me. He would not go until he was sure I was OK, and that Rosa was also fine.
I didn’t have a second to feel alone. So I believe in angels and sometimes I even know their names. 

Love,

k

* I haven't been a faithful blogger lately. Blame it on those few days in San Francisco without my mac.  Next trip maybe I'll take mac with me...