Domestication

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Looking out my eating area window. 

Tonight, I accompanied my daughter, to a art gallery "talk". This is where a artist talks about: their work, process, inspiration or themselves. This artist was a photographer and she was intrigued with the idea of domestication. I found the entire evening fascinating.

Her photos were of table with  food or dishes or flowers in various states of disarray.  Which to be honest, made me want to start making dishwater, wash dishes and sweep it all up. While displayed in a painterly fashion, all I could think of was: This is a mess.

Maybe that is the whole point. Most homes, if lived in, are messy. My dining room table is always in a state

Me making pizza for dinner, which once again,
has nothing what so ever to do with this post. 

of almost being cleared off, the breakfast dishes poised to hop into the dishwasher (if only they would do it themselves), and on and on.

There is a subtle push and pull between keeping a house and living in a house. The desire to have it tidy, clean and orderly versus the desire to enjoy the time, people and activities while inhabiting the house. Which often, seems mutually exclusive.

I think it is because, in a sense, we are all domesticated, whether we like it or not. What with our quiet or not so quiet rebellions, and in our attempts not to be domesticated we still find out we like clean clothes, hot meals and the garbage taken out.

So in fact, the artist has done her job. She has inspired me to think about "Domesticity".

Since I viewed her work, I have washed off the face of the kitchen cupboards, cleared off the counters and tidied up the dining room table's surface (which incidentally, just cries out for objects to rest there).

Summer Rains

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Looking out my window

This summer rain;

sliding,

slipping

slowly
as it
splatters
down
my window...

to the
world.

Lulls me
into:

silent, soft
thoughts.

Rickshaw (I think that is what this is called)

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My husband's Irish grandfather.

This photo, my husband's grandfather, a man none of us ever met, has always fascinated me. I know or have been told anyway, that he was born in Ireland, County Mayo, (God Help Us) and came to the United States sometime around the turn of the 1900's.

SO how did he end up in this uniform and this rickshaw and where was this photo taken?
No idea what-so-ever.

Not life shattering, if I never find out, just a mystery that nags at my brain, when it is not full of say:


1. Weeding the garden and why isn't it done?
2. What should I make for dinner tonight or will anyone be home to eat it, if I do make something?
3. WHERE ARE THE MISSING SOCKS? (That is question that has dogged me my entire life.)
4. How to set the alarm on my husband's alarm clock, you would think I would know, but no, I do not.

Not the best photo ever taken,
but there you are.

Intermittently, between all of those pressing thoughts, I do wonder about this fine Irish man. He worked hard, by all accounts, married a bit later in life, had six children, was widowed when the youngest (my father-in-law) was three or four years old, and then died a few years after his wife. Thus leaving six children, alone, to band together, to raise themselves.

Recently, one of the family said that he owned a bar in Chicago. I thought, "Of course he did! He was Irish." another said he was a plumber, I thought, "That explains how he got the liquor to run a bar, which may or may not have been in Prohibition."

In general, I wonder, which parts of him do my children, his great-grandchildren, carried forward today?

Summer Afternoon

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Cornflowers, just like these.

Dry breezes flow over my face and lift my hat above my hair, almost escaping from my grasp as I walk in the prairie near my home. 

I am astounded. 

The sea of blue surrounds me on every side. There are so many of these little blue flowers that manage to bloom in this dry heat, which is warming my way today. 

When I, at last,  find the shade, I am reminded of my mother saying:

“Find a tree, read a book, lie still, in the shade, the heat won't seem so hot."

In truth she is right.  It is all in the perspective of the contrasts we are presented with and what we choose to do with them.

Poem in the night

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I wake,
       wondering:
Could
       it be over,
sooner...

       then we think?

Somedays.
I  hope so.

Others:

Not so much.

Field Guide to People

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SO helpful, 

I wish I had a field guide to people. You know the kind; the ones with pictures and descriptions and habitat and what to watch for and when to watch for them. It would be so helpful.

I would know how to respond, or when to avoid (entry on page 24: particularly poisonous, avoid at all costs, found in the -----), or when to engage and how to engage (entry on page 435: approach carefully, only after dinner but not before 6:00 AM ever.), or this is the person you have been looking for all your life, (entry on page 365: this is the one. look no further, meets all qualifications for a good partner.) or any other helpful reference points one might need as they proceed through life.

I don't have a field guide and often my instincts are off.  Hard to believe, I know.While we live in a scientific world, it seldom is cut and dried when we are dealing with other homo sapiens. So probably, the guide,

Not mandatory, but helpful in advance
 spotting  of approaching specimen 

while helpful, would truly only be a guide. Sigh.

I have often thought children should come with an owner's manual, I am sure others have thought this too. When the child does "x" do "y". Though I do suppose, having a field guide or manual for others, would take the "opportunities for growth" out of life, which we are all the richer for (though sometimes I do feel a little bankrupt from these opportunities...).

Anyway, there you have it. We go through life gathering up information, seldom as useful as the very basic one we are given from birth: Love each other.

(though, I am not going to lie, sometimes this is easier done from a distance, see field guide entry on page 654.)