Feast On Your Life

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life. 

~ Derek Walcott

Selecting a Jewelry Box to House Heirlooms

Every little girl loves to play with her mother's jewelry. They enjoy dressing up like their mothers and modeling their jewelry all over the house. Little do they know that one day the contents of this lovely jewelry box will one day belong to them. Many of these items are more than likely treasured family heirlooms, which will be kept in the family forever. They have been passed down from generation to generation and are kept safe in these decorative boxes.

Some storage units for these priceless pieces of jewelry can be even more lavish than their contents. They come in all shapes and sizes and can be as tall as five feet or as tiny as a few inches. The size of one's jewelry case strictly depends on how much jewelry needs to be housed. Jewelry stores and websites all over the country have these boxes for sale. They are extremely affordable and will keep your prized possessions safe from the world's elements. As long as you keep up with the yearly maintenance and cleaning of your jewelry, and store it properly, there is no reason you and your posterity will not enjoy these family heirlooms for years and years to come.

A Sample Questionnaire

Several people responded to my previous post today about Chuck & Dolores, A Love Story, asking me what questions I sent around to my family to gather memories. Below is a list that you might find helpful. Feel free to tweak the list for anything additional you might want to learn. I added the caveat that people should feel free to skip any questions or expand on anything. Group emails are fun because everyone can see the responses which spark additional memories for the group. And while everyone may not respond, they may later tell you in person or respond in their own way. I hope this list helps you begin a conversation about memories of loved ones in your family. 

A very important added note:  My family used this list for my grandparents who died many years ago to jumpstart memories, but I urge you to ask the same type of questions - and more! - of your family living right around you.  An all too common regret people have is not getting stories from their parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents before it is too late. 

• Where and when were they born?
• Did they have any nicknames?
• Endearments they used with each other or with family?
• How would you describe their personality?
• How would you describe their physical looks?
• Do you have a favorite or vivid memory?
• How/where did they meet their spouse?
• Jobs/career?
• Organizations or clubs?
• Did they collect anything?
• Favorite hobbies/past times?
• Favorite food and/or food associations you have with them?
• Style of dress or signature piece/accessory?
• Any signature cologne/perfume?
• Favorite color/flower/song/other?
• Sayings or quips they often said?
• Any pets?
• Did they have a favorite vacation spot?
• What do you miss the most about them?
• What is the image of him/her that you carry with you?
• Do you have news clippings, obituaries, family histories, family trees, diaries, letters or other ephemera to share?
• Any other memories, details or stories you want to add?

Chuck & Dolores, A Love Story

Today is Grandparent's Day and I've been going through some old family photographs. My maternal grandparents were Charles and Dolores Markley. They passed away several years ago, but they are always with us. I want to write a simple illustrated children's book for my son to tell  him the story of their life. I sent around a group email with a short list of questions to all my Markley aunts, uncles and cousins to gather memories. It was such a treat to read each response which then sparked more memories. Here's the first draft:

Charles Markley and Dolores Foerster met at a dance in Stephen, South Dakota.  Charles was the oldest of 11 children and Dolores was the youngest of 11 children. 

They were married on February 11, 1942. Dolores wore a street length frock of beige with brown accessories, a single strand of pearls and a corsage was of talisman roses.

Dolores worked as a secretary at the Stephan Indian Mission, where she earned $15 per week. Chuck (as everyone called him) was studying to be an accountant. When WWII broke out, his higher education was interrupted and he joined the Air Force. He was stationed as a radio officer in Lubbock, Texas. After the war, they moved to Highmore, South Dakota where Chuck opened Chuck’s Shoe Service & Clothing.

They raised a family of five daughters and two sons: Camille, Pamela, Susan, Cynthia, Janet, Tom and Jerry.

Dolores loved classical music and would sit down at the piano and play beautifully by ear. Chuck liked to sing Oh Danny Boy in his strong tenor voice.

They loved card games, pinochle, cribbage, dominoes, bridge. Sometimes Chuck would say "Idle old stink" if you had a better hand than he did. They both enjoyed their bowling leagues.

Dolores liked to garden and sew.  She would stay up late making matching dresses for her five daughters.

Chuck liked to smoke his pipe, sort his tackle box and watch baseball. He took his two sons fishing and hunting. He was a volunteer fireman and took a turn as Highmore’s mayor during the Centennial.

Dolores signature look included pedal pushers, cat-eye glasses, brooches and scarves.  Chuck dressed in polo shirts and wore hats sometimes adorned with a fishing lure.

Dolores had a dry sense of humor and loved a good joke. She had a great wink and often would stick her tongue out at you playfully.  As an endearment she sometimes said, “Ok Herkimer.”

Their weekly grocery budget was $35 for the family of nine. Dolores was famous for her baby dill pickles, fried chicken and rhubarb pie.

Dolores was deathly afraid of snakes and did not like the water.  

After they retired they spent winters in Mesa, Arizona and summers at Lake Okoboji, Iowa.

When Chuck got sick he held on until their 50^th wedding anniversary.  He sent his love a dozen red roses and died three days later.

Dolores continued baking, gardening and cracking jokes. Her children took her to the Grand Canyon to celebrate her 80th birthday and she passed away a few years later. Chuck and Dolores are buried next to each other along with their oldest daughter Camille in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

I miss them very much.

Curriculum Vitae

Inspired by Pulitzer Poet Lisel Mueller's poem below, I wrote my own version of a minuscule memoir.

Curriculum Vitae

1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.

2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into 
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of 
course I do not remember this.

3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The 
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.

4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building 
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.

5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.

6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones 
and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.

7) My country was struck by history more deadly than 
earthquakes or hurricanes.

8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother 
told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.

9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights 
of adolescence.

10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun 
and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed 
behind in darkness.

11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually 
I caught up with them.

12) When I met you, the new language became the language 
of love.

13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. 
The daughter became a mother of daughters.

14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying 
threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left 
unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate 
present.

15) Years and years of this.

16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an 
old man's loneliness.

17) And then my father too disappeared.

18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my 
childhood, but it was closed to the public.

19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger 
than mine.

20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are 
breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.

~ Lisel Mueller

Curriculum Vitae

1) I was born on the plains. A city girl from Dakota, I say, laughing.

2) Second of four children, I had a noisy childhood building forts, swinging from trees, sleeping in a yellow canopy bed and reading stacks of books.

3) We spent honey-colored summers at a lake cabin, swimming off the dock and having boat picnics. 

4) At Catholic school I was earnest and liked tests. I played well with others. There weren't enough hours in the day  to read.

5) Ballet, tennis, soccer, cheerleading, skiing, French class, editing the newspaper kept me busy sampling personas. I didn't rebel too much, but I dreamt of being reckless. 

6) First love, or what I thought was love.

7) At eighteen, I went abroad to live in Istanbul. Just as I was gaining confidence I was treated as a fragile princess.

8) At university, I become more me. Loved and was loved by a good man, but I left him to go love the world.

9) My education continued on the Grand Tour. I then worked at a London off-license learning the wine trade. I lived on smoked salmon sandwiches, champagne, tea. My friends hung in the Royal Portrait Museum.

10) Wound up in San Francisco. Heady, serious love affair. Three years of gleeful, careless melee during the internet boom. Rode the wave and, all too predictably, crashed on the shore.

11) After reading about heartbreak in novels, I suddenly understood personally, physically, to be torn asunder.

12) Napa Valley interlude.

13) Ten nomadic years, stepping up for adventures of any kind. Peered around many corners to find me again. 

14) Love walks in the door. A new chapter began involving a lot of time in Canada, a surprisingly beautiful place. O Canada, I was happy to be embraced.

15) More travels, more poetry, love grows.

16) South American explorations. Sailed to Antarctica to reinvent myself yet again. Walt Whitman was right, I do contain multitudes.

17) Elopement and then proper wedding to a man worth the wait. Life continues to live up to my optimism.

18) Nine months to experience the wonder of pregnancy and then the awe of birth. A perfect tiny person, a little boy, grew inexplicably underneath my heart. Said heart expands a hundredfold.

19) Crystallized moments of daily family life, a new home, the joys of writing. 

20) The wide world beckons,  Come, come, you have seen nothing yet.

Lopez Island, A How-to Guide

This summer we visited Lopez Island for the very first time.  This sleepy island in the San Juan Islands has been waiting patiently in our backyard all these years.  It was indeed quiet and relaxed, but she offered many delights to discover.  Enough delights in fact, that I want to move here.  Seriously. Herein one way to spend five wonderful summer days (or a lifetime):

Friday:  Meet up with your friends in Lane 1 at the Anacortes Ferry to catch an early afternoon sailing. Enjoy epic views from the top deck of the ferry for the hour crossing.  Laugh and point at swooshing seagulls with excited little boys.

Check into Odlin State Park for $25/per night.  Choose site #8 for partial shade and a path down to the westward facing beach.  Sit on driftwood logs and clink enamel camp mugs filled with Prosecco. Enjoy sunset.  Cook bratwurst and s'mores over the campfire.  Listen to lapping waves.  Snuggle little boys. Curl up in tents, smiling.

Saturday:  Drink strong coffee around campfire.  Devour your friends' delicious macadamia nut pancakes with bacon.  Comment on your excellent taste in friends.  Drop two crab pots off the dock and whisper gentle encouragement to the big boy Dungeness crabs below.  Ride bikes into the village to scope the festive Farmer's Market.  Buy pottery mugs from Jeffrey Hanks of Red House Pottery.  Eat bettter-than-Italian wood fire pizza and finish with fresh peaches.  Taste a flight of surprisingly delicious wines at Lopez Island Winery. Bike back to the campsite, read magazines and throw rocks in the water.  Pull up crab pots with three keepers.  Feast on mussels and crab.  Tell stories around campfire.  Snuggle little boys.  Brain teasers and more s'mores.  Curl up in tents, smiling.

Sunday:  Cook eggs for your friends for breakfast.  Drop crab pots.  Cycle into village to drink strong coffee at Isabel's Espresso.  Shop at Larkspur Vintage and buy floral top for $10.  Browse at Lopez Bookshop.  Picnic on the Village Green.  Pick up fresh blackberries, radishes, garlic, potatoes and spinach from Thorton's honor system farm stand en route to Shark Reef Sanctuary.  Watch harbor seals cavort with pups.  Cycle back to campsite and hi-five husband for riding fifteen miles on a bicycle.  Play on beach.  Pull up five crabs for dinner.  Feast.  Discuss poetry, religion, travel, books around campfire.  Snuggle little boys.  Curl up in tents, smiling.

Monday:  Exclaim over your really, seriously excellent taste in friends as they cook you orange bread french toast for breakfast.  Drive into town to rest legs.  Spend more time browsing at Lopez Bookshop. Picnic on Village Green.  Shower in public showers next to village green.  Drink malted milkshakes at the Soda Fountain.  Drive back to camp and spend all afternoon on beach reading magazines and throwing rocks with little boys.  Watch as little boys watch sand sift through their fingers, mesmerized.  Throw more rocks.  Feast on leftovers.  Plan more trips with friends.  Snuggle little boys. Curl up in tents, smiling.

Tuesday:  Sleep in as friends quietly pack up and depart.  Wake up to have strong coffee with muesli and prepare for the best family bike ride of your life.  Ride to Spencer Spit and walk on the beach. Throw some rocks.  Ride by Horse Drawn Carriage Farmstand and stop for some sugar snap peas, arugula and radishes.  Stop to pick raspberries at Crowfoot U-Pick Farm.  Picnic at Agate Beach Park, laugh at river otter's antics and throw some rocks.  Ride to Watmough Bay Preserve and gawk at Mt. Baker framed by headlands.  Promptly decide to return to spend all day tomorrow at this beach.  Ride all the way back to camp to complete 35 mile circuit.  Celebrate with surf and turf dinner.  Snuggle little boy. Fall exhausted into tent, smiling.

Wednesday:  Wake up and drink strong coffee.  Smile as you watch your son sit on his father's lap sharing a bowl of muesli.  Drink more strong coffee at Isabel's.  Spend an hour exploring the Lopez Island Library, possibly the coziest island in the world.  Definitely decide to move here.  Buy fresh juice from Vortex Juice Bar.  Shop at Village Arts Craft Coop and fall in love with Brenna Jael's book arts.  Buy several things. Have lunch at Vita's Wildly Delicious cafe, which is, yes, delicious.  Drive to Watmough Bay Preserve. Miss turn, round a corner to see an unexpected and completely unmistakeable hulk of Richard Serra sculpture behind a large modern glass house.  Observe private property signs and wonder aloud who could possibly have a Richard Serra sculpture in their backyard.  Turn around and go back to beach. Inquire with locals to find out that Paul Allen has a house on the island and the sculpture happens to be his; the large modern glass house turns out to be only his poolhouse.






Decide for certain to move to Lopez Island to hang out with Paul Allen at his poolhouse.  Lounge all afternoon at Watmough Bay.  Throw many, many rocks.

Drive back to campsite and enjoy one last campfire.  Snuggle little boy.  Curl up in tent, smiling.

Thursday:  Catch early ferry to Anacortes, reading real estate magazines. Start planning return trip to Lopez Island.

Gemstones and Fashion Have Come Back Hand in Hand

Everything is cyclical in the world of fashion. What was popular once, only to fade away, will surely come back around, just as predictably as the sun. Color is making a comeback in fashion these days and designers are looking for new ways to accessorize with these new colors. What they are trying to avoid, however, is the artificial look of neon, yet get colors that are still really bright. To obtain the look that they are going for, they are creating a fantastic marriage of gemstones and fashion.

Gemstones themselves have been slowly coming back around as people discover new styles of jewelry to wear. Birthstones have always been popular, but now people are choosing whatever color with which they most identify. There has been a noticeable uptick in the sale of emeralds and rubies. Those greens and reds are also becoming more prevalent in today’s fashions and many designers are working with jewelers to create specific lines of jewelry to be sold with their clothing. Gemstones have always been part of the fashion world. Now they are finally getting off of the sidelines and into the spotlight. With so many colors and styles to choose from, there is a gemstone look that is right for you.

Engagement Rings and Break-Ups

Break ups are never fun, but they can be even worse when they come in the middle of wedding plans.  Deposits may have been put down, dresses ordered, and guests invited.  It’s heartbreaking and awkward to have to cancel what was a dream wedding, but better than having to deal with divorce a few years down the road. One emotional and bittersweet symbol of love gone wrong is the engagement ring. What to do with it, and who gets it?  Here’s some questions to consider when trying to decide who gets the ring. Who paid for it? Is it a family heirloom? Why are you not getting married?

I think the first thing to consider is karma or the golden rule. Years from now, if you’re telling this story to your children (or other younger relatives) you will want to be proud of your behavior.  If the wedding is canceled due to your decision, you must give it back. There’s always a lot to be said for taking the high road. It’s painful now, but if he cheated on you or broke it off, he did you a favor by revealing his true nature before getting married. He left you the opportunity to have a happier marriage to a better guy.

The ring is a symbol of this betrayal now, not your happiness together. I would suggest giving it back, especially if he’s still making payments on it. If it’s his family ring, you must give it back. Why should his family suffer for his bad behavior? Besides, do you really want something to remind you of the cheater?
The only time I would keep the ring would be to make up for financial costs that have come about due to your relationship. Did you give up an apartment or job to move to where he lives? Did you support him or put him through school?  Will you need first and last months’ rent? Did you or your family pay for the deposits on the venue or your dress that are non-refundable? Selling the ring can help off set some of these costs.  Consult with a professional jeweler for option on how to sell your ring.  It’s easier and safer than a private sale, and you will get top dollar for it.

Gold-Plated Phonographs

My favorite email to read each morning is from The Writer's Almanac, a transcript of what is read on NPR every day.  I loved this morning's description of a historic message from earth:

"It was on this day in 1977 that Voyager 2 was launched by NASA to explore the planets of our solar system and to take the first up-close photographs of the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  Just before the Voyagers took off, a committee of scientists, led by Carl Sagan, decided to put on board each Voyager a message from Earth in case extraterrestrials ever found them....The Voyagers were each equipped with a gold-plated phonograph containing a variety of earthly sounds, including a heartbeat, a mother's kiss, wind, rain, surf, a chimpanzee, footsteps, laughter, the music of Bach and Mozart, and the Chuck Berry song "Johnny Be Good." Carl Sagan said, "The launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

I started thinking about what I might put on a gold-plated phonograph to capture the soundtrack of my life and here is a partial list:

          Etta James singing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve," our song from our 

          courthouse wedding

          My husband whispering "I miss you already"

          Xavier's giggle, his sing-songy coos, and him saying "uh-oh"

          My dad reading Good Night Moon to his grandson

          My mom's laugh

          A summer breeze rustling leaves on a willow tree

          A raucous gentoo penguin colony

          A humpback whale singing and exhaling on the surface

          Elgar's Cello Concerto

          Frank O'Hara reciting a poem

          Chet Baker on the trumpet

          "Lütfen" and "Teşekkürler" - Please and Thank you in Turkish 

          The pop of a champagne bottle opening

What sounds make up your life soundtrack?  What would you put on a gold-plated phonograph?

Book Crush: Heirloom Modern

"Porter and I incorporate vintage and junk store shopping into our daily rituals the way others work in coffee runs, gas refueling, or trips to the grocery store." ~ Hollister Hovey

Written by sisters Hollister and Porter Hovey, Heirloom Modern:  Homes Filled with Objects Bought, Bequeathed, Beloved and Worth Handing Down is a mouth-watering coffee table book published by Rizzoli that features their family treasures and flea-market finds.  The sisters describe their parents and grandparents' through family photographs and the souvenirs brought home to New York City and Omaha from travels around the world.  The first chapter features these heirlooms which now decorate the home shared by the Hovey sisters.  The following chapters walk through the houses and apartments of their friends, curated with equally gifted eyes and a full appreciation of family history.

I look around at the treasures in my home, some gifts, some found, some bought, all cherished. Reading Heirloom Modern makes me want to display my heirloom pieces better...it also makes me want to check out some estate sales and see what's been dropped by Goodwill today.

I have a romantic silhouette of a couple kissing over an elegant breakfast spread called "The First Breakfast" which I picked up when Christian and I first got married.  It hangs in our kitchen because it makes me so happy, and the bonus is I only paid $8 for it at a furniture consignment shop.  Other pieces are more valuable, like the chandelier my Aunt Cindy gave me one birthday and the Kashan rugs my Uncle Manny imports.  All the inscribed books I've been given as gifts over the years are priceless along with the mementos I've picked up on my travels, like the landscape painting from Vietnam and a wool scarf from Port Lockroy, Antarctica.  My grandmother's hatpin is cushioned in a jewelry box and my father's "flea weight" baby boxing robe hangs in my son's closet.   I have a dozen favorite family photographs in vintage frames, and more awaiting the right frame I have yet to find.

What are the stories behind your heirlooms?  Do you know how or why they came to your family?  If not, do you have a relative you can ask?  Do you display your heirlooms or are they locked away in boxes?  Do you use them or are they too precious?  How will you pass along the details of provenance to your children?  What special pieces have you found that you hope to pass along?  Heirloom Modern will prompt you to dust off your heirlooms and it might even inspire you to go treasure-hunting.

Trade it or Toss it

Women get emotionally attached to jewelry. You can tell who a woman is by the items in her jewelry box. Every few years, she needs to go through her collection of jewelry to see what to keep, what to repair, and what to let go of. You very likely have valuable pieces you don’t wear in your collection that can be traded in for items you will wear.

How do you determine if your jewelry has trade-in value?  Simple, consults a professional jeweler. We’ve all seen or heard of that cheap garage sale item being worth a lot of money at resale. You don’t want to make this mistake of letting something valuable go for pennies.

Every woman needs a jewelry wardrobe. Some women are lucky and have families that help them create a collection of pieces as they grow up. Some of us have to do that ourselves, but the great thing about that is not being stuck with family pieces that you don’t like.

The three factors to consider while deciding, whether to trade or toss your jewelry: material, design and vintage.  Some materials will always be worth money: gold, silver, pearls, etc. Some materials will only be valuable if they are in good shape. Again, your jeweler can advise you on this.  Design of jewelry may be a factor in trading it in-- even though it may be costume jewelry, a certain designer’s name or fashion era may create worth. Your jeweler may help to determine the worth of the piece.
Some vintage jewelry, even those pieces without a known designer or valuable materials, may be worth trading in. Your jeweler may also know other customers who collect certain pieces to help find a buyer.

So, consider things very carefully before you toss your old jewelry and consult with your jeweler to determine the value of your old, tired or just plain ugly hand me downs.

A Pocket Watch Full of Memories

My grandfather had a pocket watch.  He kept it on a chain that attached to his belt loop…just like they did in old movies. It had the front cover that you would have to click open to see the watch face…just like they did in old movies.  It was slightly tarnished but it always worked and he looked incredibly dapper when it looked at his pocket watch.  It didn’t matter if he was wearing old dirty clothes to work on a car, or was dressed to the nines to head into church on a Sunday morning.
 
As both of us grew older, the pocket watch was replaced by a regular watch.  For me, it just wasn’t the same.  Grandpa and that pocket watch kind of went hand in hand and I remember thinking that the wrist watch just didn’t look quite right on him.  But technology was advancing and so was he…he retired that pocket watch. 

I never knew what happened to it until after he died.  My mom was going through her father’s personal items and she found it in the bottom of a wooden box that he kept many keepsakes in.  It didn’t work anymore, but it looked exactly the same.  A flood of memories filled my head and the tears fell as I placed it in my hand.

Grandpa lives on forever.

Park Bench Epitaphs

If I can time our daily outings to the park or the lake just right, Xavier will fall asleep in his stroller and then I get a little bit of quiet time to read, write or simply watch the breeze move through the trees.  We have a few favorite park benches in shady spots, perfect for a stolen half hour.  I "collect" the heartfelt memorials people dedicate to loved ones on park benches.  The succinct and personal epitaphs are so moving and  the plaques take on an appealing patina through weather and wear.  I always imagine a person pausing to think with pencil in hand, writing, scratching out and revising the words until it sounds just right, possibly shedding a few tears.  And then I imagine them coming often to sit on their special bench, smiling, remembering.  When I pause for a few moments on a dedicated bench, I can feel the love between strangers whom I'll never meet.

"I come into the peace of wild things....." I vaguely remembered this line as a fragment of a poem, so I googled it when I got home and rediscovered that Poet-Farmer-Man-of-Letters, Wendell Berry.  

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

A Summer Oyster Tradition

We have a summer tradition to picnic on oysters oh-so-fresh from their beds at Taylor Shellfish Farms on Chuckanut Drive.  Just south of Bellingham, WA, the retail shop has a few wooden tables, a grill and an amazing view of the San Juan Islands.  We generally bring along chilled Muscadet or a six-pack of Hefeweizen, lemons, hot sauce and if we've really thought ahead, fresh horseradish to grate.  After shucking and slurping 26 shigoku oysters (this time all they had left) we merrily toss the empty shells onto the beach beneath our feet. 

I like to theme read and for this occasion I re-read the slender and delightful Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher.  Basically a love letter to the oyster and all the joys of eating them, you can find an excellent review and excerpt here from NPR's "You Must Read This." All of Fisher's writing is memoir through food and she is right up there in my Favorite Writers Pantheon.  

~~~~~

“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.” 

~ M.F.K. Fisher

~~~~~

In the chapter, "A Supper to Sleep On" Fisher writes about the pleasures of oyster stew.  It may sound incongruous, but while growing up in very landlocked South Dakota my mother always made oyster stew on Christmas Eve, as her mother had.  It seems to be a Catholic tradition for many families with a link to Irish immigrants.  The recipe is simple:  heat milk and a generous amount of butter slowly on the stove, drop in oysters with their reserved liquor, cook until the edges curl and serve with freshly-cracked pepper and oyster crackers.  It is one of the coziest meals I know.  

Before enrolling in my freshman year at Boston College, my dad took me to the Union Oyster House where I ate oysters on the half shell for the first time.  I was eighteen.  Sitting at the festive red and white checked table, I felt so Bostonian and grown up as I gamely ate raw oysters and tried to act sophisticated.  I was relieved when I realized I actually liked them.

Later I moved to San Francisco where I lived around the corner from the historic Swan's Oyster Depot, an institution since 1912 and just this past March rated by Bon Appetit as the 20th Most Important Restaurant in America.  Needless to say, I spent many happy hours throwing back oysters at their counter.  And there was that one birthday where I ate a dozen oysters as my appetizer and then decided I should have another dozen for my main course.  Those were heady days.

In Seattle I started eating at The Brooklyn Oyster Bar where I discovered Taylor's Shellfish Farm. To give you an idea of how much I came to love them, while working a dull job in a high rise building downtown I would click on Taylor's website as soon as I turned on my computer in the morning.  The website had a soundtrack of waves lapping, seagulls crying, a sailboat clanking against a buoy and their wooden sign creaking in the breeze.  This was my meditative "nature" music throughout the day, which would transport me away from my cubicle.   They've since updated their website and cut this feature, but happily I no longer work in an office building and I can listen to this soundtrack live.

Christian and I ate oysters together on our first date in July of 2007.  Three years later, we served oysters on the half shell at the luncheon celebration after our (second) wedding at The Teahouse in Stanley Park. On a trip to Kyoto we had one of the best meals of our life at Grotto Kaiseki, one couse featuring a single fresh oyster accented with a drop of ponzu.  Someday, we will visit Cancale, the seaside town in Brittany famous for oysters, and then trawl through all the oyster bars in Paris.  

I have my own oyster shuckers and even an antique Weimar porcelain oyster plate, a gift from my Aunt Cindy.  This aunt married a Frenchman, deals in antiques and lives in Paris.  She is wholly responsible for my early life as a Francophile (In junior high, I wrote a report on the Louvre, talked my parents into sending me to French immersion summer camp and read Anais Nin).  This is the first oyster plate in my collection of one.  There will be more.

I can also feast my eyes on oysters anytime I need a fix by looking at Dutch still lifes, celebrating the fleeting pleasures of life.  I especially like "Still Life with Gilt Goblet" hanging in the Rijksmuseum by Willem Claesz Heda which he painted in 1635.  

Last week I got a dose of more stunning still lifes, including more with oysters, lemons and delicate wine goblets at the Vancouver Art Gallery's exhibit of 17th Century Dutch and Flemish Masterworks, which inspired me to take a crack at my own still life at Taylor's:

My Grandmother’s Collection of Cameo Lockets

My grandmother, at the ripe young age of eighty-eight, gave me the most beautiful collection of cameo lockets yesterday for my birthday. Since I was turning twenty-five and finally being considered by the family to be a mature adult, she thought that the family heirloom would be an appropriate gift.

Back in the 1940s, my Grandmother received this gorgeous piece of jewelry from her grandmother. It is a kind of tradition in my family. It was purchased by my great-great-grandfather from a traveling jeweler. Every woman in my family has cherished the locket. I must say, it is a rather beautiful sight. It is a piece of ivory with a picture of the Virgin Mary carved into it. Everyone who sees the locket always says how envious they are of such an important and magnificent piece of family history. 

When I get married and have lots and lots of beautiful children running around, I will always be thinking about my grandmother’s collection of cameo lockets. It is like the glue that holds our family together. Sometimes we just sit around and talk about family members who have since left us and the amazing memories and stories they have left behind. Those memories are priceless.

Diamond Studs for Men are more popular than Ever!

Diamond studded earrings have always been the mark of beauty and fashion among women, but what about men?  Diamond studs for men and mens jewelry in general has made a comeback recently, becoming more popular among men of all ages!  Affordable diamond jewelry is also becoming more available to people.  There are several reasons why more men are opting to sport diamond studded earrings.

One, men who wear an earring or earrings use them as a statement of style; many find men who wear a single earring or earrings attractive and men use this fashion statement as a way to enhance their looks.  Two, mens earrings can also be used as to symbolize certain spiritual traditions.  Three, diamond studs for men are also used to show affluence and wealth; this goes for all diamond jewelry actually.  Lastly, a diamond studded earring is also a popular gift to men from their significant others.

What every the reasoning behind deciding to purchase diamond studs for men, making sure that you choose the right professional jeweler is equally important.  Here at King Fine Jewelry we make sure to give our customers the best earring selection to choose from along with amazing customer service.  It is our goal that everyone who comes to us looking for jewelry, find the piece that is best for them!

Alfresco Naps

Picnics, bike rides, plump blackberries, swimming holes, ice cream cones, alfresco naps.....oh yes indeed, summer is on.  This Andrew Wyeth painting pretty much sums up the feeling of idyllic summer days for me:

Not that I get to do this delightful and healthy type of lazing as often as I'd like having an energetic toddler underfoot, but I do what I can.  We in the Burns clan like to nap and if it can be outside during a warm summer's afternoon with a breeze ruffling our hair, all the better.  In the house where I grew up, we had a downstairs porch for eating and an upstairs porch with a canopy bed for sleeping.  Here is my dad showing us how it is done (those hats do come in handy)...

I've been trying to give Xavier as many alfresco naps as possible, like this particularly delicious one...

 

This is one of my favorite photographs from last summer, taken in my sister's back yard when Xavier was just a wee little guy.  I mean, really, does it get any better than this?

I read that the brilliant Benjamin Franklin believed in taking "air baths" and he'd spend a few hours in his birthday suit every morning out of doors in every season.  The Japanese like to go "forest bathing" when they walk in the woods, considered very healthy for the body and mind. Surely then alfresco naps - in the buff or not - make for healthy, hearty and happy people.   I'm certain I could find a study somewhere to back me up.  I'll do some research....right after a little snooze...

Black Shawl Remembers Crazy Horse

I visited the Crazy Horse Memorial for the first time this summer and it moved me beyond words.  The scale is so huge - far, far bigger than Mt. Rushmore - but it was the Indian Museum of North America that made the visit worthwhile.  I have studied the Sioux Nation but the beauty of the artifacts and the terrible history of the white man overrunning a culture, yet again, really resonated.  But that is the power of this place:  the memory of the ultimate resistance fighter Crazy Horse and the stories, the history, the culture are very much alive.  Korczak Ziolkowski, the original sculptor liked to quote these lines:  "When the legends die, the dreams end; and when the dreams end, there is no more greatness."  The legends, the dreams and the greatness are tangible, I can breathe them in.

Having just come from my brother's wedding full of Lakota ceremony and also celebrating my third anniversary, I found myself welling up with tears when I came across this beautiful poem in the museum about a wife's love for her husband written by the talented poet Irene Latham.  The gift shop didn't sell copies of the broadside so I wrote to Irene to inquire about buying one from her.  Sadly, she doesn't have any more, but we struck up a correspondence, I ordered her latest book of poems and I can't wait to meet her in Seattle or Alabama someday.  You might also enjoy reading her blog Live Your Poem.  I do, very much.


Black Shawl Remembers Crazy Horse

The old ones like to say
memory is like riding a trail
at night with a lighted torch.
And so it does not surprise me
that your face has been swallowed
by darkness, your voice black as
the wounded wings of a crow.

But sometimes the torch flares,
illuminating the way your body
folded itself against mine,
how the last time you loved me
you dipped your thumb in red paint
and covered the part in my hair,
marking me a woman greatly loved.

When the rattlesnake came into
the lodge, you could not crush it.
And you couldn't save our daughter
from the white man's coughing disease.
In the end, the Black Hills were lost, too -
the heart of everything that is.

I wasn't your only wife. But I am
the one who remembers. I whisper
your name and it drifts as snow
across the prairie, then melts
and is gone.

~ Irene Latham

Diamond Earrings; A Gift No One Can Refuse!

Diamond earrings have long been the pinnacle of beauty and fashion.  Many women and men alike love a gift such as an earring or earrings adorn with diamonds.  The problem with purchasing these diamond accessories for many is their lack of knowledge on the types of earrings available to choose from.  Among the popular types of earrings are: the stud earring, the hoop earring, and the drop earring,

The stud earring is most commonly known as the first earring one wears; it is the earring that is pierced into the ear and it is usually mandatory to wear this earring for a month or two to ensure the holes are set.  Diamond earrings often come in this shape, not only as a first earring, but also as a symbol of style among men and women.  Hoop earrings come in all sorts of metals and designs, and are also known for being adorn with diamonds, gems, or other precious stones.  However, hoop earrings also are often simple a solid metal; such as gold or silver.  Lastly, drop earrings are earrings of elegance; they gently dangle below the lobe of one’s ear.  These too come in many shapes sizes, metals, designs, and gems.

When looking to purchase diamond earrings it is important to know these different types that one will need to choose from.  Personal preference and style of the one who will be wearing the earrings should also always be taken into consideration.