Austin Christmas

In a few days, Annie and I will fly out of Chicago to Austin for a Texas Christmas. It will be my fourth trip to Austin and my third stay at the Austin Motel, one of the finer and more eccentric and soulful  establishments of that city.  I am sharing a few pictures from last year for you to get the general idea of the place,

but if you would like to know more, go to www.austinmotel.com , where you can read the history of the place and understand the reason for the fabulous karma of the place. 

The first time I stayed there was with my then-fiance Dave, who agreed to book the room in deference to me and my love of all things tacky and unique; I am sure that a sensible Best Western would have been far more up his alley, but he put a smile on his face and commented on how the purple walls of our room were really quite pretty, after all, and watched a football game on the tiny little tv with rabbit ears.

Last year I returned solo. Each room at the Austin is an individual work of art, and when I checked in to my new digs I was not disappointed. It had sort of a "c" shaped floor plan with the bathroom in the middle. One end of the C showcased a great old dresser, the kind my grandmother had, and the other end held a double bed under a window.  The head of the bed was about 2" lower than the foot, which gave you the feeling of diving into dreamland.  In the mornings, the sun streamed in that little window and I still remember how that looked and felt with perfect clarity.  There was also a little couch and another tiny tv that didn't work. The bathroom was brightly tiled and the layers of calking around the fixtures were like little necklaces that just spiffed everything up. In short, perfection.

Austin is an outdoor place full of independent, liberal and eccentric folks. There is art everywhere, both the official and the unofficial kind, and street merchants peddling everything from shea butter ( a gorgeous black man with dreds down to his ass) to mocassins.  The food is great and they have three theaters where you can order some of it and watch a movie.  We hope to see Clint's new movie on Christmas day.

My friend Tina will be here at the house with little Bella and the Ozman, stoking the home fires for me.  She is still waiting for her husband Almamy to get his visa approved and fly here to Holland to be with her. They have been separated far too long and the story of their struggle to get him here is a painful one.  I had dinner with my new friend Vic, a handsome, brilliant and smooth-talking caramel-colored man with a voice like Lou Rawls, and he told me that he looked up the word "steerage" in the dictionary after hearing it used in the movie, "Titanic".  I remember the scene: a shot of those belowdecks who couldn't afford first-class passage.  It refers to those cheap accomodations for people who really don't count quite as much in this world; those who are marginalized by their skin color, their poverty, their powerlessness, their gender.  An awareness of how this pervasive attitude drives our world will help to change it.  I don't want to get preachy, here, but seeing clearly is coming to unfold for me as so very much more than getting that I am a lucky woman.

peace to you all, and love,

claudia

we are saying thank you

I am thinking of that poem from Annie Lamott's book that is somewhere on this blog and thinking how appropriate it is for this weekend (and every other day of the year if your goal is peace)...my weekend was so glorious that I feel gluttonous in more than the food department (although I certainly did well there, too...) Jon and Annie were here, arriving on Thanksgiving day and staying til just a little while ago. I said goodbye to them in the JPs parking lot with snow coming down all around us and us in our hats and scarves. It was picturesque and it snowed just in time for JOn to get a little taste before heading back to Austin.  Tina and Kathy were here for TG dinner, and Mark and Benny came the next night for more food and some Monopoly (Benny won and I can tell you two things about that: first, he is a little capitalist, and second, we let him win, I swear).  Nothing like an 8 year old counting 100 dollar bills to crack you up. 

Saturday we spent in Ann ARbor with Seyth and Molly doing still more eating--Northside Grill for breakfast and my beloved SEVA for dinner. Annie got to see her painter friend, the other Seth (without the "y") and he inspired her to crank out some paintings on the theme of Facebook.

My friend Tina continues to hit walls trying to get her Almamy into the country...the visa is still not a done deal despite their jumping through every hoop presented.  She is struggling through each day without her new husband who is still in Conkary, Guinea.

Almost the end of the semester for Hope and finals are looming. I have enjoyed both classes but must admit it will be nice to be back to one job.

My friend Barb lost her dad, Vern Washabaugh, last Tuesday. She and her mom were right there for him around the clock and were giving him a bath and a shave when he left them.

Julie is driving back to DC with her fabulous basset hound, Bessie in tow--her first sojourn to the big city.  In other dog news, my friend Carolyn is missing her Lilly, her little black dog who she has had for years. She just seemed to disappear. There are signs up all over her neighborhood in Carmel, Indiana.  Mark brought Reggie for breakfast and we talked a little about how things will unfold when the time has come for him to go...loving dogs is so hard sometimes although of course worth every minute.

I have one quote and two pictures for you that may bring a little unity to this rambling blog. Really, I just felt like talking. 

Here is the quote: 

"Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.  It's the one and only thing you have to offer."--Barbara Kingsolver

The pics are of my Bella and Jon's Vanessa, Tarzan the cat and Poppy pup.

    

Halloween hike to the beach

Halloween hike to the beach

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pause...

good morning,

I found this image waiting for me in my inbox from Katie's parents, who I had the pleasure of talking to on conference night. Katie is a remarkable artist and one of many interesting small people I have the good fortune to be teacher to at Waukazoo Elementary.  I also think Katie is well on her way to being a great spiritual teacher!

A new issue of The Sun has me taking respite this morning in my chair with my small dog snoring on my lap, instead of heading for the gym.  I found this quote in an achingly beautiful essay called "Lost" by Elana Zamen:

The writer Andre Gide relates this experience fo a trip he took into the Belgian Congo:

    My party had been pushing ahead at a fast pace for  a number of days, an done morning when we were ready to set out, our native bearers, who carried the food and equipment, were found sitting about without any preparations made for starting the day.

Upon being questioned, they said, quite simply, that they had been traveling so fast in these last days that they had gotten ahead of their souls and were going to stay quietly in camp for the day in order for their souls to catch up with them.

So they came to a complete stop. 

I wonder how far removed I must be from these native bearers in my ability to feel my soul lagging behind me in my business, moving ahead with this sense of self-importance I so often feel.  How do we listen for those footsteps? How do we know when to stop and turn around?

7 secrets

I have been tagged by organicsyes....

here are the rules.

1. link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog

2. share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3.  Tag 7 people at the end of  your post by leaving their names as well as links on their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

 

Remember chain letters? 

They were letters that we wrote and sent to a set number of people (was it seven? that seems right) and then each person sent to seven more, etc, etc, but also back to you, and the idea was that you were going to get a dollar or something from everyone and be rich. The other kind was that you had to do it or you were going to have to endure some awful fate if you didn't keep the chain going. (come to think of it, maybe I can attribute whatever bad luck I have ever had in my life to broken chain letters --or maybe broken mirrors. 

Anyway, 

here are my seven facts (I am only doing this because it is a chance to talk about myself)

1.  I am a teacher and doer and lover of all things art.

2. I have a fabulously diverse, interesting, irreverant and delightful group of friends.

3. I have a tiny little dog named Bella.

4. I lost an eye earlier this year.

5.  I love books about maritime disasters and great adventures.

6.  My first name is Frances.

7.  I was named after a little girl with a terminal illness that my doctor dad and nurse mom took care of before they got married. (I love that one.)

WILD THINGS

One of my favorite books is WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, by Maurice Sendack. It is a story about a little boy who goes to a place where there are monsters roaring at him, showing their claws, rolling their yellow eyes and doing their best to terrify him. Max, however, being a true six year old, is not intimidated by these theatrics, and tames them by "staring into their yellow eyes without blinking....and they were frightened, and called Max the wildest thing of all...." I have the great pleasure of reading this book to my first graders every year, and presiding over the creation of some pretty awesome puppets, like the one you see here. You can imagine the roaring and general wildness that ensues during this class!

This morning I reread another favorite story, from Pema Chodron, about facing the things that scare you. My monsters look like political figures, my retirement fund, my wrinkles, cancer....

maybe there is something to this taming of the monsters by looking them in the eye.

Here is the story:

"When I was about ten, my best friend started having nightmares: she'd be running through a huge dark building pursued by hideous monsters.  She'd get to a door, struggle to open it, and no sooner had she closed it behind her tan she would hear it opened b y rapidly approaching monsters.  Finally she would wake up screaming and crying for help. 

One day we were sitting in her kitchen, talking about her nightmares. When I asked her what the demons looked like she said she didn't know because she was always running away.  After I asked her that question, she began to wonder about the monsters.  She wondered if any of them looked like witches and if any of them had knives.  So on the next occurence of the nightmare, just as the demons began to pursue her, she stopped running and turned around.  It took tremendous courage, and her heart was pounding, but she put her back up against the wall and looked at them.  They all stopped right in front of her and began jumping up and down, but none of them came any closer. There were five in all, each looking somewhat like an animal. One of them was a grey bear, but instead of claws, it had long red fingernails.  One had four eyes.  Another had a wound on its cheek.  Once she looked closely, they appeared less like monsters and more like two-dimensional drawings in comic books.  Then slowly they began to fade. After that she woke up, and that was the end of her nightmares. "

In an interview with WTWTA author Maurice Sendack, he confided that the inspiration for his wild things came from childhood memories of his relatives coming for dinner. When I read the wild things' pleading with Max: "oh, please don't go! We'll eat you up, we love you so!" I am again delighted  by the similarities between the two.

Have a beautiful day, and look 'em right in the eye.

Love,

Claudia

good news from Thich Nhat Hanh

Woke up this morning once again with this heaviness in my heart over the way of the world. It seems like it is painted in such dark hues these days. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk from Vietnam who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King. They worked together in another turbulent time-the 60's.  Offered here to you:

"Store consciousness, your thoughts, your speech, and your actions bring about the fruit of karma, which is comprised of yourself and your environment.  You and your environment are one and create your karma.  It is possible for us to assure a beautiful future by taking care of our thoughts, our speech, and our actions.  You have the power of changing yourself within, and you have the power of changing yourself by changing your environment.  Taking care of yourself means to take care of your body and to take care of your environment.   It is not true that the genes determine everything.  Through produc ing your thoughts, speech, and actions, you create your environment.  You always have the opportunity to arrange yourself and arrange your environment in such a way as to water the positive seeds in yourself.  That is the secret of happiness."

Good news for those of us who feel a little powerless in the face of all of this turmoil.

Sending wishes for joy and peace to all of you out there...

with love,

claudia

PS: Buttberry update: in a previous post I mentioned my attempts to emulate my friend Mark by developing a personal organization system for keeping me on track.  Yesterday, I not only dumped water all over my paper but proceeded to accidently rip it and then lose it somewhere between work and home. 

Lamination? a waterproof planner to put my buttberry in?

from Pema Chodron

"Every day we could think about the aggression in the world, in New York, Los Angeles, Halifax, Taiwan, Beirut, Somalia, everywhere  All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever.  Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, " Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?"  Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, " Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?"

This reading resonated with me this morning. Everyone is talking about our dire situation on Wall Street, and those of us who grew up with parents who survived the Depression and World War II and Korea, who came into adulthood during the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon, can be reminded that it is not the world that needs to change, but our response to it.

Peace out, brothers and sisters. Each one of us contributes or contaminates...

love,

claudia