Heather King's Blog, page 40

OJAI’S BEST-KEPT SECRET: TAFT GARDENS AND NATURE PRESERVE

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

A year or so ago, I took a field trip to Ojai and visited a strange and unique garden.  

That would be the Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve, located off the 150: a scenic drive that connects Ojai to the 101.

Way off, in fact: after entering through a pair of crumbling gate pillars, you cross a couple of creeks, pass many large rambling private residences, and up a windy, isolated drive come at last to the Visitor’s Center.

A day and time must be reserved in advance and in spite of its relative isolation, I feared the place might be overrun with people.

Instead, for my hour-and-a-half visit I had the entire 15 acres to myself: the South African Garden, the Australian Garden, the Aloe Garden, the Agave Cactus Garden, the Lily Grove Lawn, the Zen Garden, and the Eco Garden Pavilion.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

WE FALL DOWN AND WE GET UP

Blessed Solemnity of All Saints.

I get ridiculously excited by feast days, and All Saints, folllowed tomorrow by All Souls, are to my mind kind of a pre-entrance into the Advent season. Plus the first of the month I get to turn all three of my calendars (Gustave Baumann (an annual treasured gift from my friend Ellen in Maine) , Cavallini Herbarium and a Rigel Stuhmiller desk calendar) to a new leaf, which is also always exciting. As is the fact that one more time–though I’ve done so every month for almost 50 years, this inevitably strikes me as a miracle–I’d been able to pay my rent.

My circadian rhythm still hasn’t reset from my trip back East (from which I returned almost a month ago), so I woke this morning at 4:30 PST and prepared to participate in the livestream 8:30 EST Mass from Portsmouth Abbey in Rhode Island, during which Brother Benedict Maria, from from Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India, took his final vows.

Abbot Matthew Stark (a holy man with a sense of humor, and a friend) had sent me a little printed invitation a couple of weeks ago and I’d been looking forward to the occasion ever since.

First I lit my candle and incense and said Morning Prayer whilst inwardly reflecting on how weak, alone, and frightened I feel lately.

Today’s Gospel, fittingly, is the Sermon on the Mount. And in his homily, the priest included this:

“A Desert Father was once asked: What do monks do all day?

The monk answered: We fall down and we get up. We fall and we get up”…

The monks at Portsmouth Abbey are Benedictines, and the ceremony was very moving. After answering some preliminary questions, Brother Benedict Maria Benedict prostrated himself, the monks covered him with a gold and purple cloth, he was prayed over, including the Litany of the Saints, and when he arose after this symbolic death, he’d been born anew as a member, till death, of the Abbey and the community of his fellow monks.

Each of whom approached, one by one, to embrace and welcome him. The church appeared to be packed (the camera only showed the altar area and choir stalls) as the Communion line went on for a long time. The students from the Abbey Schoool attended as well, so that made it extra nice.

Livestream Mass is of course a far, far cry from the real thing but I nonetheless felt deeply connected and was glad to have participated as I could. Everyone was going off for a breakfast and reception and for a second I pictured myself a happy member of this warm crowd, standing around with a honey bun and a cup of coffee chatting. But the Mass was ended. We’d received our instruction: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

Then the screen went dark.

PORTRAIT OF A MONK OF THE BENEDICTINE ORDER, HOLDING A SKULL, ANTHONY VAN DYCK (1599-1641)

HEAVEN IS OUR HOME

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins:

On a recent trip back East, I made a point of visiting the former homes and studios of three late artists.

The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was the studio of historian Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930), a self-taught architect, ceramicist, and collector.

He modeled the design for his tile works on the California missions he’d seen on his travels. Then he added his own stamp, which might be called “Early Hobbit.”

The compound is now a nonprofit history museum, offering guided tours to the public, as well as an annual Tile Fest, summer music and movie series, visiting artist residencies and workshops.

It’s also a humming working studio, producing among other items mosaic murals, floors, patios, fireplace surrounds, hearths, and architectural friezes. The tiles, available for purchase in the museum store, are still pressed from the over 6000 molds designed by Mercer.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

I LOVE BEAUTIFUL HOMES AND ARCHITECTURE,
BUT I’M NOT SURE ANYTHING BEATS A MEADOW IN AUTUMN

A KITCHEN GUEST

This week’s adventure, or one of them, began last Saturday. I was working in my office when I swore I could hear a weird noise in the kitchen, like when one of the appliances for no reason clears it throat or sneezes.

After going out to investigate, I traced it to the toaster which sits in a corner of the kitchen counter. I tend to be either hypervigilant or hyper-vague and in this instance I decided to go with the vague. Hunh, I thought. Maybe a rogue jolt of electricity has traveled through the cord and has decided to manifest in a faint tap-tap-tap.

Of course I did not actually look into or otherwise investigate the toaster. I “forgot” about it till the next day when I heard an even louder sound and realized there was an animal of some kind IN THE FREAKING TOASTER.

We all know what that means.

So I gave that whole area, which includes the sink, the cupboard with all of my dry food, and the coffeemaker a very wide berth, hoping the noise would “just stop.” But that night before going to bed I glanced furtively over and a small HEAD emerged from one of the toaster apertures.

I thought I would have a heart attack and emitted a long, loud shriek just like in the movies. The head disappeared and I went to bed with a blanket stuffed around my bedroom door in case the thing crept up on me in the night and tried to eat me.

It was all very unsettling and Monday morning I placed the right call, though the person couldn’t come till today. Meanwhile my friends made funny jokes like “Hah, why not press the lever and turn turn the toaster on!” I said “Well for one reason because I will not come within ten feet of the toaster so I couldn’t reach.”

Mike the Terminator Man arrived around 11 today and could not have been nicer or more informative.

“Can you look in the toaster?!” I cried first thing. “I’m afraid to go near it!” He ascertained that my friend was nowhere in sight, alive or dead (I don’t know which would have been worse), looked around, reported that the mouse seemed to be gone, seemed to have been alone, and had not in any way set up shop. He said it’s a very common occurrence for a single such animal to slip through a door, find some food or crumbs or whatever, go into hiding when a person appears, figure out the scene isn’t congenial, and leave.

I asked Mike if he had undergone some kind of psychological training–obviously he deals with way worse situations than mine–and he said “No, baptism by fire,” and now nothing fazes him.

He said he has dealt with grown hulking military men who were literally crouching on the dining table crying, begging him to get rid of whatever. Wusses! Why, I only turned all the lights in the house on each night, washed my dishes in the bathroom sink for three days, moved whatever food I needed to the dining room, jumped back a mile when opening a drawer or door, and was kind of unable fully to function till Mike showed up.

He set some traps and put out some kind of food and is coming back Friday at 7, he feels quite sure to give me the all-clear green light confirming that I had one rogue creature. He also suggested buying some oil of peppermint,mixing it with water, and spraying all around the doors and anyplace else that occurs to me as “they” are very sensitive to smell and especially dislike peppermint.

Mike also pointed out that different people have different thresholds around various kinds of fears. For example, when he asked what I did, and I told him, he said, “Well there you go! Sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper and having to write would give me tremendous anxiety!” “I can speak in front of people, too!” I added, trying to save face after having announced that I would rather go stay in a hotel than have to dispose of a trap with something dead in it.

Reflecting on my situation during the last few days, I did realize the mouse was a metaphor for all the tiny things in my life that I make a huge deal over in my head, and often heart, which also make it difficult fully to function.

I’ve asked many many people for help lately, and that is all to the good as I tend toward self-reliance in a way that can border on mental illness. The other day, for example, I needed to find a witness to my signaure for my Arizona living will as I was going to the doctor that afternoon. So I went out to the sidewalk and simply flagged down the first passerby–who happened to be a doctor, and to live just around the corner. Lovely man!

I’ve also met my neighbors on both sides and two others across the street and thus feel more at home by the day.

I’ve also made some very exciting progress vis-a-vis my attitude toward doctors and the health care system. But that can wait till next time. Wishing everyone a splendid week.

I WANT TO SEE!

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more,
“Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.
— Mark 10:46-52

I heard something new in this morning’s homily: the priest called our attention to the phrase “He threw aside his cloak.” In Jesus’ time, apparently a person’s cloak was sleeping bag, overcoat, umbrealla, sunshade, and a bunch of other things–so for the blind man to throw his aside his cloak would be akin (my gloss) to us chucking our iphone into the crowd and “springing up” to meet the Master.

Do I want to see? Myself clearly, for example…I’ve been asking for that lately. And as they say, Be careful what you ask for!

Now that the temperature has turned cooler, I’ve been leaving my desk and venturing out to explore my new city a bit. Fun! My knee’s still not healed enough to walk any distance (I learned this the hard way a couple of days ago), but I’ve checked out a few vintage furniture shops, stood in line at Barrio Bread, eaten at Tumerico’s, trolled the aisles at Bookman’s, had a new left rear sensor installed at Discount Tires, established a deep intimacy with the entire staff at my new dentist’s office, ducked into Johnny Gibson’s Grocery, and most recently visited the Tucson Museum of Art.

En route to the latter, I tried to stop in at Hee Mee Bakery. But here’s a delightful local practice: restaurants, coffee shops, delis simply close at 2 or even 1 pm! That’s right. They close up shop, lunch places, at 1 in the afternoon on a Friday (or any other day) many of them. A lighting store where I took a lamp to be repaired last week keeps the hours 11-3, and any given establishment might be open Thurs through Saturday 12-5, and Sunday if you’re lucky.

It all worked out as I stopped into the very cool Ceres, a storefront with a striped awning that sells hand-made pasta, focaccio, a simple salad or two, San Pellegrino sparkling juices, delicious pastries and good coffee. No indoor seating so I set up shop on a bench across the street next to a friendly man who was heavily intoxicated, asking all passerbys for money, and as I rose to leave brandished a wad of bills (to which I had contributed) and slurred, “Where’re we going tonight, baby?” I felt right at home.

Then I wandered around the corner to sit in front of the Museum and drink my coffee before going in.

My view was of Old Town Artisans, an historick block of shopping and eating. Old adobe, turquoise trim, colorful stencils above the doorways, more benches in the sun, a homey warren of shops and places to sit, drink, snack. It’s kind of touristy, but not obnoxiously so, and everything moves at such a human, leisurely, plenty-of-time pace that I loved just being down there.

The neighborhood, El Presidio, I’d discovered and walked many times on my previous visits. Like much of Tucson, the streets are full of tucked-away courtyards and inviting doors behind which you just know whole worlds are conducted that you may or may not ever see. Nice to know they’re there anyway.

Back home, I have got me a new feeder specifically designed for nyjer seed, which attracts goldfinches. I have yet to see one, but the hummingbirds took awhile to show up to their feeder, too. Something to look forward to as I continue, once in a while anyway, to throw askde my cloak.

HEY, MASTER! ARE YOU IN THERE?…

BLONDELL CUMMINGS: DANCE AS MOVING PICTURES

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Blondell Cummings (1944-2015), an American modern dancer known for her experimental choreography, was a prominent figure in the New York and Harlem dance worlds for several decades.

Born in South Carolina, where her parents picked cotton, she was raised in New York City. With a BA in dance and education from New York University and a master’s from Lehman College, she was an original member of the avant-garde dance company “The House,” founded in 1968 by Meredith Monk. She went on to teach at several prestigious NYC-area universities and establish her own ensemble.

In 1978, she founded the Cycle Arts Foundation, a discussion/performance workshop. Her goal, she said, was to “create a new ritual of empowerment to uplift the family.”

“Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures,” a collaboration between Art + Practice and the Getty Research Institute’s African American Art History Initiative, opened September 18 at A + P’s exhibition space runs through February 19, 2022.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

A USELESS BIT OF BROKEN POTTERY

“Sometimes we live in God and sometimes God lives in us. These are very different states. When God lives in us, we should abandon ourselves completely to him, but when we live in him, we have to take care to employ every possible means to acheive a complete surrender to him….[W]hen God lives in us, we have nothing to help us beyond the present moment…They who live in God perform countless good works for his glory, but those in whom God lives are often flyng into a corner like a useless bit of broken pottery…Often they have no idea who they will be used, but he knows. The world thinks them useless and it seems as if they are. Yet it is quite certain that by various means adn through hidden channels they pour out spiritual help on people who are often quite unaware of it and of whom they themseles never think.”

–Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence

This of course is me: POURING out spiritual help on people who are not only unaware of it–but who usually it turns out not only don’t need help, but are actually helping me.

No matter–I’ve come back to de Caussade’s classic. And his “bit of broken pottery” reminds me of St. T of Lisieux’s (next time I pick a patron saint, remind me to find one whose first name doesn’t contain both an accent aigu and an accent grave) whole O Jesus just treat me like your plaything, like your little rubber ball that you kick into a corner and forget! thing.

Speaking of diacritical marks, and French saints, have I mentioned that I am devoting ten minues a day to (re-)learning le français? Why, I don’t know, as I have no immediate plants to travel there, nor do I have, say, French friends who are dying to converse with me. But I did take French for all four years of high school and at least one year of college and always enjoyed it except that none of my teachers ever spoke about or taught pronunciation. So I’ve always been dreadfully self-conscious (with good reason) when trying to speak what is clearly a beautiful language.

Also, it’s a good in and of itself to commit, for however few minutes a day, to learning something new.

Tucson is an entirely different place almost in autumn. It is chilly in the mornings and evenings! To don a bathrobe and slippers is an experience I’d not had here, and the other day I turned on the heat for the first time. All of which feels somehow thrilling, as if the city and I are embarking on a whole new relationship.

My favorite part of the day is dusk, when I sit looking out of the French doors to my office watching the leaves darken against the sky.

STANDING STILL

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Several years ago I was walking around the Venice Beach neighborhood, just ambling down the sidewalk when I saw a guy approaching who was scrawny, disheveled, and talking audibly to himself. As we drew abreast, I gave him a friendly smile, at which point he stopped and with a note of desperation asked–pled, really: “Would you do me a favor? Would you just stand still and let me walk around you ten times?”

“Absolutely,” I replied, and stood still, and he walked around me ten times, thanked me profusely, and proceeded on.

I’ve been thinking of that interchange a lot lately. Maybe because it’s so seldom that a stranger asks for help in this world, and maybe because it’s seldom that you can offer the exact help needed and know that the help has “landed:” been received; provided relief. Standing still doesn’t require any special expertise or charism so I didn’t feel as I often do when responding to a request that I was “doing it wrong.” I didn’t worry that I was incompetent.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

OUT EAST, BACK WEST

Welp, I am safely ensconced back in my dear Arizona home, still reeling a bit from my two-week trip to the East Coast.

INITIAL THOUGHTS:

You really can’t go home again.

My traveling days are over. (Though I think this every time I return from a trip).

Tucson is gorgeous in October.

It really was a kind of trip from hell, and not just because I fractured my patella, and I’m pretty sure sprained my ankle as well, on Day 3.

I think what I realized this trip was I have never really liked traveling! I consider it, as with much that I do, a kind of character-building enterprise. But I’m always nervous. I don’t especially like driving, even at home; never mind when I’m on the road, in a car rented from a strange airport. It’s impossible to eat right on the road. Et cetera. Not that I’m not crazy grateful to get to go ANYWHERE, but still.

One place I stayed was in this tiny village in the middle of nowhere in eastern Pennsylvania, very lovely, along the Delaware River. Well there was one commercial establishment, comprising several businesses, in the whole town and this airbnb was above, beside, and in the middle of it. After driving 3 or 4 hours that day, and knowing I had to change, brush my hair and dash out for dinner, I grasped at once that I was basically staying for two days and nights above a store. Which neither the host nor the pictures had disclosed.

Worse, a quick look around the “kitchen” (sink in bathroom, plastic utensils) revealed that the coffee situation was limited to “pods.” Pods! Naturally I had my own bag of Starbucks Verona with me, and my electric kettle, but the one thing I’d neglected to bring (and hadn’t needed till now, so hadn’t known I’d neglected) was my gold coffee-filter cone.

So I tracked the guy down outside, hobbling on my injured leg, and literally brayed, “Do you have a COFFEE MAKER!!??” And when he said No, I brayed even louder, “Well then, do you have a CONE????” LIterally like a crazed banshee. Like I even wanted or needed coffee right that minute, or obviously, ever.

That’s when I knew I’d gone a teeny bit off the rails.

The next morning I utilized a makeshift paper-towel coffee filter, then tried the pods, which weren’t even that bad. The pods were just a stand-in for living out of a suitcase, rinsing out clothes every night, ferrying around dried fruit, nuts, crackers and cheese in a plastic bag. I can’t stand eating out every meal especially because the food is inevitably overpriced AND not good.

With all that, I saw many people I love, tons of heart-wrenching East Coast “scenery,” and several fascinating late artists’ homes/studios/museums.

And minute by minute I totally enjoyed the trip! I was more or less present every minute in a way that was maybe somewhat new. “Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world,” as Mother Teresa described life. Not just my sorrows, but the sorrows of the world, which I feel every more keenly.

A couple of months ago I heard a homily in which the priest spoke of the concept of muscle memory.

Part of my muscle memory embraces the hour-long walk I have taken every day for years. But I couldn’t (and still can’t) walk (at least not for an hour). So being stopped dead in my tracks has been very interesting.

I think I have always known that good health of any kind is on sufferance–it may be because I have so often given thanks for being able to walk (partly this came from being friends with a guy who was in a wheelchair) that I haven’t really minded not being able to, for a while at least. In New York, as I may have said, my room was kitty-corner from the sacristy of St. Vincent Ferrer and as I rested in bed, I became convinced that Jesus was happy to have me near him in the tabernacle and the Lord knows I was happy to be near him. That was enough. That was everything. I’d stumble down there for daily Mass and even went to Confession once.

And that was the real muscle memory: Mass, prayer, online recovery meetings. The Rosary. Even though we may feel nothing: grinding resistance, emptiness, wandering thoughts, emptiness. Even when we feel completely wrung out, the muscle memory brings us to the practices that, over time, we have incorporated into our daily routine.

I would join the monks at Portsmouth (RI) Abbey for live-streaming Vespers with Gregorian chant.

Those were the things I really looked forward to, that formed the backbone of my day, and that didn’t depend on my ability to walk.

And that allowed me to reflect that my trip-and-fall was a bit of a wakeup call. To more carefully look, in every sense of the word, where I’m going. To slow down. To commit fully to my new life here. On some level, I am always looking to hedge my bets, straddle two (at least) worlds. One foot in, one foot out.

Coming back, I flew from Newark into Phoenix (no nonstops to NYC from Tucson), then took the shuttle bus. We rolled into town around 5:30, just as dusk was falling. And the mountains, the red-gold desert light, the long, wide-open horizon–it was the first time since I moved here in May that I truly felt: I am home.

IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! IT’S THE AFTERNOON LIGHT STREAKING THROUGH MY OFFICE.
“TRULY, GOD WAS IN THIS PLACE AND I DID NOT KNOW IT”
(GEN. 28:16).

NATIONAL BIRD: THE TRAUMA OF DRONE WARFARE

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

National Bird, a 2016 documentary by investigative journalist Sonia Kennebeck, profiles three former military—Heather, Lisa, and Daniel—who participated in the U.S. Drone Program.

(Though the three are identified by first name only, Heather subsequently published a widely-read piece in The Guardian revealing her last name to be Linebaugh, and Daniel, likewise through news media, is now known to be Daniel Hale).

The film focuses on the effect on men and women aged 18-24 who made decisions over whether someone else should live or die, and then sat and watched the destruction.

Heather, a Drone Imagery Analyst and screener, was tasked with examining grainy footage of people in Afghanistan, determining as best she could from thousands of miles away the ages and genders of potential targets, and making the call as to whether the strike should take place.  

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.