Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 50

Think of the Armenians

Today, on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, I'm thinking of my mother-in-law, Marjorie. She was a young girl in Konya then, with two younger brothers. Unlike many Armenian men, her father survived several years before he was murdered by the Turks, because he had language skills they needed. After his death, Marjorie's mother was helped by American missionaries working with Near East Relief: she and the three children were taken by boat along the eastern Mediterranean coast, finally ending up in Alexandria, Egypt. There her mother, a trained nurse, ran an orphanage for Armenian children. Marjorie, already skilled in many languages, was a favorite helper of the missionaries, and was eventually sent to Beirut for her high school education and college at the American University, where her future husband, my father-in-law, was teaching.

Her brothers went to Switzerland and Brazil. Marjorie and her husband and young son immigrated to America in the late 1940s; their second son, my husband, was born in 1950, and a girl was born five years later. Even after hearing their stories firsthand for many years, it's still hard for me to imagine how difficult that move and cultural adjustment must have been, especially for her. But harder still is the knowledge that she witnessed the terrible events of 1915 and subsequent years, as nearly every adult Armenian male was killed outright, and the remaining families forced to march across the desert, most of whom did not survive.

My mother-in-law did not talk about those times. Most survivors did not; when you read accounts pieced together by later generations the writers - our age or younger - all say the same thing: "my mother -- my aunt -- my grandmother -- didn't want to talk about it." Marjorie, a lifelong Quaker, always said she didn't want to perpetuate hatred; she had seen too much of tribal feuds and ethnic and religious conflict; she wanted her children to grow up in peace, without thoughts of hatred or revenge burdening their hearts.

So she bore those scars inside herself. We knew they were there, and in peripheral ways we could see the damage they had done, but she lived as a witness and spokesperson for peace and non-violence, especially in her later years. I loved and admired her, and miss her a lot. My husband and I keep her memory alive with the foods she loved to cook, a few favorite objects and textiles, and stories about funny or poignant or typical things we remember: we often say to each other, "Your mother would love this." In fact we said that recently, at our favorite restaurant in Mexico City, as we spent a leisurely afternoon on the upstairs stone terrace lined with pots of flowers, eating perfect baba ghanoush on zaatar-dusted pita fresh from the oven. She loved flowers, color, well-prepared food in the company of friends and family, starched white linen, fine needlework, books, children, travel, laughter. You never would have known, unless you really knew her.

Pictures from an Exhibition

Time-travel takes many forms: for us, the opening of Jonathan's show last weekend was a step back into our former life in northern New England, where we saw many old friends, some of whom we hadn't seen for a decade or even more. For many of them, these photographs of late 1960s and early 1970s were a real trip into a personal past and regional/social history that affected many of our lives forever.

A lot of people came to the opening, and the photographs were received with wistfulness, amusement, nostalgia, and genuine appreciation: many people said "this was me, this was my life and a special moment in time, you've absolutely captured it." The two hours went by in a wink. Several of the people actually pictured in the photographs were present, providing a somewhat mind-blowing collapse of time. It was great to meet a couple of blog readers as well as many old friends I was absolutely delighted to see, and we were also so grateful to some close friends from Montreal who made the effort to be there with us.

Some of the visitors were close friends we've known through almost the entire thirty years we lived there, and others were from specific contexts -- Vermont Public Radio, community organizing, church and choir, artists and board members from AVA Gallery, professional contacts and former clients, neighbors -- a long and varied list. Each time someone else walked in the door it felt like I was seeing another piece of my life -- it was a good feeling, and an odd one too-- something that perhaps I could only experience at this age, after so much time has passed, and after living elsewhere for a considerable time as well.

And of course I was most happy for J., whose work was beautifully hung -- it's always a pleasure and a new experience to see a body of work on the walls, large and all together for the first time. This project has consumed both of us for a long time, and this first exhibition (with prints specifically chosen for that Vermont/New Hampshire location) felt like a culmination of that effort. Thank you to AVA for making it all go so smoothly, and to everyone who came to see the work and has supported the project thus far.

Jonathan will be giving a gallery talk at 5 pm on May 20, just before the exhibition comes down.

¡hola!

Well, the past month has literally flown by. And now it's April 20th, and I'm back in Montreal after almost three weeks spent elsewhere: first Mexico City, then in our former home of Vermont for the opening of J.'s photography exhibition. In the meantime, spring has finally arrived in the northeast too, and not a moment too soon, because everyone was starting to go completely bonkers. On April 9th, we flew into Montreal looking down on fields covered with snow and a frozen river, but within a couple more days almost everything had melted. We're back on our bikes, and feeling hopeful.

I'm glad to be back here at The Cassandra Pages, too. Taking a break was a good idea; I've come back with stories and photos and ideas, and also some greater insight about my relationship to the online world: what's healthy for me, and what isn't. The blog definitely is, so I look forward to resuming the conversation.

This silly picture was taken at a photography show in Mexico City devoted to the art of a special group of street photographers who take photos of visitors at festivals and shrines - historically, they use large-format sheet-film cameras and deliver the finished photographic print to the subject within a short time. Often the photographer has some sort of backdrop or set-up -- like this painted airplane - which forms a souvenir record of the visit. We had seen such photographers and their set-ups at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe last year, (see below) but had no idea it was a genre with a long history in Mexico.

I love the kitsch-y quality of these photos and almost wish now that we'd had our pictures taken at this stand last year with the former Pope, a donkey and a sombrero, all those Mexican colors, and not one but two Virgins!

Actually, the black-and-white photographs exhibited were often poignant as well as amusing. There was even a full-sized white horse in the exhibition, waiting to smile over your shoulder. Who could resist?

 

 

 

Invitation to an Exhibition

"New Overalls" in front of Hirsh's Store, Lebanon, NH, 1973. (c) Jonathan Sa'adah

If any of you will be in or near the Vermont/New Hampshire area next weekend, we'd like to invite you to come to the opening of Jonathan's photography exhibition, "Seeds of Change," at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, NH, on Friday, April 17 from 5-7 pm. The show will include 33 large prints, most but not all included in his recently-published book, How Many Roads?, which documents the changes that took place in the society and landscape of rural New England during the turbulent years of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Poetically, the Carter's overalls proudly displayed in the photo above, taken in 1973, were made in the old Carter's garment factory that is now home to AVA Gallery and Art Center, where Jonathan will be exhibiting!

The show runs at AVA from April 17 through May 20, and on May 20 he'll be giving a gallery talk at 5:30 pm. Both events, and the exhibition itself, are free and open to the public. We'll both be there and would be delighted to see you, and I'd be especially thrilled to meet any Cassandra Pages readers I've never met in person!

AVA is one of the most established and prestigious non-profit art centers in northern New England. It has beautiful large gallery spaces, and five contemporary artists will be exhibiting during this time period. One of our old friends, Joan Morris, an extremely talented textile artist who works with shaped-resist dyeing, is among them, and I'm looking forward very much to seeing her recent work.

Jonathan's show will be in the upstairs Johnson Sisters Library; there will be delicious refreshments, nice people to meet, signed prints and books for sale, and a good time to be had!

Happy Easter

A post from early April, ten years ago

GOODBYE BOOKS

April 6, 2005

One of our agreed tasks this week has been to do what we've been talking about for a long while - go through the books and actually get rid of those that no longer mean anything to us. Note that I didn't say "those we'll never read again" - because there are books on our shelves that I doubt either of us will re-read but we wouldn't part with for anything. No, this is a purge of dead weight, of books that are pointlessly  taking up shelf space in this particular house. Some would see this is a wrenching, even devastating process -- when one of my friends moved into a retirement home it was the dismantling of his library that affected him the most: "like having my limbs amputated," he said. I'd probably say that too, if I had to give up my shelf of Russian literature, or choose between keeping poetry books or art books. Maybe someday it will come to that - I hope not - but the books on the floor are more of the how-to variety - I don't need my cold-climate gardening book anymore, and cookbooks I haven't used in two decades are not likely to enhance our cuisine around here anytime soon. What surprised both of us is that, once we also take away computer software documentation and old magazines, the volume is reduced by 1/3 to 1/2: leaving the literature and essays, religion and history, sociology and cultural studies, poetry, art and photography books that really do matter to us, as well as some sentimental volumes that remind us of the original owner or the giver.

All of this book-weeding brings me back to the desert-island book meme, and all the lists I've read on various blogs. (We may complain, but wasn't it pretty interesting to see what everyone chose?) If I had it to do over, this week, I wonder if I might simply take five of the fattest blank books I could find. On a desert island, or in solitary confinement, would it be worse not to be able to read, or not to be able to write?

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And here's the post from the day after (Apr 7, 2005): a conversation about the subject with my father-in-law, who some of you will remember!

BOOKS, A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE


Hosta pods

Yesterday I told my father-in-law about the book-weeding. He looked nervously at his own shelves. “There are books here I couldn’t imagine parting with,” he said, and then grinned. “But obviously I can’t take them with me! Where are you taking them, is someone buying them?”

No, I tell him, we’re donating them to a charity sale.

“That’s the thing,” he says. “No one will give you anything for used books. David” (his other son) “tells me that after I am gone…dead, that is…probably my library will be given to a small college, where they’d be glad to have them.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He looks around again, and back at us. “But there are some I wish would stay in the family. David took one whole shelf.”

I don’t know whether to tell him there are books here I’d love to have, or whether it’s not the time, or my place to say that. I figure there will be other chances. And if he starts telling me to take books, I’ll probably get tearful and embarrass and upset him, so I stay silent. Instead I tell him about the book meme.

“There’s been a thing going around the internet, asking people if they were going to be marooned on a desert island, what five books they’d take with them. What do you think? What would you choose?”

He looks at me skeptically – he dislikes all games and quizzes, but I can tell he is either somewhat intrigued, or willing to humor me. He thinks for a minute, and doesn't say anything.

“The Qu’ran,” J. suggests.

“No, it’s a very disappointing book,” he says. I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “No, it really is,” he insists. “It has no narrative. It’s a collection of Mohammad’s sayings, his revelations, over five periods of his life – he’d say something, and someone wrote it down on a palm leaf, and after he died, they collected all the palm leaves…”

“or backs of envelopes, or paper napkins…” said J.

“Exactly. They collected them all and wrote them down. It’s a book of utterances.” He frowns, and then gets a beatific look on his face. "But the recitations, the chanting of the Qu’ran! That is something else entirely. I was listening the other day to Iraqi radio, and there was someone chanting the Qu’ran with such a pure voice, so beautifully! Oh, it’s something when they can do that!”

His eyes are closed; my husband and we exchange the look that means “this man will never cease to amaze me.”  “OK,” I say., when he opens his eyes. “Come on. Pick five books.”

He looks at the shelves, looks back at me. “What did you pick?” he asks, finally.

“The Iliad.” He nods in approval.

“Complete Works of Shakespeare.”

“That’s not a book, that’s a library!” he says.

“Well, yes, but we need volume. Collected Poems of Czeslaw Milosz – he’s a Polish poet.”

“Never heard of him.”

“The Oxford Book of American Verse.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting, I don’t know it either.”

"And maybe a Bible?”

“BAH!” he exclaims. “Another disappointing book.”

This man just loves to be perverse, I think to myself.

“I also thought maybe I’d just take five blank books,” I tell him.

“Not a bad idea,” he says, and then goes back to the Bible. “It’s too long, and very repetitious. I prefer the Reader’s Digest Bible.”

“WHAT?”we both say simultaneously. “What is that?”

“I have it right in my study, go look. They’ve done a marvelous job, they’ve cut out all the repetition, and added a lot of excellent pictures.”

J. goes and brings back a thick dark blue book, and begins thumbing through it. He’s right, the illustrations are pretty good. I find the concept a little weird, but, hey, that’s what Reader’s Digest is famous for – condensing books. This is also one of those cultural things: I grew up thinking that the Reader's Digest was beyond the pale, but my father-in-law always thought it was a very legitimate, important, and impressive publisher, largely because he missed the cultural clues, and because he knew someone who was an editor there, and this man showed an interest in his work.
 
Meanwhile, J. is looking through a central section called “great paintings of Biblical scenes.” He holds up a Victorian painting of a bloated fish-like whale, out of whose mouth the figure of Jonah is being ejected. We all look at it, speechless for a few moments.

“The printing is really excellent, don’t you think?” my father-in-law says.

In his study there must be twenty Bibles, including all the best-known English translations as well as Bibles in various other languages. He’s such a BS-er, hauling out this one today. ‘Well,” I say, trying to lubricate the conversation, “I suppose if it gets more people to read books…”

“I knew a woman who was a condenser for the Reader’s Digest – that’s what she did. Very brilliant woman. She had a method; she’d hold a pen in her hand and mark as she read, cutting all the superfluous parts. She was very good at it.”

‘Very brilliant,” says J. under his breath.

‘I don’t suppose Tolstoy would have thought too highly of it,” I remark.

He shrugs, and grins devilishly: “I know one thing -  you won’t get any money for any Reader’s Digest Condensed Books at any booksale.” Then he settles back in his chair contentedly. “And as for the desert island - I think I prefer the five blank books.”

Vieux Port in the Snow

From the Belvedere at Point-a-Callieres, March 21, 2015.

A birthday present and a wish

So...The Cassandra Pages turns twelve today. I'm sure this impending birthday was a factor in all the thinking I've been doing about my work and the future. As the 20th of March rolls around I always ask myself if it's time to call it quits with this blogging thing, but no, I'm not ready to do that. If I weren't writing here, I'd be keeping a private journal as I did before the internet, and frankly the blog is a lot more fun, mainly because I know you are out there. Posting more of my artwork over the past couple of years has solved the problem of keeping up my interest without feeling the posts were getting too repetitive, and having a place to share these projects has been a good motivation as well. I greatly appreciate your comments, the many friendships this blog has given me, and the fact that you keep coming back here to see what's happening: and it seems kind of incredible that what began here has been going on and evolving for a dozen years.

However, I decided to celebrate the end of Cassandra's childhood -- we're adolescents now, watch out -- by giving her a vacation. I've never done that in all these years! While I won't be posting new material for the next month, I will probably be putting up some photographs or repeating some favorite posts from the past, so don't go too far away. And I'll be back on these pages, hopefully with new energy and ideas, in the middle of April, when this entire mountain will be melted:

Well, we can wish it, anyway!

Love to all of you, and see you in the spring.

xoxo  Beth

Looking Ahead

All photos in this post were taken at the Montreal botanical garden, May 2008

Life is never certain, but it's easier to maintain that illusion when we're younger. For a long time, we have statistics on our side. But later, we can either live in denial, or become realistic: we need to set some priorities.

The basic facts of my life at age 62 are different from many people's: I have a lifelong partner to whom I'm devoted, and a father still in good health at 90, but I don't have children, grandchildren, or siblings. There are beloved nieces and nephews and several younger friends with whom we're very close, but we don't want to burden any of them. Nor do we ever plan to formally "retire" or move permanently to a sunny climate or retirement community, unless illness or infirmity make that the best practical decision. We already downsized once, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made; we love our new living pattern of a small condominium apartment, plus a studio in an industrial building where we can work on all our various projects. Both spaces are accessible, close to all kinds of shopping on foot, and easy to take care of; this arrangement should suit us for a long time into the future.

The crux of what I'm facing these days, then, isn't a major change like retirement or moving, but rather a sense that I need to be even more clear about priorities, more intentional about choices -- and yet also more spontaneous, living as fully as possible in the present moment, neither fretting about the future or regretting the past, being relatively light on my feet and able to take advantage of opportunities. Our professional work takes up less of my time than it used to, but the publishing business takes more. I have more time to do my art and to write, to learn and to explore, more freedom of choice. Eating well, exercising, and caring for my body has to be factored in; I can't really put it off until tomorrow. I still feel young, I don't want to waste time, and I hope I never have to stop working, but I want to work differently.

Some people seem to live their later decades with joy and fulfillment, some with a sense of resignation, some with relief, some with desperation, bitterness, self-pity or despair; some collapse into lassitude. There's a lot that we can't control as we age, but we do have control over our attitude and how we approach the limitations imposed by our physical bodies, for instance, or life circumstances, as well as what we do with the opportunities presented by an opening-up of time and -- one hopes -- inner freedom.

What's most important to me, at this point in life? In short, it's to grow in wisdom, inner strength, and in the ability to adjust the balance between the energy that goes out and the energy that comes in. This, I find, changes over time, and is my greatest challenge. We all need solace -- the well where we go to be refreshed and renewed, whether that's the woods, a good book, a concert, a day spent with friends or family -- so that we can fulfill our responsibilities, and do the things that give our lives meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. 

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Four priorities: Creating. Learning and growing. Loving, serving, and giving.  Moving: keeping body and mind in motion.

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Four things to leave behind: Competitiveness. Impatience. Guilt. Regrets.

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Four qualities to nurture: Gratitude. Humility. Kindness. Fearlessness.

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I find myself asking how I can best divide my time between projects where I'm helping others - which I'm in an increasingly good position to do, and which I find rewarding -- and those that involve my own creative work, pushing myself, searching, trying to go beyond where I was: these are often the harder challenges and bigger risks. How can I better understand my own emotional needs for social contact and interaction that sometimes tip me over into saying yes when I ought to say no -- and to do so without guilt? What are the best ways to face and transcend the fears of failure, pointlessness, isolation, inability and irrelevance that seem to affect so many older people? What are my own best sources of solace, renewal, and strength, at this point in my life?

For all of this, I need discernment, and times when I step back.

Journal entry, March 11 2015

Nuts, rocks, pine cones. Watercolor and ink drawing, 3/16/2015

 

From my journal, March 11, 2015:

During Lent I've been basing the meditation talks, every other week, on the teachings and lives of different teachers from various traditions, and especially how they came to realize their calling to contemplative prayer or meditation. Yesterday evening, the talk was about having "the courage to become more and more silent." I spoke about Merton's life, and how he did exactly this, but not solely for the purpose of silence itself, but to learn to allow his words to come out of that silence. A decade ago, would I have understood what that meant? Yes and no, I suppose - it's an understanding that deepens and grows, through our own failures and embarrassments, through meditation and thinking things through. The talk ended with these words of Merton's:

"There are many declarations made only because we think other people are expecting us to make them. The silence of God should teach us when to speak and when not to speak. But we cannot bear the thought of that silence, lest it cost us the trust and respect of others." 

I'm trying recently to deliver my talks more spontaneously, after relying on writing them out and mostly reading them for the past two years. I've opened up the time beforehand a little too, speaking conversationally, making sure I greet everyone personally, keeping it more informal among us, even though we've all just entered a special space which is dark, lit only by a single candle in the center. I wanted to try to connect with the participants more informally and personally, and this seems necessary for me, too, if I am to keep going in this ministry. I'm surprised how immediate the change has been, both ways. The participants are more attentive. They stay longer, and some want to have a word afterwards; I used to ask them to leave in silence after the meditation, but I think it was unnecessary; a gentle quiet prevails anyway.  I now feel better about the ministry myself, too: more inclined to continue, more convinced that maybe it really is something I'm supposed to be doing. It may morph into something else, or end - I know that, and that's fine - but for right now, something has shifted in a positive direction.

What does it mean for me to have "the courage to become more and more silent?" Merton never stopped writing, but he learned to differentiate between what was driven by his ego and what was emanating from his higher self, and in the process his reasons for writing changed, as did his expectations for it. I'm not sure Merton was a natural introvert: he was articulate, witty, social, and chatty, although other people could really get on his nerves. He struggled a lot with his pride, with praise and fan mail, and the irony of being a cloistered monk who was famous, talked-about, sought-after. He longed for humility. So this was a long process for him, requiring a lot of solitude, reading, struggle, and self-examination. The silence he found, I think, wasn't empty at all. In fact, it was very fruitful.

Like the quilt top, which is more than half done, I think this line of thinking is a direct outcome of turning away from the online chatter. I don't miss it, and have had no trouble checking in once a day and leaving it at that. 

The over-stimulation of the everyday world, online and off, is kind of like caffeine: you don't realize what a strong drug it is unless you give it up for a while, and then you drink a cup and go "whoa!" I've been able to think and focus better without interrupting myself as often during the day -- because that's really what it was: I was drinking the drug, nobody was forcing me. There are times when I want that, and when it's probably helpful, and times to become more silent. That's all. But I do think it requires courage to turn into the silence, to face oneself, to consider change, yet again.

So the question occurs: what does this mean for my blog?

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My semi-weekly meditation talks are archived on the Christ Church Cathedral website.