thoughts for today

I think I was born a century too soon. I'm actually convinced of this until I consider life without the Internet, refrigerators and outhouses. One of the reasons I think I should have been born in 1875 is because of my artistic tastes---Maxfield Parrish, old fashioned printing, the birth and bustle of business branding, advertisement.

The other reason I think this is because of the the books I read. I've always loved a good story. My Aunt K in Houston is excellent at storytelling. She may pause a thousand times in as many seconds, but she's choosing her words carefully so that the growing anticipation is completely warranted. Maybe she read the same book about storytelling that I did: My grandmother recently gave me her first edition of Seuss' Mulberry Street, the very book I must have read over 100 times. That story is probably a huge reason I've ended up with the desire to assemble random objects in to art.

It's probably the reason I decorated my 18th birthday cake with Grandma's old fashioned carnival set arranged in a very nontraditional way. To this day---even with all the beautiful cakes my other grandma and mom have made me---it remains the most vivid cake in my memory. I remember how horrified my family was at that cake. Grandma thought I'd ruined it! Haha. (I've searched for a photo of me with that cake...I even remember I was wearing a purple wool Beneton sweater.)

My father-in-law is also to blame for my obsession with old books. He owns a library full of them. Though he is retired, he volunteers with the Friends of the Wichita public library...and probably buys back as many as he gives. Some day I hope he will trust me with his library, and I hope my children will treasure and pour over the books long after I'm gone. Before Boeing, My father-in-law earned his Masters degree and taught History.

Currently he's helping my dear husband pass History 101 (Yes, FU is making Cody take one more class even though he has 150+ hours, he didn't have the history credit.) It's interesting though because he says you'd be hard pressed to find a fact in Cody's history textbook. He said it's almost all revised opinion! Amazing, huh? I believe Steve. I'm sad for my kids---and that's why it's so important to me that they have old references, old books to read when they are old enough to value them.

Anyhow, this week I went to the Flying Moose, an antique mall here in Wichita. I found a booklet about the life of one of my favorite authors. Gene (short for Geneva) Stratton Porter (b. 1863) wrote beautifully detailed, symbolic accounts of nature, life. Best sellers in their day, her stories might be considered too slow for modern readers---but that's why I delight in reading them; they are almost meditational. She's also one of Steve's favorite authors, so I bought the booklet for him for Father's Day. I cheated and read it first. I couldn't wait! Here are a few quotes from the booklet:

"All winter i have been at work on a book. I am a little in doubt about its being the 'great American novel'; that is such an elusive bird. I should love to snare it; but I fear this is just a plain little story cut clean from the pages of life as I have seen it lived, with no romancing and no sentimentalizing: which is an innovation for me. Some way, with the pressure of the war on, I could not write just as I always have, the bare facts would uncover; but it has, I think you will grant it, a quality of vigor and freshness. It will be out in mid-August...At least it has the usual qualification of my work...truth. I have done my best, and I hope you will find it a great improvement over some of my former efforts. I surely like to be a growing thing. I know there are clean, moral, homekeeping men and women, and of such I choose to write. I know there are plenty of the other kind, also, but they have their writers in plenty to chronicle their salacious doings. Why should I?"

Porter's only child, her daughter said the following of her mother:
"As I look back over the years, it appears to me that the two most noticeable things about mother were her eyes and her hands. Her eyes were clear, cool gray, with brown splotches. They had a piercing quality when she gazed straight at you they penetrated to the very depths of your soul, and she read character almost infallibly...the thing that struck me most forcibly as Mother lay sleeping was the absolute quiet of her hands...Hers were such busy hands..they fluttered over everything, the velvet cheek or the silky curls of a baby...the down on a butterfly wing, or the grain in a beautiful piece of wood...In the old days, when we did field work together, I have seen her stop the horse, clamber down from the buggy, and straighted a wild flower, broken by some careless foot, pat the dirt around it, prop it up with a stick or stone, straighten the petals and leaves carefully, and give it a drink from her thermos bottle."

This beautiful naturalist and author was tragically killed in an accident in Hollywood in 1924. Porter moved to California in 1920 to oversee the screen production of several of her books. If you're interested in trying one of her books, read The Harvester (my favorite book) or the Keeper of the Bees before the others. Let me know if you read one---I'll buy your coffee and we can have a book chat. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention---if you find a first edition in excellent condition it will cost you about $400. If you find one in not so great condition you ought to be able to buy it for $30. Your best bet is on Ebay or my bookshelf.
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Guess what else I bought at the Moose? An old apple peeler that has fantastic cast metal gears for machinery. One of these days it will pop up in an art show as something else. Until then I'll crank it, revel in the noise it makes and imagine all of its possibilities. Some kid used to peel apples with it...some mom, maybe a grandma. Whatever it sparks, I will make sure it brings as much joy with whatever its next purpose is as a surrealist toy. We'll see....
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Enjoy tomorrow---It's May Day---One of my favorite holidays! I sent something up to the Windy City today. I might suck at remembering her birthday, but I always remember Hannita on May Day. One time she hand-sewed and stuffed a little blue velvet bunny for me. I'm grateful we had each other for those critical few years we were neighbors. Now my newest neighbor gives me a similar reason to celebrate the holiday. I love my friends. Happy May Day to those of you whose doorbells I can't ring today.