must be a good book or required reading with a upcoming deadline

I went for a walk in Pease Park around 6ish last night. There was a tall, athletic man carrying a book and reading as he walked. He seemed very serene, pausing every now and then to look around him and then dropping his eyes back to the pages. He did not seem like someone who would be reading a thick novel as he walked in a dog park. He was not even dressed for walking in a park period. He wore a white undershirt, black slacks, shiny black shoes and a black leather brief case slung over one shoulder. I bet the briefcase contained his suitjacket and button up shirt. 

A Sunday Night to Remember (I hope)

About a third of my mom's side of the family is in town this week: my mom from Maine for 3 days with me and 5 days with Memere, my aunt, uncle, and 8 year old cousin from Washington state, my uncle from Oklahoma City just for this past weekend, and of course my aunt who lives here in Austin. It is not so often that so many of us are together. Very special! 

I will remember this evening better than I did the time my grandparents and aunt visited us in Maine when I was 10! My aunt brought a video of that visit, recorded in 1993 by Pepere two years before his stroke. The footage spanned the vacation. I was 10 (but I look 7), my brother was 8 and a 1/2, and my sister was 4. 

Filming begins with us at Beech Hill Pond, a 5 minute car ride from our Maine house. This is still one of my favorite spots anywhere: a lake really - not a pond, with  sandy bottom and 5 sandy beeches, vacation cottages, pine and fur trees encircling its rim. In August, the water refreshes comfortably, not so cold as tourists think. 

Odd! I have a general lump sum memory of goodness about this vacation, but nothing specific. The recognition of this visit in time doesn't even come back when I watch the video. Same with the next scene, back at our house, on the back deck. I am holding a kitten, the floppy type I could do anything to. Lucerne Inn, Acadia National Park, Bubble Rock, and some seal-watching footage follow. So, so beautiful, Maine. How can I not remember this when I was 10!

Ahh, the next scene looks familiar, finally. My mom and aunt are taking a riding lesson at the stable we all used to go to weekly during summers. Next up, my brother, a friend, and I are having a lesson. Yes, I remember this part! I know the horses names, Chico, the spotted POA pony I'm riding, Vicky and Rocky. I loved those times!

And I do recognize the voices. Pepere is the narator and I know the voice from stories he and Memere would read aloud, tape and send to us. And the voice in turn brings back clear snapshots of the time my brother and I visited Memere and Pepere in Wimberley when I was 12. By that age my memory was fine.

I can't watch the rest of the video right then. Laurie and I have to return to Austin.

Observation from Today

Visible from my bathroom window, there is a dove nest in the tree. She's always out there nesting every time I have to pee.

People and Places

Last night, I went to a birthday party for an 89 year-old, known to relatives and others alike as grand-ma Fanny. She is a poised and elegant elder. She refused to tear the paper opening her presents, accustomed as she was to saving it. Grand-ma Fanny is one of the women my housemate used to care for and she lives with her grand-daughter, Keisha, who has become a friend of mine. The party brought together a lovely range of generations and races. Grandma Fanny is an African-american from Tennessee and so is Keisha. Keisha's husband, Allejandro, and his friends are from Mexico and they were out BBQing and speaking spanish in the back yard most of the time. Then there was Grand-ma Fanny's 80ish actor friend from L.A. I don't think anyone was from Texas. The conversation turned several times to how long it can take to take root in Austin. Keisha's lived here for ten years, but she didn't start feeling as if it was home until the 5th, she said, because of work-related travel. A gay, African-American fashion designer from Missouri, said even though its taken him a while, he keeps returning to Austin after attempts to live in L.A. and NYC. Liz, a blond, blue-eyed interior decorator from Savannah has only been here one year, said its also taking her a while to get settled. Its funny how some places feel home right away, just like certain people feel friend right away and you just know. 

Earlier in the day yesterday, I was eating gelatos with a friend at central market listening to the live music and thinking, I really like Austin right now! In the sun, on a sunday, people seemed relaxed, enjoying the springtime. Even though, really, you bring your sense of feeling at home in a place with you wherever you go since its inside you, I think maybe more than anything besides that factor, its the people that give me the feeling of being at home in a place. Mindset and people.

More to add

On Saturday, I saw more Texas Bienniel-related work at the Women and Their Work Gallery. Really, some very interesting pieces. I especially loved a painting that is half realistic: life-size dachshund and two life-size rats; and half abstract: textured, colored paint-brush strokes interwoven among realistic animals, smooth abstract color shapes reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe mountains, or maybe fabric folds in the back ground.  Another piece drew my attention too, actually two pieces together. The first: a child's drawing of a creature part elephant, part warthog, part bear, etc on 8.5 X 11 paper. Next to it, maybe 4 X 5 feet, was the adult artist's version: beautiful graphite lines, sketchy, the images of animal heads (warthog, eagle, bear, mountain lion etc.) connected/overlapping/forming a circle. The two pieces done about 20 years apart by the same person.

As I wandered around the gallery, I overheard a conversation between one of the gallery assistants and an elderly lady visitor who was telling some of her life story to the assistant. Catching phrases like: "I love this piece...Jungian quality...I used to be involved in the Jung Center in Houston...I'm sorry I couldn't come to this opening, but I'm recovering from a broken hip..." I should have asked her if she knows my grandmother, who was also involved in the Jungian Center in Houston. I bet they do know each other. Funny, on my last visit, Memere and I were talking about Jung and Memere let me read one of his books because he talks about time in New Mexico, which is of interest to the paper on New Mexico/Santa Fe religion I'm currently writing for my Geography class.

 As I thought of this connection, another gallery assistant started talking to me, asking which pieces I liked. Turns out, she went to the Jill Pangello event on Friday too. She said she was laughing the whole time and she thought people were being quieter than usual...maybe because of the cold. So that was funny running into two new people and seeing common thread between lives.

Texas Biennial Performance

On Friday evening, I enjoyed a multi-media performance by Jill Pangello and company. When I read in my email about the event, I noticed the connection to Mike Albo and I knew I should try to go. My professor, Peter Hall, recently recommended I look into Mike Albo's work, which I subsequently checked out on YouTube. Albo is a comedian who kind of strings random, ordinary fragments of thoughts together in hilarious, nonsensical ways, creating new meaning. This way of taking ordinary pieces of information out of context to form new meaning is a reoccurrence in some of my design work too. 

Anyway I'd never heard of either Mike Albo or Jill Pangello until this month and the performance at Fiesta Gardens was hilarious. Mike Albo wrote two of the scripts for Pangello's acts. Even though the night was unexpectedly chilly and every seat was taken, it was good to smile and be around amused people for an hour. Oh, earlier that day too, Jacqueline told me she'd seen Pangallo at AMOA before and she is great, and she was. My favorite acts of Pangello's "Let Me Entertain You" set were:

1) One about facebook where she played a person trying to write her "25 Random things about Me" (that exercise that ran around facebook a month or so ago)

2) One about a cat which you just have to watch for yourself

3) The voicemail episode (written by Mike Albo) where a woman leaves this poor man a voice mail message that is a rambling, unedited streaming of her thoughts (as they can pop up as you're trying to go to sleep or something) from one to the next, silly, unimportant, self-absorbed.

Tom's Rugs

Seeing this rug in one of my grand-mother's spare bedrooms brought me to another time and place for a few moments. The rug itself comes from Maine, from the rural town named Mariaville where I grew up, from the house at the top of the hill (my parent's house is at the bottom of that hill) that once belonged to Tom and Velma. Our elderly neighbor Tom used to make these rugs before his death about 7 years ago? Was it really that long ago or not, I can't remember! I still visit his wife, Velma, now in her 90's, whenever I'm home. Velma's sweetness always seemed countered by the grumpy hermitness of Tom as I recall from my childhood years. Now, looking at this rug again as I upload my photos, I am struck by how special it was that Tom was making these beautiful, time-consuming rugs through the Maine winters. Yet I only remember seeing him out tilling his garden or chopping and stacking firewood, or cleaning out his shed. But he had this hidden, artistic talent and daily practice too that you wouldn't know. Was he making the rugs just to sell - as he sold to my parents and countless others? Who taught him? What made him start and when did he begin? Did he ever teach anyone else? Did he follow a pattern?