My first, but not my last 

In Love, For the First Time, All Over Again

I’m not sure how, when or where my affection for wood first developed. As far back as I can remember, the warping and weaving of the grain lines have been a fascination to me. I can remember, even as a very little girl, eagerly counting the lines to determine the age, trying to read the history of the tree from the varying widths of concentric circles. The more pronounced striations created by intrusions of plants and animals and disease as the tree aged held their own special interest. And the smell! There is nothing as heavenly as the pungent smells of pine or cedar and the more subtle aroma of oak or walnut. And of course, the smell of cypress.

But it is the caress of a smoothly sanded piece of wood that is the most alluring. When the grain has been worn and hewn and sanded until it is as smooth as glass, smoother than glass – this is when affection turns to love.

Tonight, I had the golden opportunity to turn my first piece of wood on a lathe. I never cease to be amazed by the talent of those around me. That I have come to know, over the years, so many people with so much talent who are so generous to want to share that with others is a source of continuous astonishment. I am very pleased to know the husband of a very special friend of mine who is quite adept at turning wood and at handling wood in general. He is quite well known along the bayou for his ability to fashion any number of useful and decorative items, including Cajun pirogues, using traditional methods.

For a number of years, now, he has been turning wood, creating bowls of varying sizes, goblets, and merely decorative pieces. He neither sells nor gives his creations away – at least not intentionally. Those who know him well have been known to procure an item or two. But, generally, if you want something from him, he suggests you come to his shop and make it yourself.

So, tonight I took on the challenge. I showed up, this Tuesday night with the wood turners, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, ready to get in amongst them. If the other men there were surprised to see a woman in their “clubhouse,” they were gracious enough not to show it. On the contrary, they encouraged me and good naturedly revealed their own blunders as they were learning and even after they felt somewhat adept, in an effort to set me at ease.

Surprisingly, for one who has always been intimidated by power tools, I felt no hesitation at all. I eagerly took each tool into hand after a brief demonstration of the use and went right to work to try to imitate what I had been shown. My mentor first cut a small block of wood, about six inches square and five inches high, from a piece of mimosa he had been fortunate enough to find. This is a particularly fine piece of wood, amazing for its size, as mimosa generally does not get old enough to grow so large or develop such variations. He cut for me just a small piece from the larger whole, but I was decidedly pleased and honored that he chose to share it with me. The two or three men there with us were quick to inform me he had not shared any of this particular wood with them.

My teacher set the piece up on the lathe, tightened what needed to be tightened, then leaned over and flipped the switch. As the block turned, he showed me how to use first the gouge to level the outside and then the blades to smooth the finish. When that was about as smooth as it could get without sanding, he showed me how to begin work on the inside. I continued gouging and cutting and shaving until the bottom began to take shape, the inside walls began to thin out and the whole began to look like a bowl. Sanding came last, working through various grades of sandpaper from coarse to fine, from 80 to 120, etc, and finally to 400, until the wood began to sing and to shine and to wink in the reflection of light from the overhead gooseneck lamp.

And while the visual transformation was incredible to behold, it was the feel – the sensual transformation – that, to me, held the most satisfaction. My guide was anxious that I should have something to take home on my first night at the lathe. But had I felt more confident in speaking up and less conscious of his hospitality and generosity - his eagerness for my success - I might have said to him that I wanted to go more slowly. I wanted to take each step in slow and steady paces, stopping frequently along the way to feel each stage of the process. To fall completely in love with one phase before moving slowly on to the next.

But there will be a next time. And I have a feeling that in woodturning, as in love, each time will feel as though it were the first time, all over again.

Coffee at the Corner Cafe

We stopped somewhere at a corner café
for coffee, hot, fresh brewed, hand ground
beans of what still might have been.

Sliding softly into seats yet warm from our departure,
He asked how are your children, I replied
they’re fine, then took my turn to ask how’s yours?

Your hair is longer, shorter, darker.

You’ve lost, gained, look happy.

Have you stopped, started, finished?

When, just yet, I still, almost.

And when the cups were cold, a breeze picked up downriver
breathing evening gently in our face,
reminding us, again, where it was we’re going
and how quickly we should be to get there in our time.

Well, it’s been good, looking great.

We really should, again, more often.

Then walked away, back to back,
pocketing the call we’ll never make,
the phone we keep on silent.

ma 8.26.04

I Need a Smaller Plate

I had an appointment with my hairdresser/counselor today. I used to go for therapy a couple of times a month. You know, to deal with all that dysfunction we are so famous for here in the South. But I have learned over the years it is just as effective to go get my hair cut. So, I schedule regular sessions, and she cuts, colors, goops and twirls.

All the while she listens, nods in the affirmative at all the right places and pulls out the common sense when my own is running low. She also makes a perfect cup of coffee and offers wine in both red and white, chilled or not, as you like it. The music is low and soothing, the hair washing is a total scalp massage, and the ambience is … ambient.

Today I went bald. I walked in with more stress than I normally choose to carry and way more than I want at this time in my life, and I walked out lighter than air. Partially due to the severe lessening of tresses, but mostly due to the severe lessening of stresses.

Emma, the name by which my therapist/hairdresser is addressed, helped me see it is not that my plate is too full. The problem is I need a smaller plate. I am filling a plate that would feed a 400 pound Amazon gorilla, and I really only need something the size of a saucer. Because no matter the size, I will fill it to overflowing.

But overflowing a saucer would require a lot less stress than overfilling, say, a turkey platter.

And I just might be able to carry more hair on the head where it matters the most.

In Memoriam

I could write of much today, the beginning of the school year, the unseasonably cool and pleasant weather we are having, the fury and destruction of Hurricane Charlie. There is much in one’s life of which to write. The subjects we choose for wordy embellishment are, perhaps, a reflection of one’s nature. Presuming that to be the case, one may then make the leap - albeit a large one, to be sure - to assume the subjects that garner the most words in the popular press are a reflection of the nature of the culture which supports that press.

It is the passing, in the same weekend, of Czeslaw Milosz and Julia Child which have caused me to pause and consider those people whom the populace of this nation revere. While I am certain Mrs. Child was a worthy influence on many people, I must still consider, in the scheme of things, in the relentless forward movement of life, which of these two will be of the most lasting and pervasive influence? And feeling, as I do, that the words of Czeslaw Milosz will inspire many future generations, long after Julia has passed gently into history, I am saddened that more was not made of his passing. In this part of this country, at least … down here on the bayou.

Or, to borrow from John Donne, "... any man's death diminishes me." But, admittedly, some more than others.

Having said that, I will say no more, but will, instead, conclude with a quote that presents a somewhat harsh critique ofwhat we choose to read and to write while paralleling my own intense comfort in finding poetry, late.

“What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song for drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.”

from Dedication by Czeslaw Milosz, 1911-2004

The Shade of the Hawthorne

The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age or whispering lovers made.
Oliver Goldsmith

I’m feeling a little raw this evening, exposed, vulnerable, overly sensitive to the heartbeat and breath of life. One of those times when the one less layer of skin is most apparent, when each twig broken with each step, each rustle of leaf in the wind, each blink of a star in the evening sky is a metaphor of profound significance. And each profundity brings renewed sensitivity to the bittersweetness of life.

Bella and I watched a curious scene this afternoon. Bella is a calico with short legs and a charming nick in her left ear that appears to be a sort of female feline embellishment. She is naughty and flirtatious and whimsical. All the right characteristics … for a cat. With a generous dose of the requisite curiosity.

This afternoon I was pulled from my latest art project - an attempt to duplicate a style of painting for my daughter with modifications that will make it compatible with her college room décor. (She may be overestimating my abilities, somewhat.) But it was a soft, almost imperceptible “cheep! cheepcheep!” that brought me to the foyer where Bella was already enthralled by the source of the chirping.

There, through the front window, we could see what appeared to be a mama bird calling her young ones from their nest. The mama sat on the front porch rocker, cheeping her gentle cheep, as one by one a smaller bird emerged from the Hawthorn bush planted nearby. As each came forward from the shade of the leaves, he first perched on the arm of the rocker, where he added some chirps of his own. Then mama flew to a branch in the Crepe Myrtle and baby soon followed.

With this bird safely in the arms of the Crepe Myrtle tree, mama bird would return to the rocking chair and call forth another bird. And the sequence was repeated. One after one they emerged, four in all. The last, as if reluctant to leave what he knew for the world that he didn’t, returned briefly to sit on the arm of the rocker once again. But mama was insistent, and baby very quickly flew off again to follow her and to ultimately seek the world beyond the shade of the Hawthorn bush.

Throughout this tableau, Bella sat, nose to the glass, with an occasional backward glance at me as if to say, “Do you see this? Are you watching? Can you tell me what it means?”

She seems to seek the metaphor as well.