January 11, 2025
It snowed today, nor a lot, but enough to make it look like winter.


I didn't leave the house until after noon, but I went up to the Coop to do the puzzle for the first time in a while.  Town was slow and my friend Stan  came and sat with me.  Stan is 86 years old and we are interested in a lot of the same things although he was a professor of Chemistry and clearly a scientist, and I am a social scientist.  We like asking a lot of the same questions and answering them with very different lenses,     Always a good conversation, but it doesn't allow me to get my puzzle done.

Got back in the car and drove up to the rookery.   Beth's farm is always beautiful in the snow.  And the goats are always beautiful in the snow.  Today I spent more time photographing the farm than I did the rookery.  The only birds I saw was this flock of robins.   I looked for deer, too, but there were none visible.











This final photo was taken in 1977 on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley by Jason Whiton.   It is me and my Grandmother Overman who is 92 in this photo.  I remember this visit well.   Jason and I stayed with Mom on Shattuck Ave two summers, 1976 and 77.  This was a stop before he and I boarded the Sun Princess in Vancouver for an Alaskan cruise.  Mom gave me the cruise for 2 as a graduation present and I chose Jason as my traveling partner.  I was 24, he was 12.  We had a blast.   And the whole trip, from Ct. to Ca, to Alaska, back to Ca.  and home to Vt. was a great adventure.  This may have been the last time I saw my grandmother.  She didn't die until 1983, but I do not believe I made it out again until 89.  


Jason has been going through old slides and sending me gifts.  The memories continue to pour out and we've heard from many different voices.   In lieu of a service, I 've had the sense that the the tribe has gathered around the fire pit and played the drums loudly.  It causes these blips in my being, little video clips turning on and off with a veil of grief lightly spread across my eyes.  




 

Comments

  1. questaniJanuary 11, 2025 at 8:09 PM

    A good day or reflection. I don't think in all these years that I ever saw this picture of you and your Grandma Overman. Just a few from the even longer ago and further away when Jean was a
    young-un perhaps.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  January 3, 2025 The Complexity (what I refer to as the texture) of Life This is a photo of Michael Whiton, eldest child of Jean O. Whiton.  If you knew our mother, you know whose eyes he inherited.  Picture was taken by Linda Boardman.        I did not take pictures today, nor was my brain very able.  So tonight you get a poem I wrote 25 years ago that is more spirited than I could write tonight. I Believe in Color   I believe in red the changing forever-ness of red.  A pure rich red: cotton tee shirt red, berries on the bushes in the dead of  New England winters, cherries in June next to a slab of ripe brie. Magenta, a little redder than wine, blood as it begins to dry, the curtains I always wanted, floor length heavy velvet. Orange red on the skins of a tangelo; blood oranges in a light blue porcelain bowl on a small table near stark white walls. Dusty rose of an old flannel duvet, the height of fashion in 1980. I believe i...
Read more
Image
January  4, 2025 Michael E. Whiton  June 30, 1944 - January 4, 2025     I always talk about patterns, it is my researcher's brain.  This morning I texted with my niece, Grace, and asked her what her 12 year old was really into. She told me math.  He plays the flute in his school band.  I had an epiphany when the 2 things got put together.  To grow up with music as a constant all through your childhood you are exposed to patterns.  You become aware of what can follow what.  My 3 year old great niece makes up little songs, repetitive musical patterns.  Her father repeats them or adds to them.  She already knows how to put notes together.  That's math.  That's what Liam does.        So what does all that have to do with Michael's leaving us on this plain today.  Well, one pattern is that we all seem to be good with babies.   When Mike was 21, Jason was born.  He was good to babies....
Read more
Image
  January 2, 2025 Time is both too soon and too late.   Just keeps slipping.     I believe it was 1996 or 7 when I flew out to Bainbridge Island to see my brother, Mike.  He was very ill and my Mom was worried and wanted me to go assess the situation, which I did, probably in not such a diplomatic way.  He really was ill.  His liver was failing and he wasn't getting put on the transplant list, yet.  I've never quite understand the whys and the wherefores of all that.  But for the next 4 or so years he maintained, so sick, sometimes optimistic, sometimes beaten, but he made it to a liver transplant in August 2000 in Worchester.       24 years ago, holy shit.  EJ's entire life, a third of mine; and again he kept living, kept listening to music and trying to be kind and never regaining any reliable health.   His story is fascinating, and I'll tell it sometime, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to ...
Read more