Why not wear linen?

Remembering the weight of human experience

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Moon

Through my bedroom window. The white dot is probably a flare from my camera. Photo © Fran Gardner

The moon was full this week. It appeared squarely in my bedroom window. Then, the next night, it was gone. Clouds got in the way.

Another moon, with clouds, above the Dutch Bros. sign Photo © Fran Gardner

Moon, clouds. Clouds, moon.
Which do you prefer?
Which do you love more?

The moon, silver brilliance, energy,
Providence, opportunity, possibility.

The clouds, full and comforting,
Soft, coy, traveling, gravid with spring rain.

And both of them, clouds and moon,
Keepers of secrets. 

Clouds with obscurity
Moon with brilliant misdirection.
Moon bringing the possible,
Clouds the inevitable.

Clouds and moon,
Objects of the night, of dream time.

Which do you love the more?
Ah, but why choose at all?
If you are like me, you have your moon days and your cloud days.
Your cloud nights and your moon nights.
They are all part of the eternal dance.
Dark and light and dark again.
Moon, clouds. Clouds, moon.

Rainbow

Clouds and rain generated rainbows this week, too. The rainbow in this image is faint, but the whole frame is like a fantasy landscape.

Looking north to the hills from Southwest Boundary Street. Photo © Fran Gardner

Why not wear linen?

A friend recently confided that she never wears linen clothing. It wrinkles.

But it is linen’s nature to wrinkle. You can iron linen—use a very hot iron—but the crispness won’t last.

So denying yourself the pleasure of wearing linen—and it is a great experience. I love linen—is like saying you don’t want to have children because babies cry.

Or you won’t garden because your knees could get dirty.

Or you’ll never eat blueberry pie because it could drip on your white shirt.

Let things have their nature!

Share the world with objects that have quirky natures! Linen wrinkles. Jitterbugs dance. Time folds in on itself, and the sap of trees traps insects forever.

Come to think of it, I am getting used to living with wrinkles. I am an old woman now.

Where does linen come from?

Humans have been weaving fabric from the fibers of the flax plant for millennia. Being from a fibrous plant, the resulting fabric tends to be very strong and wear well.

Flax is good for more than cloth. Flax seeds, ground into flax meal, are highly nutritious, rich in omega-3 fatty acids and fiber. Oil from flaxseeds is sometimes called flaxseed oil and sometimes linseed oil. Both are edible, but linseed oil that is boiled and treated to use in painting may contain poisonous compounds.

Flaxseed and flaxseed oil tend to go rancid quickly. I keep flax seeds in the freezer, grinding a small quantity at a time and keeping that in the fridge. Bob’s Red Mill, on the other hand, says that flaxseed in a sealed container is good for two years on the shelf, and that flax meal will last a year.

One flaxseed recipe

I avoid carbs, especially wheat. This “oatmeal” is made of three types of seeds. One of them, chia, expands when moist, giving the dish a thick texture.

It’s enormously satisfying and filling, so start small, just a few spoonfuls.*

*I’ve always preferred “spoonsful,” but that spelling is now considered outmoded.

Keto oatmeal

• 1 part ground flaxseed

• 1 part hemp hearts*

• 1 part chia seed

• Milk (dairy, nut, coconut, soy or hemp), cream or half-and-half

Garnishes and add-ins

• Fresh or thawed frozen berries

• Chopped nuts

• Cocoa nibs

• Shredded or flaked coconut, raw or toasted

Combine the three seeds in a jar. Store in the refrigerator.

To serve, mix a few tablespoons of the seeds with milk. Let sit a few minutes. It takes virtually no time for the mixture to thicken.

Mix in whatever other ingredients you wish.

*Yes, hemp hearts are the seeds of Cannabis sativa, but they contain so little THC that you can’t get high from them.

Winter only

This is a view that can only be seen in winter. Soon the deciduous tree will leaf out, hiding the fir tree behind its branches.

Photo © Fran Gardner

Endeavor

Think back over the arc of your life. Think how much energy, heart and talent you have poured into so many endeavors. Hurts, doesn’t it?

And now that these adventures are over, whether abandoned or accomplished, it’s hard to encompass how engrossing they were at the time.

In our lives, in our careers, we work so hard and expend so much time and talent. Raising children. Finding our purpose.  Writing a book. Teaching a seminar. Toiling on a long, collaborative project.

And now that it’s over, in the past, what of it? A book on a library shelf. Children with children of their own. A huge report gathering dust on a high shelf.

One old oratorio

I remember, for example, pouring my heart into a performance of John Stainer’s oratorio “The Crucifixion” when I was an alto in the choir at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal in Beaverton. I think there was only one performance. Someone taped it, but the cassette—old technology!—is long lost.

But while we were rehearsing it, I was so in love with the music, with the other singers. It consumed me then. Now, it is just a dim, dusty memory. I vaguely remember a chorus: “Fling Wide the Gates!”

High school musicals

There were two high schools in Tulare, Calif., in the 1960s: Tulare Western and Tulare Union. I lived in the attendance area of Tulare Western, which was largely working class. The nicer parts of town, where the doctors and lawyers lived, fed into Tulare Union, the town’s original high school, founded in 1888.

When I came to town at the beginning of my junior year, I wanted to play in the orchestra. I lived in the Tulare Western attendance area, but only Tulare Union had an orchestra. Instead of my just attending that high school, I went for half a day, then boarded a bus to Tulare Western for the rest of the day. Tulare Western is the school I graduated from.

Anyhow, the musicals. We had a talented music director at Union who was connected to the New York music scene. The music was actual Broadway scores, hand-lettered. We took great care with these scores.

We did two musicals that I recall, “L’il Abner,” and “The Sound of Music.”

You are probably familiar with the “The Sound of Music,” although when we performed it in 1967 the movie still hadn’t shown in Tulare. I saw it, more than once, in Sioux Falls before we moved to California.

But I’d recommend “L’il Abner,” too. Our musical director undoubtedly was sophisticated enough to know how satirical this little gem was. Unfortunately, references to the Confederacy, like the lighthearted  ode to Gen. Jubilation T. Cornpone, are offensive and outdated. This number, “The Country’s in the Very Best of Hands,” however, is still relevant.

Li’l Abner was written in 1956 by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank,  with music by Gene De Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It’s based on the comic strip by Al Capp.

Never first

I always played second fiddle in orchestra because I never practiced enough to be really good. In my senior year, when we presented “The Sound of Music,” there were no violas in the orchestra. So I checked out a viola from the school and learned to read alto clef. I do love a challenge, and besides, the viola has a wonderful contrapuntal part in Maria’s wedding music, playing the majestic wedding march while “Maria” (as in “how do you solve problem like…”) lilts over the top.

I remember working on Oklahoma!, too. Maybe when I attended junior college for a year, I came back to play that.

When my younger daughter was in high school in Portland, her school staged “My Fair Lady,” and I was made a first violin because there wasn’t anyone else, the seconds being a couple of high school beginning players. The other woman—there were only two of us firsts—consistently played out of tune. I know now that I should have just played the same notes as she did, but I insisted on playing the ones that were written, so our combined effort sounded like a couple of cats fighting.

But I digress

What I mean to emphasize is all the effort that went into things like those musicals. All the rehearsals, all the practice, the accolades, feeling good, having accomplished something. And then it was all over. Forever.

How many major projects have you undertaken? Think of all the campaigns, all the reports, things that consumed you for days or weeks or even years. The book you finished. The meaningful photo essays. The amateur theatricals. The long investigative reporting pieces. That time you cooked your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking or read War and Peace from cover to cover.

Looking back, you find it hard to believe that you bled so hard for so long. And now it is just a memory.

It’s too much

I’m overwhelmed with the scope of human endeavor. Another example: On television, streaming services create scores of new series and movies every year. Some good, some bad, but all of them involving copious effort by large groups of people.

Most of them burst forth, then languish, forgotten.

I’ve seen episodes of television shows that were soulfully written and delicately directed, perfect in themselves. But ultimately they are just part of a continuum. Nobody remembers them in the end. Nobody can keep track of all that creativity.

And, I’m reminded about Tom Schulman, who wrote a favorite movie of mine, “Holy Man.” I asked him about my theory that the movie was about what it would be like if Jesus turned up in LA as a person who looked like Eddie Murphy and had a crooked sense of humor.

Schulman’s reply was “It’s been a long time since I wrote Holy Man, but to the best of my recollection, the character of G was not Jesus or God, but a man who modeled himself after them.”

He worked on that script for months, probably, but it’s been a long time. . . . Let’s hope he has a better memory of working on the script of “Dead Poet’s Society,” for which he won an Oscar.

Now, the big picture

I think about creativity and its excesses in the context of the end of humanity. There is always a chance that there will be no more humans on earth. We could extinguish ourselves with global warming or in other ways. Some we can consider, like nuclear war; others we can’t foresee, like a giant asteroid.

What if it all goes away? Everything, all human endeavor. The pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the great cathedrals of Europe, the great literary accomplishments of all ages and cultures. Indigenous wisdom. Years and eons and decades, millennia of prayers and meditation by all traditions and religions. Thinking and living in accordance with the ways of Spirit, God, the Universe.

When it ends

With a bang or a whimper, it could all be over. There would be nothing left of us in the universe, no reminder, nothing to speak of human existence or experience.

Is this cause for despair? Should we stop trying? Should we stop creating? What is the meaning of any of it?

Of course, we know the answer.

We will forever, until we cease to exist, continue to create, to live, to pour our hearts into our making and destroying and making again.

Because that is what we do. We are human.

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One more pretty photo

These are crabapple blossoms. The tree is old, covered with moss and lichen. That speaks to my heart.

Photo © Fran Gardner

Tired of creativity yet?

Here’s how creativity works for me: Spirit plants the seeds, I nurture them as they sprout and grow. But there is another component, and that is you, the reader. For what is creation without an audience? What is a quilt without someone to wrap it in? What is a meal without diners?

Nature makes the harvest. We are given the wheat. We make the bread.

Kneading bread is an elemental human activity. Over the years, I’ve done so much kneading, real and metaphorical.

Creating

Push, turn, push.
Kneading the loaf.
Perfect ingredients
Just flour, water and yeast.
Oh, a bit of salt.
Don’t forget salt.
Salt to pacify
The energy of yeast.

Yes, too much energy,
Unchecked,
Pushes us into mania.
We dance corybantic
Burning till we’re charred.

Tamped down to simmer
We can run the race well
Keeping the spurt for the end.

Learn from the bread.
Knead your life kindly.
Add salt, that’s wisdom,
And water, most essential,
The blood of the Universe,

Bread for our bodies,
Yeast for the living.
Keep kneading your truth.
Keep birthing the world.

—30—

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