The Green Wave

July 25, 2010

Mothers & Thunder

Filed under: Celebration, Music, People, Storytelling — kate @ 12:21 pm

I got to play a concert up in Portland this week as part of Lynne Cullen’s Seanchai Nights series at Bull Feeney’s Pub.  I love that room with its round stage, tall windows, and Irish quotes painted high on the buttery yellow walls.  It seems like the people who come are always ready to sing and to laugh and to dive down into the stories with me.  I love them, and this time was no exception!  I met a great young family with three kids who looked like wizards (the youngest of them is building a harp and learning Gaelic), a bevy of storytellers, an old friend I hadn’t seen in at least 20 years, and a crowd of spirited party girls, among others.  One of my first employers (for baby-sitting, window-washing, and cocktail-party-tray-passing) was also present, and remembered that I used to sit on the hill behind her house and read poetry.

But this visit was made even more special by the appearance of a special guest and her entourage:  my mother and her friends.  They filled an entire long table, and they sang and smiled throughout, and warmed me to the core.  And to see my mother there among them, laughing at my antics and learning to sing those Irish words – well, that is a treasure to me.  This is a rare occurrence.  In fact, it has only happened once before when I hosted a party to celebrate the release of The Harp-Boat.  And yes, even at my age, it matters to me very much that my mother likes what I do, that she sees the value of what I offer.  And that night, she did.

Sometimes, everything goes right.

That blessed night, there was a strapping lad at the bar who gallantly carried the piano up those winding stairs.

The traffic cop softened and tore up the ticket he was writing for me.

The room filled up and every chair hosted someone lovable.

And just at the right moment in one story, just when I said, “She sat up in bed and said, ‘Lord, God, what is that noise?’” the thunder boomed over the sea behind me.  Thunder & lightning as collaborators = amazing!

And my mother came.  Did I mention my mother came?

A wonderful night.  Lucky, grateful, amazed, delighted, inspired me.

July 11, 2010

Thank you, Arthur.

Filed under: People, Spirit — kate @ 12:58 pm

You know, I need mermaids in the world.

I need talking trees.  I need foxes that transform at dusk.  I need enchanted apples.

Though he is wicked, I need Blue Beard.

I require the 13th fairy, meddlesome as she is.

I cannot do without the white deer that flashes through the darkening trees.

Selkies and sea-witches are a necessity.

The moon who recognizes me as a sister and a friend?  Absolutely essential.

And I need company in these requirements, and help seeing my world in its most beloved shapes.

This week, I’ve been reading Amanda Adam’s lovely book, The Mermaid’s Tale.  She’s a wonderful writer and she’s done all of us mermaid-lovers a great service by including reproductions of some of the most splendid fairy-tale art ever created.  There we find Arthur Rackham’s beguiling mermaid, sitting atop what looks like a huge carp while the blue-grey sea boils around her and meteors blaze down behind her.  She is a dangerous beauty, stirring up the storm in her own heart and by extension putting sailors into peril.

I stared at that picture for such a long time, just as I once stared at the sea-witch in my childhood copy of Hans Christian Anderson’s tales.

The longer I looked, the more I thought, “Thank you, Arthur.”  I felt increasingly grateful that Arthur Rackham bothered to portray what other people would deem so much pish-posh but which I myself find essential.  And the same goes for Edmund Dulac, William Morris, Kay Nielsen, Aubrey Beardsley…  All of these artists looked away from the smokestacks and the scandals, from the drab and the mundane.  They followed their own tastes and visions and loves, and they gave us a world that glows with enchantment, with promise, and yes, with beautiful peril.

The real world.

Yes, friends.  This beauty IS the real world – or a part of it that awaits our gaze.  Yes, smokestacks and drab scenes are part of the world, but while some people insist – yes, insist as though their lives depended on it – that this is the ONLY world, I cannot agree.  There is ugliness and cruelty, but always close by, there is beauty and kindness.

We make the world with our thoughts and especially with our habits of thought.  This week, looking at fairytale art, I felt grateful that Rackham and Dulac and their fellow artists used their thoughts to create a world of singing queens and trooping fairies, of banners flying over castles under twilit skies.

And I realized, almost with a start, that I am doing the same thing.  I am giving voice and space to the real world as I see it when I make a poem or song, when I write my novel or even when I give a lecture and share my loves and enthusiasms, my particular way of making meaning.  As much as I need Arthur and all of his visions, it struck me that someone in this world might require me and my visions.  Just thinking such a thought is like drinking from the Well at the End of the World, feeling all of my strength and courage return.

And friend, that goes for you, too, and for everyone we know.  It’s our world while we live in it.  We are the ones who can stir up the seas and endow every star with a freight of wishes.  We are the ones who can sing, talk, write, meditate on, engage with, summon, enlarge:  beauty, love, truth, honesty, honor, and possibility.

We are making this world, so let’s make it everything we love best.

To enchantment!

June 13, 2010

That Look

Filed under: Irish, Music, People, Spirit — kate @ 1:01 pm

Yesterday I played four mini-concerts of songs & stories for kids at the Worcester Irish Music Festival.  Despite the rain, there were still spirited crowds splashing through the puddles, gathering under the tents, and bellying up to the bars.  Inside the hall, the kids were wild and lovable, ready for stories and dancing.  I gave them a bit of both, telling some of my favorite tales and then, when a few kids could not contain the urge to run, just playing a jig on the whistle and watching with delight as they ran round and round in a circle on the dance-floor.

I love encouraging everyone to sing and so taught a fair number of chorus songs.  One of them was “Soldier, Soldier” – a great song in which the young maid asks the young man to marry her but he protests because he lacks the right clothes for a wedding.  The kids yell out what they think he needs – usually things like “a hat!” or “socks!” but yesterday that included “a visor” (by one little boy wearing, yes, a green visor which he deemed essential equipment) and the crowd favorite:  “Boxers!”

One little girl, Grace, participated in this song-game with a special intensity that I recognized right away.  She watched me like a hawk, she clapped along, she quickly learned the words – ALL of them, too, and not just the choruses – and when I asked her to sing, she jumped in feet-first with a blend of passion and enthusiasm that inflamed my heart with a protective tenderness.  As the Irish say, Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile, “One beetle recognizes another,” and I recognized her:  Singer.

I asked Katie O’Neill, a splendid singer and one of the festival organizers, if she’d noticed Grace.  “Oh, yes,” she said.  “She’s hooked.”

Later, I met her parents and told them what we’d noticed.  They were delighted and proud and not too surprised, which is wonderful.  They really see her, thank heavens, and I bet they’ll give her every chance to do what she loves.

I don’t have children, a choice I’ve thought and re-thought hundreds of times.  Sometimes this choice seems to leave me out of life’s largest motions and movements, its greatest dramas and joys and sorrows.  Sometimes I accuse myself of terrible things because of this – of laziness or cowardice, to name just two things (though I should say that I did try for a time; the trouble is, you can always try harder, take more extreme measures, or adopt, and in the end, I decided against those things).  Other times I feel proud to have stayed true to myself despite the huge weight of general expectations, the subtle and not-so-subtle pressure by well-meaning people, their questioning and bewilderment.

But when I see a girl like Grace taking wing, or any young singer, poet, writer, or creator, I feel that I do have a place in the greater Family.  My job is recognizing “that look” and helping a little to inflame those passions, that self-trust, that questing, beautiful spirit.

In Committed, Liz Gilbert gives childless women a brilliant and self-respecting name, “The Auntie Brigade.”  The Aunties of the world provide those extras that can make a difference – the extra attention, books, time, treats, and love that help young people (and everyone, for that matter!) to thrive.  I love that, and I’d like to go one better and remove the gender filter because this idea pertains to childless men, too (even though they don’t bear the same stigma we do).  After all, the great Merlin didn’t have a son, but he taught Arthur everything he knew about magic.

We seasoned creators are the same, I think.  When we look at a crowd and see the one face that is enraptured, something very essential in us wants to foster that spark.  When we do, even for a moment, even just by recognizing “that look,” we foster it in ourselves all over again.  The living line of singer-to-singer, creator-to-creator is nourished, and we get to witness the great hope of another person coming into her magic.

I’m wishing you a magic life, Grace, and all the pleasure and power of your own magic.  Sing out, Singer!

January 24, 2010

Piggybacking

Filed under: People, Poetry, Spirit, Writing — kate @ 2:34 pm

There are a million great reasons to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on our creative projects.  Here are just a few:

  • the excitement of being busy and engaged
  • the excitement of turning an idea into a creation we can share
  • the excitement of being artists who regularly make art (on this point, my dear friend Lauren Passarelli has written an an inspiring, helpful, and generous essay on her blog, Pass Words; don’t miss it!)
  • the excitement of seeing our body of work grow and change over time
  • the fantastic feeling of flow and power that comes with making things!  (doesn’t matter if it’s a book or a Zentangle:  just making something produces great satisfaction and pleasure in me)

Today I’d like to highlight another reason – one I think of as  Piggybacking.

By this I mean that sometimes, creating one thing greases the gears so powerfully that another creation follows close on the heels of the first.  And often that second creation comes with very little effort or struggle – a benediction after hours of fasting & praying.

I first noticed this when I was writing my dissertation and found that after a good work session, I was often so charged with a poem idea that the need to write it down felt as urgent as the need to drink when you’re thirsty (or visit the loo afterwards!).  At the time, I thought of the dissertation-writing as “throwing off sparks.”

I’ve noticed it, too, when I sit down to write poems for an “assignment” – usually an agreed-upon topic with Cheryl Perreault, my Friday morning poetry partner.  I might start in a cheerful but dutiful way and find that the first poem is fine but that the second poem shows up unbidden on the winds of real inspiration.  This phenomenon I think of as “stirring up the mud.”

(These little aphorisms sound like katas in some ancient Asian martial art:  “First, perform “stirring up mud” and then leap straight into “throwing off sparks.”  Then you are the Master!”)

This week I took on a new writing task:  fashioning an artist bio for my friend, marvelous singer-songwriter Nancy Beaudette.  I worked for hours on this project and found that every part of my brain was engaged and excited.  Getting the tone and shape right was a little like working at a puzzle, and as I sharpened and brightened the piece, I felt tremendous satisfaction.  When I finished, I could have turned cartwheels!

At the same time, I thought that was enough work for the day, and I decided to give up the evening to a well-earned rest.

But out of nowhere came the thought that I could write an introduction to my new book of poems if I’d just sit back down and try, that I had not only all the information I needed but also all the inspiration.  I didn’t think or worry or assent consciously but obeyed the impulse.

Less than an hour later there was the introduction – a completed project I’d been thinking about for 3 weeks!

If I hadn’t worked so hard and so pleasurably on Nancy’s bio, I don’t think that would have happened.  I would probably be still thinking about the introduction and assuming I needed to do research and thinking before digging into it.

Instead, I went to bed feeling like a busy, excited, productive writer!

Try it yourself with any of your projects.  Do some Piggyback Writing, some Piggyback Painting, some Piggyback Jewelry-Making, some Piggyback Cooking, some Piggyback Dancing, some Piggyback Photography!  Anything at all.  We’ve all heard Goethe’s brilliant words, but they bear repeating again and again and again and again:

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

(He probably came up with that bit of timeless insight after writing a business letter.  Early 19th century Piggybacking!)

January 14, 2010

Tracks

Filed under: People, Pleasures, Spirit — kate @ 2:15 pm

On Sunday, I rose early to go with my friends Kathleen and Craig to the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge for an introduction to the basics of tracking.  We had the great good fortune to land in the group led by Rona Balco, an inspiring teacher and experienced outdoorswoman.  Let me put it this way:  while most of us tromp down the path, perhaps noticing the warmth of the sun on our shoulders and commenting on the odd birch tree, Rona reads the natural world the way an English professor reads Ulysses.  It is a huge sounding board of intricate signs and signals, replete with tales and tragedies, good characters and savages, hard luck and fortunate moonlight.  She is a native speaker of the woods – or at least she has become so fluent in nature that she passes as a native.

In her company I began to sense the possibilities for interpretation, the many clues to read and wonder over, all played out on the vast canvas of the snow.  Thank heaven for the snow!  For without it, a complete newbie like myself would have a much harder time even seeing the signs, much less understanding them.  Rona told us that in deducing the story behind the signs, you have to take everything into account:  time, habit, preference, ability, environment.  When the tracks end, as they do many times, you look a little ways off and realize that the creature has traveled for a time under the snow where it is warmer and safer.  (We do this, too, of course; the tracks of our lives disappear briefly when we go under the snow for safety and respite).

I came away with deeper respect for the wisdom of the creatures who really are the First Peoples of this planet:  for the beavers who teach their one-year-olds to build dams but who are willing to accept these youngsters back if things don’t work out in the wide world; for the coyotes who trot in tandem over the ice and work as a hunting team; for the deer that sniff out hunters and take themselves without further ado into safer territory, like people without drama leaving a mean party; for the trees themselves that pass along word of changes or dangers through chemical signals in the soil.  Through Rona’s eyes, I saw an intricate web singing with vitality, cleverness, generosity, bravery, instinct, adaptability, and wisdom.

Rona herself is leaving such beautiful tracks.  She is a consummate teacher – passionate, patient, eager to see us all learn and love what she loves – and she is also an advocate for better communities, for better stewardship of the earth through wiser use of resources, and for the Oxbow, which seems to be her dearest dear.  She is also a woodcarver, a mother and wife, and a wonderful friend to the people in her town.

If we followed her tracks we might see them disappear at the edge of the river and wonder where she went.  But we could use all she taught us to deduce the real story:  this is where she took to the wing.  What a life and gracious, what lovely tracks!

November 29, 2009

Is that the way you look?

Filed under: Music, People, Spirit — kate @ 4:30 pm

Home for the holidays this weekend, I was amused to hear my uncle describe, in disparaging tones, the wild hairstyles and pierced lifestyles of musicians. Pink hair came in for particular censure for some reason. I wondered just how many of these wild characters he has really encountered, and also why anyone would remember hair more than art. But c’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

I had been telling my cousin Tom (a dear friend of mine and a passionate musician himself) about my recent show at Berklee, and how thrilling it had been for me to perform there. Tom spent some time at Berklee years ago, and I knew he’d be pleased because he knows what a vibrant and exciting place it is. But threaded through my excited description (“I got to sign my name on the wall in the Green Room!”) were my uncle’s comments about weirdo musicians and their outlandish appearances.

I wasn’t too fussed, to tell the truth. I’ve heard all of this before, and my main response has always been that people who focus on this stuff are missing the point. They have ignored art and energy and focused instead on the most superficial aspect of what’s on offer. I have sometimes felt a bit sorry for them because they seem untouched by the great invigorating gusts of life that blow through music and art.

But today, I am reconsidering my rather condescending view. Those people with pink hair and studs in their eye-brows do NOT look like my uncle, and so he draws attention to the difference. But what I think he is getting at – though not in so many words – is that they don’t FEEL like him, either. They belong to a different tribe with different ethos, expectations, desires, priorities. I think this baffles some people who find themselves squarely in the majority and who have never much experimented with new or different identities. Stepping outside that warm central place just seems odd, dangerous, and even willfully self-destructive. Why would you do it? Come inside with us where we know what life is all about – and we’ll tell you in no uncertain terms how to live it!

When I was in high school I took to drawing a black star under my left eye every morning. This garnered all kinds of responses, from the mocking to the admiring, from anger to acknowledgement. At the time, I wasn’t really sure why I did it. But now, many years later, I think it was a non-verbal way of announcing to the world AND to myself that I wanted something more than safety, that I prized the unexpected, that I was already enamored of symbols, and that I saw myself as a creature separate from that consensus way of life.

In short, I think that’s when I began to see myself as an artist.

Now, years later, the star is long gone, but it did its work. It has been replaced by certain quirky garments and habits of mind which, while invisible, nevertheless leave their traces on my appearance and bearing.

J.B. Priestley offers a lively, loving description of the actors he recalls from his youth in his book of essays, Delight. Apply the spirit of this description to artists, musicians, dancers, or anyone you like, and I think you get a sense of that different tribe in splendid motion:

“In those days, actors looked like actors and like nothing else on earth. There was no mistaking them for wool merchants, shipping clerks, and deacons of Baptist chapels, all those familiar figures of my boyhood. They wore suits of startling check pattern, outrageous ties, and preposterous overcoats reaching down to their ankles. They never seemed to remove all their make-up as actors do now, and always had a rim of blue-black around their eyelids. They did not belong to our world and never for a moment pretended to belong to it. They swept past us, fantastically overcoated, with trilbies perched raffishly on brilliantined curls, talking of incredible matters in high tones, merely casting a few sparkling glances – all the more sparkling because of that blue-black – in our direction; and then vanished through the stage door…”

What I love about this is the obvious delight these actors took in occupying a separate role in their society. There are no limp-hearted attempts to “fit in” with the uncles of the world, nor apologies for eccentricity. No, these gorgeous creatures let themselves enjoy what made them different, and in doing so, that enjoyment lent vitality and nourishment to their art.

If you see yourself here, if you have been chastised for your differences, or if someone has told you “for your own good” to take off those bizarre shoes or tame that pink hair, let me encourage you to keep faith with who you really are.

Let me link arms with you and sail up the alley in our billowing coats and huge dreams. And then, pleased with ourselves, let’s vanish through the stage door and get busy making art!

November 22, 2009

Your Musical Blood-type

Filed under: Music, People, Pleasures — kate @ 2:31 pm

On Friday night, my friend Bo Veaner and I played three hours of music for a wedding rehearsal dinner, though to me it seemed no more than 20 minutes or so. The time flew by in a happy blur of song after song, of listening and harmonizing, adding harp to Bo’s beautiful original songs, and in one moment of unexpected pleasure, belting out The Beatles’ song, “Oh, Darling!”

Our rehearsal for this three-hour extravaganza consisted mainly of conversation and a quick run-through of perhaps four or five songs. And then off we went to the gig, happy and curious about how it would all turn out. Brilliantly, as it happens, because we just had so much fun discovering what we could do together. We played and experimented and suited ourselves. The guests enjoyed it, and even danced at one point when we played “Goin’ to the Chapel” (a brilliant inspiration of Bo’s), and we emerged at the end of the evening in a daze of gratitude. Yes! Playing music all night is good for your health, for your wallet (nice to be paid), and for your belly, too, as we also ate a good fish supper as part of the deal.

And last night I joined my friends Ellen Schmidt, Debra Rocha, Cheryl Perrault and her daughter Abbie, and Michele Boule, for an evening of songs & poems at a local restaurant. Again, there was no rehearsal and the briefest e-mail exchange about the collaborative effort. And again, the evening was a delight – easy, natural, friendly, and completely stress-free.

I love working this way, but I recognize that not everyone does. Bo and I exchanged stories of other collaborations between people of different musical blood-types, by which I mean the Type A musicians who prefer to work out every detail beforehand, and the Type B musicians who love the seat-of-your-pants style of planning (which is to say, very little). Sometimes collaborations between these two types can be quite awkward and even unpleasant, as each strives to find comfort in the way most natural to him or herself. The planner sometimes resorts to control-fits or even to pulling out of the gig altogether. The seat-of-your-pants person resorts to casting gentle aspersions on the other person’s ability to just relax and play.

Mixing musical blood-types can feel like limping along, herky-jerky, in a three-legged race – hard to find a rhythm that works. There’s loads of good will, but loads of confusion, too.

Neither type is right, or better. It’s just the way we’re put together and the shape we’ve grown into.

But understanding this now, I deliberately look for musicians of my own blood-type and situations that support my natural inclinations. And if I get even a whiff of high-maintenance, stressy, or hyper-planning in the mix, I respectfully disentangle myself.

I do believe that each type can learn a lot from the other – a little more structure for my type, and a little more flexibility for the other type. But I also think that for musical transfusions – especially the three-hour variety – I’m best sticking with my own musical blood-type.

Popeye said it best: “I am what I am.”

Hey! What type do you suppose he’d be?

November 17, 2009

Two (or two million) Irelands

Filed under: Irish, People — kate @ 9:23 pm

For my birthday last week, my mother gave me a wonderful gift: a Kindle! If you haven’t seen or heard of the Kindle, it is Amazon.com’s electronic reading device which allows you to download and read books onto a little machine roughly the size of a paperback novel.

It sounds awful, I know – but I must say that my experience so far is something akin to the way new parents must feel. I can’t stop picking it up, marveling over it, and generally doting over its many beauties. Me – the queen of end papers and fonts and bindings and the smell of paper – a fan of an electronic reading device! Will wonders never cease?

One of the greatest pleasures since the Kindle came into my life is a trial subscription to “The Irish Times.” Every morning I eagerly leap out of bed and boot up the Kindle to find out what is going on in my beloved Ireland. But alas, friends, what I find there is not really MY beloved Ireland at all.

As you probably know or have guessed, my Ireland is the land of songs, of stories, of wit and warmth and connection. My Ireland stuns and soothes you with beauty, with rocky coasts and misty hills, with white horses standing beside solitary thorn trees and rags tied in the bush above the holy well. In my Ireland, you round a corner and see a rainbow. You enter a pub and hear the hum of Irish language. You meet a stranger and discover a friend. The inhabitants of my Ireland are novelists and poets, singers and players of tunes, players of tricks and brilliant practical jokes, and all of them cry when they encounter beauty in any form – be it an old, cracked voice singing of love, or the sight of storm clouds parted by a sunbeam.

The Ireland of “The Irish Times” is a foreign country to me. In that Ireland, times are terribly hard and people are not responding with twinkling eyes and hospitably opened doors. In that Ireland, this week Yusef (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) was jeered and roundly booed off the stage at his come-back concert. In that Ireland, a police force has become necessary in the town of Ennis to apprehend anyone who after a long night at the pub relieves himself against a shop door (during the time pundits are calling “the wee hours”). In that Ireland, old burial places are dug up to make way for new highways. In that Ireland, there are hot debates about the rights and status of immigrants and women. And in that Ireland, there are no easy answers to those questions or the ones about the economy, the environment, or the proper behavior of government.

I’ve decided I like my Ireland better.

But at the same time, I recognize that MY Ireland – the Ireland of Art & Beauty – is only one among a million Irelands. There is, of course, a Sport Ireland, a Fishing Ireland, a Church Ireland, a Scholar’s Ireland, a Troubles Ireland, a Shopping Ireland, a Food Ireland… The list is infinite. You name it, or rather – you experience it and name it according to your own experience.

So, that being the case – that there are millions of possible Irelands, as there are millions of possible anythings – why not pick the one that appeals most and keep that in your gaze? That doesn’t mean completely ignoring the others, but just seeing the one you like best most of the time.

And by extension, can’t we do that with just about anything? Can’t we look at the best qualities of our lives and make much of them?

If you like songs and turf fires, come on over to MY Ireland. The door is open and there’s always a welcome before you.

January 6, 2009

Three Friends

Filed under: Music, People — kate @ 11:49 am

Hello again after a long while away! The ice storm hit us hard here in north central MA, and then the holidays hit us with their own glitter. But on this bright, cold January day I am thinking about new beginnings- as are many! – and wanted to tell you about three friends who have recently launched new enterprises. These women are like sunbursts of talent and inspiration, capable of making something beautiful in any sphere they enter. Their new projects cross into new territory and remind everyone that we can always be starting fresh, embracing a new direction, and enjoying the renewed energy that comes with that boldness and joy.

1. Cynthia Chatis: http://www.cynthiachatis.com/
Cynthia is a Creator, gifted at pretty much anything she puts her hand to. A passionate singer and musician (flutes, shruti box, and a host of other instruments), an inspired artist (with some of the most luminous watercolors you will see anywhere), a potter, a maker of jewelry, and a brilliant cook and baker! She has been an active and integral part of the Portsmouth music scene for many years now, and has recently decided she wants to teach. Her new website represents a leap forwards in integrating her many talents and making them more available to the world.

2. Nancy Beaudette and Isabel Designs: http://isabeldesigns.com/ and www.nancybeaudette.com
Nancy Beaudette is another multi-rayed dynamo, whether she is crafting her own songs, breathing life into a classic song, designing signs, producing a recording, or now, in her new venture, making beautiful jewelry with her sister, Sue. The sisters have recently launched Isabel designs, a jewelry and gifts emporium named for their beloved mother. I like everything about their project: they use natural and reclaimed objects in their designs, they donate a portion of all of their sales to Ovarian Cancer Canada, and their work is just beautiful! I am looking forwards to owning one of their pieces and have my eye on a silver-wrapped river-rock!

3. Nina Brundle and Nina Bee Designs: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=102779
Nina is a young artist who, like Cynthia and Nancy, brings an artistic spirit to everything she does whether that be decorating a cake, applying make-up to a child attending a dress-up party, painting, making prints, or designing jewelry. Even the photographs she took for her new Etsy site are beautiful! Her designs are lively and organic. I see in them branches and berry clusters, dew drops and moon-washed leaves. If fairy-tale heroines wore jewelry, their jewelry boxes would be full of Nina Bee Designs!

To Kathleen, a dear friend of mine, Nina is like a daughter. And Kathleen is a brilliant photographer with a special vision for capturing the world’s radiant beauties in her pictures. And Nancy’s great friend, Chris, is a fabulous singer and songwriter. And Cynthia is friends with painters and poets and potters and songwriters.

Look around and be amazed: we are all part of this beautiful web!

Good luck to these talented women, and to everyone who is engaged in the important task of bringing more beauty into the world.

May 25, 2008

Remembering Ruth McGovern

Filed under: Irish, People — kate @ 1:10 pm

Ruth McGovern, beloved wife of James McGovern, mother of Vonnie, Ruth, and Kathleen, grandmother to Jim, Dan, Tom, Kate, Betsy, Peggy, Mary, and Patsy, and great-grandmother to Brandon, Brandy, Caitlyn, Emma, Michael, McKenzie, and James, died Tuesday morning at home. She was the hub of our wheel, the heart of our family. She was ninety-nine.

She grew up poor. Her parents worked in the Biddeford mills, and there was little money for luxury of any kind. Her grandmother, Bridget O’Leary of Cork, took her under her wing and gave her extra love and attention just when she needed it most. She had a fine singing voice and especially loved to sing solos at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. She proved a brilliant student and graduated at the top of her class from Biddeford High School. She went on to study business, and took a job as a secretary at the Metropolitan Insurance Company right out of school.

She loved the work, and she loved having a little “fun money” to indulge her love of costume jewelry, purchased on her lunch hour from the shops in Biddeford. It was there that she met my grandfather, James McGovern. He captured her attention from the moment they met, but the relationship took a slow, easy pace for a long while, with kind words exchanged in the elevator and glances at the door. At last, he invited her to attend a formal function for the Company, and she was delighted to accept. The love that began then lasted the rest of her life. Though he died nearly fifty years ago, she was always proud to be called “Mrs. James McGovern.”

She was a resourceful, determined person, and after her husband died, she began a long career as a legal secretary. Her last employer, Mr. Eddie Carron of Saco, adored her. In a lovely twist of the usual etiquette, he referred to her as “Mrs. McGovern” and she called him, affectionately, “Eddie.” She was famous for her efficiency and devotion to her work right up until she retired for good at the age of 87.

She was a great lover of animals, and a succession of small, lucky dogs lived with her through the years. She loved music and jokes and stories, and still sang some of the songs her parents had brought home from the mill. She was a tremendous cook, and all of us in her family grow misty over her turkey soup, her pudding pie, and the excellent gravy she whipped up every year, as though by magic. (I will always imagine her on Thanksgiving morning, a poodle under one arm, and a small vial of Gravy Master in the other hand – a maestro ready to take charge). She spent many happy Saturday nights with her daughter Vonnie and son-in-law, Dickie, at Lord’s restaurant in Wells where she was considered something of a celebrity and treated with wonderful affection and deference.

Her life spanned nearly a century, and the changes she witnessed were both dizzying and interesting to her. Like many older people, she showed an ability to adapt to change that was delightful and surprising. When Gregory and I got married on a hillside overlooking the Saco River, our family worried that Mazy (as we called her) would be upset that the wedding was not held in the Catholic Church. But just days later a note arrived that dispelled this fear. “I am still mooning over your lovely romantic wedding,” she wrote. She was at heart a romantic person, even in a life so marked by necessity and practicality and bearing up.

Ruth McGovern was a woman of great soul, humor, and wisdom. She was loved deeply, and we will miss her.

Kate Chadbourne
20 May 2008

(A version of this was read very skillfully by Uncle Dick at Mazy’s funeral on Wednesday. It was a beautiful occasion and many people came to pay tribute to this great lady. It was a special joy for me to play a slow air on the Irish flute which I’d made for Mazy three years ago at Christmas, titled very simply, “Ruthie McGovern.”)

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