The Lynamber Times

A Favorite Place

Lynamber — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:37:39 GMT

This is to comfort Philosophy, who had a mean, sucky day. And now if you'd like to read the story that goes with it, here's the link to today's "As Time Goes By" website where my blog is published about once a week. You can sign up to get them emailed, but I think you don't get the photos unless you go to the site, nor make comments. Remember, I'm Lyn Burnstine there and on Facebook.

http://www.ronnibennett.typepad.com/elderstorytelling/

Wings

Lynamber — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:15:59 GMT

My life has been filled with incredible, memorable moments and events. All the usual family highlights were there–marriages, births, grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s arrivals, a 70th birthday party reunion that was at least as satisfying as it would be to attend my own memorial service. Additionally, my career has brought stellar experiences, many involving celebrities and who can be casual about that? So forgive the name-dropping, but for a little farm girl from rural Illinois to end up opening a concert for the iconic Pete Seeger, years later having him stand and listen to me sing a long set of songs, and, many years later, spontaneously kiss me on the cheek, is heady stuff. To have Theodore Bikel hug and kiss me, pat my behind, then meet me for a day of hanging out at a folk festival where he introduced me to Fred Hellerman of the Weavers, is equally so. Accompanying Frances Sternhagen (Cliffie’s mom on Cheers) on the autoharp as she sang “Cockles and Mussels” was fun. Having Julius LaRosa stand mesmerized by my psaltery through at least six songs was exciting. May Sarton’s invitation to visit her at her Maine home, and subsequently sending me a personally-inscribed copy of her latest book, calling me her role model, was a thrill. An ongoing friendship with my writing teacher and mentor, William Least Heat-Moon, that prompted wonderful spoken and written compliments on my music and writing, was heart-warming. (His proclamation that my quilt program was “wonderfully tribal” was high praise from a person of Native American heritage.)
    The hundreds of settings in which I performed created lasting memories: the acoustics inside the bell-shaped old historic Huguenot church in New Paltz were breathtaking–it was truly like singing inside a bell. I sang on the inside steps of FDR’s home when a sudden downpour ended our outdoor concert; for weddings on the back porch of Mills Mansion and at Opus 40; at FDR’s gravesite; on the Clermont Lawn at sunset; inside Olana, Washington’s Headquarters, Senate House and Locust Grove and every other area historic restoration; in the parlor at Mohonk Mountain House; onboard cruise ships, in Sack’s Lodge with Ann Jackson singing along loudly (while Eli Wallach played cards in the next room); in front of an original Eric Sloane painting in his museum, and, best of all, led Amazing Grace with 100 people packed into the tiny, old historic stone chapel at my beloved mecca-- Star Island in the Isles of Shoals.They were all unparalleled moments.
    All of these riches, and many, many more, are treasured memories, yet, when I think of what day of my life I’d give almost anything to re-live, I always come up with–not exactly a day, but an activity–to ride my bike. I don’t think I need an entire day–an hour or two would do. It would be heaven to fly like the wind on my old Schwinn bike with the hot prairie breezes blowing; to smell the hot tar of the straight, flat roadway; to hear the rustle of the tall cornstalks lining both sides of the roads, with no traffic but me. In dreams I fly–up to the ceiling, down long flights of stairs– or soar high in an electric blue sky over an ocean below. I never dream of riding my bike. Only in my body’s memory is the feeling so vivid.
    Like most teens, I was often appropriately miserable. Although my parents were kind and loving, they did tightly control my social life. My typical teen-age angst, blended with a little loneliness and isolation, kept me from seeing how blessed and privileged I really was. So the bike riding was an antidote to feeling restricted and confined–a metaphor for the wings I hoped would carry me out into the wide and promising world of independence and freedom. I got the wings. I got the freedom. I got to fly, in so many ways. I’d still like the bike ride–one more time.

Silver Threads

Lynamber — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:45:50 GMT

I like having silver hair.
I like to look through the sparkling sunlit strands blown across my eyes by the wind.
I may not like what it signifies,
That I’m well down the slope of my remaining years.
But I like that it heralds maturity, wisdom and acceptance–
in me, of myself, of my age.

My eighty-something friend’s children don’t recognize how fragile and tired she is.
They expect her to cook for them and chauffeur them around as she once did.
Big-mouth me says “Stop dyeing your hair, then–
if you’re gonna’ look sixty,
they’ll treat you like you’re sixty.”

Another neighbor, hair newly-grown in after her chemo–
a cap of beautiful silver hair,
tells me her kids want her to dye it.
I restrain myself from saying,
“But it was ugly and fake-looking before; now it’s beautiful.”
I only said the last part.

I never even knew when my hair turned gray.
It was every color of the Nice n’ Easy box for twenty years.
But when the silver began to blend in with the dark blond,
Suddenly I began to hear, for the first time in my life,
“Your hair is beautiful!”
“Did you get it frosted?”
“What color is it, anyway?”

I never dyed it again.
Now it has become “Chlorine Champagne.”
I bought a wig for the days it looks green and windblown after swimming.
But I chose silver.
I want my hair and face to match.
I want people to say, “She’s aging gracefully, don’t you think?”

Stuff

Lynamber — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:19:55 GMT

I was inspired by Suzanne Hailey. PNN. to share this rather old essay with you. It has been popular on radio, at my readings and in the memoir in which it is published. I maintain it is because everybody either has been there, or knows they must eventually go there. Which are you?

STUFF

In one of his essays, E. B. White speaks of the acquisition of things: “A home is like a reservoir equipped with a check valve: the valve permits influx but prevents outflow.” That was on my mind often as I pared down to smaller quarters for the second time in a dozen years. The most dramatic of the moves–-many years before--was from a five-bedroom house with an unusual amount of storage space, to a one-bedroom apartment. It took me a year to get rid of enough “stuff,” many years’ accumulation, to fit into that apartment. The saving grace there, besides its general spaciousness, was the presence of a large walk-in storeroom.
    I’m not quite ready to live out of a backpack, but I am getting down to basics--having carried out literally hundreds of bags of stuff with each move. The first time, the cast-offs included many years’ issues of “The Carolina Israelite,” items left behind by my grown kids and forty roomers, a garage full of tools and household supplies, boxes of sewing and crazy-quilt fabrics, crafts materials, and rooms full of furniture.
    Unfortunately, my limited space in the apartment did not allow me to enlist the kind of help that I had in clearing out the big house. Then about sixty people came to my “house-cooling” under strict orders not to bring a gift, but rather to be prepared to take something away with them when they left. That they did, in great good spirits, after taking turns going through one room piled high with giveaways. Many years later, friends still talk about my house-cooling.
    But a lot can accrue in twelve years, especially when one is addicted to thrift shops, garage sales and used-book stores. I often wondered, as I came in from the car laden with bags of groceries or weighed down with stuff, what must go through my neighbors’ minds, “where does it all go--how can she fit it all in--how can one person consume that much food?”
    The second time, the sweep became more intense, and I got rid of things dear to me but impossible to fit into my even-smaller space. Heirloom dishes, glassware, and linens were given to my offspring; a large collection of antique hymnals went to a folk singer friend, and a huge assemblage of teaching aids--children’s music and craft books, puppets, and musical instruments--found various loving homes. I couldn’t bear to part with the stuffed toys, so they live in a friend’s basement, coming out only for Christmas.
    There is a wonderful cleansing effect from simplification, from the weeding out of non-essential items. It reminds us which things are precious and important. The possessions left after this process seem more dear, somehow. The photo albums, music records and tapes, videos, quilts and sweaters handmade by my mother, an impressive egg collection, writing and photography gear, and boxes of memorabilia--love letters, fan letters, newspaper clippings, my kids’ and friends’ love-notes--all document a long, vital life.
    The proliferation of garage sales and flea markets leads me to believe that all we’re doing is exchanging our stuff. The proliferation of personal storage rental units suggests that the situation is out of hand--if you can’t get all your stuff in your own house, do you really need it? Maybe I am turning into a curmudgeon from reading too much Andy Rooney, but I remember when an old Sears Roebuck catalog, to be cut up into paper dolls, provided an entire winter’s entertainment for a little girl. There was a sweetness to the simplicity of that life. The world may never be able to recapture it, but I’m trying.

The Bridge

Lynamber — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:55:17 GMT

A few years ago, two friends and I walked the mile-wide Mid-Hudson FDR bridge across the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie (and back) on Memorial Day. Now I excitedly await the construction of a walkway & state recreation area on top of an historic railroad bridge a short distance north of that bridge. You can see by the equipment that there is a lot of work still to be done by Fall of 2009 when they expect it to be open. Here is the essay I wrote about our walk3 years ago.

WALKING THE BRIDGE

I fulfilled a longtime dream this week. I walked the bridge across the Hudson River— the FDR bridge, formerly known as the Mid-Hudson, and locally referred to as the Poughkeepsie Bridge. I, together with two much younger friends, walked from the Highland side to the Poughkeepsie side and back— a distance of about one-and-three-quarters miles. I, with my leg brace and always-sore crippled feet, was not at all sure I could do it. At least I had my doctor with me, although she was recovering from major surgery, so the question of who would rescue whom was floating around in my brain.
    Never mind that it was the hottest, muggiest day so far this year; never mind that the photo op side was closed (and anyway, I had dropped and disabled my camera the night before); never mind that the Memorial Day traffic was heavy and noisy; never mind that I couldn’t put my shoes or brace on for two days afterward; all that mattered is that I DID IT!
    My life has been filled with challenges, but I can’t remember exactly choosing any of them. So why did I choose this one? Maybe just because it’s there—the bridge, that is. Maybe because I’m approaching seventy-four and finding it hard to accept the limitations of aging. Or maybe just because I’m a nature child of the Midwest farm land, and need to feel something under my feet to truly connect with it. I’ve driven and ridden over that bridge a thousand times (a conservative guess). When I ride past green meadows, I have a great aching urge to stop the car and walk barefoot in the green grass—to lie down and roll in it. Now by measuring the bridge with my steps, I’ve claimed it.
    My adult grandson wants to walk it with me. Next time, I’ll choose a cool, crisp fall day. Maybe he’ll bring his mom (my daughter) and his daughter, making it a four-generation pilgrimage. I’ll bet that’s never been done before! Now that’s a challenge. Do you suppose the local paper would send a reporter and photographer and open the south side with the prettier view for us?