Same Song, Second Verse?

Mark’s mother passed last Thanksgiving, so this is his first Mother’s Day without her. He has several sisters, and he wished them a Happy Mother’s Day, …Aaand he’s been spending the last few weeks preparing for his mother’s June memorial by writing up notes she left behind for the family.

I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was fine.

Probably the hardest thing for Mark is that his mom wanted everyone at the memorial to sing old songs from the 1960’s. I have offered to sing “Puff the Magic Dragon,” in his stead; this is mostly for him, but partially to spare other memorial participants from Mark’s terrible, sarcastic, and raunchy parodies of Puff.

*

This year, Mark prepared a Mother’s Day lunch of moussaka and a salad to take to my folks’ house. He helped me make the strawberry pie my mother requested.

The Child drove us up the Interstate. We survived.

*

Typically on Mother’s Day, Mom recites the following stories of how the process of birthing children went.

Right after I was born, my mother was very hungry. The hospital staff brought her a chicken dinner (in some versions of this story, it’s a steak), but no tableware. So she picked up the carcass with her bare hands and tore the meat off of the bones with her teeth (and probably no napkin).

When my sister was born, my mother wanted to watch the process (I believe there was a mirror involved somehow). She was expecting a long labor, but my sister was the second-born, and arrived much more quickly than I did.

“Wow, that was fast,” my mother said. “I guess I can take out my (thick, 1960’s style) contact lenses.”

“Uhh,” said the obstetrician in shock.

This year Mom said she didn’t remember those stories. We had to tell them to her.

*

Way back in 1975, I had a theatre kid friend (whom my parents had a high opinion of) who taught me a parody of a famous Shirley Temple song. As a sixth grader, I thought it was particularly funny and belted out the opening verse at home:

“On the good ship Geritol / It’s a fun trip to the hospital /
where old folks play / games like trying to remember their names.”

“Oh John!” my dad said, “That’s terrible.”

This was from the man who introduced me to Monty Python, so I don’t know for sure what admixture of being horrified, or amused, or being horrified that he was amused my dad was. But I never sang the song again where he could hear it.

Sometimes, in the early morning, when I catch a particularly weathered version of myself in the bathroom mirror, I will sing the end verse: “happy landings on a laxative bar.”

*

Meanwhile, back in the present, The Child was having a conversation with my dad and led in with a question about Dad’s Air Force days. I think he was hoping to hear the story of the drill sergeant who once bellowed at Dad, “Bryurredge; if you can’t march, then DON’T SING!”

The Child asked Dad if he served in Viet Nam.

“No,” Dad said. “But your dad served in Korea.”

Dad thought he was speaking, not to The Child, who is an undergraduate, but to my elder cousin, who is currently in his seventies. According to Mark, the conversation recalled a few more Korea details before skipping back into the present.

During all of this I was speaking with Mom, so I only caught a bit of their conversation. I couldn’t figure out why they were talking about M*A*S*H reruns.

*

After lunch, my sister and I had done some quick house up-keep tasks and were in a downstairs room looking at some framed pictures. As usual, the discussion turned to what to do with some of the family mathoms when my folks move out or are gone.

“Do you want that picture?” she asked, pointing to a water color of the wreck of the Peter Iredale.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m not quite sure where we’ll hang it, but I like the composition of the ship and the color’s good. And it’s something Grandma Agnes made.”

“I’d like that one,” she said, pointing to a painting of my mother’s mother’s parent’s homestead—a red barn and a yellow house set against fields and a pine forest done by a great-aunt or -uncle. The house in the painting had no electricity nor indoor plumbing. “You don’t want it, do you?”

“No,” I said. “It’s a place we can’t go back to, and I really didn’t know who painted this picture.“

The last time we visited that piece of 1890—with its five mile gravel drive and rain and oil lamps and wind and wood stove and foot pump reed organ and more rain and old Norwegian bibles and hymnals and musty patchwork quilts and a dark, leaky tool shed with a treadle grindstone and rusty tools and bats living in the unsound second floor of the barn and nobody but two elderly Norwegian bachelor great-uncles for miles and miles (except for that one year with the cows) and really no place to play—was 1978.

There used to be some spectacular giant bearded irises growing there. The violet, yellow, and periwinkle blooms had furry insides and a dusky scent. In the 1980’s some were transplanted and grew on the hillside below my folks’ house and blossomed annually before deer, moles, and icy winters thinned them to nothing.

Somewhere in the pine forest behind where the barn used to stand there’s a pioneer cemetery plot. I think my mother’s grandparents are buried there. You need a GPS to find it.

*

The Child drove us along the back-road highway home. We survived—although at one point in town some horrific driver swerved right out of an intersection and I was convinced I was going to have a broken sideview mirror in my lap.

*

Mother’s Day drew to an end, and I was reminded of a fantasy story where the characters visit caves: In one cave are statues of Zeus, Athena, Thor, Isis and other deities; in the cave after that are statues of gods with no names; in the cave beyond are the broken and worn remnants of statues of forgotten gods; the final cave is dark.

I was reminded of a science fiction story where the characters listen to a record of the Beatles song, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and find each other in the heartbeat thud of the record player’s needle circling in the record’s final groove.

I was reminded of the Labyrinth Stone sitting in the Station of the North of our backyard’s circle of pavers: there’s a finger labyrinth replica of the Cretan Labyrinth on it.

When I run my index finger along the curving stone course, spiraling to the pattern’s center, it brings me to here and now.

It Could Lead to Dancing

Tra-la, it’s May. I’ve been preparing for May First—which is a calendrical cross-quarter day, a Friday, and also the Full Moon—by taking the day off and dropping hints to Mark that the weekend could be extra amorous. Western traditions for this time of year include driving cattle and kine between two bonfires for purification prior to driving them to the summer grazing lands; prancing around a Maypole, boys with red ribbons going clockwise and girls with white ribbons going widdershins; and outdoor sex in the woods. Add the Full Moon for extra magical energy; I wasn’t following the moon’s position astrologically, but it was a Scorpio Full Moon, so it would be secretive, regenerative, energy of a sexual nature.

A few days prior to May First, I posted a photo of a bundle of dried grape vines in a small copper cauldron to Instagram with the caption, “I will not light giant bonfires in my backyard on the Beltane Full Moon so that I can be ‘rescued’ by hot firemen.” I followed it up with the comment, “It could lead to dancing.”

One wrinkle in my domestic Pagan praxis is that Mark’s always described himself as a “religious non-participant.” Ahead of schedule, the oak, cottonwood, and willow trees filled the air with mucus-inducing pollen. And Mark’s never been a fan of flames larger than the ones on candles, indoors or out. So hot, throbbing, man-on-man sex between two bonfires in our backyard was definitely off the table. Probably to the relief of the neighbors. And the fire brigade.

Thursday night I watched a very close to full moon. The moon was lower and more southerly than I expected, and it skimmed over the tree tops east of our southern neighbor’s house. If I held my head in just the right position, I could frame the Rabbit of the Moon within an equilateral triangle of tree branches. I wanted to just look at the moon inscribed by branches and at the same time run over to a silver working bench and design a triangular bolo tie of silver with a jade disk displaying a rabbit. Since I don’t have a jewelry studio, I remained looking at the moon before heading inside to hide from pollen with Mark.

Fireman fantasies aside, one of the intentions for this seasonal station was to be more balanced with eros, agape, and amore, which means listening more closely to Mark. I may or may not have visualized cosmic erotic energy flowing through my second chakra during (ahem) certain parts of the night.

The plan for Friday was to hike up Spencer Butte and watch the sunrise. This was tricky because the parking lot for the park doesn’t officially open until 6 am and sunrise was 6:04, and also the low, overcast clouds enveloped the peak. So no rising sun in the east and no sinking moon in the west; only wildflowers, trillium, poison oak, cedar, iris, sword ferns with their sea-horse heads, and an ambiguous homo-social group of men (and their two small dogs) with sage (Mark thought it was marijuana) at the peak (I am uncertain if they were having a ritual of some sort or if we came across the aftermath of a group hug).

My favorite place to stand on Spencer’s Butte is a triangular slab of concrete where an observation station used to be. Mark noticed there were a lot of peanut and pistachio hulls littered everywhere, so I made an informal, impromptu ritual of gathering up the hulls while humming “Bring from the center of the sun…” under my breath. I may or may not have taken off my shirt at Mark’s request.

Back at home, Mark had to work, so I left the house and visited friends at the Cascades Raptor Center. Nike the Gyrfalcon had her back to me, which showed off the circular geometry of her feather pattern and wing arcs, so I took some photos to use as a design study. An elementary school group was also visiting, and I found myself explaining that one of the turkey vultures’ names, Lethe, was the name of the underworld river of forgetfulness from ancient Greek myth. As one does. The symbolism of teaching children about mythic forgetfulness in a bird sanctuary is left as an exercise for the reader.

Afterward, I had an early lunch at The Community Cup. I pulled out my Book of Art and wrote down some highlights of the day, and also did a kind practice-pull-no-specific-question of Tarot cards. I’m thinking the cards didn’t want to practice, because all five cards were reversed: the Ten of Cups, The Knight of Cups, the Seven of Swords, Strength, the Three of Pentacles. I suppose one interpretation is “pretending not to ask a question may hedge you from answers you don’t like, but it’s a bad way to practice discernment and divination.” I guess next time I’ll just pull cards from the top and review meanings flash-card style.

I got back home just before solar noon. By this time the clouds had lifted and most of the haze had burnt off, and the sun cast shadows through the branches of our backyard cherry tree.

There are four metal shepherds’ crooks staked around the circle of paver stones in our backyard. One, with wind chimes, is for the Moon’s South Ascending Node; another, opposite the circle, with a bird suet cage, is for the North Descending Node; a third, holding a sun-dangler-and-wind-chime, I moved to the southwest portion of the circle; and the fourth, with its crescent moon decoration, I moved to the northeast position. I put the Labyrinth Stone onto the north paver stone. I went to the south paver stone in the circle, placed the cauldron and grapevine bundle there, and tried to light a fire with the large magnifying lens.

After lots of white smoke, charcoaled burn marks on the vines, and some dark spots in my vision, I concluded the grapevines were too green to catch. I swapped out the grapevine for a beeswax candle and after a few moments had Cross-quarter Day Fire dancing on the wick. I pulled out two new candles and lit these; for an Instagram Moment I had three flames burning against the greeny grass. Eventually, I moved the newer candles into a glass lantern, but I kept the old candle in the cauldron in the station of the south, burning, burning all through the afternoon and into the early hours of moonlight.

Seated on blankets and pillows in the center of the circle, I harped a while, running through the regular store of Child Ballads and Filk, cobbled together Monteverdi, a mishmash of contemporary and improvised tunes, and tried to catch the wind in the harp strings, which is very cool when I’m able to manage it. The chimes tinkled and the fountain’s water babbled over its basalt column. I may or may not have woken up the three arbor vitae trees east of the circle.

Clouds rolled in. Mark and I laid down on the deck’s couch and spent the evening looking for the moon to rise (I swear!). The candle in the south twinkled in the grass, and the candles in the lamp melted down. Sometimes I thought I saw Arcturus, other times, maybe Spica; but all times there were clouds and no time was the moon visible. We rested. The south candle went out. The lamp candles went out. By city light reflected from clouds’ undersides, I gathered up the cauldron and lamp and harp and pillows and blankets, and shrouded the deck furniture with its covers.