Tornado Dancer

Tornado Dancer (acrylic pain on a drum)

Years ago, in my early 20s, I was plagued by recurring nightmares about tornados bearing down on my family's house. I couldn't find them, couldn't call out to them to warn them or call them to safety. The sense of terror and frustration and helplessness really got to me ... Living in the midwest, Tonados in May and June are a fact of life. You just hope you don't run into one ...

Finally, I shared these dreams with one of my coop housemates, a wise woman named Sinden. She suggested that the Tornado was probably trying to tell me something. Since I kept running away from it and shutting it out, it kept pursuing me ...

So, one day, I planned a meditation where I would meet this Tornado and find out what it wanted to tell me. It came, laughed a bit and said, : "It's about time, kid." His name was Morrison, a small whirlwind--but effective. It took me up into it's whirl so I could see the view from the upper rim It was not spinning wildly up there--it was more like I was in the eye, so it was calm. After a while, the Tornado set me back down on the deck, under the birch trees. He "stepped" back and presented me with two gifts :

1) a four-pointed blue white star
2) a rose just beginning to bloom

I never had another tornado nightmare. I'm not sure I can say much about these two gifts in terms of the symbolism and what they mean to me ... They speak to a place where words don't go easily.

At about the same time, my friend Terra Gold (a budding Shamin) who lead drum circles made a drum. She put it in front of an open oven to dry, but the heat was too intense and it warped. She brought this sad bent drum to a drum circle and I fell in love with it. It sat perfectly on my knees. At some point, I decided to paint these images on the drum. Here it is ...

"Ochi Belli: : More on the Theme of "I See You"

"Ochi Belli" Beautiful Eyes by Frederico, Chicago Artist

On a recent trip to Chicago, I was walking down the Miracle Mile one May evening. An artist (picture Antonio Banderas with an easel) was set up outside Crate & Barrel. He had a few charcoal portraits on display : Bob Marley, Barbara Streisand--he was really good at eyes.

My friends and I had gone into Crate & Barrel until they closed that evening. When we came out, the artist was still there. He saw me noticing his work. I was about to compliment his work, when he said, "You! I want to do your portrait. You have beautiful eyes. I can tell you are very sweet, and a good person. Sit down here ..." He was a sweet talker, knew how to play the crowds on Michigan Ave. What woman does NOT like to be so admired and appreciated? I sat down and let him draw my portrait for the next 45 minutes.

It was an odd feeling to be so watched and studied so intently by a handsome stranger. It made me think more about seeing and perception ... What does an artist see? Could he see into my soul? Or was it just merely objective--the shell, but not the real me?--or just my "ochi belli" (beautiful eyes). I'm sure he was pleased someone had shown an interest in his work and talents--a glimmer, a spark of someone seeing and appreciating his work, himself, too.

I tried to make a little small talk--but he was working on the drawing, capturing my eyes. He was Italian and had been in Chicago for the last 5 years. He did murals and landscapes for a living, but the human form was the "first art."

People passing by watched him work, looked at me and smiled. He must have been pretty good! I couldn't see the work in progress. It started to sprinkle and rain a little and we moved into a doorway so he could finish the portrait. At some point I had mentioned my husband had family in France and we visited every other year, or so.

He made me feel like he might even keep the portrait for himself -- I had not come to Chicago to have my portrait done. In the end, he did give it to me. Then he wanted to take me out somewhere (I wonder how often he engages his subjects this way ...) . I said I had a hard time with cigarette smoke ... He said we could avoid smoky places. I said I needed to go back to the hotel with my colleagues. Still he was hopeful I would change my mind later, and gave me his cell phone number. I thanked him, shook his hand, and tried to let him down gently.

He seemed sweet, gentle, kind--yet with that definite Italian machismo. Maybe we could have had just a nice conversation over coffee. Maybe he really did want to get to know me--beyond my "ochi belli." Maybe he does this every night--then takes a beautiful woman on the town? Maybe he was lonely?

I'm just not someone who goes off with a stranger on Michigan Ave. You hear about women drugged, raped, robbed, and sold into slavery ... I know enough not to get myself into such at-risk situations. I also know I have a good thing with my husband, and I would not want to jeopardize that with a one-night stand. In fact, when I got back, I told him all about my little adventure, and how nice it was to be "hit on" when I was starting to feel middle-aged. Fortunately, CL is secure enough not to feel threatened by something like this. He also knows I have a hard time keeping a secret, so he knows he'd know about everything as soon as it happened. He also trusts me to do the right thing.

This was a really nice memory of this trip to Chicago. ;-)

Mother's Day 2008

Oliver is 7 now. This is the first year he's really made a big deal out of Mother's Day. It's kind of nice. He made me this coupon book (That's me in my pink robe with my green eyes--couldn't be anyone else's mom!) redeemable for hugs and breakfast in bed.

He also made me the clay pottery bird (complete with feathers) and a bracelet (below).

At the Fellowship last week, Dottie's sermon was "We All Need Mothering." One of her points was that we all need someone to see us for who we really are ...

This made me think of the Zulu greeting, "Sakubona" (sounds Italian with the long "o"). Literally translated, it means, "I see you" -- which takes on even greater meaning when you think of South Africa living through the Apartheid years when so many people were NOT seen for who they really were.

It also made me think of Oliver and his insistence on prominent chewy cowlicks in his hair. He's been trying to get his hair chunky--so it looks like the Japanese Anime cartoon characters he loves. It's fine with me--so I try to compliment him when he wakes up with particularly chewy hair. In France last year, his Meme (Gramma) took every effort to wet down and comb flat those spiky cowlicks--into a kid I didn't recognize. He was visibly upset about that ans I had to come to his defense. (He loves his Meme and this was clearly just a generational difference ...)


A particularly "chewy" day.

Butter and Wash Tubs

My Dad was reminiscing about the old days when he helped his mom do laundry with an old wringer washing machine and those big galvanized wash tubs. I remember that wringer washer--Gramma was still using it in the 1970s when I was a kid, though by then, she had an electric dryer upstairs.

They lived on a dairy farm in rural northern Wisconsin. At one point, the farmers were on strike. Since they lived on a dairy farm, they had an over-abundance of milk. They skimmed off the cream and put it into the agitator side of the wringer-washer and made their own butter.

Dad said, at one point there was more than 100 pounds of butter in the freezer. That's a lot of butter!