notes from

2011-04-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

I've been at this a long time. Not only do I know where all the bodies are buried I usually have a pretty good idea who dug the holes. Today I took a time out and stayed home and wandered. There's a restlessness in me at the moment that has less to do with lack of anticipation and more to do with the swirls of change that perfume the spring air.

Across the streets, moms and dads pick up little boys who have been at practice. Lacrosse. Lacrosse! Had a snow storm here on April 15th. Watched the snow blow, whirl and dance around the rooftops and skyscrape of the downtown in The 'Kan EWA . Less than a week before Easter. It's spring but people in the neighborhood still walk in parkas and wool mittens and fleece hats. I just waved to a guy down on the sidewalk and he waved back and bellowed BRING ON SUMMER. Huge devilish grin...

I tell the story, lots, about the milkman who got up at 3 am for 37 years, delivered milk and was home by 11. Then taught himself, over a 37 year period, how to paint and now produces the most utterly stunning canvases of ghostly spectacles, people and chickens. He's the rave of the art world here and a luminary in my life. I have two of his pieces and I think about him everyday. I have never met him. I don't believe I need to.

I still have to explain to people about my thoughts on productivity, work product and inspiration. I still work and collaborate with some of this world's smartest people. Their ideas and the work we do together still race like colorful neon tubing though my thoughts and prayers and end up in my heart and my gut where I keep them so I can get to them when I need to. I search the faces at charitable benefits now for unlined, ungray smiles for the newspaper. It is a surprise to see the color of spring become a neutral palette this year and see these newly neutral hues populate my life.

Sunny comes by and with no hesitation, crawls up into my lap. Such honey. Such sublimity. Such dazzling, unneutral light. I let her play in the fire and we chat about what makes a good Easter gift. She's full of great ideas and insight. It's very cold but she's calm and easy in a t shirt and jeans. Bobby comes by on his way to the hockey game and is scared because Sunny waves a stick in the air that has a smoking, glowing end. The fire roars orange and gold now.

It becomes unnaturally quiet as the last kid is picked up and the people and families of my neighborhood go into their houses to eat dinner together. It's like the entire world here has paused and crystallized and is holding the pose for me to capture, record and keep for always with the weak, thin light of spring standing by as I shiver in the cold evening air.

Change is warming up in the bullpen. No doubt about it.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-12-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

All right, all right, all right. They brought me up short. But if we'd been thinking about it, we'd have all seen that coming. After a long, delicious nap, I zipped up my down vest, jammed my fur hat back onto my head and headed out into the Berlin evening, the night air snapping and cold around me, the sky dull with the snow that's coming tomorrow. I walked down the Friedrichstrasse and ended up at Checkpoint Charlie, or rather, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This was the border crossing, the legal one, between the east and the west. The actual guard shack stands in the street still, but is now flanked by the ubiquitous McDonald's. Ah, the burdens of freedom. It is a magnificent museum, if it smells of something unidentifiable but undeniably rank. But maybe that's all part of it, helping to make this museum so real, so visceral, so authentic. They have the stories and exhibits of of the cars, suitcases, and surfboards (!) that people used to smuggle themselves to freedom. They have one huge room dedicated to the memory and honor of Ronald Reagan, who they give huge credit and have gained huge inspiration from. They have the stories of the people who died trying to cross and the testament of the outrage and frustration of the people on both sides of the wall; it is well done, under funded, and a statement that cannot be answered with anything but a prayer. And they have art.

First, as you climbed the stairway to the second level, they have an entire gallery of children's' art, commenting on barbed wire. There's kids playing in barbed wire; playing soccer in barbed wire; chickens and barbed wire; flowers, barbed wire; symbolistic renditions of a Germany tied up with barbed wire. All out of the mouths of babes…

Then, those rascals, the Germans have an entire floor dedicated to Picasso's mega, uber statement about war and fascism, Guernica. I remember vividly the first time I saw the real one, the huge mural named for Picasso's hometown in Spain, and ached and ached for Coeur d'Alene, my own sacred Guernica, my hometown. And the Germans chose to discuss it here, as their feelings about the war and the wall, tumbled out of them and, judging from my walk earlier today, continue to dribble out of them now. How do you get over this in one generation? How do you get over a war in one generation? When I was growing up the 1960s, my father talked vividly about the Fire of 1910 that ravaged North Idaho and he wasn't even alive at that time. But he grew up hearing about it and the legend entered his heart. And so it is with these people, my Germans, the terror and heartbreak of the Wall and the war live in them still and even though they have and have always had Siemens, Schering, Agfa and AEG, and now have BMW, Daimler and the Vatican, they have to figure out life without the wall and who and what they are as a country and it simply is not that easy. The terror and pain were acute and in my opinion, still exist quietly in plenty of neighborhoods here today. My heart is with them. Germany and the Germans went through so much in the twentieth century.

And they make me laugh. I have laughed long and hard today. They have the funniest, most cunning, most clever souvenirs of any country I have ever been in. And they make me concerned: out of 10 people smoking here, 9.3 of them are women. You'll see a mother and daughter smoking, while dad stands by with his hands in his pockets. Good luck on those ovaries, girls. For a country that practically had the World Cup sewed up, there is a remarkable lack of futbol frenzy; they can't even tell me the name of that Turkish kid, 19 years old he is, that scored the most goals in the Cup this year that plays for the German National Team. We got a lotta Turks here, they say, with a polite smile. And everything you hear about the hot wine? completely true. It is phenomenal. As is the sauerkraut, which is creamy, and the roasted nuts. Tomorrow I'm going in for chocolate.

So my discovery continues; I am proud to be an American but I'm proud too, that before we were American, we were German. We know how to work hard, how to stay faithful and wait for things to change and how to laugh. I don't know if I was filling my own order personally if I could ask for a better combination.

JBelle
On Location
Berlin, Germany

2010-12-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

So I'm in the Motherland. My great great grandmother lived here and had 5 boys; didn't want them going off to fight the Czar so she made her husband emigrate to America. Nebraska. Kept all five of her boys alive to live long and happy lives. She was one tough looking girl, too. Like most of the German women I've seen this weekend. And the men! DO NOT presume that ladies would exit an elevator first; even if they were standing by the door. If you're a lady on an elevator, you stand back and let the men in the back come forward and exit proudly. There exists, still today, a strong and valued reason why my great great grandmother knew exactly what she was talking about.

I'm staying in Mitte, in Berlin, which in the 1970s the world knew as East Berlin. Now it's this poshy neighborhood, confirming the worst fears of someone I knew once, who said that Berlin is becoming gentrified beyond a feeble recognition of itself, just like Soho in New York did. I am so glad I came. There exists, in every neighborhood in this town, a statement as to the new, old Berlin. Reunification, that is. But somehow, each arch, building, monument, sculpture and signatory construction falls short of making the definitive comment on what it was like to have the east part of town suddenly taken from the community and, in a stunning reversal, not only taken but used as a prisoner of war in an ongoing battle that may have only been settled in the late 1980s. I cannot think of any American town that would cope well with that.

Part of the way Berlin haunts you is the there is not much left of its palpable history. Oh sure, there's the bridal path from the winter palace to the summer palace, over there in Charlottenburg. Heck, there's even the Charlottenburg Castle. But in the place of the glorious, phenomenal, centuries -old- buildings and neighborhoods in London, Milan, Paris and Istanbul, stand post war modern stark installations where people work, play, eat, and buy what they want and need in this life. Everything here was bombed; everything was destroyed. So the Germans rebuilt, re-imagined, entire neighborhoods and sections of this town. Fold in the new reincarnation of the old Berlin and you have, solidly, a work in progress whose master plan still resides in the heads and hearts the electorate. In other words, nobody really knows for sure. They're still thinking it through. There is no flow and glide to this city; even the demarcation, the wall put up by the Russians, follows incredibly irregular lines and grids through neighborhoods, rivers, woods, parks, industrial areas, retail and service neighborhoods. You just don't know. You just can't get a feel.

Another thing that's sad and haunting for me is the art. There is very little classical art and architecture in the public domain left here in Berlin; and the art that does remain is stodgy; solidly unimaginative and stubbornly unyielding. The best art here is the graffiti, except for the art that the artists of the world came and made on the remaining section of the Wall; it's section by section; spectacular; exciting; none of it German. How do you have a town without its own art, now and then?

But Berlin remains. Stubborn, solid, stodgy. Angela Merkel and the foreign minister came out hard yesterday in defense of the euro. Told the EU that they have to man up and protect the currency; the idea of EU bonds will only prolong the drama. The contemporary Germans are people who have lived through sacrifice and heartbreak;and they know how they got there. They do not intend to go there again. I'm reminded of what Henry VIII did to his people; taxed them to death to pay for any one of a number of pissing matches with his countrymen, his allies and his enemies. I'm no Doris Kearns Goodwin but it seems to me that Germany has had it with being right, and righteous, too. Elizabeth the I, Henry's daughter, reigned over one of the most prosperous eras in the entire history of England and surely, post-war Germany mirrors that success and prosperity these days. The trains stations are marvels; the airports, while quite institutional, are models of efficiency. Somebody, somehow, had to pay for all these new buildings, even if they are nothing special but instead, seriously functional. All of the menial jobs are held by immigrants--people with brown skins and dark eyes. That tells me there's enough going on here for people to leave their homes and families because it's a better life here.

So from this seat in the stadium, it looks like Germany has regained everything it lost in a century of wars and political miscalculations. But I'd love to see their national consciousness sprout around their capital city; I'd love to see their hope, not just their resolution, and I'd love to see their heart, not just their ambition. More than a beer glass; more than exceptional engineering, Germany's got to be something more, something else. I can't wait to find it.

JBelle
On Assignment
East Berlin, Germany

2010-12-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

So it's Advent again. The feast day of St. Nicholas is tomorrow, that originator of the secret gift. That rascal. One thing that came up in our family during the latest recession is another discussion of meaningful gifts; last year we decided to make playlists of our favorite music for each other; we burned them and then wrapped them up for each other. We spent all of Christmas Day listening to each other's music and laughing at the similarities and the contrasts. It was just lovely.

And so playlists became a new tradition with a family that loves and craves its traditions. God help me if I change the menu on the eves and the days of our celebration to a substantial deviation or if I forget to lay ribbon-wrapped tissue paper packages of pajamas and books for these adult children that now have to make the journey of the Magi to be at home for Christmas under the Christmas tree; a tradition that so far, they trust to my judgment. And I do like to change the Christmas tree up and have it be what I'm thinking and feeling about that year. Does anything ever stay the same?

So our playlist production is in high swing; it's super secret. I think you can get a clearer insight into how Google plans to smoke Microsoft next than to sneak a peek at the playlists being written. I'm feeling a certain humiliation and sheepishness because my playlist is a phat and bulky 24-songs long. I just can't choose any closer! They are so gonna dine out on me...

I had a bit of an epiphany this week when I checked back into last year's playlists and found that some of my selections this year were actually on my children's playlists last year. Clearly, they are informing my choices. And so the role reversal that we seem to be so deeply entrenched in these days continues. It's a wonderful time of year and a wonderful time of life. If you let it be...

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2010-11-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

11.02.2010

I'm waiting for the car to pick me up to go to Mexico City and it all comes back to me in brief glimpses and flashes. What I remember most is the kindness and generosity of the people and the smile in their eyes. The people here embrace any who come in celebration and respect for the dead and will feed you, kiss you and fill you with their faith and love. Quite a testimony to an enlightened and value-driven society.

Our guide Pablo tells me that he expects certainly that in fifty years the celebrations will still be alive; the children trailed their grandmothers in and out of the graveyards and reverently and obediently fulfilled their parts in the family and community liturgies in play, hauling marigolds and candles and fruit and festooning the graves with loving care. And then fiestaed and celebrated with each other with delight and to the delight of all bystanders. Pablo remarked that the thing that will certainly be differentgoing forward is how the people celebrating the La Dias de los Muertos will look. The long braids streaked in silver and gray and wrapped and woven in brightly colored ribbons will vanish, along with the nubby long lengths of fabric that sheath both the men and the women from the cold. Replaced by manufactured shirts and blouses with buttonholes and collars and LA Rams windbreakers with pockets holding cellphones, the faithful will remain and replenish but will forever look different. I feel so humbled to have been able to see this on this year and I will remember it always. Pablo also told me the graveyard celebrations observed deep in the hills outside Oaxaca that we witnessed are not done in Oaxaca because Oaxaca was Spanish-occupied. The first thing the Spanish did was abolish native celebrations such as Las Dias de Los Muertos as they were inconsistent with the catechism of the Catholic Church. These indigenous celebrations exist in communities today because the Spanish never made it up to the hill country to occupy the villages; because as they say, there was no (gold) up those tunnels. Such serendipity…

Yesterday we went to the livestock market outside of town. Drove up to hundreds of sheep, goats, pigs,mules, donkeys, horses, steers and bulls being led to market. We milled about with everyone buying and selling and the aroma of manure, mud and lunch bubbling away in the huge pots being tended by the women with the long braids filled the air. Unmistakably extraordinary and unmistakably divina. Walked up and down streets of art galleries last evening and mingled in the incredibly rich, incredibly dynamic local arts community and saw everything that we've been seeing all week reproduced in hip and cutting edge mediums. The art here is magnificent. Again: extraordinary. divina. And it's ALL art.

And so I pack it up to take with me as I head home. I have many commitments and responsibilities waiting for me and I'll get right back to work immediately; but I want so badly to keep this past week for always. Santo Domingo. Monte Alban. Mitla. St. Augustin. The marigolds, mescal. The chocolate! The candle-light, the prayers, the eyes that follow you as you walk. I simply don't know if my heart is big enough to hold the exquisite texture and quality of it all. Because now I have gone among las gallendas di corazon and I am small; I am so very small…

JBelle
On Assignment
Oaxaca City, Oaxaca MEXICO

2010-11-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

November 1, 2010
Day of The Dead
This morning I got up at 3 am to ride into the hills outside Oaxaca to witness the celebration that is the Day of theDead. You can't really describe this phenomenon--you can only accurately call it a phenomenon--because it is so pure, so intimate, so deeply spiritual it is without bounds and simply not capable of being quantified nor qualified.

We bounced around and over very bumpy,muddy, rutted roads, crossed a bridge and kept going. We bounced and jostled around some more in the sharp black air and some more then, and suddenly, came to a stop. Although we had mounted a fairly arduous journey with strategic preparation to be at the graveyard of this Zapotecan community for sunrise, we arrived at our destination with practically no preamble or introduction. Certainly no ramp up as we stepped in the black air and beheld a sea, a literal sea, of shining,laughing faces lit by a million candles and cuddled by clouds upon clouds upon clouds of orange marigolds and pink cocks comb. It was purely subjective as to whether we still were in this world or the next.
The band played joyous, rollicking music and people tended their dearly departed spirits with pure adoration and utter conviction in the pitch black of night . They sat and visited with each other; prayed; sang; danced; drank the mescal; laughed and waved at the white-skinned light-eyed visitors with expensive cameras sporting wide, fat lenses. Little children ran, played, chased and shouted to each other amid and amongthe dead of the night just before the sun came back; teenagers flirted slyly with each other under the watchful eyes of their grandmothers and their fathers and mothers chatted and laughed with passersby and visitors. It occurred to me again and again that the American Christian community that bemoans, grieves and wails death is quite possibly among the most uncivilized and primitive societies of all time.

Last evening we went over to Xoxocatlan to be with that community as they hauled in wheelbarrows full of supplies and lovingly tended the graves,

lighting candles, arranging flowers and making full preparations to venerate, celebrate and visit with their deceased. It was magic, but only the magic that comes with pure liturgy, pure devotion and bedrock faith. As the sun went down and the candles came up, I experienced an illumination that I doubt I'll

experience again. And then, this morning, again with practically no warning, the sun came up over the graveyard at Atzompa and suddenly it was all over. Band stopped playing and packed their equipment in vans, grandmothers trailing grandsons bearing chairs trudged out the gates for home and the marigolds were deadheaded and shredded on the graves.

The Night Magic is gone and the sun beats down in the courtyard now, flooding it with brilliant white light. But I have the memory of these people and their hearts locked securely

away in my own heart, for those dark days and dark nights when my own dearly beloved are so, so, so very far away…

JBelle
On Assignment
Oaxaca City, Oaxaca MEXICO

2010-11-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

October 31, 2010 Dias de los Muertos

The people gather for a 5 day weekend in celebration of their family and friends that have gone to the next world. They serve you a steaming hot bowl of thick, foamy chocolate that is by far, the best chocolate I have ever tasted. They bake faces of women into the loaves of bread. They each will probably have a shrine at home that will include marigolds, cocks comb, loquats, bananas, papaya, peanuts, oranges and limes; mescal; coca cola; candles and the little smiling skeletons, katrinas, dolls dressed up to resemble the deceased's life on this earth. Everyone smiles and is joyful; it is a time of great festival in honor of this life and the next and of being together.

Yesterday in Santo Domingo, homebase for chastity, poverty and obedience, I saw a man stop and fold his hands in prayer at the gigantic altar of Guadalupe. Then he did the most extraordinary thing: he produced a vivid pink rose, unique among the dozens of red roses that abound here in Oaxaca, and proceeded to bath his face and neck with this pink rose. Then he held the rose over the altar and crushed the rose with one hand, separating the petals from their stem, letting the fragrant pink tears fall in offering to our Lady at her shrine in the most beautiful baroque church in all of Mexico. Pure unapologetic adoration.

Knelt in the very front row of Santo Domingo last evening about 5, when all of a sudden the lights came on, men in silk suits came down the aisle, followed very shortly by bridesmaids. I waited for someone to ask me to leave or sit in the back o f the church, but no one did. So I had front row seats at dusk for the wedding of a petite, beautiful Zapotec princess and her spectacularly handsome new husband. Apparently, it didn't seem inappropriate to anyone but me that I became gathered up with these people on this very special day in their lives and I was practically overcome with honor, delight and fascination. I was more than a bit troubled by the music that played as she walked to the altar to stand with her parents and her best girlfriends and sisters before the priest to give her wedding vows: Lohengrin! Here Comes The Bride! Her dress and those of the wedding party could have been worn by any bride in any Catholic church in the US: her colors were shades of magenta, violet pink and rose and her mother wore rust-colored garnet. With their burnished brown faces and black eyes and hair, you can imagine what a sight they were with the extraordinary main alter of Santo Domingo as background.

Later, I waited in the square outside the church for their triumphant recessional to their new life as man and wife; a dozen and a half dancers of the Oaxaca folkloric troop waited with me, brilliant in their lime, orange, purple, red, blue, pink, and yellow skirts. Their hair was pulled back and long black yarn braids, woven with brightly-hued ribbons hung down their back. They had big baskets of flowers that they, omigod, hoisted onto their heads and then, began to twirl and dance in a mad tornado, their nimble feet nipping in and out and back again into the lace hems of their petticoats. The bride and groom stood in the gigantic doorway of the church, delightfully reviewing this spectacle in pure rapture. And when it could not be any more graphic, any more sensual, any more surreal, any more unbelievable, everything changed. In a big way. From out of nowhere appeared gigantic, enormous bride and groom caricatures who began to dance and veer awkwardly among the dancers. The crowd roared their approval and delight and at the end of another frenetic whirlwind of smiles, braids, skirts, flowers and color, color, color, called raucously for besos! besos! besos! The two nuptial giants obliged and clumsily tilted toward each in devilish pecks. It was sheer magic.

The crowed dispersed then and walked among the beautifully adorned skulls on display, much like the people do for the floats of the Rose Parade in Pasadena. They'll be a parade tonight, with these gorgeous skulls being danced up and down the streets of Oaxaca on the shoulders of the jubilant Mexicans, who do not fear death and are not afraid of the dead, or even of the living. Not even the white-skinned living!

I realize only this morning that it's is quite possible that it is I who has gone to the next world…

JBelle
On Assignment
Oaxaca City, Oaxaca MEXICO

2010-11-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

October 30, 2010
The marigolds came out today. They are holy flowers here in Mexico and the doorways, shrines, altars and all things celebration sprouted marigolds today in heaps and armfuls as the world's foremost Dias de los Muertos observance kicked off. It is such a time of joy and celebration for the people here in Oaxaca and my personal joy and sense of celebration has been rekindled just being among them. Tonight after dark I walked the streets as a bride risen from the grave, a katrina. The Mexicans loved it, blowing besos and bringing their children around. The men laughed and laughed and laughed; the women stopped to talk, telling me my mask, applied by me with MAC eyeshadow by the light of a hotel room bathroom, was well done. It was a bit awkward for us all when it came out I was American. No one knew! I waved good night saying Este noche es Mexicano….

Tomorrow night we go to the graveyard to be with the families as the children come back to visit. They come first you know, because they are little and nimble and can run fast to escape the confines of the next world much better than the adults, who will come on Monday night.

Everyone is so excited to see each other again…

JBelle
On Assignment
Oaxaca City, Oaxaca MEXICO

2010-11-11T19:09:00.000-08:00

10.28.2010

I left in the dark, scurrying down the streets of Oaxaca with the other faithful in search of peace and contemplation at sunrise. I passed the doorways of the banks with la revolucion graffiti tagging their broad lintels; young adults gathered in the middle of the streets around scaffolding and tables stacked up for some purpose related to the upcoming Holy Days I suppose; I wondered, as usual, as they eyed me warily, about the wisdom of setting out for a destination whose location nor path was certain. Many times I have chided myself in the darkness of mornings just like this one; but the soft, gauzy air of early morning seduces me and whispers in my ear, so sweetly, what's the worsssst that can happen? So I push on. But then, right at the very end of block 5, it all unfolds and snaps open right at my toes, exploding without warning nor omen, and opens up as high as my neck can stretch with such a jerk, that I involuntarily gasp. Santo Domingo. Just like the desk clerk said. I can hear the priest intoning the

opening prayers and I shake my head as I run up the steps: once again, about as far away from home

as you can get, I am saved by the loving arms of the Holy Roman Church. I pick up my pace and enter, bowing my head and folding my hands, so everyone will know this

white-skinned green-eyed gringo

comes in peace. Actually looking for redemption. I march

right down front, because I can, and slip into an open spot, sinking to my knees and beginning, Hail Mary, my Dear Friend, I'm here again.SaveMe.

Help Me. She comes to me then,

with rest and understanding and

the readings begin. Then, the

priest, white and Irish, speaks the words of the New Testament.

I had no idea the Irish could speak spot-on Spanish. I listen to it all, the cadence cueing me when my vocabulary fails and soon the kiss of peace fills the

air. The people around me are not afraid of me nor resentful

that I share their special moment in the day. The deacon offers me the Body of Christ, as it's done all over the world, and once again, I am calmed and humbled to know that I am loved

and that I belong. I am grateful. But sad and puzzled at the gorgeous art of

magnificent church: all white fathers. Only one native-skinned saint among the bunch, off in a corner. If Rome expected me to raise my black-eyed children in a house where we looked to the Great White Fathers for all things, I'm afraid there'd be more than just a pequeno la revolucion in my soul.

Like the Italians know everything.

JBelle

On Assignment

Oaxaca City, Oaxaca MEXICO

2010-10-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Indian Parrot

There was a merchant setting out for India.

He asked each male and female servant

what they wanted to be brought as a gift.

Each told him a different exotic object:

A piece of silk, a brass figurine,

a pearl necklace.

Then he asked his beautiful caged parrot,

the one with such a lovely voice,

and she said,

"When you see the Indian parrots,

describe my cage. Say that I need guidance

here in my separation from them. Ask how

our friendship can continue with me so confined

and them flying about freely in the meadow mist.

Tell them that I remember well our mornings

moving together from tree to tree.

They them to drink one cup of ecstatic wine

in honor of me here in the dregs of my life.

Tell them that the sound of their quarreling

high in the trees would be sweeter

to hear than any music. "

This parrot is in the spirit-bird of all of us,

that part that wants to return to freedom,

and is the freedom. What she wants

from India is herself!

So this parrot gave her message to the merchant,

and when he reached India, he saw a field

full of parrots. He stopped

and called out what she had told him.

One of the nearest parrots shivered

and stiffened and fell down dead.

The merchant said, "This one is surely kin

to my parrot. I shouldn't have spoken."

He finished his trading and returned home

with the presents for his workers.

When he got to the parrot, she demanded her gift.

"What happened when you told my story

to the Indian parrots?"

"I'm afraid to say."

"Master, you must!"

"When I spoke your complaint to the field

of chattering parrots, it broke

one of their hearts.

She must have been a close companion,

or a relative, for when she heard about you

she grew quiet and trembled, and died."

As the caged parrot heard this, she herself

quivered and sank to the cage floor.

This merchant was a good man.

He grieved deeply for his parrot, murmuring

distracted phrases, self-contradictory--

cold, then loving--clear, then

murky with symbolism.

A drowning man reaches for anything!

The Friend loves this flailing about

better than any lying still.

The One who lives inside existence

stays constantly in motion,

and whatever you do, that king

watches through the window.

When the merchant threw the "dead" parrot

out of the cage, it spread its wings

and glided to a nearby tree!

The merchant suddenly understood the mystery.

"Sweet singer, what was in the message

that taught you this trick?"

"She told me that is was the charm

of my voice that kept me caged.

Give it up, and be released!"

The parrot told the merchant one or two more

spiritual truths. Then a tender goodbye.

"God protect you," said the merchant

"as you go on your new way.

I hope to follow you!"

~ Rumi I 1814-1833, 1845-1848

Give up your charm to keep yourself in motion and your spirit-bird winging its way to freedom. Drink the ecstatic wine. Don't be self-contradictory. I love you tonight and always.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2010-10-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

We're well into the season here at Bellemaison and all kinds of change fill the air. I'm hopeful, have to be, yet I've come through enough of these toss arounds to know that things are never, ever the same even after you land upright and can walk away. Guess that's the point, right?

I continue to be grateful, humble with gratefulness, and will tell you one more time that there is no one who is luckier than me. There are things that elude me, that I do not have and now it's obvious, never will have. But there are some things I do have things I will never be without, and in that, I am rich, rich, rich.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2010-10-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

One-Handed Basket Weaving

There was a dervish who lived alone in the mountains,

who made a vow never to pick fruit from the trees,

or to shake them down,

or to ask anyone to pick fruit for him.

"Only what the wind makes fall."

This was his way

of giving in to God's will.

There is a traditional saying from the Prophet

that a human being is like a feather in the desert

being blown about wherever the wind takes it.

So for a while in the joy of this surrender

he woke each dawn with a new direction to follow.

But then came five days with no wind,

and no pears fell.

He patiently restrained himself,

until a breeze blew just strong enough

to lower a bough full of ripe pears

close to his hand, but not strong enough

to detach the pears.

He reached out and picked one.

Nearby, a band of thieves were dividing

what they had stolen.

The authorities surprised them and immediately

began the punishments: the severing

of right hands and left feet.

The hermit was seized by mistake

and his hand cut off.

but before his foot could be severed also,

he was recognized.

The prefect came. "Forgive these men.

They did not know. Forgive us all!"

The sheikh said, "This is not your fault.

I broke my vow, and the Beloved

has punished me."

He became known as Sheikh Aqta,

which means, "The teacher

whose hand has been cut off."

One day a visitor entered his hut without knocking

and saw him weaving palm leaf baskets.

It takes two hands to weave!

"Why have you entered without warning!"

"Out of love for you"

"Then keep this secret which you see

has been given to me."

But others began to know about this,

and many came to the hut to watch.

The hand that helped

when he was weaving palm leaves

came because he no longer had any fear

of dismemberment or death.

When those anxious, self-protecting

imaginations leave, the real,

cooperative work begins.

(Mathmawi III, 1634-1642, 1672-1690, 1704-1720)

I write to you with happiness and anticipation today; that your counterproductive imaginations begin a hiatus that simultaneously launches the most productive period of this part of your life. Be well. I love you.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2010-09-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

My Own Private August 2010
I Believe

So August came and went and I didn't take the time to think about and articulate what is making My Own Private August these days. And it was a good thing because when the pain completely wraps its dark, bony arms around and about you, talking about it can sometimes seal your futility. As least that's how it feels in here.

A friend I once had, who I miss, told me early on that sometimes all you can do is work hard, keep your mouth shut and do your job. And I have had much worse advice many times. So although the tunnel is still cold and clammy, and I have no bearing, no balance, and I can't see four feet in front of me, off up by my eyebrow is a pin prick of light. I bet, I'm going to say yes, that's the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. For now, though, I can't focus on the light at the end of the tunnel; I have to keep my head down and focus on my feet and my arms, steering myself slowly ahead through the murk, so as not to crash and burn. Again. I hate the taste of mud and blood in my mouth.

This August, it's helped me to remember who I am and who I want to be. My Credo. Because I have absolutely no idea who I am these days. I get flashes of that Other Person, smiling and laughing, always on her way to execute some chore or commitment, and I think, hmmm! She sure had a big smile. I don't think about that smile too hard because the tears start again, and damn them, they disable me every time. Short circuit and shut down the system. Rebooting is such a bitch. Blood and mud in the mouth...

So the first thing that I want to be, that I Believe, is this: I want to be Generous in all things. I have felt blessed and cursed with the generosity factor because people really do take generosity as a weakness. I have sat across the conference table from people, many, many times, who mistook my generosity for foolishness. But then they had to live with that. But that wasn't and isn't my problem. People who exploit me for my generosity do not operate in the dark. I see them. And what pops out in 3-D is not their greediness, but their struggle. And I regret that, but it's not my problem. The struggle and plight of mankind does not fall within the bounds of my personal credo. Those are problems that people with a much higher pay grade, perhaps, only certified professionals and/or people with top level security clearances, can tackle; I can tackle me and living up to what I believe is important; and that's unconditional generosity. And by the way, there's a second part of generosity; in its highest form, generosity is ladled out in helpings that are never measured. Ignatius: Teach Us to Give And Not Count the Cost. And as irony would have it, irony always does, I'm a person who can count in at least 20 different languages. So it is my challenge, my imperative and my mandate in life, to turn off the counter. Because I want to be generous. And Ignatius says you don't get to have it both ways. It only comes with one option. So I want to be generous. And supportive, encouraging and finally, Loyal. Loyalty excludes treachery; betrayal; separation. And I never want to be apart from that and those whom I love because I took the path of least resistance. I want to be generous, supportive, encouraging and loyal. No matter what. That's who I want to be and that's what I will be; not regretting the past, always remembering the present and walking where my aims point.

I believe that everyday, every single day, holds an opportunity to get better. John Stockton said,
"If you aren't practicing, someone else is." And while that certainly points to John's competitive spirit, among the best in sport ever, and to his work ethic, to me it points east to the sunrise of each day. Everyday, I want to learn something new. Everyday, I want to find out something additional. Everyday, I want to get better. Everyday. I don't want a day to go by that I didn't fit another piece into the puzzle of my life. So no matter what's going on, everyday holds an opportunity for me to get better, to kick up my game and face the east with a hope and say, What's up? Unafraid, I want to be that person who steps up to find out something new; even if I stumble and crawl through rubble and chaos, which, honestly, was the August of 2010. No matter what, no matter who, no matter when, if you aren't practicing, someone else is. Know that. Go east.

Finally, I believe, as Ignatius contended, that we are men and women for others. That means different things in different times in life. The conundrum inherent in Love All Serve All doesn't come in the part that involves you: loving and serving. That's pretty straight forward and unequivocal. Love. Serve. Do it. Just get it done. It's the 'all' part that's humbling and confounding. Because it involves other people; people who might not deserve a damn thing in life, let alone good service and love, let alone continued good service and love from you. And that's why Ignatius cautions me with a long look and a firm voice, "Men and Women for others." Love and Serve all. ALL. Yes, them too. Get going.

Soooo I remember now who I am. What I want to be. And amid and among the pain, I will be my best self. Got to. How could I not?

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-08-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Menu

Bellemaison

Saturday Evening August 7, 2010

Amalfis

Lambic Framboise

Kabak Mucveri with Sarmisakli Yogurt Sos

Grilled Feta Cheese with Carrot Chutney

Roasted Beets and Yukon Golds

Grilled Walla Walla Onions and JoJo's Sweet Red Peppers

Beet Greens with Kansas City Bacon

Beefsteak Tomatoes with Black Basil, Oil and Red Wine Vinegar

Grilled Sirloin Steak
Parmeson Crust Bread

Frozen Greek Yogurt with Greenbluff Wild Clover Honey and Walnuts

Frozen Chocolate Chilis from

Frozen Cream of Banana from

French Press Coffee

Turkish Mint Tea

featuring

picked this morning produce from Mostly Sunny Dalton Gardens Idaho

baked this morning bread from Hayden Artisan Breads

Egger's Kansas City Bacon

liquors of Amalfi, Italy

2010-07-03T09:04:00.001-07:00

The phone calls and texts have started. People are incredulous and exasperated over this whole German triumph in the World Cup. "JBelle!" they say. "Good Lord! woman!" "How can you throw Argentina over for Germany?" "Argentina! Whom you swore would win and with whom you have matched samba move for samba move all through their undefeated swing through the brackets to the very moment they met Germany?"

Well, here's the deal: not even the USA let England score at 2:39. If you're going to play candy ass, Sky Hawk football, even for a moment, let alone in the quarter finals of the World Cup, you'll see JBelle exiting the stadium, leaving her jersey stuffed in the folded up seat. JBelle just doesn't root for losers.

"Lord, Girl, that's cold," you say. "Cold! Where's your loyalty? You call it, get a team, are, as they say, caliente in the fervor of your team's advancement and then dump them in a stunning reversal of loyalty over a few silly missed balls, bungled plays? "

(Chuckling) You don't know anyone more loyal that JBelle. You never will know anyone more loyal than JBelle. You just won't. But you, probably like many, misunderstand. And as a episodic fan, I completely forgive you and indemnify you from your error. I know you'd like to get it.

My loyalty is to the football. Lionel Messi is only interesting to me to the extent that he executes cunningly and flawlessly. I don't frigging care what he did in last week's match. Just don't care! I care about what he could do and might do in next week's match. My loyalty is to the game.

So I'm late to the party but I've jumped in the back of the German pick up bumping down the road to the final. My cousin's here, he scored the goal at 2:39, making the point that it's never too early or too late to score; the goalkeeper looks a lot like Son the Younger, especially when he's making a goal kick; turns out there's a Turkish kid playing that has a rocket for a foot; and most of these guys are like me: pretty inexperienced, quite idealistic, but with a work ethic second to none. So I'm in. Turns out my people are my people.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-05-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

So I find myself in Zimbabwe, far far away from the blooming rhododendrons and the sweet spring nights of home. It’s fall here and the trees turn gold and they tell me that the nights are cold. Gets down to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit after the sun goes down.

Africa is a portrait of absolutes. It’s an either/or reality here, an exercise in polarity really, where the people do not smile but the birds sing. It really is haunting beautiful but you are quite aware of the ugliness of 90% unemployment that lays in wait and you wonder constantly if it is you that the ugliness will strike in the next moment.

The elephants lumber in and out of the watering hole and the monkeys sit on the fence post and groom their young. The hippos soak in the river at sunset and I envy them their sublime sanctuary; it comes to me that rivers are another one of the constants in my life. I love the river. I am going to find every great one in the world and float it like I did last night; nodding my head at the sames, shaking my head at the differences. The great Zambezi River and the great St. Joe are brothers, too, apparently.

It’s perplexing to be in the cradle of civilization—the very first man walked right here two million years ago—and not know exactly what I think. It seems like I should be thinking and feeling something profound. The sky is big, ten thousand times bigger than the Big Sky yet you can clearly see to the end of it; the people have great sorrow in their eyes alongside a genuine delight in their laugh; the bush and the animals don’t scare me but the waterfalls do; I can talk to the warthogs as they furiously attack the green grass of the lawn by the driveway and they actually answer me back with a flick of their beady eyes. I do not know what to think.

But I do know this. I know this: I have been here before.

I just can’t quite remember it all.

JBelle
On Assignment
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe AFRICA

2010-05-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

So The Chows read P33t’s will. Dogs will do that. They get right back to things. They have no regrets, remember. Sylvie is P33t’s personal representative and she spent Monday afternoon seeing that P33t’s last wishes were recorded and enacted. I don’t think P33tsy would mind if the world knew what he wanted taken care of—P33t was a simple guy who loved his life and his people deeply and he didn’t give two shits who knew it.

The Last Will and Testament of a Very Big Dog

~with gratitude to the great Eugene O'Neill

I, P33t, having been the object of some unsolved mystery of poison and darkness, do note my last thoughts here in order that you can all move on in an orderly manner without too much shock and sadness at my early death. Who knew that P33t wouldn’t grow old with everyone else? Red Dorothy will be snickering about my ability to write a will as P33t is not known as a particularly articulate guy but rather a guy of action! Someone who barks! Is ferocious! ;) P33t was also someone who was quite handsome. Sweet. Adorable. Good with the ladies. So they can snicker, one and all, at the thought of P33t laying down his last will and testament but to them I say this: P33t Ssssmitz has got game. Watch and learn.

First, I direct Sylvie Ruth to go to Liberty Park Greenhouses and select the biggest, most beautiful hanging basket she can find. In its ideal state, this basket will be lush with blood red geraniums and assorted delicate flowers that hang down in a pretty cascade. Not that P33t knows exactly about this stuff, just what a good one looks like, but that P33t wants something particularly nice and exactly right for his doctor, Suzanne Coulson, DVM. She called me “Petey” from the first day and tried absolutely everything she knew to save me. She telephoned my grandma every day, even Mother’s Day, to check on P33t and I want her to know I wasn’t too sick not to notice. I remember, Dr. Coulson. My family remembers. Your tender care for us all made things better and worse, because if there was or is any truth to all of this, you knew it. And it had/has to be horrifying. And you delivered the news with the most exquisite of compassion. Yes, P33t would definitely call it exquisite compassion. Flowers for your deck to be enjoyed in the morning sun, because The Chow Nation are outdoor dogs, you know, and we loved to play ball in the morning sun as grandma sat and drank coffee. Such laughter, such fun, such excitement; every morning! Thank you, Dr. Coulson.

Second, Sylvie Ruth should stop at South Perry Pizza just up the road from Liberty Park. There she should send Cleo in to buy gift certificates for pizza and beer for all the folks that work at SouthCare Animal Medical Center. They are a good group up there. Darned good group. P33t did not want to have one thing to do with them, smells much too clean up there, and they have that dumb house cat that I was too feeble and too sick to chase but all in all, they were nice people. Real nice to my grandma which matters to me. And I guess that cat donates blood to sick cats and God*Help*Me sick dogs when they need it. That cat walking around like he owns the place without anyone to call him out is but one of the indignities of being really sick but nevertheless, P33t wants those folks to know they were real nice when he needed them. And he hopes they have a nice evening on him sometime.

I direct my collar to be hung on my condo door as a testament to the fact that I, P33t, was a guy who loved home. Forget about that time I went to town, that was just a misunderstanding because I loved Club Chow and Bellemaison right down to the last tuft of hair on each of my ears. How could you not? The birds and the tulips in spring, the roses and the bees in June, the hot, lazy afternoons of July and August and the bright, clear days of the fall, when the evening finally grew cooler and our fur came back in clumps. Bellemaison is a magical place of life and death, where the good can die young and without warning or reason and where we wait with our old until their very last hour, when it’s finally their time. Bellemaison is the place of every season, every day and without ego and with proper respect, I was a big part of that. I was the one who barked at the skunks and squirrels; roared at the cats stalking the quail; chased the sparrows out of my dinner dish, followed Cliffie’s every move; skipped to bed in my condo under the starry night skies, in wonder at how anything could be more beautiful that the faint and feeble Easter moon; gobbled my nightly bone with relish and grateful appreciation and generally gave the place weight and cred. I want my collar to hang like the cardinals hang their hat in the cathedrals and the great ball players hang their jerseys the outfield wall. Because I was cardinal and I was great.

Stack my dinner dish in the closet because I do not want my grandma to see it in a random moment and be sad. She seems to think she needs to feed the world and that’s fine but P33t’s not here no more for her to feed and she’ll forget that. Let’s not remind her because too many people have left her and she still waits for you, now us, all. You know how she is. Let’s help her be happy and forward looking. Make her throw the ball for you. Let her comb your hair. Lick her hand lotion off. These are the things that will make her view that empty, clean dinner dish with an absent minded intent to find some other new use for it. In fact, I revise my last testament at this very moment and instruct you to place my dinner dish and my matching water dish in strategic places in the flower beds in the gardens of Bellemaison, so the birds can drink deeply and freely, in satisfaction and relief until they are sated. We love dinner time at Bellemaison and feeding each other can and should go on and on and on. Forever. Put my dishes among the roses that grow tall and sweet in Bellemaison and keep them filled with clean water always.

For My Grandma: one hug each day for five years because she will need that. She needs hugs only no one but me really seems to understand that. She needs someone she can go to and that was ME. I was quite good at that if I do say so myself. Hug her people. She’ll have a lot of pain now that I’m not here to help her with it. And she’s like me, the fewer the words, the better. Grandma likes action and action plans. Try not to bother her with expressing yourself in a bunch of awkward, cluttered up sentences. Just show her what you’re thinking and keep moving.

For my Uncle Jonny, I bequeath a long walk in Manito Park on a cool and misty early winter morning. Uncle Jonny’s school years were some of the very best here in Bellemaison for he was a guy who was going places and taking care of business, always. We set the garden clock by the roar and explosion of his truck coming and going and were always grateful and happy to have him come out to Club Chow, in his gentle and loving manner. Be well, Uncle Jon. Don’t take any wooden bones or settle for anything less than you are worth. And do not hesitate for a second to bark if you have to. Then DO IT.

One million bones to my Auntie Angela because she is the true million dollar baby who loves and respects everyone particularly me. She taught P33t everything about ball and my game was only good because she coached me on how to win and how to play hard. Even though I was big. Who knew someone like me could run bases? But I did. Auntie Angela got me to do it. I owe her everything and direct Cleo to give her 5 black kisses from me and further direct her to play to win in all her own games. With no argument. Get going.

A cold six pack and a great afternoon in front of the TV watching a brilliant Mariners win is for Uncle Ben because that’s what he likes most and that was one of my most favorite afternoons-- listening to the game as I napped. And Uncle Ben, get your hair combed out even though it will hurt some. Hell, get it all cut off if you have to. We started getting these damned lion cuts and came to like them, even if we looked ridiculous, because we just swept the dirty, matted knots, stray sticks and dead bugs of winter right into the garbage can. Got to quit dealing with all that pesky Old Business. Besides it was just us who saw us and we all came to appreciate how dumb we looked, but how great we felt. Give it a try? And never stop believing. Especially when we are talkin’ the M’s. And never miss a chance for a warm afternoon with a cold beer doing something you love.

I would like my Auntie Robbie to have a nice evening at the end of a busy, happy day because she loved me without fail; give her some good company, good conversation and a really nice time together for Auntie Robbie is one who cares for the world and wastes her smile on any and all. You may say that a smile is never wasted and you’re probably right but Auntie Robbie’s smile is so dazzling and so real that P33t believes it’s quite possible it could be a national treasure, like that one movie. Yes, Auntie Robbie’s smile belongs in that place back east where they have George Washington’s sword and Sacajawea’s dress and Wright Brothers’ airplane. And I direct The Chow Nation to join in a rousing chorus of “Adestes Fidelis” every August 5, not because Christmas is coming, but because Auntie Robbie is always faithful. To me and everyone. Happy Birthday always to my Beloved Auntie Robbie.

To the wonderful, wonderful children of Hutton School, whose comings and goings frame our day here at Club Chow, I leave you recess twice a day for the rest of your life, no matter where your path leads or your travel takes you, because joy and sport builds muscle in your heart and frees your soul to sing. Promise P33t you’ll give yourself this everyday because I think you could become exceptional if you could remember how much fun we always had at Club Chow in Bellemaison. We listened to you over the fence everyday and your laughter and shouts always brought us a smile and put a skip in our step. Living next to you was one of the very best parts of my life. Always be in your life how you were at recess at Hutton School and your dreams will come true. One by one…

I leave to my Very Best Friend Cliffie a whole flower pot full of balls. Like that song Jay-Z says, “ Just a picture perfect day/ to last a whole lifetime.” That was Cliffie and us every Friday and Saturday. A picture perfect day that lasted a whole lifetime until the next Friday when we hit rewind. P33t loved Cliffie and every single second we spent together in Club Chow.

Finally, and with no afterthought, I leave my grandpa a big paw anytime he wants or needs it. Grandpa wasn’t a guy who liked a bunch of words either but he always knew what I meant when I gave him The Paw. Maybe it was P33t’s imagination, but I think he kinda gave me the paw back, plenty of times. Grandpa will miss me because I was no candy ass, attention greedy dog but a regular guy who was good company. We snored together on Sunday afternoon a lot and Grandpa won’t need anybody to remind him that nobody’s paws were bigger than P33t’s.

So I tell you good bye with the most reluctant of farewells; I did not want to leave you. But I went with the sun on my face and the sweet smell of spring in the air and that helped. And I was so grateful to have had such a good family to play with all the time and to have known the contentment of the evening after a busy day in the garden, the wonder at the stars and moon on a perfect clear night, the fun and jokes we all had with each other as another day came again and again and we got to start it all over. P33t has so many fantastic memories and loved you all more than you knew and waits for you now. If ever you find yourself on The Path, be sure to listen. First you’ll hear me; then look up-- because you’ll see me then, standing at the gate and wagging my tag with a loud and rowdy bark, in happy gratitude because the long night of our separation is finally over. Don’t forget me. I’m P33t. The Big Dog.

P33t
Club Chow
May 11, 2010

2010-05-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

P33t

October 31, 2000-May 11, 2010

Requiescat In Pace

It's a beautiful morning here in Bellemaison. The sun shines through the newly green leaves of the bushes and trees making the garden look like an emerald paradise of hanging cups and saucers dripping in all hues of green and sparkle, brilliant in freshness and new growth. The birds sing deliriously, happy to an extent that only birds can be, and all the things that live here scurry and scamper about, glad that the cold, dark days of winter are far over and that food and life is abundant one more.

So we wait, Sylvie Ruth, Cleo, Red Dorothy and I, for P33t to get his call. He's been called to go live with Santa and we are sitting with him until his time comes. We do not know why and how it was P33t who got poisoned but we know, absolutely, that the acute pain that life sometimes deals out is too, too hard. Too hard. The Chows are taking this somewhat better than me--they are completely settled that P33t will be with Uncle Bob but I cannot reconcile myself to P33t's suffering and bewilderment as this deadly toxin has settled into him, gripping his kidneys and liver, refusing to give up even in the face of the best veterinary science has to offer. I can't reconcile this surprise visit from fate or The Gods or whoever pulled P33t's card up and put it on their desktop.

The Chows have lived in the gardens of Bellemaison their entire life so they know that life and death are completely predictable in the course of any season, even in spring. They live each day to the fullest and fall asleep exhausted each evening with no regrets. That's why The Chows will all get to go live with Santa and Uncle Bob. Their hearts are pure and unfettered with seductive pursuits and obsessions. They have a close circle of best friends that they honor and value without exception, unconditionally. Mr. Erickson, who throws milk bones over his tall hedge for them. Auntie Robbie who they invite for sleepovers when everyone else here is on the road. Cliffie, who comes on Friday and Saturday to play with them as he works in the garden and who is Their Very Best Friend. The mailman, who they've never seen, is their friend and so are the two meter readers. Although they like to bark riotously at the mailman and the meter reader, it's only just for fun. Everyone knows their role in Bellemaison. The Chows close the books on their life each and every evening and so start the day fresh, with their values keenly focused and their intents genuine. The Chows have no other aim than to be fully present in every moment for those and that whom they love. That's why they will go straight to Santa's side when the time comes. As Eugene O'Neil said, dogs do not have a narrow, jealous spirit.

I, on the other hand, can't get to the end of the tears. Just can't seem to find the end. Syvie comes and sits by my hip as I write, lifting hopeful eyes into my face, imploring me to be strong. That hurts even worse. She now guards P33t as he sleeps deeply and peacefully and then comes back to my side, laying down and stretching out fully with a big sigh. You're never quite have enought of you to be there for everyone you love.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-04-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

So I’m here in Indio, the Palm Desert of California, one of the most beautiful and posh places on earth. We drove in through Death Valley from Las Vegas, past the Joshua trees and cacti in bloom; the mystery , magic and tonic of the mountains drawing us ever closer. It is spectacular and serene here as we now fully savor the embrace of springtime in the desert.

I was fortunate enough, LUCKY enough, blessed beyond description enough, to be invited to go to Coachella. Not too many of my friends go to rock festivals so much anymore so this was a unique opportunity in itself but as it turns, Jay-Z, the voice of the latest generation, was to be here, headlining. Jay-Z, THAT guy. The one that used to deal drugs. That dark-mouthed, filthy talking black guy. Yup. That one. So this was a UUUGE opportunity. One that would make me stop anything I was doing to hop aboard the Let’s Get It Started Train.

Jay- Z fascinates me. Absolutely fascinates me. He rose from his roots in Bed-Stuy in New York to become THE icon of the music industry, incredibly successful in a wide range of related and unrelated business activities, managing to land a really nice girl from a good family down south who herself just happens to be the ruling crown princess of pop music. He gathered up his girl, married her, and at this date, the two reign as Mr. and Mr. Entertainment of the New Millennium with no apologies. The new Brad and Angie of music and show business, Jay-Z and Beyonce are, without qualification, the hottest ticket around.

As much as I admire his ambition, as it turns out, it’s Jay Z’s music that I really, really like. It is smart, it is funny, it is ironic, expressive and reflective. And sexy. Such an interesting, interesting, interesting guy, this Shawn Carter. He speaks at length about growing up in The Hood and making his way through the gauntlet of legal and illegal opportunities available to the denizens of his neighborhood. It’s quite explicit for a white girl like me; a white girl from Coeur d’Alene. But as I stood among the diverse population of Southern California last night, heck the entire world, under the dull, dark skies of midnight, I realized Jay Z is only explicit to me and my people, the white Presbyterians from small towns in Idaho. Jay Z speaks to and of a life that is quite prevalent, quite true, quite real, quite American, even if I have no direct knowledge of it. He witnesses the pain and suffering of his youth and his people and speaks with the integrity of the first person. With no apologies. A lot of the people I was with last night knew exactly what he was talking about and it was only explicit to them in that Jay Z nailed their adolescent chronicles perfectly.

Listening to his music is like reading the Op Ed Section of the New York Times on a really, really good day when Egan, Friedman, Fish and the like are all hitting every single high note and banging every single low one hard. My absolute favorite song is the one where he talks about the myriad of things that plague his day and what he has to go through to get through. He has business, artistic and assorted other issues that are chronic and unrelenting and makes the point, quite nicely, that his life is just a little more complicated and demanding than a sad love life. It actually is a nice illustration of the Maslovian Pyramid of Needs, saying that before you can ever self-actualize, your basic needs of security and safety must be met. The climax and refrain of this brilliant effort, that succinctly lays out what so many of us want to blurt out? “I’ve got 99 problems and a bitch ain’t one. Hit me.”

Of course, Jay Z has only the most talented and accomplished musicians working for him so that Hit Me part is masterful, masterful guitar riff that rips through your gut, travels up your backbone like summer lighting, then makes the fillings in your molars hum as if they were your cell phone on vibrate. HIT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. How can you not love this stuff? And confess in your heart, Dude, I am SO glad you said that. That exact thing has been rolling around inside me for ages. AGES. HIT MEE! Jay-Z gets you in touch with every fucking thing that has been bothering you today and this month and shakes it all right out, whirls it through the air and lets you watch it explode into fireworks in the sky. Whooo wheee. Seriously sexy stuff.

If most people last night were like me, the highlight of Jay-Z’s performance was Forever Young, the song he originally did in collaboration with a guy referred to as Mr. Hudson. The song talks about staying young or living forever; surely life is too sweet, too delicious to only be a one-time thing or even finite. Mr. Hudson sings in a plaintive manner highly reminiscent of Sting and is a lovely, lovely listen. Our Boy Jay-Z comes in with his deep bass saying,

We live life like a video
Where is the sun is always out
Where you never get old
The champagne is always cold
And the music’s always good
And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood.
…Just a picture perfect day
That lasts a whole life time
And it never ends ‘cause all we have to do is hit rewind.

It, of course, in the 2010 rendition of the Grass Roots’ hit, Live For Today, but is oh so lovelier, smarter, nicer than the Grass Roots banging drum wail of the 60’s. Jay-Z speaks about living fully in each moment and letting tomorrow sort itself out, not losing today to fretful worries yet absolutely making the most of every opportunity:

…Leave a mark that can’t erase
Neither space
nor time.
So when the director yells cut,
I’ll be fine.

The thing about it that was so magnificent last night is that he brought someone on stage to sing the Mr. Hudson part that he refused to introduce, saying, She’s someone who needs no introduction. The crowd went absolutely nuts of course, because it was his drop-dead gorgeous wife, Beyonce, looking very south of France in cut offs and a white torn tee shirt off the shoulder. She appeared as if an apparition and began to sing and this tough, tough, smart bad ass from the hood melted in a chocolate puddle on the stage. If he’s the businessman and poet in the family, she’s the singer and as she widened her stance, threw back her head and sang, foreeeevvvvvvver younnnnnnng, we all believed as he did, that this was the only moment ever, listening to Beyonce Knowles sing under the starry night skies of the Palm Desert. We held hands with Jay-Z and swayed to the music in the darkness together as this exquisite nightbird lit up the sky and our hearts with her song.

The fireworks went off, she glowed, skipped off stage; he beamed and clutched his microphone like a little boy who just found the golden egg at the Easter Egg Hunt and we were all elevated and transported into our own Ponce de Leon moment. Fireworks in the sky indeed!

Jay-Z then did a thing that I have never seen. He took a moment, in what seemed to be an impromptu gesture, and had the houselights turned up. He said, I know you are there. And I just want to see you. He had the cameras pan to the different signs, directing the signs to be held up, saying I see that sign. Telling the girl in the Yankee cap, in the bikini top, with the Lakers shirt, that he saw her. You, waving at me in the white t shirt, I see you Baby Girl, I see you. You, guy in the Philly shirt, I see you. You, baby girl, You! With the pink thing I SEE YOU. I see you…out there, guy with your shirt off…lookin’ like…lookin’ like…the situation…I see you. I see you. It was possibly one of the most electric moments in a live performance I have ever seen. He talked back and forth across the audience and yet back again, calling out to his people, recognizing them one by one. He wanted it said that he knows them, he sees them, he is them. It was a servant gratefully acknowledging the benevolence of a master and a loving gesture of pure humility in the most unexpected moment. I do not know if I have ever seen a performer show such respect to an audience.

And that well could be the essence of his art: he arises from among them, us, and speaks in first person of what exactly it’s like. Without apology or clarification. With respect and generosity. Acknowledging the reality of the moment. Pulling no punches. And saying, I am only this because of you.

So I was schooled last night on bad ass, muthafuckas from The Hood. I continue to be a student and continue to be grateful. And it is my most fervent wish that when the director yells cut,

I’ll be fine.

I’ll be fine...

JBelle
On Assignment
Indio, California

2010-03-27T06:12:00.001-07:00

So Cliffie and The Chows have the garden in tip top shape. They've been working at it all along over this playday of a winter we've had--since we cut down the chrysanthemums and put up the Christmas lights, shortly before Halloween. Mild winter, early spring. El Nino. Global warming. Your call.

But the flowers bloom in Bellemaison this morning which has never happened this early since I have lived here. So it will be a long spring and a longer summer. Easter is finally here, after what seems an interminable Lent, even if the snow did not fly and the rain did not whirl about us in gray tornadoes of gloom. It's an odd time.

The politicians continue to live out their fondest fantasies in the The True American Nightmare. I think if their mothers were alive it would all be different. I have to believe the mothers of those people would put a stop to it all. Wouldn't they? Cliffie pointed out that the tea partiers and the citizens with the foul mouths, bad tempers and long forgotten manners might be excused in all this because they are unemployed, have been unemployed, suffer each and every day with such whereas of course, the politicians, all the members of Congress, have not missed a meal, a vacation nor , ahem, a doctor's appointment or a procedure since the recession settled in for a nice long visit. And I agree with Cliffie. I can excuse the frustration of those in need but I cannot and will not look kindly on those fat, gouty cats of Congress who apparently aim to master the art of form over substance and contention, argument, and polarity. shame.

Shame. All during Lent, too. Beautiful, ironic missed opportunity to think it all through. The days wander on, even though the air is still, but it's as though someone has pushed pause. I feel paused in my heart and just hope that when someone finally pushes play and the dialogue and sound resume, my heart awakes and lives.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-02-28T12:45:00.000-08:00

It's a late winter's day here in The 'Kan EWA and the sun shines beautiful and weak, warming itself up, getting ready, for what surely will be a long and delicious spring.

So many inputs and stimuli rolling around my head and my heart. Went to Pat and Diane's Golden Wedding anniversary yesterday; it was brilliant. Had a million pictures, three videos and her dress on display in the foyer of the church. So, so loving, romantic and sensual--the entire afternoon. Fifty years.

Got beautiful flowers at the Pike Street Market on Friday: daffodils, cherry blossoms and laurel. It's gets so dark here, so still and so cold. I do love winter in the great Pacific Northwest and yet every year without fail, spring relieves a very real longing and yearning deep inside me and brings respite. Hope.

Been watching the Olympics as if my kid, my brother and my roommate in college was on every single team. God, what a magnificent time it's been in Canada. Loved the bobsled, loved the ski cross, speed skating, and the hockey. But those guys that do the skeleton are absolutely nuts. But then, they always were, I guess. Have just loved the games in Vancouver.

And would really love to go to South Africa to the World Cup. Have to go to Las Vegas next weekend instead. Gonzaga basketball is utterly boring and without one spark of inspiration. It's now officially become formulaic basketball, a perfect equation to bring profit and acclaim to the university, with heart not being a factor in Gonzaga's game and program because it's not necessary to the bottom line. I'll go and wear my red shirt and be Zaggish but I'll be thinking about the new Elvis/Cirque du Soleil show that I'm going to see and the spring scarves at Hermes and about making my deadlines at work and trying to find my way back home.

I've gotta find my way back home.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-02-04T06:55:00.001-08:00

So it's comforting to have a place to go when things really start to fall apart. It's good then that finally the words start to come but still-- it feels guilty a bit, as though I only come here out of need. Maybe it's okay to only come here out of need. Fact, it's got to be okay for now.

I was watching The Godfather movies long, long, long before they become cinema classics and the lessons of The Godfather became chic talk at cocktail parties. Part II was always the most painful because of course, it drilled down into that relationship classic, treachery and betrayal. Michael's betrayal by his brother in Part II is not the main course of the story however; it's Michael's response to betrayal, his reaction to treachery that is the real story and the stuff that entire lives are made of, both on the screen and in our own personal little stories. And how one embraces and absorbs treachery and then betrayal just well may be the only story worthy of telling once the house lights of our lives come up and the janitors enter the vanquished darkness to sweep.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ, set the model that probably is the source from where all other reactions to treachery and betrayal are spun and derivatives arise. Unlike Michael Corleone, He leaned into his betrayal and did not respond nor fight back, becoming his closest's post use waste. It worked fine for his betrayers because it allowed them to enact what they might have believed was their destiny and at the very least allowed them to have their way. Express themselves in the oppression of the ministry and the generosity that was Our Lord's. He let them have what everyone thought surely was the last word. And they were triumphant. Mighty.

In the moment. We all know ultimately how that story ended and how each of the parties' subsequent lives played out; I would summarize it briefly by saying this: love conquers all. everytime.

Everytime.

So. You want a piece of me? Help yourself. There's enough to go around. Take all you want and take your time. And don't worry about turning out the lights when you are done. It'll all be taken care of.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-01-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

And after the pictures were taken and they had time to think about it, Sunny and Ella came back to tell me that their brother Mac was collecting money to help Haiti, too. Mac works in the family restaurant on Sundays with his dad so I stopped by get a picture of him. He was over at the grocery store getting milk but came back soon enough for this shot. Think these parents should be given a Nobel Peace Prize for the values they are instilling in their children?

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-01-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

So they just show up. Like they always do except this time they bring reinforcements: their cousins. They ring the doorbell and say We are going around to collect money to help the Red Cross help the people in Haiti. If you could give money, we would appreciate it. And don't worry about giving a lot; anything helpsssss. These two angels that live next door, who inextricably appear in the most random of moments, arcing the air with their fairy dust, magic, generosity and kindness. Extraordinary, extraordinary children. But then I've mentioned that before...

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-01-14T09:29:00.001-08:00

We had people in to dinner here at Bellemaison last night. It was an evening of food, friends and fun. The Chows were quite delighted how everything--the table, the flowers, the conversation--turned out and marked a recipe for you to see. But first, I want to say how much strength I gain from my friends. Melody struck a deep note within me as she continues her courageous battle with brain cancer. She's tough and resolute and has not lost one bit of her funny, feminine, experienced ways. She came to dinner in a cute pair of black slacks, a very sexy black, suede sweater with lovely evening makeup and her hat. She doesn't go anywhere without a hat. She's currently going through chemo again but has and will keep all her hair except for the one inch swath of scalp running from the crown of her head down to the back of her ear. That's the scar from surgery. Because of radiation, she will never grow hair there again. She is petite, lovely, funny and fun. I love her deeply and am scared by her calm in the battle of her lifetime. Of any one's lifetime.

Katie was here, too; she's limping into the dugout after her battle with breast cancer. She's run the bases and made it home. I do not want her to have another at bat. How can I control that? How can I fix her if she does get up again? I cannot. Now that I have lived enough, I know I cannot. I cannot fix Katie. She's inventive, creative, incredibly feminine and lovely and has a soft, caring and gentle touch. She carries the wisdom of the ages with her. When I called her for dinner, she was working on a lesson for a class she teaches to a group of women. She was going to teach on God's creation and so made, by hand, a flower pin for each of the women who had signed up to come to her class. She brought one for me, and for Melody, and they are exquisite! looped felt around a beaded center, perfectly finished front and back. Mine has a little feather petal in it; I shall carry this pin proudly and go in love, knowing that in our lifetimes, we all have to run the bases and then if we have to run them again, we do so with love from each other and in perfect accordance with God's creation. God, what an evening. I feel like I have a PhD in grace this morning. Not that I earned it, I just observed it.

So. The recipe. It's my thought that if you really want to please people at dinner, you absolutely can't go wrong with pork, dairy and salt. Sugar's good, too and should be given your full consideration. I usually don't do much dairy in January after December's carotid blow out of hedonism but fixed this dish last night with a nod to my buddy, The Beermaker. It's from the Nordstrom cookbook, Friends and Family.

And you thought I only bought shoes at Nordstrom.

Roasted Asparagus Gratin

2 pounds jumbo asparagus, tough ends removed and lower half each spear peeled

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon minced shallot

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

2 Tablespoons coarsely shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

2 Tablespoons unseasoned dried bread crumbs

Position a rack int he upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450F. IN a shallow dish, toss the asparagus with the olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and the lemon juice until the spears are perfectly coated.

Roast the asparagus until the spears are just beginning to brown yet are still crisp and tender, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and drain off the excess oil.

Meanwhile, in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the garlic and shallot and saute, stirring constantly, until the shallot is translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the cream and simmer, uncovered, until reduced by one third, about 6 minutes. Stir in the grated Parmesan cheese and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Arrange the asparagus in a ovenproof serving dish and spoon the Parmesan cream sauce over the spears, allowing the tips and bases to remain uncovered. Scatter the shaved Parmesan over the top and sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Bake until nicely browned, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2010-01-04T05:49:00.000-08:00

2010-01-02T10:17:00.001-08:00

Omigoodness. One post in December? apparently. Blogger doesn't lie. Advent came and went in a swirl of shiny glass orbs, swaths of gauzy glitter and tinsel, popping flashes of soft, jewel-like lights and deep whiffs of pungent evergreen. And a few handsful of fudge.

It's over now and contemplation and the new year have set in. I am grateful for my life here; it's quiet. It's purposeful. And at the moment leads absolutely nowhere. Or back here everytime. Where ever it is that life is leading me at the moment, it's good enough.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2009-12-08T06:12:00.001-08:00

So there are things that come and go in my life that kind of get to me. For instance, things I haven't gotten to yet. My music-illiterate son has seen Paul McCartney play; at Coachella! I have never seen Paul McCartney play his guitar and sing nor have seen Mick Jagger dance. Paul, the voice of our generation and Mick, the leader of the original boy band...

I have never been to Spain; Spain! From whence I derive my American existence. I'm sure anyone can agree that without the Americas, there would have been no English colonialism. Regardless, I have never been to Spain. I really want to go.

I want to go to Mongolia, too, and photograph the wild horses while they are still wild. I want to teach in a public school for one year. I want to open and operate a really good restaurant; I want to own and buy for a shop. I wanna ride a horse through the Bob Marshall Wilderness. I want to drive the Gulf Coast highway in spring; raft the Salmon river. Walk sea to sea in the north of England. See Manchester U play at home. See the cherry trees bloom in the D of C. Walk the botanical garden north of Chicago one more time. Go to the opera every month for two years. Eat Hot and Sour Soup at a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris in January again. Be in Rome on Christmas Day again, too. And find a red velvet coat like that one lady wore as she elegantly strolled the Via della Conciliazione to Christmas mass.

I want to study art history purposely and with devotion. I want to be able to do 50 one-armed push ups, make the absolute perfect pudding, and amass an impressive library of books to leave to my grandchildren. I have a lot of things I want to get done but my life, my responsibilities are greedy for my attention and serve to distract me from the curiosity that consumes me yet, consumes me still and makes me wet with anticipation and impatience this morning.

Life can be good even in the darkest moments of winter...

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

The troubled heart is not comforted by lies:
Water and oil produce no light.
Only the truth brings comfort:
Truths are the bait that attract the heart.

~Rumi
Masnavi II: 2735-36

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

So Gazieantep is located at that cosmic junction in world of antiquity, the crossroads of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, northern Syria and Egypt. Back in the day, anybody who was buying or selling, growing, weaving or smithing and going to market, or on the road for other legitimate or illegitimate purposes, sooner or later had to pass through Gazieantep. It is a mother lode of remains and ruins and excavated and non-excavated sites and finds; no small statement in Turkey, where a dog buries a bone and another lost civilization surfaces. This would be in the present day eastern Turkey where the Euphrates River runs north and south. The river has formed a traditional boundary or demarcation since the beginning of the ages, people have been living around here for 600-700 thousand years now, with everything east of the river known as Eastern Anatolia. Gazieantep is the crown jewel of Eastern Anatolia.

And the story goes like this: Eastern Anatolia is arid and desert-like. Poverty has had a familiar and almost timeless presence in the current era. The Turkish government, in a effort to ease suffering, diversify their economy and get people to work, embarks upon the GAP or Southeastern Anatolia Project . Pieces of the initiative include the harnessing and utilization of the power of the Euphrates River through the construction of dams. So about ten years ago, they build the Birecik Dam and a hydro-power plant at a location near Gazieantep. In the process, they stumble across a rather delicious site on the bank of the river and unearth and salvage literally the most extraordinary Roman mosaics the modern world has ever seen. Nothing like these mosaics in all of Italy. Or Europe. More than several years go by and after much debate and discussion scholars determine that it was/is the lost Roman city of Zeugma. You break ground in Turkey and you'll fall through a rabbit hole that whirls you 2000 years back into history. And when you come to, you are face to face with the locals.

These mosaics are electrifying, terrifying and awesome, all at once. The people were hunters, gardeners, fishermen, merchants, scholars, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, elite and refined, hopeful and faithful. They had means to commission exquisite floors, walls and ceilings. And you can see 300 BC and 2009 AD in the same glimpse.

Soon, independent of GAP, they will build a new airport at Gazieantep to accomodate private jets flying in from all over the world. The occupants of the jets will be whisked away to a posh new mosaic museum that will be opening in the next year or two. And little Gazieantep and little-known Zeugma won't be so little noooo more...

JBelle
JoJo Nihili
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

The "Here I Am" Answer

The kindness in your look

is married to the substance

of your eyes.

Joy lives in the kidneys.

Grief in the liver.

Intelligence, that bright candle,

is burning in the matter

of your brain.

These connections have a purpose,

but we don't know what it is.

The universal soul touches

an individual soul and gives it

a pearl to hide in the chest.

A new Christ lives in you

from that touch, but no one

can say why or how.

Every word I say

is trying to coax a response

from that.

"Lord," I call out,

and inside my "Lord" comes,

"Here I am, "

a "Here I am"

that can't be heard,

but it can be tasted and felt

in every cell of my body.

~Rumi

II, 1180-1191

JBelle

JoJo Nihili

The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

On many levels, Gazieantep was my favorite. It's a beehive of a place where people are out and about, smile and speak to you and are purposeful and absorbed in their work. And in a few short years, it could become the site of one of the Top 10 Museums in the entire world. The exquisite and mighty mosaics of Gazieantep...

On the day I was there, the sun shone, the stadium neighborhood rocked with a league game, people were buying and selling and other people stopped me on the street to touch my arm and gaze into my eyes--our only common language. While I learned many things in Gazieantep, wanna know one of the things that surprised me the most? Women who cover their heads go to the soccer games. Who knew?

On this day in Gazieantep, Turkey there were a million 'merhabas' and million olives, too.

JBelle
JoJo Nihili
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-10T06:04:00.001-08:00

The Laughter of Pomegranates

If you buy a pomegranate,

buy one whose ripeness

has caused it to be cleft open

with a seed-revealing smile.

Its laughter is a blessing,

for through its wide-open mouth

it shows its heart,

like a pearl in the jewel box of Spirit.

The red anemone laughs, too,

but through its mouth you glimpse a blackness.

A laughing pomegranate

brings the whole garden to life.

Keeping the company of the holy

makes you one of them.

Whether you are stone or marble,

you will become a jewel

when you reach a human being of heart.

Plant the love of the holy ones within your spirit;

don't give your heart to anything

but the love of those whose hearts are glad.

Don't go to the neighborhood of despair;

there is hope.

Don't go in the direction of darkness:

suns exist.

The heart guides you to the neighborhood of the saints;

the body takes you to the prison of water and earth.

Give your heart the food of holy friends;

seek maturity from those who have matured.

~for Lorac and Angie Mariani, your light showed us the way

~Rumi

Mathnawi I, 717-726

JBelle

JoJo Nahili

The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

Being a Catholic, I tend to think the world falls out according to the accounts of The New American Bible in conjunction with the encyclicals that come out of Vatican City. Having been raised a Presbyterian, unlike cradle Catholics, I know the NAB and the Holy Father are pretty darn close but of course, not infallible. Such blessings that come from unexpected places.

And being a student of art, God! let me be a student of art for always!, the Renaissance has long held my fascination and I count time among the frescoes and carvings of those hill top fortress churches in Italy as some of the sweetest moments in all of my life. Say San Gimiginano. Volterra. Assisi. The basilica at Sienna. They are what churches should be, the archetypes of beauty, grace, perfection, inspiration and emotional and visual fulfillment. Begs the question, would I be a Catholic if the churches were not so exquisite? the penultimate in art and architecture? One's ego also shows up at such unexpected places...

So imagine me, wanting to know more about the Byzantines; mainly of course, because of San Marco in Venice. That well may be the Lollapalooza, the Motherlode, of all Catholic Churches. So I have to get to know more about the Byzantines to understand and appreciate San Marco better. I decide to go to Turkey, always wanted to go anyway, and see for myself, up close and personal, who the Byzantines were and what their life looked like.

It's only now that I know that going to Turkey to explore art and architecture of the Byzantines is a bit like saying you're going to go to Southern California in February because you hear the weather's good. Not only is the weather good, hell, the weather's freaking sublime, the fruit is fresh off the trees, the flowers bloom, the air is sweet, the water's warm, the museums, parks, attractions and cultural events await you with open arms and there's a million, no 6 million fantastic restaurants willing, waiting, wanting to feed you. The weather's real good in Southern California in February.

So as it turns out, the Byzantines occupy about six square inches in the enormous silken tapestry that is the history and existence of Turkey. And in my innocence and naivete about Byzantine mosaics and decorative motifs, I fall headlong into the collective arms of the most extraordinary cultures, civilizations, ancient cities, states, and lives of people that I have ever known or read about. Silly, silly me.

Here is a quick shot right out of the gate; not by any means do Catholics hold the franchise on the most beautiful churches in existence. Not by any means. You want to see an utterly extraordinary church? find a grand mosque. If you're doing it up right, you'll start with the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, properly known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. It's quite possible it's the most gorgeous religious facility I have ever seen. Just how many schoolings do you get in one life? It's decorated floor to ceiling with handmade, hand painted ceramic tiles from Nicaea. It's 72 x 64 x 42 meters; that's 70,000 square feet in hand painted tiles. All affixed by hand. Still in perfect condition.

But don't take my word for it. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think. And one thing I really loved? Even in the Blue Mosque of Istanbul you have to vacuum.

JBelle
JoJo Nahili
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

Expanding Friendship

Money and real estate occupy the body,
but all the heart wants is expanding friendship.

A rose garden without a friend is indeed a prison;
a prison with a friend becomes a rose garden.

If the pleasure of friendship did not exist,
neither men nor women would be here.

A thorn from a friend's garden is worth more
than a thousand cypresses and lilies.

Love sewed us securely together.
We owe nothing to the needle and thread.

If the house of the world is dark,
Love will find a way to create windows.

If the world is full of arrow and swords,
the Armorer of Love has made us coats of mail.

Love itself describes its own perfection.
Be speechless and listen.

~Rumi
Divani Shamsi Tabrizi 1926

JBelle
JoJo Nahili
The 'Kan EWA

2009-11-07T05:39:00.001-08:00

So I am back home after three weeks on assignment. Not so much speechless but wordless. I shot 7000 frames on my Nikon. Climbed up and down mountains and hills to forts, temples, mosques, caves and vistas never imagined. Beheld the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen in all my life. Watched men pray, women beg, children assault each other for trinkets and the sun come up over statues of Zeus 30 feet tall. Watched the sun go down over the enormous Syrian plain. Stood at Cleopatra's gate where Antony welcomed her to Mesopotamia, dined in the private dining room of the Archbishop of the Diocese of Mardin, played with the ferral cats at the University of Van, ate lamb and eggplant and cucumbers, danced with the bride's brother at a gorgeous wedding, hugged and kissed school teachers who took me into another party and now want to correspond in an effort to understand better, watched our driver pull over on the road and buy a cabbage as big as a Jeep tire from a guy who had a whole pile of them, partied with the locals at lunch before they went into the Fenerbahce game across the street, said good evening to the Turkish soldiers who boarded our van at a roadblock to search and responded in kind when the lead smiled and said, in perfect American English, "It was very nice to have met you."

I just barely can comment. This country is so astonishing, so fearsomely beautiful, so delicious, so deeply and fully sensuous and satisfying.

But I'll try. Let me know what you think.

JBelle
JoJoNahili
The 'Kan EWA

2009-10-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

So I sit in a hotel lobby on Lake Van watching Trabzon play Kaysei along with all the other fans in this hotel who are all men. It's just exactly like home here--except that at the Davenport people don't jump up at dinner and spontaneously break into folk dances along the buffet table; the breakfast rooms in the hotels in Sandpoint and Coeur d'Alene don't serve scrumptious white cheese and honey sprinkled with walnuts; and instead of the Canadian border, it's the Iraqi and the Irani border that are just down the road with the Armenian border flanking us at the moment.

One year ago when I was here, I was traveling with a Cuban couple from Florida. We would stumble around one set of ruins or another, or some utterly astounding feature of nature or another cave or mosque and get back on the bus and slap our jaws in utter astonishment. We gravitated to each other because while most on this tour developed a saturation for the art, the archeology, the architecture and the history and the occupation that is Turkey, we never did. We continued to be utterly gobsmacked at every turn and would reboard the bus, involuntarily slaw our jaw and whisper to each other "Did you ever?" I loved the Cubans and they loved me because I look like their daughter and because our passion was synced and simul-tuned. Our eyes would meet and widen two dozen times a day.

So they've become part of me as many people do and I think of them at least once an hour now. Because of course, at least once an hour, I have another Cuban moment.

Did you ever...?

JBelle

On Assignment

Van, Turkey

2009-10-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

That's Medea. Holding up one of the pillars in the Basillica Cistern. It's only one of a million faces that I've seen in the few days and one of a hundred million faces that have passed through this part of the earth throughout time. Only the most famous names of history have come through here, their ambition hard at work and their thirst for greater conquest and curiosity over the exquotic compelling them to come to Antioch.

It's hot; pungent; and the people play by a set of rules curious in their contradictions. St. Paul set about on a journey that would become the defining moment of one of the most remarkable careers in all of history here in Antioch. We walked a half mile though the debris of a rock slide that sent an entire community tumbling down the side of a mountain to an elaborate burial complex, carved into the rock, extraordinary in its design and exquisite in its decorative motifs. It was built sometime after 1 AD but before 5 AD. What kind of tools existed in 1 AD that would allow you to build a small funerary city in the side of a rock mountain?

The children frolic with abandon, their strong wills clearly at play and their lust plainly showing, even at young ages. Last night there was a wedding in the hotel and as we peeked in the doorway, we were scooped into the joyous melee of the happy event, dancing wildly in the middle of the dance floor in an IDAHO t shirt with people who loved and embraced us and would never see us again. Many, many children, along with old men, danced as well and spared no effort in their celebration of the moment.

You get the feeling that because everyone is just passing through, they all have decided to take the night off, kick back and explore the opportunities present. Some may even stay awhile.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

So it's been quite a summer. All kinds of challenges and change ups. People at my house at 7 am banging and sawing and people at my house at 10 pm banging and sawing. And all people happy and engaged in having work and something to think about. Met all kinds of competent, caring people who have the time in down times to render excellent customer service, really truly excellent customer service, and as the projects upstairs at Bellemaison come to a close, I find myself drawing up a list for thank you notes. A first in my life.

I used to get up really early and get the paper off the front porch in Coeur d'Alene, all frosty and cold. Lot of paper readers in our house growing up and if I wanted to be the first, I had to get up early to beat all those people I lived with, all greedy for the morning news. Like me, they loved the newspaper. Unlike me, they all knew how to read. So it started out for me as instructional and only became a love affair later, reading the paper did. I'd steal into the only bathroom in our house, shut the door and sit on the floor by the heat register where it was warm and quiet. I would unfold the paper, lay it across my knees and nail the headlines; then get into the gritty business of the five and eight paragraph news articles, probably written by some man as he smoked at his desk. I learned about Cesar Chavez this way; about The Civil Rights Act and about something that was uber incredible to the world but that I didn't quite understand, something they called Sputnik. It was one of the richest educational experiences of my life, the early morning quiet and the bathroom at 918 Penn.

My Grandma Belle, yes she was a real person, gave me a bible for my birthday after I started school. I loved this bible as it had a pleasing cover and was unlike any other at Sunday School at the First Presbyterian Church at Sixth and Lakeside. I suppose you could say, with a certain authority, that it was tres chic. Yes, it was definitely tres chic, my starter bible. The thing was, I loved to read that, too. I devoured it. Read those stories over and over; first, read 'em until I could read them. I do not think it's a random thing that I have had a quiet affair with poetry my entire life, starting out reading the King James Version of the Holy Bible as a young child. Tough going. But I licked it with time and read all the stories of the Old Testament with relish and and passion, skipping along with the rhythm and grace until I was rowing hard with strength and ardor through the stories of family, separation, pilgrimage, seduction, triumph, betrayal and despair. I learned to read reading the newspaper and the bible, studying the stories of Genesis like a little research scientist, furious with analytical; much like I would later in life with The Godfather movies and with the books of James Michener, Edward Rutherford, and Jean Auel. I just loved this stuff.

And now, as it turns out, I am going to Upper Mesopotamia and to the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where many of those exquisite stories, the tales and travails of Genesis, were set. To be truthful, I realize only now that I have held the setting of some of civilization's most celebrated stories in an academic understanding; you'd have to say that for me the settings were co-equals with the settings of some of Grimm's Fairy Tales, like the deep, dark forests and castles of Northern Europe. I loved all literature and all stories from a very, very young age and made distinctions only between what was a really, really good story and what left me flat-footed and empty-handed at the end.

But, I will now go to where they excavate the Garden of Eden. I will stand at the base of Mount Ararat. I will look south over the vast Mesopotamian plain at sunset and walk the streets of Antioch, where Paul first set out to do a life's work. It's a major, major paradigm shift for me of the most fundamental nature. I am going, back I guess, to walk the revelations and stories of my childhood. Imagine being able to do that...

Last night I had a dream where there was a small party of some kind going on at Bellemaison; someone came at me, screaming, "Jon! won't wake up!"

I ran to my adult youngest child in a nano-second, where he lay sleeping in my place on the couch. I called to him, loudly, and he didn't respond. I knelt and held his shoulders and gently shook him and his vacant, sleep face remained. His arms flopped at me and his powerful hands smacked his thigh. I was terrorized and feel the paralysis of the moment even now. I screamed for someone to get a car ready and picked him up into my arms, all of his adult male self, and he was only slightly heavy. I could do it. I carried him through the garage and down the driveway. I got into an SUV and we took off at high speed for Sacred Heart. I kept shaking him and saying, Jon. Jon. Come back to me. Come back. To no avail. He lay in my arms. I began to sing to him, what I always sing, This is my Father's World... and thought, I. cannot.walk.one.more.person.to.Paradise. and certainly not him. He cannot be going to Paradise. I looked up from him, out the window, hoping to see the sky for some kind of a clue and at that moment, he woke up. Woke up like he'd just had the most delicious nap. He is my child that would come to me, lay his head in my lap and say, wow, Mom! I slept like the dead. He'd then stand up and stretch and go off in search of cereal. I loved that little kid...

I said Jon? He said, groggy but sated, I have been sleeping. I said I know. You scared me. He said just sleepin'. I'm here now. Patted my forearms with his again powerful hands. Closed his eyes and did a little stretch. And lay in my arms as we meandered all the way down Rockwood, winding through the trees and with the gauzy blue sky out the window next to us. We moved at a very lazy pace now. He chatted sleepily.

I can't remember what he talked about.

And I don't know if my dream is about him or me. I don't know if it's about him and me; if it's about leaving and then coming back; if it's about your destiny in life or your responsibility in life. I just don't know. But I do know it's like how I feel about going to Eastern Anatolia on Monday. I just can't describe how it makes me feel. But it's a lot about stretching back deeply as you wander and then reaching forward to hold it all.

In your arms.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-10-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today

I am so, so drunk today;
I've escaped my bonds today.

I'm that "something" that doesn't occur to the mind;
I'm that; yes, I'm that, today.

Spiritually, I went up to The Heaven of The Soul,
even though in form, I'm down today.

I pulled on The Intellect's ear and said: "Intellect!
Be gone! Because of you, I got free today!

"Take your hands off me, O mind!
I'm crazy as a Magnum today."

That beautiful Joseph handed me an orange to peel.
Bewitched by His Beauty, I cut both my hands today.

That brimful Jug of Wine made me so drunk
that I broke to pieces so many earthen vats today.

I don't know where I am,
but what a happy place I'm in today!

Fortune came to my door to flirt today,
but, drunk, I slammed the door in her face.

But when she left, I ran after her;
I haven't stopped running for a moment today.

When We are nearer than the jugular vein*
became clear today, I could no longer adore myself.

Do not tie up those ringlets of yours, Sham of Tabriz!
I'm caught like a fish in this net today.

~Divani Shamsi Tabrizi 1185

*Qur'an 50:16

Rumi. Rumi...

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Unbelievable Beer Pong Guys

2009-09-29T08:27:00.001-07:00

There are Catholic schools and then, THERE ARE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS! GU rules and schools alllll the rest.

2009-09-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Update

The lovely kMara sends word that she wants to swim in Lake Coeur d'Alene. Maybe The City Gurrl ain't so citty at all. And just how is it that she picked Lake Coeur d'Alene for her GPNW baptism?

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-09-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

So as it turns out, The Christ Child is bringing the Lovely kMara home to meet the Great Pacific Northwest. You can't have kMara is your house without a decent bathroom so I am taking The Christ Child's old bathroom and combining it with the linen closet that's the next door down the hall. Adding a claw foot bathroom, some glass tile, which by the way, will cost more than many, many cars I've driven in my lifetime, rounding the corner and heading to home base with a few stained glass windows, all the while hoping for an approved inspection or at least, a soothing of our rattled psyche regarding having kMara in the house. JoJo loves her people in the front of the house but in the back? not so much.

Anyway, this morning I find myself cleaning out my linen closet. In addition to literally dozens of cotton blankets and a half dozen new, never used down pillows, I am finding my life. All right there in the linen closet where I have been storing it for the last several years. There is the gorgeous long, linen dress from Italy that I have never worn because I don't know if American women show The Girls off, The Ta Tas, in polite company as the Italian women do. But I love that dress and no way is it going to Goodwill. When I get good and brave, maybe I'll wear it. In Italy.

Then there is the bedding and the pillows as I mentioned. I came across a wayward puppet; a bumblebee. We used to have puppet shows on Christmas when The Christ Child and his sibs were little; we have not had one in years. Now we play with the new cellphones on Christmas. There's the Vicks cool mist vaporizer which I always fired up when the croup was in the house; cool air is so much better than warm air on beleaguered lungs. Just what do you do with a good cool air vaporizer? Surely you don't give THAT to Goodwill; what if the croup shows up in the back of the house again?

I find the very first ever tablecloth that I owned as an adult woman; I think it's from JC Penney's. I let go of that while those newcomers from Italy, France, Ireland and India run wild through the place?

Then there's the crib bumpers and linen for the baby that's now 23 years old. Plays rugby with the roughest, toughest firefighters in the country and walks away from two taxis performing a fender eclipse in Manhattan traffic as he rides his bike in his lane between them; the taxis crush his bike but leave him unscratched. I made them. The crib bumpers, that is. My mother made the blanket. No baby ever had a better dust ruffle. What do I do with these?

What do I do with the drawings and the scraps of the material used to make the most famous soccer goalie jersey in the history of the Greater Spokane League? That jersey was known far and wide and comprised the stunning focal piece of a full length photograph of the goalie on the front page of the sports section, who of course, was making another freaking stupendous, physically impossible save. I found the fabric I used to sew lightning bolts on her shorts in the linen closet, too. Shouldn't this stuff be in a museum somewhere?

And so the bits and pieces of my life, a really good life, are pulled out and sorted. It's cold here this morning, I have not heard from my Turkish friends who are involved in a flash flood in the fourth largest city in the world that has killed 30 people so far and the universe continues to challenge me.

To be continued.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-09-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

A good leg will fall
A straight back will stoop
A black beard will turn white
A curled pate will grow bald
A fair face will wither
A full eye will wax hollow
But a good heart
is the sun and the moon
or
rather
the sun
and not the moon
for it shines brightly and never changes
but keeps its course truly.

~King Henry V
Henry V, Act V Scene II

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

I watched Ted Kennedy's funeral mass this morning, as I watched Obama's inauguration, Bush's first inauguration, Reagan's funeral, JFK's funeral and every single episode of West Wing ever taped. I love this stuff.

I have been slow to warm to Ted Kennedy's late life renaissance; his strong appetites and young second wife never helped me to take him seriously as a statesman or political figure of stature. But the people from both sides of the aisle who mourn and grieve his death have made me know that they, along with many others, saw a side of him that was not visible to me; the fervent, unconditional endorsement of his children as a world class father gives him a credential that even Ronald Reagan never was able to obtain. So I settled in after cardio this morning to watch his people say good bye to him. I was touched many, many times.

A few observations:

Only in America, only in NORTH America, do the television commentators have to explain the aspects of the Catholic mass, the rite of worship from which all other Christian rites of worship fall. Lord Have Mercy.

Many people, all Republican, still hold Mary Jo Kopechne and dissolute living against Ted Kennedy. I suspect most of those people are Protestants as redemption is something that Protestants just don't or refuse to understand. We were taught redemption in only the most academic of manners as young Protestants. But Ted Kennedy was a living model of redemption, of a man who kept working at getting it right and finally, late in life, succeeded. The power of redemption is holy and is one of the most underrated things of life in the New Millennium and it's a little more real and actual than the blood of Jesus washing away the "sins" of "man". Kennedy was a sinner among sinners, but he never gave up and never gave in to failure or tragedy, nor let his heart become bitter and hardened.

As long as we're on Protestants and their numerous shortcomings, I think one of the major failures of the Protestants is not teaching the papacy and why The Holy Father Himself is critical to the Protestant doctrines. Why don't good little Presbyterian and Baptist boys and girls have an understanding of The Pope and his authority and stature in Christianity? Ted Kennedy, like many people in political service, was a deep and devoted follower of American History and believed you couldn't go forward until you fully understood where you came from.

One of his sons eulogized Senator Kennedy as a guy who taught him to like Republicans and briefly discussed the obvious value of such. Right on Brother! Much of the civility and dignity has gone out of politics in recent years; the atmosphere of holding each other in a certain regard irrespective of party affiliations is something many American voters, including me, long for. I am reminded of Ron Rankin of Kootenai County in Idaho, a tried and true Republican if there ever was one; in fact, a Newt Gingrich Republican. But Mr. Rankin, as I knew him, was different because he maintained relationships with everyone and worked with anybody in a effort to lower taxes and reduce government. Mr. Rankin was an easy guy to respect, like his mantra or not, and a guy willing to do what it took within the bounds of decency to deliver outcomes for the taxpayers of his district. Ron Rankin was as partisan as they came and fiercely defended the tenets of the GOP platform, yet he never lost his civility nor his sense of humor. I yearn for relational politics instead of transactional politics.

President George W. Bush was there, looking sad and miserable. Could it be that he, too, longs for redemption? I give Mr. Bush Big Ups for showing up.

My favorite quote of the Senator Kennedy's is this: Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. He was speaking in reference to enacting legislation but for people like me, this is a short and simple warning about the seductions afoot regarding things in life that just aren't art forms. Like life itself, for instance.

The message of his sons' remarks about him was hope and redemption: "The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on." --August 2008, from his address to the Democratic National Convention

But my favorite, except for what Ken Burns said on the night Mr. Kennedy died, is what Alfred, Lord Tennyson said and Mr. Kennedy's nephew repeated in The Prayers of The Faithful:

May it be said of us now:

"I am part of all that I have met;
For much is taken, much abides.
That which we are, we are.
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find
and not to yield. "

May God have mercy on us all.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

So. I get my hair cut in Seattle. There's a true confession! I don't tell anyone because the few times I have tested the waters with this disclosure, mentioning casually over dinner that I go to Seattle every 6 weeks to visit Anthony, to receive absolution and indulgences, the response is something like, or exactly like, this: you are such a Prima Donna!

And that may be true. I'll have to think about that sometime. But I doubt being seen as a self-indulgent and narcissistic will deter me. The experience is far too nourishing. Yesterday, in a fit of utter hedonistic abandon, I had my fingers and toes groomed and painted, too. They assure me this act is entirely legal in the state of Washington but it feels so good, is so fine, and is so completely decadent, how could it possibly be legal? As I write, my fingertips flash with gleaming tips of ebony, soothing my soul yet stirring little tiny sparks within me that crackle and sparkle in the wake of my keyboard. Anthony the hairdresser and his colleagues seek, find, and sort out some of my higher, heart felt, fondest, and most secret of expressions. Wasn't there a show tune about this? Doris Day? I Enjoy Being a Girl.

Women never painted in the Renaissance; they did not decorate the Pharaoh's tombs nor were they allowed to sculpt the angels for the great bridges in Europe. Women necessarily moved to other forms of expression early on; their home, their hobbies, certainly their children and some, themselves. Their jewelry, their shoes, their colors and their make up all became channels through which they expressed their fondest beliefs about the beauty around them, about what happened today, about what they want or what they are hoping for tomorrow. Hair and nails and clothes? It's all expression. They are just trying to have a word with you.

And just as Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and all the other American patriots who crafted the White Paper behind the US of A would assert, you cannot deny anyone their expression; politically or but especially otherwise. You cannot deny a woman her expression and her thoughts about the glory of the universe and of life around her because it's just not American. (Please insert the tiniest of winks here.) So be careful when you start throwing that Prima Donna stuff around. And thus with perfectly cut, smooth shiny hair and silky fingers and toes, I adjourned to Pike Street and set out to walk that eternal flame of unconditional love and understanding, the market. Can't we understand much of everything about a people and where they live by what they are selling and buying at the market?

I have never been to a market anywhere in the world where I have not gained a higher and better appreciation for people and how they really live and what they have to do each day in their life in that community. The market knows all and tells all. I recall the Muslim women in the south of France on a hot summer's day, studiously examining the frilly, fussy, lacy, gaudy-colored lingerie--they in their dark, large head scarves and chin to toes woolen chadors and dresses. I remember, distinctly, the tiny, tiny wizened Vietnamese woman who had split rice sacks in two, sewn on handles and stood at the market in Dalat selling her rice sack shopping bags, for 11 cents USD; the market in Moscow, Russia with thousands of cheap replicas of Soviet military uniforms and gear, obviously mass-produced in China. And the market in Hilo, Hawaii where the Japanese sell exotic fruits they grow in their back yards; the handfuls of violets for sale at the market in Notting Hill in London....

I prowled along First Street in that bad ass car of mine, looking for a parking place, the moon roof gliding open to the effervescent Seattle sky just as Spencer Davis rocked the car's sound system with Gimme Some Lovin'. I turned into the market at the brass pig and waited while the Asian tourists in front of me driving a mini-van with Florida plates sorted an entire family out and back in the van again; then crept along, resuming my search for a parking place, stopping dead in the middle of the street for the jaywalking artist who jumped off the curb into the fray of the Pike Street Market, scurrying across the scree of comings and goings to his stall lugging canvases and easels. It was worth it because as he touched down on the opposite curb, he turned and flashed me an over-the-shoulder smile, mouthing a little tiny 'thanks'. I found my spot St. Anthony does it again! got out of the car and walked in the perfect 63 degree Seattle air, cool and frothy. Wearing flip flops.

I never wear flip flips in public. Just don't do it. But on this day, at least for one time I had something to say, and on this perfect morning, this peridot of all mornings, I was going to say it.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Father Joe Small S. J.

He's walking with me, at my elbow at every turn this week. I still miss him, miss his high-grade pure self that is the simplest, the most common of denominators, absent from anything disingenuous or toxic. Just in case you don't have time to link back to what he's telling me these days, again, the essence of Joe was and is this:

"THIS IS THE TRUTH: you will never be free until you love, or try to love, every person you meet; and try to forgive every person that hurt you. Until that happens, you will never be free."

Be good to each other and be good to you. Get free.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

So while I was prowling around way in the back of my garden, I found exactly four leaves on the Burning Bush that have turned red. My friend Christy has started her tomato canning/salsa liturgy. The annuals have now grown into magazine cover status and the birds are free to flit and sing throughout the garden, with no attendant worries of babies. You know what this means.

I have always loved Southern California because of my Grandma Belle ties; I loved that woman dearly even though I am a replica of the other grandma, that Timberlake Queen, Bula Grace. But it was in a distracted, spectator manner that I loved/love SoCal, despite those damn jacaranda trees, camellias and agapanthas, because I could never live in anyone or anywhere where the Four Seasons were unknown. I love the seasons and live deeply by them. But lately, I do think I could give an endless summer a try.

Is it because I love summer more? My days are now so different in summer; no racing to Seattle or Vancouver for the weekend with a Suburban full of soccer girls. No reload after reload for a hyper busy boy too curious and involved for his own good. No running back and forth to Coeur d'Alene on errands of mercy, exercises in frustration. No swim team practice, no art school classes, no pool parties, no firecracker shorts, no birthday cakes, no sunsets along a wide sky on the way home, no back to school sales.

None. Now that I devote myself to what holds my interest, the days do not seem long enough or satisfying enough to let go of and I love them/need them, the hours of exploration and contemplation, more than I ever have. A conundrum to be sure. Has life become something of an art form?

And my long ago Jewish heritage that I thought was a little later in my personal evolution that might make either of my grandmothers comfortable, seems much, much father away these days as I just do not like fall and the new year as I once did.

I'm changing again. As the tee shirt I bought in Seattle last weekend says,

It's all good.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

You're right again! It IS time for another Rumi poem. Go out there today and give someone your very best love. Without cause.

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong,
consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.

`Mathnawi VI, 1967-1974

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Oh, I agree. An update is in order. Because it's all about me! I know you are dying to know what's been going on.

Summer. That's been going on. One of my friends, EMiss, was tittering at me when I was telling her about the garden, saying, It's the most beautiful it's ever been. She snickered, you. you! you say that everrrrry year.

Do I now? Well then; that's because it's TRUE. The garden was/is fabulous. At the moment, it's in summer dormancy. Summer dormancy is that period of time it lays back and regroups for the big early fall showing. Like between the Sunday matinee and the Sunday evening curtain? right. Like that. But me being me, you know it's now that the show is over and lights are down low that I love to love my garden. The roses have quit blooming, the lilacs and the rhododendrons are well done for the year and the light colored perennials have all wilted in the Leonine heat. It's in August that I watch, honestly? for hours, everyone, anyone who wants to come to my garden and eat. The birds have hatched, nursed and evacuated those babies so they delight in bathing and sampling anything and everything; the squirrels continue their summer solstice gorge; razorbacks!; the dragonflies patrol for aphids; the bees noisily slurp the water and greedily attack the nectar; butterflies by the hundreds nibble bronze fennel; the neighborhood cats come and nosh on catnip until they are quite drunk; everybody indulges with abandon at Bellemaison this time of year. And I just love that. It took me five years to get rid of the chemicals that had been previously in use here and ten years to plant a plethora of things including berries, vines, blossoms, herbs, hips, roots, leaves and stems that everyone would love to love but I got it done. So now they have plenty to eat and nothing will harm them here, except for their natural predators.

I finally have what I wanted to be in the garden at Bellemaison and Saturday mornings are an orgy, a love fest, between me and those who love my garden too. We feed each other.

ohhh, the pleasure between lovers.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-08-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

And I'm back.

yes, we Idaho'd up the boys from Noo York Citty. Let's just say with a big wink and a little swagger that we elevated their consciousness. We await the return engagement in the middle of September with great anticipation; we can and do bring it around here. And we are unlike any place in the entire world.

These days I am plagued and challenged by my least favorite of anything: herding cats. I do not like herding cats. But because I am high challenge and detail oriented I usually have a good outcome. But I lose my best self everytime. Every damn time. But I'll get it done.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Bellefest

Part I

Bellemaison is awash with preparations over the impending arrival of house guests coming for Bellefest. Club Chow has undergone an extensive renovation, even getting a new dock which Sylvie Ruth promptly ordered painted Provence blue. You don’t see that too much around here. The potting shed has finally come into fruition but it is doubtful the potting bench itself with a concrete counter top and recycled cast iron sink from Brown’s rehabbed into a dry sink will be finished. No matter. We won’t be taking cuttings or dividing iris during Bellefest anyway. The pool has been refinished and outfitted with a brand new, super fast slide and we have quietly laid in an impressive inventory of cold beer, barbecue spice, mountain bikes and beach towels. We B Redi n Stuff.

Yessir, the pinnacle of livin’ easy around here: the first weekend of August. Since these particular guests come from east of the Mississippi, heck never- even- been- to- Chicago!- east- of- the- Mississippi the Chows have planned an itinerary that will Idaho these boys up and send them ticking on the right track back to Noo York Citty with new ambition, aspiration and credo. We can’t wait.

We’ve decided to go para sailing over Lake Coeur d’Alene; listen, we know the definitive para sail experience in this area is Pend O’Reille. Green Libertarian has provided highly evocative and convincing expert testimony on this matter but once the logistics were analyzed and all was said and done, the drive up there and back took up way too much time. So we’re going with Coeur d’Alene, lunch at Huddy’s, and a beer afterwards at Bardenay, alongside the man made lake. What? A man made lake in Idaho is a novelty! Besides, we know the guy that designed the whole Riverstone project and executed the building of that lake and he will debrief us once we get there. It’s possible that we may walk the boardwalk of the Coeur d’Alene Resort—but if we have our choice, we will walk the dike road behind the junior college, okay, okay, NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE and end up at the Fort Sherman Chapel, going back down Military Drive to the lake. Maybe the best walk in the history of civilization. Anyway, that’s our Coeur d’Alene day; we’ll head back to town for dinner with Monsignor On The Porch at JBelle’s, that tried and true uber comfortable restaurant set in that fabulous garden. We’ve arranged for them to serve Pacific cedar planked salmon cooked in their charcoal barbecues as well as cinnamon ice cream and Green Bluff Peach Pie. Bobby Flay has yet to discover JBelle’s and that’s the way the Chows like it because they still can get a table there anytime they want. And they treat you right at JBelle’s
.

The next day is when we show them why we here in The ‘Kan EWA don’t need no Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Broadway, Fenway, Blue Man Group, Fountains of The Bellagio or Smithsonian Institute to be the ultra destination entertainment experience in all of the world. That’s right, the whole world. We lay the smack down with the North Idaho Come Ride With Us Day. First, we rack them out at dark thirty, seducing them downstairs with lovely strong coffee steaming over the rims of thick handled heavy mugs, huckleberry buttermilk pancakes with dainty pats of sweet cream butter alongside hefty chunks of perfectly fried Kansas City Bacon, all tucked in their little sleepy mouths in the most expert of motions. We lure ‘em in, feed ‘em fast, get ‘em outside and then buckle them into the back seat of our Ford truck and head out on I-90.

The sun comes up and by the time we cross Centennial Bridge over Beauty Bay, Lake Coeur d’Alene sparkles as a million diamonds, spilling out of the windows as far as the eye can see, tumbling and running towards Mica, Harrison, and Chatcolet; a scene, a feeling, an impression that Sworwaski could plan and plan but never duplicate. Good Morning Coeur d’Alene.

We keep humming along the freeway pulling our trailer jammed with bikes and coolers past Wolf Lodge and the Rose Lake Exit, past the Cataldo Mission, past Kellogg, through Wallace until at last, finally, we are in Montana. We take the second exit. Now we have the full complete attention of our captives; they did not dream it was possible to be in Montana shortly after breakfast. We’ve bought no tickets; we’ve consulted no timetable. Never even turned our phone on. Gasp! No service anyway! They are not in Noo York Citty no more.

They have nooooo idea....

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Cosmopolitan Club New York, New York February 2009

"I appealed to my mother. I told her it wasn't fair the way the whole family was invading my dreams and she said, Arrah, for the love o' God, drink your tea and go to school and stop tormenting us with your dreams. " — Frank McCourt

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Talked to Mike the Parking Garage Guy this morning and he says he's not going to the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.

Mike! says I, it's the biggest sale of the whole year!

Nope, he says. Not going.

MIKE. You can't live here and love clean air, clean water, blue sky and pine trees and not love the Nordstrom sale. It's not possible Mike!

Not going, JBelle.

Whoa, doggies.

Good Lord! The anniversary sale is like Safeco when Boston is in town. It's like dark, pungent coffee at Pike Street Market. It's smoked blue back out of Lake Pend O'Reille. It's huckleberries and mushrooms off Marble Mountain. It's golf at Indian Canyon, the ducks at Manito, biking the Centennial trail. The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is the 4th of July Parade in Coeur d'Alene, a boxing match at the casino, rollercoasters at Silverwood, fly fishing on the North Fork, a concert in Sandpoint and a big, nasty hamburger at Rockford Bay. How in the world could you not like it, not love it?

Sad and shocked but undaunted, I stopped in at the office, returned a few calls, wrote a few emails, chatted up the State of Idaho auditor in visiting a client's records and headed out. As if to affirm my earlier discourse with Mike the Parking Garage Guy a different guy walks toward me, bare chested, in cut offs, Chuckies, and a beat up baseball cap, with a huge trout on a stick and his fishing pole over his shoulder, headed for where? Certainly not my office nor the bank.

Wherever he was going on this hot, sunny morning in July he was a cosmic message from the Gods, telling me that all was well with the world, that the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale must never be denied and that the faithful will always congregate and pay homage. And I, a repentant pilgrim, am reverent and compliant. I positively trotted down the street towards Nordstrom and almost kicked in the doors when I got there, waving my Platinum AmEx in greeting.

There was an ugly swarm around the handbags so I skipped those altogether in a move that just wasn't that hard after reviewing the catalogue last night. Ugly handbags, ugly shoes this year. I instead moved in on the jewelry, the silver jewelry, and tried on bracelets and earrings to my heart's content. yum. yum. yum.

I shook my head in disgust at the horrid shoe situation, noted that there was not a Swatch watch for sale at any price, then went straight to the men's department. I'll let you in on a little secret. I like buying men's clothes more than any clothes on earth. Love men's clothes. I think it's the tailoring and the fabric and the unfussy, razor sharp lines. And they smellll soooo good! But men's shoes? Not so much. Women's shoes all the way. I moaned when the manager of the accessories department told me that they didn't get the Tory Burch shoes on the sale; but giggled when she leaned over the counter and whispered, We've got Tory Burch at the Rack, though. We raised our eyebrows at each other with firm, teethless wide smiles and now, she is my new best friend.

And this is the transfiguration of summer and the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale in the Great Pacific Northwest.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

NB
My take: two pairs of jeans, a sweater, a blouse, two pairs of earrings and two pairs of tights

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

My Own Private August

August is coming up, maybe my most favorite month of the year. The livin' is easy and life and the world around me weaves itself into a hazy tapestry of sunshine, blue sky, tomatoes, raspberries, and dahlias hypnotizing me into believing that summer will go on forever. The seduction of the soft air and navy blue nights gets me every time. And I love it still.

In My Own Private August, I would have lunch with four people who have walked this earth then and now and have inspired me, provoked me, stymied me, made me laugh and yes, soothed me into insight and understanding as I stumbled along my own path, groping for a foothold . I believe they would form the most perfect of companions for good food and sparkling conversation; we would laugh and argue; eat; listen; argue some more. And listen. And laugh. And laugh. And drink icy cold vodka from Finland in exquisite Baccarat crystal glasses. There would be Irish linen on the table with Jaclyn DuPre roses and tulips in a magnificent crystal ice bucket, Royal Doulton china and of course, Gorham silver. What else?

Our table would be set dead in the center of the massive courtyard of Ataturk's magnificent tomb in Ankara, Turkey, where we will nosh on succulent lamb, jasmine rice with saffron, cucumbers, tomatoes and feta and that outrageously fabulous dessert they make in Turkey with the shredded wheat. Only the extraordinary Piazza del Campo in Sienna, Italy, supposedly the most beautiful public square in all of Europe, can be said in the same breath as Anit Kabir. The architecture is stunning in the true sense of the word as is typical of all Islamic art and architecture and the skyline of Ankara peeks into the edges, creating an on top of the world, Perched-Atop-Everest-In-The-City setting. It is the only venue appropriate in all of the universe for My Own Private August and the meeting of the most special of my companions, a theologian, a writer, an outlaw, and a poet.

The first invitation would go out to Thomas Merton. I am quite proud that as a Catholic priest, early on in the American civil rights movement of twentieth century Brother Merton championed social justice; embraced interfaith understanding and integration; explored and mined the depths of the human experience while the papacy in Rome carried out business as usual. Thomas Merton was one of the reasons I converted to Catholicism and in reading him, I have found a consolation and guidance that has helped me immeasurably. On love he said, "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” My children were small when I began reading Merton and both very strong-willed; Thomas Merton showed me that it is morally unacceptable and outrageously destructive to break their will, even though my own mother swore to me over and over in fits of rage that she would succeed in breaking mine. And I realized that if I was not careful, my own self-loathing would become a part of these two little pink-cheeked curly headed Tasmanian Devils. How could it not? Even today, when I see a lack of discipline or a weakness in my children, I spot myself in a second. In those instances, I know The Dark is about and my footing is slippery. I know then, too, that if I love them perfectly, I will let my children be perfectly themselves. And from where I came from, this was a hard earned lesson. I would love to sit at lunch with Brother Merton and talk about this more and hear what William Shakespeare has to say about perfect love and how he responds to Merton's teachings on mystical theology and contemplative prayer.

So Shakespeare would be my second invitation because of course, he is civilization's all time greatest writer. Shakespeare believed in the fatal flaw that is in all of us and probed and manipulated that flaw that is the human condition into both the most tragic and comedic scenarios ever known on paper. I know that most likely he'll show up at lunch hung over and without a shower, but nevertheless will be riotously funny, keenly insightful and contribute laser-like thrusts and parrys to Merton's assertions, wise cracking, hip checking and eating like a pig the entire way. I know the bar bill will probably double, triple, if he is there but I'd by lying if Shakespeare was not included in My Own Private August. My favorite if I absolutely had to name one? The incredible Love's Labour's Lost. Harold Bloom, another one of my favorite sassy guys, called it "a festival of language, an exuberant fireworks display in which Shakespeare seems to seek the limit of his resources, and discovers that there are none." This piece is a fire in the sky that lights a fire in my soul. Every time. I want Shakespeare to talk about it and how it is that he himself stumbled into completion of this masterpiece so early in his career. Was it his pinnacle? Was everything else just so much billable time after he finished Love's Labour's Lost? And I want to get him good and drunk and find out about Anne Hathaway and his muses. And those limits we supposedly all have. I cannot wait for August.

Up until recently, I would have invited Bill Gates to talk about innovation and competition; two hallmarks of his contributions to mankind but lately, now that Bill is an old married man, he seems to have mellowed remarkably. I think he'd be reverent and respectful to Brother Merton and gush at everything Shakespeare had to say so instead, I'd like to play a wild card and invite another sassy guy that's come up on my radar screen. This guy writes a editorial comments for the local newspaper and is a bad, bad boy; I love to read Gary Crooks. He is a smart ass with no equal and as an accomplished blogger, will devilishly argue and pursue a point well past any modicum of discretion. Not an easy feat for a journalist, most of whom prefer to reside in the ivory tower of the newsroom, putting the receptionists and the secretaries up front to do all the actual talking. While I would not call Crooks' linear train of thought elegant, I would call it sturdy with endless strength and stamina. He can hold his line as if he were an Ironman Marathoner. But it's his wicked sense of humor that belies a keen intellect and the near flawless construction in his writing that makes him irresistible to me. Gary Crooks is a never-miss-must-read part of my week and I think he would be fabulous company at lunch. I would love to see him respond when Shakespeare tells him to find the poetry in his soul. And when the other guy that will be there gives him permission to lay his fears aside and plunge into love, ending the separation of him and his ultimate destiny.

So who would that other guy be? Well, of course, it would be Rumi. How could I not want Rumi? Erotic, sensual, honest, timeless, soothing and deeply loving, and a mystic as well, Mevlana must come and read my very favorite aloud:

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,

Like this.

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.

Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.

Like this.

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.

Like this.

How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?

Huuuuu.

How did Jacob’s sight return?

Huuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.

Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us

Like this.

Can you just imagine what Mr. William Shakespeare will have to say in response to that and how the two mystics, Thomas Merton, a Zen Catholic, and Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, a Sufi Muslim, will process through repentance, redemption and resurrection:

"...Ours is not a brotherhood of despair./Even if you have broken/Your vows of repentance a hundred/times, come."

At this point, Gary Crooks will undoubtedly be on his feet, ordering more vodka.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

More Roses of Bellemaison

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-05T08:58:00.001-07:00

I think separation in families is one of the most heinous tragedies of civilization. My great great grandmother's sisters were devastated when she emigrated to the USA, grieving that they would never see her again. And they never did see her again after she left Prussia with her husband and five sons for a new life as an American.

In my own family, we have separation. I grieve for my brothers and their children. We are estranged and some of us are exiled. I miss them terribly after all this time. I do not think this separation will ever be cured. The last ten years have challenged me to build muscle in being alone and being strong. But mostly, it's been my challenge to find beauty and the face of God in each and every day. It still isn't very easy and I still have plenty of days where I just cannot bear up under the challenge.

My blog buddy, Billy the Bad Boy of the Classroom regularly celebrates 3 Beautiful Things and I have loved reading about the simple and exquisite moments of clarity in his life. He's honest, he can be brutally honest, and I cherish his model of being grateful and working hard to be whole.

Out of the blue, in the last year, two different members of my family from two different corners, reached out to me and we met and laughed and joked about the old times. And marveled at the new times at hand and looked at each other with wide eyes over the times ahead. In both instances, I was surprised and wary; but each meeting unfolded with a pure, innocent love that only people who share a gene pool can have for each other.

I think some wounds never will heal. Just don't think they will. So it's our job to be grateful for the knowledge of the reality that exists; savor and cherish those moments of beauty that do come our way in the most random of encounters; and marvel at the love and beauty of God's own face. And find joy. Find some joy. And continue hoping that out of that joy will fall peace.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-07-05T08:37:00.001-07:00

The Ballerinas of Bellemaison

With Permission of Edgar Degas

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-29T12:57:00.001-07:00

The Roses of Bellemaison

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

Just for today. Go out there and sing and dance.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-24T14:06:00.001-07:00

This photo taken with a cell phone was sent to me today by a regular reader of Notes From The 'Kan EWA. It's lovely, isn't it? Guess where it is and the Chows are sure to reward you with a nice prize.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, the folks over at HBO were talking about the Seven Wonders of the World. I've talked before about how deeply connected I am to my world, still, after all these years, and how my world informs and frames my outlook onto the larger world. Good, bad or really ugly, I am who I am. Truer words were never spoken when it was said that you can take the girl out of the woods, but never take the woods out of the girl.

Still, you might like to know, specifically, what rocks my world and what dropped my mouth open into a perfect O upon first glimpse and still has the very same effect on me. Henceforth, may I present The Seven Wonders of My World, spoken with my best O mouth.

Lac Louise
Banff
Alberta, Canada

Just writing the words brings an audible groan to my core. At first glance, it's quite a contradiction of sorts: tourmaline blue Caribbean-like waters framed by soaring granite mountains. But as you enter it, there is no contradiction or confusion; it is absolute in every respect. Ancient. Silent. Moderately gracious. Acquiesces and allows tourists to canoe it. Is quite happy to let anyone skate it; ski it. Delighted that people walk around it. But is completely unyielding to anything else, particularly swimming. It's glacial-fed water and runs about 5 degrees Celsius, which, if you're doing the math, is a mind-robbing 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the closest thing that I can understand to pure, holy magic. Completely on its own terms.

Lake Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Summer! I learned to swim on the north shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene, learned to canoe at camp in Kidd Island Bay, got married on French Bay, took my own kids there for birthdays, fun and to observe the rites of celebration. These days, the tug boats and log booms have been replaced by McYachts and McMansions and it's quite possible that standing ahead of you in line for ice cream on Sherman Avenue will be some Hollywood luminosity. It's still home, though and still is livin' easy and livin' well in the very best sense.

Cataldo Mission/North Fork Coeur d'Alene River
North Idaho

My first memory of the Cataldo Mission was of the field trip we took at the end of fourth grade after a year of self directed study on Idaho state history. Looking back, I can clearly point to this as the exact year in time when I became smitten with history, ancient people and rivers. God, how I love this place and love Idaho. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe still maintains a strong relationship with the Mission, thankfully, and these days, it operates as a real museum with a visitors' center and everything. Back in the fourth grade, though, you could still pick up the square nails used to build the thing as they popped out of the logs. I still have one.

Chinatown
Victoria
British Columbia, Canada

Another big sigh and a giggle even at the thought of this marvelous community. Tourists don't come to Victoria to see Chinatown so it really has escaped much of the trinketry and development/decline that plagues New York's Chinatown and even San Francisco's. In Victoria, Chinatown is the where the Chinese in the area buy groceries, go to the hardware store, get their cleaning done, get together with friends for good food and conversation, look at art, go to performances, hear lectures, exercise, buy birthday gifts for each other, have their hair cut, and buy things they need for their house and to live their life. This Chinatown has a authentic, contemporary rhythm and never fails to stir me. I'd live there in a second if the locals would have me.

Pike Street Market
Seattle, Washington

Now I'm chuckling. What can I say about the Pike Street Market that countless others haven't said? Maybe, why it's an obligatory and fundamental observance for me? Breakfast at a dockworkers' diner on Elliot Bay with scrapple and tripe on the menu. Pink and red silvery salmon the size of cocker spaniels packed in ice at the fish vendor. The smell of strong, dark pungent coffee. Impossibly bright, cheerful and fragrant handsfuls of flowers. Artists with great hopes. Street musicians with razor sharp wit. Clean, fragrant streets and alleyways. The absolute best of the Very Best.

The Gorge of the Columbia River
George, Washington

The mighty Columbia is never more beautiful than here. My favorite time of year is summertime when the rock cliffs practically light up with heat that you can easily see rising from the plateaus and crevices of the rock. The river and the rocks somehow become one but at sunset, the river goes silent and the rocks glow fiery red. Then the dark night sky is pierced with millions and millions of stars. You can only imagine what it was like to be alone and on foot back in the day in the Gorge....

The Mission at St. Ignatius
St. Ignatius, Montana

When other Americans were fighting a Civil War, the Jesuits were here in service to the native Americans of the area. The mission church holds a series of paintings done by a cook in the kitchen that are familiar, primal and startling. The frescoes, or murals as they are called in Montana, are as jaw dropping as anything Raphael ever did. Not a small part of this experience is the setting at the foothills of the magnificent Mission Mountains but still, the mission at Ignatius is an uncommon experience that simply isn't available anywhere else in the Northwest. My particular favorites are the Lord and his mother in the very back of the church. They are Salish. As are the locals, the native people of the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Priest Lake
North Idaho

If there was ever a contentment or a peaceful resolve that emanated out of me than was greater than the one that Priest Lake evokes, I am not aware of it. Priest Lake never, ever changes. Despite development, the State of Idaho and the price of timber, Priest Lake remains undeterred and unseduced by the ways of the world. Utterly sublime refuge amid the chaos and wreckage of life in the new millennium.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-19T08:47:00.001-07:00

A gardener never, ever loses utter fascination with the garden. Gardeners are fascinated with their land twelve months a year, everyday of each month. They wonder and watch. Walk and wait. Listen. Scout. Explore, investigate. Check on. Anticipate. Exhale. Reach for the soapy water. Reach for the camera. Reach for the felcos. The garden provides real time live entertainment for a gardener most waking moments of his existence.

I try to walk in my garden each day as it is a true moment of solace for me. I do not like the distraction of other people in the garden when I am there so I have to wait until I am certain the coast is clear. And then I stroll through my peace of mind and consolation. It is impossible, no matter how i am dressed, not to deadhead, pick off aphids, examine underside of foliage, or smell a handfuls of soil, if I am prompted. Can't not do it. Can't not be in it while being present.

And I end up with handfuls of seed pods and yellow, crispy foliage that fascinates me as I drop them in my big orange Home Depot bucket. I love to look at that stuff. Love it. I love the plant as it emerges from dormancy, begins to leaf, then bud, then bloom, then fade and finally, settles. I love every part of it. The poppies have just run through their cycle and I am fascinated with the seed --which is, you have to admit-- the alpha and omega of it all. It's all about the seeds. I was playing with the poppies last night in my nightgown well past good light and got these. So you know, this is the stuff that really interests me. When I do my book, I'll include lots of pretty pictures like the ones below for you. But for me, I do a whole section of this stuff.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-16T08:51:00.001-07:00

Loaded up another boat and sent it back out on the lake. I've known this boat for many, many years; actually since the first. Always been one of my very favorite boats, maybe even my favorite. Been on stormy waters for more than several years now, beat up pretty bad, this one has, so I was a surprised but really, really happy to see it tie up at my dock couple of months ago, scruffy and worn but still very handsome and sturdy. I gave it the best stuff I had, but not completely sure of what had gone on and where the new journey would go, I could only guess at what inventory to lay in, what supplies to use to line the shelves, what stock would be needed. Saw 'im chugging away on Monday, steady low throttle. Gotta be all good. Some transitions are not lightning nor laser fast but discernible in only a nano-second. This time I saw it. Which makes me think about how ignorance is bliss. Bob Seger: "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."

So these people I know are having a social event of sorts and invited me. I was quite glad to be included. For reason of a strictly personal nature, I won't be going. But it's got me to thinking about why I separate myself from things that I really, really enjoy. Because I do that, if rather frequently, rather regularly.

A classmate of mine from back in the day has been cranky with me for 39 years or so--we also go back to just about the very beginning. This guy does not approve of me nor do I, wait for it, meet his expectations. There's a reoccurring theme! But because I bring out the absolute worst in this guy and he is sure to go off on me for something I did or didn't do, after all this time, I have stayed away and continue to stay away from most of my hometown friends. Just seems more friendly that way; I'd feel bad if our old friends had to witness how ugly he can be. Because he's pretty damn ugly. And chooses me to be his personal witness. I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to be tired and a little resentful of my particular job description in being Mr. All American's punching bag. I'm weary. I don't choose pain. All in all, it forms a beautiful, treacherous reef of separation and isolation.

Another thing I have loved since I was quite small is the lake. The people of my birth family are particular devotees of the river, so we didn't spend much time on the lake as a child but I love the lake. love it. Walked along the north shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene practically every night of my adolescence, stars and snow alike, and when I went to college in the wheat fields down the road, my big secret was that the one and only thing I missed about home was the lake. After college, I moved to the third leg of the triangle where my life was at the club and on the course, both which came with pools. I became a pool person. That's what my life was and as incredible as it now seems, all three of my children learned to swim in pools. Might be a good time to take them back and get them re-certified. Can you really swim if all you know is pool swimming?

Now I live in a home with a very nice swimming pool that I never, ever, read that no, not once, use. Why do I separate myself from the things that I really like? Part of it is the people around me, part of it is that I would much rather walk around pain than walk through it. Having my Inner Gladiator on alert 24/7 makes me so weary. So very weary. So separation, then, ends up being only the best I can do.

I am going to try to relieve myself from separation; abandon my monastic instincts and practices for a few moments. A few soon moments. I will swim, swim!, in Lake Coeur d'Alene on my birthday, just as I did as a little kid. And recall and celebrate my American Red Cross swimming lessons on Lake Coeur d'Alene. And I will summarily throw caution to the wind and see if I can't join people who are barbecuing and drinking beer before the year's end. Gotta try it and dodge it no more.

And every morning, I will go down and sit on the dock, with a good book and my dogs, and watch the horizon and wait for a glimpse of that handsome, sturdy boat that I have known and loved for so long--surely now sailing on a smoother, straight course to unparalleled achievement and expression.

~for Joe Nathan, aloha nui loa

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-13T09:50:00.001-07:00

I know a guy who is a beermaker--makes beer on the weekend and at night and from all published reports, does a pretty good job of it. This week he was looking for a few handfuls of huckleberries, I guess, for his next batch of brew. HBO then asked the question, What Would You Trade for a Six-Pack of Home Brewed Beer?

I responded immediately that I would trade an enormous bouquet of summer perennials from Bellemaison, featuring roses of course. I could make him up a really nice one today, with white peonies, coppery orange yellow roses, some late deep pink lilacs, fresh, tender ferns, blooming catnip and some nice single petal red roses. Altissimo, for those in the know.

But it got me to thinking about what do I have or do here that I could trade, if I wanted to? There are, I would say, about 20 Hermes scarves that I don't want or wear. There are some exquisite French hand-colored botanicals from the 40s. I've got some yucca, Joe Pye Weed, and hostis in my inventory of excess capacity. I have got 20 very large terra cotta pots. I've got several digital cameras that I don't use at all any more. I have one very excellent Mel McCuddin t shirt that I would trade for something really worthwhile. Something that would be as cool to have as this Mel t-shirt. I have a very, very fine Robin Dare print that I have never made friends with--sure wish I could find it a happy home. It hangs in storage at the moment, as it has for 10 years. I have vintage cookbooks that I'd trade for other vintage cookbooks. I have dishes that I would happy trade for another set of dishes. I think, last time I inventoried the dishes, I was up to 13 sets of dishes. But only one set I'd trade. I need the rest.

I could trade a first rate apple pie; a batch of flank steak second to none; potato, macaroni and fruit salads fit for a Goddess; cole slaw that will make you weep in ecstasy; corn on the cob that will have you growl, rumble and roar for more; chocolate cake and cinnamon ice cream that will have you stand up and howl, then scratch and bark. Huckleberry pancakes. I have other prowess in the kitchen, too. We could talk.

And I have Chow hair that I just took off four chows. It's wintry, thick, fleecy hair and perfect for planting the spring garden because the smell wards off would be interlopers who believe, correctly, that the Chows are very near. Just where ya going find stuff like that?

What do you have to trade?

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is high holy lilac country here in The 'Kan EWA. I suppose it's the good hard freeze that provides the nice dormancy those woody stems need to set blooms. But whatever it is, we grow lots and lots of lilacs here and in fact, have nick named our self The Lilac City. Heady stuff.

When I was in high school, I played the flute and marched in the Coeur d'Alene High School Marching Band. Every year at this time we'd pack up base drums and the tubas, we called 'em tubas then, and head to The 'Kan EWA for the Lilac Armed Forces Torchlight Parade where we would march up and down the streets of downtown in between the floats and military units. The closer I got to graduation the dorkier it was to march in the band and just about everybody had more fun in the band than I did but still, I was a four year veteran of playing first chair flute and count those parade marches under the starry spring night skies of The 'Kan EWA as some of my favorite memories of back in the day. And it was all about the lilacs.

One morning in May 1980, I got up really early and drove my truck out past north Mead, where I had located 3 dozen bareroot lilacs. Dark purple. I wanted a lilac hedge that would span the back line of my property so I went out there, took all those bushes bareroot out of wet bark and brought them home and planted them. Toward mid morning the sky turned really dark; ominous yet no signs of rain nor clouds really. Just ominous. It was an eerie pall that cast itself over the gazebo and the fish pond but I just kept plugging those holes I had dug the day before with steer manure, peat moss and bare root lilacs. By 11 am, the phone was ringing off the hook with the news that Mt. St. Helens had blown up and that dark sky was volcanic ash getting ready to settle itself into my life--in my garden, on my driveway, atop my roof and in every nook, cranny and crevice of my pores, my sinuses and my every open orifice and those of my two little kids and my dogs. So I kept planting. Didn't have much time and I had to get all 36 of those lilacs in the ground. I finished just in time. It got pitch dark by 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We waited for something horrific to happen but it never did; we woke up the next morning to 8 inches of gray, powdery volcanic ash covering everything. Our entire world. And all 36 of my new lilac bushes. I had no idea if they would survive. Sometime after that I got a divorce and we moved away from that house but as luck would have it, I drive by it at least twice a day. It still has the most fabulous, enormous hedge of lilacs in back. Dark purple. It was the volcanic ash that sent those lilacs heavenward and kept them a bionic presence on Rockwood Boulevard all these years, where they were blooming today.

I had another baby and twenty years later he moved to London. It was in the glory days of terrorism and I worried about him hourly for the first six months he was there. Never occurred to me he might be homesick--in fact, I probably didn't care if he was homesick. I was completely absorbed with his safety. After his first Christmas there, I relaxed and began to settle into life without my happy, busy youngest child. As I missed him the most, in April, he wrote me a note and said that he was a homesick as he had been in London, at almost a year after he arrived. He was walking along the Thames well into his morning routine one day and all of a sudden, he smelled them. Couldn't see them, but he smelled lilacs and he was immediately taken back to his bedroom in The 'Kan EWA, where the scent of lilacs wafts upward from the garden beneath his window. He misses the lilacs still and told me a week ago or so that he misses the spring work in the garden and the feel of freshly turned spring soil and the smell of lilacs that is ever present, everywhere here at Bellemaison this time of year.

My favorite these days are Korean lilacs. They are smaller, lighter in color but have a powerful, pungent lilac smell that I can catch in the air 200 yards down the street. Korean lilacs are a change up for me; I like big, bushy well pruned dark purple lilacs. But now, I am different. Things have changed and will change again. And probably again. But my life is bookmarked by certain irrevocable events and if there are lilacs in the air, for me, surely it's May and will be, for all time.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-06-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

okay, okay, okay. Get off! I have been out of town and thus am remiss in putting in my take on the brilliant win by FC Barcelona in the UEFA final last Wednesday. It was a love-lee day for the blue and red and Man U, not so much. Failed to respond to the Spanish ass kicking delivered systematically, swiftly and surely after Eto'o drilled one in 10 minutes into the game. Failed to show up to the search and destroy party hosted by the boys from Barcelona. Failed to even be worthy after FCB routed them and left them with no response at all at the end of 90 minutes of training manual soccer: You Too Can Win Even If Yore Defense Has A Few (Large) Holes In It. The only pain in two hours was my boy Wayne Rooney's confusion and bewilderment. God, I used to love to watch him play and reveled in his Annihilator performance at the World Cup 2006 in Germany on behalf of The Queen's England. But on Wednesday last, Puyol dismantled that man and left in his place a little, babbling man to do a Wayne Rooney-size job. It was so sad. Even Prince William looked embarrassed and impatient shaking his hand in the medal ceremony. Awkward.

My boy Thierry Henry looked ...okay. What! He's been sorting out an injury! And I must admit that Lionel Messi can bring it anyway you want it. Warrior,that. Him. Whatever. Here's the NYT's take on it. Loved it. Hey, did you realize the World Cup is next summer?!

Player Ratings

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

JoJo's Taco Bravo

(This is not a summertime recipe nor is it one I typically would enjoy: it involves lots of opening up cans and a fair amount of mayonnaise. But it's been noodling around in my head for a few months now and I wanted to nail it, write it up and put it away for the summer. I watched Paula Deen one Saturday morning when it was still very cold and snowy out and got the idea for this chili. Took me awhile to get all the pieces in the right order but served it recently at the Dancing With the Stars Finale to rave reviews. It's actually uber easy.)

1 bunch green onions, sliced
1 recipe ranch dressing using Hidden Valley herb and spice envelope, fresh buttermilk and mayonnaise
(I actually used two envelopes of herbs and spices, making a potent batch of dressing that I loosen up with more buttermilk and mayo if I end up using it on salad.)

1-1 1/2 pounds lean, lean hamburger

3 T taco seasoning or 1 envelope taco seasoning
1 envelope Hidden Valley ranch dressing mix

1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with chilies
(Canned tomatoes are not created equal: if you get an elite brand the tomatoes will be seeded. Otherwise, using a run of the mill brand, your chili will have tomato seeds.)

2/3 c dehydrated onions (boorah!)
3 tsp chipotle Tabasco
2 tsp cumin

1 15 oz can pinto beans
1 15 oz can kidney beans

Season hamburger and brown in large dutch oven over medium high heat. Reduce heat and stir in taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce and reserve cans.

Stir in onion, Tabasco and cumin and adjust to taste. Add beans complete with liquid and add two cans of water, using the tomato sauce and diced tomato cans. Cook over low heat until chili absorbs water and has a nice chili consistency.

Ladle into bowls, drizzle with homemade ranch dressing then sprinkle with green onions. Serve with either tortilla chips from the snack aisle or white tortillas, steamed. Bravo, bravo, bravo.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-21T08:58:00.001-07:00

Took a quiz over there on Facebook, 'How Idaho Are You?' Turns out I am 100% tater. That damned Facebook is amazing. And in a moment of weakness yesterday, I gave my Facebook address to that one bossy high school friend who just won't give up on me. Pretty soon now, they'll all be coming over to Facebook.

My fear is loss of intimacy. I dread running into the gas station or being at a benefit in Coeur d'Alene and seeing classmates from a long time ago and having to explain just what the deal is with paparazzi. Why am I plagued with the paparazzi? There's paparazzi in The 'Kan EWA? How do you explain a running gag among friends whose friendships were built in a large part on on subtlety, reading signals, and not ever having to be accountable for your thoughts, only having to be able to articulate them? I don't ever have to explain on Facebook or on Notes From The Kan; I can just be there and peck in all out, check the spelling, thump the syntax and keep moving.

Or not. Or not....

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Today it is cold and gray. We are looking at pictures. I loved these.

Takes Time to Heal

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

Well, things are in an uproar around here this morning as The Chows got word last night that Copper River Salmon has arrived in Seattle. Holy Month or Salmon Ramadan has begun. God bless us and bless us and bless us.

I should have known something was up when I glanced outside this morning and saw Cleo backflipping up and down the pool deck; you ever seen a Chow Chow make breakdance moves? They do, for Copper River salmon. Sylvie Ruth was on the phone to all her friends belly laughing, and Red Dorothy just kept making those gritty, growly oouww sounds like soul singers make when they're driving their point home as she strutted around and around the patio with stiff legs and a bobbing neck. P33t just started sniffing hard and biting his lip a little bit and every time anybody got close to him, he'd crack a little smile, toss his head and say I'm bad. I'm bad. The Chows go ca-razy over Copper River salmon.

The red fish that is like red cake, red food for the gods, the Red Eucharist, brings out only the best in everyone, a sort of Great Pacific Northwest Springtime Aphrodisiac. I personally believe it's the final confirmation that the long dark days of winter are finally gone. You don't really get spring until the Copper River is runnin'. Oh, sure it's the Milk Moon now, the second full moon after the spring equinox. And yes, Easter's come and gone. Bloomsday is over. Mother's Day is history again. Heck, Ben's another year older and another class graduates, even. But for reals, spring does not come around here until you put that first forkful of Copper River salmon into your mouth. Mother Earth's Milk on tines.

So here's how we're going to kick off Holy Month at Bellemaison. We particularly like this version of salmon because the dijon snaps us to attention. We like that. And we can use our newly sprouted herbs from out back in the garden, just now back from the darkness of winter.

Dijon Salmon
from Nordstrom 'Flavors'

4 green onions, minced
1/4 cup firmly packed chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup firmly packed chopped fresh basil
1 T firmly packed chopped fresh oregano
1 T firmly packed chopped fresh thyme
3 large cloves garlic minced
1/3 cup EVOO

6-6oz skinless Copper River salmon fillets
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 T Dijon mustard

Preheat over to 450 degrees F. Line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper.

Using a small bowl, stir together all the herbs and drizzle in EVOO. Set aside.

Season the salmon on both sides; place salmon on pan. Using the back of a spoon, evenly spread 1 teaspoon of mustard over each fillet. Using a rubber spatula, evenly spread about 2 T of the herb crust over the mustard coating each piece of fish.

Roast in hot oven until the salmon is barely opaque when flaked with the tip of a knife, about 10 minutes. Just don't even think of overbaking.

Using a thin, flexible metal spatula, gently transfer salmon to warmed dinner plates. Criss cross with asparagus that you have grilled over charcoal, using EVOO, kosher salt and good black pepper, over the top. If you are at the absolute top of your game today, you'll have a succulent warm rhubarb pie with cinnamon cream waiting for dessert. Aphrodisia; real-time, live aphrodisia.

If His Holiness Benedict knew of Copper River salmon, surely He Himself and President Obama would come to The 'Kan EWA today to sort out and discuss their differences, each listening and joining in respectful communion as the garden choir sang around them. The sights and sounds of springtime and the taste of the dialogue, like the salmon, would be savory, eternal and would smell deeply of our ancient woods and waters that cause our souls to spontaneously sing-- so hard, so loud-- every year at this time.

To Spring!

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

It is a spectacular day here in The 'Kan EWA and one of the reasons we cheerfully suffer long winters, bad roads, cheezy politicians and no BevMos. We're waiting for spring. And we know summer will follow. I am positive that Homer himself wrote another epic poem about the time when the lilacs blooms here in The 'Kan and it's laying in some museum in Iraq, waiting to be completely translated. Because no less than Homer would do to describe a day such as today.

The Chow Nation has been quite busy with the winter clean up. I figure when we're all done, we'll have pulled out 100 dead roses. Never have I had a winter where I lost one-fourth of anything, let alone my roses, which I pretty much value over anything else in my life. (sshhhhh.)(The problem with the roses has always been that I can't winter them in the safety deposit box.) The rhododendrons looks just fine; the hydrangii sleep still but they will rise and burst forth with blossom as per their commitment. I know them and they are just dogging it. (ouch. pardon the expression.) It's the roses who have checked out of Bellemaison.

And I say fine. Anybody who doesn't want to be here with me and the Chows has my blessing to hit the road and walk. Today, we will have the supero-exquizitee basil, feta and fresh tomato on white french bread with garlic red wine vinegar dressing luncheon sitting in the woods behind the pool. We will wash down this ambrosia with iced tea, double lemon!, and wonder just what the hell people who don't eat feta cheese do about life, anyway. How do people live a life without feta?

And we will regale and rejoice in our positions of being Head Gardeners in the most beautiful garden on earth and about being together. We will throw the ball, play with the stick and then take another little walk around.

And say a prayer. We will say a prayer.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

Soooooooo. As it turns out, seems that my big son Ben and The Fool apparently know me pretty good because when I do get the tattoo, it will not be on my wrist or my ankle or anywhere you can see it. But that's all I'm saying. If you want further details, you'll have to talk to them. 'Cause I'm not telling.

Back to the sky diving, yes, you go tandem tethered to a highly competent instructor. Highly competent. Mine was funny and fun and a gave me a big hug when I went to shake his hand at the end. Story of my life, I'm telling you. And I do hope Zoe comes over and debriefs me thoroughly. Now that it's way over, I am ready to talk all about it.

Melody, I have been on seven hot air balloon rides. Loved everyone of them. One I loved the best was Turkey; Cappadocia. But that's a no brainer. But they make Zen gardens in the fallow fields; can you imagine? And yes, skydiving was a Mother's Day present from my big son. Know why he's my big son? Because he's s 6'4". And you thought I meant big like phat. By the way, he will tell you he's big and phat, but do not believe him. I am the authority on that. And I, am not talking.

As for the pictures of these tats, I think that's what you are talking about, tattoos, you can show me yours but I ... will not show you mine. Mel, I think the musical note is a lovely idea. Peed, you better believe I did it. And Carla, yes. There are so many things in life that everyone, everyone, should do at least once.

Like be a Motorcycle Mama.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-10T21:10:00.001-07:00

I went sky diving yesterday. It's something I've wanted to do for several years. Even at that, Ben had to hold my hand tight and lead me into it; as with many things, the scariest part was the preparation and lead up. But after all was said and done, I stepped into the doorway, made my hands into a fist and held my arms under my chin and leaned, then fell, into the wind, knees first.

I froze and kept my arms clutched to myself, not extending them as I had practiced, so my instructor had to reposition me for the half-fetal position but in a second, or 20 seconds? time ceases to execute itself in the vacuum of the wind, I reached out for the air just like I was supposed to and was course-corrected and flying toward a distant horizon, hell! freaking Beijing! my legs separated into a V and knees bent, pelvis crunched forward and arms extended into a touchdown signal, hands at eye level and my personal secret for success, elbows held high. Yeah. You gotta keep your elbows high.

It was all over in another second, or another 2 hours, I can't remember which, and as was predicted, I was ready to get up and go again. And again. When you fly above the earth like you have dreamed about doing since you were a little kid, you're not apt to have just one run at it or to say, ok on to the opera in Milan! You want it, you need it, you crave it. Flying. Just like you've always dreamed.

One thing that really surprised me is how soft the air was. I anticipated it being like when you are standing at a stoplight in a really strong wind. It's not like that at all. Rather, the air is soft and slow, almost; highly, highly sensual. And you rue your boots, your gloves, your helmet, your jumpsuit, all your safety stuff! You just want to tumble and roll, bathe in the soft, soft air. You just wanna be barefoot. I had such a strong urge to play in the air! You want to tuck and roll and flip without any limit or penalties like gravity. Unfortunately, they don't let the first timers do that and in fact, you have to be pretty darn good, like instructor certified to get to do that. But omigod, it would be fun. So. Much. Fun.

That big son of mine knows me well, mostly. He said he wasn't sure I would go through with it until about two-thirds of the way through the training video. They moved from the technical/practical aspects of flying, as they call it, into the soft sale and completely unconscious of the transition, I pulled out my handbag and began to take off my jewelry. He laughed to himself as he sat next to me and thought, Game On. He said I had tears in my eyes as we sat on the bench and waited for our turn but bragged about my perfect form in the air, over and over and over again.

Everybody needs to fly once in a while. Everybody needs someone to brag about them, too. My mother never flew and she sure never bragged about me and that effected my emotional and psychological development, and textured my social development. But today, I am quite warm in the memory of me one on one with the pretty blue sky of California on a beautiful spring day; the soft surprise of that some accomplishments can bring; and the surety, the bedrock, hardcore, youcan'ttellmeanything different surety, that you, sorry excuse for a human being such as you are, are loved.

Ben tells me he's quite certain that next, I am going to get a tattoo.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well, it's coming up. Mother's Day. The Chows make a big fuss over Sylvie Ruth, being P33t's mother and all, and always express great interest in Sunday brunch and then, nap all day. The children that used to live here never did settle on one Mother's Day tradition but instead, threw change ups every year to throw me off track. Couple years ago, Beni Hana gave me a really nifty thing that looks like a tool you use to break into cars. What you really do with it is slip it in the spine of your open cookbook and it holds the book open while you cook. Super cool! This year, the Christ Child gave me a gorgeous necklace from the spring collection of his employer. FABulous, darling. Angie Mariani has come up with lovely, beautiful things over the years and never fails to surprise me. The year I got TiVo I was blown away. She's tricky, that one.

It occurs to me that the Chows and I have a certain authority in Mother's Days gifts--you folks might want us to share-- so with no further ado, we present

Best of Mother's Day 2009

Breakfast: there are a lot of schools of thought on breakfast. You can go toast, eggs, sausage, muffins, fruit, pancakes, waffles, ickcetra, ickcetra, ickcetra. Let us just say this: less is more. Less is more! Women don't eat like loggers. You want to go with one perfect almond croissant, a big mug of perfectly brewed strong coffee from a French press, and a Bloody Mary in a frosty iced tea glass. That's all you need. It should be served in bed, in a bed with 800 count Egyptian cotton sheets preferably white, of course; on a nice little tray with a single bloom in a non-tippy bud vase, probably crystal. The morning light will throw rainbows through it if you are lucky and a tulip will be just fine as long as you have a nice French dish towel acting as a place mat. The tray also is a perfect place for other Mother's Day offerings. See below.

Jewelry: I personally think a good bracelet makes a wonderful day. You have your choices, of course; Hermes, unbeatable. Good silver bangles, tres chic. A nice 22K gold bracelet of any style is a rock star on Mother's Day. But I have to say my personal favorite for Mother's Day is a tennis bracelet of amethysts. How can you go wrong? Get a tennis bracelet in anything for that matter, have the jeweler wrap it up in that seductive manner only jewelers know, and tuck in into the tray with the almond croissant and the Bloody Mary. You're well on your way to bein' Mama's favorite!

Scarves: Again, one of my personal favorites (and it is all about me, right?) is an Hermes scarf. With me, it's a little harder as I have several hundred of the damn things so you gotta be careful you don't give me one I already have. What you probably want to do is call Hermes in New York and ask for Anita. Tell her you're shopping for JBelle and you need the perfect scarf. She'll understand your dilemma. She'll sigh, think for a moment, and break the silence with an hmmmm; then undoubtedly, she'll murmur the name of the one scarf she bought from the spring collection and tell you she thinks it would suit me, too. It might, it just possibly might. But believe me, when the box from HOP hits my front porch, I am guaranteed to jump into your arms, no matter what scarf the postman brings. Hermes: no flipping brainer.

China/Silver/Crystal: It's hard to beat a nice heart-shaped piece of Wedgewood or Waterford. Or a heart-shaped piece of Pomona Portmerion with those darling apples on it. Silver anything, particularly vintage in Gorham Buttercup, is a homerun. This option is sooooo easy!

Flowers: Saved the best for last. Mother's Day is the unofficial start of the spring flower planting season. You want to go with that theme instead of cut flowers in a vase. What you want is a knock-out hanging basket, or a big planted pot or one of those big baskets of annuals that are so cunningly put together. You can't get these things at Lowe's or at Home Depot. Can't even get them at a good florist. Nope. You gotta go to the best, and I am talking the very best, greenhouse in town. They'll have a big selection if you shop early in the week and you'll be able to be discriminating and highly selective. Hands down, a big, wonderful, colorful basket or pot of summer annuals is the very best, I am talking the gold standard here, of Mother's Day gifts. It is my all time first choice and the very favorite of all my memories. It's what I used to give my mom. And these days, it's the one thing I yearn for: to drive up to 10th and Penn with a knot of howling kids and unload a big pot of petunias and vines to my mom's front porch. You never,ever get over your first love.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-02T09:17:00.001-07:00

It is a splendid morning here in The 'Kan EWA. The daffodils bloom in big blobs of sun kisses, with the buttercups making a carpet of golden winks along the paths of Bellemaison. The new leaves of the climbing hydrangea rise into the sunshine of the sky, ladders of gold green vines creeping up to the attic windows. The white and pink and lavender blooms of the early alyssums scatter and spill across the rocks and trails of the garden in bucketsful, throwing out the welcome mat after their long absence when they were tucked away in the dark arms of winter.

The Chows patrol, monitor Cliffie's progress, and look for a ball game. I mentally make a note to lay in supplies for Sunday brunch. The birds sing in cacophonous joy and the dew on new leaves twinkles along in accompaniment. I think of the May basket left at my front door yesterday. No matter what the politicians, the media or the scientists of this world have for me, I have my garden and The Chow Nation. And no one, not even them, can take that away.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-05-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Chows caught up with me this morning to tell me that I really have neglected my blog. They are sad and embarrassed with the paltry offerings here and told me I have to get back in the game right now. Among other things, they tell me that I just have not put nearly enough pictures of them up, let alone any pictures at all. While they certainly were nice about it, they let me know they don't want to have to speak to me again. Lord, my inadequacy knows no ends. Chow pictures. Coming at you. Soon. no, this time I mean it.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-04-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

The Knitted Village

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8017671.stm

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

THE LOST TRIBES OF NEW YORK CITY

2009-04-22T10:29:00.001-07:00

2009-04-22T10:25:00.001-07:00

well, okay. You've got a point. I have been unremarkably negligent and indifferent to my blog's need for new and fresh material. But I have something really good that I think you're going to like. I'm off to Sugar Hill for R&R and soul food in the neighborhood. In the meantime, Happy Spring.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-04-10T11:06:00.001-07:00

It's a full moon again. The Egg Moon. The sun is shining this month and the snow that stopped by late last fall and settled in for months and months, is finally gone. Carol called from Florida and it's warm and happy there, everyone in the throes of Easter with flip flops, light, bright tank tops and short skirts.

I'm going to try to photo the moon tonight as my Easter celebration. Besides going to mass. Angela seemed to think I would be relieved or reassured she's going to mass but it doesn't matter really. She, like me, has got to find the things that make her happy and then do them in an effort to feed her soul.

Maria my housekeeper just walked through the door with a loaf of bread she made me for Easter. Shaped like a big, big cupcake and frosted in white with sprinkles. Gave me a jar of blueberry jam, too. She says that's what their family used to eat on Easter morning in Russia. She feeds my soul with her devotion to her family. And to me.

I got out my mother's big white, ceramic bunny that she always put out for Easter. She loved that thing! I wrapped it up and will give it to my brother. It's been 13 years and I have never figured out how to have it in my house without getting sad. Gotta feed your soul with things that nourish you.

We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Op zoek naar Maria - Dans in het Centraal Station van Antwerpen

2009-04-02T14:36:00.001-07:00

dare ya!

2009-03-30T08:29:00.001-07:00

New moon in ten days. I feel a certain urgency to post again; I am making progress, aren't I?, despite my lack of posts?

There are so many stories I think about, that consume me and fill my heart in the waning of the last full moon. Went to a young client's wedding last summer--now, less than a year later, they may lose their house because they are three payments behind. My dear, dear friend is walking through lymphoma and the associated chemo/radiation with her lifelong best friend and sister. My special old friend is going to wrap up her 22 year marriage: domestic violence and lack of progress in court-ordered treatment. And of course, every one's holdings and earnings slashed in 2009. A new world order in less than six months! I look into the moon from my bedroom window, faint yet fierce, as it's slipped away from its late winter opaline fullness to only a tiny pale slit in the spring sky and think about my people. And their stories. And the stories of other people hungry, homeless, sick, addicted, disenfranchised and separated. Where is the hope in the new world order?

I find hope in the beautiful young bride who has yet to utter one word of frustration in regard to her husband who can't seem to make a go of his sales job; she just went out and got a second job. She now works days, nights, weekdays and weekends at two jobs and is confidant she can get the payments current by June, if the bank will hang on.

I find hope in my brave, stalwart friend who flies to the Bay Area nearly every weekend after work, to be with her sister. Her own son, the nephew, made the remark that it must be quite a spendy commitment, four plane tickets a month. My Hero, the big sister, snorted I don't care WHAT it costs. I don't care if my life's savings are reduced to nothing. Whatever happens, it will be worth it. I would never not be there. Her son looks away.

I find hope in my sweet, sweet faithful loyal friend who has undergone black eyes, facial rug burns, bruises, bruises, bruises, BRUISES, lies, betrayal and treachery. She had hoped that the flaming, festered prick she's married to would respond to therapy mandated by the court system and that somehow they could save their marriage. If not for them, maybe for their four children. Although it's not to be, she has been hopeful and faithful that Love Could Conquer All. She hung in there for an exhaustive run until she was positive her marriage had flat-lined. Only just now, despite the domestic violence that has been a mainstay in her life, has she called it. She touches my heart, and holds it, with her quivering perseverance and now, her truthful resignation and resolve. She's never been a big jewelry/vacation/car/clothes girl; but she was very big on the institution of marriage and she stayed faithful just beyond the bitter end. And has lost the one thing in her life beside her children that she valued. She inspires me deeply.

Inspires me to fight harder, to let myself feel deeper, not to remain resigned, to suit up for another inning and play hard. I don't know what curve is coming in my own life but I do know that if I can keep my people and their stories close, when my time comes, I can climb up inside them, lay my head on their hearts and rest.

Stay brave, my beloveds. Stay brave.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-03-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

For me, this is what journalism is all about. Two of my uberfaves. I'll stop doing anything to read either one. And on a very good day, I read them both.

Tim Egan

John Blanchette

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-03-11T14:12:00.001-07:00

Moon woke me up last night. It was the middle of the night and I had been asleep for several hours. I sat up, fully awake, summoned by the pale,thin light of a full moon spilling across my bed in a wide swath. I looked into the light and listened to the night, wondering which oceans of the world were splashing tall and high against a weary beach, themselves turned into something they might not otherwise be at the bidding of the Lenten Moon. I thought of camels crossing the desert, limos on Las Vegas Boulevard, and the volcano at Kona all under the spell of the faint, yet unmistakably seductive full moon. Craziness.

Only a few moments passed before my big, woolly black dog began to bark. He, too, gets connected to things he can't quit shake off but being a dog, will get just a little more wild than an accountant might when the full moon calls him from a deep sleep.

He barks. And howls and cries. Then sleeps in the sun of the day that follows.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

How much are you, in your real life, like your online persona?

My blog buddy, daveo, over at HBO asked this question the other day and I pretty much invoked my 5th amendment rights. Didn't even have to consult an attorney. I've talked about this before a little bit; and from time to time, it comes up again.

What am I really like? Well, I'll tell you. It's not pretty. I am the kind of person who, in real life, hides from all her high school friends on Facebook.

I am ugly enough in real life to run up a credit card bill but to ride my children relentlessly when they do the same thing.

In real life, I wear the same socks twice. I have been known to have a horrendously messy office and a horrendously messy bedroom. My refrigerator is toxic. Quite often.

I can and have nursed a grudge.

I get really pissed off at my neighbors when they are impatient with me. Over my dogs. Those motherfuckers.

And there's the logger poetry.

I have no problem eating all the cheerios.
I lie about wanting to floss my teeth.
I have a temper that defies description and verbal skills and expression honed to unmeasurable degrees of fury and contempt.

I have been known not to leave my house for days. For days.
I'm not as pretty as I used to be. In a lot of different ways.

But I am who I am. And for now, this is the best I can do. I'm sure my online persona is a much tidier, more generous, beautiful and likable person.

That's show biz.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

A ST JOE RIVER GOTHIC

Joseph Nathan/North Bank of the St Joe

There are so many things that speak to me about this picture; yet I am almost helpless to comment. She was typical of all his babies, blond, blue eyed and beautiful. Yet she's out of place here in his lap, as most women were when they were with him on the St. Joe. He was a completely different person then as the Joe was his emotional and spiritual home, open to only a few. Typically it was his sons that were invited in but on this day, she of dimples and sweetness sat on his throne. Now days, she is a grown up girl's girl who loves pretty dresses and party shoes but says just the same that this picture proves that the St. Joe is in her blood.

We all feel the same; besides the AT&T stock he inherited from his father my dad's legacy to us was the cottonwoods and meadow grass, the high, fast, muddy water of Memorial Day, the huckleberries and the apples, the woodpeckers and hummingbirds and the fish, elk and deer. On the Joe, my dad was man of immense means and we benefited from a largess of clarity and spirit among pine trees and splashing streams as we tramped up and down the mountainsides of the St. Joe River.

You don't see tractors like these too much any more and you sure don't see the ingenuity that would place a plastic bucket on the exhaust stack to ward off rust. I miss my dad but I am rich, rich, rich in what he left here with me and in what he took with him when he left.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

It has to be fast and easy or I just don't get to it these days.

Almost another whole week has gone by without a disciplined effort to put thoughts into written word. The fact is, to write it down and extrapolate on the GPS and wanderings of my soul is quite a chore. First, it's completely inconsistent with much of my life. I have people around me all day; I can turn to the left or to the right and say "We need to do this and this and this" and it is done. I can sit in my chair at my desk, select a button and speak into thin air almost with my hands around my coffee cup or in my lap, and say, by noon, I'd want to see that, those, and a few of the others. It's done. I can mutter, lament, or opine over any done or undone task and chore on my way to the bathroom or for coffee, and almost by magic it gets done. So imagine my confusion when another week goes by, and my blog page remain blank. How can that happen when I want to get this done so badly? I just don't get it. (Insert The Rolling of the Eyes of a self-deprecating epiphanous moment.)

I write dozens and dozens and dozens of emails daily, these days until late at night. Somedays, I write a letter, sometimes TWO letters, print them, sign them and put them in a prescribed place outside my office door where they mysteriously disappear and according to legend, become mailed. I talk on the phone for one or two hours each day. And when it is extremely still and peace settles in around me, I actually put pencil and paper to work, well, keyboard and keystroke, and work with numbers and problems, which is what I truly like to do. I like long, complicated, difficult problems that demand my full attention and are too circuitous for people around me to enter into. I like solitude and challenge in solitude. Furious solitude.

And when I'm done for the day, I am done. I leave it all in my work product, turn out the lights and go home. So to speak. In this spent and sated state, I just cannot summon the muse to help me express myself about things that I continue to think about or things that are bothering me.

I am a note writer. At the moment, I estimate, conservatively, that I am behind by about 40 or 50 notes. Did not send one Valentine this year.

And so I look up and here I am at a crossroads; I am changing. And I don't know exactly what that means.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

If He Won't Post It, I Will

The Christ Child and Entourage with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Frank McCourt

February 12, 2009 New York, New York

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-17T09:37:00.001-08:00

che bello indeed!

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-14T13:12:00.001-08:00

Well, I am little confused this morning, tucked into the corner of the sofa with a down quilt and flannel pajamas. The last leisure time I had I was wearing flip flops and a shift and I was sipping coffee, nibbling ice cold pineapple and staring out over the mesmerizing Pacific Ocean, counting the shades of blue and watching the waves go out and come back in. Or maybe that was something I was reading. OR maybe I just dreamed all that?

But I'm awake now. Eating breakfast. Today's luxurious repast is one of my wintertime favorites: hot cocoa, wheatberry toast no butter and thick slabs of Tillamook medium cheddar cheese. This food is so primal, no satisfying, so ancient, I am positive my people were eating it ten thousand years ago. Bread and cheese and chocolate. Just doesn't get any better than that.

EXCEPT. Except for scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs were the very first thing I learned to cook. My mother taught me when I was in the first grade. They are my favorite still, any time of day, and in any country. With toast, they are the perfect protein/carb combo breakfast. With bacon or sausage, and an iced tea with double lemon, they make a tasty lunch. With a salad, a nice hard roll with cold butter and some really crispy Chardonnay, they are dinner for royalty. Or your very best friend. But they are guaranted to please, impress and sate the ravished soul.

Julia Child has no less than 13 pages of instruction on how to make a perfect omelette, the kissing cousin of scrambled eggs. Enjoy.

Happy Valentine's Day.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

2009-02-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

I spent the last day in Hawai'i on the beach, doing the thing I love the very, very best. Watching the waves and the people. My theory is that people who love the sun lay by the pool but people who love the water lay on the sand. And there are few things I love more than big, fluffy white beach towels and the Pacific Ocean. The greatest ocean in the world.

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-10T22:17:00.001-08:00

It was as good as vacation adventure gets. I noticed a small note on a national parks service map that said lava flows can be viewed from Highway 130. The national park and the drive from the volcano crater down to the ocean, tracking the lava flow on Chain of Craters Road had already absolutely undone me. There is no amount of money Disney Co. can spend that can compete with Mother Nature; the entertainment that She provides cannot be duplicated anywhere. So seeing this little mention that if you want, drive out to the end of Highway 130 from town, where the road stops and no longer follows the ocean because of the lava flow and there you can see the lava flowing right into the Pacific Ocean made me think well, okay. Why not go on out to the end of the road that runs long the ocean? The Pacific Ocean. The Most Magnificent Ocean of all.

Went into Cronies in Hilo about 4:30 and had a burger and a beer and hung out with the locals watching the Mizzou game until I just couldn't stand it any longer. So got back into the Toyota and headed into a driving rain storm in rush hour traffic, heading for Highway 130 and a nighttime glimpse of the lava flows. Althought it was only about 50 miles, it took about two hours to get out there, in no small part due to the hellacious rush hour traffic. But finally made it to the road block, where there is no longer any road because the lava kept destroying it. Finally, the HDOT just quit rebuilding the road. It was an inky black Hawaiian night out there in the middle of no where so imagine my surprise to see at least 200 cars parked at the roadblock! Turns out seeing the lava at night is a huge happening, such a happening in fact, that Japanese tour buses go out there!

Well at this point, my competitive juices were completely fired up so I hopped out the car in Nike flip flops and a Balinese muumuu, not deterred in the least by the dark, black night, the rain or the lava field.

Yes, the lava field. Turns out you have to hike 40 minutes over a 2 mile stretch of lava in the pitch black darkness down to the ocean. Absolutely no problem for a child of North Idaho. It quit raining and started raining again twice before I reached the ocean. My muumuu, soaking wet at one point along the path, had completely dried itself by the time I reached the viewing platform that was adjacent to the lava dumping into the ocean. No rain poncho, fleece, water bottle, surgical mask, hiking boots or flashlight for meeee. No sir. Candy asses.

I stood for an hour in the darkness and watched some of Our Mother's finest work; I could only think of the glaciers in the Canadian Rockies and Ha Long Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin. And walking back over the black lava in the black night with the surf thundering in the background, I thought about the politics in Washington at the moment and the squabble over the stimulus bill. And I thought, you know, you just can't fool Mother Nature.

Once at the car, I looked back over the fields of black at the fire still in the sky, chuckled, got in and drove.

JBelle
On Assignment
Kilauea Caldera, Hawai'i

2009-02-08T21:26:00.001-08:00

It's a luscious, full moon night over the beaches of Hawai'i tonight. The sun was warm and gentle today and the ocean at least 12 different shades of blue. There's still craziness in the air, though. I have to think it's full moon craziness. To wit:

Canadians on the beach bitching about people drinking beer poolside at 10 am.

Londoners on the elevator, remarking that they, too, have snow at home.

The guy snorkeling, with a metal detector and headphones.

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

Is there anything, anything?, more sensual and relaxing that sitting in the sun watching the ocean? I sat and pondered my problems and came to the following conclusions:

I do not have a blonde problem. But she is going to have one soon.

People who sit on the beach are after the same thing: a splash and a tickle, no matter their age.

Finally, sweetly. You want it sweetly.

I know you're reading, Vampire of Asia and Europe.

JBelle

On Assignment

Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-06T22:36:00.001-08:00

I love breakfast. You sit by the ocean as it laps in and out and the soft air moves in and around you as the morning light falls silky on your bare shoulders. It's a sensual time of the deep, lustful taste of strong coffee, the perfume of waffles rising to the trees, four different shades of blue water hugging and patting the black, crusty rocks, the sound of birds chirping in the morning sun and crisp linen napkins, firm against your mouth. There is a hodge podge of people whose only commonality is that they get up at the same time of day. As soon as you settle into it, breakfast is gone. It evaporates. The day awaits.

JBelle

On Assignment

Waikoloa, Hawai'i

2009-02-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

First time I ever went to a swap meet was somewhere in Post Falls, Idaho. Bought a bunch of super cool junk that I didn't need or couldn't afford. I was struggling through a divorce at the time and that swap meet was the perfect tonic for a lonely Saturday afternoon without my kids. Things and times change and the next swap meet I went to, years later, was at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu. Had to be the daddy of all swap meets. This time I was with both kids and the new kid and his own daddy and we bummed around that place all day, fingering each and every pair of $10 Nike runners and searching for that one elusive vendor that would give us 12 tee shirts for $6. God, what a day.
Wandered into the market at Kona today--they've gone back to the old school name, market. But by any name, it brought back a lot of sweet memories. The fierce feather face coconut hangie things were there. Piles and piles of flip flops and Crocs. Potholders, pineapples and pukkas. Wooden ceremonial masks, wooden Harley Davidsons, wooden bowls. And unique to the market in Hawai'i, beautiful flowers, intriguing fruit and exotic innovations in leis.

I think in my heart, like my immigrant grandparents, I am a shopkeeper. Wares carefully hung up and laid out for sale touch me in a place that's practically indescribable. Each and every table and booth of even a swap meet, MARKET, speaks to me in some manner and behooves me to respond with respect and appreciation. And I can know a people and an area by what they are selling and how they sell it. I can tell you in a about three glances, how over or under inventoried you are; how comparable your pricing is, what profits your pricing will yield given your inventory strategy. How do I know this? Because I am one hell of a shopper and an even better accountant. I have experience deep and wide in just this: shops and shopping.

But what sticks with me tonight is this: how come I have never had my own shop? Why have I never hung out my sign, only my shingle? Am I truly that monastic that I just watch, everything, and then write about it? Like Aquinas?

I don't know what this means, if anything. But the sun sets as the torches are lit for another inky night on the beach here in the Pacific and life, as one of my favorite buddies checked in today to report, is good.

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have always said that Hawai'i is a Polynesian Montana. Obviously, the spectacular mountains play into that observation. And the quirky, adorable people fold into that, too. But Hawai'i, like Montana, has a culture that is highly definable and unique only to them. Last night, at dusk, on the way home, there were Donkey Crossing signs. Apparently, they have feral donkeys in Hawai'i. Didn't know. Never been anywhere in the world where they have and warn you about feral donkeys.

About 10 years ago, you started seeing little tiny golden flip flops on chains for sale in the jewelry stores here. Now flip flop jewelry lives in a highly evolved state, crafted in platinum with diamond and ruby hibiscus flowers adorned with pearls. Paris has the most beautiful shoes of any place I have ever been, yet in Paris, they do not put beautiful, finely chiseled renditions of the world's most beautiful shoes on chains around their necks. They just don't do it. Here in Hawai'i, they do.

Last night, at the cash register at the Union 76, they had a little basket with little eggs, maybe hen's eggs, that were stamped with a letter configuration. You can get an egg at the cash register at the gas station in Hawai'i. Where else in the world, I ask, where else?

Aloha nui loa.

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa Beach, Hawai'i

2009-02-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

I'm on the Kona Coast, on a working vacation. For those of you who never really liked Social Studies or History, the Kona Coast is in the sublime Pacific, or as anyone who liked Social Studies and/or History can tell you, the best ocean in all of the world.

Our arrival was warm and soft, just like Hawai'i should be. It was gray and overcast, too; just like Hawai'i can be. The wind blows today and along with the gray and the soft, soft air, it leaves me uncertain, and a little anxious. It feels like the 'Pending' file is too big. Just too big. I went shopping, which always reassures me and helps me to get to know the locals. That didn't even help.

I answered emails, fired out new emails ( want everyone to know, really know, I am not slacking), sent Pandas and kidnapped unsuspecting friends on Facebook, and even worked on a tax return. But still that warm wind blows and blows.

Wonder what's coming....

JBelle
On Assignment
Waikoloa, HI