Kandice

The first time I met Kandice, my mother and dad came home from the hospital with her, but before mom Sylvia would get out of the car with the new babe, someone, I think my grandmother, was instructed to get the camera. Hence the initial meeting was recorded on film.
Many years have passed since that day, but I still have a pleasant memory of it - my other sister, Shelley, and I giggling with excitement to meet the new little girl, who would become our playmate, our friend and a witness to our lives, as we are to hers.
Kandice has been waging a valiant battle with a debilitating and frustrating disease, a battle I can only imagine. She is still one of the most creative, kind and generous women on the planet, and I'm very proud to call her friend.
Last Christmas, her husband  wrote this amazing poem about Kandice, and she has given me permission to share it here.

for kandice

a man climbs to the highest ridge of the mountain,
and stares
astonished.
at the highest tree .

only this tree has survived
the stingy soil
the blasting wind.

and lightning has struck.
only here
only the rarest tree,
cleaving, gut-wrenching the trunk
with the explosion of rapidly expanding essence.

does this tree fathom its own beauty
razor-silhouetted on the heights ridge
absent the bland symmetry of its crouching neighbors
recording the constant insult of gales and bolts in seared bark and half-dead branches?

once upon a time a spore caught in a rocky cranny,
a sapling struggled to life.
the highest tree would have chosen some safer berth in the lower loam,
no doubt.
but choiceless, it carves itself alone against the high sky
indifferent to any notion of picturesque valor
visited only by the highest climber.

steven taft, december 24, 2007

Flower Fairy Princess

A shout out to Kandice - thanks for the cool artfully enhanced photo. This is little Marsyl, age 9.

Comes at a good time, when I am needing to remember that this girl child deserves the best, and deserves kindness and respect. And I intend to see she gets that.

O Pioneer

My great great great grandfather, John Leonard Dickinson was a pioneer, true to the Dickinson way. Moving from New York State to Wisconsin in about 1856, he and his wife and several of their children remained there only a couple of years. By 1858 they had come to Minnesota, where he remained the rest of his life. Three of his sons, including my great great grandfather Theodore (husband of Emma) joined the Union Army for Minnesota. All three miraculously survived.

I've been searching for John's parentage for several years. Yesterday came a breakthrough from the researchers in Salt Lake City. They found land records indicating that John and his wife Harriet sold their New York property to Harriet's brother, Lawrence Mason. The land had previously conveyed to John by Joseph and Orrin Dickinson. I have other evidence that Joseph is John's father, and this could be the confirmation.

One more piece of the puzzle is coming into place, the research team at SLC will do a little more digging, and it's like waiting for Christmas to see what they unearth.

I feel time ticking away, I want to get this history into some sort of order to preserve it for whomever, in the next generation, or the next, becomes the "chosen" one, bitten by the genealogy bug. Made acquaintance this week with another cousin, a descendant of John L. Dickinson's brother, Richard. I have been seeking him for over a year, and finally had a response. He has some treasures to share as well, and I think again of how lives are entertwined like shiny and fragile threads forming a faint, almost invisible pattern over our country, and over the world.

Walden

I went to Walden Pond on one of my trips to Boston. We walked around it on the still primitive trail, along with a few other folks. There seemed to be a sort of reverence still attached to it - folks were very earnest looking, mostly quiet. The pond was not as large as I expected, and seemed rather modest especially in Minnesota terms.
Thoreau's cabin replica stands not too far off from its original site. My husband and I went to take a look, and I will never forget the sensation of peeking inside. I encountered a feeling of peace, completeness, and a sort of relief. It was so simple, small and snug, yet sufficient. Well, I would want indoor plumbing, I admit.
I've been going through a restless bit, or maybe a bit of stuckness. Not sure what the solution is, because I'm not sure I've identified the problem. I keep waiting for it to pass, and perhaps it will. I am also waiting to see what God wants to communicate to me through this. It's hard to wait. It's hard to listen.
I've put the little cabin on my screensaver, to remind me to keep it simple, to be ok with the waiting, and most of all, to "live deliberately."

"I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are,grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it.I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America,out of my head and be sane a part of every day." Henry David Thoreau
from the Journal (January 7, 1857)

Passion Flower

Ok, I realized that I have been giving in to 'blogging' for an audience as opposed to just doing my thing. No more of that. Yuck-orama anyway.

So here I declare to myself - get over it already and stick to the task at hand - tell your story for yourself, for your daughter, your family, your fantastic and amazing grandchildren, for all the interesting and unique people who came before you, who have no one else to tell their story. Play to my strength, my passions, and let the rest go.

Get on with it, then.

Random is as Random does

I hear I've been 'tagged' with a meme task. so ...
1. I was born in Louisiana, learned to speak, walk, and sing in Louisiana, West Virginia and Texas. Had quite a nice lil' accent for several years which I can relax back into on a moment's notice. y'all. Lived in 8 states total so far - Colorado still rules. But I know what it means to miss New Orleans.

2. I have been a vegetarian since birth.

3. My favorite color is red, but I don't generally plant red in my garden. I find it difficult to blend with other flowers that I like, which are primarily in the cooler shades. I did paint my former bedroom and bathroom a deep rich red, which I loved.

4. My first day of college was spent as a nursing student. Oops. My second day (and the next 4 years) was as an art major. Studied art history (especially the Italian Renaissance era) and illustration for three years, then switched to graphic design. Later received B.S. in Psychology, which, curiously, isn't all that different.

5. One great great grandfather was a Confederate soldier in the Civil war, David Wiley Hanes of Alabama. His wife, Sylviania Hanes, is my namesake. She bravely stood up to the Union soldiers when they came to take all their horses, and was able to negotiate keeping one horse for the farm.
Another great great grandfather was on the side of the Union, Theodore Dickinson of New York/Minnesota. Two of Theodore's brothers were in the same company, all survived. Three of their cousins also fought alongside them, two died in the infamous Andersonville Prison, and one in the Old Soldier's home in Lordsburg, California.

6. I'm left handed and learned to paint signs from right to left from my dad, who was also left handed and a part time sign painter.

and that's all I have to say about that. except that now I tag MARK.

If I could make a day for you...

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a talking pig movie. Now, first of all, I really, really hate animal movies. But for some reason I took a chance on this one, and was delighted. It is a charming folk tale of "an unprejudiced heart." And I think a gentle propaganda film for vegetarianism. But, more importantly, God used a part of this film to impact me in a way that few things ever have. The music and the visual has become a sort of touch point for reminding me of His notice of me, and His keen knowledge of how my rather quirky spirit hears His voice.
The scene I refer to is where the little pig, Babe, has run away from home and gotten too sick and depressed to eat, because the farm cat has informed him of a pig's "purpose". Which, to the pig's horror, turns out to be that he is born to be eaten by humans. The farmer finally finds the little pig, brings him home, and tries to get him to take nourishment, to no avial. Suddenly, ... well, I'll let you watch it for yourself. Let me just say, God dances over us, no matter how sick, depressed, broken we are, or how long we have been dwelling in the pig pen, no matter how many lies we have been told and chosen to believe.



One morning a few years after seeing this film, I was pouring out my heart to God as I was driving, asking Him to please, please, please let me know He was there, that He saw and understood what I was going through. The very next second, Saint-Saens Symphony #3 flooded my ears, with that majestic organ sounding like Gabriel's trumpet. I cried and and laughed at the same time, reminded of the scene from "Babe", and knowing that God was in it with me all along.