Debuts and Distractions

Dear Reader -  We made it! It's been two years since we took the paper off the windows and opened our doors, if softly. And from those first flu-wake days to these, you have been there with us - faithfully. Thank you.

These past couple of months have found me a bit subsumed in more transitional events in our homelife, which'll certainly tie into a later post. But, more relevant in the moment, the last few days have been taken up with something nearest to my heart: Miss C, in whose honor I added this window display this past week:

As you may remember, Miss C embarked on her own journey this fall, choosing a life in the wilds of boarding school. As she hoped, the experience has been an extraordinary one for her - a great fit for the kind of person that she is and wants to become. And though I miss her terribly from day to day, I'm contented to know that she is living and creating her dream.

Part of this creation has been fed by landing a role in the school's winter production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a freshman, she knew it was a long shot, so she was tickled to get to be one of the Mechanicals, Robin Starveling (best known for the Moonshine bit), who perform the hillarious "play within the play" (plus, she and a few of her fellow Rustics got to be fairies attending Titania in their spare time, too).

Some of you have known Miss C over the years, and you've seen what an expressive kid she's been from the very beginning:

Now I've limited myself to sharing more "vintage" shots of C's expressiveness, thinking that most anything more contemporary'd mortify her teenage self to near death; but suffice it to say that this trait did not end at the elementary school threshold. In fact, Rehoboth Elementary is where she found a gifted and dedicated teacher, Ms. Gray, who worked with some equally gifted and dedicated volunteers each year to put on a major production that engaged a huge portion of the school's third, fourth, and fifth graders. Miss C got to be a mouse in Cinderella, Lisle in The Sound of Music, and a formidable Miss Hannigan in Annie:

But when we all decided that the awesome, independent, and cozy Jefferson School was best for her middle school years, she had to shelve her more formal theatrics for a bit.

Lucky for her, her chosen high school has a splendid theater department, led by Harvey Doster, one of those teachers whose endurance for teenage theatrics is legendary at the institution (those of you who shared time with Mac with me at AHS can relate). Miss C was in actor's heaven. as evidenced by the photos that her admissions officer sent along from opening night:

 

 

 

But none of this - neither the pictures nor the past - prepared me for the scene that blew them all, and me, away: the performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" at the end of the play. Oh my word, Miss C had only a few lines, but her physical, comedic acting was a stellar - a really, really funny contribution to an already really, really funny scene - a truly entertaining ensemble performance by all of the girls. Miss C was fully committed in a way that took me back to her never-met grandmother's theatrics. Those of you who knew Mac knew Mom, too - so you can extrapolate that Miss C comes by all of this honestly:

I can't wait to see where she takes it all - and where it all takes her. In the meantime, I'm just a happy to get to be in the audience. Vive la Shakespeare!  - Jenny

P.S. There couldn't be any more fitting serenade for these ladies of my life than Ms. Merman:

God's Opening Flower: Marianne of Molokai

Dear Reader -  Today is All Saints’ Day. For those of us in America, it’s not a big deal unless we’re part of a liturgical church (and, heck, even then it’s lost its luster as a feast in some circles). But I remember back when I lived in a more traditionally Roman Catholic country: the whole world shut down to mark the occasion.

Since I’m sitting here in Lewes, my shop is open – and nobody’s stopped by to wish me a good one. Not surprising. But I’m finding myself feeling a little wistful this year.

Why?

As I told my church choir buddies a week ago at rehearsal, my mom’s Aunt Marianne (for whom I’d written a poem that our former director, George Bayley, set to music for us all to sing) was canonized at St. Peter’s Basilica on October 21 (the eleventh American to be named). So this is her first All Saints’ Day as an official saint.

Now, anybody who knew of her knew well that she didn’t need any official designation to deserve reverence and appreciation, but it still feels good to have her recognized.

Known as Mother Marianne of Molokai for most of her life, the work that gained her the most attention was with the leper colony on that remote Hawaiian island. But her work for those who were outcasts and social pariahs began long before that, as I learned in the books that my mom shared with me about her when I was growing up.

She opened and administered some of the first general hospitals in the United States in upstate New York. Her work was groundbreaking in two ways: she figured out that good hygiene was key, implementing practices that are still in place today, and she also refused to bend to the social barriers that kept many from medical care, including race. In particular, her willingness to care for alcoholics scandalized society.

As mother superior of her order in Syracuse, she answered the Hawaiian king’s plea for help with the leper colonies after 50 other religious orders from around the world had refused – and the sisters of her order volunteered in droves to help as well.

The conditions that the nuns encountered on the islands were horrific. Employing the same brand of practicality and determination, Mother Marianne transformed the hospitals into clean, functional institutions. She and her sisters had to exercise a lot of bravery as well, standing up to the royals and their government as well as the unscrupulous men who ran roughshod over the lepers, particularly in the colony on Molokai (an island which served as a natural prison).

After Father Damien (who has since been canonized for his groundbreaking work on Molokai) succumbed to the disease, Marianne and her sisters took on his responsibilities. In the course of their work, the women transformed the colony – not only making it a clean and sanitary home, but also adding beauty and joy to what was previously a bleak existence - planting gardens, making beautiful clothes, teaching the children, and sharing music. Not one of them ever contracted leprosy in the decades that they served.

Marianne’s love of music became the inspiration for the title of my poem: God’s Opening Flower. Her favorite song was Makalapua (The Opening Flower), which was sung at her beatification at St. Peter’s seven years ago. And the heart of the poem, the line “What I did I did for joy,” came from an astonishing and transformative moment that I shared with her in a meditation.

So, even though I can’t be part of any particular celebrations on her behalf this All Saints' Day, I figure I can celebrate with you here, dear Reader, and share my little poem. Thanks so much for indulging me!

Blessings  - Jen

God’s Opening Flower:

Blessed Mother Marianne of Molokai

 written in honor of her feast day on January 23, 2006, by Jen Mason

Who are the wretched and outcast among us?

Do we see them? Do we know them? Do we hold them as they are?

Or do we turn away, veiling our lives: setting a darkness and distance which calms our fears?

In our darkness a voice breaks through:

            What I did I did for joy

            My life filled up to brim and over

            Sharing in pure brightness the joys of living

            God has made me an Opening Flower

Lives that knew nothing but wretchedness and isolation: cast out and left to the wolves of lust and greed.

To these lives came our Opening Flower, revealing the beauty and dignity that dwelt there all along.

Lives that lived in another kind of prison: locked in the illusion of perceived superiority.

Our Flower gently lifted that veil of security, shielding the open souls from all danger and harm.

For in our darkness a voice breaks through:

            What I did I did for joy

            My life filled up to brim and over

            Sharing in pure brightness the joys of living

            God has made me an Opening Flower

Our Opening Flower knows the wretched and the outcast among us. She knows what is outcast within us, too.

She boldly, safely leads us through the trappings of our own shuttered minds and souls to the beauty and dignity that dwells with us today.

“The charity of good knows no creeds and is confined to no one place.”

We, too, must follow where joy and beauty lead.

For what we do we do for joy

Our lives filled up to brim and over

Sharing in pure brightness the joys of living

God will make of us Opening Flowers.

(And now, dear Reader, you can see what a talented fellow George Bayley is for figuring out a way to set this less-than lyrical poem to music - and how kind my fellow singers were for singing it with me!)

P.S. We gotta have music, right? I've listened along to Mr. Bruno Mars every now and then with Miss C on XM, but none of his songs have ever really stuck for me. That is, until now - I saw this new song of his performed on SNL a couple Saturdays ago. It's so darn happy (even talks about heaven [grin], and I figured it was performed pretty darn close to the same time as her canonization - so I'm thinking it's a good, if unorthodox, accompaniment to my musings about Aunt Marianne (hint: don't skip the ad, or you'll get taken to some odd place on youtube):

 

Silly Jenny! Children's books are for kids!

Dear Reader -  Yesterday saw a striking number of adults - young and old'uns alike - buying children's books at biblion.

Now, part of the attraction, I'm sure, is that Miss C intentionally prices our kids' books very accessibly, making sure that when a kid comes in, he or she can walk out with a book without their mom or dad having to think twice about it. And we've seen that scenario play out time and time again. We've also had our own fair share of grandmothers and teachers who've stopped in and cherry-picked our stacks. But yesterday had a different air to it, as many of these folks were just buying the kid's books for themselves.

And I can relate.

You see, dear Reader, I adore children's books. I love the depth of story-telling that one can find - storytelling that so transcends the trite, syrupy fare that so many adults produce for kids, thinking that's all they're up for. And I love the art.

It was my mother who first taught me about the power of children's stories for all ages.

As I mentioned in my Grandma Moses post, theater and the arts were at the center of Mom's life in little Augusta, Kansas (I'll tell you all about mom and her family some other day - there's some juicy bits there that it'd be more fun to linger over when we're not in the midst of talkin' 'bout kids' books). And one of the things that Mom did on a regular basis was readings.

Mom had a spectacular reading voice. Something magic just seemed to happen whenever she read aloud.

And one of the sometimes traditions at the little Methodist church where we settled for most of my growing up years was for Mom to read The Littlest Angel as the sermon on the Sunday before Christmas:

Now the original building that housed the August United Methodist Church was this big (to my little eye), square-ish brick thing down on the corner of 6th and School. Its shape was relevant, 'cause the sanctuary mirrored it as well, and the two-storey seating was arranged in a horse-shoe shape. We always sat upstairs on the southwest side, which turned out to be a perfect vantage point for me to entertain myself with people-watching for the hour or so that we sat in services each week.

This is all germain 'cause I remember the first time I ever watched my Mom read this story and how the faces of my neighbors - all of them, young and old alike - responded to the tale. I remember seeing folks start to choke up when Mom got to the part where the littlest angel adds his own, simple gift to pile of splendid offerings for baby Jesus:

And then how some folks'd just up and cry when the humble gift became the star.

I saw first hand how the books that I thought were for just me and my kind held power and wonder for  grown-ups, too.

Years later, in 1989, my mom and dad visited one fall when I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut - we did the obligatory leaf peeping, and we made our way into New York for a day of sight-seeing and shopping. One of our finds that day was a just-published English translation of of Ophelia's Shadow Theatre by Michael Ende (some of you may remember him as the author of The Neverending Story):

Mom and I were initially attracted by Friedrich Hechelmann's stunning illustrations:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But when we pulled it out after dinner at home and Mom set to reading it out loud, Ende's gorgeously-written, tender story left us both verklemmt. It was one of those wonderful, emotionally-connected moments that has stayed with me for life. And every time I pick up the story to read it for my own child or for the kids who escape to the graveyard with me to read during the sermons in the summer at our little church, I feel her there with us.

Some years after that night, I went to find a copy of Ophelia for a friend and learned that the book was out of print. It had never occurred to me that something so wonderful would ever not be printed. But, alas, that is the fate of many books. And I came to find out, once  the Internet became a tool for locating titles, that procuring another was possible but would run me considerably more than my little $14.95 volume.

In fact, as I've been researching biblion's books, I've found that out-of-print children's books in particular tend to be valued disproportionally high. And I think there are two reasons for this. First, it's really hard to find children's books in good condition. They simply often get loved to death. And second, the emotional connections that people experience with children's stories - whether due to the emotional impact of the stories themselves or those with whom they've shared them - serve as powerful ties.

So while all of these adults were enjoying our children's books, it was a fun coincidence that I'd been busying myself with children's books the last couple of days as well, culling out the collectible ones from the boxes that Sue (Queen o' Goo Gone) had de-stickered for me. And, man, did I find some doozies.

I'm afraid that I've gone on here for quite long enough without launching into a series of lengthy expositions of my finds, but let me just give you a little taste. Here on this first day of Spring, let's take a quick peek at Kit Williams' book without a title, where the four seasons engage in a surreal battle amidst their changes, while Ambrose the beekeeper unwittingly participates:

 

Here, mid-story, Ambrose wakes to Summer:

"A thin shaft of sunlight stood absolutely still as it pierced the silent dimness of a cottage bedroom.

"As the earth revolved, the cottage moved and so too the bedroom until the thin white beam lit up the edge of a wooden bed. Slowly, imperceptibly, the world rotated and inch by inch the many contours of the counterpane were illuminated. Tiny specks of dust sparkled in the sunbeam as it gently penetrated the dreams of the sleeping man. Ambrose woke up, yawned and stretched, then, swinging his legs out of bed, he sat up and slipped his feet into a pair of worn carpet slippers. He slowly crossed the room, half knelt on a chair and opened the curtains.

 " The first day of Summer flooded into the room all ablaze with glorious colour and heavy with the scent of countless blooms. Ripples of birdsong broke the silence and Ambrose, filling his lungs with the eager breath of the morning, all but burst with excitement. He flung on his clothes and clattered down the stairs."

As must I, dear Reader. Blissfully content as a seller of out-of-print books  - Jenny

Christmas Gift Redux: Grandma Moses, Otto Kallir, and my mom

Dear Reader -  A couple months back I tripped across the newly-minted Milford Public Library on one of my little buying adventures. I was looking for a ladies room, they were looking mighty clean, and so I stopped in.

Imagine my delight when the greeter in the lobby had a little sign announcing that their book sale was beginning the next Monday. Of course, I made my way back, having a blast filling bag after bag of great books - so many, in fact, that the ladies who ran the show began to get curious. They took splendid care of me - watching over my amassing books, oooing and ahhing over my finds, and finally helping me get them all out to my car. The woman who helped me cart the books finally got up the nerve to ask what I was up to, so I told her about biblion. She was tickled as all getout, and quickly told me their sale schedule for the year.

The next sale was on December 1. It offered many of their nicer books, which were priced accordingly. In fact, many were priced such that it made no sense for me to buy them (there's no way that I could sell them at any sort of margin that'd let me pay the rent). One of them was this volume on Grandma Moses by Otto Kallir:

For those of you who've been paying attention, you'll recognize that it's sitting on the carpet in my office, and you'll be wondering, "But, Jen, if this book was too pricey, what's it doin' coming home with you?"

This book, dear Reader, is my Christmas present to me. I overpaid for it - as is the case with many Christmas presents - but I didn't think twice (or even one and a half times) before snatching it up from the Milford ladies.

You see, I have a thing for Grandma Moses that comes by way of my mother, Judy:

 

Judy had a knack for seeing people for who they are and for celebrating the best in them - in both grand and subtle ways. Take Mary and Dalene, for instance (here they all are playing dress-up one Christmas):

Mary and Dalene were the unique and intelligent sort of women who did not fit neatly into the box of feminine expectations in my little hometown in Kansas (Mary, in fact, weathered a horribly bigoted incident near the end of her time there that near-nigh did her in - but she, with her indomitable nature and sense of humor, prevailed). My mother, of course, loved them fully - gently turning her back to the people who eschewed them and gaining deep friendships in return that enriched her 'till the end of her days.

Judy also had a particularly keen ability to see children as people, too - appreciating the full "peopleness" of each one. Her ability here was evidenced in her community work, having lead the town's children's theater and having started the arts council with a special attention for children's offerings (she had volumes of photo albums with pictures of her plays and such - volumes which I'd love to see again [alas, see previous post re. well-meaning sister-in-law]). She was loved by my friends, as she turned the warmth of this ability on them, too - and, blessedly, she was not one of those parents who inexplicably withheld this attention from her own kids.

So it was, that one Christmas when I was a girl, I received this paperback volume from my mom:

It's a much smaller, abridged version of my Milford find, and it evidences the years of living in my parents' smoking household and my hours of perusal, but I still keep it in a special spot on my bookshelf.

Why? Two reasons. When mom gave it to me she said that she'd sought it out because the detail in my drawings (I was a prolific illustrator at that time) reminded her of Moses'. That was cool, but that wasn't what really touched me. I was so moved that I'd been noticed - that I'd been seen (not always easy with the kind of attention that my brothers required). Something about my mother's gift made me feel that she knew and valued me.

To my little hands, the 9"x11" book seemed vast - seemed special. I knew I'd received something that had meaning and worth.

But little did I know at the time what worth and depth there was to the book. When I started to wend my way through Kallir's full volume, I was amazed.

The plates were stunning:

The photographs enlightening:

And her story so lovingly assembled, down to the gilt tables of contents for each of the book's four sections:

 At the end there was even a catalog of her every work:

With that kind of love and attention, I just knew that there had to be a story behind the author, Otto Kallir:

And, thanks to the wonders of Google, I found out that I was right.

Kallir was an Austrian who fled the Nazis and made his way to New York City in the late 30s. He quickly became a leading figure in the New York and American art scenes, founding Galerie St. Etienne on 57th Street and becoming key to the recovery of looted art from World War II. You can read an essay about him from their 55th anniversary. (You can also read about the sale that he was obliged to make to Hitler [from which he did not profit] back in the day here on the Looted Art website.)

St. Etienne was where Grandma Moses' work first gained national and international exposure, via the exhibition "What a Farmwife Painted" in 1940, and they went on to become her exclusive representatives. You can read more about their relationship in Otto's daughter Jane's essay from the Moses anniversary exhibition early this year.

The second reason why I've so treasured the Grandma Moses volume is something that Moses, Kallir, and my mother have in common: rebirth and reinvention. Moses and Kallir both had remarkable transformations - his rather phoenix-like, having had to abandon a successful career in Europe at the age of 45 and start over from scratch in America - her's more like a butterfly, having lived in a very different state of being for most of her days, only to be revealed in a startling new twilight.

Even as a girl, I latched on to this aspect of her story - of the fact that it's never too late for something extraordinary to manifest in our lives. And as I watched my mother navigate the challenges of her life with grace and joy - forever seeming to be able to make something beautiful out of it all, no matter what - I, too, believed that it was possible for my life to eventually amount to something positive, even if it didn't seem grand or important or relevant at the time. All it takes, I realized, is to just be fully myself (which I've since realized isn't always as easy as it sounds).

So my bookshelf has a new occupant this year, and my heart has a renewed appreciation for life's ultimate goodness and possibility - quite fitting as Miss C and I are set to embark on the next leg of our new adventure as the new year chimes in. Blessings to you and yours as you watch the clock tick down to 2011!  - Jen

P.S. If you love a great story, you'll love this charming NY Times one about Jane Kallir's second marriage to her first husband.