AS FREE PEOPLE

For most of my life, I've felt ambivalence about the 4th of July. Except for a few years of enjoying small town parades when I was a child, I don't have good memories of this national holiday. For almost 20 years, from 1984 through 2003, I slept mornings and worked evenings as a transcriptionist in a hospital almost every July 4th, usually a busy night for emergency rooms. This year didn't feel any different until I got an email from President Barack Obama by way of Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee:

"This weekend, our family will join millions of others in celebrating America. We will enjoy the glow of fireworks, the taste of barbeque, and the company of good friends. As we all celebrate this weekend, let's also remember the remarkable story that led to this day.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, our nation was born when a courageous group of patriots pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the proposition that all of us were created equal.

Our country began as a unique experiment in liberty -- a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken us one step closer to fully realizing the dream our founders enshrined on that great day.

Today, all Americans have a hard-fought birthright to a freedom which enables each of us, no matter our views or background, to help set our nation's course. America's greatness has always depended on her citizens embracing that freedom -- and fulfilling the duty that comes with it.

As free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all of us.

So today is a day to reflect on our independence, and the sacrifice of our troops standing in harm's way to preserve and protect it. It is a day to celebrate all that America is. And today is a time to aspire toward all we can still become.

With very best wishes,

President Barack Obama

July 4th, 2009

P.S. -- Our nation's birthday is also an ideal time to consider serving in your local community. You can find many great ideas for service opportunities near you at http://www.serve.gov."

It's another subdued 4th of July for me but more hopeful than all those that have come before.

See Alive on All Channels for more about ambivalence.

(At the beginning of the post is one of my linocuts from 1979. I was almost 30 years old then. When I woke up this morning and looked around my bedroom, it caught my attention. It's been on my wall for years, but I haven't looked at it for a long long time. It is about having one's hands full of challenges but celebrating life anyway. If you're wondering about the initials "ARP" on the linocut, scroll down the page here.)

JULY 3, 2009 -- For R

"The 400 Blows" was released when R and I were 10 years old. Along with "Cinema Paradiso," it is a favorite of mine. I was in my twenties when I first saw it. As I watched this clip, I understood how it planted the seeds of my recent black and white photographs. I am still moved by the last moments.

JULY 2, 2009 -- For R

In 2002, R asked me if I liked movies. I said, "Yes." He told me that his favorite movie was "Outlaw Josey Wales." I told him that my favorite movie was "Cinema Paradiso." He said he didn't usually watch movies with subtitles. "Outlaw Josey Wales" was my introduction to R's long list of favorite movies, all of which I'd not seen before. Each time I would talk with him on the telephone during his chemotherapy that year, he'd suggest another movie for me to see. I'm trying to remember the titles of all the movies I watched at his suggestion. Some of his suggestions came with the caution that a movie might be too violent for me. They were all good movies. R told me much about himself by way of movies. That was one of his many gifts to me.

HALFWAY THROUGH 2009

This time of year I walk up the hill to Northridge Woods instead of down the hill to Whatcom Falls Park. If I go down the hill, there are too many mosquitoes for me. Halfway up the hill is a view through the trees of downtown Bellingham, Bellingham Bay, Lummi Island and maybe Orcas Island. Maybe Eliza Island, too. After the 4th of July, the mosquitoes are usually gone but I continue to walk up the hill for most of the summer.

THE WEEPIES, PAINTINGS BY CHAGALL, JACK NICHOLSON, BOB DYLAN

In a dream on the night before last, Jack Nicholson kindly told me that it really didn't matter if I had a much harder time than he did when I try to learn lines by heart. Outside, on the right side of my porch, he had made himself a little green room with green sheets. I could hear him singing to himself out there.





The Bob Dylan songs I love the best are like paintings by Chagall.

I'LL WATCH YOU FLYING OVER

BABYBIRD

Come back babybird/ With your dirty wings in tatters/ Come home where you belong/ Nobody knows you better/ Now bring back your velvet heart/ And we'll make you brand new feathers/ Sleep through the morning light/ With your arms around your brother

Now outside faces cry/ With the tears of lonesome orphans/ And behind every mask/ is the face of another/ Wherever you have been/ wherever you took cover/ No arms that pulled you in/ could hold you like your mother

When all my colors fade/ And my wings, they've turned to leather/ I'll know the reasons why/ God let me get older/ When all my days are through/ And I fly these hills no longer/ I'll lay beneath the stars/ And I'll watch you flying over

(lyrics by Jakob Dylan, from a hidden track on the Wallflowers CD "Breach")

















Yesterday I looked out and saw a fluffy little bird sitting alone on the porch railing. It sat there for a long enough time for me to take a dozen photos. When I downloaded the images to my laptop, I saw that this little one appeared to be a Barn Swallow, rather than one of the Tree Swallows who have been nesting in the birdhouse on my porch.

Soon after that, I saw one of the adult Tree Swallows fly into the birdhouse, which is placed up to the left of the railing. That was followed by the appearance of a smaller swallow face at the opening. Its coloring was unlike that of the fledgling who had been resting on the railing. The young Tree Swallow looked out and around and blinked and then flew in a downward direction. The adult swallow flew out after it. Then the adult swallow flew back into the birdhouse. Another little swallow face appeared at the opening, with the same blinking and looking around and flying downward out of the birdhouse.

If it weren't for the solitary fledgling Barn Swallow, I might not have seen the Tree Swallows fledge.

While I was out walking this morning, I remembered Jakob Dylan's song.

STAGEFRIGHT

Gentleness and curiosity:






















Was thinking about Michael Jackson and Rick Danko and others while I was out walking this morning. When I sat down at my laptop at home I found a post titled "Death by Show Business" at Solitary Walker's site. That rings true to me.

Here's what Rich Danko sang:

IN UNISON ON A SUMMER AFTERNOON

Here's a fine rendition of a Bob Dylan tune from 1970 titled "All The Tired Horses."

A TRANSFORMATION IN ONE'S MIND

In Tibetan, the word for blessing means "transformation through majesty or power." In short, the meaning of blessing is to bring about, as a result of the experience, a transformation in one's mind for the better.

-- The Dalai Lama





WILL IT GROW

I made a promise to not let go
Our tug of war has only made me want you more
Steeped in hard luck and doomed to roam
My love is braver than you know
My forefathers they worked this land
And I was schooled in the tyranny of nature's plans
Dressed in thunder a cloud came round
In the shape of a lion a hand came down

Damn this valley
Damn this cold
Take so long to let me know
It's plant and reap and plow and sow
But tell me will it grow

Dig my ditches in the golden sun
I'd be robbing these trains if I could catch me one
Sunday Monday now Tuesday's gone
Got me stone cold sober n a drought so long
Boarded mansions and ghost filled yards
There's a boy in a water tower counting cars
Steel traps open and empty stalls
There's a well-worn saddle but the horse is gone

Damn this valley
Damn this cold
Take so long to let me know
It's plant and reap and plow and sow
But tell me will it grow

Jet black starlit midnight rolls
I am down in the garden where I let go
Here on the surface the earth looks round
But it's a godless city of cold flat ground

Damn this valley
Damn this cold
Take so long to let me know
It's plant and reap and plow and sow
But tell me will it grow

(Jacob Dylan)

EARLY MORNING RAIN / JUNE 2009

Here's Bob Dylan singing Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain," on an album released in June of 1970 and titled "Self-Portrait"

In the first week of July of 1970, R flew from Vietnam to Honolulu, Hawaii, so that we could spend a week together in the middle of his year in Vietnam. It was bittersweet. There was the startling sound of firecrackers all week. He was edgy. I remember eating breakfast with him in a pancake restaurant and hearing some of the songs from "Self-Portrait" over the restaurant's sound system. At one point during the week he said, "I never should have come here."

It took me a long time before I could even begin to understand what he was trying to tell me.

EARLY SUMMER ON THE PORCH

Yesterday when I went out on the porch, I could hear the young swallows chirping in the nesting box. Today I can't hear them and am wondering if they fledged. As I was out on the porch, a hummingbird flew from flower to flower and then up to the hummingbird feeder.

Chinese proverb:

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

LOVE AS I LOVE

Originally released in 1965, this song has walked with me for a long time.

THE PINEY WOOD HILLS

I'm a rambler and a rover
and a wanderer it seems
I've traveled all over
chasing after my dreams
But a dream should come true
and a heart should be filled
and a life should be lived
in the piney wood hills

I'll return to the woodlands
I'll return to the snow
I'll return to the hills
and the valley below
I'll return like a poor man
or a king if God wills
but I'm on my way home
to the piney wood hills

I was raised on a song there
I done right I done wrong there
and it's true I belong there
and it's true it's my home

From ocean to ocean
I've rambled and roamed
and soon I'll return
to my piney wood home
Maybe someday I'll find
someone who will
love as I love my piney wood hills

I was raised on a song there
I done right I done wrong there
and it's true I belong there
and it's true it's my home

I'll return to the woodlands
I'll return to the snow
I'll return to the hills
and the valley below
I'll return like a poor man
or a king if God wills
but I'm on my way home
to the piney wood hills

FOR MY DAD ON FATHER'S DAY

My dad was born right before World War I in 1914. He died in the morning on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, a few days before the war in Iraq began. He had a paper route as a boy during the Depression. He was the president of his high school class in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He moved to Los Angeles, California, in the late 1930's. At the end of World War II, he served in the Navy in payroll on Treasure Island on San Francisco Bay. His first career was in insurance. His second career was as a systems analyst for Standard Oil of California. He retired at 60 from the same oil company, which had changed its name to Chevron. After he retired, he and my mother lived in a little house on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Gualala, California, until my mother's unexpected death in 1994. He loved baseball, growing flowers and artichokes and raspberries and New Zealand spinach, carving, solitaire, God, ice cream, my mother's cooking. He wrote an autobiography in the last years of his life and dedicated it to his only grandchild, my nephew. He loved life. The last time we saw each other felt peaceful. It was his 89th birthday, about a month before he died. He is buried next to his parents and next to my mother in a cemetery in Minneapolis.

Thank you, Dad, for your encouragement and support. When I was a child, I thought of you as Babar, the wise and kind elephant father.

TALKING CORNEL WEST BLUES

Many thanks to the anonymous commenter who left a link to a Norval Morrisseau site yesterday on my December 7, 2007 post. It takes a moment to download and then you'll either hear Neil Young singing "Heart of Gold" or a song from "Sesame Street" accompanying the slideshow.

And thanks to Alive On All Channels for the link to a lengthy article by Jeff Sharlet about Cornel West from which this quote from Ralph Ellison came:

"The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by consolutaiton of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism."











Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues. You can tell by the way she smiles.
(Bob Dylan, lyrics from "Visions of Johanna," Blonde on Blonde, 1966)

Thanks to mum for her sense of humor.

(This all began with late afternoon light, looking south)