BLACK AND BLUE

The little poster above has sat on my bedside table for years. It really exemplifies my feelings this past week, and its colors are perfect too. I had been feeling blue because of a black mood. In short, I was having quite the pity party.

There have been tangible reasons for my mood: 1. A persistent heavy cold wind blew earlier this week. Strong, incessant wind always gets on my nerves. 2. Problems with my computer. 3. Problems with my unemployment compensation which means I didn't get a check this week and probably won't get one next week either. (It seems I will get them both eventually, but as usual it takes a while to unsnarl red tape.) 4. The auto shop hasn't been able to work on my car, although it's been brought in three days in a row. That means I'm without a car unless I want to drive it with all the windows stuck in the upright position. (Fine in the winter; disastrous in the summer.)

But there are other elements to my mood that can't be so quickly identified. I've recovered from my physical illness (and thanks to everyone who sent get well wishes). But it or something else seems to have thrown me into a mini depression.

I couldn't read. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do art. I'm ignoring my dogs. I was agitated and unfocused. Until today, I couldn't blog. The world is bursting with blooms right now. I should have been out there reveling in it, but I couldn't. I saw the slovenly dust on my furniture, but I couldn't make myself get up and dust. I needed to make phone calls, but couldn't pick up the receiver. I had the time to do anything I wanted, but I couldn't manage to accomplish anything at all.

I am familiar with depression, having been diagnosed with clinical depression years ago. My daughter was in grade school then. She characterizes it as a time when I would 'never play games" with her. She couldn't understand why mom just wanted to lie down all the time. She was diagnosed with depression in high school and underwent a major depressive disorder episode in college. So, of course, she realizes now what I was going through. (Fortunately, I got help and these past few years I had been feeling even better because of therapy and because my medication was finally adjusted to the perfect degree. And fortunately, Kristen received meds and therapy and is doing very, very well, functioning in school and work, leading an active and happy life.)

I'm calling this down period a mini depression, because the previous episode was much worse. At that time, I literally couldn't get up off the couch. There were days when I don't know how I made it out the door to work. At that time, I could feel the depression literally inhabiting my body, an actual physical sensation.

I think this depression is situational rather than chronic. (Look at me, self diagnosing myself again). I went through many emotional stages after losing my job: relief (yes, relief was my first response), followed by shock, denial (in my dreams I'm still there!), panic, fear, loss, rage and helplessness. I believe I have now reached the stage of depression. And why not? I wake up in the morning and have nowhere to go. There is no structure to my life. I do not have an income. I do not have any health insurance. I may lose my house. I no longer have a work identity. My social life is diminished. I am lonely. No wonder they say that losing one's job is one of the five most stressful life changes a person can experience. (I've experienced all the others - I was wondering when I would get to experience this one too.)

I'm not getting much action in the job search department. What I am getting is: "Gee, someone with your skills, talents, experience...I can't understand why it's taking you so long to find a job." I am beginning to feel that no one will ever want me again.

And although fortunately I have not lost my self esteem, I know there are people who now disrespect me. They believe I have been humiliated, have lost face.

Today I began wondering if there are actual, recorded, observable stages of grief over losing a job, like the stages outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross as seen in terminally ill people and their survivors. My old friend Google tells me there are.

The Labor Market Information Center in "Losing Your Job" ranks depression at Step 4 out of 6 steps. An article on an AARP website called "Typical Reactions to Job Loss" and Theresa Leonard-Wilkinson's article "Dealing With Job Loss" both recognize it as Step 5 out of 6. For Debbie Markel in "How to Get Over Losing Your Job", it is Number 4 of 5.

Mark Gordon in "Stages of Grief" groups depression with Step 3: Rage and/or Helplessness (turning rage inward into depression). So does the Stress Doc on the site www.stressdoc.com . The Stress Doc takes it a step further: "Is it mourning or is it depression?", he asks. He likens depression to a heavy pot lid holding down underlying bubbling and boiling thoughts and emotions.

But grief, he says, "unlike depression's tendency to bottle up and stuff down emotions, works like removing the cover of Pandora's Box....Ultimately, grieving releases and integrates a range of emotions and energies that enables you to regain psychic equilibrium, helps evolve a new or renewed sense of purpose and direction. Vital mourning is also the wellspring of passion and determination for exploring new roles and identities."

I'm going to consider this past week as just a 7-Day Glitch. I'm removing that heavy pot lid, I'm taking off the top of Pandora's box and I'm letting the grieving begin! I am not going to sit passively in a depressive state. I have the tools to help me climb out of this pit (actually a medium-size hole): The Internet research I uncovered today regarding dealing with stress, networking, and getting professional emotional help; my in-person and online friends; my self-awareness and my willingness to explore all avenues, including learning new job skills.

And this, the best information I learned all day: "So remember, there's a real difference between 'feeling sorry for yourself' and 'feeling your sorrow.' When you are feeling sorry for yourself you are mostly blaming others. When you are feeling your sorrow you are demonstrating the courage to face your fears and pain....In mystic fashion, like spring upon winter, the seeds of dissolution bear fruitful renewal." (Stress Doc)

So, no pity party after all!

(I welcome any input/help/advice/or a good "Snap Out Of It!")

"Once we have accepted the fact of loss we understand that the loved [position] obstructed a whole corner of the possible, pure now as a sky washed by rain."

---Albert Camus

WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOOR-YARD BLOOMED (Walt Whitman)

I haven't felt well the past few days. I wasn't really ill, but I wasn't well either. It was a kind of malaise, a restlessness, an uneasy feeling coursing through my veins. This morning, though, all those vague symptoms erupted into true unwellness (not a word, I know). I woke up with a sick headache, a weak, sweaty feeling, an unsteadiness on the pegs and a knot in my chest. (No, I'm not having a heart attack!) The knot part is something esophageal, having started last night while I was eating. Whenever I swallow (even liquid) it feels like a big lump slowly and painfully making its way down. (I wish it would prevent me from eating, but it doesn't.)

Therefore, I spent most of the day in bed, sandwiched between two dogs. (Hey guys, thanks for the support and empathy, but it was hot today!) So it wasn't until about 5:00 that I made my way to the kitchen. When I did, I was met by a wave of warm, lilac-scented air. Our neighbors on the corner have a solid wall of lilac bushes on the south and north sides of their yard. The scent molecules from hundreds - perhaps thousands - of just-opened lilacs came flowing right in through the open patio door.

I recently wrote a post about sense memories, and the scent of lilacs is my most vivid sense memory. It is my very favorite scent, ever, and they are my very favorite flowers, ever.

Amy Lowell published the poem "Lilacs" in 1925. Up to now, I had been familiar with only these lines:

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"Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon."
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Amy "got" lilacs; I can tell from the following lines:

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"Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight
And a hundred or two sharp blossoms."
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"You are of elm-shaded streets

with little shops where they sell kites and marbles."
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"You persuaded the housewife

that her dish pan was of silver."

Or the lines below, to the left of the photo featuring the lilac's distinctive heart-shaped leaf:



"YOU ARE THE GREAT
FLOOD OF OUR SOULS

BURSTING ABOVE THE LEAF SHAPES OF OUR HEARTS"

(Amy Lowell)


However much she understood and appreciated lilacs, Amy irritates me a bit. She seems to be saying that lilacs ARE New England. She enumerates: lilacs of Connecticut, of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine. But, dear Miss Lowell, lilacs are North Dakota too. Although she wrote the following lines about New England lilacs, they evoke in me prairie scenes:

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"Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug in a hill."

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Dilapidated old farm houses and barns dot the North Dakota countryside, sagging slowly back into the earth. Sometimes only the foundation is left, but often, beside that very same foundation, or the ghost of a shanty, a sod house or a dugout, is an old, old lilac bush, probably planted by homesteaders.

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"Pale ghosts who planted you came in the night-time

And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems."

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In the yard of our first home in Larson, there were two large lilac bushes, one on each side of the front gate. We carved a little cave into the side of one. During the winters, snowbanks would form over the top of the bushes, completely hiding them. We would climb up the solidly-packed "hills" and sled down the other side. How those bushes must have taken a beating! In fact, they looked pretty scraggly and were bloom-less by the time we moved to our next house.

Because lilacs bloom weeks later in northern North Dakota, to me, they are inextricably entwined with Memorial Day and the sight of Old Glory. They are also entwined with memories of Vacation Bible School. We would pick heaps of blossoms at lunch time and they would add a heady scent to our afternoon lessons in the little white steepled church. I love how lilacs look against the weathered silvery gray of wooden houses that were once painted white.

Three years ago, my sister, my niece and I took a spin through Larson after we cleaned out our aunt's house in Crosby. I hadn't been back there for years. That first house had burned down a long time ago. The huge elm tree where I used to sit on a low-spreading limb and read for hours is gone. Overgrown prairie grasses hid the foundation. "The prairie has taken over," I bawled.

But there, on both sides of a path that leads to a front-door that is no longer there, were two huge, magnificent lilac bushes in full bloom. Left to their own devices, they came back stronger than ever. I picked as many blooms as I could, and the scent carried us home.

Lilacs last about a week. That's not very much when you have to wait a whole year for them. I am going to pull myself together this evening and - sick or not - walk around the corner to inhale the scent of a lilac. Some years, when there is a late frost, the lilacs don't bloom at all, and I mourn. This year, when they are so abundant, but are still gone so quickly, I am going to do a lot of inhaling while I can.

To read "Lilacs" in its entirety, click on: http://users.pandora.be/gaston.d.haese/lowell_lilacs.html

(One can't have TOO many pictures of lilacs)

A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH, BUT.....

This little fellow, a painted bunting, has caused some big excitement in North Dakota recently, because it is the first one ever seen in our state. It was spotted last week, hanging around a bird feeder in a yard in Dickinson, which is 90 miles west of Bismarck on I-94. Dedicated birders from Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo, and all around the state made the trip to see this brilliantly-colored little treasure who seems to have accidentally migrated too far North. I would hop in the car and go see it myself, if it were not for the report that it hasn't been seen for a few days and has probably moved on.

I have loved birds all my life. As I child, I made carbon-copy drawings of all the birds in our World Book Encyclopedia. I bought bird models, the plastic kind you paint. I wonder what my mother ever did with them because I sure would like to have them now. I collected matchbooks that featured birds on their covers. I loved the flashy one the best: blue jays, cardinals, scarlet tanagers, painted buntings, and all those other brilliantly-colored birds that were not native to western North Dakota.

There aren't a whole lot of impressive-looking birds where I grew up. The western meadowlark, Baltimore oriole and the barn swallows were about the prettiest birds we had. Of course we had crows, sparrows, robins, thrushes, magpies, hawks and those pesky Western king birds. I took them for granted.

My favorites were the ones splashed with a dollop of bright color, like the red-wing and yellow-headed blackbirds that you could spot hanging from cattails in sloughs beside the road. One of my best memories ever is seeing a rose-breasted grosbeak in a tree at Turtle River State Park near Grand Forks. It was so beautiful that I couldn't believe it was real.

Speaking of being so beautiful as to seem unreal, my husband and I were so blessed to have a cardinal family in our yard for a few years. I say blessed because cardinals are not common in Bismarck. One early Sunday morning my husband went to get a paper. When he came back he spotted a man standing in our driveway. Dan was upset, rightly so. "I'm just here to see the northern cardinal," the man stated. Dan suggested quite firmly that he remove himself from private property and "look for the northern cardinal elsewhere".

The sight of one lone cardinal making a bright red exclamation mark in a tree full of white crab apple blossoms will stay with me forever. However, I enjoyed his drab little mate too. She liked to sit on a branch and watch me garden. And the sound the male would make from his perch on a high wire! "Purdy, purdy, purdy," he'd boast, as if he knew exactly how beautiful he was.

As I have previously posted, we have blue jays that visit our yard, and waxwings (Bohemian or cedar?), goldfinches, black-capped chickadees, wrens, and once, oh glorious day, a hummingbird, buzzing low to the ground, visiting me as I planted lambs ears.

I want to see more pretty birds. However, I'm not a birder. It's not my quest to find every bird ever spotted in the state. The thought of standing in a slough on a cold misty morning does not ring my chimes at all. Frankly (birdwatchers would kill me if they knew), I think making a list of every kind of native sparrow would be boring.

What I want most right now is to see a bluebird. Although bluebirds are making a comeback in North Dakota, thanks in part to a wonderful group of people who make bluebird nesting boxes, I have never seen one. I know that there are trails of bluebird boxes in the state. I plan to check out at least one if not more trails this summer. I understand there is one at the Assumption Abbey at Richardton, with boxes made by Bismarck Boy Scouts and tended by one of the Benedictine monks.

Oh, and even if he is not brightly colored, I want to see at least one bald eagle.

SOMEONE'S TOP 100?

This is a fun test for book lovers:

I was sent a list of 100 books and asked to:

Bold the books I've read.
Italicize the ones I want to read.
Cross out the ones I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. (Since I don't know how to cross out, I put an x by this one.)
Put a cross (+) by the ones on my bookshelf.
Put an asterisk (*) by the ones I've never heard of.

I didn't bother to put a cross on any of the selections, as I own almost all of the books I have read or plan to read. (I keep the books I read!)

Here are my results, and I printed a list for you to copy below my list:

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) (Saw all the movies, reading just the first book in the series was enough.)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) *
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) *
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) (x)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) *
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) *
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies) *
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay) *
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) *
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) *
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) *
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) *
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) *
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) *
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I'm thrilled that I have read so many books on the list (75!). I would have put an "x" by "The Celestine Prophecy" just because it was so ubiquitous and uber-popular some years ago, but someone recommended it to me recently so I guess I will give it a whirl. I only rejected one of of hand.

I was interested to learn that of the books I haven't read, I hadn't heard of most of them, and here I thought I was pretty savvy when it came to my knowledge of books. I guess I'll have to check them out. I interpret this test as revealing to me that I am open to reading most books that cross my path!

HERE'S A LIST FOR YOU TO COPY AND PASTE:

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
'2. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)\
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

APRIL BOOKS

A HIGHLAND WARRIOR

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"Eat, Pray, Love," by Elizabeth Gilbert;
"The Magic of Ordinary Days," by Ann Howard Creel

"Outlaw Sword, "Son of the Sword",

"Sword of King James" all by Ardian J. Lee;

"The Year of Magical Thinking," by Joan Didion;

"Paint it Black," by Janet Fitch;

"The Last Templar," by Raymond Khoury;

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I have discussed "The Magic of Ordinary Days" and "Eat, Pray, Love" in previous posts, so I won't talk about them here.

The Ardian J. Lee books are set in the Scottish Highlands of the 1700s. The main character is a 20th century American man who finds himself transported three centuries back in time. If this sounds familiar, it is. The theme is almost identical to that of the Diana Gabaldon series that began with "Outlander." This time, though, we have a hero instead of a heroine. I loved "Outlander, " and have read it at least three times. I "made" my book club friends read it, even though they said it was "too loooong." That was 15 years ago, and they still talk about the handsome, charismatic Scotsman Jamie Frasier and his true love Claire. The "Outlander" series dwindled in quality as the series ran on. I was happy to find that this series maintained its quality. I also liked the fact that the hero is a reluctant warrior. Even though his hatred of the English is based on personal experience, he tries to avoid fighting and attempts to prevent the Battle of Culloden in which the Scots were so soundly defeated. With his knowledge of the future, he instead sets out to bring his clan into a better future than other Scots who were forced off their lands during the Highland Clearances. Since I plan to write a post about my love for Scottish books and movies, I won't discuss these books further right now.

The title of Joan Didion's book, "The Year of Magical Thinking" refers to her magical thinking - that her husband, the author John Gregory Dunne, wasn't really dead, even though all rational thought and outward appearances told her so. It is a powerful memoir of death, loss, sorrow, grief and magical thinking. (And not the least depressing.)

I enjoyed "The Last Templar" way more than "The Secret Supper," which I discussed in my March Books post, and about as well as or more than Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons". All involve solving riddles/puzzles and the Catholic Church. The protagonists and antagonists in "The Last Templar" are racing against time and each other, trolling the world for a secret, coded manuscript that may stun and change the entire world as we know it if revealed. I found myself running to the computer to learn new things about the Knights Templar, the Gnostic Gospels and the Cathars. Plus, it's a ripping good story, with some romance thrown in to boot.

I really, really liked "Paint It Black." I thought I might, after having read Janet Fitch's "White Oleander." I empathised with the "heroine, " Josie, very much. She is what one might term "trailer park trash", from Bakersfield, California, but she is highly likable. Josie is a 20-year old bleached blond with black roots, wearing a yellow fur jacket, short skirts with ripped fishnet stockings, and too much mascara.

An artist's model, Josie falls in love with a sensitive young artist who has turned his back on his wealthy past and his overbearing mother. As you watch Josie react to her boyfriend's suicide and its aftermath, you realize that a person you might dismiss or reject as being undesirable is actually highly intelligent with many layers of personality that peel away to reveal a beautiful soul. I wasn't raised in a trailer and I wasn't a trashy dresser, but my family came from the wrong side of the tracks, so I know how hard it is to try to separate one's true personality from one's looks and background. I highly recommend this book.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

As I mentioned in my previous post, my lilacs are slower to bloom than others in the neighborhood. My dwarf iris are behind too, but some dwarfs are blooming in a warmer spot - against a south-facing cement retaining wall located at a house around the corner from me.

Whenever I see these smooth, velvety, deep purple iris, I am instantly carried back to my Grandma's garden. Proust had his madeleines, I have my dwarf iris. If you haven't read Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," in it he recounts a transformative moment of tasting madeleine crumbs soaked in tea. A madeleine is just a plain little cake molded in the shape of a scallop shell, but eating it transported him back to his childhood days and gave him a feeling of all-powerful joy. True memory, he theorized, arises from smelling or tasting a once-familiar object. The sight and especially scent of dwarf purple irises is one of my sense memories, and I feel that all-powerful joy too.

I love all flowers, but I think I love the ones that Grandma Julia grew the most: lilacs, of course, the dwarf irises planted in a big tractor tire, the big blowzy peonies, the delicate moss roses planted in the bed in front of the garage.

Seeing Grandma's garden flowers in my mind carries me back to the days when I slid down her cellar door, made mud pies decorated with cotoneaster berries, collected green banana bunches (actually tree seeds) and helped Grandma feed the birds. I remember the days when my Mom, Aunt Mary and Grandma sat of an evening on the bench beside the garage with the weeping willow tree anchoring one end and the cotoneaster bush the other. I would sit and listen to their conversation, go run and play for a while, then return to the sanctuary of one lap or another.

Those were the evenings when we chanted "Starlight Starbright" and played statue on Grandma's big lawn. When we sat in the front porch at night and watched the breeze slowly billow the sheer white curtains in and out, in and out, lit only by the light of the streetlights. Or, we would sit on the back steps where the hum from the grain elevators acted as background music to the murmured conversation.

Those were the days when Grandma would have ladies over for lunch (the Norwegian equivalent of afternoon tea) and they would drink their coffee and speak their lilting Norwegian. Their singsong accents wafting from the dining room would lull me to sleep as I napped on the living room couch. Those were the days when Grandma and I would take walks through the quiet dark neighborhood. I always felt safe on those night walks, as long as her hand was in mine.

Sometimes Grandma and I would make afternoon visits to Mrs. Hanmer, a genteel and polished lady who served us a proper afternoon tea. Or, more impolitely at Grandma's house, I could dip sugar lumps into her coffee heavily laced with half and half.

We labor in vain to attempt to recapture the past, Proust wrote. "The effects of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect."

He adds, "But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken, scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised for a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

"So," says Proust, once he had recognized the taste of the madeleine crumbs soaked in his aunt's special tea, "in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's Park, and the water lilies in the Vionne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, towns and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea."

My Grandma is gone, as are Mom and Aunt Mary. The house was sold to strangers, ripped out of our hands. It's been 50 years since I was a child in Grandma's garden, but I still have my "Remembrance of Things Past," especially at this time when the dwarf purple iris bloom.

*****

Note added Friday evening: Many people who have read Proust's story of the madeleines have tried to track down the perfect madeleine recipe; perhaps the very one that his aunt baked. But it is not about re-creating the perfect madeleine, which is really a very bland and innocuous dessert. Like Lance Armstrong wrote, "It's Not About The Bike." And I add, "It's Not About The Madeleines."

THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL, BUT.....

Standing at the patio door this morning, I saw a single blue jay in my honeysuckle bush, sitting quietly and gazing contemplatively at the neighbor's yard.

This was interesting on two levels. First, I have never seen a blue jay in our yard until later in the season, perhaps July. And secondly, the jay was alone, and it was being quiet. We didn't have blue jays in northwestern North Dakota where I grew up, so I always thought I'd be thrilled to be around them. I was wrong.

Sure, I love their striking color, but they are always squabbling with each other. As I mentioned before, I usually don't see them until later in the summer, when a bunch of them swoop into the yard, start "arguing and scrapping" with each other, stick around for a while, then pack up and leave again. I call them "The Bickersons", after an old radio show in which the husband and wife engaged in relentless verbal war. My Bickersons are raucous and unpleasant and I'm happy to see them leave my yard.

Remembering an incident with the jays that happened a couple of summers ago, I now realize that my train of thought regarding these birds went off the tracks somewhere along the way. That summer, Penny, our Golden Retriever, actually caught a blue jay in her mouth. There was a pair of jays, obviously male and female, hovering and swooping low to the ground along with their fledgling. Penny moved in and, amazingly, snapped up one of the adults in mid-flight. I got the bird away from her and put it on the other side of the fence, out of her reach, but the jay had been too badly injured and eventually died.

I gave Penny a round scolding for killing such a beautiful bird. Then, Dan chastised me for scolding Penny. "She's just being a dog," he said. I had to agree. I remembered the story, "It's in my nature," from the movie "The Crying Game."

Anyway, back to my theory about the jays only arriving in our yard later in the season. That fledgling was obviously just learning to fly. It had to have hatched in a nest very close by, as it wouldn't have been able to travel any great distance. Therefore, those blue jays were in my yard all along. I don't know how I missed those flashes of blue, let alone the noise, but I must have.

Later this morning, when I walked to the back of my yard, I saw what my blue jay was looking at. My neighbor's lilacs are just about to burst into full bloom. It is surprising how just a few days of warm weather brings on the flowers. My own lilac bush is a bit behind, because it is shaded more.

Now that the weather is nicer, I leave my patio door open so the dogs can come and go as they please when I am home. I don't close the screen door because the dogs will go right through the screen. Therefore, Gracie has been bringing in a ton of "finds" from outdoors. Empty flower pots, pots full of damp soil, the water sprinkler, hose guides, rocks, and oh so many branches. When I told my daughter about this, she replied that it was natural for Gracie to bring things in since she is a retriever. Basically, Kristen was telling me, "It's in her nature." Actually, I told my daughter, Gracie is a German Short-Haired Pointer. A discussion ensued about whether or not pointers are also retrievers. I deferred to my husband, a long-time hunter, who says that yes, pointers are also retrievers.

I have also discovered, through researching the breed, that German Short-Hairs are escape artists, able to wriggle themselves out of tight situations. No matter how many times I put Gracie in the dog run, and how many ways I try to block the gate, she always manages to get out. Now she is called "Great Escape Gracie."

Today, the mailman came about 2:00. Knowing that Gracie has a penchant for eating mail, I ran to retrieve it (now who's the retriever?), but I was too late. Gracie grabbed two envelopes and dashed out the patio door. I had to chase her all over the yard before I got my letters back. Raucous blue jays. Bird-hunting dogs. Naughty puppies. I guess it's just "in their nature."

FAIRY DAY

I just found out that Fairy Day is June 24. Woo hoo! That's the day before my birthday. As I was born at 3:00 AM on June 25, it might still have been Fairy Day somewhere else in the world, right? Did I ever tell you I think I am a fairy's changeling? Anyway----Google www.fairyday.com . More about fairy day in the future. (Thank you to Daisy Lupin at http://catsinthekitchenflorainthegarden.blogspot.com/

DOG DAY DESIGNS

(Above: The cover and an inside page of the Peace and Tranquility Necklace brochure)

(Below: The front of Lila's business card)

(Click on all images to view details)

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After Lila at her Indigo Pears blog posted a photo of the robin's nest necklace I sent her, it generated some interest from people wanting to purchase it, so I ran down to Lila's (yes, another Lila!) studio today to see if she would mind if I posted information about her business in my blog. She was more than happy to let me, and I am more than happy to tout her work!

I first encountered Dog Day Designs (Jewelry With Meaning) by Lila Marquart at Bismarck's Urban Harvest two years ago. I fell in love with her jewelry and her lovely presentation of it. Since Urban Harvest is held Thursdays in July and August in downtown Bismarck right next to the building where I used to work, it was easy for me to take my lunch break to admire her designs. Once I learned that her studio was right downtown too, and that she would custom-make necklaces for me, I was hooked. Soon I was walking the block and a half to her studio at lunchtime to have necklaces made with my personal input. (This is when I had money - Ha!)

Where to begin to describe this unique handmade jewelry and why do I like it so much? Lila uses gemstones that have been associated for thousands of years with special properties like healing, calming the spirit or clearing the mind. Her use of color is exquisite, and she incorporates charms that resonate deeply with the people who buy her work. She has created a number of lines, including Inspiration, Goddess, and Animal Totem necklaces, "The Fairy Garden", Zodiac Birthstone necklaces, and Well Being and Chakra jewelry.

She has charms for all religious points of view, in addition to the goddesses mentioned above. They include Catholic medallions, Ohm and Buddha. And I mustn't forget the doggy designs in 18 of the most popular breeds. There's no surprise that Lila chose a business card illustration that contains a dog. Her studio is often graced by the presence of her own little dog who snoozes as customers visit.

Equally as beautiful as Lila's jewelry are the brochures and gift enclosures. They feature floral borders, art reproductions of famous paintings (often of the Pre-Raphaelites), and the research she has done on that particular piece. For example, for the Goddess Coventina necklace Lila researched the story of this Celtic and British goddess of water. From her legend comes our practice of throwing coins into a fountain or wishing well. Originally, offerings were tossed in the water to honor or appease the goddess. The charm in this necklace is, naturally, a wishing well.

The animal totem necklaces now number 48, and include dolphins, otters, cats, bees, eagles, deer, horses, rabbits and many, many more. Lila tells me she has never seen anything like her Zodiac Birthstone necklaces on the web.

Today, a new necklace caught my eye: The Lady of the Lake, with a crown charm and the story of this famed Arthurian legend. It is on my wish list, for sure.

I love sending this jewelry to family and friends. I sent my daughter a chakra bracelet when I knew she was going through some rough times. I sent Lila the robin's nest necklace because she has helped me so much with blogging, and because robins seemed to be a theme of our correspondence for a while this spring.

Most of the Dog Day Designs necklaces are about $30.00, which I think is very reasonable. Lila will also will make earrings to match, and she fashions bracelets, anklets and pins as well. I bought two of the necklaces pictured below ready made. The cloisonne necklace celebrates my love of purple, and the second necklace from the bottom contains my birthstone, alexandrite, and my wish-it-was-my birthstone, garnet. I can proudly say that I helped pick out the gems for the fairy necklace (love that gray-blue-green stone) and my "fall" necklace, with colors to match a scarf I already had in peach, brown and sky blue. I love the leaf, acorn, cherub and especially pixie charms on this necklace.

In fact, I helped design the robin's nest necklace too. When I say "design", I mean I chose the blue and reddish-brown stones/gems, and Lila added the secondary gems and filler pieces.

Lila's website is still under construction. When it is complete you may visit it by going to http://www.dogdaystudio.com/ . In the meantime, email her at dogdaydesigns@bis.midco.net . She has photos of her work that she can email you. Or write her at 120 N. Third St., Suite 260B, Bismarck, ND 58501, or phone her at 701-391-6721.

I am proud to say that Bismarck is home to such a unique artisan!

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(Below: I own these necklaces by Lila Marquart)

(To see a photo of the robin's nest necklace, go to:
Indigo Pears at http://www.indigopears.blogspot.com/

NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT PASSWORD

I have just signed up for three new free online services. I am going to have a lot of fun with them in the future, but already I'm sighing because I had to create three new user names and passwords for them.

I have a password for my online bank account. Passwords for Book of the Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club. I had a Zooba account, which I later canceled. If I wanted to reinstate it, I wouldn't be able to remember my password. Netflix? Blogger? Paypal? EBay? Bismarck Mandan Online? Yes x five. When I was working I had a user name and password to log into my computer as well as for all the half dozen different software programs I used every day, plus others used more infrequently. Thank goodness I had them on my desktop or I would have gone nuts. Let's see, was this one Julie or was it JulieF or was it julie or was it julief or was it jf??? (Tearing out my hair.)

Now that I am searching for a job, I have a password for Job Service of North Dakota. If you haven't had to look for a job for a while, you may be surprised to learn that you can apply to most places online. For which you need --- passwords! Since I plan to apply to some of these places again, I need to remember those too.

Forget your password? Well, fine, just click on "forgot your password?" Except that the next screen refuses your email address, even after you re-type it 10 times. C'mon, guys, I know my own email address.

I finally got smart and started writing them down. I had tried to keep it simple with one short and easy password, one that reflects one of my great passions. But when I tried to use that password at another site, it was too short, so I picked celticwoman. OK, that works. Only two passwords to remember. But one day that password was rejected by the site, so I thought, OK, I'll just turn it around and make it womanceltic. Three passwords now, but still all easy to remember.

After that, it got out of hand. Pretty soon I had to add numbers:celtic2woman. Good enough for one site but on another I had to add a symbol: celtic2woman#. Then there are the sites that give you a password: 5xgy$!aw3. Try to remember that one. I finally quit ordering from a small clothing catalog because not only did you have to remember a password, you also had to have a 20-digit membership number and your catalog card number and the name of your mother's dog's maiden name and kennel club number.

Right now I have most of my passwords listed in two small notebooks, one atop my computer and one in my purse. Hopefully, I'll never lose either one. The others I forgot? They're out there floating in the limbo of lost password land.

Quick! What's your password?