I was looking at photographs on my parent's website today. Each one has a caption written by my dad and it makes me feel so good to look at them and read all the funny and heartwarming things that he writes. The photos range from our family over the past twenty seven years to our land in the Colestine Valley, to my favorite house in L.A. on Fifth Street in Santa Monica & many things that went on therein. Looking at these photos brings back such a deluge of memories. This is one of the things my dad wrote that I read today and it made me want to cry and miss my first cat, Mellow Yellow, ever so much:
"Once, long before the temple was built, we got snowed out of our first yurt, and I had to hike back in from the County road about a half mile through hip-deep snow. When I arrived at the barn, our cat, Mellow Yellow, came out of the barn and greeted me after many months of separation. I was amazed. But he had been doing fine in the mouse-infested barn. I'm sure the mice were not doing so well. Then, I trudged another 200 yards to the yurt, leaving big columns as deep as my leg punched into the snow. Mellow Yellow followed me all the way to the yurt, leaping from one hole to the next, like several hundred times to get to the yurt with me. Once there I made a fire and warmed up, and then put a pack of things together to take back. Mellow Yellow sat by the fire and exuded such a sense of companionship. It was like we were communicating with each other so clearly. He was really glad to see me, and I was really glad to see him. As a sidelight, this was the winter Ana was born. We were snowed out, had no place to go, and rented Loren Duca's attic apartment, where Ana first saw light."
I can't believe how freakin mushy I feel right now.
Posted by Maria at March 5, 2004 03:30 PM | TrackBackMaria impersonating a Pumpkin...oh my gawd..I loved those photos..just lovely. What a great upbringing you had. Your parents did such a wonderful job raising you, I hope they're proud..
p.s. You were so precious..you had those cheeks I would have pinched on for DAYZ...
Oh..I really liked 18F too...that photo is great.
Posted by: sandy at March 5, 2004 03:45 PMAw. Sandy thanks. That's so nice that you enjoyed looking at my family photos. They bring back so many crazy memories. You forget so much as the years pass. I was overcome with emotions the first time I saw all of those photographs posted on their website.
How hilarious was I? Total butterball! I used to eat butter straight up in huge quantities. I guess that's probably how I got so damn fat. Luckily as I grew into a little beanpole, that babyfat disappeared.
Posted by: Maria at March 5, 2004 04:26 PMOh and about the cheek pinching: you weren't the only one who thought that! I got pinched so much as a child. I fucking hated it! I still hate being pinched. My dad is a pinching maniac and it hurts!
Posted by: Maria at March 5, 2004 04:29 PMStraight butter? haha..oh that is making me "feel fat"...
Posted by: sandy at March 5, 2004 06:14 PMMaria..
Simply lovely. You and I share a certain similarity in upbringings. My dad's brother brought his family up "outside" (the family's word) the 'legitimate' constraints of what was considered "proper Bostonian". I was naturally drawn to it.
I am struck with the wonderful sense of reverence and the joy imparted by each posted photograph personally annotated by your father. Just wonderful.
This faction of my family, living nearby, lived the same sort of philosophy. I have wonderful memories of summers and the change of seasons among my extended family who had three wonderful houses on Chappaquiddick and shuttled back and forth to Mexico and Sebastapol, California in the cooler months. It was another place and time and the gentleness and the innocence of that time is captured in those pictures so wonderfully.
We've lost something tangiable. I sense it. People love to slander what they call "hippie" as if it's some bad word. But it was a way of life that's heart was certainly in the right place. How different from the anger and arrogance of the present American climate.
I'm gonna go look at my photos in that shoebox now.
Thanks.
Posted by: Chosesinconnues at March 5, 2004 10:26 PMOh my gawd..I wished we all could actually meet up with one another. You guys are really my "friends" now.
Posted by: sandy at March 6, 2004 01:34 PM