Peruvian lilies from my yard (photo by moi) Once upon a time, I was lucky enough to land at a K-8 school where a bunch of amazing students, teachers, parents and staff attended, worked, played and learned. That is how I met my friend L*, a person who was great, funny, smart, talented and steady Eddie. She passed away last year and thanks to the generosity of her kids, I inherited a load of her books. Some of the collection is going to the bookstore, for resale; some titles are going to Little Free Libraries; some will go to my students, and friends; some will stay with me. How blessed are all of us, to have books around? #blessed #loved #friends. Here are some lessons L* left behind for not just her students, but her family, neighbors, friends… and me.

1. Breathe. Inhale/exhale, inhala, exhala.
2. You probably can speak more Spanish than you think you can; give it a try.
3. Throw a lot of love around and see what happens.
4. Learn when to keep a secret and learn when to tell someone off. Learn when to hug tightly and learn when to give someone space.
5. Drink tea, stay hydrated, try to eat healthy foods.
6. Start each day with a poem.
7. Turn on the sprinklers for the birds and the critters, especially when the air is smoky and it’s hard to breathe
8. Send letters and be open to receiving letters.
9. Call when you can.
10. Teach people to read.
11. Give away books.
12. Pay attention to the bugs and flowers.
13. Garden and work in your yard.
14. Take your dog(s) for a walk and visit the neighbors.
15. Let your kids know how much you love them.
16. Smile.

She. Was. Amazing. I’m a better person, because of her. I mean that. I’m not including links, but I’ll include a list of some of the books she left me. They’re all pretty cool. Be well, leave a comment if you’d like, and don’t forget to read and write. And write and read, and then to read and write some more. XO WM Dick King Smith’s “Alphabeasts,” illustrated by Quentin Blake Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” “Arctic Memories,” by Normee Ekoomiak “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Joseph Schindelman; “The Roald Dahl Treasury”; and “D is for Dahl: A Gloriumptious A-Z Guide to the World of Roald Dahl,” with illustrations by Quentin Blake “Desert Dog,”  by Tony Johnston, with paintings by Robert Weatherford “Fables,” by Arnold Lobel “Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices,” by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Eric Beddows (This is one of my favorite books in the universe, I’m happy to say. And my friend L* introduced it to me. We loved to celebrate National Poetry Month every April, and we liked “Poem in Your Pocket” day. You know it? You keep a poem folded up in your pocket, and all day long you read your poem to people you run into, and they, in turn, read their poems to you! Perfecto! My poem is one that my sister and I like. Our great-aunts taught it to us many, many, many years ago. It goes like this… ready? “I love you little/I love you big/I love you like/a little pig.” — anon.) “Little House in the Big Woods,” “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” “By the Shores of Silver Lake” and all the “Little House” titles, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, pictures by Garth Williams “The Magic Hummingbird: A Hopi Folktale,” collected & translated by Ekkehart Malotki, narrated by Michael Lomatuway’ma, and illustrated by Michael Lacapa Caldecott Medal Winner “Many Moons,” by James Thurber, illustrated by Louis Slobodkin (who also provided the drawings for “The Hundred Dresses,” by Eleanor Estes) “Pizza, Pigs and Poetry: How to Write a Poem,” “The Dragons Are Singing Tonight” (with pictures by Peter Sis) and “If Not for the Cat” (paintings by Ted Rand), by Jack Prelutsky, Children’s Poet Laureate “Salmon Forest,” by David Suzuki & Sarah Ellis, with illustrations by Sheena Lott “Scruffy: A Wolf Finds His Place in the Pack,” by Jim Brandenburg “Thunderfeet: Alaska’s Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Critters,” by Shelley Gill, illustrations by Shannon Cartwright “Where the Buffaloes Begin,” by Olaf Baker, with drawings by Stephen Gammell Books that I found last week in my wanderings: “Across the Stream,” by Mirra Ginsburg, pictures by Nancy Tafuri “Are You My Mother?” written and illustrated by P.D. Eastman, my hero “In My Mother’s House,” by Ann Nolan Clark, illustrated by Velino Herrera “The Little House,” by Virginia Lee Burton “Madeline’s Rescue,” by Ludwig Bemelmans “Love Songs of the Little Bear,” by author Margaret Wise Brown and illustrator Susan Jeffers “Ninja Red Riding Hood,” by Corey Rosen Schwartz, illustrated by Dan Santat “Olivia and the Missing Toy” and “Olivia Forms a Band,” written and illustrated by Ian Falconer Hans Christian Andersen’s “Thumbelina,” retold by Amy Ehrlich, with pictures by Susan Jeffers Grownup books: “Awakening Creativity: Dandelion School Blossoms,” by Lily Yeh “The Book of Delights,” essays by Ross Gay “Emperor of the Air,” stories by Ethan Canin “Messages on Stone: Selections of Native Western Rock Art,” by William Michael Stokes and William Lee Stokes “Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs,” by Caroline Knapp “Rescuing Claire,” by Thomas Johnson “Ten Poems to Change Your Life,” by Roger Housden “To the Nines: A Stephanie Plum Novel,” by Janet Evanovich “Teacher Therapy,” by Karen Katafiasz, illustrated by R.W. Alley

(Photo by my late father, James David Row, probably. Circa 1966.)

See how happy I am there, age 2, with my dog, Peaches? I’m wearing slippers that my granny knitted for me. Cuz she loved me. The dolly? The doll cradle that we will later sand and paint and turn into a doll cradle for our daughter, and oh, my Lord. The sweetness of our daughter, age 2, climbing into the cradle with her dolly and her blankie and smiling up at us. Best.

(Photo by us.)

Steve + Nancy on a date, Los Lobos concert, 8/12/12, Tualatin Valley Parks & Rec summer show, Beaverton, Ore. How do I remember the date and the details? Because we blogged our whole lives. Then it blew up. Then next thing you know…

Yeah. I’ll spare you the gory details.

So what does this tell you, other than dog people should marry dog people and cat people should marry cat people? (“War of the Roses.” War of the Rawleys.)

Don’t marry someone who tells you what you can and cannot plant in your garden.

He doesn’t like roses; I do.

I’m a June baby, they’re my birth month flower, I’m from the City of Roses. But the way he whined about them — the black spot! The aphids! The thorns and the hassle and what is the point of roses, exactly? NO ROSES FOR YOU. (Except a bouquet if you demand them, for Valentine’s Day or your birthday or something.)

My new place? So many roses. (All of these photos by moi, Nancy Ellen Row Rawley.)

These are the first ones to bloom. They came out today. They’re hanging over a trellis in my garden. Note the black spot? I do not give care about the black spot. It’s only May, how can there already be black spot, aiiiiiii, etc. Come on. You can cut off those leaves and little branches, try not to water at night (it makes it worse), but end of the day? Who cares? The old lady who lived here before me, Boots, was Welsh, and her whole goal in life was to recreate the Welsh countryside. I’m Irish. I appreciate everything she did around here, it’s gorgeous.

(Rhodies galore, mostly light and dark pinks, very girly.)

Nice yellow.

I can’t tell yet what color these are going to be, but I’ll tell you one thing — they’re already covered with aphids and I do not care. I hosed them off, they’re beautiful. They’re big, and they’re climbing all over the place. Next to them is the big, overgrown forsythia, and I’m not pruning it back much, because the chickens need a place to hide and stay cool this summer.

Iris, more iris, and life, always sweeter over the other side of the septic tank. (That’s what you want to plant in your septic field, by the way. Something with low-growing roots, not deep roots, with lots of space to let the clean, run-off water evaporate. (My garden is uphill from the septic tank and field, thank you.)

Lots of big oaks around here. That’s actually a maple, sorry. There are oaks up and down the road, they’re majestic. I kinda love Corvallis, and all the trees. It’s good here.

Here’s all I have to say: I loved my old man. I did my best, we have these two great kids, and I finally have my roses. (I’ve counted nine or ten bushes so far, including some wild roses that are going nuts from having a little attention. The garden hadn’t received enough loving the past few years. It happens.)

xoxoxoxox and bon appetit!

WM

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

My husband and I are coming up on our… 17th anniversary? No, 16th. But we’ve been together for 17-plus years now and sometimes, believe it or not, we get on each other’s nerves. We spend a ton of time together, which is how we both like it. On the other hand, he loves the ocean. I love the ocean, too, but I also love hanging out with a book by the pool, or maybe, I dunno, going shopping. Or for breakfast. But he really, really loves the ocean, as in, being alone at the ocean, riding his bike along the shore, taking loads of photos, hiking for miles, traipsing up winding, crazy lighthouse stairs.

This ocean appreciation came as a surprise to me, because when I married him, he was definitely a mountain man.

This scene, from “The Perfect Storm,” sums it up:

Bobby Shatford: “I got a woman who I can’t stand to be two feet away from.”
Captain Billy Tyne: “Congratulations.”
Bobby Shatford: “Then again, I love to fish.”
Captain Billy Tyne: “Son, you’ve got a problem.”

We were having coffee, planning out our weekend, and Steve said something about, “What was that you said, about ‘spaces in your togetherness’?” First of all, I was being a smartass when I said that, and second of all, I didn’t say it — Khalil Gibran did, and I’ve heard the lines at approximately 80 percent of all the weddings I’ve been to.

Ever.

The lines have become, OK, I’ll say it… somewhat trite, along with over-used, but so are a lot of other lines. Shakespeare’s, for example. Which kills me a little inside because I’m Shakespeare girl for many years now. But it made me think… You know what would be perfect? Wedding vows that were a mash-up of Polonius’s lines to his son, Laertes, along with the lines from “The Prophet.” Oh, yeah, honey, now that’s the motherlode.

The words from “The Prophet,” I’ll put into italics. Polonius’s quotes I’ll put in bold. Ready?

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

“Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, and you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee! And these few precepts in thy memory see thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel…”

“But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy…”

“Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

“For the apparel oft proclaims the man, and they in France of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine ownself be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!”

God, I love the Internet. Adieu! And Stevie, here’s to the rest of our lives. I love you.

xoxoxoxo

wm

(Photos by Steve Rawley)

http://youtu.be/OJJxu16HCCI

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

“Life gets a little trickier as you get older; it just does…. When my first child was born, [director] Costa-Gavras said to me, ‘They break your heart every day,’ and I thought, ‘Oh,that’s just so perfectly European and negative and I love having this baby. He fills my heart every day.’ Cut to now — I’ve got three boys, from 4 to 14 — and they break your heart every f — -ing day. They break it because they fill it.” — Big Bad Love’s Debra Winger, on the pains and joys of parenthood, on Reel.com

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

I got this note from my husband last week, as the kids and I were heading out to dinner and the movies:

love you back, see you later, enjoy the show and please keep hands and arms inside until the ride comes to a complete stop.

And that kind of sums up our whole marriage. (big smile.)

May 9th will be the 16th anniversary of our first date; one of our kids turns 11 (elevenyearsold!!!!) next month; the other one turns 14 (fourteen!!!) in September; 15 years of marriage for us right after her birthday; “the sun is up/the sun is shining/the yellow sun/is over the house” — Dr. Seuss; baby, it’s spring again; and love… love was long overdue, and I’m glad it showed up when it did.

xoxoxoxo

wm

ps that was a song my friend wrote, a long time ago: “Love is Long… Overdue.”

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love

peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace

I think about what it’s maybe like in Heaven. My cousin, who shot himself in the head; my uncle (his father), who wrapped his car around a tree; my Dad (my uncle’s friend, and the man my cousin loved most next to his own father), who jumped off a bridge; my Grandpa (who loved my cousin, my uncle, my Dad, so much) who kept threatening to shoot himself, until my uncles took away his guns. So he went off dialysis and stopped eating and was gone in a week.

Yeah, I bet that’s a real g.d. interesting conversation they’re all having, about their rights and how much easier everything is, now that they’re gone.

Now, how about you tell me that suicide is painless, while I’m sitting here alone, with their pain and mine, on a Saturday night. When people kill themselves, that pain doesn’t go away; it just gets transferred to someone else is all.

That’s all. Someone else carries it.

This is all getting stirred up for me in a kind of huge, ugly way, because of Newtown (Clackamas Town Center, Columbine, Springfield, Jonesboro, on and on). All the Yosemite Sams are jumping around, shooting themselves down both legs at once, no gun control bs, “gotta stay safe!”, loading up on new guns and ammo, going to gun shows, taking shooting classes, taking out concealed weapon permits, NRA bs, 2nd Amendment bs, on and on until I want to scream from it, really.

You know what people like to shoot with guns? Themselves. And children. And their wives. Women, in general. Wait. And men. People like to shoot men, too.

No more guns. They’re not worth the cost.

This song always makes me feel a little better. I’ll just play it twelve more times and try to get some sleep.

Peace, love, peace, love, always.

nancy

LuLu, aka Wacky Cat 1, we will miss you always. Love you, sweet girl. (Here are my favorite pictures, from when we brought a friend home for her.)

Edited New Year’s Eve to say: Stopped by the post office with Steve this morning to pick up LuLu’s ashes. Why? Because the Pet Remains with Dignity people just had to send the box registered mail. (No, they didn’t. Seriously. If someone had stolen our late, wild kitty’s remains from the porch, then cosmic joke would have been on them.) Well, it’s a little depressing, picking up your cat’s ashes (inside a box, inside a package wrapped in plain brown paper) from the nice postal guy, who made me sign my name, print my name, and write out our address, in addition to all of the same on a slip of paper the other nice postal carrier left at the door, “sorry, cannot leave package as Signature is Required,” etc.)…

Where was I? It’s a little sad, really, taking care of a small piece of business like that, when what I’d really like to be doing instead is having brunch with my husband, and guzzling mimosas.

Only I don’t drink anymore, so much for that plan. Sorry, denial, you just don’t do it for me anymore. I would love to try to find a way to forget that my kitty is gone. We were together for 17 years! She was funny, cuz she quacked instead of meowed! Also, I loved the way she would threaten you by holding up just one, flexed paw, claws extended. “I’ll cut ya.”

Sigh. One mimosa? Nope.

Quiet, sad moment. Then we walked outside and right then…

It started to snow. Gorgeous, beautiful, cold, white snowflakes.

Because my kitty is an angel now, that’s why, and she sent the snow.

The End and Happy New Year, dear readers.

— wm

We went to hear Bo Ramsey and Greg Brown at the Aladdin last night. The guys were great; the audience was not. Steve: “Portland audiences may be obnoxious, but at least they’re enthusiastic.” How diplomatic of him. Here’s a song for you, and it kinda sums it all up for me:

http://youtu.be/yDyKa4EcsLg

“Where’s your wife?” one heckler yelled. Greg Brown’s wife being the beautiful and talented singer, Iris DeMent. “She’s at home cooking!” Brown yelled back.

http://youtu.be/fpQNLZRcNA4

“Get her out here to sing with you!” the same guy yells.

“She won’t sing with me. She’ll only sing with… John Prine.”

It’s true. Or maybe if you’re Josh Turner, she’ll sing with you.

http://youtu.be/elKre8qBLpc

Can’t blame her there.

Also, i’m in love with Pieta Brown, Greg’s daughter:

Now, since this is basically a love letter to Iowa and all the good musicians I’d never heard of ’til I married Steve:

And I don’t want to overlook Bo, so here he is, too.

Love you all, thanks for the music.

— nancy