I’ve never been able to wear a dress in summertime.
Those who know, know.
In the Gloaming (1877)
Surprisingly, my summer project is a heavy-duty wool cardigan by Caitlin Hunter, of Boyland Knits, aptly named “Gloam”. In the gloaming means the twilight hours just after sunset. “In the gloaming” has always been my favorite time of day, whether it be a summer, winter, spring, or fall evening.
There was a time in my life, I would say, probably the decades between 20 and 60 years when I felt unquenchable yearning at this time of day, for what I do not know. I couldn’t tell if I had to go out of the house or if I needed to stay in. There was a restlessness about it… as if I was missing out on something. I sometimes would at least need to be out on the porch as darkness overcame the gloaming.
Thank goodness I don’t feel the same about the gloaming anymore. But still, this is my favorite time of day heavy with nostalgia and longing and memories of days gone by. So when I found the sweater named the “Gloam” it just seemed right that I would knit it. The style was right, as well.
The garment has an Asian appearance to it like a kimono, with an open front and wide medium-length sleeves, and a cropped body. The yarn I’m using is of DK weight of Highland woolen spun of New England, Harrisville, in a deep charcoal colorway. Across the front and back is a large textured section of 72 rows.
Some would not consider this summer knitting, and neither do I but it is what it is. I’m having a lovely time working on it but it’s not something I take outside with me. That’s okay, because as I’ve grown older, sitting outside in the heat is not one of my pleasures. As August approaches, I might have to switch to sock or hat knitting, but I’d love to have this sweater to wrap up in come Fall.
Maybe I’ll need to take it outside to work on in the gloaming as the heat of the day subsides.
My cousin Gail, after reading my blog post, brought up that the word “gloaming” reminded her of my mom. Now I might understand why I loved it so:
Mom played the piano and sang a lot as we were growing up. We had sheet music in the piano bench and Mom would sing and play all kinds of music, from pop, ballads, jazz, blues, and more. Now I know why that word stirs up such emotion in me. I now remember that Mom sang, “In the Gloamingʻ.
Thank you Gail for stirring my memory. Follow the link below to hear this beautiful but sad song.
Beach Bottle…. Memories of Santa Monica
So it’s hot today in Portland. The temperature is in the 90s. The beach sounds like a good place to be… with a beach bottle.
We’re just not used to this kind of weather, at least not until late August when we might get hit with a heat wave. So, I’m in reverie in front of the air conditioner.
When I was living in Santa Monica, I could walk a few blocks to the beach. When special company came for a visit, I would make what I called a “beach bottle”.
How did I make it? Pay attention, Judith.
Squeeze fresh lemon juice into a bottle, from a just-picked lemon, off the tree in the backyard. Add water and sugar to taste. Here comes the good part:
Add whatever might be your pleasure at the time. Rum? Vodka? Gin? With a splash of Drambuie, Cointreau, Lemoncello, or whiskey for a taste of Kentucky.
Here’s a photo of me enjoying one when Hannah and al-Gene came for a visit. Santa Monica was paradise.
I’m not as trashed as I appear. Really. Ha, ha.
Memories of The Little House
I remember the smell of The Little House. It smelled a little like dirt and mildew and of the oil stove sitting in the far corner of the tiny front room. The house smelled of cooking, it smelled of the bathroom, it smelled of every kind of flower growing in the yard… and it smelled of welcoming.
I wish Grandma and Grandpa were still alive so that I could ask them about the origin of the little house. All I know is that it was a converted single-car garage that sat just back from the house, creating the border on the east side of Grandma’s beautiful yard.
Just behind the little house was the large burning barrel hidden by vines, accessible through a small opening, creating a small space that was always cool on the hottest summer days, a perfect place for us children to hide, as well as spiders and garter snakes.
Grandpa had closed off the garage door. It wasn’t even discernible that the tiny house had at once been a garage. Instead, he opened two doors, one at the front side of the garage, and one at the back end of the garage, both opening into the garden. Wooden panel doors had been installed as well as wooden screen doors so that as we went in and came out, the screen doors would slam shut with a familiar bang. All the time the adults would yell at us kids… ” don’t slam the door”, they would shout.
He built a wall separating the living/bedroom space from the kitchen and divided off a small square room beyond the kitchen for the toilet.
The first room one entered was just large enough for a full-size bed, an overstuffed chair, a dresser, and a small wardrobe with an oil stove in the far corner. Built into the wall was a door opening into the kitchen. If memory serves me, the living/bedroom space and the kitchen were approximately the same size.
The kitchen served well. There was a white metal cabinet with storage and a sink. Just across from that, was a yellow Formica table with two matching chairs that served for food preparation, for eating, for writing letters, or for having friends and family over for coffee and maybe a good gossip fest. Beside the sink, Grandpa built a small pantry. On the back wall stood the stove and beside that a small refrigerator. In the wall closest to the back door, Grandpa built what I will call a toilet room because that was all that was in there. It was all there was room for.
In each room, Grandpa had built a window overlooking the garden, except in the bathroom, where one looked out into the shady, cool space where the burning barrel sat.
The entire little house was covered in wooden shingles painted a warm green. Eventually, a beautiful vine grew over the house whose leaves turned a brilliant red in the fall.
I don’t know if Grandpa foresaw or knew or already had a reason for converting the garage into the little house. I’ll never know. But what I do know is that every member of our immediate family, at one time or another, lived in the little house… except for me.
I have photographs of Mom and Dad living there. Then there was Auntie Wilma with her first husband, Bob and then with her second husband, Jim. Next, I think it was my brother and his first wife, Patty. Then there was my sister Kristi with her first husband Mark, and then I think there was my cousin Jeff and his wife Gloria or maybe he lived there alone.
Babies and memories were made in the little house. Steve was conceived and born there, and I believe I was, too. Steve has five children, one of them might have been conceived there and Kristi has seven, and I know that at least one must have been conceived there. If that little house could talk, I know the secrets to be told would surprise and maybe even shock us all.
I wonder if Grandpa had foreseen that he would provide a small but cozy home for so many of us as each was building their family. Whether he knew it or not, that’s exactly what he did.
P.S. My dad’s cousin, Carolyn, just wrote to me after reading this story to tell me that Grandpa converted the garage for Grandma’s mother, Ida Bell Gilbert Womack. Great-grandma died in 1947. That means Mom and Dad moved into the little house the year that my brother was born, almost immediately when the little house came vacant. For me, another gap in the family history is solved.
Summer Solstice 2025 On the precipice of World War 3
To Tracy and Kelly, as we are just days away from the longest day of the year… summer solstice 2025
Today, it’s getting out of bed and making lemon bars, and coleslaw, to celebrate Jack and Nori. Jesse has the ribs cooking at home and Nori’s, making baked beans and blackberry cobbler.
For the occasion, I thought of putting a mask on my face and plucking my chin hairs, but I’m not sure I even have time for that and besides, nobody gets that close to me anyway to see whether I have chin hairs or large pores or wrinkles. But, I will, for certain brush my teeth and my hair.
We’re expecting rain on Friday and Saturday. And so the temperatures have been dropping into the low seventies and the fifties at night, so what to wear has me in a conundrum. I know for sure I will wear my acrylic oyster barrette in my hair and take a long-sleeved sweatshirt to Jack’s house.
I suppose I can do laundry while I make the lemon bars and the coleslaw. I could maybe do some reading or do some scrolling. It’s more likely that I will do the latter.
If I’m driving, I should get my car washed because it’s covered in sap from the maple trees and dust from the road construction. The combination creates a sparkly but dull finish, that makes my car look as though it has sat in the barn for decades. Only the bird poop on the hood, falling from up high in the maple trees, gives it away as a car that lives on the street.
Maybe Ancel will drive instead. Either way, I will dread Highways 26 and 217. I will silently wish that Jack still lived on 25th and Ainsworth. But laughing and loving will make me forget that we have to return home on these dreaded highways.
Sitting here on the bed is not getting the food prepped. But sitting here on the bed pretending that I’m talking to you girls face to face makes me stay here a minute or two longer.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to Pho Van for #52, Bun, with chewy, sticky pork skewers and crispy rolls filled with vegetables and undisclosed proteins on noodles flavored with fish sauce.
Saturday, I’ll go meet with a bunch of women and play, I think it’s called, Cards Against Humanity. I haven’t decided what to make yet for me and others to eat.
And while all of these pleasures go on, I’m torn at heart and of mind and my hair turns ever more white around my face, wetted by my tears, as WW3 is being played out on neighboring continents.
I will breathe. I will breathe out prayers into the universe that this madness will end. But as David Byrne has written in his song, Burning Down the House”… “Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.”
My joy is in knowing you and loving you and knowing that I am loved in return. I hope you’re safe, healthy, and at peace.
Making Knots Makes Sense to Me. Some of my work.
On This First Sunday in June
The day has started so cold. It’s in the 40s, but promises to be in the 70s by day’s end. Satisfying weather for a spring day, I think.
But for now, mid-morning, I’m still in the bed with the blankets pulled up to my hips to keep my legs warm and so as not to disturb the cat lying between my feet.
I awoke to gray skies, but slowly the light has brightened the clouds making me aware of my hunger.
It’s pancakes with eggs, sweetened with maple syrup, I’m thinking. A steaming cup of black coffee. The thought of breakfast, if nothing else, will get me out of my bed, however lazy I feel on this first Sunday in June.
A Spring Day. I cannot miss a moment of this.
A most glorious day.
Blue skies with magnificent white clouds floating by,
Sometimes obscuring the sun, leaving a chill in the air.
Sunlight illuminates every color of green. Overwhelmingly green.
Every flower blossom exudes fragrance on the air,
Passing by just to give a whiff, of pleasure.
The mottled ground, shadows of quivering leaves.
The Bush Tits flitting, where else? In the bushes.
I’m mesmerized. I cannot move from this chair.
What if I miss a moment?
Grass: Why We Don’t Constrain It
“I Cut the Grass Today,” writes Jerry, a fellow poet. For all the right reasons I respond…
That’s why we don’t cut our grass.
Let it be… wild as it will.
It’s constrained enough by the stone wall and concrete paths.
Between each blade, let live and grow what will of life be it plant or animal.
Do the neighbor’s mind?
Perhaps, but no one dare say a word to those wild ones who live inside.
Hotel Belmar —– What Belmar?
My first and last visit to Mazatlan
What mahogany? What tile? What swimming pool? What ambiance? Do you mean the broken window? The wire’s hanging out of the ceiling from around the broken fan? The closet doors hanging from their hinges? And no way to lock the door of the room itself.
I was more than disappointed. This was the first time in all of my travels to Mexico that I planned ahead of my trip. Making a reservation in Old Town Mazatlan, unfortunately, I believed the advertisements. Against my better judgment, I made a reservation while still at home. As it turned out, I couldn’t get out of Hotel Belmar fast enough.
Leaving my bag in the room facing the sea, I set off to find a new hotel. I walked and walked until my sandals rubbed red burning blisters into my feet. The sun burned my face. I wanted to cry.
Nicholas, the hotel clerk, was nice. When I said, I wanted to find a new hotel, he said, “Stay, stay”. But I was desperate not to spend my very expensive vacation in the Hotel Belmar. And to top it off, the only beach near the hotel, was a small patch of sand, dark and surrounded by boulders, littered with plastic garbage. It was not even worth exploring.
The malecon swarmed with people. Locals were cooling off in the sweltering heat. Vendors were selling grilled corn on the cob, skewered through on a stick, smothered in butter, and sprinkled with Tajin. Others sold shaved ice, ice cream and soda. Children, covered in wet sand, were squealing. Teenagers were shouting at one another and boom boxes were playing Banda music at top volume.
“I can’t stay there. I chanted inside my head as I walked. What will I do? How will I change hotels? What’s even available? How can I find out? I need water. What am I doing here?” I feared to stay even one night, where the lights flickered in the dark room and the rusty AC unit ground loudly.
So far I didn’t like what I’d seen of Mazatlan. A four-lane highway runs between a strip of hotels and the beach. The beach is steep, a thin strip, broken by huge outcroppings of boulders. This isn’t even the hotel district. This is in Mazatlan Vieja. Right then, I missed my family. What would they say if they saw me now? I was way too hot and my feet were being rubbed raw.
I wished I had picked Acapulco. Acapulco I knew well. I could have gone to Pie de la Cuesta or Zihuatanejo or any number of places that I loved. My dream of buying a small hotel felt crushed, and I certainly wouldn’t be buying anything here.
I hailed a pulmonia. These are small, open-air jeeps with a canopy and music blaring. “Where can I find a cheap hotel?”, I asked the driver in Spanish. These guys get a commission for bringing tourists to particular hotels that they are affiliated with. I also know from experience that when I let them know that I’m fluent in Spanish, they’re going to run into the hotel before me and tell the clerk that I am fluent in Spanish, so there’s no talking among themselves, thinking that I don’t understand what they’re saying.
The driver knows, he says, of a cheap place. It’s called Olas Altas. (High or Big Waves). I’d been traveling in Mexico for a long time, and I knew what hotels go for. But it was peak season, and this is right on the highway with the beach right across those four lanes. Cars were whizzing by and it was quite noisy and dusty. But I was at the point of collapse. Right then I’d pay just about anything.
I wanted to pay $30 a night, but they were insisting on $81. I’ll get a deal, they continued to insist, if I stay for the whole week. I’m embarrassed to say, I paid over $400. This was unheard of in my experience, but as I said, I thought I might keel over if I didn’t find a place to eat and sleep and soak my damaged feet.
I paid and promised to be back shortly. I hopped on the pulmonia again, back to Hotel Belmar. When I told Nicholas that I was leaving, he was none too happy. He made me pay $100 pesos, for the molestia (for the trouble) I guess for showing me the room. It appeared to me that I would have been their only guest. At this point, I would have paid almost anything. Just get me out of here, I thought. I took one more look at the pool, which was covered with a green slime, and was happy to be gone. I think at one time, this was a very cool and trendy hotel. The bones were still there.
Nicholas kept saying, “Piense bien. Tiene que pensar bien.” You better think it over, he was saying. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is my vacation and my money. Adios.” Did he think that I really could have stayed? So back onto the pulmonia. I hopped on and off I went to Olas Altas.
When I arrived, I instantly dropped my luggage in my room and stripped to the skin. I was as red as a beet, I could hardly walk. I couldn’t wear shoes. I had two or three blisters on each foot with at least one that had burst open and was bleeding… and I’m too hot.
Olas Altas was just okay. The rooms were new with air conditioning, the beds were comfy. And across the four-lane highway, was the beach and I could see the spectacular sunset.
I also could see the big red signs saying that there would be no swimming because of dangerous currents and the massive waves. I would have to go searching for a good beach for swimming.
I threw on my swimsuit and threw myself into the pool. I floated in the pool until I felt myself calm down. I was in bed by 9:00 pm. I was tired to the bone and had not had a drink of water or anything to eat all day.
I drug myself to a table by the pool. There was a small restaurant in the hotel and I immediately downed two bottles of Pacifico before drinking glasses and glasses of water. I ordered caldo Tlalpaño which was a soup of rice, avocado, and chicken. I believed it was the best soup I’d ever eaten. And then I had a platillo Mexicano, 1 sope, 1 chili rellano 1 tostada, 1 quesadilla, guacamole, and frijoles.
I didn’t stop until I had my fill. I rested my head in my hands and almost fell asleep. It was time for me to go to my room. I fell into bed and as soon as the traffic died down on the highway, I slept like a baby, listening to the giant waves crash on the shore.
Tomorrow I’ll eat breakfast at Pueblo Bonito. They want to sell me this place, but right now. I don’t want to be sold anything ever.
I spent the rest of the week in Mazatlan staying at Olas Altas. Unlike all of the other times that I’ve been in Mexico this was not fun, not comfortable, not interesting, not anything. I never found the beach that I was looking for… someplace to swim. I did find some good places to eat, which is easy to do in Mexico. But I found that the food in the hotel restaurant was the best food to be found.
I understand that there are people who love Mazatlan. They buy houses and condos and businesses, and vacations and retire there even. But after that experience, I never wanted to go back… to Mazatlan that is.
eyeamdust 