Cushlamocree

I read a poem called Cushlamocree today, and I didn't know what the word meant. My guess going in, just based on the sound of the word, was that it was some kind of a bird. Into the poem I found the line "Acushla, Acushla," and by that point had surmised that I was wrong about the bird. I consulted my good friend Google.

Cushlamocree is of Irish origin, and means "pulse of my heart". Acushla is a Gaelic term of endearment meaning "darling" (literally vein or pulse). Perhaps your parents or grandparents use these words of affection? That would be sweet. Please, please tell me about it! I keep rolling them around in my thoughts this evening. Acushla, such a hushed, soothing sound, cushlamocree. 

The poem I was reading was by Maine poet Frances Wright Turner. How had I come across this obscure poem? My mother had a sweet little book of Turner's children's poetry called Star Dust that she had been given by a teacher in the early 1940's. I was wondering about her other works, and found Cushlamocree online.

Cushlamocree

I'm calling you -- calling

Acushla, Acushla,

The fog from your island

Grows dank and grows dark;

My voice it must reach you

It seems from the highland,

It fills and flows over

Like song of a lark.

I call you at dawning --

I call you at evening,

My heart calls you always,

My Cushlamochree;

Your smile broke the heart o' me --

Made my life lonely,

I long for you there on

Your isle in the sea.

I'm calling you -- calling,

Forever I'm calling,

But the years lie between us

With sorrow and tears;

The darkness is falling --

Acushla! Acushla!

Oh, smile on me darling,

And turn back the years.

Kind of pretty, huh? I think most of the poem is evocative, and then the last two lines are cheesy. I can overlook that though, because of the gift of new words.

                                                                                                        Acushla, acushla, my cushlamochree -- these words send my heart in a few directions. Romantic love, sure. But also toward my dearly departed mother, her poems and her loving nature. And toward my children, the sweet toddlers of my memories and the delightful young women they have become. Of Maine and the sense of place, of going home, that I get when I journey northward. And even of the night sky, and the deep feeling of longing that I get when I ponder the vastness of the universe, and I just want to comprehend it.

This picture of the lighthouse and the Milky Way is from the coast of Ireland. It looks very much like the coast of Maine. I had never considered the similarities before. Ireland is on my list of places I want to visit, and now even more so.

Cushlamochree. I can imagine a poet longing for someone, or someplace, or sometime, across that sea of saltwater and stars and years.

Travelogue: Dresden

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.” -- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Of all the places I've visited, Dresden, Germany was the place that really wowed me. I knew nothing about Dresden until I visited the city on a business trip about seven years ago. How did I get to be a grown-up and not yet know about Dresden? Hmmm. Well, for one thing, I had not read Slaughterhouse Five, or anything else by Vonnegut for that matter, prior to that trip. I remember steering clear of his books in the library because I had heard, and accepted as true, that the books and Vonnegut were "depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian." What I accidentally learned by visiting Dresden was that this appraisal of Vonnegut and his books was patently wrong -- because Dresden stoked my curiosity to actually pick up Slaughterhouse Five and try reading it myself. The moral? Don't judge things based on the assessment of others -- Think for yourself. Such began my love affair with Kurt Vonnegut, and my flirtation with questioning everything. That, perhaps, will be the subject of another blog. We were talking about Dresden.

Dresden, and the idea that there are more than two sides to every story. Dresden, stoic example of patience, determination, and the human ability to recover and to rebuild.

The British and American air forces exploded 3900 tons of bombs on Dresden from February 13-15, 1945. Destroyed were 12,000 homes; 24 banks; 26 insurance buildings; 31 stores; 6470 shops; 640 warehouses; 256 market halls; 31 large hotels; 26 public houses; 63 administrative buildings; 3 theatres; 18 cinemas; 11 churches; 60 chapels; 50 cultural-historical buildings; 19 hospitals; 39 schools; 5 consulates; 1 zoo; 1 waterworks, 1 railway facility; 19 postal facilities; 4 tram facilities; 19 ships and barges; and 19 military hospitals. And people, of course -- killed, maimed, emotionally wrecked.

Total devastation.

That happened seventeen years before I was born. And now here I sat, dining al fresco of an evening while the sun set on a delicious potato and sausage soup, hearty brown bread heavy with nuts and apple chunks, and a soft and light Dresden red wine, in the midst of what had been a wasteland of sorrow and destruction sixty years before. With our enemies, my German colleagues. We didn't talk about the war, or about how people have more in common with one another than they do with their governments. We talked about the rebuilding. Our table was on the plaza near this impressive baroque church, Frauenkirche ("Church of Our Lady" see postcard above from 1930's, before the war), and so I heard from my friends about how after the war ,when the Soviets had control of Dresden in East Germany there was no money and no expertise to rebuild the great church, the government wanted to clear away the rubble and put up a parking lot.

The people said no. The pile of rocks and debris stood in place there for forty years.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery:  "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."

After the reunification of Germany the preservationists of Dresden put out a call to the world to help rebuild the church as a symbol of peace. They started in 1994 with an eighteen-month archaeological clearance and cataloging of the stones. Skilled masons were able to use original pieces for about forty percent of the building, which they built to the same specifications as the original. It took eleven years, until 2005, to complete. I sat in 2007 looking in awe at a brand-new, old cathedral with a patchwork appearance, a mixture of the burned with the new. It was one of the more truly memorable and meaningful moments in my life.



If this were the only fantastic thing in Dresden, it would be enough. But the city is totally rebuilt and absolutely lovely. Here is a picture I took of another patchwork church, which looked just awesome against the darkening sky.

And I leave you here below with a postcard view of modern Dresden, vibrant and rebuilt. War is an ugly, destructive beast. But the capacity for people to come together in peace, to build things of beauty, and to share a meal and a story -- that is Dresden to me.

“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” -- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Real Photo Postcards

I found this gem of a postcard at a shop in Newport today. Collecting postcards is fun, because for a buck you can add something nice to your collection and feel like you've gotten yourself a treasure.

I quickly flipped through sixty or seventy cards, and nothing was grabbing me when suddenly I saw this one. I felt something like heartache as I looked at it.

This is from the collection Paris...En Flanant, which translated means Paris... Sauntering. Nice, huh? It is by Editions d'Art Yvon, who produced cards between the two World Wars, from 1919 - 1938. This card was not mailed so I don't have a postmark to indicate when it was taken, but I imagine it is the 1930's.

On the back of the photo paper is printed "L'ancetre des Bouquinistes quai de la Tournelle". The best I can do with online translation is the ancestor (old man?) of the dock of booksellers at Pont de la Tournelle -- a bridge over the Siene.

This is an example of what is called a Real Photo postcard. Since you are looking at it on a pixelated screen it will be more difficult to discern, but it looks and feels like a photograph and was actually developed onto a photographic paper with the weight of a postcard.

Real Photo postcards (RPPC, if you are searching them on eBay) were done by large houses, like the Paris one, and also by individual photographers who could print several or even just one photo for a person on a postcard backing. The backing might simply say POST CARD, with a divided back for a message and an address, so you may not find anything identifying who or where or when the card was taken. Here is an example on one of this type that came in my assorted box-o-postcards. I wonder who they are, and what was special about this day. It was not mailed, so I don't have a story to go with it. I'm also not an expert on wardrobe, but this looks like 1920's to me. Feel free to make up your own story for it. Don't forget to include the dog.

RPPC are not to be confused with printed black-and-white postcards, Here is one of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware that is not a real photograph, though it looks very much like one. It is a mass reprint of a photograph, printed using a process called collotype. It was made by The Mayrose Company in New Jersey, who printed cards from 1940 - 1950. If you looked at it magnified, you would be able to see ink dots, which are found on any card that is mechanically printed rather than developed.

Now, when you see old postcards, you can enjoy knowing the difference!

Easy as Pie!

My 13 year old daughter asked if we could go apple picking this fall, something new for us. I had a vague concern I'd end up spending a small fortune for the privilege of elbowing our way through crowds to harvest way more apples than we needed, but when your teenager is interested in spending time with you in such a wholesome activity, you've just got to consider yourself blessed by the cosmos and roll with it. 

I checked the website of Millburn Orchards, and gave a little cheer when I read that this was the weekend the Stayman Winesap apples were ready. Yaaaay! The crisp and tart Stayman Winesap is my go-to apple for baking. They're simply the best, and I'll accept no argument on the matter. Pricing was very reasonable at $1.55/lb, with no other fees, and I only had to buy 10 lbs. Perfect! 

We started our morning with some of the orchard's still-warm cider donuts

and a chilled cup of fresh apple cider (this breakfast itself is worth the drive over), then climbed on the wagon for a ride out to the orchard. While there had been a line for the wagon ride, the orchards were large and we had an entire row of trees to ourselves. Maybe the winesaps were just not the most popular of the four varieties being harvested in the apple orchard that day. We made short work of selecting the best apples we could find, almost like an apple beauty pagaent -- the orchards had unfortunately succumbed to 'apple scab' this year, a harmless but unattractive skin condition due to the wet spring and mild summer. We selected the finalists for inclusion in the best apple pies ever, and headed home!

Making apple pie is simple, especially if you cheat, as I do. For each pie start by mixing these dry ingredients. I just stick them in a plastic container with a lid, and shake to combine: 

1 cup sugar

2 heaping tablespoons flour

1 level teaspoon cinnamon

dash nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and quarter about 2 lbs of apples (4 to 6 apples), then thinly slice the quarters, layering the sugar mixture over the apples as you add them to the bowl. I also usually squeeze some fresh lemon over the apples along with the sugar mixture. I don't like my pie overly sweet.

Next, prepare the crusts. Here is my secret recipe: Pillsbury refrigerated crusts, which are found near the biscuits at the grocery store, in a long box containing two rolled-up circles of pastry. I'm not even embarrassed to say I use these. I got the recipe from an older lady at the office, Rose, who was known as a great cook, way back when I was in my twenties. She said to me what I'm going to tell you now - "The Pillsbury crusts are way better than anything I've been able to make." I don't mind putting time in if I can do it better, but there's no pride in saying it's homemade if the store bought convenience tastes better.  Just follow the directions on the box for setting the bottom crust in your pie plate, and pour your apple mixture in. Before putting on the top crust, take about half a tablespoon of butter from the refrigerator and just shave little chunks of the butter on top of the apples, dotting them with butter. Set your top crust, tuck the edges under the bottom crust and pinch to seal per the instructions on the box. 

 Next comes the fun part -- making some pretty little decoration to vent your pie. You can simply take a paring knife and cut some slits in the top of the pie. That's necessary to let the steam escape in the oven. I like to make designs, depending on how much time I have they can be elaborate (poinsettas, wreaths, a turkey, flowers, etc.) or a simple geometric pattern.

Brush a scant bit of milk on the top for a shiny crust, and sprinkle with a just little sugar for a sparkle.

You need to cover the edges of the pie with foil. Here is a link for a simple way to do that, if you don't already know the technique. Bake for 25 minutes at 375. Remove the foil, and continue baking for 20 more minutes. Remove to cool. Serve warm (not too hot, the filling needs to cool a bit).

Delicious with vanilla ice cream, and a mug of your favorite tea. Yum!

Postcards from 1906 - The undivided back

"My little pet, I hope you are well and enjoying yourself...."
Writings were not permitted on the address side of postcards in the US until March 1, 1907. Postcards were sent for their lovely images, with a few words jotted where they'd fit, or a rambling note scrawled in the margins. This sweet little card is titled The Critic. It's pretty damaged but the colors are rich and the artwork is well done.

You can identify these very early postcards by looking at the reverse side, where you'll find the undivided back and instructions that 'This side for the address only'. Harken back to a time when a letter could get to a person with just their name and city. Maybe in small towns it would still work today, where you have a postmaster and a really small population, most of whom get together for coffee at the local hotel of a morning -- but you'd do better to have a zip code to help the robots route the card to the right city. And then most of us would need a full street address because the people who sort and deliver mail don't know us from Adam nor Miss Evangeline Dreher.




Printed up the edge on the left side of the address it says 'Compliments of Hearst's Sunday Boston American', so I'm guessing the postcard came with the Sunday paper 108 years ago this week, as the card is postmarked Oct 8, 1906. Like us, they were facing the reality that winter was coming, thinking about the forecast, and also enjoying a little joke about the challenges of love: WEATHER REPORTS - COLD AND FROSTY. Clever, huh? It's a cute card. The message is in code from whomever mailed this to Miss Evangeline Dreher and we can only wonder if she got the intended message: F.B.M.P.C.D.C.H.S.M.E.B. Whatever could this mean? If it said ROFLMAO, or OMG LOL, we'd get it. Any guesses? I'm sure we could have fun suggesting possible tidings, and from whom.

These were called 'penny postcards' because they cost one cent to mail. Though if you needed to forward it because you didn't even know what city a person lived in (you couldn't just check facebook to keep track of friends and family), it looks like a second stamp was required.





Here is a lovely picture from the Maine seaside near Portland -- Ponce Landing, Long Island. The entire message is written in the sand, "Letter coming, Harry." I don't feel like writing but I'm alive. Here, enjoy this picture of the sea. Very nice, Harry. A text, or a tweet. Thank you. What in the heck have you been up to? That beach had room for a little more information, son! Then there is sky-writing, look at all that sky! But the picture is very nice, the sand writing is perfect, and the whole scene makes me smile.

This one is nice, from Broadway Central Hotel in New York. The message is a poignant, "Oh! Memory paint this scene again. L.J.D."

It would make a good writing prompt. We'll never know what stories unfolded at that place and time, but it's fun to consider. Those secrets still drift in the ether from 1906, alighting occasionally on the shoulder of a passerby to offer a fleeting contented feeling of deja vu on Broadway, Corner Third Street.

Postcards From the Past

Lately I've become somewhat enamored of old postcards. My favorites are the linen cards from the 1930's and 1940's, and the older cards with black and white photographs or gaily drawn picture greetings for every holiday. There are cards with flowers, birds, Santa, angels, chicks and witches. Then there are the cities, seasides, diners, waterfalls, people, gardens, ships and bridges.

Some collectors may like the more pristine cards, but I'm sympathetic with them showing some wear. Nobody's perfect. I'm more excited to find the ones that are pretty and also used, posted to somebody with a message. Somebody took the time to send somebody some words 70 to 100 years ago. These writers are likely gone from this Earth by now, and yet something they hollered across the miles to a loved one sits waiting like a wallflower to dance into someone's heart again. I'll read you, little postcards.

So that explains my recent eBay purchase of 200 slightly damaged vintage postcards, cheap. I'm excited to get them and start to sort through my treasure. I think I'll make them a periodic feature on the blog. Postcards from the past.

The Future is Behind You

The past is before you. Everything you can see and everything you know is from the past, and in our culture we think of that as behind us, with the future lying in front of us. It's a linear path, and we walk it. In Madagascar they discuss the future as if it is moving in from behind them, with the past splayed out in front as the whole of their experience, everything they have seen and known. I find that oddly refreshing. The past is knowable. The present is vaguely understandable, and will become more so later. We all know that as, "I wish I'd have known then what I know now." The future? We can't see it, it is behind us.

A friend's post out on Ello got me thinking about time this morning. How it is so linear here in the US, how we think of it as slipping away, and how we monetize it. Chop-chop! Time is money! I was working on some cleaning (and lord knows it needs to be done), but I also want to engage with time and experience life inside the moments. 

Just now I wanted to stop and read some blogs and articles. I wanted to share some thoughts and pictures. But the whole time I'm sitting here with a cup of tea reading about time and munching some pumpkin cupcakes, I'm poise to jump out of my chair. Feeling a vague guilt and a sense of the day slipping away, I'm already halfway up. I've got THINGS TO DO. And somehow, over the course of 30 years of married life, there has become a certain self-reproach associated with not producing something tangible with the hours allotted to me in a day. A walk in the woods? Well that's nice and all, but what did you clean, fold, sort, throw away, cook, earn, accomplish? A walk in the woods with a dog? Oh, good job, the dog needed the exercise. 

Sitting at your computer again? What is unsaid is heard, whether it was actually said-unsaid or simply imagined. Time's a wasting. Chop-chop! 

But today, I'm also thinking of Madagascar. I'm thinking of the past that is in front of me, and looking it over there are some really nice things I see there before me. Yes, yes, I am going to do my to-do list because I want things at least some level of picked-up around here. But as the future comes skipping in from behind me I want to make sure that I like what I see as it passes by to become that past which is before me.

(Pictures are clocks in Munich, Germany; Lucerne, Switzerland, Venice, Italy.)