35. Ontario family reunion

Three years ago, many Canrights converged on a 100-some-acre farm in Ontario, Canada, up near Meaford on the shores of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Family reunion!

Last week, we did it again—a somewhat different assortment of people, but just as invigorating. Our superb hosts were Jess and John Zufferli—Jess being my husband's eldest brother's daughter (our niece), John her awesomely game husband. Hats off to the both of them for a wonderful time. 

We came from all over: two sets of us from central coast California; two sets from Washington state (Edmonds and Wenatchee); North Carolina; Atlanta; and Oslo, as in Norway (we are far-flung). Twenty-two of us in all, ranging in age from 13 to 78. Three generations.

The three remaining sibs:
David (the baby), Geoff, and Patty (the new eldest)

There should have been a couple from Cleveland, Ohio, but Jess's dad—David's big brother (formerly the eldest)—died in March, and his wife, Virge, wasn't up for the trip. We toasted them in their absence. There should also have been one or two from Texas—Jess's brother, David, and his wife, Jeannie—but they were traveled out from a recent trip to Japan. We missed them. 

I posted some photos on FB, which I link to here (click on the highlighted bits).  

Day 1 (Thursday): Arrival! We got to the farm around noon, after a red-eye flight, and had a delicious few hours on our own with Jess and John (and sweet Sadie the labradoodle). Also, a nap. Others started arriving in the evening, though the Washington contingent kept getting grounded in Cleveland—ironically enough. They finally reached us the next day.

The view from our window in the 165-year-old farm house

Day 2 (Friday): I took a morning walk on the loop through the fields and woods, which is where these pictures are from. Much of the day was spent hanging out, swimming, catching up, and waiting for the Cleveland folks to arrive. And when they did, David, Patty and I went for another loop walk!

Day 3 (Saturday): Today we all (but one) went on a hike through some lovely (if warm) woods, then for pizza, beer, and wine at Coffin Ridge Winery. After that we went various ways. David and I took the opportunity to do a little geocaching. We lost Kolya, Nicole, and Enon, who took off for Toronto to look around before heading in various directions.

And later on that evening, we played outdoors under a beautiful sky. Frisbee! Sparklers!

Day 4 (Sunday): Today’s hike took us through the woods to Inglis Falls, followed by a picnic and—for some (a couple of the Norwegians)—a visit to Walmart (not documented) while others ended the day with a visit to the lakeshore (Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay) (ditto). Beautiful day.

Yes, there was geocaching!

Day 5 (Monday): Departure day, beginning at 3 a.m. for the other central California contingent. The hubbub of connection and hugs, over and over, was beautiful. Our 7 p.m. flight was on time, and we were home to our Milo at just after midnight. 

What a great few days. I'm so glad to be part of this family.

34. Craig Childs, writer

I am totally copying a couple of things that the writer Craig Childs has posted on FB the past couple of days. Because I want to keep them around. 

The first is from last week. He is visiting his son in Japan now, and they are traveling around. I loved this evocative passage he wrote, which yes, does capture the out-of-body-ness that travel can evoke. (The photo is his; it accompanied this post.)

There’s a point while traveling where I’ve run out of ink in a couple pens and misplaced a couple more, a point of feeling foreign enough I’m embarrassed to be walking around mispronouncing words for water or thank you like I didn’t have enough to do at home already, where my will starts feeling doughy and I’m reading signs in a language that appears to be written by people from a planet with more than one sun and many moons, not like my own language that looks like it was fashioned by kindergartners. I start feeling lost, purposeless, sucking gooey tapioca balls through a straw while sitting next to a rotating desk fan in the back of a shop that feels like an oven. This, I think, is why some people don’t travel. You forget for a moment who you were, if you were anyone to begin with, a feeling that I try to remember to savor because it, too, is why I came. Then, a sudden rain both brightens and darkens the streets at the same time. The sun sets and windows light up. I find myself walking slowly along a narrow space between buildings and it feels like I’ve stepped into a different room inside a dream where my travel companion urges me to stop and look down an alley glowing from rain and once again I’m swimming in possibilities. Standing on a bridge over a river I’ve never heard of, I feel coolness for the first time all day. A heron lands at the water’s edge and stalks just like the herons stalk at home, only its plumage is unfamiliar, as if the artist who makes the world ran out of ink in one color and started again with another.

And this from today, in response to a bit of hate-mongering by hateful Ann Coulter (her exact words: "We didn't kill enough Indians"). Thank you, Craig, for your loving heart:

We are being clouded by hate. Every one of us needs to check ourselves. I think of lines from a Joy Harjo poem:

Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.

Words are flying these days that need to be renounced, not with hatred, but a flat out no, this is not how we go forward.

Hear, hear. 

I have only read one of Craig's many books, which I reported on here. That one was about flash floods, and deaths—nothing approaching the horrific event of this July 4 on the Guadalupe River in Texas. He conveys well the power of that water, its destructiveness. I need to read more of him.

33. Quelea, with a bit of markhor thrown in

In my off-moments during the day, I sometimes turn to the phone and a quick game of Sudoku: the "hard" category—which isn't especially hard, though it requires a bit of focus. The app I use includes various contests: currently, a Daily Challenge, a First Try Challenge (which gets harder and harder—and believe me, the journey from "hard" to "expert" is no simple slide), and right now, an Independence Day "event." Also, always, an ongoing Tournament, which one enters simply by playing. 

Although I don't bother with any of these, I do sometimes check my (automatic) Tournament standing—because sure, I want to be a winner!—and get a little frisson of pleasure when I manage to make it (momentarily though it might be) into the top 10. Ten being as high as I've ever gotten, and then only on day 1, before the real players get going.

Rather winningly, all of us on the Tournament gameboard have monikers—the current top three being Busy Tiger, Fantastic Moth, and Unusual Moose. (What my moniker is, I have no clue: I'm simply identified as ME. But I hope it's something marvelous: Moonlit Mongoose perhaps, or Luminescent Flamingo.) Today when I checked, I was bemused by a couple of names in the top ten: Powerful Quelea and Alert Markhor (currently numbers 4 and 5). What are these creatures? 

Well, here I am to tell you (per Wikipedia):

Quelea /ˈkwiːliə/ is a genus of small passerine birds that belongs to the weaver family Ploceidae, confined to Africa. These are small-sized, sparrow- or finch-like gregarious birds, with bills adapted to eating seeds. Queleas may be nomadic over vast ranges. The red-billed quelea is said to be the most numerous bird species in the world. 

Until today, I'd never even heard of any kind of quelea, and turns out one of them is the most numerous bird species in the world? Well, knock me over with a (red-billed quelea) feather!

There are three species: the cardinal quelea (Quelea cardinalis), the red-headed quelea (Q. erythrops), and the red-billed quelea (Q. quelea). Though wouldn't you know it—its superabundance should be a clue—the last is a pest on small-grain cereal crops such as rice (corn being too big for its little beak) throughout Africa. Here they are in their abundance and beauty:

Okay, on to the markhor, aka Capra falconeri or "screw-horn goat," found mainly in Pakistan (of which it is the national animal), the Karakoram Range, parts of Afghanistan, and the Himalayas. It may be an ancestor of the domestic goat. Currently listed as near-endangered (its population was estimated at 5,800 in 2013), it has been aided by conservation efforts throughout its range; in 2024 the UN named May 24 as International Day of Markhor. It is featured in an Afghan puppetry tradition known as buz-baz. 

Every day, there's something new and amazing to learn about this world.

32. July 4

It's just tipped into July 4, Independence Day—the day after the deficit-exploding, basic needs–denying, ICE-magnifying MAGA bill (aka BBB) passed the House and headed to the Resolute Desk. David and I just watched Heather Cox Richardson talk about it, in her usual level-headed way. I guess it made me feel a little better—like, this depravity won't last forever. It may last longer than I do, but I can still hope that future generations of Americans manage to steer this ship back on course. Though with young people getting most of their messaging through TikTok and such bubbles, I really can only hope... But I'll be dead, so, to echo those MAGAts, who cares?

Here's the link to Heather's talk today: https://fb.watch/ADfzwPQnHT/.

As she said, misattributing the quote to Harriet Tubman (it was actually Robert Frost), "The only way out is through."

And of course I don't really want to echo anything MAGA folk say. I do care. I just feel powerless. And just maybe I should spend my last years (there may be twenty, even thirty more, there may be just a few: I'm past feeling immortal, though) living life to the fullest. 

And not worrying about bullshit I have zero say over. I will vote. I will write or call my representatives. I will join my fellow dissidents at Window on the Bay to protest. But I can't do much more than that. I am powerless. And worrying doesn't do a damn thing.

Here's a picture of our cats, in a rare moment of mutual civility, having taken over the dog's bed (one of them—he's got others): 

Let them be a model for us going forward.

As they might remind us, the Constitution belongs to us all. And it's our responsibility to keep it intact. However we can.

Happy Independence Day.

31. Sigh

Today the Senate passed the "Big Beautiful Bill"—what a stupid name for something so tawdry coming out of our formerly stolid government. It's gotten me thinking, wondering, about, oh, time. Life. A quick study of history will tell you that upset is more common than peace in human history. Why is that? Why does humankind seem to thrive so on chaos? But it does. Obviously. Our time, right now, is another testament to that. 

I was born in the fifties, and came up during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war. But I wasn't very aware of all that: I was just going to school, getting good grades. My parents didn't talk about those events. Now, I would love to be able to sit down with them and ask them what they were thinking. How it impacted them. 

My parents were born in 1908 and 1914, respectively, so they lived through WWI, the Depression, WWII. They never talked about all that. Of course, as children, WWI didn't really affect them. During the Depression, my father had found employment with Chevron as a chemical engineer, so he was okay. And then he was hired in the chemistry department at UCLA, arriving in 1939. During WWII he spent some time in Philadelphia on a research project, and was involved in a laboratory explosion that compromised his liver; he ended up in and out of hospital for ten years. 

So yes, my parents encountered more than a little bit of history's ins and outs. I really wish I could talk to them about what they experienced, what they thought.

My father ended his life on the Republican side of the spectrum; my mother remained a stolid FDR Democrat her entire life. I'd love to be able to talk to them about that too: what they believed was right, was necessary. In real terms. From both their perspectives.

I know a lot of people think this BBB is a good thing, though I don't know why. Everything about it is abstract: the people who will be losing health coverage, the billionaires who will be getting even more money, the children who will die from malnutrition. But somehow, people think it will improve their lives? Because, what, of a momentary tax break? 

I find the Republicans in Congress reprehensible. Maybe the Democrats aren't so great themselves—politics is a game, for sure—but at least they voted against this monstrous bill. 

At this point, I have no faith whatsoever in my "government." It is as corrupt as can be. 

I am looking at my life now, how it plays out. I have money enough to survive, even once David and his pension vanish. If we old folks lose Medicare (which I don't find implausible), I may try to seek refuge elsewhere—a medical immigrant.  

A good 344 million people are caught in this travesty. I am not alone in my outrage. Even those who voted for Trump may well feel it soon.

In the meantime, I'll continue to seek out the beauty in life. I do have that. Plenty of beauty. Maybe it will keep me healthy a little while longer.

Book Report: Stone Yard Devotional

14. Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional (2023) (6/22/25)

This quiet book is set somewhere in the countryside of New South Wales; the narrator, a woman of a certain age and an atheist, has left her husband and the big city to seek remove in a cloistered community near the town she grew up in. It begins as a few diary entries on the occasion of her first visit back, and part two becomes a series of observations and musings about life in the community upon her return and seemingly permanent residence (though she does not take vows) with the ten or so remaining sisters. 

A few events punctuate the otherwise quiet life there: a plague of mice, which becomes worse and worse, exacerbated by drought (climate change); and the return of the bones of a sister who left the community several decades before to work "in the world." The bones of Sister Jenny are accompanied by a social-activist sister, Helen Parry, not otherwise affiliated with the monastery, who also grew up in the neighboring town (and went to school with the narrator). The backdrop to all this is Covid, and the general shutdown—meaning Helen is obliged to stay on once she's returned the bones, and the community has few visitors. Helen mainly keeps to herself, but even that causes certain friction. Meanwhile, the sisters and our narrator do increasingly gruesome battle with the rodential hordes, as they wait (and wait) for permission to bury Sister Jenny. 

That's it! At the end, the mice have mostly disappeared, the interment takes place (without permission, but never mind), and Helen departs. 

Some readers might object that there's no story, but I enjoyed the slow pacing and the thoughtfulness as the narrator grapples with big questions: What is our purpose? Can we be forgiven for acts of callousness and neglect? Why are we here? We learn that the narrator was formerly an environmentalist, but she lost faith in the cause—indeed, upon the dissolution of her marriage, in everything. She may not find answers per se, but she begins to find some peace. 

Here is a sample chapter (in full), opening with a quote (a not too tediously frequent device):

'We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will . . . Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. If we turn our mind towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.' Simone Weil    
     Our Simone [one of the sisters] once took me to task over my 'sneering' about prayer. My notion of prayer was juvenile: forget this telephone line to God bullshit, she snapped, hot with impatience. It wasn't even about God, she said, which I thought must surely be blasphemous. Praying was a way to interrupt your own habitual thinking, she told me. It's admitting yourself into otherness, cracking open your prejudices. It's not chitchat; it's hard labour. She spoke as if all this were obvious. I longed to understand her. It feels always that I am on the edge of some comprehension here but never breaking through to the other side.
     At night, just before sleep, is when I am closest to reaching it. In the morning, when the birds start, belief is as thin as the light.

And here's another quote, in a chapter that treats the idea that "if you don't life the life you are born for, it makes you ill," a remark made by Helen Parry at the breakfast table, to which one of the sisters, taking Helen's comment as condescending, responds quietly, "I was born for this life."

What I could not tolerate was the 'falling in love with Jesus' talk that I knew would come next, and it did. I find it nauseating; surely this life should be composed of something more sober than that. Something austere, and momentous, and powerful. Close attention, hard thinking. A wrestling, to subdue . . . what? Ego. The self. Hatred. Pride. But no, instead we have Sissy, and also Carmel, simpering that they are here because I fell in love with Jesus and want to live with him in heaven. As if they're talking about some teen idol crush. I have learned not to roll my eyes but there are times it is nearly impossible. Right at that moment, forcing myself to stay at the table, I was surprised to find myself meeting Helen Parry's glance, and more surprised still that both she and I held each other's gaze. Then she gave a tiny movement of her head in microscopic mimicry of Sissy's and Carmel's simpering, and I had to turn away not to laugh, in the process most completely failing to subdue my ego, the self, pride. 

Wood has written seven works of fiction, three of non. I may seek her out again.  

 

30. Wind phone

Today on FB I ran across a mention by actress Jamie Lee Curtis of a "wind phone" that was recently installed in Joshua Tree. It is in memory of two teenagers, Ruby and Hart Campbell, 17 and 14, killed in 2019 in a car crash. The memorial was created by their parents, who were also in the accident but survived. Unimaginable.  

As it appears, it is a telephone, but unattached to any wires, so unworkable in the strict sense. As the parents, Gail Lerner and Colin Campbell, explain, the original wind phone "was created in Japan [in 2010] by Itaru Sasaki while he was grieving his cousin who died of cancer. He bought an old-fashioned phone booth, set it up in his garden, and installed an obsolete rotary phone that was not connected to . . . any 'earthly system.' He called it Kaze no Denwa (風の電話), which translates as the Wind Phone. Using it, Itaru felt a continued connection to his cousin and found comfort and solace amid his grief." Here is Sasaki's original:

"Because my thoughts couldn't be relayed over a regular phone line," Sasaki said, "I wanted them to be carried on the wind." After the Fukushima earthquake, Sasaki opened the wind phone to the general public, and it saw regular use. The original booth was replaced with a sturdier aluminum one in 2018. 

The concept has been re-created in various places over the years. And now, in Joshua Tree. I'd love to go visit it next time I'm down there. The coordinates may be 34° 07'22.4"N 116° 15'58.8"W (or try 34.122889, –116.266333). As Colin puts it in his Instagram post on the new installation, "Anyone in grief can visit, sit down in the privacy of the vast desert, pick up the rotary phone and call their loved one via the cosmic connection."

What a service.

 

Since I wrote this, the Campbells' wind phone has been featured in stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and New Zealand Herald, including photos. And here's a CBS Sunday Morning piece from a few years ago about a wind phone in Olympia, Washington: