In My Mother’s Garden

by Janet Grace Riehl

My mother–Ruth Evelyn Johnston Thompson–died May 1st 2006. Today is the 6th anniversary of her death. We miss her. A strong matriarch and strategic visionary of our family–including our extended family–she gave us all the love a mother can give.

“Flower Cloud Land” copyright Janet Riehl 2012

This morning I’m  with my father. When he came out of his bedroom  this morning to take his medicine, I asked him how he’d slept and how he felt. Then, after he got his special socks on, I read him this post. His response was classic Daddy. “Yup,” he said.” And he needed to say no more.

Whatever she did she did Big Time: quilting, birding, painting, cooking and gardening. Her gardens were show pieces carefully plotted on graph paper. They covered such a large area, I can’t begin to guess the size. She moved them around–and, later in life had us move them around–like paintings. After her death my father felt we could no longer take care of them ourselves and didn’t want someone outside the family pottering around in them. He dug up the day lilies and gave them away. We cut back the gardens, and expanded the lawns.

We felt sad. The gardens did what they could to flourish on their own. This spring we watch the flowers she planted–and that we helped her plant and care for–bloom in succession. The snow drops. The happy profusion of daffodils and narcissus as we drove up our steep hill. The crocus. The tulips. The peonies. The lily of the valley. The flocks. The iris. All proclaim that the spirit of my mother remains alive and well at this blooming–this transcendent beauty against all odds. Against benign neglect. Against weeds. That was Mother. Strong will. Strong heart. Brilliant mind.

Our mantle above the fireplace in our front room is a kind of altar for her. Photos from youth to old age. Her teaching award. Around the room her paintings, and stuffed birds as in a natural history museum. Above the mantle there is a framed calligraphed copy of a poem I wrote for her in my early 20s: “Under Mama’s Yew Tree.”

That she should have died on May 1st–May Day–seemed such a fitting day for her to go. She was the “Queen of May,” as a family friend put it. So many people benefited from her work in the world–for her having passed through this world. Some say I look like her now that I’m in my 60s. I do. I see myself channeling her in the much smaller palette of my life. Sometimes in ways I admire. Sometimes in ways I cringe at. But, my admiration for her, my gratitude for all that she gave me rises up–as triumphant and as victorious as the flowers she left us. Her legacy. Her heaven on earth.

I can think of no more fitting tribute to her than to share one of the poems I wrote for her that appear in the “Sweet Little Dove” section in “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary.”

PRAISING MOTHER
for Ruth Evelyn Johnston Thompson

by Janet Grace Riehl (her youngest…her “Baby”)
from “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”

Born Ruth Evelyn Johnston (don’t forget that “t”).
Married Ruth Thompson, Erwin’s wife and lover.
We called you Mother or Mama,
but not “Mom.”
“Mom” is too much
like the women in the wax commercials.

You are an original.
Your own person.
A sociable eccentric.
Your will like a steel bolt through your character.
You fought and scraped and plotted
For what mattered.
You were never one to purr your way to favor,
rubbing against legs to be petted.
If you’d been born a few generations later,
who knows what history might have had in store for you?

Your grit the stuff of American legends,
I see you starting out
as a stock girl and ending up Corporate President.
Your feet so grounded they’d sprout roots.
Your head a computer, whirling out business deals.

Or, I see you sneaking into the army as a youngster,
Carrying the general’s bath water,
And ending up five star general yourself.
Hair clipped close and held firmly under your helmet.
Shoulders only slightly stooped by golden epaulettes.

The general in you incapable of small-scale projects.
You marshal resources and forces as you:
Make acres of quilts.
Cook roomfuls of banquets.
Plant fields of flowers and vegetables,
laying in stores for the winter.
Victory is yours, over and over,
as you pack
the productivity of two into one body.

Yet, for all your gumption, your feelings, like old lace,
disintegrate in my hands.
Your magnolia petal soul bobs down the creek,
navigating shallows and peering into depths.
Delicate titmouse feather Mama, same as those
miniature birds you feed before they dart into gourd palaces.

I write this wrapped in your masterpiece quilt,
appliqued with views of Africa
you crafted and cried over
for years during one of our civil wars.

One day I tore open a bulky brown package and there it was.,
Exquisite, a sign of our peace, and mother love.
It’s a woman’s quilt.
African women stately and beautiful,
Pounding sorghum and cooking porridge over an open fire.
Your were there when you were there.
The women loved you because you were you, of course,
But most of all, because you were a mother.
You were my mother.

Adventurer,
Observer,
Gardener,
Artist,
Seamstress,
Craftswoman,
Teacher,
Birder,
Square Dancer,
Financial Tycoon.
You filled your life with the challenge of yourself.

Now, I call you on the telephone,
A year after your stroke.
We nearly lost you.
You lost megabytes of memory.
But, you never lost yourself.
The more you forget,
the kinder and softer you become.
“I love you, Janet, you say.
And then, say again a few minutes later.
“I love you, too,” I say.
Then, the surprise word slips out:
“Mommy.”

______________

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Everyday Creativity: My gratitude list of delights

by Janet Grace  Riehl

“My life is more than my resume,” I reminded myself yesterday as I met yet another friend whose international work shapes the world. That’s the Big World. My life and work shapes the Small World I touch around me–an intimate world. It’s up to me to make sense of my life no matter what I’m doing or where I’m doing it. Creativity moves in all channels in our lives. This, I believe; it’s been my theme since my first post December 2nd, 2008, “What is creativity, anyway?”  Here, then, is my gratitude list of creative delights–from my Small World.

God Bless Smart Phones…and Digital Natives.

In the last year an 11-year-old friend has given me a tour through my phone that’s made it into a tool for creativity and connection. Every penny spent on the phone is now worth it in spades. And, I joke, so are the efforts of everyone over the decades who brought us smart phones.

I’d had my phone several months, but had never taken photos with it. At a ball game (sitting in dug-out seats!) she picked up my phone and immediately showed me how to use it–including advanced effects like cartoon, and split screen. Now, I click away with my phone all the time.

On our supper dates we play with my phone: Doodles,videos, sound recordings, passing notes with the memo app (as if we were in class), and much more as we delve into the phone’s possibilities. Rather than becoming a generational divide or a block to connection, it’s our way to collaborate, create stuff, learn, and connect.

She’s also the creative catalyst for the Doodles I’m making on my phone. That’s a story in itself; my Doodles are yet another delight on my list.

Doodle Delight!

I made my first Doodle October 11, 2011, after one of my supper dates with my young friend. She asked, “Can we draw?” I reached for my purse to pull out paper and pen. But, something in her face told me that’s not what she meant. “Oh, you mean on my phone.” That night I found the digital drawing program “Doodler” and downloaded my first app. That opened the door to doodling together…and to a new art media for me.

By December my Doodling really started to take off. I’m constructing a Body of Work as I would in any serious art form.There are hundred’s now. So many I’ve lost track. I use Facebook as my audience and gallery. There is commercial potential here, but right now I’m enjoying having a zone of freedom without expectation or pressure or the “I have to do it” effort. I’m learning and growing in the media. It revives my aesthetic and compositional sense and skills. There are several styles within the Body of Work, and it’s fun to see it grow.

My Cleaning Expert Learns to Read

My Cleaning Expert (what we used to call “cleaning lady”) and I have become friends and work well together. She’s 39 and couldn’t read.I found this out one day when we looked at a label on a cleaning product. I was shocked. I found a free literacy tutoring program at the local community college. That didn’t “take.”

But, at the end of 2011 I made a pact with her that she would learn to read in 2012. Soon after she found a literacy tutor close-by. I’ve taught English as a Second Language and directed a family literacy project for migrant and seasonal farm workers…that sort of thing. So, her cleaning days become English tutoring days as well. “English is a mess,” I say, and then we look at the rules and rule breakers. She’s getting good at sounding out words, and things are sinking in that never did before. It makes both of us so happy.

The world abloom and greening.

We’d go mad without Beauty, wouldn’t we? A neighbor’s dog and I take long walks over field, stream, and ravine on my father’s land. The dog is a beauty; we’ve become buddies. Our walks are heart opening and heart pumping. And, natch, I’m taking pictures of the wild flowers in our woods.

My women friends

I go back and forth between my father’s place in the country and my place in the city. At my place I come home to my life separate from my father and the family. Part of this world are my women friends, and many of them belong to my nearby health club. Slowly we’ve grown from exercise pals into friends and companions.

I’m really blessed in this. People come and go. But, they are here now, and I’m grateful. Last year I held women’s circles in my Goddess Gathering Room (a.k.a. front room). My erratic schedule precludes these now, but I now have a circle of women to be embraced by.

My growing fitness and strength

A few years ago I resolved to “Get my body back.” It’s back now! Since 2007 I’ve dropped 35 pounds, dropped several dress sizes, and become a Babe. Measurements, flexibility, strength, stamina, and balance all improved.  As the French say, I feel “well in my own skin.”

Recently I picked up a friend’s toddler with ease. Without thought I squatted down, picked her up, and swooped her up on my shoulders.

To be open to the world, everyday art, beauty, kindness, and convialité–this is how I wish to compose my life.

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