Strawberry Story: Wild Strawberries

 

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine

select lines from Wild Strawberries by Robert Graves

Wild Women: Princess of Eboli, Part II

Ellie in Halloween parade 2009.

Upon further reflection, do you think Ellie knew this when she picked out her pirate princess costume?

Janet's grandchildren Trever and Ellie on Halloween 2009.

Wild Women: Princess of Eboli

Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, b. 1540.

In stumbling around the net looking for my German opera singer (who I'm not convinced exists) I was struck by the stunning portraits of Ana de Mendoza, aka the Princess of Eboli.  The princess lost her eye to a sword tip (I'm sure a "I told you you'd poke your eye out!" was quick to follow) and is painted with her iconic patch throughout the sixteenth century.

I'm amazed by her history, yet also by her following.  She's featured in plays, operas, and novels.  Recently Julia Ormond portrayed her in the film La Conjura de El Escorial and by another actress in a made for TV movie La Princesa de Eboli.

I love this picture of a doll...reminds me of my mom's teddy bear.  Maybe not so huggable.


I'm also not sure how to cite it, but this miniature bust of the Princess by El Greco Miniatures as viewed on Wamp forum.

PS- six months of shopping days left till my birthday...give me these!

Earrings featuring the Princess of Eboli.

References:
http://www.sightseeing-madrid.com/princess-of-eboli.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_de_Mendoza_y_de_la_Cerda
Doll photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/gesrules/4806098337/
Earrings photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laboiteamonstres/3689195853/

Strawberry Story: The Land of the Pale Mountains

Poem and art by Jon Leydens.

The Land of the Pale Mountains

Once upon a time, the mountain prince fell in love with the moon princess.  But the dark, gloomy mountains made her so ill that finally she returned to the moon.


Fortunately, the Salvans, the diligent mountain dwarves, knew the answer.  They laboriously spun the bright moonlight into glittering silver threads and wove them into a thick net, covering all the rocks.


Ever since, these rocks have been pale and the moon-princess has lived happily among them.

Jon was a friend of my mom's who was older than me but younger than her.  She saw him first, but we both claimed him as a friend.  The framed construction paper work shows the rocks atop the mountains that inspired Jon when he traveled to Italy one summer.  He met his true love and a wonderful romance ensued.  In High School I wanted to grow up and be Jon.  I think mom did too!

He gave this copy of the poem to my mom with a rock from the Dolomite mountains.  It hangs in my children's room today.

Artistic Adapatations for a One-Eyed Life

I found the glasses!  Here are a few pics of how they look today:

The Eye Patch Quilt: Cloisonne Lenses

The Eye Patch Quilt (note: three cloisonne pieces circled in yellow).

Mom turned to making patches around 1962 and shelved her prosthetic eye.  She continued to research alternatives and by the late nineties a few more options were presented to her.  One option she followed up on was to have an artist make a pair of glasses that could fit a stained glass or cloisonne drop in for the right lens.  The artist made a beautiful side panel out of silver that hung off the frame's temple.  The artist also made six cloisonne lenses that could be switched in or out of the frames depending on her style or mood.

When we talked to Marcia Karlin about making the quilts, it was her idea to bring other objects into her work.  Marcia divided the lenses and incorporated them into both quilts, three lenses each.

Close ups of the lenses:

Close up of lens seen in upper middle left of photo at top of the page.

This one is from my brother's quilt.

Lens from upper right corner in photo at top of post.

Chapter 3 needs a theme song...

Hit play on the screen cap and let's review. 

In 1961 Janet graduates from Arlington Heights High School.  She wears a prosthetic eye and she experiences discrimination for her facial differences at school, and then work. 

In 1962 she transfers from MacMurray in Illinois to Denver University, and the summer between attends beauty school to brush up for her United Airlines job.  She makes a bold decision to abandon the eye and embrace her sewing skills by working up a patch proto-type to fit her face.

The transformation goes beyond her appearance.

Defying Gravity  lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game

Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't bring me down

I'm through accepting limits
Cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost
I'd sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And you can't pull me down

Wild Women: Opera gives its right eye (or left, depending)

Chapter 3 has me thinking about the inspirational opera star.  Searching for her on Google has rendered little results.  One hit I got was Katharine Cornell, an opera star who once wore a patch, on Opera News.  She wore the patch for her role in That Lady. 

I take issue with a reviewer of That Lady who wrote that the patch was "unable to obscure her radiance," John Mason Brown The Saturday Review Nov 22, 1949.  Was it supposed to?  Could just a patch do that?  Look at that beautiful, elegant woman.  I would argue the patch adds to her beauty, but then of course I'm  biased and have the benefit of sixty years of tolerance.

Turns out there are a lot of eye patches in opera, only it seems more frequent for men.  Take the role of Wotan in Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung series, or Odin from Norse mythology. 

Wagner's Wotan found on Intermezzo.

Some Wagner to set the mood.

 

Hopkins as a one-eyed Odin in next summer's Thor.

I did find some interesting information on the "Opera Whiz" blog as I was researching (okay, Googling) why Wotan as the Wanderer has lost his eye:

Brünnhilde herself is the original warrior maiden. In Norse lore, the valkyries were the daughters of Wotan and Erda, the earth goddess. "I'd give my right eye for a one night in the sack," was the line he used on her. (That's why he wears an eye patch in the operas.) It was the valkyries' job to fly down from Valhalla. They would swoop over the battlefield and collect the bodies of the most valiant warriors and take them back to Valhalla, where they would live in celebrated eternity.

Of course Intermezzo makes the point that Wanderer's missing eye seems to wander itself...(see Eye Eye Wotan post)

Last related point for this post: guess what the Valkyries fly down as...SWANS!!!  That's why they have wings and NOT horns.  Read Beth Parker's entire Opera Whiz post  Hey Wagner, thanks for Xena and She-Ra post here.

Remember: swan wings not horns ladies!

We'll save "Soap" operas for another day...

Chapter 3: A Patch is Born

From the cover of Wild Women.

The summer before mom transferred to DU she worked back in Chicago as a Kelly Girl and was placed at United Airlines new executive headquarters.

I went to downtown Chicago on the train on Saturdays to Patricia Stevens' modeling school where our girl scout troop had visited.  I enrolled in many different classes.  During an eyebrow class the instructor looked at me struggling to invent an eye brow on top of the seam of this plastic glob.  She said, "I notice you make all of your clothes.  Did you know there was a famous opera singer who always performed with jewel encrusted eye patches?"  I thought this was a wonderful idea to explore.  When I went home to tell my parents that night,my Mom said, "Great idea, try it!" and my Dad said, "No daughter of mine is going to be a pirate!"  Of course he had no way of knowing how it felt to me, with my face, to be in my adolescence: navigating through the world of fashion, appearance, and the need for acceptance.

The Pirates of Blood River came out in 1962, context for Grander's comment.

So, I waited to try it.  My parents drove me to Denver University in the fall; as they headed down the driveway to go back home, I went in to Pat's sewing machine and came up with my first patch proto-types to wear during rush week.  My thinking was that this was a whole new place, no one had ever seen me before besides Pat, and I could be whoever I wanted to be: they'd think I had always worn a patch.  And if it didn't work out or feel good to me, I could always go back to Illinois and never see any of these people again.  It was a window of opportunity I didn't want to miss.

It's obvious, isn't it? The patch worked.

Chapter 3: I'M A SWAN!

Mom begins chapter 3 saying she always listened carefully when anyone talked about swans.  She loved Hans Christian Anderson's story of the Ugly Duckling, but also references a fairytale of a different sort:

A Hindu story says that swans, as represented in the order of Saraswati, represents the priceless skill of discrimination and discernment.  Supposedly a swan is able to drink in fluid but spit out the water while swallowing the milk that was in the mixture.  It reminds me of Virginia Satir's advice to "taste everything, but swallow only that which fits you."

Chapter 2: Final Notes

My senior year in school went better; I started making friends with the boys I was sitting next to in each of my classes--and it didn't hurt that I was a good student and in the national honor society.  friend Sue and I doubled to the homecoming dance and the senior prom.  My parents had sent me to a Cotillion dance club, and I had learned to hold my own on a dance floor.  My senior picture in the yearbook was very ugly, but by graduation I was happy with my dress, robe, and hair. 

But she wasn't out of the woods yet:

 However, the week after graduation Sue and I drove together to the Sears at a nearby mall that was hiring clerks for summer jobs.  She was hired, I was told they had no openings.

Ouch!

After the summer Sue went on to St. Mary's at Notre Dame.  Mom heads to MacMurray College to pursuit a future as a Director of Christian Education.  Little did she know the "wonderful/terrible" turns her life was about to take.

Chapter 2: Music as Therapy

Growing up, one of the few morning rituals I can remember is mom playing Weston Priory on the record player.  The needle would hit the vinyl and the ancient voices would sing us through the melodic meditations.  The music is a time capsule. 

From their website: One of the Psalms says, "Singing makes you happy!" The community of Benedictine monks at Weston Priory finds that not only does "singing make you happy," but singing also can express a whole way of life and, at the same time, can carry the message of that way of life.

In Chapter 2 mom begins her love affair with music:

From the Archives: The Wounded Healer

Chicago Tribune Northwest Spotlight

Crusader Janet Trever Proudly Bears The Scars Of Cancer Battles That Began Almost 50 Years Ago

August 17, 1997|By Kelly Womer. Special to the Tribune.

Janet Trever calls it her beautiful burden. She wears it prominently on her face, and she faces it nearly every day. Trever has survived three unrelated bouts of cancer that have left her with facial disfigurements, emotional scars and an even stronger will to make the most of each moment.

Chapter 2: The Dreaded Shower Scene

I recently read Stephen King's Carrie and the shower scene reminded me I left out an important part in my Sink or Swim post as to why mom hated P.E.  Yes, it had something of course to do with lacking depth perception.  But the greater part was her fear that her prosthesis would come unglued.  Troubles no teen should have.

Strawberry Story: Yurok Healing Rites

This Friday I thought I wouldn't go as literal with the Strawberry Friday posting.  I wanted to share two cards mom had in her inspiration stash.

The Eye Patch Quilt, Part 1



The Eye Patch Quilt, In memory of Janet E. Trever 1943-1999 by Marcia Karlin

You may have noticed from time to time pictures of mom's patches.  She made thousands throughout her life that matched her outfits.  People always ask where she got the material from--well kids, in the 80s there was a huge fad called "shoulder pads."  Should this dreadful fad be repeated call your one-eyed friends as they made perfect fodder for matching fabric.  She also turned to pockets or hems.  These strategies rendered a perfect match, but of course she shopped at fabric stores to fill in the rest of her collection.

Chapter 2: Sink or Swim

Mom's chapter 2 is similar to Loie's chapter in section one.  It is long and has several themes critical to the rest of her book.  I'd like to break her "Childhood and Adolescence: Not for Sissies" chapter into a few entries, then post an unabridged version later this week (okay, by Christmas for sure).

Strawberry Story: Standing in a Strawberry Patch

Standing in a Strawberry Patch

    by William Killian

We grew strawberries at home
and then I worked on a strawberry farm when I was an early teen.
At the end of a long day, Bob, the owner, called me in
it was a small town, everybody knew everybody
and he said, "Billy, we won't need you anymore." 
I had only picked a few quarts all day,
ate the rest and threw them at the other pickers. 
I was hurt and sad. 

The next morning, Bob showed up at my door on his tractor,
"Come on, Billy, I need you today.  Let's go to work." 
A moment I shall never forget. 
I picked more that day, ate less and threw none. 

I often think, Billy, who needs you today
If you're standing in a strawberry patch
Are you willing to pick strawberries and fill those beautiful boxes, those crates,
and work there with your friends and fill that entire wagon to be carried off to market?

What a sweet thrill, what a sweet memory, re-ripe with life, with youth, and opportunity.

Strawberry Story: Und doch...And yet...

And Yet...

                          by Dr. Ronald Miller of Common Ground

Und doch...

Ich weiss von dem Fluss des Heraklit
den man nie zweimal berschreiten kann.
Ich weiss von den Tr%onen alle Dingen
von denen Virgilius so traurig sprach.
Ich weiss vom gebrochenen Brot und
augegossenen Wein des letztes Abendmahls
des Herrn mit seinen angstovollen J,ngern.
Ich weiss von der Zerbrechlichkeit des Daseins
besonders des Herzens das so verwundbar schl%ogt.
Und doch kann das Leben so sch'n sein;
und trotzdem schmecken die wilde Erdbeeren
manchmal so s,ss.


And yet...

I know about Heraclitus' river
that no one can cross over twice.
I know about the tears of all things
about which Virgil spoke so sadly.
I know about the broken bread and the poured out wine of the Last Supper
of the Lord with his fearful disciples.
I know about the fragility of existence,
especially the heart that beats so vulnerable.
And yet life can still be so beautiful
and the wild strawberries taste nonetheless
sometimes so sweet.

Pardon the Interuption

What happened to me?  Am I not a good daughter?  Why on Earth would a memorial blogger, paying homage to a woman who survived cancer for 50 years, decide to take a break during cancer season?  I mean, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Don't I want women to be aware?  And now November--did you even know it's Prostate, and Pancreatic, and Lung cancer awareness month? 

I actually thought it was oral, head, and neck cancer awareness month (turns out that only gets a week in May can goes by the acronym OHANCAW).

The point is, somewhere along the way in October I got in a funk.  I dug my heels in, no matter the commemorations going on around me, and didn't want to go any further.  Of course I love my mother, of course I want to honor her.  But to be honest, I have a strange relationship with cancer.  Shouldn't we all?

I remember mom never really being in the clear.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 6, and by then she was already a 30 year survivor of the neuroblastoma bout.  While I was in high school she had a large tumor identified in her neck that was found to be benign.  Research at the time showed that these benign tumors could turn malignant overnight, but she was not advised by her doctor to remove the tumor then that would later kill her (yes, she did file a malpractice suit and won). 

For over ten years we waited for the other shoe to drop.  It was a maddening cycle of health, calm, fear, confirmed dread, and repeat.  Things taken out, things put back in...all for momentary repreives.  It got to a point I felt more stable when the cancer was back--at least then we knew what we were dealing with!  The cycle of coping would start back up again and we knew how to handle ourselves.  When she was in the "clear," well, we knew it would only be short lived.

I've spent a lot of time over my break thinking about the blog and the directions I want it to go.  I want to finish posting her book, the poetry of friends, and filling it with the content essence of mom.  But sometimes it gets a little too hard.  Sometimes the calendar and I need to fight it out.  Breast Cancer Awareness Month...it's a lot of pressure to keep it together when the whole world is coping, surviving, pulling together to conquer this common obstacle.

Think that's weird?  During the darkest days of denial last month I woke up to find hundreds of runners going past my door.  They were all a part of a breast cancer awareness month 5K run.  What did I do?  I got on my shoes and ran the other way.  I literally ran against the grain, against the rush of all those wonderful people pulling together to do what they could to support their friends, family, or maybe even themselves.

Why would I do that?  Wouldn't I want self identify myself among them?  Aren't they my people?  I felt lost.  And as if that wasn't enough, after the fun run they...[sound of a booming voice] RELEASED THE SPRINTERS.  The most fit and healthy of the runners zoomed past me as I tried to get to the front of the line, working still in the oposite direction.

November is half over, then its on to Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  The first two are probably obvious as to why I'd be thinking of Mom, standard holidays fun running past me.  As to the last, she died on January 15, 1999, MLK's birthday.  After New Years, it's sprinting right at me. 

It just never ends.

So I'm applying some simple sports medicine to make it through.  Icing and heating, self-medicating, and positive visualisation.  I WILL make it to the finish line.  Hope to see you there.