Familiar hometowns, possible Main streets

That crisp feeling, and a scent when you first step out the door on an early spring morning. It's familiar, you know it because you've felt it or smelled it a thousand times before. From the time you were a child, when it held possiblity and the unknown world, through the years up til now, when it still holds possiblity, but the world is better known now, and a little more predictable. There were times when you wanted to escape this place and go places where no one would know you - you would be invisible there, and perhaps the world there would again be unknown, but this place has always called you back. No matter how many times you left or dreamed of leaving, it has called you back into its familiar nest.

There's something about hometowns that we both love and hate, isn't there? The familiarity is sometimes good and sometimes bad. What's really great about hometowns though is when they seem to improve over time. In my lifetime, Sacramento has gone from being a relative cow-town to having its very own star on the map - and not just because it's the state capital. Admittedly, sometimes it does appear to think itself better than it is, and gets a bit big for its britches, but the trees have only grown bigger, downtown has become more walkable, and people seem to be getting more conscientious overall. Seeing old friends in old neighborhoods just adds to the charm. I've always tried to escape it and it appears that I am continuing this trend. Nevertheless, Sacramento holds a place in my heart. So for that, here's a great big shout out to hometowns.

And speaking of hometown improvements, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has this neat little program called Main Street. It is an effort to revitalize the downtown areas of cities that have become - in a word (my word) - blah. It is an effort to beautify the downtown area as well as boost it economically, make it more walkable and promote community events. It strives to capitalize on a neighborhood's best assets, like cultural or architectural heritage, walkable streets and points of historic interest. I love this program. Not that I've ever participated in it, but it is inspiring to me and it gives me hope for our future. Who wants to look at Walmart shopping centers all the time? Not me, but if you know me, you know how much I dislike the way our country's landscape is losing its individuality, becoming homogenized with Walmarts and the other big box stores along all our freeways. Anyway, I'd like to love my hometown more. Maybe our new mayor will do good. I heard we recently broke ground with the railyards area - and that it will take 20 years to complete all said and done, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Maybe by then our britches will fit us.

You're not swine, you're bovine! A break from mainstream media

All this talk about swine flu is making me antsy. I hate to think about staying indoors, but I've got a toddler and sometimes, even though you don't want to panic or be extreme, sometimes hand washing is not enough. Especially the way my boy puts his hands in his mouth. I think he must be growing some molars or something because he's got his little hands in there more than usual. And the last two days I haven't been making sure he's getting a lot of walking in, so last night trying to get him to go to sleep was useless until 11pm when he just konked out. The little guy needs to be outside. And trains. The public transportation system here in Portland is great, those crowded, germ breeding little cans of tin. He LOVES the trains. I think if I weren't holding his hand when the little streetcar trains passed by he'd walk right into one of them. We'll see how this whole swine flu thing plays out. Whenever we talk about the "swine" flu he informs me, "You're not swine, you're bovine," a line he loved out of one of our library books.


Take a break from mainstream media and look at the Americana photo blog I just posted on my sidebar. These photos are gorgeous. Just makes you think about real. simple. things.

West coast family, An auntie's wisdom, the Handmade process

great grandma's hand-stitched quilt

We hail from the west coast - my whole family, both sides, live all up and down the west. My sister lives in a village in rural - make that "the bush"- Alaska, I have cousins in Seattle, an aunt and more cousins in Boise, my folks here in Sactown, and more cousins and an aunt in various places in southern California. I had one aunt in Texas. She lived south of Houston, on a little island - right up to about last September. My husband, son and I were in Boston as we watched the news of Hurricane Ike in all of it's doppler radar colors creep slowly up over Houston. My aunt had fleed north to weather the storm and escape its eye, but her little house was flooded beyond repair, and subsequently razed, along with many of its - her things.

I often think about how my aunt's devastation was my mother's and my luck. In January, she came to our town to live. Strangely enough she had been considering moving here - as we are her only family - and well before she had considered moving here I had had a dream that she lived here and was quite comfortably celebrating Christmas with us. Presto-chango, my aunt - whom I really did not know aside from the occasional card, crafted gift and infrequent visit - now lives here. It is great having her here. My mom is enjoying their time together too. My mom (who is also great with her hands, although uses different mediums - like beadwork = gorgeous necklaces) only recently, surely due to my aunt's influence, has picked up a crochet hook and knitting needles and gone to work on a ball of yarn. Friday evenings have become a semi-regular dinner date for all of us, where we get to show off our latest project. My aunt is a master craftsperson - although I'm not sure she would describe herself that way. She's done just about every thing a person can do with handcrafts and it is awesome to be able to learn from her.

In her house was many a project, books, and the things that make up a life. Much of it, save for the items higher up, was lost in the hurricane. I think about the handmade items that she can never again take out - the time spent on them, the resources lost. She works on new things now every day, and every time I see her I learn something new about her and tips or advice about whatever project I happen to be working on. What a gift for me - I only hope she enjoys sharing her knowledge and the wisdom that comes from all that she's done as much as I enjoy receiving it.

One of her latest projects is working on a quilt top. She's doing it by hand. Hand sewing. Not machine. "Why would you want to do it by hand when you can do it by machine?" I asked. "It's part of the process," she said. Of course. The sound you hear is my future master's degree bonking me in the head. That's sort of hard to explain. The whole idea of doing any work with your hands is to slow the process down, right? The truth is, we can buy just about anything we want. Just purchase it. But to make it yourself - to twist the silver with pliers, cut out the shape you have drawn, or pull the needle and thread through the fabric - the process of making something out of nothing, that is why we do it. The end product is great, yes, but the idea of the end product - the vision in your head of what it will look like before it is complete - that is what moves our hands. The repetition of the process, the more fluid way the hands move each time something is done, the way that the hands move as the motions go from being awkward and new to becoming fluid and familiar. All of this is the process. It has been done since forever and the speed with which we can produce things and buy them now makes it easy to forget how long it once took to create an item. A shirt, a chair, or a quilt were once so cared for that they went through numerous incarnations. Let us not forget our humble beginnings - we are rediscovering some humility as our dire economy toils on.

Anyway, here's a great big shout out to my aunt, and a real long explanation for the new button on my sidebar. Buy handmade - you'll know who made it - maybe not personally but at least by name, and it might not be perfect but it will have heart, something Walmart doesn't have.