Zinta Aistars: On a Writer's Journey

Moment of Decision

2012-01-30T22:20:00.001-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

I've been through this before: house hunt, house found, heart palpitation, make offer, wait, counter offer, response of counter counter offer, wait, until the counter counter counter offer arrives. The game is still on.

Just as the last time I went through this process, all went well, smoothly enough, up until the house inspection turned up nastiness. I wasn't surprised. After all, this farmhouse is seriously old. 1930s said the listing, but the inspector took a look at materials used, construction techniques, and said it was easily as old as 1890. And there were signs of age aplenty.

I didn't need an inspector to tell me that, when I stopped by to look at the house on a rainy day, the indoor swimming pool I found in the ancient basement built of large stones and rocks and mortar was not supposed to be there. The old farmhouse smelled musty. Not good.

So on my counter counter offer, filed as an addendum, I listed a few of the many repairs and updates the inspector had recommended, and requested a deeper price cut.

The counter counter counter offer, or let's just say counter to the addendum, said no. No repairs. House sold "as is" and the price cut was minimal.

Sure, I was in love. But it would hardly be the first time in my life that I would consider the object of my love and deem it unwise--and walk away. I'm pretty good at that. Maybe better than I should be ... but we'll leave that for another story.

I'd also done this mating dance enough times to know that one never finds Mr./Ms. Right. No such being. Always some compromise, and therein lies the magic of relationship: it makes us chafe and change and adjust and learn something more about ourselves even as we learn more about the other. No different with a house. Love costs.

Right House wasn't perfect. Not by a long shot. In fact, paging through the 25-page home inspection report, I understood I was being tempted by a money pit. So. Just how attached to the idea of retirement am I ... ??

Holding the counter addendum in my hand, gazing at "AS IS," I felt an ache creep into my skull. I was going to have to make a tough decision. I would have to find the right balance between heart and head. I had to feel passion for the Right House, but it shouldn't be a toxic relationship. That house had to love me back. Enough to keep me from going down the drain with all that excess water in the Michigan basement, the term in Michigan for these century-old holes in the ground lined by rocks and mortar.

What to do? Take the plunge? Or call it insanity and go back to my very nice, dry, warm, cozy little house in suburbia?

I needed to walk those grounds one more time.

After work, I drove out to the farmhouse. The sun was beginning to dip at the far horizon.

"Speak to me," I said aloud, standing in the middle of the long, snow-covered drive that wound between tall pines. The farmhouse was to my right, at the bottom of the hill. The land rose to my left, dotted with pines. Out back, the acres spread out far to the west, where reddening sun met the tree line, and the land was lined by dried and broken corn plants, in memory of the summer.

A hawk swirled overhead and cried out. The great bird soared across the field of snow and back again, crying out again and again.

I walked down the rows of old corn plants toward the tree line, watching the sun bleed red and orange, pink and lavender across the slowly darkening sky. Every time I came here, I saw something new, and I suspect I could walk this land a thousand times more and still find something new, a different angle I hadn't seen before.

I walked back to the house and stood for a while with my back to the door. It was a house without life, no one living here. The glow of the sunset reflected through the darkened windows, reflected in the panes.

Is this Home? Or isn't it?

Driving out from the farmhouse toward my now house, I muttered nonsensical prayers into the evening. Help me know, show me which way, give me a sign, three deer bounding across the road ...

A moment after saying so, a deer bounded out in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, barely missing it as she arced through the glow of my headlights and across the road and down to another snowy cornfield below, where a second deer awaited her and danced away as a graceful pair into the lengthening shadows. Two deer.

I sat in my car, middle of the white road, breathing hard, watching the dark for a third deer.

Back Through Generations

2012-01-28T18:29:00.001-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

My niece Erika has recently taken up an intense interest in her family history. At one point or another, I think we all get to wondering about our roots. Who came before us? Who do we carry within us? Who will our own genes travel through to future generations?

I thought I might help her put together her family tree and dug around in my own files. Before my paternal grandparents passed away, they thoughtfully wrote up their memories, as far back as they could recall, and gave me a copy.

When my maternal grandfather passed away, an alarm went off inside me. He had taken a lifetime of memories with him, unrecorded, some never told. While I did have stored away by then in my own memories the many stories he had told me growing up, I had neglected to write them down. And memory is a faulty thing. I couldn't lose more in this way, so I invited my maternal grandmother to come visit me for a week, and over that week, we sat on a white wooden bench my grandfather had made, hour after hour, all afternoons long and into those evenings, and she told me her stories while I wrote them down. That was sometime in the late 1970s ... she's long gone now, too.

Family trees are ever expanding, and in constant need of updating. As I gathered what notes and information I had for Erika, I invited her to help me get the family at our next gathering ... Easter? ... and talk about our various memories. Someone should write them down, at very least record the conversation. We must not lose more. This is family treasure.

I paged through the now yellowed pages I had in hand. My grandparents had typed them out carefully on my grandfather's old Remington typewriter, and my own scribbled notes were on tiny notebook pages, unraveling now at the binding. Most of these were written in the Latvian language.

My files were also full of yellowed newspaper clippings. Obituaries, various newspaper and magazine articles about family news and achievements. I had to shake my head at some of the old clippings of my own life ... the years have gone by so quickly as I now look back. We think life will go on forever when we are young ... when we are older, in hindsight, we see it increasingly as the blink of an eye.

Here was my father in 1997, meeting with then president of Latvia, Guntis Ulmanis. The newspaper Diena, published in Riga, Latvia, had misspelled our surname, Aistars, as "Aizstars." But my father's oil painting of a woman in Latvian folk costume was now a part of the permanent art collection at the Riga Pils (Riga Castle), the president's residence in the capitol city. My father was actually a name once included in a crossword puzzle in the Riga newspaper, seven squares across. The Aistars name, my grandparents write in their notes, was first my grandfather's pseudonym when he wrote his first of 12 novels. In 1937, he made the name official.

And here was a clipping from the Kalamazoo Gazette with an article about a 18.5 foot long, 6.5 foot high triptych my father was painting in his garage, commissioned by a church in Chicago. He was 57 years old then, just a few years older than I am now.

I read through my grandparents notes about the family. So much suffering in the family, many times over refugees through different occupations of Latvia, through different wars. Yet such endurance ... and strong genes. My maternal grandmother's grandmother lived to age 105. My paternal great-grandfather lived to 84, even after seven years of being deported to a harsh life in Siberia. He was a widower twice. He loved books, played the violin, conducted the church choir and gave sermons.

I've seen that little church in Sarnate where he gave those sermons, conducted those choirs. I have walked the property and sat on the porch of the house where he lived, where my grandfather was born, where my father spent his summers as a little boy. It's just a little way north up the road where the church is turned out toward the Baltic Sea.

Tomdeli, the house in Sarnate where my father, grandfather, great-grandfather lived ...

I read how my grandmother didn't see her father, Andrejs, for months at a time because he was a man drawn to the sea. She waited for the ship to come into port, her father bringing exotic gifts from faraway places to her and her three sisters and brother. A pair of embroidered slippers, and the antlers of a caribou which the family hung on the wall to hold hats. Whenever he opened his sea chest, she recalled the smell of the sea emanating into the room.

My father in the Kalamazoo Gazette

I read how she recalls the family burying her little sister who died at age 6. And that her grandmother taught her to read from a slender hymnal with no illustrations. It was the beginning of her lifelong passion for books. She writes about the first time she saw my grandfather, a tall, slender man with wavy dark hair, coming into the church. "That's the son of the Sarnate minister," her girlfriend whispered to her, and my grandmother's heart skipped a beat. In my memory, my grandfather's hair was always snow white ... and I smile to remember my own parent's stories of their meeting in Chicago, so many years later. My father saw my mother in the church choir (he was a baritone, she was an alto) and the two fell in love.

My grandfather's sister Anna lost her husband to the sea as well, shortly after they were married. The waves took him and he never returned. In her grief, she remained alone, a young widow, for the rest of her life, eventually sharing a home with my grandmother's sister Milda. She, too, was a teacher.

I read about the first shared home my grandmother and grandfather had in Dobele, a one-room apartment, where they moved soon after their wedding in 1925, and yet she felt as if she was living in paradise. Their love story continued lifelong, as they shared many passions for art and literature and teaching. My father was born in Dobele, the eldest of four sons. When my grandfather became director of the Jelgava Teachers' Institute, my grandmother recalls with obvious pleasure how often the students would come to visit her, also a teacher, at their home. The girls would ask if they could unplait and brush her long hair. My grandmother never cut her hair over her lifetime. Past her waist when she married, it hung to her knees when she grew older. My grandfather sometimes washed it for her in rainwater they collected in barrels in the backyard.

There are pages of memories of the war and of the family being forced to leave Latvia. The family of six packed only what they could carry, walking from Jelgava to Tukums, from there taking a train to Ventspils, where they boarded the boat Sanga to take them to Germany. They immigrated to the United States in 1949. My mother's family and my father's family met in Chicago ... and eventually, that is where I was born.

So much here, so much is missing. I gaze at the photos of my father as a young man, laughing, his head thrown back, his hair thick and dark. His hair is white and much thinner now, his back bent, but when he laughs, I still see that younger man, my handsome daddy.

The passage of time ... and so much of our lives is soon forgotten. Yet perhaps some generation not yet born will someday look at our own photographs and wonder ... what were those people like? Are we in some way alike?

Future generations: my daughter Lorena dances a Latvian folk dance in the foreground, 1987.

Sunday Reflections at 3:12 a.m.

2012-01-22T07:14:00.001-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

No idea why I wake so early. Peek at the clock in the dark ... digital numbers glow a faint green in the shadows: 3:12 a.m.

Maybe I do know.

So many thoughts running through my mind. So many paths unwinding. So many spotlights swinging white arcs across the sky, signaling highlight moments in my life, drawing the thresholds of new eras. My thoughts are a wild card, wild dance, bumper cars, dizzying carousel, a race across the field.

Long lists taking shape of all that needs doing. Empty boxes collecting in the corners of rooms, waiting to be packed. Books, rolls of socks, carefully wrapped pottery, dishes. Which furniture pieces? Which stay? Files to page through; no sense taking along what might better line a trash can.

A new life.

I take my parents out to see the new property. They've not been yet. Only seen my already hundreds of photographs, heard my happy chirps. Mama mumbles her fears. Too far, too deep in the woods, too many years weathering the old farmhouse, too large acreage to maintain, too ... whatever comes to mind. What she is saying, in truth, is that change can be frightening. What she is asking, in truth, is whether I will still be accessible when they need help or have a question floating loose or a debate between her and my father that needs to be settled. I will be. But the change will be real and will take time to get used to.

I wander my house of many years in the dark, awaiting morning. I try to imagine those first nights there, the first Sunday mornings. How long before I can trace a path up and downstairs in the dark and not bump into walls.

When I drive my folks to the property, they grow quiet when I turn into the long, winding driveway, taking us through a tunnel of overreaching pines. The red house is to the north, steps carved into the side of a hill. To our south, the hill continues upwards, and at the very top of the ridge, the little house that looks like Dr. Seuss built it, angles in every direction, windows at every height, cuts a sharp silhouette against the winter sun. Ahead is the weathered gray barn-workshop, and beyond that, acres of a snowy white cornfield stretch far, far.

Mama starts snapping photos the moment she climbs from the van. Every direction. My father's gaze wanders, holds, wanders again.

"Didn't realize ... or begin to imagine ... "

"Photos don't do it justice."

"How far? That treeline? That one way out there? That far one? Oh."

My father nods slowly, makes his way down the snowy stairs, peers in windows of the house, looks longer at the surrounding forest. He ponders the lacy ice spreading across the glass panes of the now unheated greenhouse like translucent lace curtains.

"I would like to spend a week here. Paint a watercolor ... do some sketching ..." he muses.

I am pleased. They like it here. I see the same look brightening their faces that I'm sure lit up mine the first time I came here.

"Listen," I whisper. "Can you hear the quiet?"

I think I can hear the snow fall and catch in the pine needles.

The morning lightens my old bedroom walls, pale light seeping through the slats of the blinds and drawing outlines across the opposite wall. I know this house so well. It's pressed into the crevices of my brain. My feet know the count of steps from one room to another. It's a good house, holding many memories.

I am ready to create new ones.

I'm Going Home ....

2012-01-16T19:55:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

It just happened. Puzzle pieces falling into place. A lifelong yearning, a childhood dream, a theme guiding all my many journeys has been my search for Home with a capital H. And now, at long last, even as my hair grows white, I have found that place.

A place to call Home.

Last spring, almost a year ago, I nearly bought another house. It was charming enough—a little house secluded on one acre of pine woods. And yet, somehow, my heart remained cool. When my real estate agent called me to tell me the offer had been accepted, I was quiet for a long time. She asked if I’d heard her. I had.

The owner of the house kept dragging his heels. At every step of negotiation, he missed his deadline, letting me off the hook with my good faith deposit. After a meticulous home inspection, when he failed to meet my quite reasonable request for certain repairs, missed yet another deadline … I walked away. Honestly, my heart wasn’t in it.

When I drove down the long drive of this property, however, the dirt road winding between the tall pines, past the 1920s farmhouse, and out into the back, where the grayed workshop and garage stood, overlooking the ten acres that stretched seemingly to the horizon … I fell deeply and instantly in love. I knew I’d found Home.

Home

Sure, there was the house, a sweet little place tucked against the hill, the stream-fed pond reflecting the trees leaning over it just beyond, and I was enchanted with it, just the right size for me with its little kitchen, the living room with a wood stove, the bedroom and office space upstairs and the dining room overlooking the greenhouse … but it was the land around it that called to me. This, this was what I had been looking for …

End of driveway meeting road

And what about my dream of the far north? My cabin in the snowy woods?

When I finished my first draft of a novella last November and gave it to a trusted writerly friend to be my first pair of eyes, we talked long that evening about what revisions I should make. It was a story about a woman “missing” her exit to work on her daily commute and heading north, all the way north and across the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula. I love the U.P. Always have, and when I lived there on the Keweenaw Peninsula for a short while, I vowed to return.

And return I do, most every year, and I wander my old haunts, and find new ones, and walk along the rocky shores of Lake Superior and dream. The north seems a place that combines my two homes, this country where I was born and where now my children and future grandchildren live … and home of my ethnic roots, across the ocean and on the Baltic Sea, the northern country of Latvia. I have parts and pieces of my heart in both. The U.P. reminded me of both.

My manuscript in hand, my friend gently told me I had missed something in my storyline. There was this strong longing for Home, and yet, and yet, and yet, somehow I hadn’t expressed it completely. I seemed to be holding something back. I was, my friend said, conflicted.

Conflicted?

Yes. I had written about what held me in this part of Michigan, in the southwest, where I had formed friendships and a strong literary network. I had written about my son in this area and my daughter a couple hours away, in Chicago. I had written about my aging parents, and wanting to be close by as they needed me more. Finding Home, after all, isn’t just about place, but about the people nearby, too. The U.P. is some 600 miles away from all of them.

We also talked about putting my dream off until retirement. Let’s see, that Post-It above my desk at work says 4,514 days to go ….

Opposite end of driveway, barn-workshop to left

Barn-workshop at back of property

While it is good to have goals for the future, one can’t always count on it to arrive. That evening, after our long and probing conversation, I took a deep breath and booted up my laptop. I wondered …. just take a peek before going to sleep for the night …. if there might be such a place as I wanted up north … down here, in southwest Michigan …

North end of barn-workshop

… and I found it. That very night. As if it had been there all along. A little red house tucked into the woods on ten acres with a workshop, a greenhouse, a pond, a cute little tree house on the hill for those future grandchildren that looked like Dr. Seuss had built it, and acres out back for those organic gardens I would love to plant … And it was secluded in the country yet almost perfectly at midpoint between the town where I live now and the city where I work. I could start living my dream even as those 4,514 days slowly peel off my calendar.

Toolshed and house in distance

How could this be, such perfection? That was a Friday, and on Sunday, I put my old chow pup on a leash and took a drive to check out the area. My heart hammered as I closed in on the address. But this was … this was … beautiful! I parked the car along the side of the dirt road, and the pup and I walked up and down, up and down the road, past the property. I could hardly even see the house from the road, just how I liked it! Oh yes, I wanted to see this.

Back acreage at twilight

House tucked in woods

By now, I have been out to the property a handful of times. The night I told my agent I was ready to write up an offer, I arrived there after work a little while before she did. I felt wonderfully alone in this place, just me and this world away. It was that moment of lavender light, as the day fades away and night creeps in, and as soon as I turned into the driveway, it gently started to snow.

Pond in front of house

I stood out behind the house, looking out to the distant tree line, and my heart opened completely. The long held, tight fist opened to a tender palm, held up to the sky to catch the swirl of snowflakes. Home. Yes. This was it. This was the place where I could put down roots, deep as they go, and never leave again. Grow old here, accumulate memories here, unpack every last box here, plant perennials in these flowerbeds like nobody’s business.

Home. I’ve lived so many places, in two different countries, at more than 30 addresses and in several states. No more wanderlust. I was planting a flag here with a Z on it, gathering all my dreams together in one place. No one place can contain a lifetime. Parts of me would always be in those other places, too. But here I am letting my heart rest and find peace.

The search is over.

Greenhouse at side of house

The Smoking Poet Call for Submissions - Spring 2012

2012-01-14T19:47:00.000-05:00

THE SMOKING POET: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – Spring 2012. We are reading submissions now.

“Words that turn the page to flame.”

http://thesmokingpoet.com

THE SMOKING POET publishes flash fiction; fiction; nonfiction; poetry; author interviews; feature artist (by invitation only); travel essays; book reviews. The Smoking Poet also shares an extensive list of links and resources for writers.

Submissions open year round. Send with genre in subject line: poetry, fiction, nonfiction.

For full submission guidelines and contact information, visit:

http://thesmokingpoet.com

SPRING 2012 Issue Deadline: February 29, 2012

TSP News: Keep up with updates at
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Winter is no time for hibernation for CSA farmers

2012-01-13T07:11:00.000-05:00

By Zinta Aistars as published on Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media
January 12, 2012 Issue

All photography on article by Erik Holladay; Amy Newday, left, and Diane Glenn, right

The two women stand at the top of the ridge and look out over the muddy field. They look into the future -- and the future is lush and green.

Amy Newday and Diane Glenn may not be the first image to come to mind when one thinks of Michigan farmers, but that is, they will both admit with a grin, part of the allure. (According to a 2011 National Public Radio interview with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, women are the largest minority in agriculture, with about 300,000 nationwide operating their own farms.)

After a couple of years of careful planning, Amy and Diane started their small farm in Shelbyville, a rural area about 25 miles north of Kalamazoo, in 2011. They call it Harvest of Joy Farm, LLC.

"I warned Diane about how difficult it would be," Amy says.

Read the full article about two women and their farm on Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media.

Visit Harvest of Joy Farm, LLC online.

.

The Blessings of Disappointing Mama

2012-01-10T19:48:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

(Artwork by Viestarts Aistars)

Mama was disappointed in me. She tried not to show it, but I could sense the slight edge of sadness in her voice when I told her no, I would not go along with her on her romps Sunday afternoon in celebration of her birthday. She had hoped to go out to Three Rivers, to the Latvian Center Garezers there, to join in an after-holiday party. She did love her parties.

I heard her sigh over the phone and reluctantly agree to my invitation to stop by my house instead. I would take her to lunch.

When I hung up with Mama, I texted my sister in Chicago. She lived nearly four hours away. “Close one! She almost canceled!”

My sister sent me worried emoticons in response. :-o

On Sunday, January 8, my parents arrived—much too early. They’d decided not to head back across town after the church service to their home. Mine was closer. I didn’t have a chance to finish vacuuming and was still dripping wet from the shower. I shouted downstairs to them to make themselves comfortable, I’d be down in a moment to make some hot tea and dig up those delicious cranberry and walnut cookies I had in the pantry.

Mama gave me her best smile when I wished her a happy birthday and gave her a hug. I put the water on to boil.

“Kind of hungry,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe we could go to lunch early?”

I blinked at her. “Not yet. I made reservations. Here, have a cookie.”

She munched, sipped, looked at the photos I had taken on my last visit to Asylum Lake. I watched the clock.

My cell phone blipped. A text had arrived.

“Someone calling you?”

“Nah. Just a message,” I said, and I read on my phone: “Get your camera ready.”

I’d left the front door unlocked. A few minutes later, as I stood chatting with my parents, both facing away from the door, my sister walked in. With her, her daughter Erika, along for the ride from Madison, Wisconsin.

“Oh, look!” I finally allowed myself to giggle.

My mother swung around in her chair. A full minute passed, not one word from her. My mother dumbstruck and speechless? Never happens. But it happened now. Her eyes got bigger and rounder, her mouth dropped open, and at last it all sunk in—she sprang up from her chair and fell into my sister’s, then my niece’s arms. Both presented her with a white rose. My mother laughed, hugging them both, once, twice, and then wiped tears from her eyes.

We had a wonderful meal at Fire Side Grill, and Mama smacked her lips over almond-encrusted walleye with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans, followed by tiramisu. Her eyes reflected the flickering light of the fireplace just behind her. We chattered and laughed, exchanged family news and jokes. Family members and friends called on the phone to talk to her as we passed cell phones around for us all to connect.

Even I was forgiven for being so unaccommodating to her other plans for the day.

After our meal, we drove back to their house and went downstairs to my father’s art studio—one of our favorite family activities, to rummage around in the stacks of his paintings and drawings, new as well as old. Erika wanted to see her grandfather’s old sketchbooks, and we found them in rows on a shelf, as far back in time to when he was an art student at the Institute of Art in Chicago.

I watched them all. My Mama, my father, my sister, my niece. Many of our family members weren’t here today, but I could see them all in these dear faces. I could see them in those sketches dating back to the 1940s and 1950s. I saw my son in my father’s self portraits in his youth. I saw my own features in his face, and other features in my mother’s face, the many sketches he’d made of her over their nearly 61 years together.

I even found a sketch my father had made of my mother as a young woman with an infant in her arms. In the lower left hand corner of the drawing he had written, “Zinta,” and added an arrow pointing toward the baby. He has sketched and painted me surely a hundred times over the years … this must have been the very first one.

And my niece, now a young woman in her 20s, I could see my parents in her, too, and my sister’s younger face reborn in hers. Erika squealed like a little girl, however, when she found sketches of herself as a toddler, a small child, a growing young woman.

Birthdays … they came and they went, and they seemed to come faster every year. I watched my family huddled in my father’s little basement studio, and listened to the laughter they shared, all day long, and late into the evening, joining in. It is one of the most profound blessings of my life, to be a part of this family.

I hoped with everything in me that Mama would celebrate yet many more together with us. Our relationship had often been complicated, moving through stages of friction, rebellion, declarations of independence, and just plain stubborn nature (all mine). Where other relationships would not have survived, we fought harder to work on ours because we were blood. In the past years, my mother and I had attained perhaps the most enjoyable years of our relationship. We had both worked at it, and work at it still. The rewards are rich. It’s a good thing she’s not perfect, because neither am I.

No doubt I annoy her at times. I still have my stubborn streak. But I have to admire the way she has always been willing to consider another perspective. Even at this age, she’s still interested in trying something new. She knows how to laugh, how to dance into the night, how to flirt with my father and blush. She’s willing to look foolish just to make someone else laugh. She loves to wear her hair long and full, elderly years be damned.

There are still many things I can learn from her. And she from me. I look forward to that.

With My Head in the Clouds

2012-01-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

Photos by Zinta Aistars
from Asylum Lake, Portage, Michigan

Busy, yes, as always, but why not take a moment, steal a few if I must, to walk in the woods? Breathe in that cool, feel that solid earth beneath my feet, tangle with the trees, reflect in the sheen of ice on the lake, but perhaps most of all to look up, up, up at the rare blue of a winter sky and float there with the clouds ...

"All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds." ~ Richard Brautigan

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

“Thirty-nine years of my life had passed before I understood that clouds were not my enemy; that they were beautiful, and that I needed them. I suppose this, for me, marked the beginning of wisdom. Life is short.” ~Iimani David

“And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright unclouded day.” ~ Emily Bronte

“How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo." ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

“Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations... What do you think you see, Linus?"

"Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side..."

"Uh huh... That's very good... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"

"Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!”
~Charles M. Shulz

“It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Author Interview on WMUK 102.1 FM with Vic Foerster

2012-01-02T09:58:00.000-05:00

Naked in the Stream: Isle Royale Stories

Isle Royale, just North of Michigan’s upper peninsula, is one of the least visited national parks in the country. But writer and arborist Vic Foerster has been visiting the island almost every year for 40 years. Zinta Aistars of The Smoking Poet sat down with Foerster to discuss his new book Naked in the Stream, a collection of short stories about his experience in the wilderness that is Isle Royale.

This interview aired on WMUK 102.1 FM radio, Kalamazoo, Michigan's NPR affiliate station, on Tuesday, January 2, 2012, at 7:50 a.m. Missed it? Hear the version just as it aired here.

Extended interview, Part 1.

Extended interview, Part 2.

Read Zinta's book review of Vic Foerster's book in the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Issue of The Smoking Poet.

Learn more about Vic Foerster and Naked in the Stream: Isle Royale Stories.

Read the Naked in the Stream book review on Zinta Reviews.

2012: As the World Ends ... and Begins Again

2012-01-01T16:16:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

Lorena and Derek's "mirte" or Myrtle, symbol of
long life and hope in Latvian folklore

The world, some say, is supposed to end in 2012. Maybe so. The world as we know it, at least. That's the way I like to think of it, that we are leaving behind an era and are now stepping across the threshold into a new one. This one, I hope, is an era of enlightenment. That is my wish for humankind, that we will have at long last learned a few valuable lessons from our muddled and too-violent history and are now ready to try something .... different.

I'm hoping to start a new era for myself, too. And within my family, my inner circle of beloveds. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be a very special year for my daughter and Derek, as the two of them plan their wedding for later this year. It rings in the new year with a special kind of mother's joy.

My son, too, seems to have found someone special. I see a new hope rise in his eyes, and when he calls me on New Year's Eve to wish me well into 2012, he is uncharacteristically chatty. I'm not sure I can remember the last time we spent an entire hour on the phone, babbling away about future plans, with him doing most of the talking. We talk about our wishes and dreams and hopes, not our resolutions, for those often seem that proverbial road to hell that is paved with good intentions. Instead, we hold our dreams in focus and allow them to guide us in toward the place we want to be, trusting that even the difficult moments in our lives are a part of that path.

I believe 2012 will be a breakthrough year for my son, too. And why not believe that for myself, too, while I'm feeling so cheered and bright about my family's future ...

In 2011, I came across a saying that has stayed with me as I cross into this new year: "Life begins where our comfort zone ends." The author is unknown, but the sentiment, that I know. When I look back on my personal history, I can see that has always held true. What I remember most and with least regret are those times that I took risks and pushed myself beyond my comfort zone. No, those times didn't all end well. And yet, I am without regret. I dared to try, to reach, to expand my own horizons, and that in itself is always good.

Lorena and Derek at the property that could
be an answer to a long held dream

On this Sunday morning, January 1, 2012, I wake with a smile. This could be the year. This could be the year that brings me to my fondest wish, my lifelong dream, my forever pursuit ... of finding Home. About a month ago, as I sat talking about a book manuscript with a friend, an understanding began to dawn on me. There were many factors intertwined in bringing me to this moment of open eyes, but it led me to a place that I have now visited numerous times, and that I feel is now calling me. On Christmas, when Lorena, my daughter, and her Derek came out to visit me, I brought them to see the property, too, wanting to hear their perspective. I wanted to be sure I wasn't just seeing this place with rose-tinted glasses, and wanted their objectivity. After all, it's an old house, dating back to 1930, and with that would come various challenges.

While my daughter was her usual diplomatic self with "do what makes you happy, Mama," her Derek wasn't the least bit shy. "Buy it!" he near shouted as we turned into the long drive, leading into the 10-acre property. "I'd like to come visit you here! Heck, I'd like to bring the kids here!"

I burst out laughing. Kids, yes. My future grandchildren. With the two of them making their home in the big city of Chicago, this country property with acreage that stretched to the horizon, the surrounding forest of pines, a stream-fed pond with lazy fish in it, and such deep and wonderful silence all about ... would be a retreat that rejuvenates the spirit.

Could this be it? Could this be the Home I have been seeking all my life?

This Sunday morning, I decided to make a special breakfast as I thought about the prospects of the new year ahead. I'd been wanting to try making potato latkes for a long time. A simple recipe, really, for a European comfort food that cost nearly nothing to prepare, yet surely filled one's belly with goodness. The kind of food that I imagined came off a farm. I'd been eating all organic now for at least three years, and so the potatoes I took from the bin, and the big sweet onion, were indeed from someone's farm nearby.

I grated the onion first, squinting my watering eyes as juice spritzed from the grater. Then the potatoes. One of my favorite foods, and perhaps even in my genetics, just as dark bread and cold climates and tall pines are, reminding me of my own ethnic roots in Latvia. I affectionately refer to such foods as "peasant fare," because potatoes and onions and dark bread come from the country, and have nourished people through the ages with little expense.

I think about the acres out back of the old house I am considering and what I might grow there. I crack two eggs into my bowl, add three tablespoons of unbleached flour, a bit of salt and a bit of freshly ground pepper, then heat my cast iron pan with olive oil. A heaping spoonful onto the hot pan, I press it down flat, then let it sizzle. When the potato mixture browns at the edges, I flip it.

I put three of the hot latkes on my plate along with a couple slices of prosciutto and mozarella cheese, drop dabs of sour cream and green onion on top, pour myself a mug of steaming coffee, and sit down to my meal. Oh, these are good! They'd make a fine side dish, too, for dinner, along with a filet of wild salmon and a fresh salad ...

I think about that other kitchen as I eat. It has an antique oven, as old as the house, it seems, but Derek, who is a professional chef by training, took a close look at it and deemed it quite worthy of cooking many more meals. It fires up on both gas and, yes, wood, with an ash box below. With that and the wood-burning stove in the living room, I wouldn't have to fear a power outage. Nor a day without a hot meal.

Decisions to make. I'm not rushing into any of them. I'm letting the pathway open as it will, in whatever direction. None of these decisions come without compromise. If I have long thought about the prospects of wilderness living up north, this would be a compromise of country living instead, keeping me closer to my expanding family. That rates high with me.

Yes, this year will be an important one in my family. Pieces are falling into place. Fond dreams are taking shape. An era of one kind is ending, and a new kind of era is opening its door in invitation. My belly full of delicious potato latkes, I call my parents to wish them a happy New Year. Sustained good health, the warmth and support of love in our family as we bring in new members, and always hope for an even brighter future.

My old chow pup is waiting for a walk on this snowless winter day. That part, comfortingly, never changes. I grab my jacket and scarf, and we're off.

A Promise to Love

2011-12-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

Derek and Lorena

When the two of them talked about it not being all about sunshine and happiness, then I knew these two were keepers, that their life together would be a success. My mama's heart sang.

Derek had asked my daughter Lorena to marry him a couple days prior to Christmas, and they had kept it all hush hush until they arrived at my house on Friday evening, December 23rd. Lorena stood in the kitchen with a mischievous little Mona Lisa smile on her lips, and Derek perched on the stairs, when she held out her left hand for me to see ... and oh my, it was a beauty, this diamond ring he'd bought with such care for her. I squealed and enfolded my baby girl in a happy hug.

"I wanted to see your face when we told you," she smiled.

Shucks, I wasn't surprised. None of us in the family were. It was clear two years ago when Lorena first introduced Derek to the family that they had a special connection. I loved listening to their shared laughter ... and sooner or later, everything between them ended with laughter. If they understood that a shared life would be much more than just sharing happy moments, they seemed to have the magic ingredient of long lasting relationships: they knew how to laugh together. They are best friends who fell in love.

We all knew .... we just didn't know when. Now the world knows and laughs with them, a twinkle of joy at new love. Our world can always use new love. New hope, new dreams. It really does keep this silly, wonderful, scary, complex, grand world turning.

My very best wishes to you both, my darlings. Congratulations.

Lorena and Derek share their news with her grandparents

In Good Time

2011-12-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

Rough day. If anything could go wrong today at the office, it went extra wrong. Murphy's Law had settled like a dark cloud overhead. By lunchtime, I was questioning everything. Including myself, and that's never fun. Every decision, past, present or future, seemed iffy. Today was the kind of day that I felt so far from my best dreams that they were a fading pinpoint in the next universe.

Five o'clock and the end of the work day couldn't feel sweeter. With a sigh, I was out the door. And still, that dark puff overhead floated along. As soon as I merged onto the interstate toward home, an SUV the size of a small mountain pulled up behind my little Civic. Pulled up so close his headlights bobbed just above my bumper. If anything happened ahead of me, no doubt in my mind I would get rear ended. I tapped my brakes to indicate that he was too close.

His response? He pulled back just far enough to aim headlights into my rearview mirror and turned on his high beams. I blinked at the glare, shoved my mirror down to keep from being blinded. For the next several miles, he stayed glued to my bumper, high beams on.

Yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too.

Finally, I had a chance to slip through traffic and into the next lane, blinking to get my vision back. My mind rumbled over bumpy thoughts all the way home. Maybe I'd chosen the wrong career. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a writer, after all. Maybe living alone deep, deeper, deepest in the woods was an excellent idea, all communications with the civilized world severed. Maybe I would never achieve zero debt so that I could find out. Maybe I'd be spinning in this gerbil wheel forever, and the harder I ran, the faster I stayed in place. Oh hrmph.

I coasted home on cruise control. Easy driving. Only that was a bummer, too. I'd been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for a good snow, and not a flake to be seen. A little drizzle, a little spit, but the world remained triple shades of gray and black and piddly brown. No winter joy. I'd suffered through a long, sweaty summer for this?

Grumble, hrmph, spitty spit, mutter, grump. I even felt a spot of wet collect in the corner of my eye. This was not a good time.

By the time I drove into my driveway, it was solid night. Even so, in the faint silvery flow of the street light, I could see something hanging from the doorknob of my front door. A little gift bag. I skipped up the stairs to take a closer look. The bag was a pattern of red and green and gold, a beautiful Christmas globe at center that said "Merry & Bright." The handles were silver rope.

I plucked the bag off the doorknob and took it inside. Fed the dog and cat, picked through the day's junk mail, put a pot of homemade soup on the stove to warm up.

Then I sat down next to the fireplace, set aflame, and took another look at the gift bag. Merry & Bright ... I wasn't feeling it. But how sweet to find this gift awaiting me home on an icky day. Who was it from? What was inside?

I drew out a card in a red envelope. On it: "Zinta/Mom." And I knew. It was from my son and his lady Dawn.

My heart pinged. I knew, here was a large part of the reason I was dragging my heels into this holiday. My son and his lady would not be among us for Christmas. Oh, how I would miss my boy, grown man that he was ... and Dawn was dawning a sweet color of rose on his horizon, bringing light back into his life.

"For a Mother who loves and gives so much ... " I read the card, and my eyes got misty again.

Inside were two gifts, each carefully wrapped. A pillar candle, because I can never have too many, and something else, wrapped inside an intriguing swirl of gray paper. Written this way and that across and around it were sayings about TIME.

"Timing is everything."

"Take time to smell the roses."

"Take your time."

"Time will tell."

"Time is on your side."

"There's a time to work, and a time to rest."

"Time heals all wounds."

"I'm having a great time."

I unwrapped slowly, taking my time, and inside was a delicate little hour glass. I set it on the corner of the coffee table and watched the glittering sand begin to trickle through the slender middle, from the top into the bottom of the glass.

Time.

They knew ... how much time I spent worrying about time. Not enough. Too much left. How to use it. How best to enjoy it. How not to waste it. How to save it. How to spend it well. How to cherish it. Where to direct it. When to keep a tight hold on it and when to let it fly and when to just let it go. And most of all, I worried about when it would be the right time ...

Time. Sometimes I lost track of it. Sitting here now, in this moment of time, I watched the tiny grains swirl through to the bottom and was mesmerized by the trickling sands of time. I had started to practice meditation recently, and this hour glass seemed like a wonderful way to measure time in a soft, unobtrusive way as I lost myself in time.

Funny. Watching the grains of sand pass like time, I felt the stress of the day ease away. My pulse slowed. There was nothing I could do to stop the grains of sand from falling. I could not slow them down. I could not speed them up. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Time just kept flowing.

For this moment, I could just be. Time moved ahead without my assistance. What I needed, what I wanted to accomplish, my son and Dawn were right, time would tell when time was right. There was so much I still wanted to do, and I was frustrated at not having the time, or that it wasn't that time yet that I could immerse myself fully.

It was not yet time, and I had to do my time until it was. If I could just slow my mind, I would be able to move through the confusion and find the answers.

Odd, how this little hourglass inspired introspection, even as it calmed me into a slower pace.

I brewed a cup of tea, sat down again, sipped and watched the grains of sand. Nothing would ease the ache of time spent apart. My daughter and her Derek were coming out for the holidays. Someone near, so dear, someone far, so dear, and the heart simmered between joy and sorrow.

Time spent waiting. Time passed doing.

As the old year passed into memory, and the new year approached with a promise of fresh-to-be-used time, I wondered at all its promise. In time, my son and his Dawn would be back home again, too. Good times would come again.

Announcing! Fall/Winter 2011-12 Issue of The Smoking Poet!

2011-12-20T06:32:00.002-05:00

"Words that turn the page to flame."

Pottery by Ed Gray (Jikiwe)

www.thesmokingpoet.com

Something about a New Year … a clean slate. Whatever didn’t meet our hopes and standards in the previous year can be left behind, marked “lesson learned,” and we can move ahead with reinvigorated creativity. Think of it as a rewrite—writers get that. Almost nothing comes off the pen, or the keyboard, without room for improvement, and it’s the rewrite that brings polish to the pearl.

2011 was an exceptional year for The Smoking Poet. The highlight of the year was our 5^th year anniversary in April, a reading of 14 authors participating and an audience that left just barely room for standing. So what can we do in 2012 to beat that? Well, in our sixth year, we hope to expand our collaboration with Kalamazoo, Michigan’s NPR affiliate station, WMUK, bringing more author interviews to our readers—and our listeners. Not to worry if you don’t live within the 102.1 FM frequency. You can listen online at WMUK’s site or right here on our pages.

Now entering our sixth year, we bring you an artist, Ed Gray (Jikiwe by his Ojibwa name), and a group of writers and poets from the far north—the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Writer t. kilgore splake refers to their long winters on Lake Superior as “the long white.” That’s a time when bears go into hibernation, but artists surface, using that time of winter silence and solitude to immerse themselves in their art and emerge in the spring with new visions of creativity. We bring only a few of the Keweenaw and U.P. talents to you in this issue—there will be more to come in our spring issue.

Author interviews have expanded. Katie Alvord talks to us about divorcing our cars. Rick Chambers talks to us about self publishing. Kurt Cobb talks to us about peak oil. James Sanford talks to us about beating cancer. Recording broadcast interviews include Joseph Heywood, Michael Loyd Gray, Maryann Lesert, t. kilgore splake, Vic Foerster, and others to be added throughout winter.

And we have travel essays, memoirs, poetry, fiction to inspire you and keep you reading through your own long white. A Good Cause invites you to consider Miss Representation, how contemporary media portrays women with a stunning video and a challenge.

A warm welcome to Kim Grabowski, our newest intern from Kalamazoo College. She will play a big role in moving our winter into spring.

Got some holiday bucks to burn? Visit our Gift Shop, proceeds to writers and the maintenance of our online literary magazine.

Don’t miss our book reviews! We add to these pages throughout the season, so keep coming back—there is always something new here for you to enjoy!

With a good word,

Zinta Aistars

TSP Founder and Editor-in-Chief

www.thesmokingpoet.com

Kalamazoo Foods Market on Second Wave

2011-12-15T09:25:00.001-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

Southwest Michigan's Second Wave has published my article about the Kalamazoo Foods Market. I do so enjoy writing articles about fresh food!

Photo by Erik Halladay of Damon Geary at the Kalamazoo Foods Market

Kalamazoo Foods Market keeps it fresh through the winter

by Zinta Aistars

Thursday, December 15, 2011

During the summer months local food fans get used to fresh produce. At the Kalamazoo Foods Market the opportunity to find local produce extends for months to come. Zinta Aistars talks to co-owner Damon Geary about the community that comes with creating such a place to shop.

Read the complete article with wonderful photos by Erik Halladay.

See also ...

Growing the local economy with locally grown food

Sawall Health Foods leads the way organically

The roast that brings in the customers

Serving up burgers with inspiration on the side

Bringing the best of the Middle East to the Midwest

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Healing Between the Lines

2011-12-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

No better editor than the one who can gently point out all the rifts and fault lines in your manuscript and still remain a cherished friend. I’m lucky. After dinner this weekend, I sat down with my friend, the esteemed editor, to go extensively over the manuscript I’d recently finished—what I had half-jokingly called my fantasy autobiography. Past and present truth leading into an imagined future.

And we writers all, without exception, need such an editor. Any who think this step isn’t necessary should sign up for a few therapy sessions to understand ego issues.

When it comes to editing my work, I leave ego on the other side of the door. After all, this isn’t about making me feel like a star. I’m not fishing for compliments. This process is about making my work as good as it can possibly be. Sometimes, it can also mean flinging my work into a bonfire.

We talked for hours, into the late night, about my first draft. My chosen editor asked me a great many pertinent questions. Some of them I could answer. Some left me hanging. I had no idea. Slack mouthed and wide eyed, I could only shrug.

They say writing is therapy, and I would say it may just be the best kind. To write true, the writer must stand naked in the spotlight, fully exposed, even the skin cut and peeled away to expose the meaty red beating of the heart. Hide one chewed off fingernail and a good editor will catch you on it.

Mine did.

Yet it wasn’t that I attempted to hide. Not knowingly, at least. My modus operandi in this first draft was to write so fast that I would outrun my inner critic and censor. I expected the work to be dirty. I was still hoping to achieve some kind of clarity.

Instead, what I now saw exposed on this stack of pages was not one fleshy heart, but two. I had not one voice in this story—I had two. Inside one main character, I had exposed two conflicting and conflicted persons, each one pulling in the opposite direction, and so the character twirled in one place where someone else might skip along ahead with a carefree whistle.

For the rest of the weekend, I mulled and pondered over our discussion. The weekend was almost entirely over before I dared pick up the manuscript to read the editor’s notes in the margins. I couldn’t argue with one single point. Not one. My respect for my editor friend was immense.

I rolled up the manuscript and considered tossing it into the fire pit on the deck out back. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time. At least one layer of the depleted ozone layer is due to my burning of my manuscripts. Deep inside, I always know when I have fallen short of the level I wish to achieve.

This didn’t sadden me. I recognize it as part of the process. I’d grown up watching my father, the artist, discard canvas after canvas, paint over many of them, or cut out a salvageable corner where he’d hit the mark and toss the rest. Early on, I learned that having good work to show meant having a very full wastebasket.

Was this salvageable? Was there a corner I could save where I’d hit the mark while tossing the rest? There probably were, and quite a few, but sometimes I think it is best to keep the exercise incorporated in one’s writer muscle and proceed on a clean sheet.

Yet the fault lines here went deeper than that. This wasn’t about writing skill. The fault lines were about me, my life, and where I had found my way and where I was still twirling and thrashing. Where I was still looking for answers, my writing lacked definition. Where I was still unsure about the values I admire, my heroine stumbled. Where I was still ambivalent about my own direction, my storyline got lost in the woods.

The next step for my manuscript wasn’t so much about new writing as it was about taking a moment to look in the mirror for introspection. Yes, writing is indeed therapy.

I remembered the first time I attempted to write a novel, still in my early 20s. I was just a few pages in, intoxicated with the joy of the process, when I suddenly hit a wall. I came to a dead stop. I can see myself at that moment as clearly as if it were yesterday. I sat down right there where I stood, in the middle of the kitchen, and sat cross-legged for a long, long time, thinking.

Like any story, my new novel had a main character—call him my hero if you like. What would he look like? How would he behave? What did he want in life? What caused him conflict? What kinds of mannerisms were distinctive to him? How did he respond to others? What were his ideals? What made him howl in pain, in rage, in bliss?

Holy moly, I had no idea! To move him even one step forward in the story, I had to answer a great many questions. And all of those questions came back to me. What were my values? What did I admire in a person? What made someone good or evil? To create another, I had to first define myself.

I’d once heard someone advise a writer to take his or her character out to dinner. Observe how this character behaves, eats, treats the waiter, dresses, converses. Something like a first date. It’s all in the details.

When writing my fantasy autobiography, I was taking myself out to dinner. It was a revealing experience. Where real life can tolerate indecision and waffling on goals, fiction is much less tolerant. In reality, characters move in and out of our days without ever making a second appearance. Thoughts go unfinished. Mysteries remain unsolved. If all that were brought into a book, readers would lose patience. In our books, we like our stories to have beginnings, middles and endings, with all loose ends tied up.

While something in me protested about so much orderliness in a work of literary fiction, I knew that my plot waffling reflected on my internal waffling. In my pursuit of my best dreams, I wasn’t nearly making the kind of progress I might be if I were to make a few more hard, solid, nail-them-down decisions.

I set the manuscript aside. I will make THAT decision later. There was other work to be done first. It might just require a few hours of sitting in the middle of my kitchen, cross-legged on the floor, and asking myself: Just who is my heroine? What does she want more than anything else? How will she get there? What demons must she face before she does? What is she willing to give up along the way?

Only then, answers to questions firmly in hand, can I return to my second draft.

On Becoming a Hood Ornament

2011-12-07T20:53:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

His light was a solid red. Mine, the sign at the other end of the crosswalk, read WALK. I was on my way to a holiday lunch at work, served at the hospital cafeteria, our executives and leadership serving up quarters of chicken and thick slabs of prime rib with wild rice, a medley of vegetables, croissant with butter, greens with dried cranberries, and raspberry cheesecake. It's a delicious meal, and all the employees show up ... there are, count 'em, about 18,000 of us. Yet each year for this annual holiday meal, the long and winding lines move remarkably quickly.

I'm thinking lunch as I step off the curb. I have no idea what he was thinking. Two lanes of cars were idling at the intersection, waiting for the light to change, but suddenly the driver of the white Ford on the outside lane decided he wanted to turn on the red ... turn right ... right through the spot where I was walking. He was looking left, watching for oncoming traffic, but I was in front of him, in front of that wide silver grill as it started to move toward me.

I made a yelp and a leap to my right, but I couldn't outmanuever a moving automobile. Next thing I knew the car's bumper was plowing into me, and if I didn't want to go under, I would have to go up. I bounced up on the edge of his hood and he hit the brakes.

I was okay. Surprised more than hurt. I got out of his way but then turned around to glare at him. His window came down, and I saw a kid, maybe 16 or 17 years old, wide eyed.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

For some reason, I needed to reach out and touch him. A kid. I walked up to his window and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm all right," I said, "but you need to look both ways! Not just traffic, but you need to look for pedestrians, too!"

He nodded, pale.

Lunch then. The chicken was excellent. Drop off the bone tender and juicy. I enjoyed it and I felt fine. Only later, working at my desk again, did my left side feel a new soreness spreading, hip to knee. I thought about my grandfather, Latvian author Ernests Aistars (1899-1998), with a dozen published novels. He's long gone from me now, but I often think of his spirit, still with me. I thought about the time he was hit by a car as a pedestrian.

Pencil drawing of Ernests Aistars by Viestarts Aistars

My grandfather lived just shy of 100 years, and except for the last couple months of his life, he was always in remarkable health. Tall, slender, handsome, vibrant, he never missed a day of walking. It was the only exercise he did, but he couldn't accept a day without putting in a few miles. If for some reason he couldn't go outside to walk, he would pace the hallway in the house, back and forth, back and forth, holding his hands behind his back, deep in thought. I figured he was working out some thread in his next plotline.

Lidija and Ernests Aistars, my grandparents

My grandfather and my grandmother Lidija were known by everyone to be the perfect couple. They were often seen holding hands, huddling together, evident joy on their faces when they saw each other. Not once in my life do I remember a hard word between them, a look of impatience, or any evidence of discord. They were hand and glove. She taught language and literature at the Latvian school, and she edited and typed his handwritten book manuscripts. He had been director of the Jelgava Teachers' Institute in Latvia; they were two educators in life--with four sons, my father the eldest.

My grandfather with his four sons at my grandmother's funeral

When my grandmother died, none of us in the family or among their friends could imagine one without the other. How would he keep going without her? He walked. He read. He wrote. A painting of my grandmother, painted by my father (artist Viestarts Aistars), hung on his bedroom wall, and my parents once told me when visiting him on an evening that he'd been heard talking to the painting, still telling the love of his life about his day ...

My grandfather writing with chipmunk as muse

His walks weren't just strolls around the block. In his 90s, he no longer drove a car, but he walked everywhere--at a fast pace, with a long stride, covering miles in a day. He had rented an apartment about two miles outside of Kalamazoo. That meant frequent walks to the downtown library, two miles there, fill tote bag with books, two miles back.

That evening, my grandfather was on his way to the grocery store. If memory serves, he was 95 by then. The store wasn't so very far away. He cut across the street a little before the crosswalk, and that was his mistake. A Chevette had just made a fast turn right and he was right in its path. The car plowed into him, so hard that it threw him a good 50 feet across the pavement. An ambulance was called out and soon had him racing across town to Borgess Hospital ... where my father was already an inpatient.

My father at one of his art exhibits

Now, my father was once a great walker, too. When I was growing up, the two of us enjoyed long walks together in the evenings, talking art. His painting, my writing. But my father had back problems, and by now, this was his fourth back surgery. All those painful surgeries made no improvement on his crumbling spine. As straight-backed as my grandfather was, standing next to him, my father was bent over with chronic pain. More than once, those not in the know made a mistake identifying which was the father, which was the son.

When the ambulance brought my grandfather into the emergency department, my grandfather was conscious and grinning. No Chevette was going to dent his humor. In his Latvian accent, grinning, he told the attending physician and nurses: "I don't drive anymore. I needed a ride here so that I could visit my son, here for surgery. Thanks for the ride."

Stunned, they looked up the names of the admitted patients and found my father. After careful examination, finding no broken bones, no internal injuries, my grandfather, with badly bruised legs but otherwise no worse for the wear, was placed in the room next to my father.

I wasn't sure I wanted to continue that legacy. At least I wasn't thrown 50 feet. And I have some years, decades yet, to put down before I would get to my grandfather's age then. I figured there was a good chance I'd inherited not only his love for literature, but I was hoping for the genes of longevity and endurance, too.

Odd to say that becoming a momentary hood ornament on a white Ford brought back good memories. But it did. I massaged the sore area on my left thigh, wondering if he wasn't grinning down at me, up there somewhere, holding hands with my grandmother, tellling me to write a story about it, make it a good one, and keep walking.

For a catalog list of my books and my grandfather's books currently available at the Latvian National Library in Riga, Latvia, visit RIIM.

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Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt, Kettle Chips, and Triple Crème Brie

2011-12-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

That’s me wishing happy birthday to me and giving myself a good dose of pampering. All within a very grown up birthday. After all, it’s a Tuesday, not exactly a party day, and I am nose to deadline grindstone all the work day. My one reminder that this is not just an ordinary Tuesday is that I get to park in our own parking lot today. I usually park across the street—with the other little people—as the parking lot next to our office building, small as it is, is meant for directors and clientele only.

The only thing I’m trying to direct is the copy on the page I am writing and editing at my desk—and my life.

I slip out on an early lunch hour to beat the crowd and make a run to Martha’s Vineyard, a nearby deli and wine store, to find myself something extraordinary for lunch. Usually, I eat at my desk, taking a little time for myself to read a book or indulge in a little creative writing or even put my head down for a moment and grab a cat nap.

With deadlines pressing, I will do no differently today, keeping up with assignments so I can be sure to get out of work on time. But something decadently delicious—oh yes, today I deserve that. I prowl the deli for goodies. There’s a particular cheese I especially adore, and they keep a bushel of fresh-from-the-oven baguettes in paper bags to go with it. There it is—a large triangular chunk of Saint Andre’s triple crème brie. This isn’t just any brie. This is triple times better. Creamy and silky and melt-on-the-tongue rich and delicious.

I pluck a large bar of Chocolove Almonds and Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate from the shelf. Every square is marked with a heart, and a love poem is printed on the inside wrapper. “And all the stars that crowded the blue space/Saw nothing happier than her glowing face … “ by Lord Bryon is tucked inside mine.

A bag of kettle chips and a tub of creamy dip, and a large jar of Brownwood Farms Northern Michigan Cherries. And there, behind the glass of the deli, my coupe de grace: a dark chocolate mound, as big as a fist, drizzled with more chocolate, with hints of caramel inside. I hold up two fingers and nod. Price tags are a little frightening, but it’s my birthday! and I purchase it all with a smile.

Dinner will be waiting for me at home; I’ve already chosen my favorites in the morning—smoked pork chops from Jake’s Country Farms nearby, roasted potatoes, Swiss chard and acorn squash still from last season’s garden, and a heaping side dish of mushrooms sautéed in fresh butter.

I know there will be a gift or two as well, but I know what I cherish most about this day. The more of these birthdays I have, the more I look forward to the best gift of all—time with loved ones, and an experience to remember.

Amusingly enough, the little red light flashing on the corner of my cell phone all day long adds to those simple pleasures. From morning until late, birthday wishes come in from my Facebook page. My friends there vary from very close and intimate to barely known but with shared interest in literature. Regardless, I smile every time the red light blinks. Another “Happy birthday, Z!” has just appeared on my “Wall” and somehow it does what it should—adds a little humanity to technology. These wishes arrive, after all, from various points across the globe. They delight me. It’s a small world, after all.

The simple pleasures … ever more appreciated. Less stuff, more memories. Less prestige, more meaning. Less glory, more truth.

Closing my office door to lean back in my chair and tear off a piece of baguette and slice into that creamy brie, I fill with the warm sense of blessing. I am nearer to where I want to be. The occasional setback, but my focus remains true. Not a day goes by that I don’t ponder my dream and how I might maneuver myself one or two steps closer. The last several weeks have tossed more than one setback in my direction, and some of that hit hard, even had me reeling for a while. But there was little time to brood, only time to plan a new maneuver, and so—to it. Get on with it. The goal remains unchanged.

One candle will go on my chocolate bomb tonight, one candle only. The years may accumulate but the wish is only one. Most all else I could want I already have. I am old enough and wise enough now to know when to say: Enough.

I ponder the manuscript I recently finished for a short novel, now in the hands of a trusted writer and editor. I have jokingly called it my fantasy autobiography. Indeed, that’s what it is. Much of it is from my life, and what yet isn’t, I hope someday will be. I’ve dug back into my past to uproot what has shaped me, tangled it into daily frustrations, and then worked it out again into threads that lead me into my future.

In that novel, I am the age I become today. I am entering my future today—the future I have predicted and worked toward. The story ends about a year away. Have I written my own future?

I pop a square of salted chocolate into my mouth and let it melt across my tongue. As my eyes fall onto the notes strewn across my desk for an article I am working on, I see the quickly scribbled words: “Believe. When we marry intention with action, miracles happen.”

At this moment, there are a few large gaps in that path paved forward. Steps I don’t yet have any idea how I will make them. I realize I may be facing some pretty big tests of my resolve, and points of reevaluation, perhaps even needed changes in direction. And still—that vision at the end is clear. I’ve come to understand that the journey itself is making me worthy of the goal.

Without this journey, without these obstacles, without these tests, the goal itself might fade away like a mirage. I am being shaped and molded and evolved to have the eyes that know how to see the beauty, the heart that is capable of embracing the commitment, the wealth of experience to recognize home when I get there—in person, in place.

Occupy Holiday

2011-11-27T14:26:00.002-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

Soft, lazy rain pattering on the roof. It's a Sunday, last day after a four-day holiday, a Thanksgiving spent in and around Chicago with family. Back home now, and the house is quiet, very quiet, with only the occasional movement of my black calico cat, changing the direction of her curl into a long nap, and my old chow pup occasionally coming by to check for news and finding none.

It will snow soon. This slow rain will turn to soft snowflakes, and I'm ready. Winter will begin, a season of a deeper silence. Snow absorbs sound, covers it with lace, and perhaps that is in large part why I so long for the winter.

Only the Christmas holiday .... for that I feel no longing, only gladness when it passes with the least amount of ruckus possible. First hint of its turn toward the dark side of human nature was already apparent as Thanksgiving wound down ... in my sister's living room, we all sat around, gaping at the news on the television, even though every year at this time we see it again and again, film clips showing crazed mobs spilling into stores, screaming, shoving, grabbing for the nearest bargain, turning into frenzied stampedes as they run for the cheap television, computer, iPad, toaster oven. Emergency rooms fill with those who are injured. There are even fatalities. For a pair of designer jeans?

I do not understand it. I never will. I do not want to.

In their chase for the bargain, these people miss what has made my Thanksgiving sweet, and might have made theirs sweet, and I'm not talking pumpkin pie. Have we learned nothing? Has this lurching of our economy, so many families losing their homes to foreclosures, savings emptied, bills going unpaid, credit cards piling up to swallow lives whole, left no lasting effect on our consciousness? All the talk is about Black Friday, this day after Thanksgiving, putting businesses back into the black, making our economy grow.

Grow? Toward what exactly? Our goal should have been to achieve sustainability. We have "grown" enough, and the crash was, is, hard. It was "growth" based on no substance, all lies, all hot air, all fantasy and wishful thinking. This is not recession we are experiencing now. This is coming back down to earth. Hitting hard reality. Here is where we should start finding our way back to reason.

When those mobs crowded stores, buying stuff and more stuff and yet more stuff that nobody really needs, my sister and I decided to get far away from the madness.

We had enjoyed a wonderful meal with family on Thanksgiving. My brother-in-law is the family chef, and he worked in the kitchen from early morning until late into the evening, a labor of love, preparing the golden bird, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes sprinkled with dill, the sweet potato casserole with pecans. My sister baked a sweet corn pudding, a cranberry relish, and two pies for dessert--cranberry apple and pumpkin with fresh whipped cream.

All yesterday's memory now, and too few leftovers in the refrigerator, as we drove just out of town, northwest of Chicago, to a quiet corner of Libertyville on Friday. St. Mary's on the Lake is a retreat and seminary, Georgian style buildings unobtrusively built around a lake, with quiet roads and pathways inviting a long walk.

I brought my old chow pup along, Guinnez, eager to stretch his legs and sniff the myriad scents of the woods and the lakeshore. The three of us stroll at an easy pace, a little wishful for a snowier scene but nonetheless enjoying the denuded forest, the occasional doe emerging from the woods to nibble at a last leaf. The lake is ever to our left as we walk, and the nearly three-mile stroll takes us across five bridges lined with tall white lanterns and only now and then past one of the seminary buildings, a church, a cardinal's retreat house, a campus library.

We come across an altar in the woods, a great wall built of oddly puckered and pocked rock, and a statue of Mary embedded in its side. Rows of tiny candles burned at the base. Bits and pieces of paper were rolled up and tucked into crevices between the rocks. I had no paper, no pen. I had no matches to light a candle. Counting rosary beads is not a part of my religion, and icons do not move me, but I found myself needing to take a moment for prayer.

I was here in Chicago on this holiday without my children. Although we had gathered at my house for an earlier holiday meal the weekend before, my son was now back in Michigan and my daughter was in Colorado. I missed them both, sorely. I bowed my head and prayed, mother to mother, asking for protection of my children and guidance on the paths they had chosen and the paths chosen for them.

This had not been an easy holiday, but there is no more healing a distraction from our worries and problems than sharing time with what family we have near. I was grateful for the rich blessing of mine. I was grateful to still be able to chauffeur my elderly parents back and forth to Chicago to be with us. I was grateful for my bond with my sister. No matter how vastly different our lives and the lifestyles we have chosen, we have always found common ground. I was grateful for the pleasant distraction before returning to working on those various problems awaiting me at home.

But here I am, back home again, listening to the rain on the roof, basking in the silence. There is a time for cheerful noise of family gatherings. There is a time for solitude, and no longer dancing around the thoughts and subsequent decisions that at some point we must tackle. Yet the issues that cloud my horizon now are, alas, not all mine to solve, and much of it requires the hardest task I know .... to let go and to wait. Wait for the answers others provide. Wait for resolution. Wait for decisions out of my hands.

Up to me is how to respond once the waiting is over.

A text blips on my cell phone, announcing that my daughter has returned from her trip to Colorado, safely home again. I wait for her phone call later in the day to tell me about her trip, and I wait for the phone to ring again, from my son. A mother's heart ... always circling around her children, no matter how far they may be, how grown they are, still, as my own mother reminds me, still and ever our babies, our heartline, even when the child grows gray.

Raindrops streak down the window. My old chow pup slumps on the rug by the sliding door to the backyard, dreaming of romps on a drier day. I watch him raise his handsome red-furred head to gaze out the window, take a long dog sigh, then rest his soft muzzle on his paws again.

I think about something I heard a few days ago from a supervisor at a hospital emergency department during an interview for an article I am writing. Holidays, she said, are the hardest time of the year for very many. While the media would like to present it as a happy time, a time of celebration ... and the retail businesses as a time of sell-ebration ... that tends more toward myth than reality. Statistically, she said, there are more suicides and suicide attempts during the holiday season than at any other time of the year. More depression, more domestic violence as tempers and disappointments flare, more broken families. Even heart attacks and strokes increase as bodies break down from stressed spirits.

How sad, I think. And how disconnected from those raging sales mongers and messages of joyous Noelle. Once, so very long ago, it was meant to be a season for reaching out to touch others and to open our hearts and share our most loving selves ... it was a time to remember the value and meaning of spiritual communion rather than a blitz of shopping. The whole point of Christmas was to remind us that material things will not save us, but love toward our fellow man will. How did we lose our way?

Something about holidays makes our hurt places surface more than at other days of normal routine, I think, and the myths perpetrated by elf-riddled movies and glowing advertisements of limitless bounty only make it worse, the disconnect that much sharper edged, for those who have not. The holidays tend to spotlight the imperfections in our lives. Rather than focus on all that we have, the contemporary version of Christmas emphasizes all that we do not have: perfect lives, fat wallets, mountains of gifts, and relationships spread with honey. All things perfect. Not. And so the suffering becomes keener, hearts break and tempers bust and bodies break and lives shatter.

We just don't want to consider all that. It doesn't glitter. Another image comes to mind: I recently saw someone on Facebook pass along a post that read, "I am allergic to negative people." Really? Meaning who exactly? Those who are in pain? Those who are worn out? Those who may need a hand up? Those who have lost their smile, their hope, their way?

Perhaps in that one line we have summed up all that has gone wrong with this season and with this society all year round. We prefer the myth to reality. We prefer distraction to contemplation. We prefer stuff to substance. We prefer an artificial happiness, achieved without deserving. We prefer to live in a state of ignorance, because at least momentarily it feels like bliss. If we are enjoying a moment of personal happiness, we want to shut the door on any possible reminder that others may not be.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. It's blessing will carry me through hard times I know will yet arrive. It was a glorious time to absorb the positive, feel its warm embrace around me, giving strength and courage to work through the negative. There is a season for all things, and a time for all kinds of emotion. Eternally positive people in my book are escape artists, maybe even con artists, picking and choosing some emotions while repressing and suppressing others.

The holiday season should be for us all. Those of us with imperfect lives need a holiday, too, and I'm pretty sure that means all of us. It should be a time that opens community-wide arms to welcome the sad as well as the glad, the homeless as well as the wealthy, the 99 as well as the 1, the old and withered and ill as well as the young and beautiful and vibrant. It should be a time that gives new hope to the well situated and lucky as well as those down on their luck. After all, the lucky today may very well be the unlucky tomorrow.

If life were fair, we would all rise up on our good deeds and hard work. Life is not fair. Never was, never will be; it is the nature of living. Sometimes, too often in fact, those who do everything right can have everything go wrong by chance and circumstance. We turn away from that hard fact to our own peril.

Sometimes our days are surprisingly warm and mild, but some days it rains. We lean against the rain-streaked window, energized by good times spent with those we love most so that we can be available to share our strength when it is most needed. I missed my babies this past Thanksgiving, but I am thankful that their mere existence so enriches my life. Mary, hear my prayer. You know what it means to lose a Son, to watch Him suffer and be able to do nothing. Some paths we must travel to the very end. Let us give thanks. Giving thanks, after all, is always a bargain.

Catch Me If You Can

2011-11-17T10:53:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

On my long morning commute to the office, I watch the ominous skies. The sky is heavy, gray, and the clouds with full bellies, hanging low. For a moment, a hint of snow swirls across the road, riding the wind, then vanishes again.

It’s that between seasons time of year, not quite autumn anymore, not yet winter. Trees are bare, leaves fallen, and all the colors seem to have been washed away. It is a landscape of bleak browns and shades of gray.

It’s one of my silent mornings. My radio is turned off, my thoughts free to roam without distraction. The road itself does little to interrupt my daydreaming—in my fifth year of this commute, I know every bump on it. The car very nearly drives itself.

My mind wanders to the novella manuscript I finished a little over a week ago, titled Catch as Catch Can. I am slowly reading it again, trying for that objective eye, and making edits, marking places to be rewritten. Once I finish this first set of edits, I will hand it over to a dear friend who is also a writer, my “first eyes” that I trust for suggestions of more edits. Then, marinate. Set it aside for a month or three, to take it up again later and do another rewrite, a final polish before beginning submissions.

Art takes time. I love giving it that time, and only wish I had more of it to give. I gaze at the highway stretching ahead, a line leading to a horizon that I never reach. It is, in fact, the topic of my novella. I have called it my fantasy autobiography. The narrator is a woman just past the midpoint in life, longing for a freedom she can’t yet attain. Like so many of us, she wears golden handcuffs, imprisoned by financial constraints and obligations, coupled with various emotional ties, not yet able to pursue her fondest dreams—to head north into the wilderness she loves, toward a life of being a fulltime artist.

Not yet.

Only that’s where the story takes a twist. Driving this same highway, gazing at the line that leads toward a horizon she never reaches, her frustrations toss her into wishful thinking for the entire 55 miles between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids—home and office. What if she were to keep going? What if she missed her exit?

You know, accidentally on purpose.

I watch the miles pass just as the woman in my story watched them. Milestones along the way cause her mind to reel with the possibilities. Will she or won’t she? Does she give in to this delicious madness? Or does she squelch the impulse and continue to build toward the moment?

I sense her sitting beside me in the car. I can feel her rising tension in her struggle to make the right decision.

I recently had a conversation with another writer in Kalamazoo about the role of healing in art. We’ve all heard it: writing is therapy. Whatever ails us, putting it into our writing can help us to cope. Developing a storyline around our tangled thoughts and emotions can help unravel them and put them right again.

For the same reason, writing can be dangerous.

I’ve put my fantasy into this novella. One such frustrated Monday, heading in to the office, what if I accidentally on purpose missed my exit, exit 84B … and just kept going? Would the world swing off its axis and crash? Would my house in Kalamazoo go up in flames? Would I end up a homeless bag lady living off dumpster scraps?

Of course, I don’t have a crystal ball and I cannot tell the future. Yet in writing Catch as Catch Can, I’ve explored various scenarios. I’ve chased down many “what ifs” and played out a number of possible outcomes. The dangerous part is that in doing so—I’ve put quite a few of my real fears to rest.

I will give my future readers a hint: the world does not swing off its axis and crash into oblivion. It keeps turning.

If many artists, in whatever medium, work their heartaches, their daydreams, their frustrations, their hopes and dreams into their art form, many do indeed find some measure of healing in the process. The writer I recently spoke to about healing in art is finding his way to closure of an open wound he’s carried inside him for 15 years.

If writing is therapy, bringing healing, it can also be a launching pad.

When I get to my office (at least on this morning), I look at the yellow Post-It note I keep pasted to the wall above my desk. Every morning, I tear it off—with relish—and write a new one, minus one day. Today, it shows the number 4,575. That’s how many days to retirement if I keep my head firmly attached to my shoulders, fulfilling all my requirements and obligations as sensible people have advised me to do before finally unsnapping those golden handcuffs and tossing them in the wastebasket. I look at it before I take up my first project for the day and whisper to myself: “Be good, Z.”

The novella was my way of giving in to the fantasy early. I’m pretty sure, although not entirely positive, that I won’t give in to that fantasy next Monday. Or the one after. Having played out the variables in my head and on paper, however, gives me a growing sense it won’t take 4,575 days either.

I don’t know when it’s going to happen. As many possibilities as I have explored in these 30,000 words, I know I have not explored all of them. The possibilities, after all, are infinite. Yet a writer must be careful of what she writes—more than once, in hindsight, I have found that I have paved a path with my words and written my own future.

Zinta Interviews Author Michael Loyd Gray on WMUK Radio

2011-11-14T19:12:00.000-05:00

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WMUK 102.1 FM (Kalamazoo's NPR affiliate) radio interview on air Tuesday, November 15, at 7:50 a.m. for a short version ... the extended interview link available here. Michael Loyd Gray talks to me about his newest novel, Not Famous Anymore, and a different kind of writers and book addicts group he wants to start in Kalamazoo.

Michael Loyd Gray

The Arts and More program short version (second story up).

The Smoking Poet interview with Michael, Winter 2010-2011 Issue.

WMUK Arts and More programs.

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There’s a Tree on My Roof—and It’s All Good

2011-11-11T15:53:00.000-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

My son was hanging out in the driveway when I got home from work. He looked like he was just out there enjoying the first stars of the evening. It had taken me a little longer to get home from work, as high winds had tossed me around on the Interstate all the way home. He waited until I got out of the car, pulling my briefcase off the passenger seat.

“There’s a tree on the roof.”

I blinked, looked at him, took in his perfectly calm, slightly bored countenance. Nothing rattles that guy.

“There’s a tree on the roof,” I repeated after him, trying it on for size, then looked past him at the roof of the house. It was dark already, but I saw no tree.

He nodded his head toward the opposite end of the house. “Over there.”

Uh-oh. He’s serious. I dropped my briefcase next to the car and followed him to the other side of the house. Sure enough, there was a tree on the roof. The tree on the west side of the house had not been able to resist a dance in the high winds and had taken a topple across the roof, splitting the soffit, cracking the roof along its middle, knocking over the chimney.

I pursed my lips, then let loose a long sigh. That was a new roof, just installed a little over a year ago. Ruined. Then again, hmmm, yes, that was a new roof, just installed a little over a year ago, and if it hadn’t been, considering the condition of the previous roof, that tree could have been decorating my living room. For all of that nasty crack down the middle of the roof, what looked like split rafters, the new roof had held.

My son and I stood side by side for a while, looking at the tree on the roof.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Oh,” I shrugged. “I’ll find something. I bought some smoked chops from that farm this week, grass fed.”

“Pig is pig.”

“Oh, but this was a happy pig, rolling in mud and sniffing fresh air in the barnyard.”

“Potatoes?”

“Sure.”

He went back to work in the garage, and I went inside to sizzle some pork chops. Those manly appetites, I thought, those keep us on an even keel no matter how big the storm.

Filing a claim online came next. Paying out the deductible would ouch a bit, but this was one of those moments when it made sense to have good home insurance. I prepared myself for a number of phone calls, papers to process, tree service and roofer calls to make, but all in all, my perspective was positive.

I’d been to hear a talk at work during my lunch hour that day. It was a talk given by Ridley Barron, a minister who now talked more at hospitals and seminars than he did at churches. He had a special story to tell. About seven years ago, on a day like any other, Barron and his family—three young children and his wife—were in the family van driving across town. Someone ran a red light. At a high rate of speed, that car ran into the side of the Barron family van. The entire family suffered injuries, but his wife died while still in the car, and his youngest son, only 17 months old, was seriously injured, although expected to live.

What happened next made this tragedy almost unbearable. Between making funeral arrangements for his wife and checking on his other children, Barron visited his little boy at the hospital. The little guy was suffering but the prognosis was hopeful. When Barron left his little boy in the hospital, he never thought that would be the last time he would see him alive. That is, he would see him again, not long after, when a hospital staff person would call him back, but at that point someone would be massaging the boy’s heart through an open wound to keep him technically living until his daddy arrived.

It was hard to listen to that story. A hospital error—a pharmacist who mistakenly prepared an adult dosage of medicine for the toddler that would instantly stop his heart when administered—had taken his tender young life. He’d survived a horrific accident only to succumb to a tragic mistake. Barron now had to bury two family members.

The story was not just to make the audience cry—which it did. As we listened and watched the slides of the sweet, smiling faces on the overhead screen, we heard a story about healing, about forgiveness, about keeping hope alive when everything is falling down on your head.

Ridley Barron was able to forgive that pharmacist the very day that her mistake took his son’s life. Knowing that she had made an honest mistake, not a malicious one, no doubt helped. He was a preacher, after all, and if there was ever a test of faith, well, this would surely qualify. I imagine there were darker moments, too, when that human shadow side we all have must have won out, at least momentarily giving him doubts, making him wonder “why me?” and pour all the rest of human emotional chaos over him that we all surely suffer through when we take such a hard hit in life.

Today, he travels across the nation talking at hospitals about how to prevent such errors, how to treat patients and their families during such testing circumstances, and other valuable lessons of life. It was an hour well spent.

That hour also gave me great perspective when I got home from work that evening to find a tree on my roof. The roof had held. No one was hurt—although my pets were awfully happy to see me come home and give them reassuring snuggles. I can only imagine the noise they’d heard that day.

It was all just … stuff. Housing materials. Money. Sure, I’d miss that cash that had taken some time to save, but it was, after all, only money. I’d heard once that if you consider a problem in life, if it can be solved with money, even if you don’t have that money on hand, it’s not really a problem. That’s a bit simplistic, especially if you are without the cash, but I get the point. I have lived in poverty, and yes, folks, money does indeed buy happiness. It buys freedom, it buys opportunities, it buys peace of mind. If you’ve had to do without, you really learn to appreciate that.

I’ve also learned to appreciate true values in my life. I don’t care about fashion. I drive an older car with 135,000 miles on it. I live in a humble little house. I don’t own a big-screen TV. I’m working hard to achieve zero debt. I can spare that deductible. I am blessed.

I have a tree on my house, and what I later learn are four cracked rafters and 14 feet of ruined soffit and a bashed up chimney and a roof that is pretty much snapped in half—but it’s holding over my head while I await repairs. I also have a son sitting down to dinner with me, a daughter living not so far away whose life is in full bloom on all fronts, parents who are hanging in there even as the years roll bigger and bigger numbers over them. I have excellent health. I have work I enjoy. I have a network of friends that add sizzle and snap to my every day. I have my pets to snuggle. I have a fresh, new book manuscript to prepare for submission. What else? Oh , a long list yet …

I’ll miss that tree. It gave my house shade in the hot summer. Next spring, I will plant another, and return the blessing. I appreciate trees.

I appreciate all the many moments of life. Each one could be the last. You just never know when a car might come racing through a red light, or a tree fall from the sky. Today matters.

A Woman’s Best Friend

2011-11-07T12:26:00.001-05:00

by Zinta Aistars

How can I resist that face? That rusty orange face, muzzle turning white with accumulating years, liquid brown eyes that gaze at me with utter devotion—my old chow pup, Guinnez. After a good run through the muddy woods or a roll in a pile of leaves, he becomes my Guinea Pig. But no swine, this. Guinnez has the loyal chow in his blood, the black polka dots on his tongue as proof, but the pink on his tongue point to, I would guess, a Golden Retriever tossed into the mix. The chow’s more reserved personality is tempered with the lick-your-face sweetness of a Golden.

Guinnez and I have been together now for about 11 years, give or take. I found him at the Kalamazoo animal shelter, a rambunctious young pup of almost a year, still growing, with a red ruff around his neck that by now he’s almost lost. I was told he was a runaway, and I’ve always wondered if his wonderful tail that should have nearly completed a circle above his back being instead cut off at about half its fluffy arc might have something to do with it. As friendly as he is, he is very suspicious of the male gender, expecting the worst (and declaring it loudly) until he learns otherwise, yet with the female gender he is much more trusting. Stories of his life that I will never know and can only guess to what those learned reflexes might reveal …

As for my son, Guinnez bonded quickly enough with him, and worships him beyond all others. The two speak to each other without words and without barks, and when my son leaves the house, Guinnez will slump against the door, waiting, waiting, waiting.

This time I invite him to the door with a jingle of his leash, and he comes running. Such enthusiasm! If we humans could sustain such … and that’s only part of why I like taking him for walks. His immense enjoyment of the world around him is contagious. He makes sure I don’t go too fast to miss it, dragging me back to take a deeper sniff of this clump of grass, of that tree trunk, of the sign post, of the scrunched up wrapper tossed aside. He always stops to smell the roses.

Guinea and I take daily morning walks before I go to work. That means pre-dawn, sometime around 5:30 a.m., when the world is still dark and mysterious and silent. Silent, until I begin to hear all the noises, watching the dog’s velvety ears perk up to form perfect triangles as he leads our march. They bounce sweetly as he trots along to catch up with the rabbits that so often bound across our path. He hears it all, scents it all, his nose lifted to the breeze or snuffling right up against the earth. I always wonder what stories his nose tells him of who has passed and how long lingered and why. When he takes too long, I give him a firm tug, but sometimes he finds a scent so intriguing that he’ll flatten himself against the ground when I tug on his leash, giving himself full weight. Like it or not, I have to wait, and often those are the moments that I catch sight of all that I might have otherwise missed … the rabbit sitting still against the tree, the fallen toy on the sidewalk, the twirling leaves falling slowly, slowly from the tree, the morning moon reflected in the puddle.

On this Sunday, we head to Asylum Lake Preserve. I haven’t been there yet, goodness knows why, as it is just two, three miles from where I live. I’ve always meant to stop and explore, and today, we do. Guinnez has his damp nose pressed to the glass of the car window as we park the car. He bounds from the passenger seat into my lap, between me and steering wheel, waiting for me to open the door and set him free. I can hardly breathe with his weight against me. Such impatience! I tsk, tsk, and he touches my nose with his nose and I can’t help laughing.

Out we go. And the day is beautiful, a cool autumn day of clear and mild sun and expansive blue skies. Many of the most colorful leaves have fallen, leaving trees bare, but enough remain to give us a canopy as we enter the woods. Sun slants through branches overhead. One of the Asylum lakes glimmers deep blue between the trees. Guinnez tugs on the leash to reach a new smell under the crisp leaves … I tug on the leash to pause for a moment and take a picture. Looking at the photos later is like taking the walk a second time, and sometimes seeing new detail I missed when I was there.

Such a fine day has brought out others, humans and dogs. Guinnez greets all pups politely, even the tiny black pup, baby Lab, bounding and leaping around him and between his legs while he waits for her to calm … so hard for her to do. He pays his respects to the German Shepherd-Husky, allowing approach, then coming in a step to touch noses. The two of them circle and turn tails to gain more history, I suppose, or whatever that may tell them. We owners trade words about fine weather while the dogs have their own conversation.

I want to pause longer at the lakeside. I squat down to take photos, the tall yellow grasses and cattails and floating leaves across the surface of the water, until Guinnez loses patience with my dawdling and gives me a firm tug, landing me with rear into soft, muddy ground at the edge of the lake.

“Aw, Guinea Pig!” I whine and brush dirt from my pants while (I swear) he sniggers, lips drawn up in a doggish grin. Who's the piggie now. I make a face at him, and he comes up to lick a broad wet tongue, pink and black, across my face as I twist to rub my backside. “Yeah, yeah, forgiven, love you, too.”

On we go, stopping again to watch ducks bottom up, mallards swimming in lines across a smaller lake. We stop to pick up leaves, check for frogs among the reeds, dance in another slant of sunlight. We lose track of time and wish all days were like this—when time disappears because it is so full of meaning. I wouldn’t trade our companionship for any other. This is our bonding, our shared enjoyment of the natural world around us, each of us tugging each other into the world as we see, hear, taste, feel and perceive it.

I can’t imagine taking such walks without him, my old chow pup friend. When we sit for a while in the milkweed to rest, Guinnez pushes through the tall grass for a moment and lifts his handsome face to the sun. His muzzle glows white in the spill of warm light. We are both growing older, aren’t we? I can’t bear to think of someday being without him, but I know that day will come … as it came for all his many furry predecessors, each bringing their own share of miracles into my life. The Malamute, the Husky, the calico cats and the tiger striped, and the tuxedo barn cat, Tommy, that a little while ago was still around to be this dog’s best cat buddy, and mine. I suspect we both miss him equally and think of him often.

My life would be barren without these animal companions. My house, too quiet. My sleep at night, too chilled without their warmth pressed up against my side. My lap, too empty without my cat curling up while I read a good book. My heart, too shallow without their unconditional love to press it large.

Without my old chow pup, I may not always remember to keep my face turned toward the sun.

My stone portrait of Guinnez

Catch as Catch Can

2011-10-30T13:50:00.001-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

The Battle Creek Book Club

Catch-as-catch-can adj. Using or making do with whatever means are available; irregular: made a catch-as-catch-can living doing odd jobs.

"At 54, you'd think my days of delicious impulse and dizzy madness would be over. The truth? I suspect they've just begun."

I'd read just that much from my novella-in-progress, titled Catch as Catch Can, and the four women of Shirley's book club in Battle Creek, Michigan, convulsed in laughter and went into immediate chatter.

"You're reading to the right group!" Shirley laughed.

I thought so, too. This was a grand way to give my fresh new manuscript a test run. I figured this group was as good as any and better than most, representative of what I guessed was the high percentage of contemporary American readers: female, middle age to older, educated, lively and curious, and maybe just a tad prone to impulse and dizzy madness now and then.

I'd read to Shirley's book club a year ago for the first time, and it was most enjoyable. I'd read from my novel-in-progress that time, and their response was encouraging. It was hard to keep up with such long works, however, when I was working full time, commuting on the road for two to three hours a day, managing an online literary magazine, helping to manage my father's artwork, and a grocery list of other interests and pursuits.

Among those interests was a recently purchased Kindle. I've been enjoying it more than I had expected. Although it didn't mean giving up traditional paper-bound books (I'm as much a book purist as most literary fanatics), it was a great way to expand my library, make it portable, save a few forests, and trim my lifestyle toward my goal of simplifying and downsizing. As I'd been expanding my electronic library, now up to 182 books contained in this slim apparatus, I'd made the discovery of the Kindle Single. These are short stories, essays or novellas, ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 words.

Hey, now this I can handle! Bite-size novels! If I wrote about 1,000 words a day, I'd have a first draft down in about a month. And 1,000 words could be written over a lunch hour, even on an early morning or later in the evening when I came home from the office. Doable.

I set aside my novel manuscript, took a break from it, and started in on something new and fresh. Not only that, but this could be a way of writing as therapy, working out my Monday morning frustrations as I began yet another work week in an office that, in spite of all the good things I can say about it, still wasn't the log cabin in the Keweenaw that I so fiercely desire.

So began Catch as Catch Can. A novella that lets my daydreams take shape, at least on paper, electronic paper as the case may be. I call it "A Short Novel of Quick Escape," or I simply refer to it as my fantasy autiobiography. One of the book club women really liked that one, so maybe that's what I will call it.

I expect to be done by Thanksgiving with my first draft, then let it "marinate" for a month or so, work on an edit over the holidays, and perhaps, all literary gods lined up on my side, ship it off to that board of publishers to await their decision.

No matter what that particular outcome, I realize I may be playing a bit with fire here. The last time I completed a novel manuscript, I was astounded a few years later to find that I was living substantial portions of it. It dawned on me that I created characters that I then met in reality. How was that possible? Power of suggestion?

We discussed this a bit at the book club reading. We discussed, too, the power of Home, and our common love for nature. We talked about Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We talked about being midlife runaways. All of these play important roles in my fantasy autiobiography.

Shirley had cooked a delicious breakfast for the group, and so body was nourished along with spirit and mind. It was how we had met, in fact. Shirley has a small farm in southwest Michigan, where she raises free range chickens and turkeys, fields of strawberries and raspberries. All of which eventually find their way into my freezer, into my oven, into my mouth. I would leave the book club with a dozen brown eggs and a very large and heavy turkey, ready for Thanksgiving.

That, and much to think about. I was having more fun writing this novella than I'd had in a long time. Words were flowing, scenes opened up with ease, even as I knew that at this point, nearly halfway in at 13,207 word count, I was about to enter into some deeper and darker shadows in the storyline. Giving into impulse was one thing ... staring up close and personal at the consequences was another.

And I still have no idea how this story will end ...

.

Mist, Art and a Clean Kill

2011-10-23T15:29:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

I'm not sure how it is that the more I believe in, and try to move toward, a simpler and cleaner life, the busier my schedule seems to become, the more expanded my days. And yet.

Ironically, signing up for an outdoor tai chi class is a part of that effort, but it meant my Saturday would be jam-packed with activity early beginning to late end. I confess, I grumbled a little when my alarm went off on a Saturday morning at 6:30. Technically, when compared with my workday, that IS sleeping in ... nevertheless, it was still dark outside and sleep beckoned like the sweetest seductress. How soft that pillow, how warm that bed ...

Once I pulled into Lakeview Park in Portage (Michigan), however, to meet the tai chi group on the very edge of the lake, I was won over. Chill as it was, just one degree over the freezing mark, I felt blessed by the autumn morning. How beautiful ... the white frost crystallized on every fallen leaf, on every blade of grass, and over the lake, rising a soft mist, a mysterious fog toward the white sun on the horizon. Tender pink tendrils of light floated over the lake. I almost forgot to offer a greeting to the tai chi group as I joined them, awestruck as I was.

There were five of us. All smiles, all rosy cheeks, all ready to go. Ed was our instructor and stepped to the forefront, his back to the lake, so that I had trouble keeping my eyes on him rather than following the arc of flight of three cranes gliding over the misty water. Lee tossed me an extra pair of his warm knit gloves, pulled from his pocket ... good soul ... and we lined up to begin that ancient and graceful dance. Perhaps mine was not so graceful ... it's been a couple years since my last class ... but when I remembered a move just right, a thrill ran through my body. This was why I was so drawn to tai chi rather than one-two-three, one-two-three forms of exercise. This was a dance, a reverberation and reflection of the surroundings, looking for that place where I was in tune with mind, body, spirit ... and that wondrous lake, the rising of the sun, the settling of the cranes on earth again, and with the two swans now gliding silently across the water.

The hour went quickly, and my companions left to rejoin their own days, but I wandered the edge of the lake even as I was conscious of the clock once more ... in two hours, I would have a guest arrive at the house. Still, how to resist this? Standing at the end of the pier, leaning up against the railing along the dock, watching, listening, melting into that rising mist ...

Home, a quick change of clothes, a quick brushing back of my hair and sweeping it up out of my face, and already Alda was here. It was just a smidgen past a year since we had traveled together overseas to spend a few weeks in Latvia ... place of our ethnic roots, our rich heritage. For Alda, it had been a first trip, one that she said had changed her forever. For me, it was a return trip, one of many, this time after a too long absence of 17 years ... and a pilgrimage of healing.

Marking that anniversary, Alda wanted to choose a painting from my father's artwork, a painting to remind her of the many birches we had seen throughout Latvia, turning golden in autumn. She wanted to look at it hanging on the wall in her home ... and remember. My father, artist Viestarts Aistars, had many such paintings, oils and watercolors, but had especially for Alda painted a new series ... birches in every season. The greens of spring and summer; the golds of autumn, the pale white trunks against the blue light of a winter scape.

After a short chat, the two of us headed across town to my parents' house to look at the paintings. Mom greeted us with lunch, a tray of dark bread with various toppings, Latvian style. Then it was downstairs, to my father's art studio, and I helped to bring out the paintings, lining them up against the wall in the next room so that Alda could make her choice.

A stricken look came over her face. She sank down on the floor, stretched out her legs, grew silent, her eyes moving slowly from painting to painting to painting to painting.

"But I want all of them ... " she moaned.

I chortled a little as I brought out more paintings; I'd seen that effect before. On my own face, too. How many paintings hung in my own house? I'd lost count. I liked a small house, but with minimalist living came the problem of wall space when the heart longed for a gallery of images into which to fall into dreams, into memories, into longing, into all those magical moments that art provides us. Who can explain it?

My parents and Alda fell into conversation; while they talked, I brewed apple tea for everyone and brought down a bowl of grapes, a plate of pastries. Oh, I'd heard all those stories before that the three of them were now trading ... I wandered back into my father's studio to peek through his paintings. Hadn't I seen them all a thousand times before?

But no. What's here? Shelves stuffed full of blocks of watercolor paper ... wait, no. This wasn't just watercolor paper, untouched and white. These were finished paintings. Stacks upon stacks of them, oh my, and here were years, decades of treasure ...

I started bringing them out for a better look in the other room, where the three chattered. They grew silent behind me as I arranged the paintings.

"Where did you find those?" my father asked.

"But I thought I'd seen all your work," my mother puzzled.

"Oh no," from Alda. "What are you doing to me?"

Because one of the watercolors was a study of dunes, dune grasses, the edge of pale lavendar water blending with sky just beyond. Alda had lived most of her life in Holland, a small town on the edge of Lake Michigan, and the image resonated. She scooted down on the floor again, held the painting up in her hands, then set it aside with the three paintings of birches she had chosen to buy.

Three? Now four?

I went back to the studio, brought out another stack. I brought out oils, too, men and women in Latvian folk costume, gorgeous women in dreamy poses, reclining nudes, waterscapes, landscapes, seascapes, flowers, and then an abstract watercolor of thin grasses on a dark background, their tips blown to seeds like tiny explosions ...

"Oh my," I heard Alda breathe behind me, and she took the painting of the exploded grasses and set it aside, the fifth one she would buy. "I will be paying you for these for the next several years," she crooned, laughing, pleading for mercy.

Alda and my father, artist Viestarts Aistars

But I couldn't stop. I couldn't. This was discovered treasure. This was opening the door to my father's life, going back years, decades, watching the changing of his perspective, his many moods, his epiphanies, his experimenting, his dreams come to life. He was watching me place the paintings in wonder. My mother's hands sometimes went up to her face.

"When did you ever ... how many are there?"

I brought out more and more, and the shelf was only one-third empty before the windows showed waning light, evening coming on. I had yet another wonderful event to attend this day, a potluck celebration in Shelbyville, by my dear friend, Amy, poet and farmer, my CSA provider along with her farming friend Diane, in conclusion of their first successful season. They had nourished me with their wonderful vegetables and greens all summer.

I brought the paintings all back into the studio and put them away, my eye lingering on the two-thirds on the shelf that we had not had time to view. Alda had eight paintings set aside. I brought one back out to show my father. He had written its title on the back: "Ziemas rits," or, translated, "Winter Morning."

"I'd like to buy this."

"Ziemas rits" or "Winter Morning"

He blinked. I wrote a check. My mother watched and admonished me for offering money, but I insisted. I tire of those comments in our society that an artist must be grateful for "exposure" alone. I knew how hard he worked. I knew the heart he put into these paintings. I'd grown up watching my father come home from work, dog tired, grab a quick meal, then disappear into this very same studio each and every evening to paint. I knew the prices of the paints, the canvas, the brushes, the hours.

I didn't know yet where I would put the painting, but I was pretty sure I would hang it on my bedroom wall where I could see it upon waking and again upon going to sleep. I saw in it my own northern dreams, my love of the lavender blues of winter light in the forest, my longing for the days when I might retire to the northern woods to pursue my own art ...

Alda followed my car in hers as we drove from Kalamazoo through Plainwell by back roads through country rusty with autumn color, then merged onto Interstate 131. I waved as she passed me on her way back to Holland, paintings arranged carefully in her trunk, and I exited at Shelbyville to join my farming friends.

What glorious food, what good and bright faces, what luscious wine, and the laughter of children, lively conversation, as I joined everyone at the long table in Amy's farmhouse. From the art studio, I emerged into another world of the good earth and those who respect it and love it. I was so grateful to these farmers who raise the food I eat and enjoy. I had learned about new foods this summer I'd rarely if ever eaten before, tried new recipes, now routinely making from scratch great pots of chicken soup, tomato soup, ratatouille, spicy turnips fried in garlic butter, baked and stuffed squashes, salads that I woke in the night craving, that fresh, that good, that nourishing.

We talked of the gardens, and we talked about the growing of livestock, the process, from birth to the kill, and what that all involved.

"You know, I never quite know what to answer when I'm selling my chickens at the farmers market," said Jake, who raised chickens and pigs on his farm, "to these people who ask me if these were happy chickens." His eyebrows fly up in puzzlement.

We all burst into laughter. Understood. With the local food movement, there are those good suburbia folk who now seem to envision fairy tale farms where animals frolic and birds sing overhead and butterflies flutter in the stable and ...

... and it's not that such scenes don't take place. But farming is hard and dirty work, Jake explains. And let's face it, he says, we are not "harvesting" animals. We kill. Death happens here. We take a life to sustain our own. It's real.

I ponder this, and I find myself saying to Jake and his wife Christina: "You know, I've long thought about that. That to truly understand this process of life giving life, of taking life to sustain life, I should be aware of it ... face it ... witness it." I struggled to express the thought. "Honor it," I finally said.

"We'd be glad to have you come to the farm when it's time to kill the pig," Christina offered, and I nodded. Yes, I wanted to experience this, as sure as I was that I may find myself in tears ... and yet, maybe not. I wasn't sure, I didn't know what to expect. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do. That to glorify the food I ate every day, that I should bear witness to the cost and the sacrifice.

We exchanged contact information, and I tucked theirs carefully into my pocket.

Well past 9 p.m. when at last I stood with Amy and Diane under the trees in the fast cooling autumn night. I had propped my newly acquired painting against my car to show them ... my northern dream. My promise to myself.

I thanked them again for the evening, for the summer, for the season. I looked forward to the next growing season, even as my freezer now was filled with the vegetables they'd grown to keep me fed during the winter months.

My day concluded at last, driving the 20 miles or so back home from the farm. My mind was filled and swirling with the many colors and moods of the day. The dawn over the misty lake ... the bounty of painted images from my father's life .... the cozy evening of sharing a great meal with my favorite farmers ... the long drive home in the dark. I was tired, but I felt almost overwhelmingly blessed.

"Cabin in Birch Woods," pencil sketch by Viestarts Aistars

Z on WMUK Arts and More: Talking to Author Joseph Heywood

2011-10-17T19:58:00.005-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

At WMUK radio station with Joe Heywood

WMUK at 102.1 FM, Kalamazoo Michigan's NPR affiliate radio station, has invited me back again to talk to another local author for their expanded Arts and More program, now airing from 7:50 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays. That's two arts stories each time. Perfect! I love doing the interviews, just as I love listening to all the other stories on my radio as I drive from home to work.

I think about what local author or artist I'd like to talk to and learn more about ... and a book I recently read comes to mind. It came off the presses just this past September, so the time is right. Joseph Heywood has written the eighth book in his Woods Cop Mystery series: Force of Blood. (See my book review on my other blog, Zinta Reviews.)

And I loved it. Just as I have enjoyed all seven in the series prior to this one. While I am not usually a mystery or detective story reader (with the possible exception of Maisie Dobbs), this series caught my attention because it is placed in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, an area very close to my heart. And, as interesting chance would have it, the author actually lives right here in Portage, in southwest Michigan, just a few miles from me. Joe spends several months each year in the U.P., riding along with real woods cops, researching his books.

So I had plenty of questions. Plenty! And not just about Grady Service, the DNR cop in his books, but also about how he balances his life as a troll (what UPers ... Yoopers ... call those of us who live below the bridge, which is the Mackinac Bridge, connecting lower and upper peninsulas) and turning back into a Yooper again.

Fortunately, WMUK news director Andy Robins was running late, and Joe and I had plenty of time sitting in the waiting room outside of the recording studio to talk about writing, the U.P., and all things interesting to wilderness fans and literary types. I like this guy! I came away with all kinds of new insights into U.P. authors (I have many more happy discoveries to make), about my plans to retire in the Keweenaw (4,406 days to go), and balancing different art interests (Joe not only writes novels, but also poetry, and he paints, too).

Andy came in, all apologies, but I wasn't having it. This pre-interview interview for me had been an absolute treat. Andy brought us into the recording studio, set us up on mics, turned on his broadcast booth magic, and we were off. It wasn't long before Joe had me laughing with his answers. For those of you who live in the greater Kalamazoo listening area, tune into WMUK 102. 1 FM on Friday this week (October 21) at 7:50 a.m. to hear a snippet of our chat. Or, visit the WMUK website (www.wmuk.org Arts and More programming) and hear the snippet, or listen to the entire 16 minutes plus of our conversation.

http://wmuk.org/files/3913/1913/0839/ArtsMore_10-21-11.mp3

http://wmuk.org/files/5013/1913/0900/Joe_Heywood-Web.mp3

The really good stuff, though? After the mics were turned off. Ain't it always the way?

Joseph Heywood will be reading one of his short stories this Friday, October 21, at 7 p.m., at Kazoo Books, 2413 Parkview in Kalamazoo. Force of Blood will be available for purchase and signing. Be there, Kalamazoo!

And, as we walked back to our cars following the interview, Joe promised me a new short story to publish in the upcoming Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Issue of The Smoking Poet, online in December. I can't wait to read it!

It's Raining Slivers of Gold

2011-10-10T21:15:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

I give up! Every morning when I go out on the deck to sip my coffee, the deck chairs are covered with tiny slivers of papery gold, spilling down from the canopy of tree branches overhead. I sweep them away. Every evening after work, I take my book outside to read for a while after dinner, and I sweep them away.

Tonight, I leave them be. Why sweep away such gold? If the autumn sky insists, I will allow.

Golden leaves cover the chairs, carpet the deck floor, spill across the glass table, lace the end table, scatter across the railings.

I sit back on the lounge chairs, seated in gold, and my book rests in my lap, not yet open. Another work day past, a new work week begun. All day I long to return here, to this quiet spot away, to listen to the day fade, the evening rise, and let it all go, let it all go.

These are the evenings we will remember when the winter storms begin, gold turned to silver, and the skies filled with white light. These are the evenings we will long for, so sweet, still warm, the air as soft and gentle as a lover's caress.

Grit, Glory, Invitation

2011-10-03T19:59:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

Something in my core goes wobbly when I don’t commune with Nature for too long a period of time. I was feeling wobbly. Summer is my least favorite time to camp—too many people, too much noise, too much heat. But October? Perfect.

My son had issued an invitation for us to go camping last spring; we’d waited until now. While I have pitched a tent many, many times, my son has come along with me only once—a couple summers ago in July. I wouldn’t have gone in July if the invitation had been from anyone else, but my heart thrills to spend some extra time with my adult boy.

When he was a smidgen of a boy, cute little thing, we had taken a cross-country trip from our then home in Kentucky, across Canada to Alaska, where we stayed for several months before heading down the west coast of the country to California. We were traveling in a 27-foot RV camper. He was 8, his sister was 10. It was a great adventure, one we had planned to continue for perhaps even a couple of years, exploring the United States up close and personal—but our dream trip was cut short when someone stole the RV and took it for a joy ride, leaving us stranded with nothing but the clothes on our backs, our money and belongings (and my cat) all left behind in the RV.

But that’s another story. And I know many people consider traveling and living out of an RV as camping. Not me. It’s a house on wheels. All the comforts of home still attached to you.

To me, camping means getting out there, in the fresh air, in the woods, on the trail, pitching a tent and dealing with the elements. It means using survival skills. It means grit under my nails, picking leaves out of my hair, and several layers of clothing for those nights under a chilly moon. The freedom not to be pretty. Nothing more useless in the woods.

One of the reasons I avoid state and national parks when camping in season is because I can’t stand the crowded conditions, site by site by site, so that you can’t see the woods for the forest of motor vehicles. I wince when I see the RVs roll up, equipped with every imaginable luxury, antennas up for televisions, paper lanterns hung out on their patios, carpet laid down so that, God forbid, their feet might actually touch grass.

An RV made sense when we were a family of four planning to be on the road for years at a time. It wasn’t just an occasional night or weekend out; it was our home on the road. I even homeschooled the kids out of that vehicle. And it makes sense to me when I see elderly couples living that way as they travel for long months where their interests lead them. I rather envy them …

Yet when I pull into a campground, I steer clear. Big, noisy, gaseous.There should be another word for traveling that way—it’s not “camping.” It’s a rolling motel.

When I camp, I want to feel the grass—or snow—beneath my feet (I enjoy winter camping, too). I want to see sky. I want to hear wind whistling in the trees, see them sway in the passing breeze. I want to see a night sky without light pollution, far away from the civilized world. I want to get gritty, leave the good clothes behind, my face clean of makeup, my hair pulled into a ponytail, my feet in my best walking shoes.

I want to know that I can still make myself at home in the wilderness—that I can figure out how to accomplish what I need to do if I have forgotten to bring along some tool, that I can build and start a good fire, cook a meal over it, and spend a reasonably comfortable night with no more cover than thin canvas.

Something about that, nesting in the wilderness, makes me feel better about myself. Brings me back to center. Reminds me just how very little I really need to be happy. In fact, free of all the STUFF of civilization, I inevitably feel my happiest.

I certainly enjoy sitting in a warm house, electricity melting a golden circle of light over the book in my lap, by a crackling fireplace, a good meal simmering on the stove. I enjoy luxuries like most people. Long ago, I enjoyed wearing a long silken gown, too, doing up my hair, slipping into elegant high heels, and dancing away the night in a ballroom of chandeliers and a string orchestra.

I’ve done all that, I have enjoyed all that, and that style of living encompasses its own pleasures. But the older I get, the more I seem drawn to simplicity, to the basics, to what feels timeless and true. Less truly has become more.

I love silence. I love solitude. Time to think, feel, just be. The ballrooms have steadily lost their allure; the woods have become my cathedral.

While I love to pitch a tent and create a comfortable campsite, I don’t plan to live my life that way, either—I long for that small, cozy cabin in the woods for my golden years. Just enough. No more, no less, but every true need met and the others left behind. The longest I have lived out of a tent is for a span of three months, crossing 10 states. By end of it, I longed for hard walls and a solid ceiling over my head.

Life, I think, is enriched when we live it more than one way. In between, I like to test myself to be sure I haven’t lost my edge. That I know how to sleep beneath the stars. That I can be tossed out most anywhere and not be lost.

Every time I go camping, I learn a little more about how to do it better. I have camping friends who are true experts, and I love watching them build their campsites and complete their tasks with utmost ease. I have learned that the right equipment can make all the difference. When I tried to camp in snow the first time, I thought I could get by with my summer sleeping bag and a few extra blankets. No. Nothing like sleeping on frozen ground in a blizzard to teach me the value of a sleeping bag made for winter.

By now, I’m reasonably good at this. I can pitch my tent quickly, I can build the fire fast, get my site set up so that I can sit back and feel the stress of every day peel away, layer after layer. But I can also enjoy having my big, strapping, strong son around to do some of the heavy lifting. Between the two of us, we have our site in good shape for the night in no time.

In fact, what was that he was doing? As I was puttering around getting dinner together, I realized he’d been gone for a while, only now I heard some heavy thudding from just beyond the trees. There he was, rolling an immense log over a thick chain dragging from the back of his car. Log locked in, he got back in the car and slowly drove into our site, the log rolling along behind him.

“Forgot our camp chairs,” he said, getting out again to unchain the log and roll it closer to the fire. “Thought this might do for a bench.”

That’s what I mean. Making do in the woods when you forget something is what I like about these ventures. Nature makes you think harder about how to solve problems creatively.

“That’ll get you a burger!”

His eyes lit up with appetite as the two large patties sizzled on the grill. I wrapped potatoes in aluminum and tossed them into the flames, burying them in embers with a stick. My nod to luxury was a miniature bottle of red wine, just right for a toast to the autumn evening, and somehow tasting that much better in my blue tin cup.

I let him build the evening’s campfire, something he enjoyed doing. Overmuch, apparently. Gathering dead wood from the surrounding forest, he made a stack so high that when it had properly caught, was more a bonfire than a campfire. We watched sparks soar toward the stars in the darkening sky. My son’s face glowed red from the reflection of fire. The old chow pup sat not far away, tongue lolling, watching. His eyes followed my son’s every move—the love of his dog life.

We didn’t talk much. My son spares few words. I didn’t mind. I enjoyed his presence, watching him, his youthful strength, gathering firewood, snapping thick limbs into smaller pieces. The dog disappeared into the brush behind us, only the yellow rope leading us to him. He’d found a favorite spot, hidden, where he could watch the forest come to a different kind of life as the night deepened.

The darker the sky, the more chill the air. From 50s Fahrenheit during the day, now it was dropping toward 30. As time ticked by, I added more layers—another flannel shirt over my denim one, then a sweatshirt over that, then a zippered hoodie, then a jacket. My son stayed as he was.

“Not cold?”

“I’m good.”

“More sweaters and jackets in the car if you need them,” I said, then let him be. He stoked the fire, knocking his head back to watch the rising dance of sparks.

One of the luxuries I did afford myself when camping, at least when it wasn’t a matter of hiking into a site, was to use a foldable cot for my sleeping bag. Sleeping once on frozen ground taught me it was no fun to lie on a block of ice. Living in a tent for a three-month stretch of traveling taught me that pumping up an air mattress night after night was no fun either. And the air in it could be icy cold. The cot, a matter of unfolding and adding a metal bar at either end to hold it taut, was perfect.

When it was time to retire for the night, I crept inside my winter bag, snug as a bug in a rug. The old chow pup lay on a bundle of blankets on a mat in the middle of the tent. On the opposite side my son was on his cot, in his bag, but I wondered that he didn’t bother to zip it …

… and the chattering of teeth and rolling about and the muttered curses told me during the night that it wasn’t working for him.

“You okay over there?”

“Damn cold!”

I turned on my lantern. His bag was unzipped. The extra blankets I’d brought for him had all slid to the floor. He’d taken his lined jacket off before going to bed. Just like home.

“Call the pup over to you. He’ll warm you up.”

The dog was only too happy to snuggle with him. I zipped the bag up around them both, put the blankets over them after telling him to put his jacket back on, hat, too. This is a different kind of sleeping. One doesn’t undress for sleeping on a chill autumn night in a tent.

.. and then felt guilty. I should have coached him better. I didn’t know much about this either when I first pitched a tent. When he was a kid, he’d lose himself in the wild, a wild boy, fearing nothing, and knew how to survive like one. Something lost over the years.

Zippered back in, extra layers on, dog snuggled against him, I soon heard his breathing deepen and slow. Ah good. My mama’s heart settled and I went to sleep, too, thinking how this was just why a person should camp now and then, do without, so as to learn how. To understand what a cold night means …

… and then the glory of a warming dawn. I blinked. Light seeped through the canvas. Morning already. The surrounding woods chirped and twittered and scurried and crackled with the sounds of waking wildlife.

I saw an eye peek out from the other sleeping bag. Dog’s, then son’s.

“Sleep,” I said. “I’ll get a fire going, make coffee.”

No argument from the bag.

The fire started easily. I didn’t even need a match. As I gathered small twigs and first fallen leaves for kindling, the still hot embers smoked, reddened, then caught flame. I whooshed a long breath over the embers and they sparked fully to life.

Another simple contraption I admired: a French press coffee pot. I had a sweet one, just right for one steaming mug. No electricity needed. Two scoops of fresh grounds, pour over the water I’d heated to boiling over the fire, slowly move the press down to filter grounds from water, and there, my coffee was ready. I made another mug for my son. It was luxury simplified.

Bacon sizzling in my cast iron pan set over the fire brought forth life from the tent. Both boy and dog emerged. Both received their share, and fresh eggs from a nearby farm, and bread slices toasted over the wood coals. How is it that even the simplest meal can taste so wonderful under an open sky?

I was in my glory, taking in the morning, but I could see my son was feeling stiff in the joints and sleepy. After another mug of coffee, he shook his head—this sleeping in the cold was not for him, but hey Mom, thanks for the adventure, heading home.

Old chow pup and I saw him off. I was pretty sure I would be camping alone again in the future. I would miss him, but I would also enjoy the solitude. Seems the older I get, the more such quiet times mean to me, the more I need them.

Dishes rinsed and put away, fire died down to embers again, I harnessed the dog and the two of us headed down the trail. Old pup had been watching that trail all evening, wondering, nose tingling with the seduction of strange scents.

Just around the bend of the trail—a lake. Azure and sparkling with glints of glittering sunlight, clear, lily pads floating, and along the opposite shore, tall grasses red golden. How beautiful. I drew in my breath, felt the medicine flow through my veins, the healing of spirit embraced by the beauty of the natural world. Harder to find now, but still here, still here, open to those who take the time to enjoy.

The morning air was sweet and fresh. Colors hadn’t yet started to turn, but for an occasional splash of red, or a spread of melting yellow. We had the trail to ourselves—until my dog’s ears popped up to listen. He stopped to sniff the air. Another coming our way, man and dog, and we stopped to let the dogs bump noses and circle each other, saying hello.

We made conversation while the dogs wagged tails and made friends, but I was eager to find my way back to silence, so that I could listen to the air, the trees, the lake. I cut it short and moved on, even as my dog’s ears flopped down and he tried to tug me back toward the man and dog, retreating in the distance.

We walked, walked all morning, through forest, occasionally down to the edge of the water. I would camp here again, I thought, and soon. Just me and dog. I would miss my son. Maybe I could convince him to give it another try on a warmer spring or summer evening …. but he would have to find his own way, and I mine. You have to develop a longing for this. Open yourself to the healing the earth offers when we are ready. I belonged here. In the woods. In the quiet. Feet planted firmly on the earth.

An Interview with Keweenaw Writer t. kilgore splake on WMUK 102.1 FM Radio

2011-09-29T19:20:00.000-04:00

On WMUK radio, Kalamazoo, Michigan's NPR affiliate:

Poet t. kilgore splake
The online literary magazine “The Smoking Poet” marked its fifth year of publication earlier this year. Kalamazoo resident Zinta Aistars is founder and editor-in-chief . While she receives and publishes manuscripts from authors around the world, in the upcoming issue she’ll feature art from the northernmost tip of Michigan: the Keweenaw Peninsula. For WMUK, via Skype, she talked with poet and writer t. kilgore splake of Calumet. His ties to southwest Michigan include a long teaching career at Kellogg Community College back when he was still known by his birth name of Tom Smith. He read his poem titled “90-Proof Angels,” talked about his move to the Upper Peninsula, where he first settled in Munising, and explained how he decided on his pen name.

t. kilgore splake’s work will be featured in the December issue of the online literary magazine The Smoking Poet.

Listen to the interview on Friday, September 30, 2011, at 7:50 a.m. on 102.1 FM radio, or visit the WMUK website and click the link to hear the interview (4:46 minutes) as well as the full version of the interview (28:41 minutes). Visit WMUK Arts & More.

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Save, Bury or Invest a Blessing

2011-09-28T19:47:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

Yeah, so I was niggling and grumping and bitching a bit the other day. I do that sometimes. Putting in the hours at the office, churning out work like machinery parts, I was writing and editing my way through tall stacks of seemingly never-ending assignments. Hrmph.

The dear friend whose shoulder and ear bore the brunt of this niggling and grumping (poor thing) sweetly sent me a biblical passage about King Solomon learning to take enjoyment from his toil, even when toil was drudgery.

Got me to thinking.

Now, I’ve read that good book more than once, more than half a dozen times. It would probably be a stretch to call me religious. I’m not. But the topic fascinates me, always has, and I have traveled the gamut of spiritual beliefs over my lifetime. Truth of it is, I don’t talk to Him much—I argue. I shake my fist at the heavens, I batter Him with questions, oh and I do a lot of niggling, grumping and sometimes even some pretty ugly whining to those higher powers.

Which makes me think that I am either going south in the afterlife, I am merely clueless and blowing off steam, or that I greatly amuse Him. Ha, she thinks she knows something!

Still, I read that passage and gave it some thought. I get the count your blessings idea. Whatever your religion, or if you have none, it is still a good idea to be aware of the good things in our lives. But this story of King Solomon learning to be grateful for toil he did not particularly enjoy seemed to me to go beyond that. It seemed dangerously near to settling.

From my previous readings, I remember a story about God passing out coins to three dudes. One dude buries his to keep it safe. One dude saves his and earns a bit of cautious interest. The third dude invests his, taking some risk in the process, but comes away from his investments with an armload of coins.

Then the Big Guy shows up and asks for his coins back. The dude who buried his coin to keep it safe got spanked. The dude who cautiously turned it over got an unenthusiastic shrug. The dude who invested his coin and came away with a killing got two Godly thumbs up and a loud cheer. Well done!

What does that say about toiling away at our drudgery work? I get that some days even the best jobs suck. Nothing is ever as easy as it looks from the outside, and all things cost. Those are clichés that hold true. We can expect a blister now and then, no matter what we are doing for a living. Investing our talents may, in fact, give us more blisters than doing anything else.

I like my job pretty well, too—it involves the work I do best, writing and editing, and the more I do it, the better I get, and the better I get, the more I tend to enjoy doing it. Still, it’s not the creative writing that tugs at my heart most, and truth be told, my job is indeed a means to an end—4,449 days to retirement. When I’m done here, I will throw myself hook, line and sinker into the work that I love most. I will follow my bliss.

So often, however, I talk to people who do not like their jobs at all. They are in it for the paycheck. Or mere survival, although appropriate in crisis situations, shouldn't be a lifestyle. Such as these do what they must, no more and no less, and detest every moment of doing it. Their coins are buried deep. I do wonder why so many of us greet Fridays, TGIF, with such unadulterated glee if not a terrific sense of relief.

Should it be that way? Are we just ingrates? How many unemployed would weep for joy at having our jobs, or any job?

It gets complicated, this coin, as you turn it over and over in your fingers. Bury it? Save it? Or run the risk, invest everything you have and go for the treasure?

I was once asked on a job interview what I wanted to gain out of a job. I want to love a Monday, I said. The interviewer laughed and the job offer followed and I accepted it. I did love that job. Stayed with it for seven years. But I still hated Mondays …

I’m pretty sure at this point I am the dudette who is cautiously saving my coin and perhaps doubling or tripling it. I am not, not yet, walking the thin rope of ultimate risk and investing it with all that I have in me. That is, however, my ultimate goal, and I am now paving that road.

Somewhere in all this is a fine balance. Not to be reckless, not to be ungrateful, not to settle.

If King Solomon so hates his daily toil, maybe he needs a good kick and a new job hunt. Isn’t it wrong to waste the gifts and the blessings bestowed upon us? When we love what we do, we do it better, and our good work ripples into the lives of others, multiplying blessings. That I believe.

It could be that I forgot to count my blessings that grumpy day, but a degree of discontent can keep us straining toward that ultimate goal. Discontent can lead to innovation, progress, invention, even revolution. A degree of restlessness can fine-tune our efforts, realigning our paths so that we can end up where we were meant to be.

Rolling in treasure.

If that’s gold coins for you, fine, that’s your thing. For me, it’s a life devoted to my art, at long last diving into it with everything in me, every fiber of my being, loving every Monday and in fact, losing all sense of time. When you have found your line of work, your mission in life, then I believe you lose all track of time. You are driven.

There are still elements of toil. There are still occasional blisters. Yet those less pleasant moments are the outer rim of the moments when we are doing what we were created to do, when everything falls into place, our hearts hum in pleasure and we know our purpose. Suddenly, life is full of meaning. We are no longer working so much as we are living.

4.451

2011-09-26T20:18:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

And counting. Day by day, closer to flying the flag of freedom.

Some time ago, I wrote about shrinking numbers, living a life of simplicity while erasing debt, paving my path toward a working retirement. The more those numbers shrink, the more fierce my determination to reach Zero.

I’m counting 4,451 days to retirement, and that would be the optimum age, without going to extremes (one could work forever, right?), when I could close my office door and walk away into that shimmering, golden horizon, a free woman, a free agent, pursuing my personal dreams and at long last able to immerse myself in my art. So, a working retirement, but working to follow my own heart.

It’s a substantially lower count of days that I have calculated to reach zero debt. Can you imagine? House paid off, not a bill to be paid but for the daily use of utilities, groceries and such. For that, I need only a few short years.

All around me, I see people still chasing Bigness. Big houses, big vehicles, big television sets, big wardrobes, big toys, big bigness. Americans, I just read, are working harder than ever. Or is it that we are simply putting in more hours? I’m still holding to my not-past-five rule, yet I am churning out more work than ever before. I come into the office and focus, hard focus, nose to the grindstone, and the work gets done, no overtime.

After five, I own my life again. And I keep working, only now it is for my own interests. I work on my literary magazine, I work on my writing, I work in my garden, I work on the house and the chores within it to run the household. There is always a long list of personal interests to pursue, and some days the backlog overwhelms me. I will not be one of those who twiddles my thumbs in retirement, wondering what to do. I will be busier than ever.

And yes, I miss play. I get little of it now, driven as I am to reach my goal. I miss time to daydream—it’s a crucial ingredient of creativity.

For now, I’m too busy paving the path to my future. Office hours, that means doing my job as well as I can and doing it with pride. After office hours, that means nurturing my creative arts network that will keep me working once 4.451 rolls down to 0.

It’s not all drudgery. In fact, almost none of it is. It can be a fascinating process to bring one’s life down to the simple and true. Just a few months ago, I was a couple weeks away from closing on a house nearer to the office. I would have rented out my current home. Two mortgages would have settled their weight on my shoulders with their weighty responsibility. The papers were ready, I was approved and all signs were GO. It all seemed to make good sense, only my gut never quite stopped churning. Something about it seemed to be moving me in the wrong direction. It was the direction of Bigness. Just because I could do it—didn’t mean I should.

In the end, it might have all worked out just fine, but it complicated my vision. My vision north, to a life in a small space that would provide me with the basics: air, water, earth, fire. The clean, cool air of northern places; the chilled waters of Lake Superior; the rich earth to sustain me with organic foods; and heating myself by the fire through what a northern friend calls “the long white.” It also meant feeding the fire inside from which comes my creativity, my art.

I don’t like complicated. Looking back on my life to this point, it has all been extremely complicated. A web of intricacies and endless tangents. Too many strings attached. I have always, since childhood, longed for nothing more than to know myself free of obligation.

I know, that will never happen. Some obligations we press freely upon ourselves. I have family, I have friends, I have work that I enjoy, and to these I give their obligatory dues. Nothing wrong with that. I earn my way, and these are the parts of my life that give much back. Call them priceless.

Mostly, I now think about how to simplify, how to minimize, how to strip away to the core, the essence, the heart of a life that matters. I find it’s the best part of growing older—a process I am frankly enjoying—as I cut away what no longer has meaning to me and keep what I have found to be true gold.

White Caps Cottage in Michigan's U.P.

I have found that living in a small house suits me just fine. My house now is about 1,200 square feet, and the cabin I see in my future may be half that. I’ve been saving floor plans, collecting photos on my computer hard drive of what makes me hear that sweet humming inside, calling me Home. A place for everything, everything in its place. Nothing spare but the great outdoors surrounding it.

I have been clearing out any clutter I can find, and that applies even, oh yes, to my beloved books. There’s a reason I bought a Kindle—it already has 170 books stored on it, and that means several bookcases I don’t need. I carefully consider each book on my shelves if it’s a classic for me, if I really want it in that form, and quite a few, yes, I do want as actual books. They bring tremendous comfort to me.

On the other hand, I’m no clothes horse, and fashion means nothing to me. I drive a Honda Civic, bought and paid for, and I plan to have it for many years to come. I’ve been eyeing the appliances in my kitchen with a sharp eye. How many times have I used that blender? My television set is modest in size and at least 15 years old. I consider a future without one. It’s all about downsizing.

I’ve been following the tiny house movement with great interest. More and more people are building truly tiny houses—some are even less than 100 square feet—and enjoying the freedom of living without mortgages, of living in places that require perhaps 20 minutes to clean, of minimizing the chores that inevitably go along with owning Stuff. Some have even put their tiny houses on wheels, moving from place to place as the mood strikes them.

Did we ever really stop to consider that we are working more hours just to own more Stuff that we never have the time to enjoy?

I’ve been reading volumes about those who live sustainable lives, growing their own food in their gardens, bartering with neighbors rather than buying. Fascinating. Even if I’m not sure I will ever go that far, it is a direction to consider. I can cut back. Getting much of my food this past spring and summer from my CSA share in an organic garden halfway between the office and home has gotten me thinking about how much I could cut my food dollar by growing more of my own.

I don’t get those who spout off about organic foods costing more. I’ve never spent less on groceries than I do now—and I’ve never eaten better. My chickens come from a small poultry farm, same place I go to pick berries. My many-colored eggs come from my mother’s hairdresser, who keeps heritage chickens in her backyard. My vegetables come from the earth, grown by two women dedicated to organic farming, and a one-time payment in the spring has kept me fed all these months, with a great stash of frozen vegetables (and my homemade soups and sauces) now in my freezer for the months ahead. I’ve cut out all the middle men, now only picking up my share from these two “middle women” with the rich earth still on their hands.

Indeed, I’ve upped the quality of my surroundings in my mission to Zero. I buy fewer items, but when I do buy, I don’t buy cheap. Cheap never is. I pay for quality, for goods that will last me and won’t end up in a landfill anytime soon. I’ve not only been downsizing, but I have been renovating my little house to spiff it up. Get it just the way I want it for day Zero. Because I have realized that I may well want the option to keep it along with that cabin up north. We’ll see …

Call me an odd woman, but shopping is my least favorite thing to do. I’d much rather be sitting on the rocky beaches of the Superior, gazing into the blue horizon, daydreaming my next art piece. So when I shop, it is for something that is fair trade, good quality, dependable, and of a classic style that will outlast giddy fads along the way.

And then I pay the bill, and I pay it all. The sense of freedom that comes from that is beyond words. I’ve spent enough time in my life counting pennies to know the value of this exchange, goods for cash, done deal. The two credit cards I keep haven’t seen any use in many years. What that feels like: nobody owns me. Someday, I will look at this little house and call it mine. From basement brick to roof nail.

Day 4,451 is coming to its conclusion. One more day I’ve put my time in. I’ve done my work to the best of my ability, and that’s good, and I’m proud of it. Tomorrow I will do it again. Every day I consider my daily routines, consider how to pare them down to what makes good sense and builds something more toward the future. I enjoy where I am today while I build an even better tomorrow.

When I look around, I find myself not alone in this pursuit. If there has been a silver lining to our economic struggles in this country, it is that many of us have reconsidered the way that we live. Many of us have reevaluated the things that we own, the dreams that drive us, the climb up some invisible social ladder leading to nothing more than fluffy clouds that disperse as soon as you near them. We have started to build up our savings again, taking more seriously that rainy day. We have let our credit cards cool in the drawer or cut them up. We have taken another look at that great mansion and decided that it makes little sense to spend so much of our lives listening to our voices echo in expansive chambers. We have taken a closer look at every aspect of our lives—how we eat, how we sleep, what we drive and how far and how often, how we entertain and amuse ourselves, how we remain healthy, how we live as members of a community, a close one and a global one.

From loss and constraint comes something good. Have we learned our lesson? Some of us surely have. Others, well, we all have our own paths to learning, don’t we?

At the finish line, we can only answer for ourselves, our own choices. Have we been true to ourselves? Have we considered the world as something to pass along not only to our children but to the next seven generations? What lessons have we learned and which ones shall we teach?

As long as we live, we must keep learning. For me, the lesson at this time in my life is that less is more. Excess is a burden. When I reach that goal, I want to be so light in my shoes that on day Zero, I can catch wind beneath my long-folded wings. I want to know what it is to fly.

Louisiana Log Cabin Company

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

Play Loose with Joy (Broadside)

2011-09-14T21:15:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

House of Mirrors

2011-09-06T19:23:00.001-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

She laughs. I’m counting the days—4,474—and my daughter laughs, reminding me with an arched eyebrow to enjoy the moment.

“Of course,” I acknowledge. “There’s a balance between not missing today and planning for the future. Although I can get a tad obsessed …”

It’s my favorite topic among several, talking retirement, planning my breakaway, even if it is still a wad of years away and thousands of days. I commend my daughter, newly crossed into her decade of the 30s, on putting away a nice stash already into her retirement plan. I did not have that option back then, and am hustling now to make up for lost time. If she keeps going like she’s going, her golden years will be golden indeed, while still lining the present with silver.

So we chatter, sitting across from each other at a Thai restaurant, walking distance from the Chicago condo into which she is currently moving. She is on the brink of considering forming a family of her own, playing with the thought, while I am gradually approaching the brink (but 4,474 days away!) of making my empty nest cozy for what I hope will be easier days. We compare dreams.

We are in vastly different places in our lives, and I consider how different we are, mother and daughter. It amuses me, that this old country girl (me) has produced such a vibrant city girl (my daughter). Are such things genetic? Her father was born and bred New York City, to the bone and the steel girder, but while I have always prided myself on my flexibility and adaptability to most any environment, my lean has always been toward the green, the leafy, the wide open.

I mostly raised my children on my own, and a significant part of that was out in the country or at very least small city or village, but she resisted the non-urban even then. She longed for that fast pace, the excitement, the constant movement, an endless itinerary with every space filled with action, action, action.

We pay up at the restaurant and walk back home, Chicago streets dazzling with their lights and sounds and not entirely pleasant smells. Chicago—I was born here. It’s in my blood, too. I feel a little thrump of my heart when I first spot the skyline, driving in from Michigan, and I never tire of that wide curve of Lake Shore Drive at the southern bend of Lake Michigan, the endless crashing water to my right, the soaring skyscrapers to my left, the Gold Coast, as I drive in to see her. I do get it.

I just don’t crave it, as she does, as I crave the wild north. I enjoy the visit, adjust my rhythm to the heartbeat of the city in its cemented chest, but then race out again, letting the jagged skyline sink back into the horizon behind me.

We pass the row of cafés and shops and boutiques and restaurants a block away from her home, and here is part of what I do enjoy: the cultural diversity. Walking through the big city can be like walking from country to country, languages on signs changing, cuisine and clothing and goods changing, and for a while, one might think a passport had been involved. We’ve visited neighborhoods that are miniaturized, quick trips to Greece, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Lithuania, Poland, Italy, China … and the list goes on. It satisfies my wanderlust, or piques it for a trip to the true source.

Yet it’s the pace that seduces her, I can see that, as even her step has absorbed it. I used to walk that fast, I think, but no more. Or at least, when I catch myself walking that fast, I purposefully slow. Don’t miss the moment, I think, and leave a little elbow room between the moments.

I treasure these. My time with my daughter is always treasure, moments of sunshine in the every day, sparkle tossed into the mundane. I am always fascinated to learn more about her life and what she enjoys, how she thrives, what makes her tick. She is the greatest wonder of this city, to me.

We lounge for a while in the condo she shares with her honey, gone for the weekend, but our chatter dies down to a slow simmer, then fades. It’s been a long day, a long drive for me, dropping my parents off at my sister’s house on the northwest side of the city and then turning around to head back in again. And it’s been a hot day. That alone saps me. She giggles about growing old herself, ready for bed by midnight, but I don’t buy it.

In the morning, I wake to a view of Chicago brick out the bedroom window. It’s the same view she’s had at her last several addresses, with slight variation in color of brick and its proximity. Sirens flare in the distance, bouncing off brick walls, circling up in the courtyards to slip in open windows. It is the music of the city. The honking of the horns, the screech of brakes, the distant hum and throb of conversation on the streets.

I miss my morning cuppa in the garden, sitting on my deck beneath the canopy of trees, but it passes as I watch her bustle about the kitchen. She is in full blossom, her youth, her vibrancy, her all-is-possible dreams a shimmer that add an almost tangible aura around her. What a wonder she is. Reminding me of my own life, my own youth, my own dreams. She reminds me to be inspired and to believe.

When we sit down in a Swedish restaurant, Svea, for a mushroom omelet and crêpes with lingonberry preserves, two older gentlemen at the table next to us gaze from her face to mine and back again.

“You wouldn’t be related, would you?” one of them chuckles, not expecting an answer. Apparently, no answer is required. My daughter’s coloring has always been light, all sunshine and blonde, and mine had always been dark brunette, but now that I’ve gone white, perhaps we resemble each other even more. I wink at her, mouthing, “Poor you. Lucky me,” and she makes a face at me and rolls her eyes, then laughs.

We eat off each other’s plates, tasting and comparing. The two gentlemen tip their hats when leaving, wishing us a good meal and a good day, and we wish them likewise. We talk about her brother, back home, who had once been my little clone, and she daddy’s girl, but somewhere over the years, they’d switched. He was now the spitting image, as they say, of his father, alike even in gesture, so much so that sometimes I drew my breath in surprise, taken back in place and time. She had grown from resembling him as a child to mirroring a younger me, and in her expressions, I sometimes see my own.

There, that way she frowns a bit when considering the world around her, drawing a line between her brows. Arcing one brow, that was me. And maybe that love of the hurried, maybe there was some mirroring of my lack of patience in realizing favored dreams … counting days, counting days, to get to where I want to be.

Locking up the condo, we head back out of the city and toward the Chicago suburbs, where my sister and the rest of the family wait for us. There I get my fix of lush garden. If not exactly wild, still gorgeous in its taming. Another lifestyle that in no way resembles my own, my sister’s immense and luxurious home in a gated community, yet there you have it … we couldn’t walk down the street together either without someone remarking on our strong resemblance.

Family, yes. We could each move off in our individual directions, develop lives and interests loosely held together by roaming tangents, yet from time to time, we felt the need to reconnect, dabble in each other’s worlds to remain aware. What are you up to? This and that, and you?

I had a sense of my world expanding for our family connections, city and country, wealthy and not so much, married and single, young and aging, and so on and on. We were bonded in our interest in knowing each other’s paths, even if veering off in such different directions.

And for all our dissimilarities, our similarities could surprise. My sister and I have some common interests and tastes that amuse us both. We share a ravenous appetite for mushrooms. One glued to city, other to country, but both with an eye sharply focused on the north for later years. We adore books and trade them, even as our chosen topics can vary greatly. We scare our mother at the family dinner table by how much salt we pour over our food. Neither one of us has much of a sweet tooth, even though both our parents drool over rich desserts.

When we all go for a walk through the Chicago Botanical Garden, I take a path sideways sometimes to observe them all from afar. My daughter, my sister and her husband, our aging parents, my father choosing to take the trails in a rented wheelchair to ease his crumbling spine. We travel those botanical pathways as we travel through life—each drawn to a different environment, a different grouping of flowers, yet constantly checking over our shoulders for the direction taken by the others, and circling back again.

So we move forward, in circles. We are a series of overlapping circles, at one point far apart, then coming around to intersect again. We compare, point out, share what we see, so that none of us might miss what we may not have been drawn to on first passing. One of the joys of family—this expansion on our solitary worlds. If we felt an occasional friction of conflicting opinions or ways, other times there was a tug to consider something we might otherwise have missed. We are tied together by all the ways in which we are alike, but perhaps bonded even more by all the ways that we are different.

My family is my many mirrors on the world and back onto myself. The older I get, the more I appreciate this passage of reflection. They catch the light in angles I might not have, so that I don’t have to miss it, not entirely. They expand my reach even as they keep me rooted. My children gift me with a sense of immortality, watching my own features appear and reappear in many variations. Here is eternity, here is the absence of death’s sting. My elderly parents see life go on in us, their lives, too, same yet different. Life is constant change, life is endless variation.

We hold our mirrors up to each other to know ourselves better. We hold our mirrors up to each other so that the light never fades, only changes its slant across the garden path, leading ever onward.

The Open Empty

2011-08-30T19:36:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

I’m always feeling it, needing it, but never more than now, when space has become so packed, time spread so thin, so that my mind feels caged and claustrophobic, and my spirit bangs around inside me in silenced scream.

I need open, empty space.

That place, that space, that comes between chores, errands, obligations and duties.

That place, that space, that appears between busyness and rat race.

That vast emptiness that the uninitiated refer to as boredom, but the wise ones recognize as space to dream. Here, creativity unrolls the red carpet and invites a beautiful madness in. Vivid dreams, more than a little mad, intoxicated with possibility, dance here, in that great empty ballroom with dusky lighting.

Yes, dim those lights and let me dream. Sit by the fire with legs outstretched and arms hanging loose over the arms of the chair, in decadent sprawl. Head thrown back to stare at the sky. Shape clouds into flittering butterflies, fire-belching dragons, mustachioed tyrants and leaping sheep, caped bullfrogs riding on their woolly backs.

Let my fingers sink into sand and play. Play as children do. Build mansions in the mind that crumble into snaking tunnels that open gates to kingdoms.

Let me wander in the woods, dodge slants of sunlight, pocket odd mushrooms and acorns, gather wild things in my arms, recognizing kindred spirits. See the shadows of gnomes coming out of hiding. Hear the creatures speaking in languages I suddenly recognize.

Where is that empty place where I can finally exhale?

Where the responsibilities end. That finish line. There. Free. At last, free to wander and look for treasure.

I know it’s here somewhere. I buried it myself, long long ago. A more hopeful self, a dreamer with ocean waves shushing in my ears, a scoundrel, a rascal, a tomboy.

Let me climb trees. Tall ones, scraping skies, wide-shouldered, those ancient oaks where I can sit far out on the limb and dangle bare legs, mosquito-bitten. Sing from the belly, roar from the heart, as if no one can hear me. As if everyone can.

Where is that time for nothing? That precious, sweet moment? Fallen off the calendar, swept off the clock, unrecorded by the stingy time keeper. Stolen and luscious.

To do nothing, nothing at all.

That sorely needed, longed for moment when I am needed nowhere, by no one, set loose like dandelion fluff to swirl on the drunken breeze. Unshackled prisoner, run! Dog chewed through his leash, run! Moth sliding through the crack in the lid of the jar, fly! Spark rising from the bonfire toward the night sky, circle, spin and away!

It’s in that space, in that place of the open empty, that new wonders are born. Tasty thoughts. Craven ideas. Elegant epiphanies. Flashes of stunning and rock-busting revelation.

All this crowdedness, this cramped busyness, this chasing chore to chore, knocking off to-do lists, churning out orders and projects and more, oh enough. My brain is overfull.

I long to wake up and have nothing to do. Not one thing. So that I can finally begin to discover how life was meant to be lived. In the expansive luxury of the unowned and unowning. When I grow quiet enough to hear whispers again, to go where it softly leads me.

Weekend on Deck

2011-08-28T19:09:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

At last, at long last, the sweltering summer has cooled to something bearable. Much of this summer has been my time to hibernate, withdraw from the outdoors into my woman-cave, and I have longed to return to fresh air and the gentler breezes of a summer waning.

Summer has been my least favorite season for many years now, as the climate has turned increasingly to extremes. Too many days of 90s-plus, the air thick and milky with humidity. News announcements tick off deaths of those who have no air-conditioned reprieve: heat exhaustion, heat stroke, dehydration. With heat index added in, a great many days this past summer have been into triple digits degrees Fahrenheit.

So I've become the summer recluse. My camping trips take place in the other three seasons, including winter. I'm counting days now to my upcoming escape to the woods in mid October. By then the summer tourists will be gone, the woods will be quiet again, the air will have gentled and cooled, the nights with a crisp edge.

Oh, I long to be outdoors again. At last, a hint of it ... the summer releasing its sweaty palms and letting go, little by little, letting go. At last, a Saturday that I can be outdoors again and enjoy.

I hit the raspberry fields on Saturday afternoon and pick three pints full. My favorite summer berry, and for this, I forgive summer much. I have real whipping cream at home, waiting. And my kitchen counter is stacked with summer vegetables, ready to prepare and process. Tomatoes by the dozen, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, jalapenos, basil, patty pan squash. It will be a weekend of cooking, I think.

But when Saturday evening comes, I take my break. This past work week has been brutal. Indeed, it has been for some time now, chipping away at a mountain of writing projects that seem to multiply as fast as I can dig through them. I'm tired. I'm worn to the bone.

Setting a bowl of just washed berries in front of me, I settle my bones onto the patio loveseat and toss a few logs into the fire pit just as the sky dims to that dusky hint of evening approaching. Jig, my old cat, and Guinnez, my old chow pup, settle in with me. We are all feeling it ... the need to draw a deep breath and release.

The fire catches quickly. A ribbon of curling smoke, a puff, then sudden flame. Sparks burst into a flare, and the logs crackle and spit. I sigh.

Not so bad here, really. I've been chomping at the bit for some time, talking north, talking escape, planning those still so far away golden years. It's the fatigue. Work, work, no room for play makes a Z squirm and restless. Keep those numbers trim. I've consulted with a new financial adviser in the past week ... can it happen? Will I ever be free? I can be, he says, with discipline. For this, I do not lack it.

Yet there is just so much one can do in a few years time when most of my adult working years were so lean. I'm trying to be realistic even as I refuse to entirely quash a dream. For now, to ease the way, to provide some reward today while I work for tomorrow, I gift to myself by gifting to my house, providing comfort and reprieve.

Such as this corner on the newly painted deck. I've created a cozy corner, and the trees and shrubbery have grown in just the right places around the backyard, so that when I sit on the loveseat, not one neighbor has a view of me. I could almost imagine myself in the woods already.

The night deepens, and the cool edge to it is delicious. I've longed for such evenings. Legs outstretched, I lean back and sip a cool something and gaze up at the stars, a glimmering between the ceiling of tree limbs overhead, so thickly leafed now I almost can't see the sky at all. There is no moon anywhere.

Glass empty, I bring out my laptop, plug it in to the deck extension, and boot up a movie channel. I pick a foreign film, French subtitled, an autobiographical documentary of director and photographer Agnes Varda, called The Beaches of Agnes. The story unfolds, the elderly Agnes walking backwards on a beach as she returns to the stories of her childhood and young adulthood, her first forays into photography. I'm drawn in, amused and enchanted by her story, and the night draws in around me.

When it's done, I'm not. I still want to sit in the cool of the night. That cooling air, it's a caress. And I love this night silence. I sit long after the last ember has grown black.

On Sunday morning, I'm back out again. Another gift, this pleasantly refreshing morning. Yesterday's just picked raspberries add fresh flavor to my oatmeal. I'm still in my robe, a blanket tossed across my lap, the morning is that cool still, and it makes me smile. Long time coming. I've had cabin fever, and now I can't bear to go inside.

Only long enough to make a dent into those summer vegetables. Amy has sent a recipe for her tomato soup, and I know it's incredibly delicious--she's served it to me. Now it's my turn to make it. I cut her recipe by almost half, just enough to put some away but mostly so that I have some for now, this week, perhaps to serve some guests.

I don't like tomato soup. At least, I thought I didn't, until I tasted Amy's. Campbell's, what travesty. I blanch a dozen sun-ripened tomatoes, mixing types, including some heirlooms. The skins pop off and I put those into compost. I chop up the skinless tomatoes, celery, onions, peppers, and toss in fresh basil. A bit of flour, butter, brown sugar and salt, including some of my oak-smoked sea salt, and it thickens. Now a loaf of fresh, crusty bread, Irish butter, cheese made by The Cheese Lady in Texas Corners, just down the road.

Just then my parents stop by, as if called and drawn in by tomato scent. I seat them on my patio loveseat and serve. They moan with culinary delight and ask for more.

But then the patio is mine again. The world draws in to become my little corner of it. There are so, so many things I should be doing ... so much work awaits. I only give it this: a load of laundry, dishes rinsed and put into the dishwasher and set to humming, but then I'm out again.

I'm reading The Winter Diary by t. kilgore splake, and I can't help but see the similarities, even if there are so many opposite paths. I think this book has come my existential way with supreme timing. Nesting as I am, planning as I am, fingering dreams to see which ones will, should, can hold, and which ones pack away, I am reminded by this story of my own chafing spirit.

A few days ago, I shared a Guinness--delicious! first of my approaching-longed-for-fall season--with Andy Robins, news director of WMUK, Kalamazoo's NPR affiliate, and his sweet wife, Dorothy. We talked ideas for the station's expanding "Arts and More" series. I told Andy about splake and his ties to Kalamazoo, and it seemed a good fit. I'll do an on-air interview with the Keweenaw writer sometime in September, connected by Skype on the northern end with me in the radio booth here in Kalamazoo. We're working out the details now, but I'm already formulating the questions in my mind as I read The Winter Diary ...

... and wondering how many of those questions will really be my own dream-ghosts itching in, as splake would put it, my brain-skull cavity, and in silenced screaming protest of, as he would put it, rat bastard time. Stealing mine. Oh, to be in the woods, deep into the cool green silence, and hear one voice only, of that old tease Muse. What writer, what artist, doesn't dream of it?

All life working, toiling, toward that freedom that for too many, somehow, never comes. I'm determined not to let it get away in the trivia of the every day.

.

Nesting Instinct

2011-08-23T21:22:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

The last time I recall having this intense of a nesting instinct, I was nine months very pregnant. We had just moved south from Michigan to just outside of Cincinnati, across the Ohio River and on the Kentucky side. I’d never lived in such a big house, but there was no time to be dazzled. The clock was ticking, the calendar pages were flying away, the due date was approaching—there was no time to spare. With hubby at work in his new job, a newly minted chief of a department overseeing 800 employees, he was gone, gone, gone, and I and my round belly were the only ones in the new house to unpack and make it Home.

It took some interesting belly gyrations and heavy-load tricks to paint the new nursery, unpack stacks of boxes, and arrange the house just so. I worked at a frenzied pace, fierce in my determination. I wanted it all to be ready and perfect for our first baby. And it was. And she was.

But that was a long time ago, a long way away, in a marriage that has been long over, and I am oh too wonderfully far into midlife to be growing that kind of belly.

So what’s with the nesting instinct?

What is it, who is it, that I am preparing to birth now? Paint brush in hand, dabbed all over with dark brown paint—autumn brown, states the can, hardly a nursery shade—I am coating the deck walls and railings with a fresh new coat.

This, after a long list of other home repairs and improvements. With much gratitude to my handy son, all grown up baby #2, my bathroom is now entirely renovated, from repainted ceiling down to new porcelain floor tiles and vanity. One of the bedrooms has been renovated; the others have been prepped. The living and dining rooms were gutted and redone a couple years ago. Landscaping has transformed the front of the house.

After 14 years—count ‘em! 14!—of having a non-working dishwasher in my kitchen, I bought a top of the line new machine for my son to install. I’d forgotten it was there, felt no need, but now that I had this new purring appliance, I couldn’t be more delighted.

A renovation of the downstairs bathroom has just begun, the family room soon to follow, and I have been eyeing that living room carpet and thinking … new hardwood floors? a gas fireplace installed on the freestanding wall?

What gives?

I let the paintbrush drip into the paint can for a moment to access my progress. Just a few months ago, I very nearly bought a new house closer to work. Two weeks from closing, with the seller giving me an opening with his reluctance to make the repairs my home inspector had pointed out, I did a quick backpedal. I walked. I recommitted to my 110-mile daily commute—oh, it’s not that bad!—and starting showering my current house with gifts instead.

And it’s not just the home repairs and buffing up. Something else has been going on with me. I’ve been cooking up a storm of garden fresh vegetables and farm-raised meats into delicious meals, freezing many for a winter day to come. Every Friday, I stop by Harvest of Joy in Shelbyville, an organic farm run by my friend Amy, gardener and poet extraordinaire, and pick up my CSA share. Every Friday, I bring home a tote full of tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, sweet peppers, green onions, eggplant, broccoli, basil, dill, zucchini, salad greens, kale, turnips, beets, snap beans, cantaloupe, until the bounty spills in vivid color across my kitchen counters.

I think I’m going to have to buy an extra freezer. All week I cook and prepare, marveling at how good food tastes when it’s this fresh. What I can’t eat, I stash. Great pots of water boil as I trim beans to blanch, then freeze. My eyes water from slicing and dicing jalapeño peppers to freeze for autumn chili. Dish after dish of diced green onions are stacked in my freezer to use in those weeks when the garden will lie fallow.

Am I feeding an army?

No, just me. And my visiting all grown up babies, and my dear friends, and my much beloved family, and that special face waiting so patiently at the brand new front door to come in, please come in and be welcome!

Yet I am struck with how much I resemble a squirrel, padding my nest with a comfortable lining, storing away a stash of yummy nuts for the winter, scampering this way and that to get all ready.

Ready for what?

All my life, as long as I can remember, I have longed for Home with a capital H. I have always found myself in various degrees of Home in many different places, notably on this shore, the United States, as well as on the Baltic shore, in Latvia, where my ethnic roots go deep. That still remains so. And for all my moving about during my life, I have left pieces of myself in many places that I’ve lived. I have roots in Cincinnati, where both of my children were born, but in some ways even more in the Keweenaw, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where wild beauty resonates in me in ways I do not feel anywhere else.

I still can’t say where the coming years will take me. On many travels, I’m sure, although I’ve been exploring nearby places more than the beyond and distant yonder in the last few years.

Certainly this house here, now, the one where I’ve lived the past 16 or so years, is not nearly the best of them all. But it’s mine. I am dutifully paying it off. If it little resembles today what it once was, it is because I have been infusing it with my own personality, my own joie de vivre, expressions of myself in terms of art and color and mood, mementoes of those other places I also love, and of those many people who matter to me.

What all that swirl comes down to … is that I can create Home wherever I am. Because no place is perfect. No one place holds me entirely. Every place on earth is temporary. Why not make this one its very best and most suited to me?

Even as I watch the world swirl around me. Such madness. Debates about debt and default, world markets crashing, housing markets diving, retirement plans turning to smoke, what’s a middling old girl to do? Slow down and get my acorns in a row. Make the best of what I have. On one hand, dressing up my nest to be as nice as I can make it. On the other, paying off all debt, trimming those numbers down to zero, so that the madness need not affect me.

If I was nesting then, those decades ago, in preparation for the birth of a baby, I seem to be nesting now for the birth of a retirement nest egg, complete with nest. Haven’t I worked toward this end all my roller coaster life? I see that golden place ahead, even if it is yet many years …. but I want to plan now, be ready, have my winter stash safe in its bounty.

Funny, it suddenly occurs to me—what I am doing is a combination of cuts and targeted spending. I am investing and saving, but I am also spending to build a future. It takes both approaches to get it right.

I dip my brush in the paint and cover one more board. The night is coming on, getting too dark to really see what I am doing. Time for rest. The old deck is looking sharp. I visualize the new fire pit, the patio chairs and sofa with welded coffee table to hold my book and chilled glass. Ah, those warm and breezy evenings … I am sure I will enjoy many to come, right here, creating the perfect place for them. Eventually, this will become a sun room, with windowed walls, but until I save for that, this will be exactly right.

Just as there is no Mr. Perfect, I’ve discovered—there is no perfect Home. We need to bring it to ourselves, create it around us, own it, make it ours. Sustainable, reasonable, beautiful, peaceful. Wherever we are at this moment in time.

Fine Silken Stitches

2011-08-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

Working it, working it, trying to thread this dang thread through that dang needle, squint, blink, squint ... wait a minute. Flashback. My vecmamīte, my Grandmamma, asking me, little Z, to come thread the needle for her, because my young eyes are better than her old eyes ... oh, I miss her. And my young eyes.

Does anyone sew anymore? I had once owned a sewing machine, long long ago, when I was a young wife and all things seemed to flow so easily from my hands. I would sew dresses for myself, and a dress I sewed for my mother, a summer shift of light white material with tiny sprigs of green leaves, still hangs in my mother’s closet these several decades later, even though she no longer wears it.

I knew my dresses would never compete with those that my vecmamīte would sew. Her perfectionism was legendary. She would at most glance at a pattern, but freely design the dress herself, combining fabrics, adding flourishes, revising the angle of seams and darts, until it was entirely her own. Down to the final stitch, just so, and if something struck her wrong, she would sputter in fury and pull out the thread, unraveling the entire dress and doing it all over again.

Until every stitch was just right. Her work was exquisite. When I attended a party, a dance, a gala affair in my younger days, I would wear the dress she had sewn for me, especially for that particular occasion, and I felt beautiful.

My family would travel across the country—to New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Chicago—to Latvian Song Festivals, or I would attend Latvian Youth Congress every November, and these gatherings would take place in grand hotels, drawing hundreds if not thousands of Latvians from across the country, even from across the ocean. Ballrooms lit up with crystal chandeliers, orchestras played, and couples swirled in waltzes. Women wore long gowns and the men were in dark suits, elegantly cut. And I, I was a tomboy turned princess for the night by the magic of my grandmother’s hands.

My vecmamīte made that all possible. I never saw her attend any of these dances, although she would tell me tales of her own youth, the dresses she had worn, the dances she had danced …. all cut short by the war. She was still a young woman when her family became refugees, living in barracks for displaced persons, wondering if they would ever see home.

She never saw Latvia again. The English language would always be difficult for her. She would look out from the windows of her little house on Elkerton Street in Michigan, her heart hammering in her chest, and wait for the Bolshevik troops to come and get her, tear her away once again from her life and her family.

I wondered if those tiny, fine stitches helped to keep her new life together. Out of ugliness and brutality, she would create a new life with her family, and she would sew beautiful gowns.

As I stood in her living room with a new dress draped over me for a fitting, pins prickling my skin at every seam, she would step back and gaze at me, up and down, head to toe, turning her head this way and that, looking for a fault in her work. When the dress was ready at last, I would try it on and swirl in front of her so that she could see the way the fabric would flow across my young body, how it would drape my lines and compliment them.

If it looked the way she wanted it to look, she would step back, her hands held together as if in prayer, tucked beneath her chin, and press her lips into a smile. Her blue eyes would shine, and mist over a little.

Tu esi skaista …. you are beautiful, Zintiņ!

Because she made me so. Her love sewn into every tiny looping of the thread, cut into the bias, tucked into the ribboned trim, folded inside the hem. I would dance for her, my vecmamīte, in those beautiful ballrooms.

I no longer attend such galas. My paths seem to lead me now more often to walks in the woods. And still I hear her, see her in the slant of sunlight in those great green rooms beneath the trees. And I see her now, sometimes, when I look in the mirror. Now that I have let my hair go white, it reminds me of hers, snow white as she grew older, in glowing soft waves against her lined face.

Now that I thread my needle to take up a hem, I think of her. As her years accrued, she would call me to her to thread her needle when she had trouble seeing its tiny eye. Tev ir jaunas acis, Zintiņ, you have young eyes, will you thread this for me?

When she died, we held onto her old Husqvarna sewing machine for several years. It was a beautiful machine, black and decorated with gold swirls, powered by a pedal below it that she pushed back and forth with her foot according to the speed she desired. But none of us had the time or wish to sew. I abandoned my new Singer machine once I graduated from college. Eventually, a small shop in Chicago that collected vintage sewing machines bought the Husqvarna and put it on display in their window.

Her dresses no longer fit me, nor I them. Those ballrooms have faded into darkness, the tinkling of crystal has the distant echo of dreams. My grandmother is seamed into my heart, with fine silken stitches. I finish my hem, loop the thread and bite it off, just as she did. I tuck my hands beneath my chin as if in prayer, counting the stitches, and smile, because she is so beautiful, her glowing white hair like a halo, her bright blue eyes, her laughter to see me dance and the dress she’d sewn swirling around me, the fabric come alive.

Bringing Home the Bacon, Cooking Up the Love

2011-08-08T19:14:00.001-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

This little piggy went to market ... this little piggy was only for a moment tempted to stay home. Another humid and hot Saturday, but I was getting an itchy brain from staying inside all summer, avoiding the intolerable heat. And, my sister had come out for a visit from Chicago. I wanted to show her a good time and share a growing passion (pun intended).

My plan was to make this Saturday a foodie day: early morning at Texas Township Farmers Market, including omelets for breakfast, made for us on the spot; a stop in Shelbyville as we headed north from Kalamazoo toward Grand Rapids (Michigan) to tour the Harvest of Joy garden where my weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) share is harvested for me weekly; a quick turn east to Middleville to find the local meat market and butcher shop I'd read about recently in The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather; back north again to Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids; a late lunch somewhere in the city before heading south again, topped off with ice cream at Plainwell Ice Cream Shop in Plainwell, just before returning to Kalamazoo ... and maybe stopping in to check out the grand opening of People's Food Co-op as we rolled back into town.

Diane Glenn in the Harvest of Joy garden

My sister had been hearing me go on and on about eating local and eating organic for more than two years now. The whole family had observed it, my expanding knowledge on the topic and with that, my hardening insistence that I eat this way and this way only. Sure, now and then, I crossed the line to the dark side when going out for dinner with a friend who was less rooted in the cause. But recently I'd made a scrunchy face of disgust when my mother offered to make a quick lunch when I'd stopped by and held up a canned ham in promise. I couldn't help it. Before I knew it, I'd made a sound of disgust and was shaking my head, no thank you! My mother was used to me by now and took no offense. She scrambled a couple free-range eggs and dropped in a few bits of green onion, fresh from the garden.

Buddy and Amy Newday

Nor was my sister resisting my message, although I suspected she thought I was a bit over the top with it all. She would listen politely, nod and smile. But I wanted her to understand, in part because I wanted to share my delicious discoveries. This food tasted so much better. More than two years, and I was still discovering new foods, heirloom vegetables, intense flavors that had been missing from my table all life long. I had had no idea what I had been missing. I wanted her to have a taste, too.

I prattled on about the better health and nutrition, how bison was leaner and had more protein than beef, how heirloom tomatoes, now bursting into season, offered so many different flavors of tomato than the paltry two or three types available at the supermarket. How factory farms torment animals, penning pigs for their entire lifespans, feeding feces of poultry to livestock and farmed fish, chopping off the beaks of chickens who live out their lives in tiny wire cages, eggs dropping through the wire onto assembly lines. We won't even get started on the use of antibiotics in animals (well, yes, I did).

On and on I went, and one wonders that I didn't ruin our appetites, but when we walked into Texas Township market, I shut up and just let her see it all. Not like she didn't already know. She had long loved farmers markets, too. Both she and her husband were exceptional cooks. Indeed, she'd been the one to introduce me to the wonderful in-city farmers market in Cleveland many years ago, when we both lived there, and I suspect she visited the Cincinnati farmers market more often than I did when she lived there, and I lived just across the Ohio River on the Kentucky side. She'd gotten out of the habit, perhaps, because the suburb outside of Chicago where she lived had only recently started to organize a market.

We sat down at a picnic table in the center of this market with our just-off-the-pan hot omelets, filled with garden vegetables. The day was heating up quickly, although storm clouds had gathered at the edge of the northern horizon. Our totes were filling up fast with salad greens, blueberries, tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, and smoked pork chops from a nearby farm. And cheese from The Cheese Lady, creamy golden slabs of it, and a little tub of chevre goat's cheese from Mattawan Artisan Creamery.

By the time we were on the interstate heading north, the clouds had gathered and broken open. Rain was splattering on the car windshield. Then it stopped again. We took a turn into Shelbyville to visit Amy and Diane at Harvest of Joy Farms. They were in the garden, of course, checking out the Japanese beetles on the pole beans that left both of them in shadow. It was an organic garden, and any sprays that went on for pests were organically made. Mostly, they made do. The garden dog, Buddy, did his best to scare away anything that didn't belong there. Perhaps nibbling bunnies or curious deer from surrounding woods, but Buddy was too sweet to scare away much ...

Then on to Geuke's Market and compromise. I was disappointed to find that their meats weren't from grass-fed cattle, only corn-fed, so I passed on the beef, but did stock up on their thick slabs of their famous bacon. The customer service was down-home exceptional, with a tossed in extra discount for being first-time customers, and that was a big part of why I enjoy buying locally: it's nice to deal with someone who will soon know you by name. In a world that is increasingly connected with technology, many of us can attest to the simultaneous isolation, standing in long check-out lines, picking out shrink-wrapped packages, and never exchanging a word with anyone in those gargantuan stores. Shopping this way, from local sellers, was a way to connect with one's community and make new friends and strengthen old ones. It added to the local economy, helped to keep us all employed, and undeniably nurtured the spirit as much as the body.

By the time we headed up to Fulton Street Market in Grand Rapids, the sky had grown ominously low and dark, and the rain was coming down so hard that I had to slow on the country roads to see where I was going. We didn't fear melting. Out into the pouring rain we went, umbrellas overhead, and couldn't help giggling as we sloshed through puddles. In fact, I noticed most everyone there was grinning in the rain, even dancing a little. Farmers and vendors were still selling their produce, and we were still buying.

There, the heirloom tomatoes I'd been craving. I filled a bag with them, every color, striped green, chocolate brown, blushing red, golden yellow, orange. A round loaf of dill bread, baked that morning. Cream-top milk from Moo-ville Dairy, plus a bottle of their buttermilk ranch dressing. There was no comparison between these and store-bought.

Our skirts soaked and sandals squeaking wet, we escaped into the Erb Thai restaurant on Wealthy Street for our late lunch. Hot and spicy curry on a rainy day, just the thing. At least the temperatures seemed to be cooling from the downpour ...

... but once the skies cleared, the heat began rising again. My sister and I shared our dislike for the heat of summer, both longed for a cool autumn, even a white winter, but the bounty of gardens made this a season we could still enjoy, if only through our palates.

A foodie day, but after a tour through Russo's deli on 29th Street, picking up a couple bottles of Michigan wines, we couldn't resist Schuler Books, another shared passion. I held myself in check, books crowding me out of home, but my sister came out with five books in her hands, and a gift of a tee-shirt for me with Thoreau's Walden on it, a log cabin by the water.

Ice cream, then, icy cold, that will do! Made right there in tiny Plainwell. We stopped at the little brick shop and made our choices. Rum raisin for me, with chocolate chips and coconut for my sister. We licked those cones as slow as the ice cream would allow, savoring.

Daina in ice cream bliss

A quick stop at People's Food Co-op and I found the organic blueberries I'd been seeking. Five pounds of berries to eat now, freeze for later, bake into muffins and toss into morning crepes.

By the time we were home again, the day was spent and so was our grocery money, totes full and coolers loaded. Enough here to keep us fed for many weeks, freezers stocked. I couldn't imagine spending a day at the mall, a place I hadn't visited in many years, or wandering the aisles of a supermarket as an enjoyable pastime, but this day had been fun beginning to end.

I made BLTs with the just-baked dill bread, the thick slabs of smoked bacon, leafy greens and juicy slices of heirloom tomatoes. We enjoyed raspberries, strawberries and blueberries with Greek yogurt for dessert, and settled in to watch a movie for the evening, sipping Michigan wine.

Sleep came sweet with the patter of summer rain on the roof ...

... and Sunday morning almost too soon, but with another fun day planned in Saugatuck, we gulped down hot coffee and brushed aside sleep. Our parents arrived soon enough, and Dad's van was big enough to take all of us to Lake Michigan, where Saugatuck, artsy resort village, was side by side with Douglas, filled with art galleries.

And again the rain! When the downpour became heavy, we found ourselves exactly at the right spot, between here and there, and ready for lunch. Crane's Pie Pantry in Fennville was known all along this third coast for their delicious pies, fruit picked from their surrounding orchards. Peaches, apples, blueberries, raspberries, rhubarb. A la mode, of course, and warm. The bakery was busy, but we passed through into the restaurant to enjoy sandwiches first, then the pie. Walls were covered with antiques and vintage trivia, toy airplanes from days long gone by hung from the ceiling, and the floors were painted with big bright red apples to keep us on our path to our table.

It hadn't been so very long since all four of us had traveled north together, to the Keweenaw Peninsula for a week on Lake Superior. My sister and I had made it a gift for our parents' 60th anniversary. That was in May. We hadn't traveled together since we'd been children and they were young ... now, we all laughed, we were all four card-carrying AARP members.

As we found out on that trip north, our family dynamics had silvered to a fun level of family interaction. My sister and I were now the ones giving advice, making the big decisions, keeping us from getting lost. Our elderly parents were grateful for us to take the reins.

Saugatuck, Michigan

We all four had lousy memories, and that brought endless laughter. Sentences were started then broke off in midthought, unfinished, minds wandering onto another tangent. It wasn't long before we were laughing so hard that we were shedding tears, just as we had done in May. Fascinating how family changes over the passing of years, sustained in our mutual love for each other, but with ever changing roles, and sometimes role reversal, as we passed through the various stages of life. In many ways, we now sat at this lunch table as equals, and shared laughter as friends.

When my mother opened her wallet later, as we made a stop at a spice shop, my sister and I peered over her shoulder at the photo tucked into the plastic pocket. Our father, but from decades ago. We guessed ... at about the time I was born. Wearing a fedora, hair black as ink, chin leaned thoughtfully into the palm of his hand, wearing a tweed coat, he was gaspingly handsome. "Dapper and dashing," said the store clerk, noticing the center of our attention. He was. And still was, even as the passing years had changed him, as it had all of us.

It seemed now, whenever we came together as a family, we were all keenly aware of how quickly time was speeding by ...

So we treasured every moment, even when our feet hurt from walking up and down the main street of Douglas and then Saugatuck. We checked out all the art galleries, but let my father rest on the bench outside with his walking cane while we old girls enjoyed the boutiques. I showed him how to read on my Kindle, where to push the button to turn the pages. He shook his head with amazement that I had 93 books stored on this slim gadget, easily finding one that would interest him. I told him I could store yet several thousand more on it, and he sighed with wonder. Too much to grasp. He turned it in his hands, as if to find the secret compartment that held within it an entire library.

The rain clouds had long passed, dissipated over the edge of trees beyond, and the skies were blue again. The sun dipped lower. We headed home.

How many such weekends might we yet enjoy? Every moment a miracle. The passing of years deepened that appreciation. We were aware, we were always aware.

And if I had always appreciated my family, a thousandfold so now. I would still wonder at that bond that on a genetic level made us share so many traits. My sister and I love the same foods, both of us are mad for mushrooms, sauteed in butter, and both of us used too much salt, favoring savory over sweet. We both long to lose ourselves in northern wilderness, even as our lives now hardly resemble each other's at all. We can't resist a good book, or even a passable one, choosing to read over television any day. The older we got, the more we seemed to physically resemble each other, whereas when young we had each our own look.

I knew I had inherited several of my father's personality traits, his ease with solitude, the seemingly endless patience before suddenly bursting into flame. I shared his passion for the arts, as did my sister. And the three of us women could chatter and spurt giggles together like girls, while my father would look on quietly, a small smile turning up the corner of his mouth, until, when we would least expect it, he would deliver the one-liner that would put us into stitches.

If I'd taken little notice of such things when younger, I thrived on them now. The weekend ended too soon, but in that speeding time was an element of something that would never change, never tarnish, never grow old.

Dumpster Diving

2011-07-31T15:47:00.001-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

"Wanna go dumpster diving?"

I blink. Now there's a unique invitation for a summery Saturday evening, out on the town. I mean, really. What proud woman can resist such an offer?

Something in me, from youngest days on to these supposedly more sensible ones, I've found it hard to resist a unique offer. Something new, something I've never done before. And this one seemed relatively ... safe?

I pushed aside momentary flashes of imagined images crossing my mind: police flashlights blinding us as a voice from the dark asks what the heck are we doing? or, climbing into a dark and smelly cavern of rotting garbage to step on a live rat or a puddle of unidentifiable mush, or peering into a black plastic bag to find severed body parts, or ...

"Sure," I grinned.

After all, we were all about recycling. All about living the frugal life, no waste, keeping it sustainable, taking care of ourselves and off the grid. I was a long way from that now, but as I rolled my eyes for the past weeks of listening to Washington D.C. waging their pitiful political charades over how to solve our debt problems, I'd had my moments of wondering about my retirement years. Who knows what might happen between now and then? Social Security gone bankrupt, my retirement funds lost in the global market, jobs going scarce, health care becoming the privilege of the wealthy ...

Even while I strove to live a life that leaned ever more heavily toward the environmentally conscientious, using only what I need, paring back the impulsive wants that pass like any itch, and finding ways to use and re-use what I already have. I liked the idea of a simpler life. It was not a life of doing without, I discovered, but actually living better ... and losing the excess baggage that had been holding me back.

"Why not," I said. "So what does one one wear for a Saturday night dumpster dive?"

My diving partner tossed me a pair of work gloves and a flashlight. He wore his on a string around his neck so that his hands were free, and I'd seen him wear a light like a coal miner's once on a band that fit on his head. I'd borrowed it a few months ago when winter camping and dog sledding in the snowy night, and found it most useful to keep the light wherever I turned my head and my hands free.

We lined the car trunk with an old sheet and were off.

Oh, he'd done this before. Knew all the best places, the dumpsters of bounty, clean of food scraps or truly icky stuff. And we dove right in.

I stood by for a while, watching as he climbed in, waist deep, then disappeared. Out flew all kinds of interesting items. Mostly, he sought metal, because this he could recycle by the pound at the neighborhood recycling center. Metal and steel by the pound, copper and electric wiring, all of these caught his eye, and I watched stainless steel pots and pans and cookie sheets fly over the edge of the dumpster, broken fans and decorative grills. A small metal table. Wiring and pieces of pipe. Goodness, in July, a small Christmas tree with all the lights and ornaments still on! He could sell those strings of lights to recycling, he said, for 20 cents on the ounce.

He popped out for a moment, holding out to me like a gift -- a tin box, quite beautifully decorated. Just the thing for a writer: inside were rows and rows of new pencils, not even sharpened. What writer can resist such? I squealed with delight, and then I'd gone over the edge and was fishing for myself. Another box was crammed full of new spools of thread, every imaginable color, and then we found where they came from ... he heaved and pulled free a wooden cabinet with folding leaf, tucked inside it a Sears Kenmore sewing machine.

Four sets of what appeared to be brand new blinds, white, maroon, cream. Why would anyone throw these out? And a burgundy area rug, trimmed with pink roses. Not my style, but not a stain on it. I shook my head. What is all this doing in a dumpster?

I pondered those imagined persons who had thrown such things out. Weary of something before it had even had a chance to show wear. Everything was disposable, everything for the short term. How had we gotten to be this way? No more heirlooms to pass down to our children, but maybe that was the basis for it ... had we stopped believing in a future? Had we gone bankrupt in the pursuit of stuff and forgotten the reason why?

Back to the garage, we unloaded our finds from the trunk and the sewing machine in its cabinet from the back seat. It worked. Opened, the blinds were perfect, not a slat broken, and as clean as if they'd come from a store shelf. Puzzling.

He set about sorting through his finds, putting them into piles by material. Last week, he'd brought in his bins of sorted scrap metal, steel, copper, and walked away with an extra hundred in his pocket.

Perhaps this country is not so bankrupt, after all, in terms of its material wealth. Not if our dumpsters are full of such nearly new goods and salvageable materials. Our bankruptcy may be of a different kind. What had happened to us that we seemed to value so little? Always craving new, newer, newest, a wake of throwaways littered behind us. This year's model whatever to be replaced by next year's model whatever, and then months later, obsolete again. Never satisfied. Gadgets and whirligigs and thingamajigs to amuse for a moment, then be tossed again. Ever searching for the sale that shouted CHEAP but never really finding lasting quality.

In some way, I thought, watching him sort and break down what he'd found, we were doing a service here. Instead of being dumped into a land fill, these items at least would see new use, melted down and reshaped into ... well, a new gadget, I suppose, of some kind that someone somewhere would deem a must-have. Until a newer gadget was made. And I would use this thread to replace a loose button or mend a torn seam or take up a hem.

Even so. The evening had been a bit of a thrill, an odd adventure, a lark, but then, a little sad, too. Even a little tragic. I opened my tin of new pencils and thought it had been a while since I'd recycled words and written a poem ... in longhand.

.

Kindling a Fire of Reading

2011-07-23T12:55:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

It took me years to get to the point of plunking the money down. I'd been watching the birth and development of Amazon's electronic reading device, the Kindle, since it's appearance online. As all such gadgets, it started with a high price, several hundreds, and gradually came down to a reasonable $139.

Temptation itched at the seams of my wallet. I was most curious to try this slim little gadget. What tempted most was the idea that this six-inch, slim reader can hold within it an entire library: 3,500 books in electronic form.

Imagine: wherever I go, there with me, slim as a small notebook, aisles and aisles of bookshelves to suit every reading impulse. A secret library, like that magic closet where a child climbs in, slips between the hanging coats and shirts, to find a secret door in back ... and emerge in a magic land.

Who says there is no romance in technology? Well, I did. Those years of waiting. I kept buying books, adding them to my bookshelves, my rooms lined with them, until they ended up in piles in the corners, on the tables, beneath the tables. Oh, dear.

And then word got out that I write Zinta Reviews, and post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Lunch, and of course, in my literary magazine, The Smoking Poet. And my mailbox has filled with boxes and thick, padded envelopes. From authors, publicists, and even in boxes from publishers, entire seasons of new books, hot off the presses. Oh, constant Christmas!

Even as my house groaned with books, books, books.

Then it occurred to me: I care about the environment. Not only the internal environment of my home, but those glorious green forests ... and I ducked with shame at taking down, surely, a forest or two.

So that was two reasons to consider this new-fangled e-reader ...

The last was the hardest to overcome. See, I am addicted to books. I stand up among you and declare myself: "My name is Zinta Aistars and I am a bookaholic." I cannot walk into a bookstore or a library without emerging book laden. Armloads and tote bags full. I love books. I have always loved books. I will, always.

There is something to be said for the sensual pleasure of holding a book in my hands. Whether it is an old book, smelling a bit musty, held by a thousand pairs of hands and read by a thousand pairs of eyes before mine, or a fresh new book that cracks a little in the spine when I first open the cover.

Would an electronic reader feel like a book in my hands?

Of course not. But it does feel a little like a key to a magic place ...

I finally realize I don't have to give anything up here. A quick browse on online bookstores, and I find that many of the books that interest me aren't available in digital versions. My reading tastes are just eclectic enough that quite a few of the titles that pique my interest require a hunt to find. For these, I go to my favorite local, independent bookstores.

For me, that means a trip to Michigan News Agency in downtown Kalamazoo, a store that has been in that same spot for 64 years, and where Dean always comes over to talk to me as soon as I walk in the door. Dean throws terrific author readings for local and regional authors, and I try to attend as many as I can ... and I enjoy buying a book on the spot and having the author inscribe my copy. Now, that's something I can't do on an e-reader - have my book inscribed.

Or, I visit Gloria at Kazoo Books. The shelves in her two stores are overflowing with gently used books (and some new), just the place to hunt down that old and rare volume I can't find anywhere else. Up in the attic, around into that back room, or downstairs in the basement ... the hunt alone is exciting.

And, let's face it, I love my local libraries. I have several library cards in my wallet. I go to the Portage District Library, where Marsha alerts to me a special book, or downtown to the beautiful Kalamazoo Public Library that won an award for its astounding architecture the year it was renovated. Wonderful literary events abound at both.

So why give up any of this? I can have it all. The moment this dawns on me, I am ready to buy. I order my Kindle.

Funny, how once I make that decision, I am like a kid waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus, dressed in the chocolate brown uniform of a UPS delivery man. I track the shipment online, watching it move from Hebron, Kentucky, to Bellingham, Michigan, then cross the state from east to west, until it arrives in Portage. A text message chirps on my BlackBerry to tell me that the package has been delivered to my door. These are the joys of the world of advanced technology.

I hurry home from the office and grab for the package. It's empty! Oh bless, my son has been by to receive the package, and was thoughtful enough (I have been chattering about my anticipated new Kindle all week) to take it out and plug it in to upload its battery, three hours to presto. When I get home, it's ready for me.

Oooh. Wow. Oh, fun! The screen saver alone is enchanting. I turn the e-reader off and on several times just to view the changing pictures. Like pencil drawings, portraits of classic authors, of long ago scenes, Leonardo da Vinci sitting at his desk, of lions in dens in lazy repose, of great temples and ancient architecture, of fish!

I browse through the online user's manual and set it up just for me. At top of the screen it now says: Zinta's Kindle. I'm grinning. Now to download books ...

Indeed, a shelf's worth are already downloaded. All week I have been ordering up electronic copies of classics. Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Jack London, William Shakespeare (complete works!), Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Joseph Conrad, Beatrix Potter, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, James Joyce, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, John Steinbeck, Fyodor Dostoyekski, Walt Whitman ... and more. And I have spent ... not a dime!

Oh, glory! I feel almost decadent, rolling in good books, books everywhere, only not everywhere ... they are all contained within this slim, light reader. I've ordered a protective burgundy leather cover for the Kindle, so it feels very much like a book in my hands as I read. It takes only a moment to master the electronics. I am skimming pages, highlighting favorite passages, adding bookmarks, sorting the order of my favorite books on my "shelf."

I'm in love. From now on, wherever I go, whatever waiting room I am sitting in, lined up in however long a line, I can relax. Push of a button, and I have passed through the doorway into my personal library, filled with my favorite books and favorite authors. Within minutes, I can shop and add more. I rather hope everyone keeps me waiting ...

And I will still show up at my neighborhood local bookstore. I will still wear out my library card. I have the best of all of these literary worlds, giving up none, but perhaps, somewhere out there in the wilderness, a tree stands because I haven't turned it into a print book.

I will find that tree. Its limbs stretching out to shelter me with a green umbrella. I will sit beneath it, open my e-reader, choose a good book, and settle in for a long read ...

New! You can now subscribe to this blog to receive it on your Kindle the moment it is posted! See Zinta Aistars: On a Writer's Journey on Amazon.

Ordering online for your Kindle is as easy as one, two, Z ...

The Fruits of Summer

2011-07-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

Call me mad, but really, I would prefer to wake to a sparkling white morning, the trees lacy with snow, the ground covered with fluffy white, and those fat flakes falling soft, soft, melting in my upturned palm.

But it is mid July, and the days are searing hot. We have just sweated through days of 90s (Fahrenheit) and the upcoming week promises to be the same. Blistering heat, skies blue and with only an occasional wisp of a cloud, nothing between great gold sun and us.

There are moments that I do enjoy the season. The early mornings or the late evenings, before the heat has grown intense or after it has begun to withdraw, easing toward cool evening. Now and then, that more gentle day, when warmth wraps itself around me with a sweet touch, but not so overbearing as this, like looking into the open door of an oven.

Today is that searing hot day. It cooks. You know the sort, when a cracked egg might sizzle on sidewalk. There is no escaping it. I would hibernate within the escape of my chilled rooms, but I am lured outside.

By what? What could possibly? Ah, the fruits of summer.

My very favorite: raspberries. I've invited my mama to come along to pick up chickens, however, not fruit. Once per season, we take this trek east toward Battle Creek (Michigan), where a friend has a small, five-acre organic farm. She keeps a chicken coop, raises turkeys for holiday meals, and we order up how many we want for the coming weeks, then go out to pick them up, coolers filled with ice.

Who knows what comes over me when we all meet by the freezer filled with plucked and processed chickens, frozen now and ready to transport back to my own kitchen. But I peer across Shirley's shoulder to her five acres, and there, down the slope and up again, just by the tree line, are rows of raspberry bushes.

"If we picked them ourselves?" I hear myself saying. "Might we have a pint? Raspberries?"

"In this heat?" Shirley marvels. "It's too much even for me. But if you like ... "

She hands me a pint container. Mama looks moist and reluctant, a little wince on her pursed lips. She wasn't expecting this.

"Oh, come on," I nudge her. "I'll pick."

She sighs. Reaches for a container. "I'll take one, too."

Shirley allows us to drive to the back of the acreage where the rows of raspberry bushes grow to save us the melting walk. Out we go then, picking fast. But it doesn't take long before I can hear my mother heave a heated sigh and then there she is, shirtless, having unbuttoned her blouse and tied it instead over her head and shoulders like a nun's veil. She notes my grin and shrugs and starts to ruffle through the low bushes, looking for red berries.

I think about childhood summers as I pick. Cooler then, not such a dreaded season for me when I was a child. Picking fruit of all kinds was a part of summer I very much enjoyed. My parents would take my sister and me to orchards, to groves, to rows of cherry trees and blueberry bushes to pick our fill.

I loved cherry picking most. Limbs heavy with bright red fruit, hanging low and filled with ripe and sweet clusters. Such bounty! And the trees were just right for climbing. I ate more than I picked, and by end of afternoon, my belly would ache and my mouth was stained with cherry juice and my knees were raw from scraping bark. And I was summer happy, hanging out near the sky, or so I thought, little tree tramp, girl monkey, leaves tangled in my hair.

Our containers full, sweat dripping down our faces, my mother and I emerge from the raspberry rows and scamper back into my car. I turn the AC up high while my mother struggles to get back into her damp shirt. Shirley is waiting for us.

Popping berries into our mouths as we head home, we quick stop by the store for butter pecan ice cream. Home, my father peeking into the bowl of just washed berries, we put out bowls, the ice cream melting fast, the berries spilling over that cool white glory in bright red, and sit down to eat.

Summer, you are forgiven. For this, one can.

Who Turned the Lights Out?

2011-07-12T10:48:00.003-04:00

by Zinta Aistars

We did. I'm convinced it was us. While the debate still (amazingly) rages on whether human beings have contributed to climate change, extreme weather is on the increase. The fury of storms is in the news on a daily basis now. Tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, earthquakes, blizzards, thunderstorms.

Mother Earth is having more than a hot flash. She's mad.

I don't recall summers being this hot for such extended times when I was a child. I hear others in my age group saying the same whenever the temperatures soar to the mid to high 90s (Fahrenheit) or even well into the 100s. Most of us didn't have air conditioning in our homes or in our cars when we were young. We didn't need it.

Once upon a time, long long ago, I actually rather enjoyed summer. No more. The blistering heat gives me headaches, even if I do now have central air at home and the air conditioner in my car blasting chilled air on my daily commute to and from work. The heat makes me lethargic; my energy drips and drains away until all I want to do is collapse into a chair and let the sweat cool on my skin.

And then the storms come. Again. In February, the ice and snow came, and the horizon was lost in a white blizzard. I lost power at home for three days. I deal with cold pretty well, so I was kewl with that. But yesterday, a thunderstorm crashed through the skies, whipped up winds as much as 80 miles per hours in nearby areas. Trees snapped like toothpicks and limbs flew loose in every direction. I drove home from work to find the power out, again.

The house was still cool from the air conditioner running before, and since it is well insulated, it remained reasonably cool throughout the evening and night. I bought large bags of ice at the nearby gas station and stuffed them into my refrigerator.

Thankfully, I hadn't stocked up on groceries for more than a week, so the loss of food wouldn't be too great, but I fired up the grill and took the steak in the freezer out and set it to sizzle rather than risk its thaw and eventual spoil. Toss in a large potato, tear up some butter crisp lettuce and garden-grown blushing red tomato, and dinner was gourmet. By candlelight.

I don't watch much television, so reading by the window was a pleasant relaxation. After it grew dark, I moved upstairs to my bedroom and lit candles, propped my large camping lantern above my plumped up pillows, and continued to read until sleep came.

So who's complaining? Not this evening, I'm not. The neighborhood is still and quiet, even as the leafy giants fallen in the storm lie across the street, electric lines tangled in their branches. The storm has cooled the air just enough. I watch the dance of candelight on my walls and the ghostly circle of white light on my ceiling from the lantern. Almost like camping out in luxury. I am cozy in my bed and I read until my eyes grow heavy.

Yet by morning this is a tad tiresome. My electric stove or coffee maker don't work. There's just enough hot water left in the water heater to take the quickest of showers. As soon as I climb out to get dressed, my clothes paste themselves to my already damp skin .... the day is waking up hot again. Very hot.

When I head out for my morning walk with my dog, going this time by that nearest gas station to pick up a large cup of coffee, I hear the buzz of generators. Apparently, they don't make those things with mufflers. I can hear them a block away, and there are two, three, four rumbling away on my block alone.

I have generator envy. I'm going shopping tonight for one of my own, because the update from Consumers Energy is that it will take another three days to restore power.

So is this me talking? The same me that longs for a simple life in the woods? Yes, it's me. And I still keep dear that goal of moving north some day to the wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, to set up a retirement household that is secluded and quiet, view of Lake Superior perhaps, or at least some bubbling stream, with wildlife bountiful and television antennaes few and far between.

One arranges a lifestyle around certain needs, and how and where I live now requires more technological advancements. It is one reason why I keep my eyes trained north, to escape all this, but while I am still here, I appreciate the electric current that percolates my coffee and heats my water and cools my rooms. When I camp, I live otherwise, and I camp rustic, in tent and by fire. When I retire north, I will live differently, and my commute to work will have ended with all its assorted obligations.

I wonder sometimes ... someday, will we have a choice of lifestyles? One wired and juiced, the other off the grid? There must be some happy medium. For now, I unplug what I do not use. I keep my thermostat low in winter, no problem. I mow my lawn with an eco-mower. I do that awful commute to work in a fuel-efficient car. I buy LED light bulbs, and I shop locally whenever possible. I stock my pantry from a CSA share, community supported agriculture, all organic.

Watching the ghostly circle of light on my bedroom ceiling, I consider what more I can do. There must be more, because our choices are becoming limited, and these ever more frequent power outages are sending a message as our houses grow still and quiet.

Mother Earth is angry, and she is demanding our attention. We have abused her long enough, taken her for granted. Comes a time when the abused stand up and roar, and I hear her roar now. In the dark and in the stillness, I am trying to listen.

.