May-June 2012 Events!

Kent, Linnea, and Psyche

May 27 Kent, Linnea, Jesse, Hyder, Psyche Saad, Miraal, Najam, Asrar, Aliya, Layla, Humera

Actually, life has been a nonstop series of events since Kent and I returned from India on February 1, 2012.  We almost immediately began working on getting the house and grounds ready for Psyche and Saad's May 27 wedding at the house.  Kent was still working on our main bathroom, building all the cabinets from scratch, doing all the plumbing, electrical, and tile work, too.  In the midst of all this, we had the usual problems around the house -- leaky roof in the workshop, burst sewer pipe in the basement, electrical outage in the casita, and so forth.  I also faced the illness and eventual loss of my dear friend Angela Clarke on June 8, just a little over a week after Psyche's wedding.  The wedding came off beautifully on May 27, as one can see in Drew Schrimsher's lovely video and in various photos on Facebook. Highlights of the wedding.  Immediately following the wedding and the departure of Saad's sisters, their children, and their father, Kent and I flew to Michigan for a short weekend visit and celebration of my cousin Jo Anne Arrowood Swanson and her husband John's Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.  I was then home for about a week before I flew to Boston for the Children's Literature Association conference, where most of my time was taken up by my duties as chair of the very first Phoenix Picture Book Award Committee.  After only three nights home in my own bed, Kent and left in the minivan, driving to Minnesota and Michigan, where we will attend my 50-year Newberry High School Reunion in Newberry, Michigan.  So, here we are, ensconced in the Presidential Suite (!) of the New Victorian Inn to which we were upgraded.  But do not visions of luxury dance in your heads.  This place looks like a slightly refurbished Super 8, although we do have two rooms, and a huge spa tub in the bedroom!

First day of Psyche and Saad's Wedding: Karachi, Pakistan

Incredible day full of beautiful moments, all with my beautiful daughter and handsome son-in-law and his delightful family and with my dear supportive husband, Kent.

Departing!

I can see that writng to a blog on an iPod Touch is not going to be easy.
All is packed into 2 carry on bags plus 2 "personal items"-- a small backpack & a packable tote bag.  We also have a checked small duffle on wheels containing wedding finery and gifts and dress shoes.  We hope we can send this stuff home somehow before we depart from Karachi to India.

We leave for Salt Lake City at 2:15, then overnight to Paris, and on to Istanbul.  Now let's see if I can send this!

Christmas Letter 2011

Christmas 2011

From Linnea Hendrickson and Kent Kedl

Dear Friends and Family,

What a year this has been!  We began with a large party on New Year’s Eve to celebrate milestone birthdays of Kent and our friend Anne Sensenig.

Then, while recovering our “lost” sailboat in Venice, Florida, in February, we received a phone call from Psyche in San Francisco, that she was now engaged to Saad Hasan, whose family lives in Karachi, Pakistan.

Shortly afterwards we got word that Linnea’s beloved eight-year-old dog Bert, while visiting a neighbor, had bitten a UPS deliveryman.  After a traumatic hearing when we returned home, we were able to save Bert’s life by turning him over to the Brittany rescue group from which we’d received him as a pup.  He has come back to visit a couple of times, and we miss him terribly, but not the tension of wondering when he is going to take it upon himself to protect us from some man in uniform.

 In March we took a road trip to the American Pilgrims on the Camino Gathering at the Santa Barbara Mission in California, camping and visiting friends and relatives along the way.  Our tent nearly blew away in both Joshua Tree and Death Valley, and we navigated a snowy mountain pass and torrents of melting water crossing the road east of Ojai, California.

Having weathered (literally and metaphorically) all these adventures, we decided we liked being with each other enough that we wanted to always be together.  So, we began moving Kent’s furniture from Las Cruces to Albuquerque, making many trips in the van and with the Suzuki pulling a trailer, and finally made one last big push with a rented truck.  Moving another whole household into a house that was already completely full of twenty years of accumulated belongings was quite a challenge, but with many trips to Goodwill and Savers, and several listings on Craigslist, we have managed to pare down the excess so that everything we still own is finally stored under cover.  We are still working on the sorting and paring down, and had some challenging fun integrating our art collections.  Only last week did I finally “marry” our kitchen knives, realizing we did not need two Chicago cutlery blocks with three chef’s knives and assorted other duplicates on our crowded kitchen counter.

We were married on April 27, by chatty judge Alice Salcido at the Dona Ana County Building in Las Cruces, with our friends Jeanne and Ross Burkhardt and Terry and Ruth Branson as our witnesses.  After a celebratory lunch at the Double Eagle in Old Mesilla, we departed to the historic Sierra Grande Hotel and Spa in Truth or Consequences, then after one night at home in Albuquerque, headed to Minnesota and Michigan, where we visited numerous family members, including Kent’s sons Jake and Andy, the Philips children and grandchildren, numerous cousins, and both of our brothers.

During the summer, we enjoyed several outings to the Santa Fe Opera, picnics with friends, and a two-week visit, including a trip around New Mexico, with Kent’s three lovely granddaughters Melanie, Rachel, and Vanessa.

In June we thought Kent’s house had sold, but the deal fell through two weeks before the scheduled closing.  We rushed to clear the house because the buyers wanted to move in early, so now it stands empty, and when we go down to check on things we sleep on a foam mattress on the floor and eat at a small folding table and chairs.  If anyone wants a nice three-bedroom house in Las Cruces, NM, please let us know!

We spent the fall working on projects around the house.  Most ambitiously Kent tackled a remodel of our main bathroom, running into numerous complications inherent in working an old, very solidly built house.  We’re not done yet!

We had a lovely mingling of friends and family here for Thanksgiving, and in another week we begin what is probably our biggest adventure of the year – a trip to Pakistan for the wedding of Saad and Psyche in Karachi over the Christmas holidays, preceded by two weeks in Turkey and followed by January in India.  The itinerary is finished, but we are still packing and preparing.

This year I have been especially saddened by war and violence, especially as we have been planning our journey to Pakistan. Not only are we not free to travel as we’d like, but I think about the way war destroys the lives of innocent bystanders as well as the lives of young soldiers.  I worry about the escalating anti-American sentiment and demonstrations we may encounter in Pakistan as we prepare to celebrate a joyous and hopeful union between two greatly loved children from two wonderful families from different countries and cultures.   I cannot comprehend how anyone has ever thought that war is a good idea or a solution to any problem.

With that thought, I leave you with prayers for peace on earth, good will to all, and hope for the future, as evidenced by the transforming power of love in our lives.

Linnea and Kent

We Tied the Knot

We tied the knot! April 27, 2011
Las Cruces, NM

Christmas Greetings 2010

Christmas 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

What a year this has been! Here it is 10 days before December 25, and I am just beginning to write.

The year started out intensely in January, with my work on the Newbery Award Committee, which met for many hours in the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston before coming up with a wonderful array of winning books, including winner Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me. The day after we finished our deliberations, I walked for hours, all over Boston, so glad to be out in the fresh air to wander through history from the Commons to the North End to Charlestown. Later, after the announcements and press conference, I spent time with college roommates Mary Kay and Jane at Jane’s home in Lexington.

When I returned home, it was the first time since I had retired the previous June that I had time to think about things other than work and Newbery reading. In February I went to Ixtapan de la Sal, Mexico (last foreign trip with Ed was there in 2007) for two weeks, a lovely, quiet resort and spa south of Mexico City, meeting friends Herb and Gloria Thompson from State College, PA.

I also began reading about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which when Ed was dying I’d promised myself I would walk. The IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) meetings would be in Santiago in September, so I knew this was the year to make the walk. (I learned later that 2010 is a Holy Year and what this meant.) Initially I had thought I would walk for perhaps 3 or 4 weeks (I couldn’t imagine walking longer), and that I would walk as much of the Camino I could do in that time.

However, reading Conrad Rudolph’s Pilgrimage to the End of the World (see my blog: http://caminobleu.blogspot.com/) fired a desire to begin walking in France. With relatively short notice, and with Susan, who lives in the guesthouse, agreeing to look after “the farm” while I was gone, I gathered some guidebooks, bought a backpack, made plane reservations, and flew to Lyons, France, on April 10. I began walking on April 13 from Le Puy-en-Velay. I was frightened and alone. No one spoke anything but French, and the weather on those first days was cold and snowy. Walking 20 and more kilometers each day with a pack was hard, and I slept long hours at night. My head was full of thoughts as I walked: of friends and family past and present, of life and death, and of Ed. Sometimes I cried, and sometimes I laughed with joy. I also felt full of gratitude that I had the health to do this walk through such incredibly beautiful country. I learned to live with the unknown, and trust that I would find my way and a place to eat and sleep each evening. Despite the language barrier, I made friends. After about 10 days, the weather improved, and I experienced the joy of walking in the glorious spring countryside. I also met Lisa from Germany and Steven from Flanders, and we became a Camino “family,” I was “mom” to these two young people who were the same age as daughter Psyche. We separated at a snow-blocked pass in the Pyrenees, but later reunited briefly in Pamplona, Spain, where I ended the first part of my walk, while they continued on to Santiago and Finisterre. My heart went with them.

I returned home on May 22, celebrating my birthday and honoring the anniversary of Ed’s death with a Memorial Day picnic atop the Sandia Mountains a week later. The summer was filled with meetings (Children’s Literature Association in Ann Arbor and a heady round of dinner parties in Washington, D.C. with the Newbery-winning authors, publishers, and our committee members). Then there were five Wednesday evenings at the Santa Fe Opera, and several hikes in the Sandia mountains, some with Kent Kedl, a widower from Las Cruces, whom I’d met briefly at Jeanne and Ross’s last Christmas Eve. We’d gotten together a few times and had emailed fairly frequently during the previous months. He came up to say good-bye before I left again to finish the Camino in Spain on September 1. Susan again looked after everything at home, or I wouldn’t have been able to make this trip.

After vacationing with friends in Bilbao and attending the IBBY meetings in Santiago, I returned to Pamplona and resumed walking, heading back to Santiago and on to Finisterre. It was harder to make friends in Spain, as I often seemed to be out-walking the people I encountered on the way, so I was alone more often, although one is never really alone on the Camino. About 10 days before reaching Santiago, I began walking with Eva from Italy and Yoko from Japan. We continued together for the rest of the trip, finishing in Santiago on October 10 – 10/10/10 – a day to remember! Yoko continued with me for three more days to Finisterre, the End of the World on the Atlantic coast. (Photos: flickr.com/photos/manga_mom/)

I returned home on October 16, and Kent was here to meet me. I later visited him in Las Cruces, and we took a whirlwind trip through Indian Country, attending Zuni dances, celebrating a Halloween wedding anniversary with my college roommate Carolyn and her husband Ben at the historic La Posada in Winslow, Arizona, hiking to the White House Ruin in Canyon de Chelly, and even making a quick circuit of Chaco Canyon. It was Kent’s idea that we should take a longer trip to see if we could get along: to Peru! Thus, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we flew to Lima and then Cuzco, and spent 4 days and 3 nights (in tents), on the challenging but incredibly beautiful Inca Trail (Camino Inca). We ended up at Machu Picchu in clouds and rain – another kind of pilgrimage. We returned to Las Cruces on December 9, still getting along.

A few years ago in my Christmas letter I quoted from Ruth Duck’s lovely hymn, “Warm the Time of Winter.” This Sunday as I walked into the Aquinas Newman Center, the congregation was once again singing this Advent hymn, and the words took on new meaning, especially the lines, “from the ashes may there rise phoenix of our growing.” I have walked over 1000 miles this year, one step at a time, from darkness into light, from grief (which is still with me), into hope, joy, and love.

I look forward to spending Christmas at home with friends (including Kent) and family. Jesse lives nearby (and continues to make a living from his art), and Psyche will be on vacation from her nursing studies at Yale. Who knows what the future will bring? I have faith that “all will be well” (Julian of Norwich). I travel one step at a time. Thankful for your friendship, I send a pilgrim’s prayer that we may all be blessed in our life journeys this coming year.

Taxco, Mexico

February 23.  Ixtapan de la Sal.  Trip to Taxco.

This was an emotional journey, almost a pilgrimage back to Taxco which was one of the last places Ed and I visited together in 2007.  On that trip I drove on those treacherous winding roads up and down mountains and along the edges of steep canyons, and through one tiny village that seemed perched on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.  Today I rode on the bus, which seemed almost scarier as we seemed to teeter on the edge of those cliffs.  All along the way I saw archetypal images of Mexico.  A burro in a field, a horse standing beside a large puddle of water, chickens in a cluttered farmyard, and snow-covered mountain peaks floating in the distance.  Dusty little towns had huge, weathered churches in their centers, some decorated with banners for Lent.

I wondered what it would be like to live in these small settlements.  So many people were outside, selling fruit, working in fields, carrying things.  I did see kids eating junk food, candy, and things in plastic wrappers.  It must cost so little to live as these people do, and they have little, but beautiful views, lots of exercise, and close families I would hope.  On the way home several very neatly dressed young men who looked like students, got off in some of the small villages.

From the Taxco bus station, I was able to find my way up to the first church (Veracruz), where I ducked inside to pray briefly.  Then I continued up to Santa Prisca, the Cathedral.  I didn’t go in, but sat on a bench in the Zocalo and read the pages I had copied from the “Let’s Go” guide.  It was much too bumpy to read anything on the bus.

I headed up to Plaza San Juan and then kept going, past the ruined Rancho de Taxco and up to Hotel Victoria.  I wandered into the grounds and took a couple of pictures from the overlook.  I then continued up higher and higher into residential neighborhoods before walking down to the Church of Ojedo.  The door was closed, and I thought perhaps mass was going on since it was noon.  I sat outside on the terrace eating the lunch packed by the hotel – a bottle of juice, a delicious ham/cheese/tomato sandwich, and a cookie.  I stayed nearly an hour, thinking the doors might open.  School children came – one little boy climbed up on a pillar and I was almost positive I heard him shout, “Yo soy parjarito!”

Two men kept climbing up the steep walkway beside and above the church carrying crates of soft drinks and huge sacks of something from a large delivery truck parked at the end of the street below the church.  I snapped some pictures of them, of laundry drying on rooftops below with Santa Prisca in the background, and some pictures of me.  The front of the church was decorated with streams of triangular plastic papel picado.  It got warm enough that I took off my jacket.  The church doors never opened, and I didn’t try then, but I made my way back down along various paths, encountering a whole lot of school children, many of them met by their mothers with warm hugs.

At the Zocalo again I went into the church.  Some of the gold altar pieces were being repainted and restored.  In a side chapel I said lots of prayers, mainly for all the Philips relatives and a prayer of thanks for Ed’s life.  I cried.  And took a picture outside of the church door without Ed there.  A young couple stood in the sanctuary with a newborn baby, and had someone take their picture.  Then they sat quietly in a pew for awhile, talking softly.

After that I visited Casa Borda, which we’d somehow missed before, but now it was under construction, so mostly closed.  The biblioteca was on the lower level, and some very friendly people showed me the collection.  Then up and down again to the silver museum.  I paid 10 pesos to get in, but there was not very much of interest there – some murals depicting the history of Taxco silver enterprises.  I was able to use the restroom there, though, perhaps worth the 10 pesos.   Then on to the Ex-Convento, and then the church of Chavarrieta where I just missed a performance in the courtyard.  Young men in costume were departing.  I did not want to stay until 5 p.m. to see the next one.  Some men were working on scaffolding on top of which perched an enormous papier mache chicken.  There were wheels for fireworks on the scaffolding.  People were setting out bunches of flowers.  Booths selling food lined the steps and an upper courtyard, and a woman selling cascones sat on the steps to the upper courtyard.  

I retraced my steps, and after asking directions twice from very helpful people, I made my way back to the bus station, where I met a lovely Canadian couple spending five weeks in Cuernavaca, and a French woman traveling alone.  Unfortunately I couldn’t talk with them longer as I had to catch my bus.  An old woman crossed herself and blessed the bus before getting on, so I put my faith in having a safe trip.  The bus driver was very handsome, and there was a crucifix and palm branches attached to the wall to the left of the driver’s seat.  I should have gotten a picture of that, but I didn’t. The bus dropped me off at the Parque Aquatico entrance, with the helpful intervention of a lovely woman in the front seat who was traveling with the elderly woman. 

I think I’ve now seen all I want to see of Taxco.  The Volkswagens crowded the narrow streets, and I worried about getting run over.  There were fumes and noise. When I came through the back gate into Spa Hotel Ixtapan de la Sal, it was like entering a peaceful, cool oasis.   I had looked only briefly at silver, and saw nothing more interesting than some of the pieces in the shop here in the hotel.  I did not ask about prices, so do not know if there were bargains to be had.

Christmas 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings during this season of hope and celebration.

Last December 23rd, upon leaving my favorite Italian grocery in San Francisco’s Mission District, I looked across the street and saw a Social Security Office. A sign on the door said, open until 4 p.m. Closed December 24 and 25. It was 3:45. Through the window I saw an empty waiting room. I opened the door, and the guard said, “Come in.” At that moment I decided to retire at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, and within fifteen minutes was signed up to begin receiving Social Security in January.

During the previous year, with my broken wrist and subsequent back pain, I realized my body was not going to last forever, and that if I wanted to travel around the world with a backpack, I’d better start soon. In January, the opportunity arose for a trek in Morocco. As I debated with myself about going, lured by the luscious descriptions and colorful photos on the website of Adventureline Travel in Cornwall, England, the dollar rose against the pound, my school schedule was adjustable, and a neighbor said, “You never regret what you do, but you often regret what you don’t do.” That settled it. In February and early March I walked about 75 miles through the Jebel Sarhro region of Morocco, slept in a tent for nine nights, in a village house for one, had a wonderful time, and No Regrets. Pictures on Flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/manga_mom/

I braced myself for the emotionally perilous weekend of May 29, which marked my birthday, Ed’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, the anniversary of Ed’s death, and now my retirement, turned into a wonderful occasion as my friend Melissa accompanied me to Ramsey Canyon, Arizona for a wonderful weekend of bird-watching, with sightings of brilliant hummingbirds and gorgeous wild turkeys with colors I thought existed only in children’s coloring books.

Summer included many short trips: to North Carolina, Seattle (twice: once for a Philips family reunion and once to attend the mesmerizing Seattle Opera Ring Cycle), San Francisco, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Chicago (for ALA). Back home, I attended all five productions of the Santa Fe Opera, and hiked often with the Sunday afternoon group of the New Mexico Mountain Club.

Fall has been divided among: (1) Newbery reading, (2) a strenuous fitness challenge program to get me ready for that backpack (sit-ups, push-ups, etc., supervised by a sweet ex-marine -- “Keep going, keep going!”), and (3) extensive house repairs (new roof, lots of insulation, stucco, replacement windows, new storm doors, and lots of patching and painting and repairing inside and out). The only thing totally finished at this point is the roof, so I am carrying on amid the ongoing chaos of construction.

There have been some sad losses this year. Kathy Curley, a fellow librarian dear friend for nearly 40 years, my cousin Carolyn Bruemmer,and niece Mary Ann Comstock’s husband Rich, all lost brave and lengthy battles with cancer.

The children are now adults. Despite the hard times, Jesse continues to do the work he loves as a free-lance artist. His poster for the Star Trek movie got a lot of attention last spring. It is good to have him nearby, although weeks may go by without our seeing each other. Psyche continues to work, volunteer at a women’s health clinic, and take evening and weekend classes. She’s applying to graduate nursing schools, and the coming year will most likely see a move away from her beloved San Francisco.

After a little Christmas here with Jesse on the 23rd, I’ll drive to Las Cruces to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my friends Jeanne and Ross Burkhardt. Psyche will be vacationing in Puerto Rico.

My Newbery Award Committee duties will come to an end in Boston on January 18, when the 2010 winner is announced.

I am gradually moving into a new place in my life, although thoughts of Ed are with me daily, especially during the past two days as I’ve sorted through the glass collection in the dining room, remembering that we sipped Grand Marnier in Paris in in 1977 in these two little glasses, that I begged him to keep a complete set of Steuben champagne glasses, and that he did. I’m packing much into boxes to deal with later, keeping on the shelves only the pieces I’m most likely to use.

Writing, whether letters, emails, book reviews, family history, or just for myself continues to be important. The writing group for cancer care-givers continues to be a source of support. In one of the books I am reading, Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez, a young girl who composes unsent letters to her missing mother writes, “‘El papel lo aguanta todo.’ Paper can hold anything. Sorrow that might otherwise break your heart. Joys with wings that lift you above the sad things in your life.”

With that I will close, and pray that faith, hope, and love, and writing, reading, prayers, and friendship, will sustain you and bring you joy.

Remembering My Dad, Potatoes and Bread

Note: I just found this reflection I'd written over a year ago.


Remembering My Dad, Potatoes and Bread. April 19, 2008, Albuquerque



As I was peeling potatoes tonight to put into a stew, I thought of my father. I haven’t been eating many potatoes lately. Ed was also a “meat and potatoes” man, and I haven’t eaten many potatoes since he died.

We practically lived on potatoes when I was growing up. It wasn’t a meal without potatoes. But, my dad complained about the quality of the potatoes we were buying, and blamed their condition on commercial fertilizers. He was probably right. He disdained potatoes that had black holes and hollow cracks inside, that turned green, and were full of spots. He decided to grow potatoes to feed our family of four. We had a half an empty lot in our yard, and half of that became the potato patch. Our sandy Michigan soil was great for potatoes.

In the summer my brother John and I would be given a nickel, maybe a dime-- if we could fill a pint jar with potato bugs. I don’t think I ever got a nickel. It takes a lot of potato bugs, little round striped things, not very pretty, to fill up a pint jar. I don’t remember too much about the planting (I know my dad cut them into pieces with eyes, and after the first year saved some of the last year’s potatoes to plant), but it was fun to dig them up with a pitchfork, and see the beautiful potatoes come out of the ground. The first “new potatoes” in the summer were always a treat – tiny round balls with thin skin, delicious boiled with the skins on and seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and butter. Later, we’d be dig them in the cold, just before frost and snow. Sometimes the snow caught some still left in the ground.

My dad stored the potatoes in our basement over the winter. The basement had two parts – old and new. The furnace was in the new part, so it got a bit warmer in there in the winter time. The old part was lined on one side with wooden shelves filled with my mother’s canning jars. The middle of the room tended to be full of junk and empty boxes, and there was a hot water heater back by the canning jars. In the northeast corner, though, my dad constructed a couple of bins up against the wall out of wood and old doors.

He covered the bins with layers of burlap bags, and there he stored the potatoes that would feed us all year, until the new potatoes came in the next summer, and even for awhile after that. Sometimes the old potatoes got shriveled – he must have checked on them every so often and thrown out any that were going bad. I don’t remember ever noticing a rotten potato smell when it was my turn to go down to throw back the burlap, reach down into the dark, gritty, chilly bin, and bring up some potatoes for supper.

When I peeled my potatoes tonight, there were some black spots to cut out. Mine came from the store, not from the garden. I thought of my dad, and all the potatoes he had peeled, and thought he would approve of my stew.

I should have some homemade bread to go with it. Long as it has been since I have had potatoes, it is even longer since I made bread. Like the potatoes, my dad couldn’t find bread he was willing to eat, so after old Mr. Lavender’s bakery burned down and Mr. Lavender retired and then died, my dad decided to start making his own bread. By then he had sold his jewelry store, and was a stay-at-home dad. When my mother, brother, and I came home from school, 1 ½ blocks away, every day for the lunch my dad would have it ready for us – often some kind of goulash made of potatoes and hamburger (horsy-keep-your-tail-up), or salt pork and potatoes with white gravy; or kidney stew with tasty onions; or vegetable or pea soup. In the days before he had retired, we’d come home for a quick lunch made with tomato soup from a can and a toasted cheese or tuna sandwich (and sometimes I’d wished that was still what we had).

Dad’s bread wasn’t usually ready by lunch time, although it was often rising then. But after school on a bread day, the smell of fresh bread, still hot from the oven, was heavenly. My mother would often bring other teachers home with her on those days, and they would sit in the kitchen, sipping coffee, and eating the still warm bread spread with melting butter. A whole loaf could disappear on one of those afternoons.

For some reason my dad couldn’t get his dough to rise if he used dry yeast, the only kind the stores seemed to carry. Because of the difficulty of getting cake yeast, he came up with his own sour dough mix, which he kept in a jar and carried with him in later years when he and my mother traveled. I have a picture of him working on his bread in my kitchen in Tucson in 1975. He left me some of his starter, which I used for awhile, but finally had to let go. I didn’t have any trouble making bread with dry yeast, which I learned to buy in bulk and put in the freezer. There was a time that I made lots of bread, too. How did I get too busy or too lazy to stop, even with the help of my Kitchen Aid mixer? I did make bread most of the time in the years before I was married, because I, too, could not stand store bought bread, and it wasn’t easy to find good bread in grocery stores in those days.

One day, I was eating a sandwich made with my homemade bread (whole wheat or rye), in the student union at the University of Arizona. And older man sat down across from me, and commented on my bread, and when I told him that I’d learned bread-making from my father’s example, he told me that he used to bake all the bread for his entire family when he was a young boy!

I didn’t make bread tonight, Daddy, but I’ve sure been thinking of you. Maybe I’ll do it in the morning. When Psyche, your granddaughter came home over Christmas, she wanted to make bread, perhaps remembering how I made bread regularly when she was little, just as I fondly remember all the delicious bread you made for us so many years ago.

Postscript

After I finished writing this, I got a bowl of the stew, not too bad, but a bit burned (the writer not paying attention). Then I turned on PBS and found an Independent Lens program about corn and the industrialization of agriculture, about growing corn with no food value, but high yields to feed feedlot cattle who get sick and die from this diet, if they are not butchered before that happens. Ugh! Much of it goes into making corn syrup, leading to epidemic of obesity and diabetes. My dad was ahead of the times in seeking more healthful eating and prudent use of our natural resources.

Remembering Ed: Year Two

June 2, 2009

Dear Ed,

It is another beautiful June morning, and my thoughts are of you. Two years ago this afternoon you took your last breath and left us. I think of you often and love you forever. My life has been utterly changed without you. I still listen for your footsteps and see your eyes looking into mine. I do not know what lies beyond the grave, but I know you could not have continued to live in this world. Your body wore out. Your suffering ended, and all of us here continue on without the grace of your presence. It is still hard to believe that you are gone.

I still sleep on my side of the bed, and your space is empty.

The dog tries, but does not fill it.

Maybe he is also looking for you when he runs away, as he has been doing lately.

I am building a new life for myself, but it is a different life, an emptier one. Nothing will ever fill your space because you were part of me and our lives together were one life. I miss your wisdom, your comforting presence, and having you as the one who loved me best of all.

This afternoon, in remembrance, Jesse and I will go to the mountaintop where we left your ashes. It is a beautiful spot, on top of the world and close to heaven. I look up there daily, and think of you as I drive across Albuquerque in the car you bought me.

Chrysler is gone and General Motors is going. And you are gone, too, as is a whole way of life. As another one-time Michigander, you, too, would understand that nostalgia for the fifties and sixties when prosperity rode on Detroit’s wheels and the shining post-war future looked so bright. We were both young, then, although you were older than I.

You would be delighted and amazed to see Obama as our president, although his job may well be an impossible one. America will never elect a Black man as president, you said. You would happily have been proved wrong.

Today, I go to vote for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy Board that controls our life-giving irrigation water, another area fraught with controversy and difficulties.

Later I will go to school to interview candidates for my replacement in the library. I think of all the things that I did not accomplish in that job, and hope that someone else will be able to do them. I also think of what I did accomplish, and doubt that anyone else could have done what I did.

A plane with 242 people aboard has disappeared in thunderstorms over the Atlantic. How often when you and I flew over that water, I reached for your hand during bumps, knowing that our lives could end in an instant, but that we would die happy. I can still hardly believe that God brought you to me. What a gift it is to have a loving partner.

Life changes, and the world goes on, at least for now.

Your still loving and grieving wife, Linnea

Remembering My Friend Kathy

My dear friend of nearly 38 years, Kathleen Fockler Curley, lost her long battle with cancer on March 30, 2009. Kathy and I were friends since we met on our first day of classes in our M.A. program in English at the U. of Arizona in 1971. Our friendship was cemented early-on, when her husband Ed accompanied me to the U. of A. farm where we filled trash bags and the trunk of my car with manure for my garden.

We studied together, partied together (we loved games of charades), shared book discussions, and traveled together on one wild train trip from Nogales to Mexico City in May 1973. In 1975-76 we both returned to U. of A. to complete our library science degrees, and our friendship continued as before. Later, when I moved to Pennsylvania and married my Ed, we continued to meet, in Pennsylvania and in Tucson. In 1978, both times we met a pope died. We wondered if we should keep meeting.

Kathy and Ed became "Aunt Kathy and Uncle Ed" to Jesse, and then to Psyche. We shared countless conversations about books, travel, and life, by phone, letters, email, and in person over these many years. We never ran out of interesting things to talk about, since Kathy was interested in almost everything. In addition we shared interests in books, our library careers, education, and the state of the world. She would fix me with her intelligent, often twinkling eyes, and I would know that she was about to say something worth hearing.

Farewell, dear friend. I will miss you always. We have traveled far together, and now you've gone ahead of me into the unknown.

Ed, my heart goes out to you. I know how devastating it is to lose one's life's partner and center.

Christmas Greetings, 2008

Christmas Greetings, 2008

Wishing you love and peace, throughout the season and the coming year.

This has been a year of transitions, and of highs and lows. In February, hankering for true winter in the Upper Peninsula, I had my longings fulfilled and then some, as I experienced blowing snow, icy temperatures, a beautiful snowmobile ride with my brother John, and then crash! I flew over the handlebars, landing hard on my right wrist and severely fracturing it. I returned to Albuquerque for surgery. (“It looks like the hand is about to fall off,” said the Albuquerque surgeon.) I recovered fairly rapidly, except that the imbalance caused by the fracture led to serious back pain during the spring and summer. In the past month I’ve been working with a personal trainer, to strengthen core muscles, and I’ve continued Nia and yoga.

At the end of May, I went to San Francisco to spend my birthday/anniversary weekend with Psyche. Julia was also there that week, and we both saw Psyche and her friends and a few thousand other riders depart early in the morning from the Cow Palace in Daly City on their week-long AIDS/LifeCycle bicycle ride to Los Angeles. When I returned home, I finished packing every book in the school library in preparation for construction over the summer.

In June I attended the Children’s Literature Association meeting in Normal, IL, and visited friends in Lower Michigan before heading north to see some of the folks I’d missed when my February trip was cut short. Over July 4^th, Jesse and I drove to Big Sky, Montana for a Philips family reunion. We were saddened by the news of the death of Ed’s brother Bob, the last remaining Philips sibling. At the end of July, Cousin Jane Bruemmer came from Michigan, and we enjoyed two operas in Santa Fe as well as a Georgia O’Keeffe landscape tour of the Ghost Ranch.

It was back to school in August, and unpacking the 20,000 some library books. I said I couldn’t do all that lifting, and the principal hired some movers to help.

In early September I flew to Copenhagen for the International Board on Books for Young People Congress (IBBY). After five days in wonderful Copenhagen, I took the train over the bridge to Sweden, where I had an incredible ten days visiting relatives and ancestral sites. Cousin Magnus Persson guided me around in Skåne and Småland, and Nanna and Tage provided us gracious accommodations in their lovely home in Vittsjö. (My mother and her father had visited the Mårtensson family in 1939, and Ed and I and Jesse and Psyche had previously visited in 1991.) Then I took the train to Torsby in Värmland, where I stayed in Youth Hostels and had the expert and generous help of Tore Bakken in finding the home places and ancestral records for Hendrickson, Erickson, and Johannes Olson ancestors. In addition to visiting the places where my ancestors had lived, the biggest thrill was meeting some third cousins on the side of my mother’s mother, whom Tore had discovered for me. I was expecting to meet two cousins, and much to my surprise a whole group of extended family came to the evening gathering at the home of Maj-Lis Riddarsporre. (Photos of the entire trip and other of this year’s events are on Flickr.)

The first weekend in October a small group of friends (several from my UNM cancer caregivers writing group), Craig Werner from Buffalo, NY, and Jesse, Psyche and I had a small ceremony in a beautiful spot in the Sandia Mountains where we scattered Ed’s ashes, and had a breakfast picnic, singing and sharing memories.

In early November I spent a week in New York, connecting with children’s literature friends and others in New York City, and my college roommate Mary Kay Olson in Tarrytown, as well as going to the remodeled MOMA, Madama Butterly at the Met, the Cloisters, Dia: Beacon, and the Roosevelt and Vanderbilt estates in Hyde Park.

Our good friends John and Karen Nystrom, and Karen’s mother Mary came down from Ft. Collins, CO for Thanksgiving. It was such a lovely time – it almost felt like the old days when our two families shared nearly every holiday meal together for many years. Jesse was with us, but Psyche was vacationing in Korea.

Many experiences this year, even the difficult ones such as the broken wrist and the debilitating back pain, have in the long run been positive in giving me strength. I’m beginning to move beyond survival, to build new traditions and a new life. Friends, family, faith, and my writing group have all been sources of support. A person I’ve never even met, a friend of friends, sent me a wonderful book, Elizabeth Neeld’s Seven Choices: Finding Daylight after Loss Shatters Your World, an excellent resource.

I will be serving on the 2010 Newbery Award Committee this coming year, and I am contemplating retirement. The Obama election gave me hope – on election night I said I didn’t think I’d felt so happy since the day I married Ed. I wish Ed could have seen this election. I’d love to hear his thoughts on the current economic crisis. He’d be saying, “I told you so,” since he’d been saying the stock market was over-inflated for at least 30 years. I don’t think anyone knows what’s next. Perhaps our capitalistic lifestyle based on the endless acquisition of possessions is coming to a deserved end?

Jesse and I will be joining Psyche in San Francisco from December 19-28 – a new kind of Christmas celebration for all of us. I’m already nostalgic for the luminaria and the smell of piñon smoke on crisp cold nights, but I am sure San Francisco will have its own holiday charm.

May love strengthen us as we face the challenges of each day.

Sandia Mountain Overlook

October 2008

Last weekend we returned Ed's ashes to the earth, in a beautiful spot in the Sandia mountains, and had a lovely small gathering. The photos are on Flickr. Then this week, I found our last sheep, Beezus, who was born here, on her side and unable to stand when I tried lifting her up. So, I called the vet, and now she's gone to sheep heaven. It won't be the same without a sheep in the backyard, and I'll miss her bleating, and her gazing at the house, as though she were hoping to be let in some day.

Copenhagen and Sweden

I'm working on my itinerary for my visit to Copenhagen for the IBBY Congress September 7-10, and to Sweden to look for ancestral roots and visit relatives during the week following the Congress. Here is a link to a video of the Trainhostel where I will be staying for one night in Lund, Sweden. It is in Swedish, but the message is clear. Here also is the link to the IBBY Congress.

Bob Philips

The last of the children of Mildred and John Philips, Bob, died on July 2 as several of us were enroute to the Philips family reunion in Big Sky. We miss you, Bob.
http://www.palmmemorial.com/serviceinfo.php

Philips Family Reunion, Big Sky, Montana

Over the July 4th weekend several members of the Montana Philips/Courtney family gathered in Big Sky, Montana. Rich and Mary Ann Comstock graciously shared their lovely home with us, and provided many meals. We had many opportunities to visit and to hike in the surrounding mountains. Julia, Joan, Jesse, and I shared a primitive campground about 10 miles down the road at Swan Creek. Mike, Maggie, Anthony, and Danny from North Carolina stayed at the River Rock Inn. Maggie Scheid and Father Edward Courtney stayed with Rich and Mary Ann. Dorothy and David Richhart were in their house down the road, and Lisa Philips Graham and sons Duncan and Logan came for one day from Butte.

Joan's Tribute to her Father

Driving down here from Minnesota, I kept thinking how much I am like my dad. He liked to travel, I like to travel. He was frugal, I am frugal. He had a quiet, easygoing nature, I have a quiet, easygoing nature. He was good with numbers, I am good with numbers. I also inherited his sense of social justice and concern for others. I am lucky to have had him for a dad.

-Joan Philips

Presented at the funeral mass in June 2007

Happy Holidays from Linnea, Psyche, Jesse, with Memories of Ed at the Golden Gate

Christmas Greetings 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

It is hard to write this year’s letter without the help of my first reader, editor, proofreader, best friend, and life partner. Ed’s death on June 2 utterly changed my life. The adjustment is ongoing. He lives in my thoughts and memories every day. We were blessed with 30 wonderful years together. I haven’t yet figured out what’s next. I have been busier than ever, which is in some ways a blessing.

We had a couple of trips before Ed became too ill to travel, with two days in Santa Fe in January and a lovely week at Ixtapan de la Sal, a spa south of Mexico City in February. Psyche came at Easter, and Julia and Michael came in May. I was touched that all seven of the living children came for the memorial mass in June.

In late June, I went to ALA in Washington, and to my high school class reunion in Newberry. In July I visited John and Karen Nystrom in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and in August spent a long weekend with Psyche in San Francisco. At the end of September, I returned to Michigan, where my cousin Mary Ann and I organized a family reunion at the little church on the hill where my grandfather, John Hendrickson, had been pastor from 1904-1911, and where he and many other relatives, including several great grandparents, all four grandparents, and my parents are buried.

I have continued to work on genealogy. Perusing old Swedish church records and discovering names and facts has helped me feel connected to those who have gone before. I’ve also scanned many old family photos, some unidentified, which can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/manga_mom/

November took me to Tucson, where I reconnected with old friends and attended a children’s literature conference, and to San Francisco, where Jesse and I spent a week with Psyche, including Thanksgiving at the Point Reyes youth hostel. Psyche and Jesse will be here for Christmas.

Jesse continues to make his living as a free-lance artist. He comes over now and then to cook dinner for me (and do his laundry). His art can be seen at: http://www.miniml.net/jesse/

Psyche continues in her job with Hellman and Friedman in San Francisco, and she also volunteers in the emergency ward of San Francisco General Hospital.

I enjoy my half-time job as elementary school librarian, or as I like to say, the job I’m paid to do half-time. Another teacher, Susan Fuller, has been renting part of the guesthouse since fall, and it is great to have company and someone to look after the animals when I go away. I still have one sheep, three chickens, bees, two cats, and Bert, the dog. I planted some tulip and crocus bulbs the other day, just before several days of rain and snow, so I am hoping to see flowers in springtime. Life is still good, although greatly changed. Every day is a challenge, a mix of tears and joy.

When I drove to Tucson along I-10 this fall, I recalled how I had driven that road for the first time, 36 years ago, to a new life in Arizona. I remember being so excited at the first sight of a yucca blooming somewhere in New Mexico, that I stopped to take a picture. Five years later, in 1976, I drove back along that same road on my way to State College, where I would meet Ed. I cried all the way to Las Cruces, sad that my Arizona life had come to an end. I didn’t know what was waiting for me in State College. This fall I also cried on that road, alone once more. The thirty years with Ed seem to have passed in a flash, like the yuccas briefly glimpsed through the windshield. Perhaps my life will fit into thirds, the first third before Ed, the second third with him, and the third third, should I have that long, as only God knows.

Finally, two poems, the first, by Emily Dickinson, the second by me.

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

Cereal in the Morning

You always made the hot cereal in the morning

I can almost smell it now,

The oatmeal or the cream of wheat

Sifting into the boiling water

Ready when I came out

Perhaps already slightly cold.

“Ah, cream of wheat,” I’d say

Your spoon clinking in the bowl as you finished yours.

God’s blessings on all of us, as we continue on our journeys into the unknown.