Three families, four boys, 29 years ago

James Harrison Sowers Searle was born at 5:41am twenty nine years ago today.  His lighthearted father wrote:

"Little James,
with all of his names,
was born to the world
on Tuesday.

We wrapped him in rugs,
gave him six hugs
and took him home
the next Thursday."

Though he spent the first ten days of his life in ICU at Swedish Hospital, he's been a blaze of energy since then, grabbing life with both hands.  Of course, one loves their relatives but him I also admire.  He does good in the world.  He cares about other people.  His is his own person.

Three other boys whom we know and love were also born on that day.  We met Sam and Belinda Bell in childbirth classes at Swedish, and managed through all their growing up years to celebrate twins Cameron and Claiborne Bell and James with parties that included magicians, board breakers, swimming parties, fireman, friends and family.  We came to know Evan Swink after he and James became classmates at Bryant Elementary School.  They went on  to Eckstein Middle School, then both to Roosevelt High School and the Roosevelt Jazz Band.

This morning has become an annual occasion for counting my blessings, to have such constant friendships  in my life as Sam and Belinda, and with Suzie, who is always there to cheer me on, to tease me out of a funk or to inspire me with her attitude toward life and the curves it has thrown her.

So out there in the world are four men who will each make their mark.  Today,  I'm cheering them on.

All Saints Day is my cousin's day

In New Orleans today, Catholics are in the cemeteries decorating graves in honor of All Saints Day.  As a child, one of my favorite religious books was "Lives of the Saints," that had beautifully rendered (like the image above) portraits of the best known saints across from a single page that told her/his story.  It's from that book that I picked my own confirmation name (from Saint Teresa of the little flowers).   From that book and other biographies I read came a love of storytelling and aspirations to be good.  But November 1 had less a religious connotation than a reminder of my mysterious older cousin Dennis, who shares his birthday with the feast of All Saints Day.


Dennis is a well known playwright, director and actor today, but in those days he was merely older than my cousin Kathleen and myself.  We rarely saw him, especially after he went off to college.  He was different, and made a name for himself at an early age in the theatre.  He took on my Aunt Teresa one summer while doing a theatre residency at the University of Iowa, refusing to shave his beard in order to be an usher in his cousin's wedding.  You can guess how that one came out.

Dennis' father (Jim) and his mother (Alice) were my godparents.  His mother and mine were close friends their whole lives, and reconnected us years later on the East Coast.   When we moved to upstate New York, Dennis had relocated in Ottawa, and we got to know him and his children through summer visits back and forth that sometimes included our mothers.  I admire all of his children,  and think of them as friends as well as relatives.   Though we are flung about in various parts of the work, we manage to keep track of one another and to meet usually every five years at the Hayes Family Reunion in Iowa City, hosted by Dennis' brother, Jim.

So that's the story of November 1, a time of year when we know for sure that winter is coming soon, when the light is slow to arrive and quick to depart each afternoon.  Stories are what Dennis can tell, and stories are what bind us together, with more than enough light to go round.  Happy birthday, Dennis!

"I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things." -- Henri Matisse

I have completed one six week watercolor class.  The last session was a breakthrough for me, and I was able to create or finish three pieces that my instructor felt were worth framing.  I offered Leroy his choice as a birthday present, and he picked the one  shown below.  Later, he mentioned that he would really like to have all three.

So I framed the three and hung them in the kitchen in a kind of mini-gallery.  It may be that we'll get tired of looking at them, or that my style of painting will evolve over time -- in which case I can either add more framed watercolors to the wall, or use these frames, standard for watercolor paper, to display newer work.

One thing I know for sure:  I am never bored when trying to paint.  Some may see it as arrogant to frame anything at this early stage of learning how to paint.  Others may suggest that there is little or no sign that I am taking a course in the Volunteer Park Conservatory in the 12-15 watercolors that I did paint during the course. I don't really care what anyone thinks.  I've got a lot to learn and hope that at some point in the future I will actually be able to paint what I see.  In the meantime, Matisse's quote seems appropriate.  I'm signed up for another six weeks of classes at the conservatory. 

Never forgotten.

Birthday dinner, July 13.  Diana and her oldest son, Charles

We arrived at the University of Washington in 1977, the same year that Hazard and Diana Adams arrived from the University of California, Irvine.  As colleagues, Hazard and Leroy went on to edit and update several collections of critical theory; and Diana and I became fast friends.   She read more than I ever could, and was deeply knowledgeable on culture, politics, travel, gardening and history. We celebrated our four birthdays with dinners each of those years, including this past July.

She died on September 6th. 

Her influence and ideas live on in all of us. 

Deep in the past

I formally started keeping journals in 1981, but had actually kept smaller versions earlier to chronicle things like our move across the country from Rochester to Seattle in 1977. 

I am not sure whether to call these journals or diaries.  In reading back through them, I see how useful they were for me to solve problems, especially at crucial times in the evolution of my first company, Delphi Computers. 

I do wish that I had included last names on everyone I wrote about, and that (at times) my handwriting had been more intelligible.  I see from looking back this far that there are patterns I identified that become clearer now.  The reading and organizing of the journals will provoke some additional changes in my life as I move forward.

"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

It's been quite a day.  I've worked with the radio on all day, and switched over to video coverage when President Obama began to speak today at the Lincoln Memorial.  I am glad that Lauren Du Graf and Kim Burgess were in the crowd today -- I feel well-represented. 

I think that some of the speakers, John Lewis in particular, gave listeners a better idea of what those days were like in this country in the early 1960s.  Before we were allowed to drive clothing and food or register voters in Mississippi, we were trained by SNCC workers and Quakers on how to respond to violence:  without violence.  We learned about Mahatma Ghandi's ability to organize large numbers of people to peacefully demonstrate for principles.  From David Brooks, yesterday, in a column in the New York Times:  "But the early 1960s civil rights tactics demanded relentless self-control, the ability to step into fear without ever striking out, to remain calm and deliberate in extreme circumstances, to exercise emotional discipline."

John Lewis is in the back row, third from left.  Dr. King is sitting second from right in front row.  In those days, as Lewis notes, "people dressed up to go out to march."

If you went to the South in those days and were an activist,  there was no guarantee you would ever come back.  No cell phones.  No smartphones to photograph and instantly post injustices you observed.  No guarantee anywhere that the police upheld the law, especially when Northerners were "interfering" in the way they did things down there.

I met Congressman John Lewis first in 1962, maybe early 1963, but definitely before he became head of SNCC and before the March on Washington took place.  He brought the Freedom Singers with him to the University of Iowa and described horrors I had never imagined and that (at that time) had not been widely written about.  It is because of him primarily that I became a civil rights activist.  He had a fire inside him that has never gone out, which you heard today.  I am going to try to meet with him when I'm in DC next month, to remind him that he lit a fire inside me as well.

The headline on this  blog is from a comment Dr. King often made, based on a longer statement in the 1850s by Theodore Parker.  Here is the full Parker statement:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

"Leave a trail..."

It's time to learn something completely different than what I know how to do, something that complements my interests in gardening and photography. I have given up on the notion of taking piano lessons since I can't seem to coordinate both hands.  I am not really interested in picking up the coronet again --  we already have a brass player in the house, who practices regularly now that he has rejoined a summer band.

When I was in Washington DC last week, I met my friend Sidney Lawrence for breakfast.  We covered a lot of ground, including this interest I have in doing something completely  offline, something I don't know how to do.  We talked about what Sidney knows best:  painting and drawing.  He thought a class on color might be in order, perhaps even one that focused on works on paper or mixed media.  

I'm going to start a bit smaller, with a watercolor class offered at the Volunteer Park Conservatory starting next week.  

The conservatory is one of my favorite places in Seattle, located north of the Seattle Asian Art Museum in a 48.3 acre park designed by the Olmsted brothers and completed in 1912.

Either I'll enjoy it or not.  If I do, then I can move on to other classes.


For me, it's important to keep learning, keep moving forward.  The whole of the Emerson quote that I've excerpted in the headline of this post is as follows:

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."