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February 21, 2010

Mardi Gras Ball at the Sun Hall

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Wearing a Mardi Gras mask, I had to be asked while being ticketed and wrist-banded at the door if I was old enough to be served at the bar.
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After being snowed-in and cold for weeks, party-goers turned out in sold-out numbers and showed up in full Mardi Gras regalia, shaking off winter blues on the dance floor.
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The event was put on by Republic of Floyd to benefit Blue Mountain School, the alternative school that my sons and many others in the room went to. I got a good laugh when Wild Life bassist John Winniki joked on stage that front man Richie Ursomarso (who was enjoying the set like big kid) went to Blue Mountain, saying something like, "It took a while but Richie (in orange) finally graduated." Winniki and Ursomarso were joined by bandmates Luke and Jake Thomas (Kari and Mike Kovick's nephews).
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Between the rocking tunes of Wild Life and the Floyd FunkStars, I don't see why we can't have a ball every month.
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I was mesmerized by the belly dancing performances of the Gyroscopic Tribal troupe. At least one dancer (Leia on the right) is a Blue Mountain School alumnus.
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The belly dancers weren't the only ones to show their midriff. That's longtime Blue Mountain School supporter and current board member Luke Staengl talking about the accomplishments of past Blue Mountain school kids, including his two sons, an engineer and an artist.
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During the live auction with Tom O'Neill, my young friend Mars asked me if I knew what time it was. I held up my arms to show him wasn't wearing a watch and the auctioneer thought I was bidding.
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I told my friend Mara (a Blue Mountain School alumnus whose daughter in now enrolled) that she should wear red more often, as she spun me around like a flamenco dancer. I nearly danced my socks off. Well, they kept falling down. (Sorry Mara I missed the shot. This one is of Starroot and Willow, hot in red).
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Speaking of red hot, it was my first time drinking beer with capsicum in it (from our local micro-brewery Shooting Creek) and eating Chef Natasha's King cake, which tasted like a marzipan stolen, only sweeter. The night was sweet from beginning to end. Joe agrees!

Post notes: More photos and narrative to come in The Floyd Press this week. Video clips of the wildly entertaining evening are HERE, HERE and HERE. A story on Blue Mountain School is HERE.

Update:
Read the Floyd Press story online HERE.

February 12, 2010

Funny Business

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I checked out the Laughter Yoga class at the Floyd Fitness Center because I thought it would make a nice story for the paper because I know we could all use a good laugh right about now in the middle of a blizzardy February.
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The group was less than half its normal size because of the recent bad weather and still iffy traveling conditions. They invited me to join in but, being adverse to all things yoga, I declined to participate, choosing instead to observe and take pictures.
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I should explain that as a person with dyscalculia (a spatial learning disability), I have been traumatized in the past by trying to follow practices that hint at anything with choreographed steps, preferring instead impromptu movement, freestyle dancing, and not balancing my checkbook. Also, since my husband does a few kinds of marital arts, practices more than one meditation tradition, and is engaged in a growing number of therapeutic modalities related to his counseling practice, I find that I have swung to the opposite end of the spectrum, becoming somewhat of a hooky-playing rebel skeptic in balance to him.
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Well, the yoga mats never came out (until the closing laughing/silence meditation) and instead of plows, headstands and sun salutations, the yogis strutted around like sumo wrestlers, bounced around like flobby puppets, and generally threw themselves into giggling giddiness. The whole thing was right up my silly alley, a wholly unserious and contagious fast track to fun, not to mention (which I will in the formal story) the health benefits and implications for uniting people that laughter can offer.
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It was hard to keep the camera straight. In the one video clip I took, I could hear myself laughing ... laughing ... laughing ... my way to enlightenment, or at least to lightening up.

February 8, 2010

Winter: Country Style

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The snowed-in took advantage of Sunday's sun to get outside for a walk in the neighborhood. This group broke the cabin fever with tea and cookies and good conversation inside the warmth of our house before heading back up the homegrown plowed hill to their farm.
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The creeks were full and rushing.
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Old mailboxes were full of winter's special delivery.
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A snow covered mill looked picturesque at sunset.
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Horses enjoyed a supper of hay.

January 26, 2010

Michael Gucciardo is Back!

mg.gif ~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on January 28, 2010.

Those familiar with the culinary talents of Michael Gucciardo have waited five years for him to come back home to Floyd. A native New Yorker, Michael learned how to cook authentic Italian food from his father and other family members born in Italy. Although he has cooked in Virginia restaurants throughout the region, his Floyd following of fans was formed during his many years as chef (and sometime co-owner) of The Pine Tavern Restaurant.

Gucciardo's new place, called Mickey G's Italian Bistro and Pizzeria, was packed on Saturday night, just two nights after the restaurant's opening. One table of twelve was there to celebrate Gucciardo's return. A Frank Sinatra recording played in the background. Neighbors greeted each other, as waiters (mostly Gucciardo family members) hustled by carrying dishes that showed off Gucciardo's knack with capers, sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, olive oil, garlic, and roasted red peppers. mickeygjo4.gif

Some diners couldn't resist craning their necks to see menu offerings at other tables. There were mussels, fried squid, swordfish, antipasto salad, meatballs, pizza, focaccia bread, and dishes with names that were hard to pronounce, such as rapini salsiccia (pasta with broccoli raab and Italian sausage).

The portions were hearty and affordable, and the ambience in the bistro was lively. At one point Gucciardo came into the dining room area and customers toasted and applauded him. It was obvious by the turnout and the warm reception he received that Floyd is glad to have Gucciardo back in town.

Post Notes: Mickey G's is located next to the Floyd Fitness Center on Parkview Road. Menu listing and other information can be found at the Mickey G's website. A short video clip of Gucciardo interacting with diners on Saturday night can be found HERE.

January 24, 2010

A Museletter: More Than a Newsletter

musemeet4.gifA Museletter mascot, a 30 year anniversary party, and a monthly crossword puzzle of Floyd County trivia were some of the ideas given at the Consensus Workshop at the library on Saturday.

The workshop was facilitated by Andy Morikawa of the Community Foundation of the New River Valley to discuss the future of the Museletter, the homespun community forum, which was created by some of Floyd's back-to-the-land-settlers more than 25 years ago for the purpose of sharing literary/artistic musings and ideas on self-reliance, growing and preserving food, holistic health, home schooling and more .musesxx.gif

A mix of 15 longtime and newer Museletter supporters attended the three hour workshop, which not only assisted the group in arriving at a common place of clarity, but modeled the structure of the consensus building process that Andy is so skilled at guiding. After laying out some guidelines, such as "speak for yourself, one person at time, share the air," Andy prompted us to individually share when we first saw the Museletter, what it means to us, and how we see it evolving.

The stories shared were rich and varied. Museletter collating coordinator, Virginia Neukirch, talked about the positive community interaction of the monthly stapling and labeling get-togethers that she does with individuals with disabilities and others in the community. andym5.gif

Jayn Avery talked about the Museletter as a writer's training ground and how she didn't start out thinking of herself as a writer, but having her writing published in the Museletter was instrumental in building her confidence to become one. Elisha Siegle, who will be sharing layout coordination and who grew up reading her parent's copies, said "It's the roots of Floyd. It brings the community together." Pat Woodruff picked up her first copy in a downtown café and thought it looked cool. She said she appreciates that the Museletter features stuff that the local newspaper misses. amys.gif

A turning point for me was when Andy asked us to brainstorm a list of all forms of local media (print and online) and then asked "Which one is closest to what the Museletter provides?" None really were.

Our brainstorming sessions were broken up into three working tables and eventually revealed the "Focus Question," How Can We Make the Museletter a Better Community Forum? From there, ideas flew on how to increase subscriptions and submissions through more visibility and community interaction. A semblance of ideas congealed and before we knew it we not only had a plan, we had people willing to implement it.

The consensus was that the Museletter needed a Facebook page - perhaps a first step in the Museletter's online presence, because who knows where more visibility and interaction will lead? musemeet2.gif In the first hour of being on Facebook (Saturday) 15 friends of the Museletter had signed on. As I type this today (Sunday) 157 have joined the Museletter fan club.

As someone who has been directly involved with the Museletter since I moved to Floyd in 1985 (in large part because of what I read in the Museletter after Bob Grubel sent me one), I left the meeting feeling proud of the cultural record that the Museletter has created and uplifted by its potential.

Thanks to everyone who participated and to our fans. Signed, A Muse.

Note: Read more about A Museletter HERE.

January 17, 2010

Saturday Night Live

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Saturday's night life in downtown Floyd included a quotable line delivered by poet Mara Robbins. From the Café del Sol Spoken Word stage she announced that "Pat Robertson is to Christians what Kanye West is to musicians," referring to Robertson's ludicrous remark about the earthquake in Haiti being a result of the country's pact with the devil and Kanye's onstage awards outburst. Mara followed that by ripping into a rousing performance of Andrea Gibson's poem "Say Yes."
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The evenings entertainment also included a ventriloquist skit with a puppet stand-in for Spoken Word regular Wolf Cherrix who couldn't be there himself. Fifteen readers performed poetry and prose to a full house. At least one person sang their contribution and there was a last minute reading by a newcomer who identified himself as "anonymous."
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My favorite part of the monthly Spoken Word scene is that the open mic is a stage for all ages sharing all levels of literary experience, as shown by this photo of college student Bedelia Burris-Mcgrath reading her original work while longtime Radford University English teacher and poet Chelsea Adams (by the window) looks on.
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At the close of the evening some of us stepped into the Sun Hall adjacent to the café to check out the Singer Songwriter Showcase concert in progress. Unfortunately, I missed the first act (John and Linda Franklin) but caught Lavanah Byler performing her minimalist original songs to a rapt audience. Lavanah is a Blue Mountain School alumni who many of us watched grow up. Video clip of her performance is HERE.
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It was a big night out and my friend Jayn and I were tired but we hung in there waiting to see Ash Devine, whose performance did not disappoint. Ash (pictured with cellist Andrea Jordan) lives in Asheville now but grew up in the country in nearby Blacksburg. I first met her as a middle school student shopping at Seeds of Light bead store where I worked. She was a regular performer at the Pine Tavern Sunday night open mic when she was still in high school, back in the day when the Pine was the second-home hangout of so many in the Floyd's alter-native arts community. Ash's native talent was evident then and it was a thrill to see how she has blossomed into such an engaging and soulful performer (video clip HERE). Her degree in theater and her humanitarian work as clown (which I just learned about on her myspace page) shone through during her playful audience participation numbers.

I got home in time to catch Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update with Seth Meyers, who concluded his update on a rare serious note, giving viewers the Red Cross website address to make donations for Haiti relief effort.

January 3, 2010

Howling at the Moon for Wolf

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The babies were cute and the Country Store Christmas stage looked pretty. How could I resist documenting the event?
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One photograph led to another and soon snapping pictures and videos took precedent over my urge to dance.
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The turnout was good, the music top notch, the fellowship fun, and the reason we were there was heartwarming (in stark contrast to the bitter cold weather outside).
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It was a fundraiser for Floyd 's Young Actors Co-op actor and Spoken Word performer Wolf Cherrix (center), who has been managing Hodgkin's lymphoma on and off since 2005.
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The entertainment, the venue, the arts and crafts and other door prizes were all donated. Volunteers who organized the event said $1,600 was raised for Wolf's holistic health treatments. Owwwwwoooo! Yip Yip!

Post note:
Story and more photos will be in this week's Floyd Press. Videos of musical performances are HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. More about Wolf's story HERE.

December 27, 2009

Christmas is Cancelled

iczee.gifThat's what I said to Joe Christmas morning when we woke up to an ice storm, when the power went out and I wondered how many turkeys wouldn't get cooked for Christmas dinner and how many families wouldn't be able to travel to see relatives that day. "We won't even be able to light the tree!" I was shocked to realize.

Luckily, the neighborhood farm community where we gather for holidays didn't lose their power (and even if they had some of those homes are off the grid). So I cooked my rutabagas and potatoes on the grill propane burner on our front porch, mashed them by hand and added them to the farm turkey with all the fixings.

Today, the hum of the generator takes the place of Christmas carols playing on the stereo, keeping our just hunted year-long supply of deer meat in the freezer safe. Candles last night added seasonal ambiance as I ate my Christmas fruitcake and Joe rang a Tibetan singing bowl that reverberated out like a monk walking gently in the snow.

December 16, 2009

Decked Out

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Days of Yore
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Jack's Shack
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Winter Sun Shines
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Bank Makes a Statement

Floyd Photos:
Finders Keepers, On Woods Gap Road, Winter Sun, Blue Ridge Bank Drive-in Window.

December 15, 2009

Christmas Window Shopping

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In this storybook I'm the Matchbook Girl, on the outside looking in. I'm the girl who wants that pair of red shoes in the window but doesn't have the money to buy them or the nerve to really wear them. I'm the girl who wants to come in from the cold, sit by the fire and eat Christmas pudding with Tiny Tim. I'm the one that cuts her hair and sells it, then gets bejeweled tortoise shell combs on Christmas morning.
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The sounds and scents of merriment are just beyond my reach. But there's always the chance I'll be invited inside where I'll hear the ringing of bells and be convinced that Santa's sleigh is near.
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I miss my sled, the one I named Betsy. I miss my brothers and sisters, my nana, the stampede down the stairs to the tree on Christmas morning, the sound of paper ripping and shouts of glee, the pink quilted poodle skirt I got when I was ten, the white furry muff that I wore to church.
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At night, the fogged-up windows sparkle like stars from within. Moving mannequins with clothes from another era, make me feel melancholy because I didn't live then and those people are all gone now. I'd like to ice skate on the world of reflection that spreads out before me like a pond. I'd like to catch a snowflake and watch it melt.

Downtown Floyd Christmas Windows:
Chic's antiques, Finders Keepers, Farmer's Supply, and Oddfella's Cantina in downtown Floyd.

December 6, 2009

A White Winterfest

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There's nothing like a winter wonderland snowglobe to stir the spirit of the Christmas season, or to shake up weekend plans.
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Although our town's Christmas parade, planned for today, was postponed till next week due to snow, some festive weekend events did herald in the holidays. Pictured here are some cast members from the Young Actors Co-op's latest play "A Christmas Carol" preparing to do some scenes at Friday's "Dickens of a Night." They fit right in with their period dress. I think I see Scrooge in his nightgown.
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I covered the 15th annual Winterfest Art and Craft Show at the Jacksonville Art Center for the town paper. The festival, held in the center's renovated dairy barn, showcases the handcrafted works of Floyd artisans and features our local musicians. There's home baked goodies and kid's activities too. Pictured here is Lee Chichester (one of the art center's founders) talking with Lora Byler, who makes jewelry and knitted hats and scarves.
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At the fest I visited with an old friend Michele Bankey of Mountain High Tye-Dye. She told me she just recently discovered I was writing for the paper (which I've been doing for four years now) when she used some recycled newspaper as a blotter for her dying process and noticed a story I had written.
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Bell Gallery and Garden's
Joanne Bell and I reminisced about the early days of Winterfest before the barn was renovated and when there was no heat in it. Back then I was a vendor, selling my handmade silver wire-wrapped jewelry. Joanne still makes her pressed flower suncatchers. Her husband's photography is pictured in the background.
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By Saturday morning the snow was coming down, which made for some good outdoor shots. Every year Christmas tree sales at Winterfest go to benefit the Jacksonville Center. This year Amanda Chartier sold her handmade wreaths.
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The festival, set for Friday evening through Saturday evening, carried on even though the snow kept falling, although the event did close down a couple of hours early because of the weather. While there, I bought some gourmet cookies by the pound from my friend and master baker Liz Stucki. Liz, an artist who used to run the pizza restaurant Mama Lizardo's, reinvents herself every decade or so. I set my box of cookies down somewhere to take pictures and never did find them again.
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Throughout the weekend there was a bustle of activity in spite of the accumulating snow. Downtown shoppers enjoyed going in and out of shops. There were artists and crafters set up at the new farmer's market and in the newly renovated (old Mama Lizardo's building) Station. And I saw at least one person take cover from the snow by putting a sled on her head.

Post notes:
I got a call late Saturday that my cookies had been found! I'm looking forward to seeing the new YAC play "A Christmas Carol" on one of their upcoming performance dates: Sunday at 6:00, Monday at 7:00, Thursday and Friday at 7:00 at the Sun Hall. Look for more photos on Winterfest in this week's paper.

October 24, 2009

My House Looks Good Enough to Eat

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In the fall, our house and yard and the woods that surround them are colored coordinated. Everything looks good enough to eat, like a warm bowl of mashed carrots, Yukon gold potatoes, cranberry sauce, and butternut squash. Fallen leaves cover the open acre of green grass like candy corn. Poplar, oak, and maple trees catch light and spread it.
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Inside, I take down the screens and wash all the windows so I can enjoy the low slung sun that pours in like tupelo honey. Picking up the flavors of the scene outside, sunlight butters the yellow pine cabin logs, spills onto the burnt orange carpet, and turns up the volume of color. Like a gingerbread cottage of autumn, our house looks good enough to eat.

October 19, 2009

Most Blogged Photo-op in Town

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Like the rest of Floyd, I've been watching the new Floyd Community Market take shape for weeks now and stopped for the above photo after my friend Rowan (right) hollered down to me from the roof.
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A downtown farmer's market and more, built with the goal of supporting local food and commerce, the timber framed pavilion will be dedicated next Saturday at Floyd's first annual SplitRail Eco-Fair in conjunction with 350.org's International Day of Climate Change Action. Doug Thompson at Blue Ridge Muse has photos of the recent barn raising workday and Fragments From Floyd's Fred First has written about the Eco-Fair and the Community Market in a post titled "Celebrating Sustainable Relationships."

August 4, 2009

Jabba the Hut Meets Raiders of the Lost Ark

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Or maybe it was Journey to the Center of the Earth, inside the Dixie Caverns in Salem, Virginia with my sister Trish and her family who were visiting from Massachusetts.
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The caverns were named after the dog named Dixie who fell through a hole in the side of the mountain in 1920. Some farm boys followed to rescue her and the caverns were discovered.
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People have gotten married at this formation called the wedding bell, but I called it Jabba the Hut. I wonder if cave bats came to the weddings. They were all sleeping when we were there.
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We hiked up inside the mountain to a massive opening called the Cathedral Room. The crystallized stalactites hanging suspended over stalagmites were not in amazing colors like those depicted in the movie “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” but they were impressive. It’s cold in the caverns and hard to take good photos. Everyone oohed and ahhed at the reflecting pool. At the end of the 45 minute tour our guide shut the lights out so we could experience total darkness. A little boy cried.

Post notes: See a video clip taken inside the caverns HERE and a video I call “Smile. You’re on Youtube” HERE.


August 3, 2009

Friday Night Jamboree Street Jam

~ Most of the following photos were recently published in The Floyd Press newspaper.
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Jam sessions fill the street with music every Friday night in Floyd. (Soundtrack video clip is HERE.)
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Tamra Billand (left) with her sister, who was visiting from out of town, her nephew, and her son Jade, who had purple hair HERE.
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Two women sing a folk song as a couple behind them orders a Dogtown street pizza.
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A summer crowd flocks to the Floyd Country Store for the Jamboree on a recent Friday night.
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Another group across the street from the Country Store entertains an impromptu audience. That's mandolin player Abe Gorskey front and center.

June 15, 2009

A Force to be Reckoned With

13grlsdiplxo.jpgThe mother in me can’t help but brag and the documenter in me can’t help but keep track. Last weekend while covering the 2009 Floyd County High School Graduation for the local paper, I discovered something unique. Both the graduating valedictorian and the salutatorian have educational roots in the Blue Mountain School, Floyd’s parent-run cooperative with roots in Waldorf education that was founded in the early 80’s. It’s the school where my sons Josh and Dylan went before enrolling in public school in the 6th and 5th grades and where I taught a creative writing class for nearly a decade in exchange for tuition.

Although I haven’t been involved in the school since my now 27 year old started public school, my bookcase is lined with past BMS yearbooks. My photo albums are stuffed with pictures of BMS plays, seasonal ceremonies, Spanish night, potlucks, and even a circus. My filing cabinet has a Dolphin Messenger folder for the monthly arts newsletter I helped the BMS kids produce. I have video of girls, who are grown up now, jumping rope and young boys, who are men now, building forts in the pine forest that surrounded the community built school.5podiumx.jpg

Born out of the homeschooling movement, BMS has always fostered a hands-on approach to education, one that emphasizes critical thinking, the arts, and, as the BMS webpage reads, “…a love of learning and respect for family, community, and nature as great teachers and partners” in the educational process.

By my count I can think of 5 other past BMS students who have made it to the same positions of honor that Kaya and Mallory have. The school provided a foundation to other kids who went on to become teachers, acupuncturists, environmental organizers, physician’s assistants, welders, artists, lawyers and more.

BMS kids are a force to be reckoned with, as evidenced by my son Josh whose career as a potter I’ve chronicled on this blog. I’ve also written about past salutatorian/valedictorians with BMS beginnings, Johanna Neuman HERE and Cloe Franko HERE.

Post Notes: The Photos above are two of group that recently appeared in The Floyd Press. Pictured in the first photo are 2009 graduates, Young Actors Coop member Bedelia Burris-McGrath, Salutatorian Kaya Norton, and Amber Wiley-Vawter. The three students on the podium stage in the second photo all have BMS ties and are Clay Weiss (class president), Mallory Coartney (valedictorian) and Kaya Norton (salutatorian) in the back. Check out the BMS website HERE and visit their booth at Floydfest

June 5, 2009

You’re on the Air

amor.jpg Being interviewed on WUVT radio reminded me of, but wasn’t as bad as, the time I testified in court. At that time, I had a story to tell and wanted to tell it, but once on the witness stand my mind went blank and I had to count on the lawyer asking me questioning me to ask the right ones.

All joking aside, in the case of the radio interview, there were four of us participating in the “Talk at the Table” discussion, so any pressure felt was shared. The subject of the day was environmental author Bill McKibben’s recent talk in Floyd and Blacksburg on sustainable local economy and global warming. Our gracious talk show host with a knack for gleaning meaning was New River Valley’s Community Foundation’s director Andy Morikawa.

Two of my fellow interviewees, Jerry Moles and Bo Abernathy, I hadn’t met before. Fellow blogger, local author and past member of the writer’s group I belong to, Fred First provided me with a sense of familiarity and an appreciation that I wasn’t the only one whose body language towards the end of the two hour session was saying ‘can we go out and play now?’

There was no script and no rehearsal, no chance for a do-over, no matter how many better answers I devised after the fact. But the good news was that Andy did a great job facilitating and framing the discussion and I only felt like Sarah Palin winging an interview on one occasion. onair.jpg

Jerry, Fred, and Bo are all more identified with and experienced as environmentalists than I am, and each is a member of Sustain Floyd, the group that brought McKibben’s to Floyd. I came to the table as a writer who covered McKibben’s Floyd talk and as one in the first wave of back-to-the landers who came to Floyd more than two decades ago to live more self-sufficiently and to raise our kids on homegrown principles. Over the years, the Floyd alternative community has been sharing and trading resources, creating our own meaningful life passages, putting out a monthly newsletter, running a parent-run cooperative school, making our own plant medicinals, and growing children and food together – not so unlike the type of community that Mckibben recommends for developing the collective resiliency needed to make the transition away from fossil fuel and to cope with the extreme weather effects of climate change.

“Policy is important but we can do some of the work ourselves,” McKibben said about the challenges of global warming. Some of that work will involve lifestyle changes and simplifying our lives. Some will have to do with education and organizing and will be done by groups like Sustain Floyd. Forums for community building, story telling, and sharing resources, like the one Andy’s show provides, also play a role. I for one plan to stay tuned. 90.7 FM Sunday afternoons.

Post Note: Eventually the talk we recorded will be available on podcast. For now, you can listen to one of Andy’s previous shows on local food in which many Floyd friends show up HERE.

June 2, 2009

A Flyby

flby.jpgThis past Saturday I went to the Humane Society’s Stand Up for Strays yearly Yard Sale to take pictures for The Floyd Press.

While there I met a woman whose accent I recognized. Turns out she comes from Holbrook, Massachusetts – my hometown’s football rival – and graduated high school the same year I did! Now she lives in Floyd and raises alpacas, two of which she had at the event.

I also found out that, apparently, I have a look-like. An old friend whose kids I used to baby-sit for swore I had taken to walking up and down a busy street that she regularly passes on the other end of county from where I live. “She looks just like you. I was worried about why you were walking on that road,” my friend who was vending her stained glass said.

Then I ran into June from Spatter and we both agreed about how busy life has been. She hasn’t been posting any in depth entries or visiting other blogs too much, she said. We watched and both took pictures of a Flyball demonstration, a dog sport in which dogs race, jump over hurdles, collect a ball and take it back to the finish line.

The next day when I pulled out my camera to document something and someone made a comment about a possible blog post, I said, “Yup, a blogger’s work is never done,” and the Flyball dog in the above picture came to mind.

May 30, 2009

I Heart Bill McKibben

1bmg.jpgI’ve typed the name Mckibben so many times in the past few days that I can actually spell it now without using a cheat sheet. The environmentalist and best selling author came to Floyd on Tuesday and spoke at The Floyd Country Store on sustainable local economy to an engaged audience of about 140. I was busy taking notes and pictures, so I didn’t ask a question during the hour long question and answer time, but if I had the name “Al Gore” might have come up. I’ve been told Gore was first alerted to the dangers of global warming through the work of Mckibben.

It’s amazing to think that over 20 years ago my family and many others came to Floyd with the intention of building community and living more sustainable lives, and now sustainable local economy is a topic of mainstream conversation. For decades those in the Floyd alternative community have been living under the radar homesteading, home schooling, home birthing, growing food, living simply (some of us off the grid), bartering, making our own plant medicines, shelters, and crafts, and gathering in celebration and circles that have strengthened our bonds. This week we drew a national celebrity and kindred spirit to talk about the value of those very things.

I was impressed with Mckibben’s ability to blend intellect, humor, and spiritual reflection in his talk. He managed to give an uplifting message along side sobering lines like … “the artic is melting fast … We can no longer change global warming one light bulb at a time … oil is running out faster than once thought… Our problem is that we’ve been trying to meet non-material needs for love, respect, status, affection, and all those things humans need with material purchases, and it hasn’t worked very well.”

One of my favorite Mckibben lines related to the economy of local food brought laughter from the crowd. He said, “Most food travels an average of 2,000 miles to reach your lips. That’s a high ecological cost, but it’s also a high culinary cost. I just traveled 2,000 miles yesterday to get here. I know how that tomato feels.”

I’m working on a more in depth story on Mckibben’s visit for the Floyd Press. In the meantime, you can view a series of short video clips of the event, which was hosted by Sustain Floyd HERE, HERE, and HERE. Doug at Blue Ridge Muse has a post on McKibben as well.


May 23, 2009

Birthday Bloopers

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For a couple of decades I’ve been part of a Triple Spiral of Neighborhood May Goddesses who celebrate our birthdays together. Like clockwork our birth dates fall like dominoes just days apart.
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Over the years we’ve posed together with irises in our hair, roses in our teeth, holding pies and all varieties of cakes in restaurants, in kitchens, on porches, and at tea parties. We’ve watched our clothing styles change, ourselves getting sillier, and Dolphin, the youngest, grow up.
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We took these recent photos for Dolphin and I've posted them on Facebook for her to see. She lives in Alaska now and for the past couple of years her mother Jayn (pictured between me and Diane) or her sister Amy has stood in for her for the ceremonious shot … because traditions are hard to break and we all love this one.

April 27, 2009

Yeah, That About Sums it Up

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The Coming Together of Cultures in Floyd

Post notes: The above is a photo of postcards in a sale rack at a local Floyd coffeehouse. It was published in The Floyd Press "Know Your County" newspaper insert HERE.

March 31, 2009

Muses at Work

emilymusex.jpg Special THANKS and GOOD LUCK to Emily Brass (on the right) who has been raising the Floyd vibration with her music for many years and has been an invaluable member of our community newsletter (Museletter) layout staff. Emily, a social/political activist, is moving back to her hometown city of Montreal where she will be attending The School of Community and Public Affairs, majoring in Community and Public Affairs and Policy Studies and journalism. Her goal is to bring about positive world change, to put in action some of the lyrics of her originally written songs. She promises to return to Floyd for her Emily Brass Band gig at The Pine Tavern in August and to keep us posted about her adventures periodically through the pages of the Museletter.


Post notes:
I’ve been an Emily Brass Band dance groupie from back when they were called Foundation Stone and wrote about her HERE. Listen to her reggae psychedelic hippy hop sound HERE. For more about our 25 year old community homespun forum, The Museletter, click HERE. The photo is of Jayn and Emily putting the April Museletter together at my kitchen table this past Sunday. We named it “Blue Sky Moon.”

March 30, 2009

A Bowl of Kindness

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On Sunday the daffodils turned their happy faces towards the sun, showing no sign of hangovers from the previous day’s constant rain. I passed a bed of them in front of the Jacksonville Center barn on my way to the second annual Empty Bowls, an international project to fight hunger, brought to Floyd by potter McCabe Coolidge and his wife Karen Day.
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For $10 you pick out a bowl thrown by a local potter and fill it with homemade soup. Proceeds raised go to the New River Community Action Center’s Back Pack Project, which sends school children home over the weekends with backpacks full of food.
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I arrived at 12:30. Judging from the turnout I thought I must have arrived during peak attendance, but McCabe told me it had been like that since the event started at 11:00. The house was packed. There were lines for bowls and lines for soup, made by the potfulls by volunteers. Attendance is “way up” from last year, McCabe said.
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In the Hayloft Gallery, where the table of empty bowls was set up, the latest Jacksonville art show, The Earth is Our Home, was on display. Some people strolled through the gallery, enjoying the works, many of which had been made with recycled materials.
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For a few minutes I felt like I was at the Academy Awards. Instead of asking others what designer’s clothes they were wearing, friends and neighbors asked each other ‘whose bowl is that?’ People turned over their bowls (that they took home at the end of the meal) looking for potter’s signatures. A Silvie Granatelli … a Carter Holiday … a Jayn Avery were some of the potters I heard mentioned.
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I was too excited by the high-spirited community meal sharing and the turnout to be hungry. I didn't eat any soup but noticed how good it smelled. I don’t know who made the bowl I chose because I couldn’t read the signature at the bottom. I dubbed it ‘the bowl of kindness’ and visualized it full of miso soup for supper.

Note: Doug at Blue Ridge Muse also posted photos of the event.

March 3, 2009

Blue Ridge Parkway Snow Hike

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With more than eight inches of snowfall on the Parkway there was no chance of flying to Boston today (where I was due to help my mother who is recovering from shingles). There was no chance of even driving into town.
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All trips and blog posts have yielded to the weather. So have the weighted branches of trees laden with a mix of ice and snow.
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Joe had to help me pull on my big L. L. Bean boots (which I haven’t worn in approximately 10 years), over my wool mukluk slippers. The ordeal reminded me of all those past years of dressing kids for snow, first my younger siblings, then the kids at the daycare where I worked for many years, and later my own two boys. Once outside we saw that our cabin was hidden under a canopy of snow filled trees. Sadly, a favorite dogwood tree in the Narnia part of our yard had cracked in half from the weight.
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Jasmine, our chow, got to play sled dog, forging a path ahead of us during a mile long hike in the snow.
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While hiking, I did some investigative reporting while Joe, the hunter, kept his eyes open for animal tracks. We found some rabbit ones (two long feet side by side from hopping) that led straight into a hole in the trunk of a tree.
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At the top of a ridge looking out onto Sugarloaf Mountain we enjoyed the view down into Woolwine.
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By the end of the hike my legs were tired from trudging in the winter wonderland, but we also felt enlivened, like two kids on a snow day vacation. Returning to our cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney was like returning to our mountain chalet. With boots, socks, and coats hanging from the clothes rack by the woodstove, we remembered what winter is meant to be and what we had been missing about it.

Post note: Watch a clip from our mountain hike HERE. Boston is penciled in for later in the week.

February 7, 2009

Faces of Floyd

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300 works in the Floyd Figures Group Exhibit at Jacksonville Center’s Hayloft Gallery set a record. The Faces of Floyd, with so many paintings and drawings of our friends and neighbors, is a history of our community over the past 24 years and a retrospective of a longstanding and well respected group of talented artists, who are also our friends and neighbors.
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It wasn’t hard to recognize the subjects in the works, so many of us have modeled for the group over the years. In fact, I modeled for the group in 1989. One of the drawings (a portrait) done at that session has been framed and still hangs in my bedroom. Another, I heard at the artist’s reception last night, was in artist Sue Clinger’s trunk. “I didn’t bring it because I hadn’t gotten your permission and it was a nude,” she said. It was so long ago that I hadn’t remembered that part (and I was fine with it staying in her trunk).
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The tables were turned, and I was briefly interviewed by a reporter for the Roanoke Times who wanted to talk to models. But I didn’t say what I meant to. I posed for the group 20 years ago by way of an invite from my friend Isa Maria who was a member at the time. Also, as a single mother of two young sons, I needed the pocket money that modeling earned me, and I knew it would be an interesting experience, which it was. I quickly pointed the reporter to a few more recent models.
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I was asked by one of the artists if I would consider posing again. “Okay, but I don’t do nudes anymore,” I said. “I’ll be like my friend Bernie who posed with a guitar, only I’ll pose with a pen and notebook and cup of tea.” She took my phone number.
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The 11 artists (some of whom have been meeting to draw together since 1984) are Kate Anderson, Sue Clinger, Dr. Sue Osborn, Pat Woodruff, Renae Taylor, Rick Cooley, Betty Vonrbrock, Toni Lamberti, Chris Youngblood, Catherine Pauley, and Charlotte Atkins. The Artist’s reception attendance was great and probably set another record. It’s an exciting show. With artist’s work grouped together on the walls, the gallery looks like a giant art collage. The exhibit will run through March 21. I can’t wait to go back, soak up some more color, style, and emotion, and see a few old framed friends.

Post notes: To learn more about the show and the Jacksonville Center, go HERE. Floyd Figures Art Group is HERE. Roanoke Time coverage is HERE.

January 27, 2009

Only in Floyd

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can you be out helping a friend collect litter and run into a neighbor who jumps out of her car, pulls out her banjo and plays you a song in the middle of the road.

December 30, 2008

A Neighborhood Yankee Swap

disorder.jpgMy neighbor Dolphin lives and teaches in Alaska now. She brought bear meat for the Christmas Eve Yankee Swap.

Cloe brought a woven cotton/silk scarf from her recent travels in Thailand, where she ate silkworms and grasshoppers and worked on behalf of rural villagers' right to sustainable culture.

There was salmon caviar on the kitchen table for those who were sick of Christmas stolen and cookies with jam filled centers.

Speaking of jam, my Yankee swap gift was a jar of homemade blueberry jam made my Lora, but I really wanted the mixed CD Bob made.

Rowan got Josh's handmade mug stamped with the name "Nolan Ryan." It was one in a series in which Josh made use of creative descriptive phrases to express his love of coffee. xmasflower.jpg

Kurt brought another tamari pourer made by potter Sarah McCarthy. It acted as the conclusion for a group gestalt that began last year when the first McCarthy tamari pourer stirred up competition and prompted a mutiny of anarchy that threatened the nature of the swap.

There was also a Chinese brocade box filled with fortune cookies, red slippers, candles, books, a Tic-Tac-Toe game, and a box of cereal thrown into the mix. A variety six-pack of beer got swapped and was being drunk quickly to avoid being swapped again. A couple of items were left behind at the end of the night - a silk leopard print blouse, a Crooked Road T-shirt, a Christmas angel mug - the start of next year's swap, I suppose.

December 15, 2008

The Line for Wine Starts Here

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There were 19 wines to sample and I liked them all. I tried not to get drunk and started thinking that maybe I should have eaten more hors d'oeuvres when we were only half-way through the red wines. By the time we were on to the whites, I had struck up conversations with the guests to my left and right and asked the woman doing the wine tasting whose name I thought was Cher if she had a last name, or only one like the singer. "It's Sherry. Like the drink," she said and we all laughed.
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After the tasting the whole idea of the Château Morrisette Holiday Open House with music (Scott Perry), hors d'oeuvres by the winery's new chef, samples of flavored oils and sauces to dip crackers into, and cool stuff to buy seemed a lot more fun than it did when I first arrived. Of course I gravitated right to the toys. There were Marbles and Pick-up sticks, along with wine related gifts, and lots of stuff for dogs (with the black dog being the Winery's mascot).
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I wanted to buy some wine but didn't think it was worth standing in either one of the two lines of over a dozen people for one or two bottles, especially considering that I live ten minutes from the Winery and can buy the same wines anytime at the Harvest Moon Food Store, where I shop.
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I felt compelled to stop two women who were walking around with wine glasses on cords around their necks and ask them where I might (jokingly) "get one of those." I struck up a conversation with a man in a wheel chair who also had a wine glass around his neck (which seemed more relevant in his case). "It's a lazy man's glass holder," he joked. I learned that his black dog was not the black dog of the winery fame but a service dog named Guinness. The man was sitting next to a table of information about the Saint Francis of Assisi Service Dog Foundation. Some of the proceeds from some of the wine sales go to benefit the group. Others benefit The Blue Ridge Parkway. There were bottles of wine with Virginia Tech Hokie labels. Our Dog Blue, a Riesling in a cobalt blue bottle, is there best selling wine.
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Before leaving, I stopped at the Château Morrisette Restaurant because I wanted to see if they had a tree up or any other Christmas decorations. It was nearly four o'clock and the lunch crowd had waned to nearly nothing. I was the only one in line and was able to buy a couple of bottles of wine after all. The woman at the counter who rang me up remembered my son Josh, who worked at the winery during his high school years.
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Talk about a designated driver. Outside the restaurant a group of wine club members were getting ready to leave the grounds in a limousine and were taking a final head count.

~ Read more about our local winery HERE. Another Chateau Morrisette post is HERE.

December 12, 2008

The Fourteenth Annual Winterfest at Jacksonville

~ The Following photos appeared with others in The Floyd Press on December 11, 2008.
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1. I remember the early days of Winterfest, selling my jewelry in the old unheated Jacksonville dairy barn. One year I set my craft table up next to Katie and her partner who were selling handmade hats. I bought one that looked like a Santa hat wrapped in raccoon fur. It was warm and seasonal and sort of filled the desire I had since a kid for a coonskin Davy Crockett hat. After the dairy barn was renovated, and became the Jacksonville Center for the Arts, I sold my books over Winterfest Weekend. This year I just took pictures.
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2. Pat Sharkey (left) of Earthdance Jewelry is the spark behind Winterfest. She’s the primary founder of the event and still coordinates the artist’s and vendors each year. She is also the development coordinator for Round the Mountain Artist’s Trail, which involves19 counties, including Floyd. Pat was the inspiration behind the wire-wrap gemstone jewelry I made back in the early 90’s.
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3. Gabriela Hilger’s feathered hairpieces and gift package decorations drew attention. “Fun & Fluff” was how her crafts booth was described in the Winterfest brochure. Also featured at Winterfest this year were leather crafts, baskets, beeswax and essential-oil scented candles, natural bath and body products, soapstone sculpture, organic cotton clothing, musical CDs, pressed flower suncatchers, bamboo flutes, all sorts of art, jewelry, pottery, and more.
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4. What is a Winterfest without Christmas trees? The proceeds of these donated trees, being sold by volunteers John Schneider (left) and his son John, go to benefit the Jacksonville Center.
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5. Traditionally Winterfest was a two day weekend event, but this year it was three days, starting on Friday to coordinate with the Dickens First Night festivities. Here, dressed in period costume, Bethlehem Cherrix and Coriander Woodruff head down the stairs to the Jacksonville Center’s First Floor Artist’s Studios.
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6. Floyd potter Sarah McCarthy in front of her studio talks about her work with a Winterfest attendee. Sarah’s exquisite functional pottery makes me want to sip tea and read Lao Tzu. Check out some of it HERE.
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7. My friend Liz Stucki (left) was the mama behind Mama Lizzardo’s pizza place in downtown Floyd, which closed a couple of years ago. Liz is also an artist and apparently an excellent baker. I was first impressed with her cookies and other desserts at the Jacksonville Center’s recent Classical Music Concert. At Winterfest she paired up with her daughter Willow to sell her mouthwatering creations.
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8. Winterfest has always been a community reunion where artists, crafters, and musicians converge, sell their wares, and get in the holiday spirit together. Read more about The Jacksonville Center for the Arts (pictured) HERE.

December 2, 2008

The Sixteen Hands Sneak Preview Story

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1. I'm working on a story about Floyd's 16 Hands Studio Tour for the next issue of The Compass, a local visitor's guide. This year was the 10th anniversary of the event and my Asheville potter son Josh was a visiting guest artist. It was an honor for him to be invited to participate and a homecoming too, since he grew up here in Floyd. He knows most of the Sixteen Hand members and has great respect for them.
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2. Josh is the founder of Asheville's Clayspace Coop and the builder of the Community Temple, a three tiered woodfiring kiln on his property in Marshall, North Carolina. His artist statement for the 16 Hands show reads: I was raised in Floyd County, Virginia, and the experience of growing up in this close- knit community of farmers and artisans has been the single greatest influence of my life. My inclusion in the 16 hands fall studio tour is a homecoming for me. I am excited by the opportunity to share my growth as an artist since leaving home with the community that nurtured my creative spirit for so many years.
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3. At one time there really were sixteen hands, those of the eight members. Some members moved away and twelve hands remain, working together to host the bi-yearly self-guided studio tour. Floyd members are Rick Hensley and Donna Polseno, Ellen Shankin and Brad Warstler, and Silvie Granatelli; all potters except Brad who is a woodworker. Stacy Snyder, another set of hands from Blacksburg, is a potter. Each studio site hosts a visiting guest artist. Josh was hosted at Rick and Donna's and showed his work beside Donna's (above), which made for some exciting contrasts.
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4. It's hard to believe that this was my first year to take the tour, although I've been familiar with each Floyd member's work and know them and their children as part of the Floyd community. I'm enough of a Floyd Countian that I didn't need to use the fold-out brochure map provided, but I did need, in some cases, to ask about directions, and I was happy to see that the route was marked with 16 Hands arrow signs. As a tour-goer, I enjoyed the hot herb tea and cookie conversations about politics, how each member found Floyd, and catching up on family news as much as I enjoyed perusing the showrooms of masterful functional and sculpture ceramics, along with Brad's fine woodworking (all of which I hope to write more about in The Compass story.)
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5. The Sixteen Hands artists are renowned and together they represent volumes of credentials, honors, and teaching experience, which can be reviewed on their webpage HERE. Over the years their hard work has paid off and their country studios have become destinations. When they open to the public twice a year, collectors and art lovers take advantage of it. Except for Sunday when the county was hit with sleet and ice, this year's tour was well attended.
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6. I never got to talk to Rick but did spend some time getting lost in the mandala patterns of his porcelain bowls and platters. I caught a glimpse of him once in his back yard with chimney sweep tool in his hand. The chimney had backed up and was forcing smoke into the house, his apprentice's girlfriend told me. Such is the character of a country Studio Art Tour, I thought.
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7. Kent McGlaughlin (on the left), a North Carolinian guest potter at Silvie's place, thought I wasn't tall enough to be Josh's mother. Kent was teaching at Penland School of Crafts the same time Josh was in May. He recalled one evening when an unanswered question prompted Josh to pick up the phone, saying "My mother might know the answer." None of us could remember what the question or answer was but we all agreed I was Josh's Millionaire life-line that night. It was fun to meet Kent (who Josh calls Chet) in person.
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8. Between Asheville's recent River Arts District Studio Tour and the Sixteen Hands show, Josh has had a great month, and he still has his Clayspace Annual Holiday Show coming up. He says, "It isn't about selling objects. People want an experience ... and meaning." Most who buy Josh's pots make a connection with him personally. When they learn that he works with locally dug wild clay and that his pottery is woodfired in a hand built kiln, most are able to feel the relationship between that and the finished product, pots that look born from the ground, guided by hand and transformed by the elements.
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9. And this is the moral of the story and what it's all about in the end: Joe eating lunch in our kitchen using one of Josh's new pasta bowls.

Photos and post note: 1. Josh in front of Rick and Donna's studio. 2. Josh's new work. 3. Donna's work. 4. Sylvie's studio. She's in the center. 5. Ellen's showroom. 6. Rick's showroom. 7. Kent at Sylvie's. 8. Tour sign. 9. Joe's lunch. Watch a video clip of Josh at the Sixteen Hands wrap-up HERE.

October 27, 2008

While Visions of Sugar Plums Dance in my Head

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What do you do when you’re at a classical music concert in a front row seat with the lights turned up high and you have a sudden urge to write poetry? You want to pull out paper and pen but the crowd is so quietly absorbed in listening that you could hear the pen drop (which it did).
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What do you do when you’re at a classical music concert and visions of sugar plums, flower petals falling, romances budding, swans gliding, ladies in long dresses fluttering fans, and men in suits politely bowing are floating through your mind, making you want to leap out of your chair and pirouette?
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Mozart, Scarlatti, Handel. Now they’re playing songs named after flowers that bloom in autumn in England. A song sung to break your heart. Then a happy one about a babbling brook. You realize you’ve forgotten yourself, that you’re swaying back and forth, that you’re suddenly self-conscious of your one foot that is tapping and the other swinging back and forth. Never mind a pen. You remember that you promised to take a picture and that you simply must pull out a camera … flash and click.

Post Notes: This successful night of high culture to benefit Floyd's Jacksonville Center for the Arts featured Judy Bevans on harpsichord, Linda Plaut on violin, and the soprano voice of Carolyn Kirby, who I wrote about previously HERE. The food and Château Morrisette wine that followed the concert was as high quality as the music. Thanks to Linda Fallon for organizing the event, the musicians for performing, and everyone who supported it. A video clip is HERE.

October 22, 2008

Big Changes Around Here

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This is the time of year when there are big changes around here. Not only do the trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway light up in blaze of color, but cars, trucks, and motorcycles stream up and down the road to see them.
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I live down one of those wooded dirt roads tucked away off the Parkway and regularly drive up to the Saddle or the Rocky Knob overlook, just a few miles from my house, to watch the moonrise, the sunset, or just to get the perspective that I can only get under a big sky.
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Since we moved here in 1991, the Parkway has been an important part of our lives. Before we were married Joe and I went to the Parkway to exchange our yearly vows in a ceremony we called “United Untied.” In 1997, when we did decide to marry, we had the wedding ceremony at the Parkway Saddle and our reception party at the Chateau Morrisette.
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At any other time of year, I barely see another vehicle on my short trips up to the Parkway overlooks. This weekend, while Joe was teaching meditation, getting us firewood, and playing soccer, I went on an apple picking and photography outing with a Wall Resident client who was staying with us over the weekend. I did not own the road, could not pull over at every whim for every spectacular scene. The overlooks were packed with hikers, family picnickers, nature lovers, tourists, Hokies, and family reunion goers.
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After taking in and photographing the views, my friend and I headed down to the Rock Castle Gorge trail to the same abandoned orchard where Joe and I went in the spring to see the blossoms and where we go every fall to pick apples. We found the trees were full of fruit high up in branches, so I picked up a stick and started whacking like the big bad wolf trying to shake down a little pig.
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The moral of this story is apple crisp for everyone.

Post notes: See the apple orchard in spring bloom HERE.
And apple picking with Joe in a past year is HERE.

September 22, 2008

Fairy Tales Can Come True

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Fairy Tales Can Come True … It can happen to you … if you’re young at heart … That’s the song that Ceremonialist Katherine Chantal broke out singing while she was marrying our good friend Jeri at the age of 50+. Jeri looked the ‘young at heart' part in her long flowing white peasant gown and ivory woven shawl. She had flowers draped down her long hair.
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Gee, I didn’t even know Jeri had a new boyfriend when I read the “Save the Date” wedding announcement in the August issue of our community’s monthly newsletter, the Museletter. She knew most of us would be surprised, and so she ended the announcement with her phone number for “questions and expressions of amazement.” In her front page wedding announcement the following month, she posted the time of the wedding in Eastern Standard and “Floyd Time.”
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So I met the groom, Mark, for the first time at the Sun Music Hall, where the wedding took place. I couldn’t get over what a kindred match-up he and Jeri seemed to be. They actually looked like each other. And so did Jeri’s kids, who stood up for her. I never realized how much they looked alike until I saw them lined up together.
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During the champagne toast Jeri’s daughter Amity (who played a flute solo during the ceremony) shared some humor. Jeri’s son Zach assured those of us who were just meeting Mark that he had the heart to match his mother’s compassionate nature. A sigh of relief, followed by some hooting and hollering, filled the Hall.
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Sally Walker sang to Chris Luster (on bass) and Billy Miller’s instrumentation. Vases of fall flowers adorned the long tables of potluck feast. I couldn’t stop staring at the colorful turnout of people, some I hadn’t seen in years. It was a virtual "Who's Who' of the old Floyd alter-native community and beyond.
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The celebration spilled out onto the Winter Sun deck where we enjoyed drinks and conversation, Eggplant Lasagna, beet greens, pesto, salmon and so much more.
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Our kids are having kids now and boy, are they ever cute ... and funny!
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There were plenty of Wedding cookies, apple crisps and pies for dessert. Unfortunately, I missed the cutting and eating of cake, but not before snapping a picture of it. I left early to conserve my energy for coming back to the Winter Sun building that night for the Café Del Sol Spoken Word Open Mic and to celebrate my friend Jayn’s birthday. Blessings and love to Jeri and Mark!

Post notes: A video clip of the Hand Fasting Ceremony can be viewed HERE. A clip of Zach’s wedding toast and the crowd's response to it is HERE.

July 23, 2008

Why Floyd?

corrngarx.jpg “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo Da Vinci

I’ve never been comfortable with extravagant or abstract wealth. Since I was young girl, I’ve had an awareness that land, water, and food are what define whether one is rich or poor. So much of the rest is a social phenomenon of modern day capitalism, consumerism, and media.

I’ve always been interested in my life’s work, but when it comes to a career, I’ve balked. Jobs are a fact of modern life, but if you’re doing one just for the money, it can feel like little more than paid slavery.

Years ago I began reading how-to books and spiritual books on homesteading and living simply. When I arrived in Floyd twenty-two years ago, looking to live more self-sufficiently, I found others I could learn from who were reading the same books.

And how fitting that we ended up in the mountains of Virginia where the resourceful and independent mountain people had the skills we wanted to learn, the ones you couldn’t find easily in suburbia or the cities. They knew how to make things and make do, a trait that not long ago was greatly admired, but more recently has been downplayed or even belittled (as evidenced by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s TV show The Simple Life, for example).

I’ve never liked the stress of debt so I tend not to spend what I don’t really have. I’d rather live with less and enjoy it than live with more and have to stress about how to pay for it (and I’m thinking about both the monetary costs and the environmental costs of material things). I have quite a few luxuries and hardly live a self sufficient life, but I’m much closer to one than I would have been if I hadn't come to Floyd. Here, where there’s a long tradition of herb harvesting, I learned about self-health, learning names of what was growing around me, which herbs do what, and how to make medicinal tinctures. I learned how to use a wood stove and to preserve the food I grew (but it’s been so long since I canned that I suspect I forget how). I know where my water comes from and how to get it if the electricity goes out.

Floyd? It’s so much more than the music and art. Although, I believe that many of the musicians and artists who moved here came for the opportunity to live a simpler lifestyle because living simply is conducive to nurturing creativity.

Back to the land? Why did we ever turn our backs on it? Seems we are paying the price, or will be soon, for living too disconnected from it for so long.

Post notes:
Today I’ll be attending a small discussion on the back-to-the-land movement in Floyd, which started in the 70's. It's been called together for a student doing a dissertation on the subject. Fred First invited me and I invited my friend Jayn, a devotee of the simple life. The thoughts written here reflect what I’ve been thinking in preparation for the exchange. Should be interesting... P.S. My corn is much taller than that now and will be ready to pick any day now. This photo was taken a few weeks ago.

June 23, 2008

Solstice Wedding Outtakes

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After the ceremony and before the reception people made prayer flags for Nick and Johanna.
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Some went swimming in the pond or sat on the bank sipping lemonade like they were at Ricky Nelson’s Garden Party.
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Juniper passed out chocolate chip cookies. Eli massaged my recently injured ankle. Dogs chased sticks and an unattended piano got played.
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Four time-capsule jars, to be opened by Nick and Johanna on the future dates marked, were filled with notes from friends and family. Nick is from Massachusetts and Johanna, originally from Germany, lived in Boston (my hometown city) for a time. For the 2013 jar I wrote on a slip of paper, “How many World Series have the Red Sox won now?”
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The open mic at the reception proved to be wildly entertaining. Stand-up comedy was ad-libbed, advice was given, love was expressed, and a short story involving a Frisbee was told. I especially enjoyed the Harper’s Index of facts involving Johanna and Nick, read by a group of their friends. My son Josh (pictured above) was just one who spoke at the reception. He reminded the crowd that he and Johanna had gone to the high school prom together and that she was much taller than him. “It was before my growth spurt,” he said. See a video clip HERE.
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One of my favorite parts of Saturday’s wedding party was watching Johanna’s dad dance (sorry, no photo). A sweet and polite German doctor in a suit, he lost his shoes and stirred things up on the dance floor. Later, I asked his son, Volker, “Is your dad single? Because I’m sure I can hook him up with one of my Floyd women friends, if he’s going to dance like that.” He’s happily married I was told.
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Other favorite highlights that put a smile on my face were Staroot’s (Johanna’s mother’s) red polka dot mushroom hat and the fact that Johanna carried a bouquet of red beets down the green aisle.
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Congratulations to Nick, Johanna, and their families. Thanks for including us! Photos of the ceremony are HERE.

June 22, 2008

A Summer Solstice Wedding

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Environmental Organizers, Scientific Researchers, Ultimate Frisbee Champions, Flower Girls, and Flower Children all came together on Saturday to celebrate the marriage of Johanna and Nick at Floyd’s High Flowing Farm. They came from Germany, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California.
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A Richard Brautigan poem was read and opera was sung. In the sunshine, under a wide sky, a few moments of precious silence were observed. The stillness was punctuated by the song of the wood thrush and the breeze whispering through trees.
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Wearing a garland of flowers in her hair and a long silky gown, Johanna looked like a vision of a fairytale maiden or maybe a mermaid against the Emerald Pond backdrop. Katherine performed a Celtic Hand fasting: Nick, will you cause her pain? "I may.” Is that your intent? "No.” Johanna, will you cause him pain? "I may.” Is that your intent? "No.” (to both) Will you share each other's pain and seek to ease it? "Yes.” And so the first binding is made.
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Johanna, will you share his laughter? "Yes.” Nick, will you share her laughter? "Yes.” (to both) Will you both look for the brightness in life and the positive in each other? "Yes.” And so the second binding is made … Gold rings were exchanged and the ceremonious glass was broken.
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At the wedding reception, Nick and Johanna shared their first meal together as husband and wife on a gazebo that stretched out into the water. Later there would be toasting, roasting, flat footing to the Jug Busters, and high spirited feasting and frolic.
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As Katherine said at the conclusion of the ceremony: By the intention of your heart and the power of your words and the grace of the Goddess that flows through us, we affirm that you are partners – husband and wife – as long as you shall live and love.

Post notes: Video clip of the ceremony is HERE (don't forget to click "watch in high quality"). Katherine’s website is HERE. Some outtake photos are here

May 28, 2008

Hats Off to the 2008 Floyd High Graduates

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While at the high school this past Sunday taking photos of the graduation for the local paper, I found my friend Crystal in the crowd of celebrating graduates. Crystal is the daughter of a family who works for the same agency I did, providing foster care for adults with disabilities. We used to dance together when she was young and we were both attending dances hosted by the agency that also organizes Special Olympics in our area.
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I graduated from high school before gowns were made of polyester and before graduating seniors began decorating their caps, which I wasn’t aware that anyone did until my son decorated his for his 1997 high school graduation. I wasn’t able to learn from a google search how and when the cap decorating phenomena began, but I did learn that the flat square part of the cap is called the mortarboard, and I was able to find some good photos of some uniquely decorated ones, like THIS one done in Lego's. If I was graduating today THIS is the tasteful understatement I would go for, or maybe THIS. But I don’t think I could pull THIS off.

Post note: You can read about the graduation in the Floyd Press HERE.

May 26, 2008

The Other Open Mic

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Back in the day, the Pine Tavern was a second home to many of us, especially on Sunday night for the Open Mic. It was a weekly meeting place for the alter-native community to socialize, unwind, and dance. The Pine Tavern closed and when it re-opened under new ownership the Open Mic didn’t return. Recently Oddfellas started hosting one on Sunday nights. Unlike the monthly Spoken Word Open Mic I help host at Cafe del Sol, this one mostly features music. Last night, my second time to attend, had the makings of an old home week, with Chef Natasha in the kitchen, a dark beer in hand, and some familiar and new faces on stage.
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It was a treat to be entertained by the next generation. I remember Lavanah when she was a toddler. Now she looks like Ani Difranco but has a sweet singing voice without Ani's edge. You can hear her original music on her Myspace page HERE.
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Sakeeta (right) grew up on the community farm in my neighborhood and was a close friend of my son Josh. With a singing style reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, he paired up with Justin for a rousing set. Later Justin unleashed his Howling Wolf voice, taking prompts from the audience for some on the spot stream of consciousness song and banter.
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A man played Bach on the guitar and Mara read some poetry. Meanwhile, Kayla (center) and I played a doodle game where she made a doodle and I added to it and then passed it back to her. I was excited to find a yellow highlighter by the check-out register to borrow, but by the end of the night I was desperate enough for a red pen to ask everyone in the restaurant if they had one. I'd post the doodle here if I had it because it came out pretty good, except for the fact that it was missing some red.
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P.S. Bernie (well known musician on the left who I wrote about in January) had the night off.

May 7, 2008

Irish Night at Oddfellas

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1. A front row seat at the First Friday Irish Night Jam at Oddfellas Cantina.
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2. Lucy Goldman Singing Dougie Mclean’s “Ready for the Storm.” Tina Liza Jones (on the left) was strumming an unusual guitar; I think it was THIS.
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3. Several played fiddle and one played a harp. I wish someone in the group played THIS, an instrument that when played well can bring tears to my eyes.

April 16, 2008

A Flourishing of Arts in Floyd (Part III)

collagephotos.jpg The following is the third and final installment of a story I wrote about our local art scene for a Floyd Press special insert. Part I is HERE. Part II is HERE.

The literary arts also have a presence in Floyd, with a monthly open mic night and at least two writing workshop groups. Poets and writers of all literary styles gather once a month for a Spoken Word Open Mic at the Café Del Sol. Books by local authors can be found in downtown shops, as can an abundance of music CDs. Open mics provide a performing stage for established musicians and writers, and also act as an outreach to those getting started in those arts. Blackwater Loft and Oddfellas Cantina both host monthly open mics, mainly for music.

Some of the venues for the arts in Floyd are seasonal and involve grass, lawn chairs, pavilions, or decks. The Oak Grove Pavilion at the Zion Lutheran Church hosts a summer schedule of music and plays, which are supported by donations that the church passes on to local charities and causes. The Pine Tavern has hosted some well received acts on their outdoor Pavilion stage. Tuggles Gap Motel and Restaurant has a weekend outdoor music series, and Jazz Festivals at Château Morrisette Winery attract crowds from far and wide.

Floyd isn’t just a venue for local musicians. Famous talents have played here. Maria Muldaur performed at the Pine Tavern. Leon Russell has played there and at the Winter Sun. The Country Store has featured Wayne Henderson with Jeff Little, The King Wilkie Band, Ronnie Stoneman of Hee Haw fame, and more. Floyd Fest, a world music festival on 80 acres off the Blue Ridge Parkway, features camping, vending, children’s activities, and six stages for musical performances. The festival, about to begin their 7th year, has helped to secure Floyd’s place on the music map. They welcome community participation, headline well known national and international acts, and feature emerging talent from the region.

Other signs that Floyd is a flourishing community of many artists turn up in unusual places.wanderers.jpg Outdoor wood sculptures by Charlie Brouwer and Lanny Bean can be found around town. The main desk at the Jessie Peterman Library was carved by Ernest Bryant, whose Celtic mantel fireplace was featured in a story for the Washington Post and a 2004 issue of Fine Homebuilding. The Hotel Floyd, which opened this past fall, enlisted the help the arts community to decorate and furnish their guest rooms and suites. The fourteen theme rooms showcase Floyd culture and art.

The arts in Floyd have come far since The Old Church Gallery paved the way when it opened in 1978. With a focus on cultural arts and local history, the Gallery is about to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Many of the wide range plans that Pauley and others envisioned the Gallery taking on have manifested, either at the Gallery or through other organizations in town.

“The more the merrier. I love it when lots and lots of creative things are going on,” Pauley said. “I never cared who did what, just as long as it got done,” she added.

Instrument makers, fiber artists, jewelers, woodworkers, painters, potters, sculptors, photographers, musicians, writers, and actors have all been attracted to Floyd. The same qualities that drew the first influx of artists in the 1970’s continue to draw talented people today. Today’s Floyd artists enjoy an expanded local appreciation for the arts, a variety of welcoming venues, and a growing interest in Floyd as a creative community that values country life. ~ Colleen Redman

Photos: 1. Spoken Word Open Mic collage. 2. Happy Wanderers, a sculpture by Charlie Brouwer at Over the Moon, inspired by a grade school song and a hike with his grandson.

April 15, 2008

A Flourishing of Arts in Floyd (Part II)

countrystorenighxt.jpg A Flourishing of Arts in Floyd, Part I is HERE. This story originally appeared in The Floyd Press on March 27, 2008.

Another sign that the arts have grown in the community is Floyd’s active nightlife. Music lovers and fiddle players spilling over into the streets for the Friday Night Jamboree is part of Floyd’s heritage and its music reputation. Held at the Floyd Country Store, the Jamboree has been written about in the Washington Post and other regional and national publications. People from all over the country and the world have attended. Most recently a home schooling family of four red-head girls and three boys from Alaska performed on the Jamboree stage. On the road with their band, The Redhead Express, learning more about Bluegrass music was part of their home schooling curriculum.

“They found us online and asked to play,” Jackie Crenshaw, one of the Floyd Country Store owners said. “They loved seeing the multi-generational mix – adults and little kids – and were especially surprised to see the teenagers here,” she added.

The Jamboree and the County Sales store, renowned for providing an extensive selection of Old Time and Bluegrass recordings since 1965, are two of the good reasons why Floyd is part of the Crooked Road, a 250 mile Heritage Music Trail that winds through the Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia.

Although Floyd’s musical reputation has been built on Old Time and Bluegrass music, on any given weekend night residents and visitors might also hear Reggae, Salsa, Rock and Roll, or Blues. While dancers are flat-footing at the Floyd Country Store, others are dosey-doeing at the monthly Contra Dance held at The Winter Sun Music Hall, or enjoying a jig at Oddfellas’ monthly Irish Night.

The Winter Sun Music Hall, where an African dance troupe and a South American band are promoted and booked from, has played a role in stimulating a cultural exchange of the arts in Floyd. International, national, and regional acts have played on the Winter Sun stage. The Music Hall’s sprawling wood floor is great for dancing or practicing yoga at one of the classes they offer. Part of a complex of businesses housed in an old renovated textile factory building, the Music Hall has hosted a Halloween costume party, several benefits, and provides a stage for Floyd’s Young Actors Coop.

In many cases the venues in Floyd that feature dining and live music also promote the visual arts. Café Del Sol, Oddfellas Cantina, and Blackwater Loft all have regular rotating art exhibits on display. Over the Moon, above the Harvest Moon Food Store, is a café as well as a fine arts gallery.

Some establishments focus entirely on the arts and have built on the momentum of earlier community efforts. The June Bug Center specializes in the performing arts, everything from Shakespeare to Kid-interactive Story Theater and dance classes. Last year they hosted a Middle Eastern celebration called a Hafla, and a Poetry slam that brought the youth of the community together. Before the June Bug Center, The Floyd Theater Group filled the niche for community theater, hosting plays and Skit Night during the 80’s and 90’s. Around that same time the Mountain Rose Dance Center’s yearly dance recitals filled the high school auditorium with attendees.

The Jacksonville Center for the Arts, a renovated dairy barn, was home to the Winterfest Arts and Craft Fair before the renovations and before it was heated. jaxsculpt.jpg Today at the Jacksonville Center you can take a class on blacksmithing, glass works, pot throwing, paper making and more. Their Hayloft Gallery is a popular venue that regularly features exciting exhibits of contemporary and folk art of local, national, and international artists. Winterfest, still going strong at the Jacksonville Center, will be hosting their 13th annual fair this coming winter.

Although much of Floyd’s art and music scene happens downtown, stretching from one end of Locust Street to the other, county residents have been creative in the way they showcase their arts. 16 Hands, a group of ceramic artists and one woodworker, helped set the stage for the recent surge of arts in Floyd with their biyearly self-guided studio tours. The open house tours began in 1998 and have grown to include visiting artists. Members of 16 Hands have gained national and international recognition for their art. Catherine Pauley recalls that several of the founding members were some of the earliest artisans to move to Floyd and believes that other artists coming to Floyd twenty years ago may have followed on their reputation.

Musical events held in farmhouses and local inns, known as House Concerts, are an old country tradition that is becoming popular again. Blues musician Scott Perry, who teaches music and hosts “Back Porch” concerts at his music store, The Pickin’ Porch, thinks they’re great.

“They’re music and musician focused events, as opposed to the music being secondary to dining and drinking.” Perry said.

Perry, who recently performed his second House Concert at Ambrosia Farm Bed & Breakfast, appreciates that at these venues he can do what he does best without having to think about asking for tips. Concert-goers are happy to pay a reasonable pre-set musician’s donation in exchange for a front row seat in an informal setting that includes a chance to meet and talk with the performer.

Post Notes: Photos are of The Floyd Country Store (home of the Friday Night Jamboree), and a sculpture in front of the Jacksonville Center, made by high school students who attended a week long sample course in the arts last year. Click HERE for the final installment of this story.

April 14, 2008

A Flourishing of Arts in Floyd

artmusicideas2.jpgThis is the first installment of a three part reprint from a story that originally appeared in a Floyd Press special insert on March 27, 2008. A post about the process I went through writing this retrospective on Floyd arts can be found HERE.

Whether it’s food and shelter, or creative arts and entertainment, Floyd Countians have a long tradition of providing it for themselves. Although Floyd has been home to talented musicians, quilters, woodworkers, and resourceful types for many generations, the county has recently been experiencing a renaissance of creative arts.

Native Floydian and high school art teacher, Catherine Pauley doesn’t remember anything organized going on in Floyd in the area of fine arts in the late 1970’s when she and several others decided to start an art association, which would become The Old Church Gallery. She does remember their earliest efforts promoting the arts in Floyd as playful.

“We were doing sidewalk art and art shows on the courthouse lawn. We ran wire along metal posts and hung up paintings. Kids, adults, everyone made them,” Pauley recalled.

Around the same time that The Old Church Gallery was being formed, young artists and musicians, pursuing the self-sufficient lifestyle and natural beauty Floyd has to offer, began moving to the area. Adding their input to the existing creative culture, they developed markets that showcased their arts, such as The Barter Faire, a Renaissance style event that was once held yearly on the Pine Tavern lawn. The Annual Floyd County Arts and Crafts Festival – which started in the high school cafeteria and has since spread onto the grounds and elementary school – was also taking off during this time of seeding the arts.

Many of the homespun endeavors that groups began back then to highlight the arts have recently been coming to fruition or have spawned new growth. New venues and businesses related to the arts have been cropping up, more music and art classes are being taught, and downtown improvements and opportunities for entertainment are drawing more visitors to Floyd.

Jayn Avery has been making her living in ceramic arts for more than thirty years. She’s recently been able to retire from traveling long distances to craft shows, finding more market venues at home. Weekend treks to sell her wares at The Roanoke Farmer’s Market have proven successful.

“Since doing the Roanoke Market, my sales in Floyd have increased. It’s provided consistent exposure and a new clientèle. When people ask where they can get my work, I send them up to Floyd,” Avery said.

Avery’s lace impressed production pottery has always sold well at the New Mountain Mercantile, one of Floyd’s earliest shops to feature local arts and crafts. Her large hand built vessels and blue glazed heron sculptures were first exhibited at Floyd’s Jacksonville Center for the Arts, where she is an active board member.

“My higher end art pieces are selling in Floyd now, and they never used to,” Avery said. The range of interest in her art has also increased.

The Bell Gallery has sold pieces to people across the country,” she added.

Some artists, like Avery, work at their craft full-time out of their home studios. Others support themselves by combining their art with part time jobs. Still others wait till they retire to tap their creativity.

Bob Grubel, a founding member of the band Grace Note, supplements the income his music brings in with a job supporting individuals with disabilities. Over the years Grubel has recorded nearly a dozen tapes and CDs of his original music and the music of Grace Note. He sings and plays piano at local and regional venues and even finds time to keep a large garden, although he gave up his goats a decade ago when his music career started to take off.

“I enjoy wearing a different hat several times a day, going from music to supporting the individuals I work with, to farm activities,” Grubel said.

Grubel, who also performs at churches in the region, is set up to record music at his home. He also uses recording studios throughout the New River Valley.

“I love being in a community with so many musicians finding their niches,” he said.

Gretchen St. Lawrence, who relocated to Floyd with her husband David two years ago, is a late blooming artist, retired from years of working in the corporate world. The availability of art classes at Floyd’s Jacksonville Center was a factor in the St. Lawrence’s move to Floyd, but Gretchen says the main draw was the friendly and encouraging people. One of her first connections with Floyd artists was through The Floyd Figures Art Group, a non instructional art group that first began meeting in the early 1990’s and uses live models for figure drawing.

“Artists here foster each other. Everyone at the Floyd Figures group accepted me without question or judgment,” St. Lawrence said.

St. Lawrence, who is currently a member of Art Under the Sun – a grassroots art association that hosts a gallery and offers art classes – explained that the support of other artists helped her to feel comfortable as an artist. From that place of acceptance her work flourished.

“It just took off. People started commissioning me to do pet portraits,” she said.

Post note: The photo is of a Floyd sign in front of noteBooks and the Black Water Loft. Click HERE to continue this story.

March 31, 2008

Blessing the Way

mahcialtarll.jpg Johanna is my son Josh’s peer, a Blue Mountain School alumni, Floyd High School salutatorian, a young German-born woman that many of us here in Floyd watched grow up. She’s getting married on the summer solstice.

Forgoing a wedding shower, or even the traditional Floyd Blessingway, she requested a Machitun, a shamanic drumming healing ceremony. The ceremony was brought back to Floyd after my friend Katherine, a ceremonialist, and other Floyd women traveled to Chili and learned it from the Mapuchi women shamans. rootjohannax.jpg

Burning sage wafted in the air, cultrun drums reverberated, and the shaking of rattle conversations opened the way for good visions to come.

Following the ceremony, we gathered around Johanna with big smiles on our faces to tell stories and give her our blessings.

“A jiggly jolly girl in pig tails with her head in a book and roller skates on her feet” was the way some of us remembered her. As a young girl she created miniature fairy worlds. Now she’s making the world a better place as an environmental organizer. Sipping from the chalice of fruity herbal liquor, we sealed our wishes for her and her partner, Nick.

Then we held court upstairs at a long dining room table. The wine flowed as we were treated to an Eastern Indian feast fit for Queens, Priestesses, and Machis, prepared and served lovingly by two of us. Gifts were presented and oohed over. Laughter and chatter filled the air.

Post note: Johanna’s mother, Starroot, is a well known Floyd visionary artist. You can check out her work HERE. Read about Johanna and Nick's wedding HERE.


December 31, 2007

A New Cowboy in Town

jocahrro.jpgThe following was published in The Floyd Press on January 3, 2008.

You know the saying ‘everything under the sun?’ Now you can get Mexican food there. A new restaurant called El Charro recently opened in the lower level of the Winter Sun building on Locust Street in downtown Floyd.

El Charro means “the cowboy” in Spanish, said Malena, wife of one of the new restaurant owners. She pointed out a large sombrero on the terra cotta wall to my husband and me while describing the traditional dress of a Mexican cowboy. Her father was a cattle raising cowboy, she told us as she wrote down our lunch order.

The restaurant is a family business, owned and operated by two brothers, a cousin, and their families. The extended family lives in Galax and has one other restaurant in Radford, Malena explained. sombcharrro.jpg

“You’re all going to love Floyd and want to move here,” I joked to her. She motioned to her daughter who was cleaning off a nearby table and explained that her daughter wouldn’t want to change schools or move away from her friends.

From our comfortable booth by a big picture window, my husband and I watched Christmas shoppers stroll up and down the tiled hallway just outside the restaurant. The hallway and restaurant décor continues the South American theme that began with the first shop in the building, the one that bears its name – Winter Sun – an outlet featuring clothing hand painted in Ecuador. elcharrofood2.jpg

I don’t remember what my husband ordered because I was happy with my own meal – grilled chicken fajitas, sautéed onions and peppers, guacamole, salsa, and beans – and so I was not tempted by his. It was a few days before Christmas and the atmosphere was festive. A family of about fifteen was celebrating together at a group of tables that had been put together to make one long one. Many of them had arrived carrying stacks of wrapped gifts, which they deposited in a pile nearby.

El Charro is the newest establishment in the building that once housed a textile factory before it was purchased and renovated by Winter Sun clothing store owner, Anga Miller. Other shops in the recently remodeled downstairs include The Craft Cottage, which sells homemade candles and soaps; Art Under the Sun, a Floyd Artist Association's working gallery; Studio One, which offers art instruction to students of all ages; Wildfire Pottery; and the Anderson Gallery and Press. colcharro2.jpg Upstairs is home to Café Del Sol; Winter Sun clothing store; and Winter Sun Hall, where performance art, dances, and concerts take place.

“This is about as close as Floyd gets to a Mall,” I said to my husband, impressed that everything in the building was so inviting, conveniently located, and locally owned. Looking out the restaurant window and waving to a friend, I added, “And the food here gets my four stars.”

December 8, 2007

Dickens Would be Proud

patsigns.jpgThere were seven us, all authors, on a Dickens of a night. We were invited by our local independent bookstore, noteBooks, to sign books as part of the evening festivities, which included late night shopping, Christmas caroling, musical acts, and visits with Santa. I wore my leather Victorian lace-up granny boots, a long black skirt, white blouse with a gold laced vest, and a fur trimmed hat shaped like Santa’s. The funny part was that I wasn’t in costume because those are my real clothes.
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Next to me at the author’s table, Pat Woodruff had on a long black hoop skirt, a lacey top, and black Victorian heeled boots. She had the newest book, Strange Tales of Floyd County, and did the most actual signing. The rest of us bantered back and forth, greeted guests, and drank tea or coffee out of mugs that David St. Lawrence had given us with the name of his book on the front, Danger Quicksand: Have a Good Time.

But mostly we spent our time being entertained by Lee Chichester’s live falcon, CJ. Lee, author of Falcons and Foxes in the U.K: The Making of a Hunter, also has hawk. daviddickens.jpgI had thought her falcon was named “Seajay” because it squawked like sea gull, but Lee told me CJ was short for Crow Jo, a variation of Mo Jo, which had been the name his original owners had given him. Back then he hunted ducks, now he hunts crows. CJ had his eye on the decorative sequined fruit in a bowl between David and me, and in particular the red apple, because it looks like blood, Lee told us.

Our books ranged from a children’s storybook to a book about death (mine). One of the signers was a child who had published a coloring book. Fred First of Slow Road Home fame was there, glossy eyed from having just attended another book event the day before, which he blogged about HERE.
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After an hour of bookish book sitting I had a strong urge to play hooky. “I’m going out to not smoke a cigarette," I told the bookstore owner as I headed for the front door. Outside it was unseasonably warm with just the right amount of chill in the air, and a few Dickens-like characters floating around. It wasn’t long before I found Santa sitting on a bench in front of the courthouse. It might have been the first time I had seen a completely available Santa, as though he was there just for me to fulfill a childhood fantasy. David, who was also playing hooky, snapped a photo of us. “Have you been good?” Santa asked. Of course, I denied any wrongdoing, but wasn’t able to elaborate because some children had come by and were waiting for their turn with Santa. vgdiickenscrowd.jpg

The new Village Green building sparkled with white lights. People were mulling about. I was out in front of Doug Thompson’s Blue Ridge Muse, taking a photo of the lit up window, when Doug and his wife Amy invited me in. Amy showed me the Christmas mugs she had purchased for the occasion from Angels in the Attic, our town’s popular thrift shop. Doug was busy talking to shoppers, but later that night he visited the book signers at noteBooks and took some close-up shots of CJ, which are likely to turn up in next week’s Floyd Press.

Angels in the Attic was my next stop. caroling.jpg I was drawn in by Christmas red in the window. While trying not to buy a little girls Santa dress for the granddaughter I don’t have (yet), I caught some impromptu Christmas caroling. If Santa wasn’t enough to get me in the holiday spirit, this was. Dr. Sue Osborne and her son Mars were joined by singer Kari Kovik. Judy Weinzenfeld accompanied them on violin as the woman behind the check-out counter in bright red prairie hats hummed along.

Post Notes: You can read more about the book signing event at Floyd's Dickens of a Night and view more photos on David's blog HERE. See the video recording of the Angels in the Attic caroling session HERE.

December 3, 2007

The Emily Brass Band Shines On

emilybsax2.jpgThe following was published in The Floyd Press on December 6, 2007.

Roberta Flack meets Bob Marley, that’s how I first described the music of Emily Brass when she was lead singer for the popular Floyd-based band, Foundation Stone. Back then I considered Foundation Stone to be a hometown “house band.” They regularly played at The Pine Tavern Restaurant, renowned for its Sunday Night Open Mic, community gatherings, and the Italian cooking of chef, Michael Gucciardo.

But then the Pine Tavern closed and later Foundation Stone folded when Emily and her husband, Jacques, the band’s bass guitarist, broke up. It felt like the end of an era, significant losses that would lessen my opportunities to dance with and socialize locally with friends.

The Pine Tavern has been open under the new management of Reed and Jane Embrey for over two years now. They serve down home Southern cooking that the Roanoke Times has rated with 4 ½ stars. Tom Ryan, a satirist who authors the online Floyd Enquirer, tends bar in The Tavern Room. This past Friday night, the venue and the sound of Foundation Stone were reunited. Emily, a singer, songwriter, and saxophonist, hosted a party for the release of her new CD with her new band, The Emily Brass Band.

In the old days bands played in the restaurant’s main room. Tables were moved to make room for dancing. Over the years, I and others wore down some of the Tavern’s wood floor shine with our enthusiastic and persistent dance steps. Since then the place has expanded. On this night, the last of November, we danced under the Tavern Pavilion, closed in with plastic and warmed with portable heaters. But it didn’t take long for people to throw their coats over the backs of chairs. Emily has a stage presence that encourages a feeling of celebration, and when she plays sax she reminds me of snake charmer with a talent for getting everyone up and shaking to her rhythmic grooves. emily2.jpg

“Who knew?” I asked more than once of those who danced near me, after hearing lead guitarist Richard Ursomarso play. I’ve known Richard, a Floyd Market Gardener, for years but didn’t know he could play guitar riffs like a top chart musician. Other band members who rounded out the reggae, jazz, and hip-hop influenced sound were bass guitarist John Lindsey, keyboardist James Pace, and Foundation Stone drummer Dave Brown.

Emily, who is originally from Montreal Canada, is an environmental activist, and her lyrics reflect that. We once shared a group bus ride to Washington D.C. to protest the start of the Iraq War. She wore a large silver Statue of Liberty crown to go with her hand painted sign that read “Protest is our Patriotic Duty," one of the slogans we came up with at a sign painting party the night before the march. She volunteers her time to help put a local newsletter together, which frequently happens on my kitchen table, and sells Guatemalan clothing when she’s not busy writing and playing music.

The name of her new CD, “Open Door,” suggests the hopefulness that is an integral part of Emily’s style. With a sultry voice ranging from soothing to commanding, she raps and sings lyrics that prod listeners to think about how they live, urging global awareness with a hip upbeat that causes me to look around and smile at my dancing neighbors.

Although most of the songs Emily performed were new ones off her CD, every now and then she would shout out to the crowd that it was time for a “Foundation Stone fix,” and the audience would cheer and prepare to sing along.

Emily’s website, emilybrass.com, best describes her music and what it’s like to dance to: Like a musical shape-shifter, Emily Brass takes you on a psychedelic hippie-hop journey, channeling the ghosts of old school rap, rock-steady reggae, ragtime jazz, and 60's rock & soul, while relentlessly keeping you in a sweat-inducing, smile-inspiring trance-dance, all night long.

Maybe not all night long for some of us, but when it comes to the music of Emily Brass, I’m good for at least a first two hour set.

Post notes: HERE'S a short video clip of the band on the Pine Tavern Pavilion Stage Friday night. And HERE is a Roanoke Times write-up about Emily which links to audio of two of Emily’s songs. Emily’s CD can be purchased online HERE. It is also available in Floyd at noteBooks, Café Del Sol, and New Mountain Mercantile; and in Roanoke at Seeds of Light.

November 25, 2007

Favorite Friday Flatfoot Jamboree

countrystorejoe.jpgMy favorite part of the Floyd Country Store, home of the famous Friday Night Jamboree, is the seating. When the store reopened this past summer, after a renovation that allowed for more room, the lightweight plastic and folding chairs covered with colorful cushions and crocheted seat pads got my attention. The jamboree crowd has always been a full house that spilled out onto the street, and I had never seen the chairs empty before. I was struck by how hospitable they looked and wondered about the people who provided such a homemade touch for the comfort of others.

The renovated store looks especially pretty lit up at night. It was decked in Christmas lights when Joe and I arrived this past Friday night (the day after Thanksgiving) to meet up with my son, Josh, his girlfriend, Anna, and Anna’s family who were in town from Minnesota. Even with the expanded space, which holds more than a few hundred people, by the time we got there every seat was filled. We stood in the aisle, shoulder to shoulder with others watching the Sigmon Stringers, a family bluegrass band from North Carolina. From the start of their set, the dance floor was never empty. The click and clack of the flatfooters could be heard over the fiddle playing band, whose youngest member looked to be about twelve. The oldest might have been her Grandpa.

I was wearing clogs, the wrong kind of shoes for flatfooting, a mountain style of step dancing that resembles tap and is related to clogging. Even if I knew how to flatfoot or could contain myself enough to dance using only my feet, I didn’t want to chance it with the shoes I had on. chairs.jpg

Watching the spirited dancing done by people of all ages, I began to think about my mother and father’s last visit to Floyd when I took them to the jamboree. It was just a couple of years before my dad, a WWII vet born to South Boston Massachusetts Irish immigrants, passed away. We had seats right up front. I tried to convince him to dance with me by explaining how flatfooting was related to Irish step dancing, brought over by the Scotch Irish settlers. But flatfooting was too much of a leap for my dad, who was more comfortable doing the jitterbug.

When and if you do score a seat on a busy jamboree night, you’ll be bound to get to know your neighbor in the similar way you do when you sit next to someone on a plane or any other close quarters. Eventually Joe and I found ourselves nestled in a back corner of dance hall, sitting next to a couple that we struck up a lively conversation with. The man, a Floyd native, bore the family name of the road I regularly take from the Blue Ridge Parkway into town. He shared some interesting bits of history about our neighborhood that we didn’t know, and in the time it took for a few songs to be played, we all knew a good bit about each other.

After awhile I wandered around to the front of the store to see what the rest of my group were doing. Some were browsing through the rack of music CD’s. There was talk of a hot fudge sundae from the soda fountain. countrystoreband2.jpg Josh and Anna were on the dance floor waltzing. I ran into the Country Store owner, Woody Crenshaw, who was wearing denim bib overalls and a baseball cap over his sandy brown longish hair. As we talked, I checked out his shoes, more flatfoot worthy than mine, I decided.

“You need to put some metal taps on those, Woody, so we can hear you when you dance,” I said.

“No. Those are only for the good dancers,” he answered.

Seems you don’t want to draw attention to yourself until you master the dance. Taps are something you have to work your way up to.

Post Notes: See Josh and Anna dancing the waltz at the Friday Night Jamboree HERE and Woody talking about the Jamboree HERE. And HERE'S a close-up , especially for Kenju, of someone flatfooting.

November 20, 2007

A T-shirt Tribute

kelltshirts.jpgIt was a final Farewell Memorial for Elliot, the poet and one of the founding members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle who passed away in November two years ago. The tribute was expressed through spontaneous performance art involving his T-shirt collection.

I was having a conversation with my friend Kathleen’s fiancé, Wayne, about The Epic of Gilgamesh and a toasted bacon and sautéed onion sandwich that we both like from the Blue Ridge Restaurant. Kathleen, a historical society archivist who had just addressed the crowd at the Village Green ribbon cutting ceremony, joined us. I reminded her that it was the second anniversary Elliot’s death. Elliot, Kathleen, Mara, and I were all founding members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle and regular Scrabble partners.

Elliot walked stooped over with a cane. With long hair and a full burly beard, he looked somewhat like the Harry Potter character, Hagrid; or maybe Bette Midler, who Elliot named when I asked him once who might play him in the movie of his life. t%27s.jpg He liked to wear a beret and a daisy behind his ear. He also wore and collected T-shirts, mostly whimsical and comical ones, or those related to his love of contra dancing.

Elliot didn’t have many ties with what little blood family he had. Kathleen, also a contra dancer, worked with a small group of friends to close down Elliot’s house after he died and ended up being the distributor of many of his belongings. She happened to have a large black garbage bag full of his T-shirts in her car.

“I’m ready to let them go, but first I have to photograph them. Do you want to do that with me now?” she asked.

It seemed fitting to spread the shirts out on the grass in front of the historic Jacksonville Cemetery. Elliot, who had a sense of humor but was also somewhat of a Scrooge, would have appreciated the drama and the aged grey tombstones. It was also the closest empty space we could find near the Grand Opening we were attending.
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We snapped pictures of the lined up T-shirts from all angles, admiring their colors against the green grass. Turquoise, hot pink, green, and yellow ones gave a bold accent to the whites they were outnumbered by. Some I remembered from when Elliot wore them. Each told a piece of a story from Elliot’s life and gave us, his fellow writers, plenty of catchphrases to read and to ponder.

Kathleen was excited that she had just found a home for Elliot’s old cameras, another one of his collections. I reminded her that I still had a large box of his collector’s ink pens. After packing up the T-shirts together, she headed over to meet up Wayne at The Blue Ridge Restaurant. I agreed to take the T-shirts to the Café Del Sol Spoken Word that evening where some of us would be reading a few of Elliot’s poems and to give them away. As I lugged the heavy pack to my car, I felt like a strange kind of Santa and imagined passing out T-shirts to the poets, writers, and lovers at the café that night. What would Elliot think, I wondered? I laughed at thought of him with a snow white beard.

Post Notes: Read about the memorial Spoken Word held for Elliot two years ago HERE. And Scrabble with Elliot HERE. The closest I have of a posted photo of Elliot is HERE.

NEW:
My photographs, a poem, and a quote are being featured today on Sheila Cason's blog, Beauty, "a blog about beautiful things on weblogs." Check it out HERE.

November 19, 2007

Ribbon Cutting at the Village Green

vgreenwanda.jpgA group of investors purchased an abandoned building in downtown Floyd because they didn’t want to see a McDonalds there, Woody Crenshaw, one of the investors told the crowd at the ribbon cutting ceremony this past Saturday morning. What was most recently Farmers Food Grocery Store has been renovated into “The Village Green,” a timber-framed style complex of offices and businesses.

“We got fudge coming,” Woody joked, referring to Nancy’s Candy, a homemade candy company based in Meadows of Dan that now has a front row store in the Village Green.

The green part of the Village Green is still to come. I stood on the newly spread mulch where some of it will grow as I edged my way in for a photo opportunity while listening to Woody, who also owns The Floyd Country Store, home to Floyd’s famous Friday Night Jamboree.

After speaking to a crowd of well over a hundred, Woody turned the speaker’s platform over to Kathleen Ingoldsby, a Floyd County Historical Society archivist, fellow Scrabble player, and member of the writer’s circle I belong to. Kathleen talked about the history of the building and the site, which is adjacent to the historical Nannie Harman Howard House, aka the Rakes Mansion. vgreen.jpg

With a similar style to the Village Green building, the new Hotel Floyd sits behind it and almost looks like an extension of the compound. Hotel Floyd owner, Jack Wall also spoke and later gave tours through the hotel’s themed rooms. Woody introduced Jack by describing the hotel as “a real deal boutique hotel filled with the best of Floyd’s arts and crafts. He ended his introduction by saying, “Don’t forget to buy locally.”

Besides Nancy’s Candy store, there is a book store, a clothing store, an interior design store, a timber framing storefront, art galleries, and more at The Village Green. Blue Ridge Muse blogger, Doug Thompson, and his wife Amy own one of the new galleries. Named after Doug’s blog, The Blue Ridge Muse Gallery is in a prime corner location with a view of downtown, which I imagine will give Doug, a journalist and photographer, even more opportunity to keep his hand on the pulse of Floyd activity.

After the ribbon cutting, I chatted with some of the enthusiastic ceremony attendees before heading over to the Hotel Floyd to run an errand. As a decorator of The Writers Suite, one of the themed suites in the hotel, I had a book to drop off for the bookcase. I passed by Jack who looked like a pied piper leading a line of about twenty into the Bell Gallery room for a tour. journal.jpg

In the Writers Suite, I ran into Fred First, local blogger and fellow writer’s circle member, whose framed photograph of a tree hangs in one of the Writer’s Suite’s bedrooms. His wife Ann hadn’t seen any of the rooms yet and he was showing her around. As we were talking, he happened to mention the visit he and Ann recently had with Texas blogger Gary Boyd and his wife.

We were talking about the very real bonds that are created between fellow bloggers who have never met in person. I was feeling disappointed that I didn’t get to see Gary, who keeps up with Floyd activities by regularly reading all the Floyd blogs. I joked about being dissed and was preparing myself to give Gary a hard time once I got back online, when I flipped through the leather guest journal in the room and saw an entry from Gary.

He stayed right here in the Writer’s Room?!” I shouted.

It was true, Fred concurred. But faster than an email shooting through cyberspace, all of my disappointment melted away when I saw my name in the entry Gary had written. “Sorry we didn’t catch up with you, Colleen,” Gary wrote. It was a nice twist to a morning spent acknowledging community and the interconnected bonds we all share.

Post Notes:
The blogger gets blogged: Check out June’s post on the Village Green Grand Opening HERE. She caught me in the act.

Coming Soon: Performance art photo journal involving the late poet Elliot Dabinsky’s T-shirt collection and the monthly Spoken Word Night, in which the T-shirts played a role.

Photos: 1 - That’s Floyd Press editor, Wanda Combs, snapping a shot of the ceremonious ribbon being cut by a town counsel member, the Floyd county mayor, and Woody Crenshaw. 2 - The crowd of onlookers. 3 - The Hotel Floyd Writer's Suite journal.

October 30, 2007

A Tourist in my Own Town

jayncolwriterhx.jpgThis room is an artistic blend of old and new. An antique desk recalls images of writers from days gone by. The uncluttered classic furnishings in the study inspire introspection and calm, while the light infused olive colored walls throughout the suite offer an openness and brightness that stirs a calling to creativity and quietude … from the Hotel Floyd’s Writer’s Room webpage.

The whirlwind weekend ended up being a romantic one. It involved a complimentary night’s stay in the Hotel Floyd for the work I did on decorating the themed Writer’s Room, and a free dinner at Oddfellas Cantina, given to Joe from the soccer team as a thank you for his coaching last year. These bonus events were preceded by a writer’s circle, ceremoniously held in the Writer’s Suite.

Earlier in the day I suffered a meltdown.writerhxf.jpg It was the cumulative effect of it being Museletter weekend, writing a major piece about health care, packing for the overnight stay, and eating some blue fish for lunch that caused my face and hands to go beet red and sting, otherwise known as an allergic reaction. By the time I reached the hotel, several writers were waiting for me to let them in. I was only half coherent, dropping things all the way up the stairs, and gasping for air in between breaths as I talked to Mara and her daughter Kyla, who both offered their help.

We work-shopped one writer’s essay on grief that was set on a ferry boat in Canada, Mara brought a poem about painting homemade thank you cards and a rock with her daughter, and I brought the unfinished rap lyrics I’ve been writing for a friend’s band. After the two hour meeting, Mara hung out with me. She wrote an entry in the guest journal that sits on the antique desk while I went around straightening the pictures on the wall, most of which had become crooked since the last time I was in the room. marworksx.jpg
“Maybe the place is haunted,” I said. It was three days before Halloween after all. Mara nodded and suggested that it was Elliot, a poet and writer’s circle member who died two years ago and whose dictionary sits on the ledge next to the old typewriter in the Writer’s Suite.

After Mara and Kyla left, I zipped up my vest and headed out to walk around town with my camera, just in time for sunset. By 7:00 I was in Odfellas waiting to meet Joe who was coming from a soccer game. Scribbling furiously in my notebook, I felt like a Natalie Goldberg imposter. Natalie, author and poet, loves to write in cafés, something I’ve always been too distractible to be good at.

I write: A man in a red jacket with a guitar slung across his back approaches the stage, followed by another man who has hair like Adam Duritz from Counting Crows.odd2.jpg
The second man is wearing a reggae scarf and cradling a cell phone to his ear. A woman who seems to know them throws her leopard skin coat across the back of the chair. Julie, my waitress who also teaches yoga, owns the restaurant now. She knows I like New Castle beer. I didn’t know it was Mother-in-law day until Julie told me after I asked her why the Bell Gallery family sitting by the front window had two vases of fresh roses on their table.

Joe arrived just as Nora Jones on the stereo was being turned down and the first musician was tuning up. His guitar strings are not used to the cold, he tells us, because he’s from Florida, on his way to Boston. oddfellaredz.jpg Joe orderd stuffed scallops and I got the tuna steak. I asked Julie for butter because I don’t like to dip my bread in olive oil. I write a note to Natalie before putting my notebook away so Joe and I can hold hands as we listen to the live music while our dinners are being prepared:

Hey Natalie, I’m starting to get the hang of this writing in cafés thing. If I had known it could include Nora Jones playing on the stereo and a frosty glass of New Castle beer I probably would have been here sooner.

P.S. Write back.

October 29, 2007

Apple Crisp Moon

acrisp.jpgI hovered over the table, across from Emily, the hip hop singer and saxophone player who was the lead singer for Foundation Stone before they broke up. We were snipping and clipping November submissions for the local newsletter that gets put together at my kitchen table each month. Every now and then I would break the silence or change the conversation with, “But we still have to name the moon.” Naming the moon is something our friend Jayn started and usually does, but she was down the mountain selling her pottery at the Roanoke Market.

Emily, who was wearing a pale pink headband that held back her long blonde hair, a magenta sweatshirt, and a necklace the color of sand, made a few suggestions, to which I answered, “We’ve already used that one.” After more than twenty years of putting out the newsletter called a “Museletter” all the typical names for November had been used, like Thanksgiving, Hunter, and Bare Trees Moon.

“Empty … open … darkening … stark … potential,” I tried, hoping to hit on a word that would conjure a November feeling.

We were looking for quotes and glue sticking graphics on borders when Emily said, “Maybe we should get out the thesaurus?” She was speaking my language. I pulled the faded blue hard cover edition from a nearby bookcase and handed it to her. She looked up “gratitude,” expecting to find a fresh synonym to go with the horn of plenty clip art I had just pasted down on the community bulletin board page.

“Let’s ask Joe to name the moon,” she said, slamming the book shut a few minutes later. I got up and looked out the window.

“No, he’s on the porch doing paper work, rubbing his forehead with his hand. I don’t think we should ask him right now.

A few minutes later he came inside.

I was busy looking for a poem by Mara about not doing housework that had slipped under the table when I heard Emily ask Joe to name the moon.

“That’s it!” we both said at the same time. As soon as he said it we knew it was perfect. Apple Crisp Moon.

“We’ve never used that one before. Jayn will love it and it goes well with the Thanksgiving blessing on the front page, the one Joe’s nephew Cameron taught me: We love our bread. We love our butter. But most of all we love each other.”

We also love our apple crisp.

Post notes: Emily’s CD Party announcement is featured on the front page of the Museletter. The Emily Brass band will play at the Pine Tavern on November 30, 9 P.M. with Ash Devine opening the show. You can hear Emily's music HERE. More about the Museletter HERE.

October 15, 2007

A Fall Fairytale Wedding

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1. The bride did not arrive in a carriage.
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2. Her ride did not turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.
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3. She did not run from the ball at the Rockwood Manor or lose a glass slipper on the stairs.
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4. Toasts were made and vows exchanged. A community of friends with longstanding bonds, new friends, and family who had watched her grow-up joined together, showering her and her prince with loving blessings. Roses bloomed by a gushing fountain. On a perfect fall day, gold and silver gifts were piled high.
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5. The chocolate cake matched the dresses on the ladies in waiting. Fireworks exploded and everything from the polka to the “Rock the Casbah” was danced to.
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6. A kiss sealed the spell. Friends and family wish them well as they write the first chapter of their happily ever after story.

Post note: Wedding congratulations to out to my friend Juniper’s daughter, Autumn, and her new husband Kris!

October 10, 2007

Part II: Hotel Floyd Open House Party

Part 1 of this entry can be found HERE.
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1. This is Alder Burnette-Holliday and Abe Gorskey representing Phoenix Hardwoods, the woodworkers who created much of the handmade furniture in the hotel. They're standing in front of one of their Phoenix Hardwood headboards in the Crooked Road room. I love this photo because I knew both these talented young men when they were children.
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2. I’m probably not supposed to have favorite rooms, and if I did it would be the writer’s suite, right? In truth, all the rooms are beautiful and unique, but The Old Church Gallery is one on my favorites list. It was primarily designed and decorated by Old Church Gallery director and longtime Floyd art school teacher, Catherine Pauley, and Kathleen Ingoldsby, a member of our Writer’s Circle and Historical Society activist. The Old Church Gallery, founded in 1978, is just a stone’s throw from the Hotel. It preserves and showcases Floyd’s cultural and historical arts and currently houses an exhibit of a once active moonshine still. Catherine wasn’t able to attend the party due to a death in her family, but she was on everyone’s mind.
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3. I got a tour of the Country Store Room by the store’s owner, Woody Crenshaw. He and his wife Jackie decorated their room. Woody named some familiar faces of local Jamboree icons shown in framed photos for me, and he had a few good jamboree stories to tell. It’s hard to see here, but the photos over the bed are of hands of jamboree fiddle "pickers” in action. The hotel is within walking distance to the Country Store and other Floyd hotspots.
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4. Even the refreshments were locally made by some of Floyd’s best. We were served wine by the Chateau Morrisette Winery crew, who also have a room in the hotel. The food – lamb with cucumber raita, hummus, tuna, and stuffed mushrooms – was made by Over The Moon's chef. Sally from Café Del Sol provided dessert and coffee. Unfortunately, I stashed some dessert for eating later at home, but I left it idle too long and it got cleaned up. I’m still wondering how those chocolate fudge bars dripping with strawberry sauce and topped with whip crème would have tasted.
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5. This is Malawi Room, inspired by hotel owners Kamala and Jack’s Zion Lutheran good will trips to Africa. I was really impressed when I heard that Jack pulled this room together. He told me he hopes to schedule a public open house for the hotel to coincide with the neighboring Village Green opening sometime in November. Joe and I were one of the few couples who stayed till the very end, talking to Jack and Kamala. We sat in chairs out in the grassy courtyard, where an amphitheatre for music will be built, talking with Jack, Kamala and a few others. At one point a couple came to check into one of the four rooms we didn’t get to see because they were either occupied or reserved. “Oh yes, now we have to run this place, don’t we?!” Kamala joked. Somebody got up to sign in the couple.

October 9, 2007

The Hotel Floyd Open House Party

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1. The Hotel Floyd is an eco-friendly building in downtown Floyd that began construction this past spring and opened on October 1st. The owners wanted to showcase Floyd art, furniture, music, and culture, so they called on local groups and businesses to design fourteen themed rooms. Since the beginning I’ve been working on a Writer’s Room with other members of Writer’s Circle I belong to. Other rooms are: The Crooked Road Room, Blue Ridge Parkway Room, Country Store Room, Jacksonville Center Room, Floyd Artist Room, Floyd Fest Room, Harvest Moon Room, Winter Sun Room, Jeanie O'Neil Room, The Malawi Room, Bell Gallery Room, Old Church Gallery Room and the Chateau Morrisette Bridal Suite. On Oct 7 the hotel owners hosted an open house party to thank all the groups for their work. The following photos were taken then.
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2. Writer Circle member, ceremonialist, herbalist, and one of the Harvest Moon’s managers, Katherine Chantal made the first entry in the Writer’s Room journal on the desk that she and I picked out last spring. In it she welcomed guests and invited them to leave a journal entry of their own. The first writing in the journal was our version of a champagne bottle breaking dedication.
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3. Another Writer's Circle member, Jayn Avery, is resting on the bed in one of the two bedrooms in the suite, below Fred First’s framed “January Tree.” She deserves to. The day before the party I read on Blue Ridge Muse that the hotel was booked to capacity for the weekend. I didn’t even know it was open! Jayn was down the mountain selling pottery at the Roanoke Market, so I called another friend involved to find out more. When I learned that it was indeed open and full of guests, I asked, “Did you see if the doily ever got put on the back of our loveseat?” I was there the day furniture and art got moved into the rooms on September 24, the same day Jayn and I found the doily. She took it home to wash and I headed for the beach with Joe for a vacation. The doily seemed like an important finishing touch detail. “Yes,” my friend reported. She had seen the doily.
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4. Rick Cooley is looking through the writer’s scrapbook on the credenza built by local furniture maker, Sam Hancock. This photo was taken minutes before I learned that Rick had designed the hotel’s logo art for their webpage, postcards, and other advertising. He’s a member of the Floyd Artist Group with a themed room next to ours. Notice the high definition flat screen TV in this photo. All the rooms have them, as well as wireless hook-up capability. That's Lora Geissler's "Shell Ginger" behind Rick.
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5. Yes, we spent a lot of time in the Writer’s Suite. It took awhile before we could break away to see some of the rooms that other local groups had decorated. In this photo Jack Wall, one of the hotel owners, is talking with two people from the Wall Residence Community. Wall Residences is a Floyd agency, which Jack is the director of, that provides foster care placements for adults with disabilities. It’s the agency I worked for (and am still involved with part-time) for nine years as a foster care provider. Notice the lamp set on a base of books that designer Jeanie O'Neill found for us.

Post note: Part Two with photos of other rooms and more will be posted tomorrow. Update: Part II is HERE.

October 8, 2007

The Hotel Floyd Writer’s Suite

hfmovingday.jpgThe first item purchased for the Hotel Floyd Writer’s Suite came from Daniel Bower’s antique shop. An antique wooden desk with a pull down table and various drawers and letter slots became a symbol linking the past with the present. At the start of the hotel construction, a small group of us from The Floyd Writer’s Circle accepted an invitation from the hotel owners, Jack Wall and Kamala Bauers, to decorate one of the fourteen themed rooms being planned. We knew we wanted our room to reflect the historic tradition of writing and to connect old world writers with modern ones. With the help of interior decorator Jeanie O’Neill, we chose classic furnishings in earth tones to create a timeless, uncluttered atmosphere of self-reflection and study.

The last two items purchased also came from a local antique shop. A large crocheted doily and a translucent blue inkwell were found at Chic’s Antique Shop on the day in late September when furniture was moved in and art was being hung in preparation for the hotel’s October 1st opening. jaynhf.jpgWriter’s Circle member and Blue Heron potter, Jayn Avery, took the doily home to hand wash it before pinning it to the back of the living room loveseat for the room’s finishing touch.

The old typewriter placed high on the lighted ledge in the main room has an interesting local history. It was donated by Mary Peters who used it during her years of work at the Bank of Floyd before electric typewriters were installed there in the early 60’s. Mary offered the typewriter after reading an article in The Floyd Press about the Writer’s Suite in which those who had ideas or historic resources to share were encouraged to come forth. Next to the typewriter is a tea set made by Jayn in one of her signature lace designs. A vase also made by Jayn in her Blue Heron studio sits above the kitchen cupboard and holds a locally picked arrangement of dried flowers.

Prominently featured throughout the suite is the collage art of Jennifer Spoon. Jennifer, a retired Radford University professor of graphic design, is a paper maker who incorporates letters and numbers into her compositions. 3.jpg Stamps, pieces of crossword puzzles, found images, and travel momentums give her collages a romantic old-world flavor.

Lora Geissler’s pastel of a larger than life pink blossom hangs above the wingback chair in the main room. Titled, Shell Ginger, it adds spice to the light infused olive oil color of the walls. A photograph of a tree in January standing in the forefront of a red-roofed barn makes a dramatic display in one of the two bedrooms. It was taken by photographer, Fred First, who is also a Writer’s Circle member and one of the local authors whose book, A Slow Road Home, is among those on the Writer’s Suite bookcase.

In the same bedroom where Fred’s photograph hangs there’s a reading chair next to a one-of-a-kind Susan Icove lamp. The lamp, decorated with old books and dictionary pages, compliments Highland Hardwood’s Sam Hancock’s bed headboard and wardrobe. We chose Sam’s handcrafted and classically designed furniture to add a Hemingwayesque feel to the suite. hfwr.jpg

Not surprisingly, books are a theme in the Writer’s Suite. Old and new ones by Virginia authors were tracked down by Writer’s Circle member, Kathleen Ingoldsby. Kathleen is an active member of the Floyd Historical Society who also worked with local artist Catherine Pauley designing the Old Church Gallery Suite, two doors down from the Writer’s Suite.

What would a writer’s room be without a Scrabble board? Or a dictionary? An old Oxford English dictionary placed next to the 1950’s typewriter belonged to the late Elliot Dabinsky, a poet and one of the founding members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle. Elliot’s photo is included with others in a collage collection of writers performing at Spoken Word events.

After a game of Scrabble, guests might want to flip through the pages of a scrapbook that chronicles the activities of local writers in the community. jayncolleenkathhf.jpg Or, they might be inspired to pen their own thoughts. At a Hotel Floyd Open House private party on Sunday, Writer’s Circle member, Katherine Chantal made the first entry in the leather bound journal that sits on Writer’s Suite antique desk. After welcoming guests to the suite, which features green technology design and the best of local artists, she invited them to compose a journal entry about their stay. It will be interesting to read over time what visitors think about the Hotel Floyd and all that our town has to offer.

Post Notes: Coming soon – a photo journal accounting of the Hotel Floyd open house private party on Sunday. The photos above are of the Hotel Floyd on moving day, September 24th; Jayn and the writer’s suite taken on moving day; one of Jennifer Spoon's collages, and Jayn, Colleen, and Katherine in the suite at the open house party. The Hotel Floyd's website is HERE.

September 7, 2007

Waiting on the World to Change: Mayer and Matthews Play Virginia Tech

hokieunitex.jpgI’ve never paid much attention to football. It took two big names, John Mayer and the Dave Matthews Band in concert together to finally get me into Virginia Tech’s Lane stadium. This free concert was conceived by Matthews, the Grammy award winning musician from Charlottesville, Virginia, as a way to show support for Tech after the deadly shootings of last April. Showing their Hokie spirit by wearing school colors, Tech students, staff, faculty, and friends filled the stadium with wall-to-wall maroon and orange.

Mayer, an avid blogger with school boy good looks, plays the guitar as if it was an extension of his body. Just seeing him appear on stage wearing a maroon Hokie T-shirt caused the crowd to erupt in ear piercing applause. Hearing him belt out his Grammy winning hit, “Waiting on the World to Change,” so close to home was a thrill.

“This is my prayer for you,” he told the Tech crowd before letting the lyrics of his song “Gravity” speak for him. johnmeyer1.jpg Oh gravity … Stay the hell away from me … Oh gravity … Has taken better men than me … Now how can that be? … Just keep me where the light is … Just keep me where the light is … The blues that oozed from his red electric guitar were matched by the soulful facial expressions that Mayer made as he played.

I’m a dancer who needs a big space to move around in, but our seats were set up for watching football. I’m sure I stepped on my neighbor’s toes a time or two, and I might have knocked over someone’s drink while dancing. During the intermission between bands, I looked around and saw a few familiar faces, but I had never seen so many Hokies in one place. It was my first time witnessing the coordinated effort of Hokie fans as they rippled like dominoes from one end of the stadium to another doing their signature cheer. Let's go ... Hokies ... Let's go ... Hokies ...

Even though I knew that South African born Dave Matthews was from Virginia, I was surprised to hear the twang of his accent when he said things like, “”Thanks ya’ll … and all of that stuff.” Admittedly shy, Matthews sings better than he talks on his feet into the mic. johnmeyercropblue.jpg Although, he did manage to speak about coming down from Charlottesville in a red van to play at much smaller Blacksburg venues many years ago. And his words were especially appreciated and met with applause when he said, “These are some dark times and the dark side, but I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I’d rather be than with y’all.”

The song that Dave Matthews Band chose to open with, “Two Step," related well to the reason we had all come together. Celebrate we will … Cause life is short but sweet for certain … Hey, we climb on two by two … To be sure these days continue … Things we cannot change …

I have a lot of respect for Matthews, who has weathered the premature deaths of close family members, and has lent his support for farm aid, rebuilding New Orleans, and other worthy causes. But who knew that he could dance like James Brown flat footing at the local jamboree?

The fact that my husband and I didn’t stay till the end wasn’t a reflection on the show. davmatt.jpg As performances go, it was one with a big impact, a spectacular light show, and the big brass and rousing fiddle jam sound that the Dave Matthews Band is famous for. But after three hours of high volume music and crowded dancing, I was tired and hungry.

We had taken our bikes to the concert to avoid the stadium traffic. As we pedaled off into the warm night, the band was well into their second hour of playing. We could hear them singing the familiar refrain from Bob Marley’s "Three Little Birds." ... Don’t worry about a thing … Every little thing gonna be all right … Singing: don’t worry about a thing … cause every little thing gonna be all right.

The song trailed off as we glided downhill in search of good pizza and a cold beer.

Video clips: 1. John Mayer sings “Waiting on the World to Change” at Tech HERE. 2. Hokie Spirit Cheer HERE. 3. Dave Matthews Band sings Two Step at Tech HERE. The above was published in The Floyd Press on September 13, 2007.

August 29, 2007

How Now Floyd Cow?

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These days Floyd reads like a fairytale. In this storybook one traffic light town I live in, we buy food at the Harvest Moon, hear music at the Winter Sun, eat lunch Over the Moon, and see the latest in local art Under the Sun. Last week I met an artist named Jennifer Spoon at Over the Moon to buy a collage for the Hotel Floyd Writer’s Room. We did not eat pie in the sky.

Post Notes: To see the Cow That Jumped Over the Moon and landed at the driveway entrance and to read about her sidekick, go HERE. More Floyd goings on can be found by scrolling down in my "Where I Live" archives HERE.

June 11, 2007

The DomeFest Bonfire

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We’re not so different than moths and June bugs drawn to a flame in darkness. Maybe because for eons our ancestors sat in front of nighttime fires, it seems to be in our DNA to be pulled in by a bright light. Is that why our eyes go right for a TV set when one is turned on?

I was at the DomeFest – a new Floyd music festival – in the Copper Hill section of the county dancing with friends when the bonfire was lit across the field from us. I watched it go up in flames as Laura Reed, a Rastafarian version of Janis Joplin was singing her heart out with her band, Deep Pocket.

Just an hour before, the back-to-the-garden scene was an idyllic one, with barefoot children playing, happy campers swimming in the pond, and families spread out on picnic blankets on the rolling hillside. In the glow of the setting sun, I enjoyed a pizza baked in a wood-fired brick oven and a cold beer. Joe made the rounds socializing, using a golf club as a cane to support a recent ankle injury.

But now a dewy dampness had descended with the darkness and dramatic silhouettes in front of the fire’s red roar stood out. Struck with the rush of exploding sparks and the magnitude of blaze, I danced as if in a trance, like a winged creature flitting about. The pitch and intensity of the music rose with the flames. A wild warmness spread and there was just enough light coming from the stage to detect the smiles on the faces of the friends I was dancing next to. When my eyes weren’t closed or I wasn't smiling back at friends, I was gazing at the bonfire scene.
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Torch lights circled the pond. Flashlights, stars, and fireflies looked as if they had escaped from the fire. Like a page in a storybook, the night sparkled with the timelessness of a long ago fairy tale that I was just beginning to remember.

Photos: 1. The bonfire 2. The Trainwrecks, the Asheville NC band that followed Deep Pocket included my son Josh’s girlfriend, fiddle player, Anna Bowman-Smith (center). Anna’s father (left of her) and his black dog named Lilly who were visiting from Minnesota joined the band on stage. Laura Reed (on the right) from Deep Pocket (also from Asheville) joined in this number and is pictured on the right. You can hear Laura sing HERE and a few songs by The Trainwrecks HERE.

May 29, 2007

Mourning at the Virginia Tech Memorial

xtechmememorial1.jpg The morning of the Virginia Tech school shootings I was putting the finishing touches on a light-hearted story for our local newspaper. It was about a friend who performs weddings for couples in Scottish kilts, on horseback, in campgrounds, in barns, or in front of the health food store where she works.

As the Tech story broke, I put the wedding piece aside and wouldn’t pick it up again for a couple of weeks. In light of what was playing out in Blacksburg, it seemed irrelevant.

For twenty-one years I have lived forty minutes from Virginia Tech and for many years worked in a downtown Blacksburg bead shop within view of the campus. When my sons were young and they came to work with me, they roamed the streets of Blacksburg and felt safe, buying baseball cards at the game store, playing video games at the corner deli, skateboarding up and down Draper and College Avenue.

But the small town feeling I remember had been shattered. Shaken, I called my friend Alwyn, whose Blacksburg home I often stayed at when I had to work back-to-back days. She, a writer and environmental activist, told me about the retirement center where she now lives being locked down that morning. Later, when officials sent word that the doors were open and it was safe to go outside, she wondered how to carry on? Where to go? What to do? xalwyntree.jpgIt

We both wrote. I posted a love letter to Blacksburg on my weblog the day after the violence, which became the first in a series of entries about the shootings. I wrote about how strange it was to watch the televised memorial convocation and recognize familiar faces in the audience. I wrote about auditing Nikki Giovanni’s creative writing class years earlier, sitting in her office, receiving a handwritten note from her (only because I wrote her one first), and how moved I was by her poetic words that helped bring the Virginia Tech community together. was hard to see the place I knew so well under a media microscope. The intense attention on Blacksburg felt supportive and invasive at the same time. As the week progressed, I expressed my concern about the slick news packaging of the “Virginia Tech Massacre,” complete with emotionally charged images and a background soundtrack that sounded like a TV movie in the making. I was worried that school shootings were becoming so frequent that a conditioned media response was formulating.

Alwyn kept a journal. As the wind howled, the sun shone, and the azaleas bloomed around her, she expressed her horror and grief on paper. She, a Quaker, wrote about her efforts to feel compassion for the shooter, Seun-Hui Cho. It was easier to do when she related to him as the “young shy uncomfortable face” that the media first repeatedly showed. After seeing the images of him laden with weapons and after hearing his hateful words, she wrote, “I tried to contemplate the unexplainable distortion of what I had first seen to be a human being and now was trying to avoid seeing him, as perhaps how he wanted to be seen, as evil.”

For days we were both torn between our need for contemplative solitude and the need to know every new detail as it emerged. We watched TV, listened to the radio, read the newspaper, got news online, and talked on the phone to each other. xtechm.jpg From the first day, I wanted to go to Blacksburg and see the faces of the people I felt solidarity with. I wanted to walk familiar streets to convince myself that they were still there. But another part of me wanted to avoid facing the added sorrow that would create. My husband, Joe, a counselor, was called to work with some of those most directly affected by the shootings, and so the aftereffects of the violence loomed large in our home.

It was an unusually hot afternoon in May, three weeks after the shooting, when I finally made my way to Blacksburg. Alwyn and I had lunch at the India Garden before heading over to the Tech drill field. Joe had described the makeshift memorial that had spontaneously spread out on the field. Thirty-two large stones representing those who had been killed were placed in a circle in the grass. The thirty-third stone, the one for Seun-Hui Cho, had disappeared and then re-appeared a couple of times, Joe told me. It was a visual reminder of the struggle people were enduring as they tried to cope with what had happened.

The stones were covered with flowers, candles, stuffed animals, and cards. Moving from one to another reminded me walking the “stations of the cross,” a Catholic prayer pilgrimage, usually done near Easter, which involves viewing fourteen images of Christ’s final hours. I was shocked to see how many stones there were. How many were dead. Pausing at each stone, I quietly spoke the name placed before it. By this time the victims had become sadly familiar to me. I had faces to go with most of the names.

Alwyn had experienced the memorial a week before. I left her sitting in the shade under a large oak tree as I walked to a large blue-and-white striped tent in the middle of the field where the memorial continued. xtent.jpg A sense of intimacy hovered inside the tent, where wall-to-wall message boards that mourners were writing on leaned against tables. Although the tables covered with keepsakes, conveying the once vibrant lives of those who had been killed, were hard to look at, I also felt privileged to be a witness to them. The air was stifling. People were sniffling and wiping there eyes.

Two items in particular broke my heart. One was a single leather baby shoe sitting in the grass apart from the other memorabilia. I picked it up and studied it. The leather was worn. The soles were dusty and etched by time. I thought about the toddling boy who had once worn the shoe, him learning to walk, playing, and then running. I knew the shoe belonged to somebody’s son, not unlike one of my own, and that somebody’s son was gone.

The other item was a colored photograph of one of the young women who had been killed. She was wearing jeans and was stretched out on a sofa engaged in a romantic kiss with a young man her age. Her passion was snuffed out, I thought. She wouldn’t make love to anyone now. Her womb wouldn’t carry any babies. My heart sank.

I choked up telling Alwyn what I had seen at the tent. She was upset about something else. While at the memorial the previous week, she had witnessed what she referred to as “the miracle I had not even dared to hope for.” xshoe.jpgIt was Cho’s stone covered with flowers and a poem that ended with the words, “We miss you.” But now the poem was gone and an angry one was in its place.

I tried to console her by reminding her that anger was a normal response to what happened and that forgiveness takes time. “People are at different stages of healing,” I argued. But she couldn’t bear anymore hate. Together, we walked arm-in-arm back to the car, our heads bowed down.

Photos: 1. Virginia Tech Memorial. 2. My Quaker friend Alwyn resting under a tree with a maroon ribbon around it. 3. The thirty-three memorial stones. 4. Under the tent on the drill field. 5. The shoe.

May 25, 2007

Have Weddings Will Travel: The Addendum

lousonladder.jpgAKA: What goes up must come down

“Come on! You’ve ridden horseback in Chile. You can do this!” I encouraged my friend Katherine as she made her way up the long construction ladder at the Hotel Floyd building site. She, who had taken time off from her job at the Harvest Moon to meet me, was wearing a full length skirt, a white tunic, and a long white scarf draped down in front of her like a vestment – not your typical ladder climbing clothing.

“We thought the stairs would be ready by now,” Laura, the Hotel Floyd building manager said.

We were there to see The Floyd Writers Room, one of the themed hotel rooms being built that Katherine and I, both members of the Floyd Writers Circle, are helping to design and furnish.

Louis, the man who is doing the hotel website offered a hand. Once we were all safely up to the second floor suite, he pulled out his tape measure, called out some numbers, and I wrote them down in my notebook. “This is a lot of wall space,” my voice echoed. I was thinking about the framed art we would soon be shopping for.

Katherine hadn’t been up and off the ladder long when her cell phone rang. “Can you hold them off for twenty minutes?” I heard her say. moongarden2.jpg From what I could tell she was on call to perform a wedding in the garden in front of the Harvest Moon, and the bride and groom were ready.

Wondering if people were walking off the street to get married, when she got off the phone, I asked, “Is it a planned wedding?”

“As much as a five-minute wedding is planned,” she answered.

Photos: 1. Louis makes his way down the ladder with Katherine and my pocketbooks hanging from either side of his shoulder as Laura looks on. 2. I got distracted by a woman on a pink scooter and by the time I made it over to the Harvest Moon the wedding was over, but isn’t the scene where it happened pretty? Have Weddings Will Travel Part I is HERE. You can read the story I wrote about the Floyd Writers Room for the Floyd Press HERE.

May 14, 2007

From First Holy Communion to Community Croning

croning.jpg Maybe age is a clock to wake us from dreaming … or maybe it is the dream … like counting the number of pages in a book … when we should be reading the story … Colleen

The smell of burning sage drifted in the air. Later, it was the Frankincense oil we were anointed with as we were welcomed into the circle of elder women. Nineteen of us being honored were sequestered off to a room in the private home where the ceremony took place while final preparations were made. Then, one by one, we passed through a sheer purple curtain as a younger woman, acting like a gateway keeper between worlds, spoke our names.

I say your names, the curtain parts, a bell announces you to faces waiting with welcome, celebration. Wisdom tells long stories, penetrates. ~ Mara

According to my friend Mara’s poem, published later that month in our community newsletter, a bell rang as we walked down the center of two lines of about twenty-five women on either side. I don’t remember the bell, but I seem to recall hearing the women singing. Looking into each one’s eyes, I walked slowly and intently, savoring their smiles as I wound my way through their human tunnel.

I always thought 50 was my Aunt Gertie … bobby pins and elastic waist pants … But what do I know? … I was raised on sitcoms and the generation gap … What do I know? … I haven’t even had my first hot flash or mid-life crisis … ~ Colleen

After receiving gifts and words of wisdom from the more seasoned crones, each honored woman took turns sharing a talent with the group. One played the banjo, another played the guitar and sang. In past years women have danced and done skits. This year there was much poetry and speaking from the heart. I was on the edge of my throne, I mean seat.
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Black scarf wraps your throat with all the words … you said as time spun gatherings like this … swept clean, with feet and hands, respected water. ~ Mara

The joke was that I didn’t want to be croned. I wanted a crown and I got one. After the ceremony and during the feasting I spotted a shiny gold paper crown next to a platter of food on the dining room table. As I was filling my plate with one spoonful of everything, I thought to myself, “I would love to have that crown.” Later, as someone placed it on my head, I was told that it was made for me by the children of the house earlier in the day. I guess the word had gotten out that Colleen wanted to be crowned instead of croned because she found it easier to think of herself as a Queen than a Crone.

Age is a strange orbit spinning on its axis … We know it’s moving but we can’t feel it … Then we arrive and ask “How did we get here?” … Do I have to be 50 … Am I really?

The poem I read, about turning 50, revealed how much fun I’ve had over the years confusing my friends about my age. I’ve been known to lie about it. “It runs in my family,” I told the crowd. “I had several older aunts who after they died we found out their real ages and were shocked. I, on the other hand, only like to shave off a year. It gives me a little time to get used to the chronological number. I only lie by one year because I don’t want people saying, ‘doesn’t she looks old for her age?’

Planets shone outside, we ate, we heard the songs of the circles open and unbroken … ~ Mara

The truth is sometimes I forget what age I am.

How come age isn’t like art or poetry? … How come it’s hard cold facts? … A labeled box that doesn’t fit …. A branded number that follows your name … And just when you get use to it … it changes … ~ Colleen

Women in their 50’s are hardly crones. We live longer than we did in the past, and some feel that the triple spiral, representing the three stages of women lives, “maiden, mother, and crone,” should evolve a new swirl that incorporates “matriarch” into the mix. But that’s getting technical. The child before the maiden isn’t included in the trinity either. And I’m not about to decline an invitation to be honored by a roomful of adoring women by claiming to be too young.

We start fires, ring hours, head home to sleep. I dream unfamiliar women who say “I love you,” then ask my name. ~ Mara 1stcommunion.jpg

I’ve worn white ceremoniously on three momentous occasions. When I made my First Holy Communion, at the age of seven, I felt that I was being seen for my true self, beautiful like a bride or a princess in my lacey white dress and matching veil.

Unfortunately, I got distracted with the struggles and activities of life and wouldn’t feel that way again for nearly 40 years. In 1996, when my husband, Joe, and I were married in the presence of friends and family on Blue Ridge Parkway, I resisted my habit of deflecting attention. In my long white tiered dress and with the sun setting and the full moon rising, I let myself embody my own sense of worthiness and be recognized.

My intuition to wear white for this third rite of passage, turned out to be the thread that tied the stages of my life together. It awakened my awareness of the child, the young woman, and mother within me. The act of being recognized by a community of supportive women gave way to a sense of fullness, which overrode the sense of loss for my youth that I thought I might feel.

I’m not cured of lying … or secretly counting … I need glasses to read … but not to see the girl within …. myself and other women … Colleen

Our local woman’s community is strong. I’m grateful to those who tend to it by creating space for its expression, a service that benefits us all. Not only did the ceremony allow me to experience a personal integration of the stages of my life, I felt an integration of the various aged women in the room. As I stood before them like the queen of my own life, reading my poem, I knew that I was modeling the positive possibilities for the younger women in the room, just as the women who had been honored in years past had done for me.

April 18, 2007

Notes from the Neighborhood

No one was running for anything. They came to express sympathy and to support those who are grief-stricken. I appreciated and was comforted by the words of our Republican President and our Democratic Governor spoken in Blacksburg today, but it was the words of a poet that made me weep.

I tried to avoid turning on the TV after the emotional glut of watching yesterday. I kept up with the latest news on my muted computer with only the howling wind as background noise. By late afternoon I received a phone call. It was my husband, Joe, letting me know that Virginia Tech professor and renowned poet Nikki Giovanni was speaking from the convocation ceremony live on TV. She, whose office I have sat in before, whose creative writing class I once audited, whose handwriting I tried to decipher in a note she sent me (only because I sent her one first) was worth bringing sound back into my life. She was even worth turning up the volume.

I tuned in too late to hear the religious speakers console and uplift the Blacksburg community, but because I think of the poet as part preacher, part teacher, part prophet, part jester, and always the truth teller, I was consoled and uplifted by Nikki. Maybe because of the force of her feisty reading or because her words brought the world community to mind, I received something I needed. She closed the event by leading the overflowing crowd in a rousing Virginia Tech Hokie cheer.

We do not understand this tragedy … We know we did nothing to deserve it … But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS … Neither do the invisible children walking the night away … To avoid being captured by a rogue army …Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory … Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water … Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night … In his crib in the home his father built with his own hands … Being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized … No one deserves a tragedy … From “We are Virginia Tech” by Nikki Giovanni

I was touched by Governor Kaine’s address to the crowd. He was very genuine as he told of what it was like to get word of what happened at Tech while on the other side of the world. Later, while fielding questions for the press, he became emotional as he put down a question regarding gun control by saying that he loathes anyone who would try to turn this tragedy into a “hobby horse crusade” as if it was a political campaign. (There will be plenty of time for that).

It’s odd how what brings me to tears is also part of what makes me feel better. Does it always feel better to be touched emotionally than to feel alone with unexpressed feelings? My tears of sadness are mixed with a welling up of pride for how those involved have come together to support each other, especially because some of those faces are familiar to me.

I’ve appreciated the ability to get ongoing professional reporting by way of local and national media these past two days. Individually all the newscasters and other authorities have been conducting themselves sensitively and appropriately, but something feels wrong. The intense media interest in my own backyard feels supportive and at the same time leaves me feeling exposed. It’s hard to watch the place I know so well be held under a magnifying glass. Even worse is the slick national news packaging and labeling of “The Virginia Tech Massacre,” complete with emotional still images and a background soundtrack that feels too much like a TV movie in the making, even as the drama is still unfolding.

I fear that school shootings are becoming such a part of our lives that a formula media reaction is underway. I wonder if I’m being over-sensitive. Is it any wonder?

We are not moving on … We are embracing our mourning … We are Virginia Tech … We are strong enough to stand tall tirelessly … We are brave enough to begin to cry … And sad enough to know we must laugh again … From “We are Virginia Tech” by Nikki Giovanni

Post note: An earlier post about Nikki is HERE. "We are Virginia Tech" in its entirety is HERE.

April 17, 2007

To Blacksburg with Love

Katie Couric is in Blacksburg and President Bush has uttered the unlikely words “Virginia Tech” and "shootings" in the same sentence on national TV. Governor Kaine has cut his Tokyo trip short to fly home to be here. My son Josh called from Asheville, my mother and brother Joey from Massachusetts to see if I had heard. Everyone is talking about it on our family group email, The Love-link.

For nearly ten years I worked at the Seeds of Light bead shop in downtown Blacksburg – a 45 minute drive from Floyd. The building they keep showing on the news was just part of the scenery for me back then. Most of our bead business was from Virginia Tech students and faculty. When my sons were young they often came to work with me. They roamed the streets of Blacksburg and felt safe, buying magic cards at the game store, playing video games at the corner store, looking at the skateboards at the Greenhouse. My parents sat on a park bench facing the campus when they visited once, and I snapped a picture of them.

I usually got a Paco Taco Pound at Gillies for lunch or a sub from Soulvakis. Annie Kays, Eats, the YMCA thrift shop, Four Winds, Mish Mish, Books Strings and Things, The New River Free Press community, laying on a blanket with Joe at the Duck Pond, sleeping over Alywn’s in the trailer park, free concerts on Henderson Lawn, peace vigils in front of the post office, craft booths at Stepping Out, window shopping at the Fringe Benefit, trees full of starlings, big lit up Christmas tree, movies at the Lyric, and a hot pot of tea at Bollo’s. I’m thinking of you tonight, Blacksburg, and sending my love. 4/16/07

January 27, 2007

New Dog in Town

mshoundwithcow.jpg The following originally appeared in The Floyd Press on January 18, 2007

She showed up about the same time as “A Taste of Floyd,” the slow food event that was hosted at the Harvest Moon Food Store last September. But some had spotted her even before that, with pups. The staff at the Harvest Moon has been collecting suggestions for names in a big glass cookie jar that sits on the check-out counter, along with donations to have her spayed. Meanwhile, they call her Ms. Hound.

Ms. Hound lives on the Harvest Moon grounds or by the barns that border it. Mostly she sits by the moss cow topiary that stands near the Harvest Moon driveway, the one that was donned in red ribbons and bells at Christmastime. She sits by the cow as if it is her rightful place in life, as if they were a likely pair.

“She wasn’t too happy when the wind blew the cow over and its head fell off,” Margie, the Harvest Moon owner, tells me. “She dragged a piece of it back to her doghouse that day,” she adds.

I had been trying to capture a picture of Ms. Hound for weeks, but she’s skittish of people. She’s either been abused in the past or is just used to living on her own in the wild, staff members, who have been feeding Ms. Hound, think.

But Floyd isn’t the wildest of places and Ms. Hound actually has a pretty darn decent dog house, which was generously donated by some of her fans who shop at the Moon.

“She’ll go in it only if no one is around,” Connie, a Harvest Moon manager, suggests. “She doesn’t want to feel trapped.”

One of the names in the cookie jar is Ms. Olive Chaepelle, which may refer to the lady-like dignity that Ms. Hound embodies. Margie likes the name Lu Lu.

“Yes, she does seem a little lu lu,” I respond. “Do you think she thinks the cow is real? How will the Humane Society ever get her in to be spayed? I haven’t been able to get within 10 feet of her,” I tell Margie.

Every time I shop at the Moon I have a new question about Ms. Hound, or I hear a bit of news about her. Sometimes I write a possible name on a piece of paper and drop it in the glass cookie jar, along with some coins that I hope are mounting up.

Connie thinks the name Freeda fits Ms. Hound’s personality. I nod my head.

She is a free spirit, after all. A loner with a lot of new friends.

December 16, 2006

Floyd’s First Hafla

janehafla.jpgNote: Halfa is a Middle Eastern word that refers to a celebration.

I ate a little too much Baklava at intermission and most everyone’s eyes in the photos I took glowed red from the low lighting. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed Floyd’s first Hafla, a showcase of women’s artistic expression, performed in the Black Box Theater of the June Bug Center this past Friday night in Floyd.

The theme of the well attended evening was belly-dancing, but there were also music and spoken word performances. The lobby was filled with vibrant visual art made by local women. Beverages provided were from the folks the Blackwater Loft and Middle Eastern delicacies prepared by Aaron Staengel were for sale. The black stage was transformed with flowing scarves and tapestries and bedecked with strings of light. khafla.jpg A step stool draped in a bright red cloth led to the microphone where poets read and women took turns introducing each other.

Katherine Chantal, a well known local herbalist who performs many of our county’s wedding services, opened the evening. Appearing on stage in a long purple velvet dress, she greeted the audience and offered a blessing. For some reason, my name was first on the brochure of scheduled performers. I always get nervous before reading, but at least I didn’t have to bare my midriff like the belly dancers did, I thought to myself as Katherine graciously introduced me.

Although the evening was planned by and for women, there were men in the audience and even a small number of children. I began to feel shy about reading the poems I had chosen. … Some women know when they ovulate … I know when poetry is aroused … The pull of paper … The flush of pen …The push of creation … And the swollen weight of poems that are late … But the Halfa, with its focus on women and their issues was the right venue for such a poetry. I dedicated the last of my three poems, one entitled “Book Signing,” to all my women writer friends, most of whom were fellow Floyd Writers’ Circle members sitting in the front row, Jayn Avery, Mara Robbins, and Katherine.

In between songs and poems, the belly dancers commanded center stage. An exotic cape dance was performed by two young women (both mothers now) who I have watched grow up. I was particularly captivated by the sword dance done by Ilima Ursomarso and Deb Wildman. ilimahafla2.jpgNot only did Ilima and Deb balance large silver swords on their heads, but they shimmied and shook while they did so. Ilima, the show’s producer who came to Floyd via Hawaii, is an accomplished dancer who directs the Rhythm Fire Dance Company in Floyd.

There were solo and group dances, many of which were performed by Ilima’s students. One talented troupe of performers came from Blacksburg. A woman named Samra, who Ilima introduced by describing her Cabaret style of dancing and by plugging her “101 Shimmies” DVD, shined in an all red costume that glittered as she moved. The grace and control of movement that the dancers embodied was a wonder to watch. To the jingle of bells, the jangle of silver bangles, and a rousing taped soundtrack, the crowd tapped along. Every now and then someone from the audience let loose a YIP YIP or a HOWL to let the performers know they approved.

By the time it was my turn to introduce my friend of over 20 years, Katherine, I was more relaxed. I said to the audience, “I’m going to tell you something about Katherine that I bet no one here knows, not even her son (who was sitting in the front row). In the 1970’s Katherine and I worked in rival day care centers in the same Massachusetts town. We both had articles published in Mothering Magazine in the early 80s, all before we ever knew each other,” I revealed.

Katherine read a poem about the changing roles of a mother. Mara read a piece called “Alliterate This,” about juggling motherhood and her creative writing studies at Hollins College. Shamama, who was introduced as having “bang stuff” performed in hip-hop-like character. kari3hfafla.jpg Although her performance had a comedic flair, the subject she spoke of, affordable housing for single mothers, was serious. Her bio in the program read: Shamama is available for babysitting.

Sally Walker, local singer and owner of the Café Del Sol, delivered an entertaining three song set of smooth jazz songs and was accompanied by musicians Billy Miller and Chris Luster. Singing and strumming, Floydian Kari Kovick called for some back-up singers from the audience to join her onstage. It was Kari who skillfully wound down the evening's high energy with a mother’s lullaby that she wrote for her youngest daughter.

“Feel free to cuddle,” she playfully told the audience before proceeding to serenade us. The purity of her resonant voice gave me chills as I listened and provided a gentle ending to a fun filled celebration.

Photos:
1. Blacksburg group. 2. Katherine greets the crowd. 3. Ilima with sword balanced on her head. 4. Kari.

November 28, 2006

Building Community

musetable.jpg Every town needs a poet or two, just as it needs an auto mechanic, a grocery shop owner, and an “in house” band. Every town is a microcosm of the whole world. If we stay where we are and invest in our own community, the whole world eventually comes to us. ~ Colleen from Homegrown, WVTF radio essay.

Once a month my kitchen table is taken over by papers, glue stick, and scissors as my friend Jayn and I cut and paste the latest edition of our community newsletter, A Museletter. Every month 150 subscribers look for the latest music and art listings in Floyd. There’s poetry, letters, articles, and a bulletin board of announcements.

But the Museletter isn’t only about local news and entertainment. For over 20 years it has served as an activist’s forum. In the last few issues, for example, the reading has included: an announcement for a film showing of “Iraq For Sale," a Fourth Amendment benefit celebration at Winter Sun, information on how the marriage amendment will hurt all non-traditional families, and a write-up on (Virginia Senate-elect) Jim Webb’s visit to Floyd’s Country Store.

Sustainable living, environmental stewardship, and local food production are regular Museletter subjects. musepages.jpg Last month there was greenhouse for sale, free tree root seedlings were offered, and a Jewish film festival in Blacksburg was announced.

December’s Museletter announcements, which Jayn and I finished pasting together today, include a Hafla celebration of woman’s beauty and self-expression, featuring belly dancing, woman’s music, poetry, art, and Middle Eastern food tasting at the Black Box Theatre on December 15; a clothing drive by a group of homeschoolers for the people of Burma; some flashback art made by Blue Mountain School kids in the 1980s; and an article titled “Why Organic Cotton?” that begins: Cotton is the second most pesticide-laden crop in the world - after Coffee and before Tobacco ... It takes approximately 1/3 pound of chemicals to grow enough cotton to make just one T-shirt.

There’s a “Winter Fest” at the Jacksonville Center on the 2nd and 3rd, and the annual fine arts auction for Blue Mountain School on the 9th. My Asheville potter son Josh, a Blue Mountain School and Floyd High alumni, is doing a slide show presentation on the 27th. Not only will he share his wild clay adventures and recap his BFA thesis show, he plans to talk about the influence the Floyd community has had on his life as an artist and potter.

The Museletter is an all volunteer production of the CERC, PO Box 81, Floyd, VA, 24091, and subscriptions are $15 year. Read more HERE.

November 25, 2006

American Dumpster: The Floyd Connection

ADRays.jpg Once I get up to dance, I don’t sit down again until the band leaves the stage. The waitress, thinking my unfinished mug of Sam Adams was abandoned, swiped it off the table before I could stop her. I made do. In between songs, I sipped what was left in the bottle, until a second waitress came and took that.

American Dumpster
was back in Floyd, after having played at Floyd Fest in the summer and Floyd Fandango in October. Joe and I missed them entirely at Floyd Fest – so many bands play simultaneously there. From the warm-up we heard at the Fandango, we knew we wanted to hear more but had to leave early. When we left, the lead singer, who sounded like Lou Reed meets Tom Waits, was weaving a free style rap about art, hunting, and growing up in a junkyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, the son of a well known sculptor.

They were playing at Ray’s Restaurant for a party hosted by Tuggles Gap Restaurant and Motel. The folks at Tuggles Gap wanted to celebrate some upcoming changes and thank all their patrons for their support over the years. They party on the lawn at Tuggles Gap in the summer, but inside, they don’t have much of a dance floor.

I got another beer. I didn’t have to pay. Short of making a “do not disturb” sign, I set the bottle in an ashtray and constructed a fence of Sweet and Low packets all around it before resuming my business on the dance floor. I was dancing with Joe (above photo), next to Yarrow and Uriel, the Yard sisters of “Woodsong Flutes” fame who grew up home-schooling in a local community, where Joe had lived for a short time.

The description of Christian Breeden, American Dumpster’s lead singer and primary songwriter, that I clipped from the Charlottesville Daily while writing a story about Floyd Fandango for the Floyd Press still stands: “a young Bob Dylan’s charisma with Howlin’ Wolf’s voice.” ad.jpgAccording to the American Dumpster webpage, the band’s name suggests “a recycling movement of ideas” and relates to Breeden’s family farm: His family home just outside Charlottesville, Virginia is a curious nexus where art, agriculture, industry, and intellect merge in the most unpredictable ways. The Breeden farm is home not only to Biscuit Run Studios, a sculpture studio and long-standing institution in the Virginia art scene, but also to an extensive junkyard of rusted cars, motorcycles, farm tractors, and assorted machinery.

“Look what happened to the Dave Matthews Band (also from Charlottesville), I said to Joe as we listened to one band member doing a washboard solo, “maybe they’ll be famous someday.” The dancing heated up, and Floyd musician, Billy Miller, joined the band onstage.

At the break, a group of us gathered at a table, like the American Dumpster Floyd fan club chapter, talking about the band. Yarrow leaned in when she heard the name of the lead singer. Turns out she knows him. They were both raised unconventionally in artist’s farm communities and had run into each other from time to time on the art and craft show circuit scene.

November 17, 2006

My Boyfriend’s Back!

contradance2.jpg My husband is a counselor, a soccer coach, a hunter. He practices martial arts and yoga and has just completed a last class for his Master’s Degree. Sometimes during the week, we hardly really see each other. We’re both independent and involved in our pursuits and passions (in my case, sometimes obsessively), which is why I love the weekends. On weekends he saves me from myself.

This past Saturday night, we went contra dancing. We swung and spun, got dizzy and giddy. In between dances, we laughed and socialized with friends. Occasionally to cool down, we sat a song out, plunked oursleves down in chairs along the wall of the Winter Sun dance hall.

“Jim, do you know my husband, Joe?” I asked a friend I was talking to as Joe approached. Jim hadn’t met Joe before. “But I feel like I know him from your blog,” he answered with a smile.

“What? I thought everyone knew Joe!” I blurted out. “He’s out and about much more than I am and knows way more people than I do.” I told Jim how Joe used to run the county’s Recycling Center and our three-way conversation took off from there. But soon we were all back on the dance floor, dosey do-ing, promenading, and swinging our partners and neighbors.

Sunday morning, when Joe and I finally got out of bed, we stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast. I, in my favorite blue terrycloth bathrobe, popped down some toast and broke out in song. “My boyfriend’s back …and you’re going be sorry … hey-la-day-la my boyfriend’s back!” I sang in my loudest and best do wap. He looked surprised and waited for an explanation.

“I feel great!” I said to him. “It’s like my boyfriend slept over! We went dancing. We stayed in bed all morning. We talked. We kissed. We ate well. I’m so happy I have a good boyfriend!”

He's been gone for such a long time (Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back) Now he's back and things'll be fine (Hey-la-day-la my boyfriend's back) … my boyfriend's back ...

October 28, 2006

Jamming at the Jamboree with Jim Webb

webjamboree.jpg It was “standing room only” at Floyd’s Country Store, home of the Friday Night Jamboree, when Democratic Senatorial Candidate Jim Webb and former Governor Mark Warner came to visit on Thursday. By the look of the line of young people waiting outside for their arrival, I figured that a high school field trip was underway. Inside, the turnout reminded me of the one that gathered to hear author Barbara Kingsolver in September.

Passing through the upbeat mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces, I found an available seat up near the front, next to a white-haired man from Shawsville. A lone girl flat-footed on the dance floor to the Bluegrass band’s fast paced fiddle tempo. Looking around, it didn’t take long for me to discover that my friend, retired Lutheran minister, Dick Giessler, was sitting two seats away. “I can’t count how many times I’ve driven to Blacksburg to hear someone notable speak. This is the second time in two months Montgomery Countians have come to us,” I leaned over and said to him.

Dick, who I’ve always admired for his activism during the civil rights movement, introduced me to the man sitting between us, Mr. Slusher, a 4th generation Floydian. “I’m a registered Independent, fiscally conservative who votes Democratic because they represent my interests in labor rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental protections better than the counterparts,” I explained at one point during our back and forth conversations.

Like a school girl watching the clock for school to let out, I kept checking the door, waiting for Webb and Warner to arrive. When they finally did, the crowd gave them a rock star reception. webcrowd.jpg People stood and cheered; some waved “Webb for Senate” signs. A few shouted encouraging remarks to Warner. Many had thought that he would run for President in 2008, but he recently announced that he would not. Former Virginia State Senator and World War II Vet, Madison Mayre, took to the stage to warm the crowd up, and boy, did he ever. With his stories about Uncle Billy, whose ashes are supposedly kept in a mason jar, just like the one that held the moonshine he enjoyed while he was living, Mayre had the crowd hooting and laughing out loud. He introduced Warner by reminding the crowd that Warner was the first in his family to go to college. “And I’m the first in my family not to,” he joked.

Taking the mic, Warner made some jokes about being unemployed, “but not ready for the political mason jar,” before getting serious and explaining the urgent need for change. “Our standing in the world has never been lower and our own agencies have determined that we are creating more terrorists faster than we can capture or kill them,” he emphasized before introducing Webb.

At this point, all I wanted was for Webb to explain why he was wearing dusty work boots with a suit and necktie. With family ties to the area, Webb had been to Floyd before, but “It’s my first time being dressed like this,” he said, referring to his less than casual attire. “The real question is: why is he wearing a tie?” he joked. About the boots, he said it had to do with a promise he made to his son.

It wasn’t until later, while researching Webb’s background online, that I discovered the full reason for the boots. Apparently, they’re his son’s combat boots. webwarner.jpgFollowing in the family’s military tradition, his son is a Marine Lance Corporal serving in Iraq. Webb didn’t mention that fact, but he did say this about his son: “When I was 24 corporate CEOs made 20 times more than the company workers. Now my son is 24 and they make 400 times more.” He made other references to corporation tax loopholes and the growing large gap between the rich and the struggling working and middle classes.

Webb, a decorated Vietnam Vet, NRA member, and former journalist who has Democratic roots but was a Republican for some of his adult life, was against the war in Iraq from the start. No weapons of mass destruction. No exit strategy. Although he spoke of his personal religious beliefs about marriage being between a man and a woman, he believes in equality for all, he said. He doesn’t support the marriage amendment because “anyone who is not in a traditional marriage will have rights taken away.”

The red-haired Webb made reference to his Scotch-Irish heritage, a heritage that is known for its warriors and fiercely independent thinkers. Online, I discovered that his Scotch-Irish background is the reason for his campaign logo “Born Fighting.” Born Fighting is also the title of one of Webb’s books, of which the subtitle is, How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. Not only has he had 6 best selling books, mostly war novels, but according to the Richmond Times Dispatch, he won an Emmy for his PBS coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut and wrote the screenplay for the movie “Rules of Engagement.”

An interesting man by any standards, Webb is not your typical Democratic candidate, but he is one suited to the people of Southwestern Virginia. He has a good chance of coming out ahead in the general election. He may even do well in the mostly Republican County of Floyd.

Photos: 1. The Country Store. 2. The crowd inside. 3. Jim Webb with the mic as Warner looks on.

October 18, 2006

The Best Part of Mowing My Lawn Last Weekend

golfyard.jpgIt was probably the last time this year that I or my husband will mow the two acres of grass that surround our log home off the Blue Ridge Parkway. But that wasn’t the best part of mowing the lawn this past weekend. The best part was the perspective it gave me.

Unlike in summer, it’s cool enough now to mow at a leisurely pace. I putter around as if our rider mower was a convertible with the top down and I was taking a Sunday drive. From the far corners of our yard, I can see our property from new angles, take it all in from a distance, and appreciate the life we’ve made.

I love knowing that, as I mow, my husband is in our woods with his chain saw getting us firewood for the stove this winter. I feel grateful when I pass by the shed he built to store wood, equipment, and gardening tools. Watching out for the golf balls left in the yard from his putting and chipping practice, I take in the pungent smell of the wild mushrooms that I’ve inadvertently run over and make a mental note that some of our roses should be replanted in the spring to a sunnier part of the yard.

The garden looks dead, full of dried up corn stalks and plants that have gone to seed, but I know there’s still food growing there, a few cool weather crops, lettuce and turnips. Butternut squash, once hidden by the lush growth of summer, is finally revealed. The pumpkins for Halloween have turned from green to orange, and although most of the butterflies have moved to warmer climates, my zinnia flowers are still bearing their attracting colors.

Avoiding the plastic bucket used to mark a yellow jacket’s nest in the ground, I smile as I pass by our clothesline full of laundry hanging in the mid-day sun, glad to have made the choice not to own a dryer. The lowering sun this time of year casts a golden glow, making our yard shine with a richness that’s not noticeable during other seasons.

Careful not to mow too close to the lamppost in the wilder part of our yard (that I have named Narnia), I run over small crab apples and twigs that have dropped to the ground. I duck under branches as I wind my way back out into the open, feeling nostalgic when riding by the spot where the soccer goals used to be. For over 10 years they were a landmark in the landscape of our yard and in our lives. Countless neighborhood games were played here when my sons were growing up. It was just this past summer that my husband loaded the goals in his truck and took them over to Floyd’s Blue Mountain School, knowing they would get more use there.

With our dog Jasmine looking on, I frown as I think how summer has too quickly slipped by. When I ride by our sprawling rope hammock, I regret missed opportunities to spend time in it. The bird feeders need to be filled. The deer have been munching on our youngest fruit trees, and we still haven’t built the deck on the east side of the house.

But a wide smile returns to my face as I turn a corner and notice something new. The oldest apple tree in our yard has produced fruit for the first time. I circle around to whiz by it again so I can count the number with my eyes. More than a dozen, I see.

Brushing aside the sticky tangle of a spider web, dangling invisibly from a branch of pine, I shift into low gear and steer the mower towards the shed to park it for the last time this year. The roar of the engine, like summer itself, comes to an abrupt halt. In the quiet that follows, my mind drifts to the future, remembering the taste of apples and Thanksgiving pies.

October 16, 2006

The Paris Runway of Floyd

clothingxshirt.jpg The burgundy shirt that hung on the post in front of Amy’s new apartment let me know I was at the right place. A Woman’s Clothing Exchange, a long time tradition in Floyd, was about to begin. "Late afternoon tea served, bring a simple snack or sweet to share. Leftover clothing given to Angel’s in the Attic" (thrift shop), the invitation in the October Museletter read.

I lugged 3 boxes of clothes I had lost interest in up the stairs. Inside, the scene was reminiscent of a Filene’s Basement sale in Boston. clothespile2.jpg Piles of clothes were strewn all over the living room floor, or were stacked in cardboard boxes that a few women were rummaging through.

Soon, more clothing exchangers arrived, some with young children and babies. It wasn’t long before women in all manner of dress (or not) were walking on the piles of clothes and giving fashion show pirouettes. Someone shouted out, “Hey, keep a close eye on the clothes you came in with, otherwise they might end up with a new owner.”

Whimsical fake fur, all-weather stilettos, kaftans, saris, slinky tops, and even peacock feathers all turned up in the mix. Like backstage fashion show models, we checked ourselves out in the bathroom medicine cabinet mirror or used the reflection in the TV set to see what looked good. Women gave each other compliments and other comments and sometimes picked out clothes for each other. Most of us knew each other already, and if we hadn’t, we did by the end of this couple of hours spent together.

“Are you sure you want to give this up, Colleen?” Amy asked, flipping a shocking pink scarf from my give-away pile around her neck.
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“I have one almost just like it at home. It’s yours!” I assured her.

The pink scarf reminded me of something. “Does anyone remember the pink silk skirt I got a few years back? I wore it to my son’s wedding this summer!” I announced.

Some remembered the pink silk skirt, my personal favorite clothing exchange success story. At one time it belonged to Karen. Some pieces make the rounds and end up back for a second or third clothing exchange. Most have a story that go with them and the women freely tell them.

At the height of the afternoon’s activity about a dozen women mingled, trying on clothes, sipping tea, and munching on nori rice snacks. Nobody had on the clothes they came in with and the outfits kept changing. cx.jpgSoon, the shy blogger in me, who up until this point had only taken pictures of piles of clothes and people’s feet, couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Come on over and pose in your new outfits,” I shouted from the kitchen, “but only if you don’t mind being blogged.” Most everyone was more than happy to become blogging celebrities, showing off their new styles.

A new take on recycling? Big girls playing dress up? “This is my kind of fun!” I exclaimed while the camera was snapping.

Photos: #3 standing: Randye, Alina, Colleen, Joy. sitting: Amy and Andrea. #4: Alina, April, Colleen, and Sarah. None of us in both photos are wearing the clothes we came to the clothing exchange in.

October 2, 2006

Floyd Loves Barbara Kingsolver

bkingsolversm.jpg“Having something to say is more important than guessing what people want to hear.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver, spoken at the Floyd County High School auditorium, September 16, 2006

The line of people waiting to meet the acclaimed author, Barbara Kingsolver, wound from the school library table where she was signing books, out through the library door, into the hall, up the stairs, and into the school lobby. At the close of her talk, I rushed from my seat like a single woman determined to catch the bouquet at a wedding and discovered the fast track to her table. It involved a first stop at a book sale table, set up by the owners of Floyd’s independent bookstore, noteBooks. After purchasing a copy of “Small Wonders,” I was ushered into a much smaller line that dovetailed with the longer one.

I’m happy with my personally signed copy of a book written by Barbara Kingsolver, but the book I really wanted wasn’t for sale. The one I’m most interested in is the non-fiction one that she read from that evening, called “Animal, Vegetable, and Magical,” due out in May.

Barbara, who grew up in rural Kentucky, was recently living with her family in Tucson, Arizona, but living in Tucson – which she referred to as a “space station” – made her nervous. Everything that sustains life has to be flown or trucked in, she told us. She estimated that each item on her family’s dinner table that wasn’t grown in their garden probably traveled “Fifteen hundred miles” to get there. The water in Tucson, brought in from other places, is called “borrowed water.” “Like a keenex,” she joked, “do you really want to give it back?”

So, what does a person do when they know the oil companies are at the Arctic Preserve door with drills, and that the food on their family dinner table is part of the reason why? With a degree in biology, a history of environmental activism, and a background in journalism and science writing, Barbara decided that the subject of her next book would revolve around an experiment, one that would involve her whole family. They would get all their food from local sources. In order to pursue what she called “food choices with family values,” she and her family set about to move to a farm in Southwest Virginia, which is how her new book begins. bkings2.jpg

As a speaker, Barbara is engaging, articulate, and comfortable in her own skin. She’s also funny, so much so that my husband referred to her talk as stand-up comedy! I don’t think anyone in the audience that night will forget the scene Barbara read, the one about the family-farm turkey that came-on to her husband. The hilarity of the “turkey hokey pokey” story was preceded by an account of the state of commercial turkey production, in which commercially raised turkeys not only can not reproduce on their own, but because they are bred to produce the maximum amount of meat and are top-heavy, they can’t even walk without tipping over. Barbara’s reading illustrated one of her strongest strengths as writer. She knows how to take a disturbing situation and educate her readers about it in a humorous or otherwise entertaining way. In the case of using local food, there’s nothing to protest or boycott, “doing the right thing is fun!” Barbara said.

In telling the story of her family’s experience living on local food, Barbara’s youngest daughter Lilly figured in. Lilly has an egg business, and because she was the subject of some of the passages read, towards the end of her talk, Barbara invited Lilly on stage. The audience cheered Lilly on, as though they had a vested interest in the success of her egg business, a business that Lilly hoped would eventually allow her to make enough money to buy a horse. “Did you get your horse?” one woman asked during the question and answer period. “Not yet,” Lilly answered.

A lot of us in the audience understood the experiment that Barbara and her family had taken on, either because we were from a local farming tradition, or because we moved to Floyd years ago for the same reason Barbara and her family had moved. Since the back-to-the-land movement of my generation, which started in the late 70s and brought so many of us to Floyd, interest in the sustainability of using local food has grown. As I looked around the auditorium, I saw the familiar faces of neighbors, homesteaders, market gardeners, wild-craft herbalists, and those involved any one of the several Community Supported Agriculture Farms in Floyd. I couldn’t help but smile as I imagined our collective chickens, gardens, and goats.

It turns out that Floyd and Barbara Kingsolver have a lot in common. The Harvest Moon, which started as a small health food coop over 20 years ago and is now a large two story building on a sprawling lot, was hosting a major event on the day of the evening that Barbara spoke. It was a Slow Foods Event, called “A Taste of Floyd,” where an array of locally raised and grown foods could be sampled and purchased under a canopy of colorful tents. It was not a coincidence that Barbara’s appearance was scheduled on the same day as “A Taste of Floyd,” and, in fact, Harvest Moon staff members have reported that Barbara did indeed attend. She may have also attended Floyd’s first Country Fair, part of an annual Homecoming and Harvest Festival in recognition of the county’s 175th year anniversary, where homegrown fruits and vegetables, canned goods, baked goods, jams, jellies, and pickles were featured and competed for blue ribbons.

Apparently, Barbara liked what she saw (and tasted) in Floyd. She began her talk that evening by announcing to the crowd, “I really love Floyd.” Considering the filled auditorium and the reception the audience gave her, it was obvious that Floyd loves Barbara right back.

Post Note:
The donated proceeds from “An Evening with Barbara Kingsolver” are earmarked for the expansion of the Floyd Jessie Peterman Library. Special thanks go to Floyd’s “Friends of the Library,” and in particular Mary Stratton, for inviting Barbara to Floyd, and to Barbara for loving libraries enough to accept the invitation. Read more about Barbara’s trip to Floyd at this Loose Leaf post entitled “Advice from Barbara Kingsolver.”

September 16, 2006

A Floyd First

oldchurchg2.jpg Downtown Floyd was abuzz with the sound of weed-whacking and lawn mowing. As I made my way through town yesterday hanging flyers for our next Spoken Word event, I couldn’t help but notice the smell of freshly mowed grass wafting through the air. Everywhere I went, up and down Locust and Main Streets, people were sprucing up their businesses, getting ready for the first annual “Floyd Homecoming and Harvest Festival” the following day.

Inspired by the County’s upcoming 175 year anniversary, the festival was planned for Saturday, September 16, to coincide with The Harvest Moon’s second annual “A Taste of Floyd,” a slow-food event that features locally-produced food. In conjunction with that, a first ever old-fashioned County Fair is planned, complete with contests for best garden produce, plants, food, and more.

The Floyd County Historical Society will be hosting a Walking Tour of historical sites. History exhibits, heritage demonstrations, live traditional music, children’s games, and animal shows are also on the agenda.
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The day’s events are set to cumulate with a reading and a discussion, hosted by “The Friends of the Library,” featuring acclaimed author Barbara Kingsolver, who currently lives in Southwest Virginia.

“Do you know what time the Walking Tour starts in the morning?” a friend stopped to ask while I was at the Harvest Moon posting a flyer on their community bulletin board.

“See you tomorrow night at Barbara Kingsolver’s talk,” another friend said as she was walking to her car and I was gazing at the colorful tents set up on the Harvest Moon lawn and along the driveway.

Further up the road, a woman in front of The Floyd Beauty Shoppe was trying to unclog a weed-whacker. Across the street, Rick, from Whisker’s Roadhouse (upstairs at Mama Lazardo’s Restaurant), was up on a ladder changing the sign that announces the weekend’s entertainment. His big grille was set up, ready to fire, to feed the “Friday night Jamboree” crowd that night and festival-goers on Saturday. I was just about to push a tack into the Plexiglas encased bulletin board in front of the New Mountain Mercantile when I heard someone shout, “Hey, gorgeous!”

“I’m up here,” she had to shout-out twice before I looked up and saw her. It was Kanta, director of Alpha Learning Center, just above the Mercantile. “Got a second?” she asked, inviting me up. I got a brief tour of her digs, where she teaches, makes art, holds workshops, and now lives. I was impressed!

I still had one flyer to hang, so I headed to the Café Del Sol where our spoken word open mic takes place every third Saturday night from 7-9. Because most lovers of the word wouldn’t want to miss meeting Barbara Kingsolver this Saturday, the event was re-scheduled for Sunday 5-7, the following day. In front of the Winter Sun building where the café is housed, I passed a trailer filled with tree limbs, part of the day’s landscaping efforts, I wondered?

“Did a tree fall?” I asked a group of familiar faces who were gathered in front of the café.

“It’s for the play. They’re decorating the stage,” someone answered. The Magic of Midsummer Nights Dream, a play written by 12 year old Cameron Arie Woodruff and presented by the Young Actor’s Co-op was to be performed that evening.
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Now I was on roll. A theme had formed. I drove back down to the Harvest Moon to get some photographs of the gardener I had seen landscaping 20 minutes before, but I was too late. I saw David, a Blacksburg musician in town for Irish Night at Oddfella’s Cantina, standing in front of the Moon on his cell phone. He took the time to say hello before making yet a second call. “Get an office!” I called out playfully.

At that point my friend, Katherine, who works at the Harvest Moon, whizzed by on her way to the slow-food big top city. She was carrying something.

“What are you doing back, just taking pictures?” She asked, and I nodded.

I tried to stay out of her way.

Post Notes: Photos - 1. The Old Church Gallery, which is currently featuring “Whittlin Through Time," an exhibit of Floyd Folk art. 2. Farmer's Supply Building. 3. A few tents in front of the Harvest Moon.
The Walking Tours begin at 11:00 and 1:00, Barbara Kingsolver will be at the Floyd High School at 7 p.m, and the Spoken Word Open Mic is Sunday from 5-7 p.m.

September 10, 2006

Viva Fiesta!

fiestacakesm.jpg The vows were exchanged under a fruit filled apple tree, alongside a small creek. The bride wore a silk sheath gown with a white rose behind her ear. Draped in a shawl, she was escorted by her father, who had arrived the day before from Spain. They walked past the gardens and the pottery studio, to be united with the groom, standing under the grape-vine archway that was adorned with flowers and bunches of grapes. His bright orange tie and lapel flower matched the bride’s bouquet.

Some of the toasts at the reception were done in Spanish; others were interpreted to those who didn’t speak both languages. I got to practice the only sentence I know in Spanish, Yo tango dos ehos, and learn a new one, Yo vivo en Floyd. fiestaribbonssm.jpg The tapas were served by friends in sun-colored aprons, and they kept coming. There was serano ham with manchego tetilla, idiazabul cheeses and roasted red peppers; tequila lime shrimp; saffron rice with chicken skewers and chipolte sauce; and more. I sat next to young woman who inspired me to decorate my glasses with the ribbons that had been tied around our cloth napkins. There was salsa dancing, and the red wine flowed, so did the laughter (and a few tears as well). It was hard to resist a second helping of that cake.

August 23, 2006

A Big Sky

bigsky3.jpg I have a three acre piece of sky. It mirrors our three acres of green earth. It’s a good size for looking at the stars at night, but because our property is nestled in by trees, big firs and tulip poplars, I can’t see the sun when it sets.

But I need a big sky. When I’m under one, I breathe easier. If I go too long without one, I begin to feel bottled up.

On most evenings when the weather is good, I walk down my gravel driveway, under a canopy of trees. By the time I reach the mailbox, the sky has opened up, pouring light across the Blue Ridge Parkway landscape.

But I still can’t see the sunset. I have to walk the top of Hope Road for that. Sometimes Joe and I walk hand in hand with our dog, Jasmine, scouting ahead.

On the way up, we hear gunpowder shots, timed to go off to scare the deer out of our neighbor’s pumpkin patch. The crickets drone and the grazing cows look suspicious. If we’re quiet we can hear the creek along Morning Dew. Maybe a truck meanders across the washboard dirt road and we wave.

The evening sky is a canvas of living art that changes from moment to moment. I love the play of light on the clouds, the mix and spill of fiery colors. The sun’s brilliance creates an afterglow, the color of my favorite amber beer. It makes me feel relaxed, as though I’ve been sipping it.

August 5, 2006

A Writer’s Meet-up

jnprsm3.jpg Many of the best moments in my life have happened spontaneously. Last weekend at Floyd Fest was no different.

Julie Hauserman, a Florida-based journalist and radio personality (pictured here), happened to be camping across the path from the Floyd Fest Poet Tree, a volunteer soap box stage for spoken word readings, located under an apple tree, and staffed by members of the Floyd Writers’ Circle, in particular, my friend Mara. When Julie wandered over early in the weekend and introduced herself, Mara asked if she might be inclined to do a reading at some point. But Julie wasn’t interested. She was on vacation, there to enjoy the music scene.

I fulfilled my volunteer hours in exchange for weekend tickets via my essay that was printed in the Floyd Fest program and by giving a poetry reading on Saturday. On Sunday, the last day of the festival, the reader’s line-up was slim because one of the scheduled readers had to cancel. I arranged to check in with Mara at 3:00 to see if she needed any help. It was then that I met Julie, who was sitting on stage talking to Mara, and Mara’s Poet Tree assistant, Leah.

What ensued for the next 45 minutes could only be described as an impromptu workshop, as Julie shared her life as a writer, gave us pointers, and answered our questions. It couldn’t have been a more perfect line-up. Julie is a regular essayist on NPR’s Weekend Edition. I’ve been reading my essays on our regional NPR radio station, and Mara wants to break into this medium.

You know how when you tune into a TV show that you barely ever watch and they’re airing a re-run of the one and only episode you’ve already seen?

“Did you do an essay recently about making a baked Alaska?” I asked Julie about 15 minutes into the group conversation. It might have been the first time I had heard a Weekend Edition essay.

“Yes!” she beamed. It was her.

My husband heard the essay first and played it for me from the NPR website. Always my cheerleader, he said, “Listen to this. She does what you do. Maybe it’s time you should submit your essays nationally.”

Julie is also an environmental activist and writer. By the time she was sharing her involvement with the Red Hills Writer Project, a poet named Brittnie, drawn by our dynamic conversation, wandered over and joined in.

The Red Hills Writers Project is a group of writers who produced the anthology “Between Two Rivers.” The book is a grassroots effort featuring a collection of essays about place, in this case the Aucilla River and the Apalachicola River, which define the Red Hills and Gulf coast regions of northern Florida.

With Julie describing the ins and outs of how the group enlisted well known writers (such as Wendell Berry), how they drew in local voices, did fundraising, and marketing, it wasn’t long before Mara and I were fantasizing about our own Writers Project for building an allegiance to our area.

Whether or not our fantasies will manifest, I enjoyed being inspired by the possibilities, and meeting Julie, a working writer, willing to share her writer’s journey.

Post note:
Scroll down for more Floyd Fest photos.

August 1, 2006

Floyd Fest: The Homecoming

volkeretcsm.jpg Floyd Fest, our town’s yearly world music festival, is a people watchers paradise. My favorite part of the weekend festival - just six miles from my driveway on The Blue Ridge Parkway - is the cross section of people who attend it. Once on the sprawling grounds of open fields and wooded pathways, roles and differences tend to fall away, as people of all walks of life and ages speak the same language of “fun.”

Floyd Fest delivers what you’d expect from a premier music festival – great music, good food, creative arts and crafts, and a variety of children’s activities, but it has some special touches that you might not find anywhere else, like the lily pond landscaped with flowers, portable hand washing stations, a rock climbing wall, and a cyber café hosted by Floyd’s own Blue Nova. The timber wrights who built the impressive timber-framed main stage, roast a pig at their campsite each year. Sweetwater Bakery bakes bread onsite in their hand built brick oven. johananasm2jpg.jpg

While I enjoy intermingling with the mix of interesting people who attend Floyd Fest each year, I especially look forward to being re-united with Floyd friends, young and old, who, because of distance or the hectic pace of life, I don’t see nearly enough. This year, I kicked up some dust in the beer garden, dancing to the music of William Walter with Suzanne. I hadn’t seen my old Grateful Dead dancing companion, who lives in Arlington now, since last year’s Floyd Fest.

Last year, when I read poetry on the soapbox stage under the Floyd Fest Poet tree, I remember looking out and seeing Volker’s smiling face in the audience. Grown-up now and living in California, he was in town for Floyd Fest and made a point to come by and hear my reading. Volker was back again this year, this time with his sister Johanna, a past Floyd High School Salutatorian who went to the prom with my son, Josh, and loves the Red Sox nearly as much as he does.

Asa’s baby girl has gotten big. She was taking in the festival sights from the carrier on her daddy’s back. I snapped a picture of Joel holding his nearly year old daughter while her mother, unaware, danced to Donna and the Buffalo. asasm.jpg

Lyn Willow and I pulled up some grass and had lunch together when our paths crossed and we both discovered we were hungry. “We couldn’t have pulled this off if we planned it,” I told her, laughing.

Sitting in the shade of the Healing Arts tent catching up with Jeff, founder of the Blue Ridge School of Massage, I saw my friend Mara’s daughter rush past. “Kyla, did you put on some sunscreen?” I shouted out. She was on her way to march in the Children’s Parade.

It’s been estimated that over 10,000 would attend Floyd Fest this year, and from the look of the crowds, it may have been more. And yet, Floyd Fest feels like a small world, where town officials, artists, farmers, and business owners converge as families to share the beauty and music of our area and to welcome newcomers and new music into it. joelff.jpg

A homegrown homecoming, a cross pollination of the best in music and people, by the hands of the many, mostly volunteers, who guide it; Floyd Fest feels like home, because it is.

Photos: 1. Volker, Joe, and Suzanne listening to Mara spout poetry from the soapbox. 2. Colleen and Johanna re-united. 3. Asa and Indigo. 4. Debbie enjoying Donna and the Buffalo while Joel holds Cassandra who is waving.

July 31, 2006

The Fairies of Floyd Fest

pinkgirls2.jpg The “blue girls” did not make a Floyd Fest appearance, as they have in years past, but I did come across two pink fairies-in-training who were kind enough to pose for me, and I did get a fairy blessing from the festival’s resident and larger-than-life "Blue Fairy."

“You have the best job going,” I shouted up to my friend Alina, who several times a year puts on stilts, dresses to the hilt, and makes the rounds, blessing the wishes of festival-goers.
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“So be it,” she announced convincingly, while blessing my wish, sprinkling me with fairy dust, and tapping me gently with her wand.

You’d be surprised how many people are uplifted by the Blue Fairy’s ministry. “It’s mostly adults who come up and ask for blessings,” Chris, Alina’s flute playing partner told me while Alina was busy bestowing her good fairy magic. Watching the Blue Fairy at work, I discovered it was true; people of all ages and all walks of life can't resist a fairy, and being in the presence of one brings out the child in just about everyone.

“Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to interview a fairy?” the blogger and closet interview in me later thought. But getting an audience with the Blue Fairy is harder than one might think. Besides the fact that people were practically lining up to make wishes and have them blessed, it’s hard for a tall fairy to stand still in stilts and have a conversation.
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Post notes: I did catch up with Chris and Alina, out of costume late Sunday afternoon, and they told me the Blue Fairy had probably blessed about 200 Floyd festers over the weekend. When they aren’t bestowing wishes or traveling the world, Chris and Alina create art, as featured in THIS past Loose Leaf “featured artist” snapshot post. You can view more festival photographs at Blue Ridge Muse and floydvirginia.com. I also plan to post some of my favorites throughout the week.

July 30, 2006

Floyd Fest:Take 5!

marasmx.jpg Floyd Fest is different this year. There is no mud. No rain or fog. No hurricane skirted the site, as it has in the past, and festival goers have had to drop the nickname “Fog Fest,” because there is none.

The crowds are noticeably larger. Is that why I lost my parked car and almost missed my scheduled 3:00 poetry reading under the Poet Tree? My husband, Joe, came to the rescue. Not only had he built the benches for Poet Tree area, but he arrived to the reading from a hula hoop workshop in the African village just in time to recover my poems from our lost-to-me car, and he mustered up a last minute impromptu audience for us from down at Hill Holler Stage.
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Mara got acupuncture from The Healing Arts Tent to rev up her bravado. Is that how she was able to stand on the literal soap box like a town crier and belt out poetry to passers-by?

I, on the other hand, sat down to read when it was my turn. Our crowds at the Poet Tree are always modest, but you know, I’m shy and sort of like it that way.

The Poet Tree is popular with the kids. Not because it’s a free speech zone or an open mic. kidspoetreekids.jpgThey don’t come to hear poetry. They do not stand on the soapbox to complain about President Bush, read their own poems, or organize a revolt against public school. They like the Poetree because there are apples in it!

Post Notes: I’m headed out to Floyd Fest again today. I plan on checking my blog comments at the Blue Nova wireless tent on site. The Roanoke Times has a blogger blogging on the event as it's been happening. You can check it out HERE.

July 14, 2006

The Blue View

bluview3.jpgOn the way to the Chateau Morrisette Winery, we snapped a photo of the usual suspects at the Saddle Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway where my husband and I got married 10 years ago. Besides me, the line-up consisted of my brother-in-law Nelson, my mother, my sister Sherry, and my brother Joey, all in town for my son Dylan’s wedding.

At the Winery, I bought 5 cases of “Our Dog Blue,” a popular semi-sweet white wine, requested by my husband Joe's mother, who would also be in town to attend the wedding. The Our Dog Blue bottles are cobalt with an image of the Winery’s black dog mascot jumping over the moon on the label. Joe’s mom and her friends back in Delaware love Our Dog Blue inside and out.
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There really is a black dog that hangs out at the Winery. His name is Nicholas, and he belongs to Winery owner, David Morrisette. My husband, Joe, got to meet Nicholas in 1998 when Joe was part of the timber framing crew that built and raised the winery’s new building. According to a story in the Roanoke Times New River Current, the gift shop, which has a wine tasting area and room for wine production, is 54 feet tall and more than 30,000 square feet. (A football field is 48,000 feet, the Times pointed out). Built with recycled timber from rivers and old buildings, it might be the largest reclaimed timber structure ever built, the Current reported. ourdogblue.jpg

A photo similar to the one posted below of Joe hanging from the construction rafters appeared with the story. He would probably like readers then and now to know that there is a lot of time spent waiting for the cranes to raise the large timbers that interlock together like toy Lincoln Logs and that he is not a slacker, as the photo might suggest.

When Joe and I got married, our wedding reception was held in the older vine-covered winery building that now houses only the restaurant. It was the last wedding reception that the winery hosted, which I hope had nothing to do with the fact that over 100 people stood in a circle on their front lawn, giving Joe and me their blessings. We partied and danced, in what was then the wine tasting room, with the full moon shining in through the skylights. When people see the wedding photo taken on the Winery porch of Joe and I in all in white with a blazing sunset behind us, many of them ask if we got married in the Caribbean islands.
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The Winery holds Black Dog Blues and Jazz Festivals throughout the summer and fall, and, according to a newsletter that I recently received in the mail, Nicholas has retired from his position as the black dog mascot.

I hope he got a good dog biscuit pension.

June 25, 2006

Dance Free

dancefree3.jpg Dance is my sport. Either that or my art. When I go to the monthly “Dance Free” in Floyd, it’s a cross between going to the gym and a rave party. Endorphins are released. Contagious smiles get exchanged. Some dancers spin like dervishes waving brightly colored scarves, while others sway, stomp, rock, or weave in and out of each other.

Dance Free is usually held on a Friday night, the same night as Floyd’s famous Friday Night Jamboree at The Country Store. Some of the Jamboree goers wander down the sidewalk and peek in to see what all the fun is about. Some join in.

From the window someone spots the moon and points it out. One by one, dancers glide over to take a look. Soon, a loud applause erupts.

Maria, the DJ, occasionally comes down from the stage and turns up the vibrational volume by dancing with us. At Dance Free, I don’t have to know anything, or make conversation. We are all speaking the same language. Body language, that is.

Post Note: That's my friend Lora, one of Floyd's Dance Free organizers. To learn more about it go here. David at Ripples has captured some great Jamboree shots as well.

June 16, 2006

Floyd Bloggers Who Write Books

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I was in the Café Del Sol posting flyers for our Spoken Word Open Mic this Saturday night when I witnessed an actual impromptu purchase of Fred’s new book, Slow Road Home,” at the Café counter.

As a friend of Fred’s, an author with a book myself, and a roving blogger who likes to record what interests me, my curiosity was piqued.

“I’m a friend of Fred’s,” I said as I approached the petite blonde woman who was buying the book.

“You are?!” she responded enthusiastically.

“I thought you’d like to know that I just snapped a picture of you for Fred,” I went on.

Her name is Katherine and she lives in upstate New York. In town for a wedding, she had just come from camping at Rocky Knob.

“We love this area,” she gushed and explained that she was in the Café earlier when she had first seen Fred’s book.

“Tell Fred that the back cover description sold me. We’ve been thinking about moving to a place like this,” she went on.cafebooks2.jpg

At that point, I handed her my card, the one with my blog address on it that says ‘The Blogkeeper is in,’ and let her know that Fred and I both have blogs and frequently write about Floyd.

“Do you know what a blog is?” I asked. She did. Not only that, she is a writer and has had a blog in the past.

“Look!” I said, pointing to the locally published books by me, David, and Fred (in that order) on a shelf below the counter. “And we’re all bloggers!” cafebookbuyersmilesm.jpg

I explained how supportive the café has been to local writers, showing her the open mic flyer in my hand. She offered to get her dog out of her car to pose for the next photo, but I had a date with the grocery store. We promised to stay in touch.

As I headed out the Café door feeling like got a scoop for Fred, I was thinking, ‘That’s the cool thing about the small press. You often get to meet and hear the stories of the everyday people who read your book, even if it comes to you by way of your neighbor.’

June 14, 2006

A Quiet Revolution

acupuncture2.jpg If this was my husband’s blog, he’d probably have lots of entries about Ba gua, the martial art he’s been practicing for a number years. Like him, many of our friend’s study Ba gua, mostly because they recognize the mastery of the man who teaches it, and they understand what an opportunity it is to learn from him.

The teacher, who came to Floyd 5 years ago via Blacksburg and the Southwest before that, is also a Chinese Medicine Practitioner. Like his Ba gua students, his patients also recognize the beneficial opportunity to be treated by him. I know because I am one such patient (and not a Ba gua student). For more than a year I drove twice a month to the rented home he works out of to receive traditional Chinese Medicine treatments, which could include acupuncture, cranial sacrum work, tuina (deep body work), bone setting, and the use of herbal infusions.
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This past weekend my husband and I attended an open house to celebrate a newly built Floyd clinic for Chinese Medicine. You probably won’t find the clinic in the phone book, at least not yet. I’m not using names for a reason. The building was largely manifested by way of community support. The teacher and the teacher’s teacher, who was also in attendance, both shy away from special attention and shun promotion. Yet, their popularity has created a word-of-mouth culture. A quiet revolution.

Looking around at the population of patients and Ba gua students (some of which are one in the same) that has been generated by a tradition and one teacher’s sharing of it, I was amazed. The beauty of the building reflected the healing energy cultivated and shared amongst the people who were gathered in it. centercrowd.jpg

Apparently, the large room where Ba gua is practiced has great acoustics. Listening to my friend Dorian sing made me look to see if she was wearing a mic. Sweet music filled the air as children spun and people snapped pictures.

In the kitchen, the loud hum of talking could be heard as people filled their red picnic plates with organic chicken, sushi rolls, and all manner of in-season fruit and vegetables from the potluck table. There were vases full of roses in every room. I know because I made it a point to admire and smell them all. tamra2.jpg

With a waiting list of a hundred that he has no choice but to turn away, Floyd’s Chinese Medicine Practitioner is training apprentices as fast as he can, he told me. His current 2 apprentices can do about 75% of various techniques he uses, he said.

I think I spoke for most everybody when I responded, “That’s great, but when I come for treatments I want that 25% that only you can do.”

Photo: Tamra is a gymnast. Photo #3 was taken from behind a glass window.

June 9, 2006

Just another Day at the Café

bloggers3a.jpgThe fact that the attendance of our 4th monthly regional Blogger Meet-up at the Café Del Sol was less than normal turned out to work in my favor. I came to the meeting equipped with a pen, a notebook, and a list of blogging questions, and for over an hour I had an audience with Doug and David, two local bloggers who are more experienced at the technical side of blogging than I am.

We didn’t just talk and the guys didn’t just answer my questions. We turned my laptop on and Doug showed me step-by-step how to delete over 13,000 spam comments stored in my blog’s junk mail file. I only knew how to delete junk emails one-by-one and because I get hundreds of them each day, they had piled up like debt I couldn’t pay.

Did you know that bloggers should export their blog data to their hard drive on a daily or regular basis? I sort of knew, but I didn’t know how. Doug showed me that too. At the end of each month, I had been saving that month’s archive page to my desktop and to a CD, but that’s just blog pages and not the data. Pages won’t help to restore my blog if for some unforeseeable reason it gets lost in cyber space.

Although it was an especially productive meeting for me, and I came away feeling like I had just been to a doctor’s appointment and received a clean bill of health, not everything went right. I sat next to Doug at the meeting table because he has a reputation of uttering quotable comments that I like to record. Unfortunately, he came up with a good one, and I wrote it down, but later discovered that my writing was illegible. tips.jpg Not only that, the picture I thought I took of Doug and David (and Jamie when he showed up), I actually hadn’t, and the one I did take I mistakenly deleted. (The one posted above is from a previous meet-up).

Meanwhile, on the same day a deer crashed into the café’s front door and thrashed about, wrecking the place before it found its way out, Ann’s brother, Tuffy, was in a terrible car accident. Ann (pictured here in a photo I did manage to take that morning) is a familiar face, one of the women who work in the café. She was selling raffle tickets as a fundraiser to help her brother’s family stay afloat while her brother is in the hospital facing a long road home to recovery. Having lost 2 brothers and my dad recently, I was particularly touched by her dedication, love, and concern for her brother. Stationed under the hanging art exhibit of The Floyd Figure’s Art Group, she told me about a family member’s recent sighting of a white deer, as her brother – a hunter – lie in his hospital bed fighting for his life. We both agreed the white deer was a good sign.

Besides selling raffle tickets, Ann was engaged in a little farm activism. She handed me a flyer with a headline that read “Protect Traditional Rights to Farm. Just Say No to NAIS.” NAIS stands for the National Animal Identification System, and is the USDA’s government plan to track births, deaths, sales, breeding, and all movements of all livestock in the United States. Originally, proposed as a way to open up foreign meat markets to benefit bit Agri-business exporters, NAIS now says the program is justified to prevent disease. Activists believe that small farms shouldn’t be burdened with such an invasive program that does not benefit them. floydfigures.jpg

It was a good morning and a good meeting. I learned something new…and came away with some homework. I’m deleting junk mail as we speak.

Post Notes:
1. Thanks to David for hosting our monthly blogger meetings. 2. Floydians, if you want to buy a raffle ticket for a TV or camera and help a family out, go to the Café and ask about purchasing one or making a donation to “Tuffy’s Tips.” 3. Learn what you can do to stop the USDA’s proposed animal tracking system by going to NONAIS.ORG.

June 6, 2006

A Cottage Industry

jewelry.jpgWhen I first moved to Floyd, 21 years ago, it didn’t take me long to look around and say to myself, “I have to learn to make something.” Here in Floyd, what one can make with their hands becomes a currency, whether it be wooden bowls, clothes, flutes, pots, or stained glass. Back then, it was especially true, as many of us were raising children full-time and living on very low incomes. We had a yearly Barter Faire for showcasing our wares and selling or trading them. For a time, some of us used the Lets System (Local Economic Transfer System), a way to exchange goods and services using local Lets credits.

As a newcomer, I admired the translucent and iridescent hanging beaded earrings that several alter-native women in Floyd were making and wanted to learn to make some of my own. Those women became my first teachers. I was amazed at how freely they shared what they knew. There were no classes to take or book instructions to struggle with. We met informally around someone’s kitchen table or by a neighborhood pond in summer and beaded together.

My friend Juniper took me under wing. She actually paid me to string necklaces for her craft business, first in a little studio shed on her property and later in one of her two bead shops. While working part time for her, my beaded jewelry evolved into gemstone and sterling wire-wrapped pieces. I developed my own line of jewelry, and for a while I lived the life of a craftsperson. In between raising my sons, I stocked stores, went to craft shows, and sometimes traded my jewelry for other things I needed.booksigning.jpg

When I began doing full time foster care for adults with developmental disabilities in the mid 90s, my income improved, and I no longer had the time or inclination to make jewelry. But the lifestyle of working at home, making my own hours, and having something concrete to use as currency stuck with me.

After retiring from nine years of providing full-time foster care in my home, I now work no more than one week a month at it. The rest of the time, I write. Writing is my new cottage industry. It’s a natural extension of who I am and how I live. There are even some in-house published books involved. I stock them in stores, have sold some at shows, and have been hosted to do a few book-signings or talk to local book club groups. I even have a storefront, where I put in a few hours of work each day. It’s called Loose Leaf Notes, and you are there.

June 1, 2006

Floyd’s Jacksonville Center Has a New Director

david.jpgMeet David St. Lawrence, author, blogger, woodworker, husband of Loose Leaf reader Gretchen, and one of the most upbeat people I know.

The St. Lawrence’s are new to Floyd, but because they have been connected to Floyd for so long via blogging they don’t feel like newcomers to most of us. I see them regularly at our monthly Spoken Word Open Mic and at our monthly blogger meet-ups, which David spearheaded and which are likely to draw as many as a dozen regional bloggers. It’s also not uncommon to run into David and Gretchen at the Café Del sol, where David can be seen sipping latte and plugging away on his laptop.

But the St. Lawrence’s are out and about for more than those occasions. I know because David is a roving reporter who posts regularly about Floyd happenings on his blog, Ripples. I check it out daily so as not to miss anything.

David, who has a woodworking business called “Box-Carts” and a book about surviving corporate life called “Danger Quicksand Have a Nice Day,” now has a new incarnation to add to his resume. He was recently offered and accepted the newly created position of Executive Director at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts. Located just south of downtown Floyd in a restored 1940’s dairy barn, the Jacksonville Center is a manifestation of a grassroots effort to support the arts and local culture and promote them as viable economic boosts to our rural county. jax2.jpg

Over the past 10 years, the Center has transformed from the dark and dusty place I remember to a bustling hub of activity. Incorporated as a non-profit entity in 1995, the barn and adjoining buildings are home to an art business incubator, an art gallery, artist’s studios, a retail shop, lodging for weekend and weeklong classes, and a folk school that is currently offering classes in blacksmithing, pottery, and glassworks. There is even a windmill on the property and a straw bale building under construction, both projects of The Sustainable Living Education Center.

Now David has been enlisted to help put all this on the map. He was kind enough to answer my questions about his new position, which are as follows:

1. David, Executive Director of the Jacksonville Center is a newly created position. How and why did it come about?

I have had an interest in the Center ever since we first visited Floyd two years ago and wanted to do something to support the mission of helping local artisans become more viable. I was asked to do a study of the current situation at the Jacksonville Center and to make recommendations which might lead to greater viability for the center and the artisan community it serves. windmill.jpg

The study uncovered that the lack of an Executive Director placed an undue burden on the staff and the Board of Directors because everyone had to spend extra time trying to handle the traffic that an ED would normally handle.

I made a series of recommendations with the first one being that they should find and hire an Executive Director. They asked if I could fill that position and the rest was history.

2. What kind of changes do you envision happening under your direction?

We have incredible assets for a local non-profit group, highly dedicated staff members and volunteers, internationally known artists and artists who teach the courses, and a physical plant that offers plenty of scope for expansion. My job is to see that these assets are used effectively and are promoted in such a way that expansion of the Center and its offerings is made possible.

Non-profit art centers like Jacksonville depend on grants and donations in addition to paid services. All of these sources of income depend on providing excellent customer experiences and achieving goals that are real to the community and students.

My job is to provide the necessary support to the staff that will enable them to provide consistently excellent customer experiences. That means realignment of effort in some cases, rather than visible organizational change.

3. Where will you start? What will you zero in on first?

I have already started and our first priority is to get the word out about the new course offerings. You can see the latest 2006 Class Schedule online at floydcounty.com

4. Will blogging play a role? And with this new position, will you still have time to blog daily and come to our monthly blogger meet-ups?

Blogging is one way to spread the word rapidly and at very low cost. I will be starting a weblog at the Jacksonville Center which will have frequent stories featuring events, courses, and artisans of the Jacksonville Center. When the weblog goes live later this week, it will be called Jacksonville Center Online and the URL will be: http://jacksonvillecenteronline.info (This weblog is up and running now)

5. I’ve been very impressed with the range of arts and folk skills showcased at the Jacksonville Center. Do you think there will eventually be room to integrate the literary arts into the plans? I would love to see a small press available to the community.

There is room for that kind of expansion and I would certainly support any proposal which would lead to the establishment of such a program. The things you might want to include in such a proposal would include the size of the target audience, the cost of such a program, sources of instruction, and some idea of how contributions or grants might be obtained. In short, all programs require financing and a justification for their existence. Programs which are well thought out will get favorable attention.

6. How will your experience in the corporate world enhance your work at the Jacksonville Center and how might it hamper it, considering the Center’s small town roots?

Fifty years in the corporate trenches has convinced me that the make-break of any enterprise, including non-profits is whether the products and services are effectively marketed. You can have the best courses and products in the world, but if no one knows about them you will not succeed.

The Jacksonville Center has some amazing offerings. Not enough people know about them in a timely fashion.

I grew up in a small-town environment and I place great value on the culture that Floyd currently enjoys. Making Floyd, the Jacksonville Center, and local artists better known needs to be done skillfully and tastefully. The culture that built the Jacksonville center is one of its greatest strengths. Any changes to the center's operation will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. An artist who evolves from selling at craft fairs to selling in international galleries learns to market more effectively, not to debase their work to meet a more commercial standard.

7. As a blogger, I can’t help but wonder and ask: Don’t you think the Jacksonville Center will make a good site for a future blogger convention?

I sure do!

Post Note: I got so involved in my interview with David that I forgot it was 13 Thursday! I guess I'll be posting 13 on Friday this week. See you tomorrow.

May 31, 2006

Looney Moon in June

museletterjayn.jpgThe Museletter, the local homespun newsletter that a small group of us have been putting together for the past 20 years, is one of the reasons I moved to Floyd. Back then it went by another name. It was mostly supported, and still is today, by the alter-natives, the back-to-the landers, the musicians, and artists who reside here in Floyd. It only took seeing that first issue (sent to me via a Blue Mountain School parent), with a list of events, a community bulletin board, poetry, and articles on folk living and sustainability, for me to recognize the small town uniqueness of Floyd and become hooked on the idea of living here.

Putting the Museletter together used to be a monthly community event, but because Floyd has grown and subscribers aren’t as close-knit as they once were, in the last few years the cut and paste lay-out production has come down to Jayn and me. Another volunteer co-ordinates the subscriptions and recruits people to collate it each month. It’s a low-tech, grassroots sewing circle sort of activism that I can’t believe manages to happen every month.

Creating the June issue, this past Sunday, was like old home week. Jayn’s friend Jack was in town and he and Jayn, along with my husband Joe, had just come from a bike ride on the Parkway. I had all the ingredients spread out on the table – submissions that had come via email or our PO Box, pens, glue stick, and enough scissors to go around – ready to piece it together.

Jayn usually does the back page, which consists of a calendar and mailing information. For fun, and like all good Earth People have in the past, she names the moon, and then illustrates the page to coordinate with it. Some of her recent most memorable namings include: Lo-Sun-Moon, Milky Way Moon, Daddy- Oh Moon, Moon of Plenty, Mermoon, Up and Coming Moon, and Big Grassy Moon, and one of my personal favorites, named after the start of the War in Iraq, “Year of Compassion Moon of Dissent.”

We put Jack to work, suggesting he be the one to name the moon. After absorbing the weight of his task, he thought for a minute and then wondered out loud if we could get away with naming the issue “Looney Tune June Moon.”

“We have the technology!” I said, holding up my glue stick. “And the power!” I added.

After it was decided which Looney Tunes character we would feature as our June Museletter mascot, even Joe got in on the act. He went to the computer to find some suitable clip art and printed it out for us.

Tweety Bird! Yeah, that fits the spring-summer theme, we all agreed.

Jack pulled a poem out of his notebook and hand copied it in an available space. I looked for some quotes for Father’s Day to disperse throughout the pages, and Jayn drew some squiggling spirals to separate the various typed submissions.

Many hands made an especially good Museletter, just like the old days.

To read more about the Museletter go here and here.

May 15, 2006

The Flowering of Poetry

scarecrow2.jpg And I am stuffed with facts…overweight with the nightly news…Poetry is the bell …that saves me from being…all-consumed ~ From “Political Prose is Hard Labor” ~ by Colleen

Sharing a beer with my girlfriend, Jayn, at Over the Moon Café, a mutual friend approached us to compliment Jayn on a poem she had written, which appeared in the Museletter recently.

After our friend left, I said to Jayn, “Since I’ve been blogging, I haven’t been writing very much poetry, and I miss it.”

It was then that it came to me what the difference between writing prose and poetry is for me, and why I enjoy writing poetry so much. bellflowers.jpg

Jayn and I are both gardeners. We depend on and appreciate the vegetables we grow, but we LOVE our flowers. Both take the same amount of work to produce, but with one the work feels more like play. And even though we don’t eat our flowers, the reward they give us when they bloom is substantial.

Jayn and I decided that if writing prose is like vegetable gardening – growing staples that you can’t afford to live without – than writing poetry is like growing flowers. It’s a luxury you make time to afford.

May 14, 2006

A'Court's Art

acourtshow.jpg Two summers ago A'Court (the artist, musician, and recluse who I wrote about here) was in our neighborhood performing an impromptu outdoor concert for the Zephyr Farm community. We gathered around on my friend Jayn’s front porch listening to A'Court play until the stars came out. As far as I know, he hasn’t been out-and-about since then. That is, until now.

A'Court’s art is currently on exhibit at The Black Water Loft Café in downtown Floyd. The artist’s reception, which took place last night, is a date that had been circled on my calendar for weeks. My husband, Joe, and I stopped by to see the exhibit and to say hello to A'Court before our dinner reservation at Oddfella’s Cantina.

The Loft, located where the old Harvest Moon used to be, is a hip and comfortable place to hang-out, conducive to art shows and poetry readings. I particularly enjoyed seeing A'Court’s lotus paintings grace the walls, and I was especially happy to discover that his mom, Ruth, was in attendance. Ruth is a petite white-haired matriarchal figure with a sharp wit. I remember her most for her meditative dance practice. Back in the day, I occasionally danced alongside her at her Travianna farm house, or some other community event. acourtart2.jpg

She started our conversation saying, “I had never heard of Floyd the morning I bought our farm here.”

It was 1971. A'Court’s brother, Will, had seen a Floyd farm “For-sale” ad in a Raleigh NC newspaper, and they made an appointment to see it that very day. Ruth says when she drove into Floyd County and saw the Blue Ridge Parkway, she fell in love and said to herself, ‘If the farm isn’t the backside of a mountain, I’m going to buy it on the spot.’ And she did.

But now it was 6:45 and our dinner reservation was at 6:30. We bid our farewells, knowing that the exhibit will be on display until the end of May. We can also view A'Court’s art at his website, travianna.com, and some of Will’s poetry and essays at his, and so can you.

Post Note: My mother’s day entry is below, and my sister has a link to hilarious movie clip for Mother’s Day posted at her site. I bet you can’t watch it without laughing.

May 12, 2006

Bloggers Convergence

bloggeralina2.jpgAlina’s in the market for a new laptop. She perused the table full of them at our recent Blogger meet-up, asking pertinent questions about their performance and convenience, before settling down to take mine for a test run. Behind her, Fred was signing some of his newly published books, Slow Road Home, for Rigel. Rigel was inspired to move to Floyd from California after reading Fred’s blog, Fragments from Floyd, and she’s been a regular at our monthly regional blogger meet-ups.

The sun was streaming in Café Del Sol’s large windows. One of the glass paneled doors was boarded-up, a sign of the damage created when a deer crashed in and out of it on Monday, prompting Doug’s Tuesday blog post, “The Deer who Came for Coffee.”
bloggersmay2.jpg

There were pockets of several conversations going on at once. Doug opened up the Floyd Press newspaper and there was the deer story, written by none other than himself and sporting a new title. And so the details got retold, and some got re-enacted, for those who hadn’t already heard.

After Fred had finished signing a small stack books and delivered them to Rigel, he and I talked book publishing for awhile. Somewhere I managed to squeeze in a question to Doug about deleting stored junk comments, and Alina, whose blog is just over a month old, shared a concern. After a confident start, launching her blog and posting daily for a couple of weeks, she lost momentum when she went on a trip, and now she’s been feeling shy about continuing.

“It’s been a year and that still happens to me,” I told to her. Fred, who’s been blogging for over 3 years, nodded his head knowingly.

“And every time it happens, I learn something about myself and use it as an opportunity to re-evaluate my reasons for blogging,” I continued.

“What about you?” I asked David, an upbeat guy who exudes self- confidence. “Do you ever feel shy or vulnerable about putting yourself out there?” cafebambi.jpg

David doesn’t, but his wife Gretchen confessed that one of their family members precedes some of their conversations with, ‘And don’t let David blog about this!’

Our meet-ups – the 2nd Thursday of each month – are fun and stimulating. They bring balance to a sometimes isolating activity. It’s good to exchange ideas and foster enthusiasm for what we do. I especially appreciate being able to draw on the knowledge of our more seasoned local bloggers and techies (compared to me): Fred, David, and Doug.

May 7, 2006

Birthday Scrabble at the Café Del Sol

maradove.jpgEven though Mara can beat me at Scrabble about as often as I can beat her, I offered to let her win, seeing as it was her birthday, but she would have no part of it. As it turned out, she could have used some concessions. She was doomed from the start…because of the letter Z.

We were drawing to see who would go first when Mara, frustrated, said to me and our fellow players – Rosemary and Kathleen – “I drew a Z. I saw a Z, but now I don’t see it. It must have fallen back in the bag!”

I got off on the wrong foot too, by playing a fake word on my very first turn. Nobody noticed until it was too late, so I was stuck feeling guilty, like a Scrabble imposter, for most of the game.

I even convinced myself that I knew what my fake word meant. I was thinking of “joe,” (a regular guy) when I played “jim” and told myself it meant something in between a shim and a jimmy. Kathleen was having no part of that.
marabdatwayne.jpg

Meanwhile, it was Mara’s birthday. Her dad, Wayne, came and ate lunch with us. When I climbed around behind the couch and the potted fir tree to snap a picture of him, Kathleen joked that I was trying to see her letters! Sally, the cafe owner who is also a professional singer, came over to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mara. She asked Mara how old she was at the same exact moment that I was reporting my score to Rosemary. “23!” I announced.

“23! Mara repeated…unconvincingly.

As the game was winding down, the winning score was between me and Rosemary. I had mostly only one point vowels left and if I was to win, it would be only by a matter of a few points, so I had to be careful. By the time it was down to only one play left, I was studying the board hard, looking for big point letters that I could parasite off. That’s when I noticed it. marabday2.jpg

“Hey! Where is the Z?!” I shouted. “There is no Z on this board!!”

Mara had seen a Z. It was the same one that was now under her chair.

Photos:
1. Mara, holding her Scrabble mug, says “Peace.” She and Dove are looking at “Mara’s Birthday Scrabble Game” posted on my blog that day. 2. Covertly looking at Kathleen’s letters via my camera, while trying to catch Wayne. 3. Rosemary, Kathleen, Mara, and me. Mara is not giving you the finger. She’s holding the infamous letter Z to her head.

May 6, 2006

Poet to Poet

poettopoet.jpg My poet friend, Mara, gets serenaded with an impromptu poem written and read by a woman who happened to be in the Café del Sol Wednesday when we were celebrating Mara’s birthday with a Scrabble game party.

I just have one question for Mara: Do the green frogs on your t-shirt glow in the dark?

Post note: More on Mara’s Scrabble Birthday Party coming up soon. It begins here.

May 1, 2006

The Tao of Tea and Poetry

teaparty3.jpgLike the Sufi mystic poets of old who did not see themselves as separate from God and who met in secret to protect themselves from fanatical fundamentalists who thought otherwise, a group of women friends gathered around a table for tea and something more…talk of the Dharma, the Tao, the Wise Woman Way.

“Bring something to read that has inspired you,” our hostess requested.

teaparty4.jpgAnd so, the flavors of hot apricot tea, lemon cake with boysenberry jam, scones, cream, and fresh strawberries and grapes mixed with the words of Rumi, Hafiz, Li Po, Gary Snyder, and John O’Donahue, for a lusciously fulfilling exchange that fed more than one kind of hunger.

Strange Miracle

O wondrous creatures,
By what strange miracle
Do you so often
Not smile?

~ Favortie Hafiz poem rendered by Daniel Ladinsky

April 30, 2006

Friends in High Places

oddfellabell3.jpg A day spent in Floyd – the one stoplight rural town I live in – can be as exciting as time spent in any big city, as far as I’m concerned.

On Friday I had lunch at Oddfellas Cantina with two amazingly accomplished women, sold 10 books (The Jim and Dan Stories), and got invited to go to the New Orleans Jazz Festival – complete with a backstage pass – all in the matter of a couple of hours.

The bag of books, brought by request of Elizabeth McCommon (center) for her book club to read, sat at my feet while we settled in at the front table with the sun streaming in. Elizabeth is somewhat of a local celebrity. She’s mostly known for her folk music and acting abilities and is currently teaching a memoir writing class at the YMCA Open University in Blacksburg. The last time I saw her was over 10 years ago when I worked in the bead shop in Blacksburg. She told me then that a new song was brewing, either in protest or in jest, called "Where has all the Foreskin Gone.” oddfellaslunch3.jpg

I see Alwyn (right) more often. She’s a longtime dear friend, a poet, animal rights activist, environmentalist, author, artist, Rudolf Steiner kindergarten teacher, and more. We have a long history together, one such period being when we worked on a publication together, called “The Bell: A Call to Peace.”

I had just come from listening to the rock and roll of Neil Young (Living with War) on my computer at home and was still under its influence. We tried not to all talk at once. I was digging into my Harvest Bowl with the creamy feta garlic dressing when Melody (on the left), music promoter at the Winter Sun, walked in with a music poster she was about to hang. I called her over because I knew Elizabeth would want to meet her. Elizabeth is an old friend of another local musician, Acourt Bason, the Rasta Buddhist Recluse who I wrote about earlier this year.

It’s a small world in Floyd. Melody and Acourt are a couple now. She’s planning his upcoming art opening at the Black Water Loft. Knowing what a hermit he is, I asked Melody, jokingly, “Is Acourt going to come to the opening?”

We were all of us jotting down addresses, dates, and exchanging posters (I had some for the upcoming Spoken Word Open Mic) when the conversation turned to The New Orleans Jazz Festival where Melody is scheduled to be with the Kusun Ensemble next weekend.

“You could probably meet Peter Gabriel,” she said, inviting me to tag along. The blogger in me got wide-eyed.

“I have to go home and think about. I don’t think well with other people around,” I told her. elizabeth.jpg

Right next door, Joanne and Billy Bell were celebrating the grand opening of their new shop, The Bell Gallery and Garden. More old friends of Elizabeth’s. We went over to collect some hugs, to drool over Billy’s photography, and to admire Joanne’s pressed flower glasswork.

Next stop, the Winter Sun Warehouse, to shop for some hand dyed clothes from Ecuador. I don’t think you can go into the Winter Sun without stopping at the Café Del Sol for tea or coffee. And I don’t think you can stop at Café Del Sol without seeing any number of friends to catch up with.

By the end of the stimulating afternoon, I was spinning with the upbeat pace of it all. Later, at home I planted several rows of Swiss chard and kale. It was time to come back down to earth.

Post Note:
The building on the left in the first photo is where Oddfella’s Cantina lives. The green building, just to the right of that, is Joanne and Billy Bell’s new shop. All the places mentioned above are within walking distance of each other. Check out Acourt’s new website here.

April 17, 2006

Say the word

k-openmic.jpg In the beginning I misunderstood… But now I've got it, the word is good. ~ The Word by Lennon/McCartney

An hour before it was time to head out for Spoken Word Open Mic at the Café Del Sol in downtown Floyd, my husband reminded me that I was supposed to box up 20 of my books for Alan, his former counseling professor who uses the book in a grief and loss class and who was planning to attend the open mic.

I was up in the attic crawl space counting books when my bare foot collided with a piece of glass from a broken frame that held a poem I had long ago written for my eldest son when he was born (26 years ago). It was a pretty deep gash and oddly ironic, since I was planning to read my WVTF radio essay about knowing summer through my bare feet at the open mic. …I remember the dew drenched grass on my feet and then, because it was dark, stepping on something sharp. I probably screamed louder than I needed to, because howling at night somehow seemed normal.

The cut was an opportunity to test the healing power of cayenne to stop bleeding in its tracks. I expected it to sting when I sprinkled some on, but it didn’t. Not only that, it did what I had read it would do. I slapped on a band-aid, called my friend, Katherine (pictured), who would be riding to town with me, and told her I was running late.

Because I arrived at the Café late, I didn’t get a chance to order my customary beer. After delivering the box of books to Alan, meeting his girlfriend, greeting familiar faces, and acknowledging those that weren’t familiar with a nod or a smile, I plopped myself down on my favorite couch, the only one in the café, as though I had a claim to it.

There were two people already sitting there. As I squeezed myself in, I was reminded of watching TV with my eight siblings when I was a girl. We were all territorial about the best seats in our house, and if you scored a good one and then left it for a minute, you had to fight to get it back.

My couch companions were two high school-aged girls, one of whom was planning to read. She was nervous, she confessed; so we made a plan. “Look at me when you’re reading, I’ll wink and do something to make you laugh,” I instructed her. I was beginning to worry about my own nerves, considering that I didn’t have a beer to steady them.

It was a smaller crowd than last month’s full house, which probably had something to do with the fact that it was the night before Easter, the local newspaper had the wrong date published, and it was our first open mic since daylight savings. The thought of reading poetry in public in broad daylight might have scared-off some.

By the time Mara took to the stage, I was finally settled in and could receive the weight of her words. She read one of my favorite poems about remembering playing Monopoly with her husband who is now deceased …You were always the shoe…when we played we ate popcorn and drank coke…Sometimes we put a joint in free parking…and all the chance money went there too..

Mara also read an essay about the reactions people have had to her generously bumper-stickered car, which she thinks of as a poem with an engine. Her daughter, Kyla, who was present, figured in the piece. It was fun to watch her facial expressions as her mom read. At one point Kyla playfully banged her head against a nearby computer. After that she climbed under the table and hid her face. Did they rehearse that?j-openmic.jpg

I began my reading with a reference to the date, April 15th… in spring I calculate poetry…the way others do their taxes…as though the world were overdue for a good accounting. My friend Katherine, an herbalist and ceremonialist, followed me with an essay titled, “All in A Day,” in which she reflected on performing a wedding ceremony in the morning and then preparing a friend’s mother’s body who had just passed away for a funeral service in the afternoon. I recall her speaking… Let it be… Let it be... like a chorus to the melody of her words.

One of the readers, a man name John (pictured) who came all the way from Blacksburg to read, did a poem that consisted entirely of the names of Beatles songs, which fed right into my longstanding fantasy (which I’m not obsessive enough to pull off) of spending a day saying everything I need to via Beatle lyrics.

I’m so grateful that we have local forum for writers to share their work. I’m looking forward to many more spoken word events and meeting the creative people willing to participate in them. We gather around the mic every 3rd Saturday from 7-9. Special thanks to our host, The Café Del Sol.

Post Note: My sister Kathy posted a beautiful photo and surprise Easter miracle story that happened to my sister Sherry this past Sunday. Check it out here.

April 12, 2006

The Class Picture

wwweek.jpg The class of 1998 at Woman’s Wellness Week, Indian Valley, Virginia, a woman's retreat hosted by my friend Ise Williams who has since passed away. Do you recognize me with mud on my face?

To view a more recent class picture go here.

My son Josh’s class picture is here. Can you find him in all that green? His close-up mug...err...mud shot is here.

April 4, 2006

More Floyd Wildlife

wigs.jpgGirls in brightly colored wigs posing for poets in a clash of culture when live-bands performed at the Winter Sun Hall and the poets read free verse in Café Del Sol on the same night in different parts of the same building. ~ February ‘06

Post notes:
On Wednesday, tomorrow, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06 (via the LoveLink from Sherry). Meet some of Floyd’s other wildlife here and see the wig girls in another get-up altogether here.

March 31, 2006

Local Bloggers Unite

bloggers1.jpgA support group? A union? A class or convention? There was talk of track backs, permalinks, and spam. Mostly, we enjoyed meeting each other, some for the first time. We were old bloggers, new bloggers, wanna-be bloggers, and blog readers. The lap tops were lit up and the stats were compared. I learned that bloggers are an enthusiastic bunch, happy to find each other.bloggers2.jpg

Photos: We met at Floyd’s wireless Café Del Sol. The first photo shows Jamie of Jamie’s World and Doug of Blue Ridge Muse on the right. In the second photo David from Ripples is standing on the left, Leslie of Squirrel Spur is in the center, and Fred of Fragments From Floyd is standing on the right. Go visit David for another perspective on our blogger’s day out. His photos came out better than mine.

March 28, 2006

Floyd Wildlife

parkway.jpgOn this day, Joe and I walked a stone path lined with emerald green moss against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Appalachian Mountain Range, one of the oldest in the world, is a gently rolling scene of overlapping mountains for as far as the eye can see. It looks prehistoric, and I always expect to see pterodactyls. Today I saw turkeys instead. ~ Excerpt from The Jim and Dan Stories

Crows have emptied my peach tree of ripe fruit overnight, skunks have dug spoon-sized holes all over my yard, and last year a black snake stretched across my gravel driveway blocking my path to the mailbox. It also ate the newly hatched phoebes in the nest on our porch rafter.

Such is country life.

Deer, opossum, and raccoon are common here. So are turkeys. But my first experience with a flock of turkey was anything but common. I was sunbathing in my yard when I heard them before I saw them. Startled by the loud clumsy sound of flapping, which was low to the ground and very CLOSE, I felt like my yard was being invaded and was surprised when I saw how big, how many, and how pre-historic looking they were. Of course, when they saw me they couldn’t get out of my yard fast enough.

The first time I saw a fox I felt like I had entered into the plot of a fairytale. It strutted brazenly by me, more self-assured than a dog, which is what I first took it for. It was snowing and the fox seemed charmed, standing out blatantly against the winter white wonderland. Had it lost its den hole under a drift, I wondered?

It took nearly twenty years of living in the country before I encountered my first black bear and because it was standing upright, I thought for a second that it was someone wearing a bear costume. I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway, about a stone’s throw away from my house. Riding by in my car, I screamed when I saw it, not because I was afraid but because I was excited to be seeing a wild bear for the first time.

They say there are panthers and mountain lions in these hills. I haven’t seen any…yet.

March 19, 2006

The Wine of Words

tipjar.jpg All my friends would like to know…how I can sleep so late…well, I have a gene for it…the wine of words is mostly partaken…in the wee hours of the morning…I write alone. ~ Colleen, From The Zen of Winter Poetry, Muses Like Moonlight.

The open mic that began as a community outreach effort by the Writer’s Workshop I belong to is taking on a life of its own. The wordsmiths and bards came out in full force last night, the night after St. Patrick’s Day, to the Café Del Sol to share their poetry and prose. Our 7-9 P.M. announced schedule went over by at least an hour. With a front row seat that happened to be a comfy couch, I nursed a beer while taking in the fare and found myself becoming intoxicated with language.

Beginning with the performances of a few talented students from the high school’s forensics’ team and ending with my friend Jayn reading her poem, “City Boy Country Girl” …Yeah, we're in love… Exposed hearts melting in our personal global warming…causing floods of correspondence… climate changes in poetry…and occasional research trips into each other's changing world… there must have been a dozen readers reading all variety of works.

I got to inject my best Irish accent when it was my turn to take to the mic with a poem called “My Grandmother’s Brogue”… My grandmother came to America to be a servant… and then have 11 children for the Catholic Church…Jesus Mary and Joseph! And my friend Katherine, whose article on home-birthing twins was published in Mothering magazine over two decades ago, shared her image-rich remembrances of childhood while writing at her now-deceased mother’s desk.

Although it is actually a serious subject, Doug Thompson, fellow blogger and journalist, brought the house down with his humorous response to being a target of the Bush Administration’s investigation into reporters who write unfavorable stories about them: On an unspecified day last week an employee of a federal agency that cannot be revealed delivered a document that cannot be identified to a company that cannot be named seeking information that cannot be discussed.

His piece was written following a more serious report on the matter, "Bush Declares War On Freedom of the Press," which is excerpted below but can be read in its entirety at Doug’s news site, Capitol Hill Blue. In recent weeks, the FBI has issued hundreds of "National Security Letters," directing employers, banks, credit card companies, libraries and other entities to turn over records on reporters. Under the USA Patriot Act, those who must turn over the records are also prohibited from revealing they have done so to the subject of the federal probes… Just how widespread, and uncontrolled, this latest government assault has become hit close to home last week when one of the FBI's National Security Letters arrived at the company that hosts the servers for this web site, Capitol Hill Blue. The letter apparently demanded traffic data, payment records and other information about the web site along with information on me, the publisher…

Sipping tea over breakfast this morning with my husband, Joe, I realized out loud that 4 of my 5 closest women friends are writers. We spent the rest of the morning poring over an article my son Josh had been asked to submit for a Studio Pottery publication with an editor’s eye (all 4 of them) in mind. This afternoon our Writers’ Workshop is set to meet. Tomorrow night my calendar tells me that I’m scheduled to attend the Blacksburg book club that recently read my book “The Jim and Dan Stories.”

I feel a hangover coming on…

Post Note: Floydian, David St. Lawrence, also one of the night’s readers,has an account of last night’s event, "The Spoken Word is alive and well in Floyd, VA", posted on his blog, complete with photos. The one posted here is of the tip jar on the counter of Café Del Sol.

February 17, 2006

Just Your Average Day in Floyd

weddingharvestmoon2.jpg AKA: The Bride and Big Foot
~ I drove into town on Tuesday to hang flyers for Saturday’s Spoken Word Night and to pass out brochures for my cousin Tammy, who is promoting an ICAN Birth Expo in Roanoke this coming April. My first stop was the Harvest Moon Health Food store, a grand central hub-bub in Floyd with one of the best community bulletin boards.

Upon entering the store, I picked up a basket to get a few groceries and a woman wearing a short white silky dress brushed by me. She had jewelry and make-up on and seemed a little overdressed for Tuesday afternoon Floyd shopping, I thought.

My friend Katherine, who works at the Harvest Moon and is the resident herbalist there, is what most people would call a Minister but what she calls a Priestess. We don’t currently have a Justice of the Peace in Floyd and so Katherine is often called on to do weddings. I was in the middle of talking to her about the price of cheese when she held up her hand and said, “Excuse me a minute…I have a wedding to perform.”

“OH! That explains the woman in the white dress. I love weddings! Can I come?” I asked.

It was a stress-free Valentine’s Day wedding that took all of 5 minutes, officiated by Katherine in front of the Harvest Moon with the bride and groom’s baby looking on from her stroller. I got to help by taking pictures.

footprintinsnow2.jpg
Now, as if that wasn’t enough of a quirky twist to an average day, here’s what happened next: After the excitement died down and I relocated my abandoned shopping basket and finished my shopping, I headed out to my car carrying my bundle and saw a man’s barefoot footprints IN THE SNOW! (And this was before it had warmed up.) I felt as if I had discovered BIG FOOT, and so I went back inside to report my findings.

The woman’s face at the cash register dropped, but soon Katherine solved the mystery for us. “Oh, that was probably Carl. You know he never wears shoes,” she said.

“I know. But in the snow?!” I exclaimed.

After that, I went about my business, but not without wondering how Carl’s feet were holding up.

February 8, 2006

Virginia is for Lovers

virginiaisforlovers1.jpg The Appalachian Mountains…ran like shivers up my spine…they rose in my dreams… Was I always destined for Virginia? How did I go from a small coastal town in the South Shore of Boston to living a rural life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia? Was the fact that I grew up infatuated with Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone, and Davy Crockett a sign of what my future held?

In my mid-20’s my sister, Sherry, came back from a vacation to Virginia Beach with a button that read “Virginia is for Lovers.” I was smitten. After convincing her to let me have the button, I pinned it to my pocketbook where it remained my motto for the next couple of years. Another sign?

My first husband and his family are electricians. When construction in the South Shore of Boston during the late 1970s dried up, Texas and Virginia were the two states they were considering for relocation. The Texas Oil Boom won out, and I ended up living near Houston for 7 years, which was where my two sons were born and how my brother Danny came to live in Houston.

While I have good memories of my years living in Texas, we never meant to live there as long as we did. I missed my family and the seasonal changes. It was hot and flat. As my interests in home-schooling and homesteading grew so did my urge to move to the country. While exploring a map one day, I glanced upon the word “Shenandoah,” a valley that runs alongside the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountain Range. I had a visceral and emotional reaction to the word. A shiver went up my spine. Soon after, and although I had never even seen mountains before, I had a vivid dream of the soft rolling green-blue mountains that I would later come to know as The Blue Ridge.

Other factors converged and eventually led me to Floyd where I found other home-schoolers, lots of tofu eaters, quartz, clean water, and country charm. Considering that most of my ancestors came from Ireland, when I learned that the Appalachian Mountains were once the same land mass as Ireland and Scotland before the ice age, I better understood my draw to the mountains.

My home-place roots in Massachusetts run deep. I visit my family and the ocean every year. But as much as I love where I grew up, I also can’t ignore that I was guided to live where I do. I think of the button that my sister brought back from Virginia Beach 30 years ago as an open-ended ticket that began the journey to the rest of my life.

Photo: Sherry and her husband, Nelson, visit me in Virginia. The photo was taken up at The Saddle Overlook on The Blue Ridge Parkway, in Floyd.

February 6, 2006

Floyd Nightlife

doveDance_Free2.jpgDance: Poetry of the foot. ~ John Dyden ~
Since the days of The Surf Ballroom in my amusement park hometown of Hull, Massachusetts, dance has been my body’s native language. I love it the way my husband loves to play soccer, and I treat it like a favorite sport. Resting during the day before dancing, as if preparing for a marathon, when it comes time to go, I fill up a jug of water and make a protein snack to bring along. I like to be prepared to keep my energy level up because if the music is good, I never sit down between songs.

The hardwood floor at The Winter Sun Music Hall in downtown Floyd has just the right slip and slide for a dancer’s feet. I know that because I danced on it 3 times in the past week. Last Friday was our monthly Dance Free; two days later my friends and I danced up a storm to the music of Gaelic Storm; and this past Saturday night marked the debut of Sonic Safari, a new local band, described on the Sun’s Music Hall website this way: “ this 5-piece band has a sound all of their own. Combining jazz, funk, rock and original moves, Sonic Safari will enthrall dancers and listeners alike.”

I recognized an Average White Band and an Allman Brothers song. There was a psychedelic thread running through the jams that broke down the separation of past and present. With my eyes closed and slightly dizzy from spinning, I could have been back at The Surf, dancing in 1969. Occasionally, I opened my eyes, looked around, and smiled at the familiar Floyd faces swaying and twirling all around me, but for the most part, it wasn’t a social activity. I was there to dance.

I feel blessed to have such excellent entertainment right here in our small town of Floyd, and the dancer in me has been lobbying Sonic Safari to be the new Floyd house band.

Photo: Dove, a regular Dance Free participant, clipped from the Winter Sun webpage. Don't sit down yet. There's a monthly Contra Dance, also at the Winter Sun Music Hall, this coming Saturday night. You can check out The Blue Ridge Country Dancers website for more information about the dance.

February 4, 2006

Friday Fish Fry

johnwithfish.jpgOn Friday, my whole day revolved around fish. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was raised Catholic and it was considered a sin to eat meat on Fridays back then, and so my family usually ate fish. It had everything to do with a local Floyd business that consists of two women who travel to the coast each week and bring back fresh seafood that they sell out of the back of their truck. Their fish business is called “Indigo Farms,” but I call them “The Indigo Girls.”

I didn’t a have stick of fish left in my house and hadn’t for several weeks. I knew that they only sell fish in Floyd on Friday mornings in front of Harvest Moon Natural Foods, and that if you arrive after 10:30 you’re probably too late; the girls will have already begun their trek to Blacksburg to peddle their delicacies there.

When I arrived at the Harvest Moon parking lot, it was nearly 10:30, and there was a line behind the white refrigerated fish truck. “Should I take a number?” I shouted out in jest to one of the girls, and then took my place in the line. The woman in front of me had a blue cooler slung over her arm, and the man in front of her thanked the girls profusely after he got his fish, saying that he appreciated them ‘more than they’ll ever know.’ He said it more than once, which made me curious. Did someone’s life depend on fish? (And of course I thought my dad, who frequently used the ‘more than you’ll ever know’ line, was talking to me through the man.)

My order came to $52! I have a freezer and plan not to run out of fish for awhile. “Can you put it on ice?” I asked the Indigo girl who reminded me of the Amy Ray part of the duo. “I have some more errands to do.”

Inside “The Harvest Moon” (one has to live on more than fish) I was stopped by Katherine, Harvest Moon icon, herbalist, and close friend, “What are you doing here so early,” she questioned, knowing how much of a morning person I am not.

“It has 4 letters and starts with an F!” I answered her in game show fashion. She responded with the look of someone who had just been told a joke that they didn’t get, so I shouted out, “FISH,” and then headed over to the bulk grains bin to get some flour for the frying.

Post Notes:
The photo is of my fisherman rouge of a brother, John. He wrote on the back, “Your brother John with a 30 pound King Salmon.” Besides being a fisherman, he also manages a fish market, so I don’t guess he actually caught it. Don’t forget to visit “Friday Night Fish Fry,” the blog whose namesake I used for the title of this post, to see what she’s been cooking up.

February 3, 2006

Gaelic Storm

celticstorm2.jpg We didn’t wear the right shoes. We were dressed in too many clothes for what would ensue. By the end of the first set, we had escaped from our seats and were dancing in the aisle. By the beginning of the second set, we had kicked off our shoes and were dancing up by the stage. I still have the ink on my hand from being stamped at the door (at least I did when I wrote this). I can’t tell what it’s an image of, but it’s definitely Irish green, and so I’m thinking it’s a smudged shamrock, a fitting symbol for a foot stomping band named “Gaelic Storm.” ~ This is the continuation from Wednesday’s post.

Announcing:
Fellow Floyd blogger, longtime journalist, and founder of Capitol Hill Blue, Doug Thompson has launched another new online site, FloydCounty.com. Besides presenting local news, views, and entertainment, the site also features regular updates of other Floyd bloggers, including those from Loose Leaf. Doug’s impressive bio can be found here.

January 29, 2006

Museletter Sunday

museletters.jpg It was a busy weekend. I attended a Dance Free, a Celtic Music Concert in downtown Floyd, worked on a poem in preparation for my Writers’ Workshop Monday evening, and put the Museletter, a local monthly publication, together. Not only did I collect submissions and cut and paste 10 pages of the Museletter together, as I and others have done every last weekend of the month for the past 20 years, I wrote an update article about the history and current status of it for this month’s issue, which I’ve posted below:

The Museletter was a big part of what brought me to Floyd County 20 years ago. I was a Massachusetts transplant living in Texas with a young family and a desire to live a rural lifestyle with like-minded people. After learning about the Blue Mountain School through a Waldorf School directory, I wrote a letter to the school and eventually received an answer from Bob G, who sent me my first copy of what was then called the ERC Newsletter. Once in Floyd, I plugged in right away, writing columns and learning about newsletter lay-out, printing, collating, and mailing options.

The name “A Museletter” came after a visit to Susan’s Weed’s Wise Woman Center in New York and being inspired by a room in her home called “An Amusing Muse Museum, which was plastered with postcards displaying images of women all over the walls. I also thought it was a good play on the word “newsletter.”

In the early days of the ERC Newsletter/Museletter, there was more volunteer staff involved in its production than there is today, and readers and writers of it mostly all knew each other. As far as I know, our paid subscription level has always hovered at around 150. Many of our current subscribers are tried and true longtime supporters, but just as many are newer folks. The Floyd “alter-natives”** have grown in numbers and are more spread out these days. Considering that, it seems like a good time to further the discussion begun last month on the role of the Museletter in the community.

As I see it, the Museletter is nothing more or less than a community forum. What is found in it on any given month, like the community drop-off box under the stairs at the Harvest Moon, is what people put in it. It’s there and ready if someone wants to reach 150 or so people to announce something, share something, or sell something. Whether it be a letter from Pat S on the road, Elisha S writing about her hay bale house, or AL N. telling us about his new Restaurant in Stuart, the Museletter helps to keep us all connected.

Besides regular updates on what’s happening at The Jacksonville Center, The June Bug, Winter Sun, Black Water Loft, The Alpha Learning Center, and The Blue Mountain School, and along with yoga, contra, dance free, woman’s circle notices, a glance through last year’s collection of Museletter reveals the range of what is being offered in Floyd and include: a metaphysical study group, birth meetings, babies music classes, Spanish and Taekwon Do at the Blue Mountain School, Spoken word events at Oddfellas and Café Del Sol, several personal accounts on peace vigils and marches in Washington, a memorial tribute, a travelogue essay, a wedding invitation, a 50 Fest party, a media lending library, song night at Luke’s, and a first annual Organic garden tour. Poetry and Community Bulletin Board ads have always been a Museletter mainstay and we’re always happy to hear from children. Read more…

Continue reading "Museletter Sunday" »

January 11, 2006

My Class Picture

satsang.jpgBreak into the peace within...hold your attention in silence...and in the world outside...you will ably master the ten thousand things...
~ Lao Tzu

This is my Satsang Group. We meet once a week to study the 8 point meditation program as taught by Sri Eknath Eswaran. All of us mediate for at least 30 minutes once a day, but most meditate twice a day. The type of meditation we do is called Passage Meditation, which is the memorization and then silent repetition of passages written by Saints and Sages of all religions. My personal favorites are those by Lao Tzu.

At our weekly meetings, we focus on a question for discussion, watch an instructional video of Sri Eswaran, and then meditate together. I actually began meditating in the mid 1970s, using Transcendental Meditation (TM), but I fell away from the practice when I had kids. I’ve been using Passage Meditation for about 5 years now.

With TM, I meditated on a mantra, an inconsequential Sanskrit word that we weren’t supposed to speak out loud. With Passage Meditation, the words I repeat are anything but inconsequential and are often profound. Through meditation I drive them deep into my consciousness. I particularly like Passage Meditation because I’m accomplishing 3 things at once when I practice it; I’m meditating and receiving the calming benefits that brings; I’m memorizing lots of passages and strengthening the muscle of the brain; and I’m perfuming myself with prayerful words.

Post Note: To view my real class picture (from high school) go here.

January 3, 2006

A Neighborly Visit

acourtwithcat2.jpgIf you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But, if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. - George Bernard Shaw

I returned to the farm and to the humble hand-built studio home of my friend Acourt in October to return the farm journal I had borrowed from him. The property he lives on was once a popular 60’s-style commune, and the journal is a large leather bound book that holds drawings and written entries from 30 years of the farm’s history. Always interested in human nature and social science, I borrowed the journal to learn more about the farm’s history and, apparently, to reminisce. I found myself and my son, Josh, in it, from a 1986 entry, when we first moved to Floyd.

The purpose of my visit was to return the journal, but visits with Acourt are like consulting an oracle and are usually about more than the reason you thought you came. Musician, poet, painter, and instrument maker, Acourt is small boned to the point of seeming almost ethereal, and although he lives a hermit’s lifestyle, he’s often not alone. People regularly seek him out for his company and counsel, and this day was no different. When my husband and I arrived, Acourt was already engaged in an exchange of ideas with a visiting young couple. The couple, who seemed to be interested in farming and all things metaphysical, sat cross-legged on the floor across from him. Acourt, who also sat crossed legged next to the woodstove and in front of the turnstile chimes and meditation altar, reminded me of a swami.

After greetings and introductions, Joe and I settled in, occupying what was left of the floor space. Leaning against the day bed, I studied Acourt’s canvassed paintings and was drawn to the black crow and lotus flower themes. Like an accomplished musical conductor, Acourt directed his attention from conversation to conversation and infused them with his own temperament and tempo. Some conversations happened separately while others came into play all at the same time.

He was talking to the couple when he heard me say to my husband that I had been wondering what the difference was between a lily and a lotus flower. Still talking while rummaging through some papers, he produced a catalog and handed it to me. It was full of pictures of lotuses and lilies. But I couldn’t see any difference.

“The difference between them must be like the difference between a fiddle and a violin,” I said, and then turned to ask Acourt, “What exactly is the difference between a violin and a fiddle, Acourt?”

The musician in him straightened up, suddenly seeming more solid, and answered in one word, “Intention.” He went on to point out the knobby center in lotus flowers that the lilies didn’t have (or was it the other way around).

About this time Acourt’s adult son came through the door, bearing several plastic bags full of freshly pressed apple sauce for his father, made from apples that had been picked on the farm. The long haired lanky son grew up with my son, and Joe and I hadn’t seen him in awhile. Conversations shifted from the esoteric to the more concrete, and before we knew it, it was time to go.

But before we left, Acourt handed me a copy of his book, “Tiny Shrines 13 Cups,” the one he had asked me to read in manuscript form last spring. Only a handful of handwritten copies had been published using local resources, and the cover design appropriately included a drawing of a lotus flower. “Journeys and poems…confessions of a butterfly mystic,” it said.

With the book in my hand and a bag of applesauce in my husband’s, we bid our farewells, promising to get together again soon. To be continued…

Post Note: To learn more about Acourt's art, write to: Acourt Bason, 1511 Stonewall Rd. Check, Virginia, 24072

December 18, 2005

Small Town at Christmastime

farmersupplyatchristmas2.jpgWhen my first husband and our two young children moved from Texas to Virginia to homestead nearly 20 years ago, we drove through Riner, the next town over from Floyd, took one deep whiff of the cow manure that was wafting down the road, rolled up our car windows and began to question our plans.

But how could we resist living in a town that still sells Radio Flyer red wagons and real wooden sleds in the General Store at Christmastime, a town with a real barber shop and only one traffic light in the whole county, where people wave to each other when they pass on the road, whether or not they know each other?

Photo:
Downtown Floyd at Christmastime. For the flip side of the above post, go to "Life in the Rural Fast Lane.

November 22, 2005

This is Floyd, After All

cafe4.jpg Saturday night: A wedding reception was taking place in the back of The Winter Sun building, the same building that houses The Café Del Sol, where our Spoken Word Open Mic’ was to be held. There was a belly dancing performance across the street at the Black Water Loft, and The Jacksonville Center nearby was hosting an art opening of photography. Cars lined the length of downtown, and a spirited sense of activity filled the air.

Some came to the Open Mic’ specifically for the tribute to Elliot, the poet and member of my Writers’ Circle who had passed away just days before. Others came to read their own material, and all through the evening people trickled in from the neighboring events.

The first set, which was hosted by the Writers’ Circle and dedicated solely to Elliot, was opened by Mars, an 8 year old boy singing a song from the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “Going Down to the River to Pray.” He happened to be in the café with his mother and friend playing chess when the writers began to arrive. After we heard his hauntingly sweet voice singing impromptu into the mic, we signed him up, and he was happy to oblige.

There was a gallery of original drawings of Elliot spread out near the microphone and the chair where the readers would sit. Apparently, Elliot, burly, bearded and slightly hunched over, had posed for The Floyd Figures Art Group not long before he died. In one prominent drawing done by artist, Rick Cooley, Elliot was dressed in King’s garb with his cane looking more like a commanding staff than an aid to his disability. “Poet King” was etched below the drawing.

Sally, the owner of Café Del Sol, MC’d the evening’s entertainment, something Elliot himself usually did. She called me up first, and I read some prose pieces about playing scrabble with Elliot, which I was hoping would reveal the lighter side of the often bristly man. When the crowd broke out in laughter, after I shared a short interview I had done with him, written on the back of an envelope, I felt that my efforts paid off. “And who will play you in the movie, Elliot?” I asked. Without missing a beat, he answered, “Bette Midler!”

After closing with a newly written poem for Elliot, I handed the mic over to Mara, who read a humorously touching piece written by Kathleen, a Writers’ Circle member who was unable to attend. Kathleen’s piece, based on a conversation with Elliot, was set at a Contra Dance, something that she and Elliot shared a passion for. Mara and Rima then read a selection of Elliot’s poems. It was probably the first time many in the audience had heard his poetry, and it was amazing how good it sounded and how well it held up coming through voices other than the author’s.

It was hard to change gears, but we did. Elliot would have loved the fact that we had several new readers from neighboring towns. In the second set, we heard a lovely prose piece about a wedding in Spain, and poems about living like Henry Miller and not wanting to be a wife. One guy took the microphone over to the computer station and read his poetry off his website. A few people sang songs.

Doug and Fred, Writers’ Circle members who were attending the wedding reception in another part of the building, both made brief appearances, looking quite dapper in their suits. At one point, Jayn (another WC member) and I huddled together on the comfy couch. We fell into each other, close enough for me to notice the tears in her eyes when Elliot’s poem about his painful childhood was being read.

It was well after 10 when Sally bid us all goodnight, and the quiet of the room erupted into chatter. People were hugging, talking about Elliot, and making plans for December’s Open Mic. I grabbed my coat and the several cartons of farm eggs that had been delivered by my egg man sometime during the night. The friend I walked out with had just grabbed up the two hand rolled cigarettes that we discovered had been anonymously placed on the makeshift coffee table altar, next to mementos and photographs of Elliot. And didn’t they smell suspiciously like a certain outlawed herb?

“Well, this is Floyd, after all,” I laughed and said to her.

See Ya Later, Kiddo
~ For Elliot September 11, 1943 – November 17, 2005

Poet
Curmudgeon
Demanding
Liberal
Atheist
Sometimes lascivious
Lover of women
4 on the enneagram
Loved pistachios
and e. e. cummings
Walked with a cane
Smelling of aftershave
Sometimes wore a purple beret
and a daisy behind his good ear
Frequently called me on the phone
“Is that all the time you have for me?”
he asked on a bad day
On a good day he’d say
“Okay…see ya later, Kiddo”

~ Colleen

Post Note:
A contra dance memorial for Elliot is planned for Saturday, December 10, 6 - 11 p.m. at Winter Sun in Floyd, and a memorial fund for a poetry prize is being established in his name. Contact: Floyd Writers' Circle, c/o P.O. Box 81, Floyd, VA.

October 12, 2005

Homegrown

apple of my eye.pngWherever you are is the entry point.” Kabir
The following essay about living in Floyd is the one which aired on WVTF public radio this past Friday and first appeared in my book, “Muses Like Moonlight.” It appears here in its entirety. For the radio reading, I cut paragraph 5, about Bo Lozoff, in order to keep to the 3 minute reading allotment. The sentence about moonshine and pot was cut as well. Although I mentioned it to point out the sense of self-reliance that some Floyd old- timers and new comers may have in common, it is too often an image of negative stereo-typing here, and so it was appropriate that it was cut.

I moved to the country 20 years ago with homesteading on my mind. Although I never lived in a solar home without indoor plumbing, as some of my neighbors do, I learned early on about woodstoves and where water comes from (besides from out of the faucet).

It was here, in the Virginia mountain county of Floyd that I learned to grow and preserve much of my own food. I grew herbs and made medicinal tinctures, home-schooled my young sons, and rarely saw a doctor. Here, farmers and back-to-the-landers live side-by-side. (Some have said that hold-out moonshiners and underground pot growers do too.)

The longtime natives and the mostly Yankee newcomers have more in common than was originally thought when the newcomers first began to arrive in the late 70s. What we have in common has something to do with being independent – something to do with a sense of place and working from where one is.

In Floyd we have locally famous artists, potters, wood-carvers, writers, and musicians; alongside well diggers, saw-millers, hunters, and home builders. We also have midwives, herbalists, dousers, and rites-of-passage ceremonialists. Is it any wonder that I publish my books from my log cabin home, from a make-shift office that used to be my son’s bedroom, which is why Grateful Dead posters still hang on the walls?

My husband is a counselor and one of his mentors is Bo Lozoff, author and co-founder of the Prison Ashram Project – a project that teaches meditation practice to prison inmates. After years of “in house” publishing, Bo’s latest book was published by a mainstream publisher. On a recent visit to the Human Kindness Foundation in North Carolina, where Bo and his wife live, Bo told my husband that mainstream publishing isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. He can’t get copies of his new book without buying them, which creates a problem since one aspect of the Prison Ashram Project is to make Bo’s books available to inmates free of charge.

What if everyone who had a talent got a big name contract and became a world product; what would small towns do? In my small town, old-time country is the traditional music, and we have many talented fiddle players and such. We also have talented hip hop reggae musicians and others who produce their own CDs. We’re famous for the Friday Night Jamboree that happens at the Country Store each weekend and, more recently, for our annual world music festival, known as “Floyd Fest.” Where else but in Floyd could you learn from an old-timer how to forage ginseng one day, and then meet Wavy Gravy, the Woodstock clown with an ice-cream flavor named after him, in town for Floyd Fest, the next?

I’ve met visiting shamans, renowned authors, teachers, and musicians in Floyd, but it’s the grassroots talent that we’re best known for. Just as Floydians are inventive about how they make a living, they’re creative about providing their own entertainment. Not only is there a varied local music scene here, but as a writer, I don’t have to leave town to participate in Spoken Word events because our downtown restaurants and cafés regularly host them.

I like the hometown feeling of personally delivering my books to local shops, or getting hand written cards with mail orders. I like working from my home, going to my computer, as I did recently, and finding an email from a reader in bold print, announcing: “I LOVED YOUR BOOK!!!!!! (The Jim and Dan Stories). And I value the fact that I have an ongoing dialogue with my community through the pages of the Museletter, a homespun local newsletter that has been my writer’s training ground for the past 20 years. Because of it, I have a small, but supportive, local audience that knows me as a writer and poet.

Every town needs a poet or two, just as it needs an auto mechanic, a grocery shop owner, and an “in house” band. Every town is a microcosm of the whole world. If we stay where we are and invest in our own community, the whole world eventually comes to us.

Post note:
You can still hear my reading of the essay at the WVTF website. You may have to download realplayer to hear it, if you don’t already have it. Also, there is a Spoken Word Open Mic Night at the Café Del Sol this Saturday night at 7:00. For those who live nearby enough, come sign up for a 5 or 10 minute slot or just come to listen and enjoy.

September 22, 2005

Sign of the Times

WVTF.pngI used to go down the mountain regularly to restock my handmade jewelry at the Roanoke Coop and Seeds of Light. My jewelry crafting days are over, but I have a new product to peddle now…

Yesterday, I went down into the valley to tape a couple of essays that will hopefully eventually be aired on WVTF, our area’s public radio station. This activity makes one of the top 10s on my “Things that make me need extra deodorant” list. Although, reading in a studio with one other person present isn’t as nerve wracking as reading to a live audience can be for me, I didn’t feel on my mark. Not enough sleep or enough preparation? Nervous about the exposure?

Later, my husband, Joe, comforting me after I told him that my first reading last year went better, said “Well, usually, we’re not as bad as we think we are.”

All I can do at this point is hope that he’s right!

Read the Signs

parkwaysign.png
This Blue Ridge Parkway sign is more my speed and makes me feel more at home, taken on the return ride from taping my essay at the WVTF radio station. What kind of signs have you been reading lately?

September 13, 2005

I Met Him at the Laundry Mat

joeapplewithstick.png You’re golden…I’m red delicious…basking in the sun’s October glory…You’re Adam…I’m Eve… ~ Colleen

My husband, Joe, moved to Floyd in 1987 to be a teacher at the Blue Mountain School, the parent-run cooperative school that my sons went to. We first met in the town laundry mat. He was with a couple of BMS parents tie dying shirts for a school fundraiser, and I was picking apples from a tree out front. The apples were green and discolored with black spots, but I was living on a low income, raising two sons, and I knew they would make good apple crisp.

Besides what obviously attracts 2 people who later get married, Joe maintains the two things that initially impressed him most about me were my enthusiasm for those foraged apples and the big pot of lentil soup I had on the stove the first time he came to my house.

Years later, when we were married on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we exchanged symbols of our union, along with our vows. I read a poem I had written for him, and he presented me with a large red apple, which I promptly and ceremoniously ate. It represented the care we had given to our relationship and the fruit it bore as a result, he said.

Joe and I don’t tend to remember our anniversary because our wedding took place on a blue moon in June, the date of which was not the point. But apple picking has become a romantic yearly tradition that we do celebrate, one that ties into our first meeting.

We live next to the escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains where there are abandoned homesteads down in the valley, no longer accessible by car. During our hiking explorations, we’ve discovered that, in most cases, orchards outlive houses. Occasionally, we come across an old run-down house or the remnants of a chimney still remaining, but mostly it’s fruit trees we find.

Our favorite red apple tree is at the bottom of a gorge, set apart from the rest of a small, hidden orchard. As soon as we climb over the gate into the pasture that leads down to it, we feel as though we’ve entered the Garden of Eden. And when we arrive at the “our tree,” which looks like something out of a fairytale, we are in awe, amazed by what nature provides.

Joe climbs up into the tree and shakes it, while I gather the fruit that falls. We bring backpacks to fill up, a snack for lunch, and a blanket to rest on, or do whatever else comes natural after our work (if you want to call it that) is done.

This past Sunday, on our ceremonious seasonal apple picking date, we heard turkeys gobbling just out of view and watched nearby deer watching us. Of course, there was an abundance of apples for dessert to linger over. We left some for the deer as well.

September 9, 2005

Chilling Out

house spider web.pngIt seems like we go right from butterflies to spider webs, reminding me that Halloween isn’t too far off. This is the time of year that harvested garlic wafts from my pantry, and I’m startled by the sound of nuts dropping from the paws of squirrels onto our shed’s tin roof. Garden plants are wilting and dying, revealing ripened orange pumpkins underneath, still clinging to their winding and shriveling vines. Lawn mowing is slowly being replaced by wood cutting. The cooler days seem penetrating and brighter, as the loom of summer humidity lifts. Putting aside my sandals, I look for shoes. This morning I put on socks.

Post to Note:Common Ground,” an August 18th "Loose Leaf" entry I wrote on dissent was published in “The Roanoke Times” yesterday under the title “The Very American Art of Protest.” You can view it here.

August 22, 2005

A Mother’s Work is Never Done

potato crop.png Lately, I’ve been spending more time with vegetables than I have with people. Braiding onions – the tangled hair on the little girls I never had… Lining up Yukon Gold potatoes – more than an Irish Catholic mother’s brood… Babying the volunteer turnip plants that have sprouted up, as though they were orphans needing adoption... And squishing gangs of squash bugs with my bare hands, like a mother fending off bullies to protect her darling baby butternuts…

Gardening is a great companion activity to blogging. It gets me out of my mind and into the mud. Or is it the other way around?

August 9, 2005

Festivalized!

poetreewomen.pngWelcome in the word… Have you heard? Mara Robbins

Small squares of laminated words from favorite poems hung from the poet tree like holiday ornaments. Under them, and situated between two nearby stages, the poets read whenever there was a break in the music performance line-up during the 3 day world music festival (Floyd Fest). Some read in the fog and drizzle and some in the steamy hot sunshine…One day we’ll all write books…then retire to a tropical island…to live without shoes off our royalties…pick fruit of the trees for breakfast…We’ll buy fresh fish wrapped in newsprint…but won’t read the news on Iraq… (colleen).

Some festival goers came to hear certain scheduled poets, others were drawn in on the spur of the moment by the spell that the cadence of language can spin, and in between readings some of us got up on the soap box and did some foot stomping and romping…that which is in motion stays alive…light of a star…sound of a wave…go on…turn the wheel (alycia).

Others stopped to listen, hearing the call of solidarity, because they recognized the poet as town crier, the bard compelled to voice the truth when the emperor is wearing no clothes... i worry when the state of the union address…holds no promise of union for america…when we are stumbling and grumbling…for the old american dream that… all-white all-male…judicial team that…forces women senators into hot pink…while their male counterparts sleep in slate grey suits. (alli)

The word “festivalized” was frequently heard, shouted out, much like a revolutionized incantation, invoking the poem with the same name that Mara had written and performed, and calling all listeners to action… Raise your choice…Use your lives…Speak your voice… Lest our lives… Lose…Let our muse…Live!!! ... Wake up! …Wake up and play! … You are instrumental! (mara)


Photo: Mara (horizontal), Alysha, Alli: Floyd Fest Spoken Word Staff, all creative writing students at Hollins Women’s College. Colleen is perched in the b(l)ack, hanging with the rest of the Floyd Fest poet tree flock. You can see the poems hanging from the tree in the next photo.

August 5, 2005

A Woman Making a Difference

cousins.pngIt has become clear to me that one of the most deep-rooted causes of our problems is the way we treat children and above all babies. I am equally convinced that no program of social and political change that does not include and begin with changes in the ways in which we bear and rear children has any chance of making things better. ~ John Holt, education reform author

Ani DiFranco wasn’t the only righteous woman at the Floyd World Music Festival (Floyd Fest) who inspired me to the point of tears this past weekend (see previous post). My husband, Joe, came back from the early hours of the festival set-up with this story:

Steve Cochran, a friend and advocate of midwifery, told Joe that there would be a Cesarean Prevention booth on the festival site this year. “One of the women running the booth asked me if I knew Colleen Redman,” Steve told Joe. When Steve answered ‘yes,’ the woman replied. “She’s my cousin.”

For quite a few years, I had first cousins, who had also migrated from Massachusetts (and then Connecticut), living in the Smith Mountain Lake area of Virginia, and I didn’t know it. After a while, I “heard tell” they were there, but I wasn’t completely sure until one morning, not so long ago, I got a phone call from one of my cousins inviting me to a family reunion at Smith Mountain Lake.

Tammy, the co-leader of ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network) of Southwest Virginia is my cousin Brian’s daughter. I had met her once before briefly and was excited to see her again at Floyd Fest. She wasn’t hard for me to pick out, the one who looked like various aunts and cousins on my father’s Irish/Swedish side of the family.

As I listened to her talk and watched her face morph into those of our various relatives, I got shivers up and down my arms, feeling like we were 2 long lost twins re-united and comparing notes. Not only did we talk about our families, attachment parenting, and the current cesarean rates, we also talked about the possibility of an afterlife and messages we feel that we’ve received from our passed on loved-ones. She doesn’t like driving in cities. She gets shivers easily too. “Oh, one of those big softy-heart Redmans, I see,” I said to myself. Exploring and discussing the deeper aspects of life is also a Redman forte.

As a mother of two sons who were born via c-sections that I believe could have been avoided, cesarean prevention is close to my heart. In fact, 23 years ago, I was helping to launch a cesarean prevention newsletter in Texas similar to the one that Tammy works on today. I wish I could say that the cesarean rate has gone down since I was involved in the cause in 1982. But sadly, according to “Birthing Rite,” the Southwest Virginia ICAN newsletter that Tammy writes for, “The cesarean rate in the U.S. has risen once again to 27.6% in 2003. The cesarean rates in Virginia have also been on the rise. In 2003 the cesarean rate in VA was 28.3% -- much higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recommended 10-15%!"

A cesarean can be a life saver, but frequently the procedure is done unnecessarily. Having a cesarean can interfere with the mother/infant bonding process, and it increases the risk of complications that come with surgery. Ironically, the mortality rates for mother and child are actually higher with cesareans than they are with vaginal births. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that countries with some of the lowest perinatal mortality rates in the world have cesarean rates under 10%.

The reason that talking to Tammy brought tears to my eyes was because I feel so proud of her, not only because she is a wise woman volunteering her time to help others, but because she is a living testimony to self-empowerment. In 2003 she had a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) after 3 cesarean births!

August 4, 2005

Ani in the Rain

FF mainstage.pngRighteous – Meeting the standards of what is right and just; morally right. ~ The American Heritage Dictionary

I wore an assortment of hats, caps, and visors throughout the 4th annual Floyd Fest weekend to keep from being sunburned and from getting WET. We seemed to get all variety of weather over the 3 day world music weekend. The Blue Ridge Parkway, where the festival is held, is notorious for fog, and so, there’s good reason that Floyd Fest is sometimes affectionately called “Fog Fest.”

Emerging from her tour bus and onto the timber-framed stage at 6 p.m. Sunday evening, Ani DiFranco closed the show with what was said to be her last performance before taking a year off. I heard that she has tendonitis, and with the way she drives her guitar, I’m not surprised.

I saw Ani play in Greensboro, N.C., nearly 10 years ago. I liked and respected her as a poet, musician, and activist then, but I had forgotten just how much she inspires me. At one point, during her song that starts…. Our Father, who art in the penthouse… and ends with… and whoever’s in charge up there, had better take the elevator down, and put more than change in our cup…or else we…are coming…up, I gasped and turned to my husband, saying, “she’s killing me.” It was a verbal attempt to communicate how sweetly deep her words were getting into me.

She played for an hour before saying to the crowd, “Oh shit, here we go, huh?” in reference to the rain that was soon to downpour, eliciting this from Ani, “What have we here? Whoooo!” And after describing the crowd as a light sculpture of changing colors that she was enjoying, she said, with a playful laugh, “And now you’re fixin to get wet… which would be very sexy.”

Yes, the rain seemed to make the crowd of fans (the ones who stayed, which were most of us) only more wildly free-spirited than they already were…dancing barefoot in the mud, singing along with all the words, raising arms up in solidarity, sharing umbrellas, and smiling knowingly at each other.

Ani tells it like it is. She’s petite but her stage presence is big and I haven’t been so impressed with songwriting/poetry since the early days of Joni Mitchell. “Joni Mitchell revolutionized,” I turned to my husband and said, while she was changing guitars.

Ani’s life work is sharing her talent, not only to entertain but to raise consciousness. The political, environmental, and unrepressed love themes in Ani’s songs are not only right on, they are also reminiscent of women who came before her, those who put themselves on the line during the suffragette movement of the late 1800s in order to promote women’s rights.

Her independent record label isn’t called “Righteous Babe” for nothing.

For a good overall description of the Floyd Fest scene, visit “A tech monk speaks,” and Blue Ridge Muse has some excellent photos of the event.

August 2, 2005

The Rural Fast Lane: Take 2

When “Life in the Rural Fast Lane” was originally posted at “Loose Leaf” on April 5, a reader humorously asked where the accompanying photo was (in reference to the line where I say that because I have no visible neighbors, I can garden topless if I want to). More recently, the essay appeared in the program for the Floyd World Music Festival, commonly known as Floyd Fest. The graphic artist's rendering that went with the piece also zeroed in on that line, causing me to be affectionately nicknamed “the naked gardening lady” by some at the festival. I also got a “thanks for the plug” thumbs-up comment from my egg man, Ed Gralla.

Life in the Rural Fast Lane

I live in a one stoplight town. I get my honey from the woman who works the front desk at the Community Action Center and my farm fresh eggs from the Gralla-Shwartz family. Some of the egg shells are actually light green and the cartons have feathers and piece