Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.
– Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881

Don’t ever become a pessimist … A pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun – and neither can stop the march of events.
– Robert A. Heinlein, 1907 – 1988

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.
– Hubert H. Humphrey, 1911 – 1978

Those three quotations came from six quotes in an e-mailing I received recently with the theme of “march.” (I get it most days — if you’d like to sign up for it, visit Quotes of the Day here).

The first and last ones quoted above, particularly, remind me of two songs by Eric Bogle, an Australian folk singer whom I think of as being part of the “Celtic diaspora”…those folkies whose sound reminds me of Celtic music. The first song is Singing the Spirit home, written during the apartheid years in South Africa, about a black man being led from his cell to the gallows. This link takes you to an Amazon page which is for a 5-CD compilation of his best songs including the title song (same album title as my original tape, but a different batch of songs). The chorus goes:

“Courage, Brother, you do not walk alone. We shall walk with you and sing your spirit home.”

This line reminds me of a phenomenally powerful novel called “Remember Ruben” by Mongo Beti, about life in apartheid South Africa. The quality of the writing in Remember Ruben is good but not great, but the imagery is unforgettable. Apparently in the Zulu tradition, when someone dies, the spirits of the ancestors come from beyond the hills, an army of ancestors walking over the hill to welcome you to the beyond. I have this picture in my head and know that some day I will have to make it into a quilt. Thanks to Prof. Donald Herdeck and his classes at Georgetown (back in 1978-79) for putting that book on the reading list! And I just googled, and Herdeck’s 3CP, Three Continents Press, and found this article about the company and this article about his death in 2005. Herdeck published Naguib Mahfouz’s works into English and published them long before Mahfouz won the Nobel for literature, among other things.

The other song is a wonderful march and protest song: Twenty Years Ago, on the album Singing the Spirit Home (and comes right after the title track on side one–I’m lucky this one is on tape, my older Bogle recordings are vinyl!!!!). Here are some of the lyrics (which are, of course, copyright Eric Bogle):

Twenty years ago in a country far away
I marched for the same cause I’m marchin’ today
For a world without shadows and a future without fear
Twenty years ago and a long way from here

Chorus:
I shall not fail I shall not stumble
I shall never give up the struggle
Till morning comes and the shadows pass
And we all walk in the light at last

I’m sorely tempted to quote the entire song, but that would probably be pushing it, so visit his website (click on his name above) and you can read the lyrics by going to that part of his website.

The most amazing thing happened after I wrote the above. I e-mailed Bogle via his website, asking if this song was available on CD, as my cassette tape is old and I’d like it on CD, but couldn’t find it anywhere despite a lengthy Google search. I expected an answer (if at all) maybe from someone who works for him, a publicist or something. Well he wrote back personally! And the CD is “long out of print” so he asked me to send him my snail mail address and said he’d burn me a copy of the CD! ISN’T THAT COOL?!!!! Can’t wait! This may be just the excuse I needed to save up for an iPod so I can burn the songs to my own iPod! Hmmm…wonder if he’ll autograph the disc? Or realizes I’m in America and not Oz……..

Pigwidgeon, or Widgeon for short, arrived home yesterday afternoon! Named after the Weasley’s owl in the Harry Potter books, Widgeon is an 8 week old fawn pug of the boy variety. (Thumper, Hannah and I are carrying on the female side of things here.) You may (or may not) remember that Widgeon is Eli’s 9th birthday present, and Eli couldn’t be happier (he always puts on a solemn face for photos!).

The introductions with the canine horse have gone quite well, as you can see in this photo.

Widgeon is also smaller than just one of Joshua’s shoes (size 10 1/2, at age 13…think Joshua’s gonna be tall?)

And he is a smart puppy…has already figured out how to play with his dumbell!

After all that attention, a little puppy needs a nap, so he found comfort and sleep on Joshua’s lap:

Thanks to the kind souls who answered my plea for help with his name! Here are some of the wonderful ideas that made the short list:

Gizmo
Bazooka Joe
Barkley
Pugley
Winston
Churchill
Esker
Samson
Dobby
Angus
Ivar

In the end, we decided Pigwidgeon was just perfect! GRIN!

Warning: Proud Mama posting!

Saturday, March 24, was a busy one for us. Paul took Eli to the Battle Of Maine martial arts tournament in Winslow–about 20 minutes north of the capital, Augusta. I followed the bus (which left at 5:30 am…ugh–dropped Joshua off at 5:15 am–uncivilized!) at a later hour to Ellsworth for the Pine Tree Wrestling League Eastern Regionals for 2006 to watch Joshua. Both boys ROCKED THE HOUSE!

Here is Eli, who this year (for the first time) competed in Isshinriyu, a Japanese style Karate; he has placed equally well in the past for his Tae Kwon Do, a Korean style Karate.

His sensei, Pete Bishop (who for his day job owns Rock City Cycle in Rockland, Maine, and customizes Harleys and other motorcycles), taught Eli a BLACK BELT level kata (routine / set of steps for martial arts) even though Eli is a second degree yellow belt (then to green, then brown, then black!). Eli did so well that he placed second in a very competitive field of 21! Pete sets very high standards for adults and kids, and wouldn’t have taught Eli such an advanced kata if he didn’t think Eli could do it well…waaaaayyyy cool!

And in sparring / fighting (all with safety gear on and no blood, no serious hits) Eli took a fourth.

Alas, Paul didn’t figure out how to work the old digital camera (I had the new one at the wrestling meet) until after Eli’s kata was over, but we’re happy he got these photos. And here is Eli (in the white ghi) lined up to receive his trophy!

WAY TO GO, Eli!

Joshua’s meet got off to a late start due to a faulty computer. He wrestled four times, won three matches, lost one.

The match Joshua lost, he lost to the kid who (a) finished first and (b) was the state champ in their weight class last year and (c) has been wrestling 5 years (to Joshua’s two) and is a year older (and wiser?) than Joshua. Even better: Joshua is eager for a re-match! So what all this means is that Joshua finished THIRD in the Eastern Region of Maine! Here’s one of the matches where he pinned his opponent:

Papa and I are VERY proud! And last night, Papa showed Joshua a few more tricks. So this is what the Smith living room (??) looks like on a Saturday evening:

Back to the meet…here are the kids hoisting the second place at the meet trophy, for the team.

They were beat only by Belfast, which combines FOUR or five middle schools on their team! If we combined with the HAL schools (Hope Appleton and Lincolnville, which also feed into the Camden Hills Regional High School) the way Belfast does, we’d have slaughtered the competition. ALL but two of the team qualified to go to States next weekend…WOW! AWESOME (and yep, I’m shouting!) Here’s the team in their “pose for the newspaper photo”

and one of my favorites, the kids just being kids after the wrestling was done:

Then Kate showed us Ukrainian pisankyi (sp>?). Her adopted daughter Olena is from Ukraine, and these eggs that Kate made in the Ukrainian style are awesome!

Kate said that just ONE of these eggs can take a full day to make. She showed us the wax tools, much like a tjantjing from Bali used for batiking, which melt the soft beeswax (hold over flame) so you can draw the fine lines. I forgot to take a picture, but Kate has a set of “circle makers…heavy cardstock with holes in, and markings evenly spaced so you can make symmetical markings on the eggs.

First, you need to extract the egg insides. She has this cool tool that makes a small hole (with no cracks and chips), and another one that helps pump the egg out. Since it is just air, you can USE the egg…no waste! Sounds like scrambled eggs and bacon for dinner to me! Anyway, here’s Kate showing how to use the pump:

The process is much like batik: apply wax, dye first color. Add more wax (covering some of the previous color) and dye again. Repeat until done. Phew!

And here is her container of eggs from a birds-eye view:

Then, Kate turned the eggs over so we could see the sides:

I LOVED this one with the wheat stalks:

And here we are at lunch (which was actually beefore the eggs…who cares about chronology!). We had peanut soup, made by Kathy from Kate’s mother-in-law’s recipe (Kate—don’t forget I want that recipe…YUMMM again!):

Don’t they look nice and happy? Kathy always looks so pretty in all the pictures of her, and Kate has the nicest smile!

On the way home (on a detour…lotsa road damage here in Maine last weekend…we had snow followed by torrential rains which have washouts and sinkhole-sized potholes all over the place–gonna be LOTS of work for the road crews!) spotted this falling down house. I’m developing this “thing” for pictures of old falling down houses, wondering what it was like when the house was new and filled with a young family with kids and hope and hard times and love:

And then this barn on Route 3…you can see an old log cabin in the center, chinking and all:

OK, that’s all for this particular wonderful meeting. Now, to work!

What a wonderful day we had! We were a small group this Monday, though. Deborah, of course, is in Texas, and Hannah…drum roll…is still in China with her new daughter Nina and hubby Bart. Check out the pics from Beijing and Guangzhou here. I realized on the way up that the four of us were all in China…Hannah in the country, then Kathy, Kate and I were in China (Village) in Maine! There are lots of towns in this state named for other countries: Mexico, Poland, China…..

I took SO many photos I may have to do this in two posts! We started with sharing, coffee and Kathy’s homemade biscotti…drizzled with melted Dove dark chocolate easter eggs…YUMMM! And Kathy sneaked some extras into the box of cookies I brought (Pepper-Cumin, from Rayna Gillman’s blog here, also YUMMMM) made with cumin seeds sent from Rayna (since I didn’t know of a single place to find them up here in the wilds of Maine!). Thanks Rayna!

Anyway, back to Frayed Edges. First Kate showed us this GORGEOUS length of fabric she bought on vacation in Florida, made by Bold Over Batiks–expensive but SO worth it!:

And Kathy bought a sweater pattern after she saw mine last month, ordered this beautiful hand-dyed yarn and has already begun knitting….how come it takes me so long to get going on anything…lookit at what Kathy has done already:

Kate wanted to know what to do with a piece she began at our last meeting for the Art Quilts Maine log cabin challenge. We fiddled with the edges and here is what we came up with:

Aren’t these glorious fabrics? One of the AQM members passed away, and her husband gave her stash to the group. AQM then (and drats I missed it) sold the fabric as a chapter fundraiser, $5 for a bag of scraps. Kate scored these awesome hand-painted pieces and made this top.

And here is Kathy’s piece, seen on her blog, too:

The background fabric started as white, then Kathy painted with the goal (achieved!) of looking like patina’ed copper. She adapted Deborah’s use of washers (check out Deborah’s Journal and scroll backwards to see how she used washers and inspired Kathy…see….we can still cross-pollinate and be more than a thousand miles apart!) and painted them up to match the fabric…awesome.

I loved the way Kathy quilted the piece, in waves and then sworls and eddies in the center

Tune in tomorrow or the next day for lunch and Ukrainian eggs…gotta go finish the taxes! (BLECH…art is so much more fun! Of course, tax refunds aren’t bad….)