Mennofolk Music

Thanks for joining me! This is a place where I hope to share my art and writing. MennofolkSonggirl.Typepad.com holds more essays, resource lists and events from the past.

Bright Winged One

Bright Winged One, she says

I’m free

But bonded fast in art And noble thought

And tune.

They bring me, helpless, to my knee

And have their way.

Obsessive ruin,

Or freedom’s wings?

They can’t play, for the first time

My parents are playing Gin Rummy

They play it all the time, at restaurants, at their table

It is the main way they sit face to face.

He explains the rules

“What??? But WHY?”

He explains again

“You don’t seem to remember the rules to this game very well,” she says

“Is there another game you know better?”

He is at a loss

She starts playing Solitaire

He, defeated, goes to his armchair and picks up his University of Michigan Alumni Magazine

Another suit has gone!

Sound the alarm!

They slip apart, in silence.

-wcd

129 Lifelines for Desperate Parents

Need some ideas for surviving quarantine? Here are games, crafts, activities, snacks and exercises to help your family make it through. None of these ideas require crafts supplies beyond paint, and none of them require parental talent. Some of these activities are so simple they might sound stupid. But they work!

My name is Wendy, and I love kids. I had an exciting childhood, did a lot of babysitting, worked as a camp recreation director for four years, was a Girl Scout leader for ten years, I fostered for three years, have two biological daughters, and parented many neighborhood kids along the way. I have put in a total of fifty-three parental years, and despite the obvious joys and fulfillment, much of that time was spent in desperation.

During this time of quarantine, I have no doubt that many parents are suffering a kind of helplessness and stress I know too well. My daughter never stopped running. Another daughter was bored any time her sister was busy. My traumatized two-year-old vibrated with energy. His brother had autism and developmental delays, with many behavioral problems. How do we keep these children busy? How do we keep their energy from exploding all over us, especially in a small space?I have compiled a list of games and activities for families in quarantine. Many of them are great for physical and emotional development in kids. But I offer them to families here with the parents in mind. My hope is that some of these games can brighten the mind-numbing labor of parenthood. Maybe one will buy you a few minutes for a cup of coffee. Maybe one will help you interact with your kid in a fun or relaxing way instead of being the homeschool police all day. Maybe if your family played one game each night there would be 15 minutes less yelling time.

A couple of comments before we start:

1. Use basic safety common sense

2. Only try what’s right for you

3. ALL of these activities are for both girls and boys. Tested, tried, and loved

My mother is a creative, fun-loving person. But even surrounded by woods, field, music and art, my three siblings and I were still susceptible to the classic moan of childhood: “Mooooommmmm, I’m bboooaarrddd.” Don’t be ridiculous, she would say, “only boring people are bored, and you are not boring.” So go outside and don’t come in for three hours. We hated that answer, but from my adult perspective, I have to agree that she was right.

Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye

-A poem for the song by wcd

My mother is shuffling about, preparing to leave my father because he questioned the way she brought in the mail.

“Nobody told me!

I’ll throw away this mail and I’ll throw away myself too!

(and as an afterthought)

Sorry to leave you with the dishes.”

She finds her purse.

Picks up her coat, carefully arranging her hat on top of the coat tree, as if to guard the house.

Feeling for her non-existent car keys, she looks down, sees she is wearing slippers and swears softly.

In and out of the bedroom she wanders, looking for something. What?

What was she preparing for, this awful deed?

She breathes the words to a Leonard Cohen song as she shuffles and Judy Collins sings it from the computer.

Sits on a chair to put on a sock.

Sits on another chair to put on the other sock.

Her coat falls to the floor as she picks up the 2020 Philatelic catalogue, marvelling at the dog-eared pages of bright, promising postage stamps.

“I can’t remember what I was looking for,” she sighs, as she finishes the catalogue.

“Do you?”

Hey.

That’s

no way

to say

goodbye

Ant Wendy’s howse

By:Greta

I fell a wome love wen I wake throw her dore.
(I feel a warm love when I walk through her door)
My butefull wanderfull ant Wendy .
(My beautiful, wonderful Aunt Wendy)
Her eay’s like stars and her hare like selver.
(Her eyes like stars and her hair like silver)
My butefull wanderfull ant Wendy.
(My beautiful, wonderful Aunt Wendy)

Women’s Shaving Wisdom

Here is a blog I created because I was curious to know why women do or do not shave. I interviewed many women on why they did or did not shave. I find this document invaluable. It captures the pragmatism, honesty and individuality of the amazing women in my life. Most of these women are strangers to each other, united only in personal hygiene. My own thoughts of ten years ago are captured in this short essay The Story of a Reluctant Shaver. I have since changed my mind again!

Fraktur art

Mask Project

How to play Piano by Color

Climbing the Bluffton Water Tower

Communication with the Enemy

Hold me inside you

Let me give you my eyes

So we can look through them together

Wrap around me

Give me your strength and your pain

To break our hearts into something more human

The Ladies of Bluffton

It’s been a few days after Glennys Henry’s memorial service, but I am still mourning the loss of her. I believe she may be the last of a generation of women in my life I’ve called “The Ladies of Bluffton.” Their domain was First Mennonite Church, the Food Store, the Etcetera Shop, the Meatmarket, and all the farm markets and garden stands in Allen and Putnam Cts. These were women who knew how things should be done, and were at the ready to make sure you did too! They were hilarious, dear, generous, gossipy, competent and thrifty. Betty, Alice, Margaret, Alison, Willy, Irene, Elaine, Celia, Chris, Glennys, Sally, Elizabeth, Amelia, Evelyn, Lucille, Elnore, Lois, Agnes, and more. If one of them was your grandmother, you are lucky. Betty was mine. But if you were no relation, you were still not spared from their judgement or kindness. They knew where to buy the best butter (Cherry’s market), sausage (Pandora – no sausage should ever be eaten that did not come from Pandora!! said the Ladies of Bluffton), Very Good Stuff (Etcetera), paring knives (Senior Citizens Center), corn (Suters – of COURSE!), strawberry jam(homemade, Suter’s only, from the 12 buckets they made you pick). They would stop anything to quilt with you, and if you died your hair, one of them might say “it looks just aweful! WHY would you do such a thing to your nice hair?” (Alice, haha!) When Agnes was in the Home, she once called on the hairdresser to bring down a “more appropriate color of nail polish for a young lady” and made me replace the bright orange I was wearing. She also gave me a cello.

Whenever I received criticism or gifts, accepted them gracefully, because the fount that flowed from these women was deep and wide and I didn’t want to miss a thing. They taught me how to stick a twig in the ground and help it grow into a bush (with magic rooting powder that came in little sandwich bags), how to braid and knot and quilt, how to make and drink coffee, to prune roses and fruit trees, how to make hamloaf and where to buy the ham, how to be church, how to make freezer slaw and emergency fudge, how to force a winter blooming amaryllis (with lots of spare starts when I killed mine), and the special gift of dinner and and an evening together. Betty used to have Beth and me over for dinner every week. When she died, Amelia took over, feeding us for another year, including Andy. “I know how to feed a man!” said this single woman proudly. She once gave me two Very Good Trays which were to be used at church potlucks. One was huge with 8 food compartments. That one was for Andy, she said. The other was petite school lunch tray that was for me. When I went to college Amelia wrapped me a bag of Very Useful Things, which I was to open once a day.

When I worked at the Food Store, it was the only place in town with a few tables and chairs to gather for coffee and baking. There was a group of men who got together, as they said, “to solve the problems of the world.” But they did a lot of guffawing. The women just came in for coffee. But there were intellectual giants among them, and the conversations they had about politics, religion or culture of the day were enlightened and insightful.

There are good, knowledgeable, loving matrons, still today. But that particular brand, the children of the depression, the Swiss who could still remember the sound of their parents speaking it, the “Ladies of Bluffton,” were unique, a generation of treasures.The first week I lived in Bluffton as an adult, I went downtown to buy a trashcan. As i walked back into my house, the phone rang. It was Amelia. “I heard you went downtown to buy a trashcan!” she said. “I’m going to Cherry’s market. Do you want some butter?”

I dreamed Lady Di was alive

I took a giant leap into the poufy folds of her silk wedding dress

parachute

Her gloriously un-permed hair smelled of just the slightest touch of curling iron.

She smiled at me with her sad boy’s face

“I’m scared,” I said.

“Don’t worry little sister, I’ll shine for you awhile.”

“But,” I said, “I had a nightmare and people hated… and Trump (sob)… and the Earth was…”

She laughed lightly

“Donald Trump, you say? I’m ever so much more famous than he.

Darling, when it all falls away

the only thing left will be

beauty.”

Analysis:

Lady Di plays the role of an angel or a Goddess I worship, the big sister I never had, a superhero, all powerful through her fame. Yet there are subtle hints of cynicism and tarnish, contradiction. Natural hair has a slight scorch of curling iron. She laughs, yet her face is sad. While I hold on desperately to the parachute of her wedding dress which represents innocence, trust and love, we know that in life her marriage destroyed those things. I hold on to her, though she is not what she seems. Her fame and earthly beauty seem all-powerful, never-ending, yet we know (even if she doesn’t) that her life ended in violence and scandal. Her prophetic last words of reassurance give me a new wisdom, that even when our material world falls away, there is a glimpse of the afterlife. A universe of gorgeous, shining, non-Earthly, genderless divine unending beauty.

Short lesson learned:
Don’t put all your trust on the Avengers. Sometimes the movie has a sad ending.

The 3 Seingrs (Singers); Or Things we were Born to Do

Written by Wendy, about age 8

Onens a pon a time ther was 3 seingers named Mary, Jenny, and Pam. The songs they sang went like tis, “we are friends, we are friends, we are friends!”

One morning a Man stoped theam. “That is a pane (pain); please stop!”And so the singrs stoped singing and had famlies (families).

And thea (they) all told theer Little gorls (girls), and The secret past on and on till it came to me and I rot (wrote) it down (down).

The End.

my dog

(written by Wendy in Elementary School)

he has the softest body.

he is the softest thing.

and every time we open the door,

he’s happy that we’re back.

he waits patiently for a walk.

he’s sad when i’m sad.

he’s happy when i’m happy.

when i sleep, he sleeps,

and i know he knows we love him.

The Fall

Once there was a garden of Eden and Adam and Eve lived there and all of the people were called Hunter Gatherers. The men went on long hunting trips and the women gathered berries and grasses and made medicines and everyone had what they needed.

The people worshipped God in woman form and built temples to honor the holiness of women, who could make life out of pleasure. These temples were made of huge stones and were shaped like the bodies of women. The snake was women’s familiar. The snake curved and slithered like a woman’s hips when she walked. Snake rejouvinated by shedding her skin, like a woman shed her blood each month. Women believed that the snake represented their wisdom.

But one day, Eve got too wise. Maybe she was sick of moving around so much. Maybe she got bored. Perhaps she developed that appetite of a suburban housewife who longs for straight lines and monoculture. Eve became a gardener, and the other women with her.

They divided up the plants into “food” or “weeds,” and threw the ones called weeds away. They decided they wanted whole fields of apple trees instead of just that one they visited in the woods. They invented “production,” and gained much knowledge.

When the men got home they were amazed! They admired how the women had fixed up the place. In fact, they loved these new fangled gardens SO much, they wanted to own them. The women would not leave their gardens so the men decided to own them too. The men even wanted to own their gardens after they died, so they controlled who’s children the women could have and owned all the children too.

On that day the Garden of Eden ended forever. Patriarchy began, making women ashamed of their fertile bodies (they even hated snakes!) and making men despise weakness. Only prostitutes got to wear fig leaves now.

When one man wanted what another man owned, they invented fighting. The men’s bodies became broken by wars and the hard labor it took to subdue the land.

Women’s bodies hurt too. With different foods to eat, their bone structures grew smaller, yet the heads of their babies were large, so childbirth caused great pain and danger. The women could no longer live together in the camp, but had to do their work in separate houses, struggling with their children to survive in isolation.

The temples fell down and were forgotten. The snake was hated and feared. Women’s bodies were no longer worshiped, but scorned for their weakness, ridiculed for their strength or objectified as a thing of pleasure for another.

But what of now?

Is the garden lost forever in our lawns and chemical fields?

One thing I know is this: there is another tree! We ate all the apples from the tree of knowledge – pillaged it to the ground, no doubt. But there were two magic trees in the garden. Sure, it is guarded by an angel with a sword, but we’re smart now, surely we can figure out a go-around. The Tree of Life awaits us. Will it be our destruction or our evolution? We study it’s mysteries from afar and make ourselves ready. Most snakes have left our towns, but if we could find one, it might whisper…

This story is dedicated to Shanna Marsh

Too Much

Composting Talk

Salt and Pepper at Thanksgiving

Evening

On the last evening before the end of the world, some humans will turn to other humans and say, “just look at that beautiful sky.” and the other humans will say, “yes, and what a fine cool breeze we have tonight.” They won’t say things like “if only we had worked harder to save it.” and “think of our regrets and sorrows!” One will simply say “goodnight” to the other, who will reply tenderly “goodnight, dear.”

Making Flower Crowns for my 50th Birthday Party

Swiss Dress

Luxury

Oh!

To pick handfuls of sticky sweet red raspberries,

My dress wet with sweat against my back

Oh most luxurious leisure!

Silence

on the last day of humanity

before the earth shakes us off

will I enjoy the silence

as the motors finally stop tearing up the sky?

or will it hurt too much

to matter

Thin Blue Line; a Poem

In my neighborhood we fight loud and outdoors.

We know all the kids and the cars that pass through.

We sometimes do illegal stuff, get drunk, are a danger to ourselves and others, houses burn, police are called and everyone knows what happened.

I like it that way, because what is a family if all our crimes are hidden from each other?

And what is a neighborhood, if not a family?

If you are a white women, you call the police because you went to high school with most of them and one had a crush on you in 7th grade and you could care less if they saw you in your nightgown on the front lawn.

If you are a black man, you do not call the police.

Because you went to high school here too.