Winter Gathering

Woke up to frost all around, sparkling and beautiful, on the grass and trees and glimmering on my strawberry plants.

Winter solstice here, once again. Had a holiday party Sunday night, with food and drink and caroling and lighting the menorah, all to drive back the dark, and glory in the cozy center in the depths of winter.

And before the cold could strike everything, we'd brought in the bounty of the back yard. The persimmons gathered, hung and drying, thanks to our son Felix. These ridiculously large squash, cut and stewed and pureed.





And flourishing in the garden, the sturdy, defiant Meyer's lemon tree, perseveres despite the cold.

Folk and blues singer Odetta dies

Last week, the astonishing folk singer Odetta died. There's a lovely review of her life in the New York Times... They title it "Odetta, voice of Civil Right Movement Dies at 77." Please scroll down on the NYT page to the video of a recent interview with her. She's already old, very old, for the interview, but when asked to sing, she closes her eyes, dips down her chin, and then, up with her chin and she sings... incredibly. Her voice is so percussive and rich. She is a big part of my family lore. When I was little, she came to visit us on the farm we lived on and my dad took astonishing photos of her. We often had her music playing.

As I've been writing books, she's been with me. A friend gave me a tape of her original recording at the Blue Angel in Sausalito. I worked my father's photo into my book on Woody Guthrie. And just two days ago, I wrote about her discovering Pete Seeger asleep in a big tent on the march they had both joined, Dr. King's Selma to Montgomery march for the vote in 1965.

There is lots of end-of-life joys and trials around me right now. My parents live about a mile away, and my mother is bed-bound, and on hospice. The great grace is that she is no pain. Our brother-in-law, Bernard, is very, very ill. He and my sister live with my parents. And in a separate apartment, our son Felix and his girlfriend live at the house. Felix gardens with my dad in the day (they have a ripping garden full of winter vegies and two huge, homemade greenhouses), and goes upstairs to check on my mom every evening, taking his guitar and singing songs to her. Today Felix called me from his cell phone. He and Sasha were just taking a walk in the Mountain View cemetery nearby, and he wanted to know where the family plot was.

Dying can involve a whole family, the sadness and hopeless waiting and caretaking and beautiful, unexpected moments of grace in it all.