When I received this email update from Mary Fisher, president and founder of Whidbey Island Nourishes (WIN), I felt compelled to share it with readers. It’s an encouraging look at what some well-organized and sensible efforts by a community can do to turn the tide of malnourishment in our communities.
Six years ago, Fisher was shocked to learn that 60 children were living in the woods on South Whidbey. Fisher asked friends, “We have to make sure they have enough food! Will you help me cook?” The answer was a resounding, “Yes. Of course.”
Today WIN has more than 100 volunteers and is making more than 1,500 meals a month, working with schools and other community organizations to make sure South Whidbey’s kids are getting enough nutrition.
Fisher wrote about a Nov. 14 event called “Taste of Whidbey” at Langley Middle School at which 7th graders dished up potatoes they grew themselves, and some other locally grown fare, to their fellow students. Fisher adds photos to help tell this hopeful story of a community coming together to make sure everybody gets the nourishment (and education about nourishment) they need. (Fisher’s commentary is italicized.)
WIN collaborated with Cary Peterson, who created the vegetable garden at the Good Cheer Foodbank in Langley and who organized the fresh vegetables brought from Whidbey farmers Annie Jesperson and Nathaniel of Deep Harvest Farm.
Potatoes grown by the 7th grader were roasted by Karen Korbelik of Good Cheer Foodbank kitchen and then served by the students.
The kids also served locally-grown carrot sticks and the very popular kale salad, with WIN volunteers Trisha Brigham, Barb Schiltz, Susan Bennett, Cate Nelson, Dorit Zingarelli, Sandy Menashe and Margaret Andersen, who washed, and finely chopped, chopped, chopped, sliced and diced the ingredients.
Seventh graders from South Whidbey were proud to serve the potatoes they grew, as well as the kale salad and carrot sticks. The table also showed the produce fresh from the garden, so kids would learn what it looked like before getting diced and sliced.
Seventh graders dish up the good stuff at the Taste of Whidbey.
It was Peterson (in pink cap), who created the vegetable garden at the Good Cheer Foodbank. She is presently building gardens at the schools on South Whidbey.
Peterson talks to WIN organizer Schlitz, while farmers Talbot and Jesperson look on.
Our community is truly blessed to have a dynamo like Cary. Mix her with one of WIN’s committed dynamos, Barb Schlitz, and you are bound to get the most nutritious food possible.
Deep Harvest Farm also provided the fabulous kale that was the rock star of the day!
Jesperson and Talbot bring their Deep Harvest Farm produce to the Bayview Farmers Market and other markets in the summer and fall.
South Whidbey Record reporter Celeste Erickson was on hand to interview folks. She interviews a young man who gave up a reward of a Haagen Dazs bar for a third helping of kale salad.
Seventh grade students looking on are tickled by their fellow student’s celebrity status involving the kale salad.
It was such a rich collaboration with the teachers, staff and students of the Langley Middle School, “Cary the connector,” Deep Harvest Farm, Karen at Good Cheer, who helped cook, and our wonderful WIN volunteers who prepared the food.
It’s just delicious to think about all our Whidbey kids getting fresh nutritious food. And right from our own back yard! Nothing quite as delightful as having a kid come up for third serving of kale! The staff and students were clamoring for the recipe for the salad and dressing.
Many thanks to Dorit Zingarelli, a WIN board member, designer of all our lovely invites and devoted to good food for kids; for taking the lead on pulling the WIN team together to chop, chop, chop the kale, apples, radishes and calendula blossoms.
The shoulder roast is a nice meaty roast, and for the super lean goat meat it is a cut that boasts enough fat to be able to cook without adding additional oils/fats. In the absence of a shoulder roast, you could use a shank for this recipe.
I am lucky enough to be the proud owner of a Cook on Clay 4 quart pot. Because of this heirloom quality pot in my kitchen, I only have to make one pot dirty to prepare this delicious and gorgeous meal. You could pull this off with a heavy frying pan and a crock pot (ignore the oven directions if you’re using a crock pot).
To start preheat your oven to 350 F.
I start this roast on the stove top, but move it to the oven so it can cook while I’m out doing chores.
The first items to put in your pot are 3-4 thin slices of fresh ginger, garlic, sage, coriander, bayleaf and thyme.
Then squeeze in a full lime.
Once the lime and ginger is in the pot, turn the heat on medium-high. As the lime juice starts to bubble put in the roast to sear it. Turn the roast frequently, so it sears and doesn’t burn.
You know recipes that call for leftover wine? We never have such a thing in our house, so instead I use the top part of the bottle to be served with dinner. About a glass and a half of sweet, fruity white wine should stop the meat from burning and cooked down nicely.
As the wine cooks down add a healthy pinch of local flake salt.
Once the wine is reduced by about half add a small container of yogurt. The yogurt makes a nice creamy broth and helps to keep the meat juicy. If you’re lucky enough to have access to goat yogurt, that is what I use. Plain cow milk yogurt works just fine. Once the yogurt is mixed in with the reduced wine and herbs, add enough water to create a nice broth and cover the meat. Just as the water starts to steam cover the pot and put it in your preheated oven (350 F). You can finish the roast on the range also, but in the oven it is easier to walk away and still leave your kitchen heating nicely.
In about a half hour add your root vegetables, cut into similar sized large chunks (2” is a great size). I like to use carrots, parsnips, potatoes and turnips.
The time you cook from this point depends on how big your roast is and how large your veggie chunks are. Tonight ours took about another hour for the meat to start falling off the bone. Once it did I added some roughly cut chard and put the lid back on for about 3-4 minutes. The chard added a beautiful bright green to the stew.
If you love cheese like me, you can add some to the bowl when you serve it. I recommend a sharp aged cheese, like Parmesan or some of Little Brown Farm’s aged La Cotte de St. Brelade. This meal is actually perfectly delicious without the cheese too.
The beautiful thing about this meal is that everything can be found locally. If you don’t know where to find it, send me a message and I’ll help you find the sources. (Locally grown goat meat is available at our pop-up shop Handcrafted on Whidbey).
You can also track me down at the Bayview Holiday Market at Bayview Community Hall, which will be every Saturday from Nov. 30 to Dec. 21.
Whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope you get to celebrate them with local food, local gifts and lots and lots of love and good cheer.
Stay warm and safe this winter season.
Vicky Brown
Chief Milkmaid
Vicky Brown, Chief Milkmaid at the Little Brown Farm, puts her passions on the page writing about food, agriculture, and the tender web of community.
CLICK HERE to read more entertaining and informative WLM stories and blogs.
When I was studying theatre at university, I thought I was getting the best education an actor could hope for. I was fortunate to receive a full-year acting scholarship to a small private University in southern California and I loved it. I had the chance to work on main stage productions for all four years that I was in college, something unheard of in most university theater programs.
During that time, I learned a great deal about the craft of acting. But the learning came mostly by doing. There was little discussion about technique. True, an actor’s best work happens when they are working continuously, but when a student actor graduates and moves into the “real world” of acting, he/she begins to see the cracks in their craft, when strong technique is not present.
Since my graduation oh so many years ago, I have worked as an actor; some years more steadily than others. In the past year or so, I have re-committed myself to the pursuit of a full-time acting career. It’s not an easy career choice. There are many ups and downs and plenty of rejection, but when you love your craft, you put up with the challenges,and even learn to love them.
Eric Mulholland as Betty, Danielle Daggerty as Joshua and Devin Rodger as Maud in “Cloud 9” by Caryl Churchill at the Seattle Theatre Group. / Photo courtesy of Eric Mulholland
The best thing an actor can do when they are not working, is prepare to work. Constantin Stanislavski, who we can consider to be the father of modern acting technique, began writing his masterpiece “An Actor Prepares” in the early part of the 20th century. In his book, he noted what he saw actors doing at the Moscow Art Theatre and from that created a system for actors known as the “Stanislavski System.” This system encouraged actors to build real characters on stage from the inside out, a very different approach from the acting style of the time. Late 19th and early 20th century acting styles relied on the “appearance” of truth and used melodrama to evoke emotion.
So, though I am currently working as an actor and acting teacher, I decided it was time to get back into class myself. Monday nights for the past several weeks, I have been taking a great (and challenging) acting class in Seattle. As I pick apart each role that I am preparing for, I am reminded how important it is to build a foundation of strong technique. Technique is what supports an actor to do the work of creating a believable performance, one that can be repeated eight performances a week.
This class has highlighted for me how weak my acting technique has been. I feel a bit vulnerable admitting that, especially since I have been acting for so long. But the only way to grow is to work hard and so as an actor, I am preparing… again.
Over the years I have been exposed to great teachers, many of them have given me good tools to do good work. The difference now is that I am seeing the big picture, the “system” Stanislavski articulated. Any craft relies on a combination of understanding and doing. Acting, after all, is not strictly a cerebral exercise. You have to build your understanding of the character as he relates to others and the world of the play. And once you have a glimmer of what that understanding is, you have to get up and put it into practice. We learn by applying what we know to what is available to us: Our voice, our movement, our connection to other characters and subtext — what we are really saying underneath the speeches we speak.
I have a renewed love for my craft, and a deep respect for all the teachers who teach this amazing art form. So whatever happens from here on out, I will continue to be an actor who prepares over and over again.
Cheers to growth!
Eric Mulholland is an actor, teacher and writer living on Whidbey Island.
Upcoming theater events on and off the island:
“Les Miserables” by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg – Village Theatre; Nov. 7, to Jan. 5 in Issaquah; Jan. 10 to Feb. 2 in Everett.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright – Seattle Repertory Theatre; Nov. 15 to Dec. 15.
“You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown”based on the Comic Strip “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz Book, Music and Lyrics by Clark Gesner – Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley; Dec. 6 to 21.
“The Language Archive” by Julia Cho; Feb. 28 to March 15 – Outcast Productions at the Black Box Theater, Whidbey Island Fairgrounds, Langley.
Here we are, coming up to THAT time of year again.
We promise ourselves we’re going to do it differently this time. We’re not going to say, “Yes,” to every expectation and activity that comes our way before and during the holiday season. And here on Whidbey, we have so many options. Even if we’re not involved, we know the people who are involved.
Here’s a tip: ‘Tis the season for slowing down.
You know it is.
This is a body and mind thing. You feel it, and yet you — I, we — speed up; like children trying to stay awake, insisting over and over, “But I’m not tired!” It’s hibernation time, and instead we go into denial. Why? To make up for the lack of light. To stay awake. Maybe what we need to wake up to are our natural rhythms.
You true extroverts out there may not have a clue what I’m saying. Your dance card is full, and you’re ready to boogie. The rest of us love the idea of holidays, winter sports, celebrations, nostalgia and rituals. We live for the music, the smells, the sights, the eggnog.
And it wears us out just thinking about it.
Vern and Karl Olsen, Deb Lund, and Kaj Lund Olsen lead carols at Langley Tree Lighting in 2012. / All photos courtesy of Deb Lund
So what’s the solution? Well, there are many, and these ten tips barely touch the surface. If you think of more, let us know below in the comment section.
Don’t pretend that your busyness has nothing to do with the choices you make. Check out Whidbey Life Magazine for upcoming events. (No, they didn’t pay me to say that. They don’t pay me at all, except in great stories and information about what I love most about Whidbey.) Prioritize the activities you want to attend. Put them on the calendar. And then, when other options much less appealing to you come up, say no. It’s okay. Even when your neighbor’s kids are in a production and they took care of your pet turtle when you went on vacation last summer (unless it’s my kids, of course). This doesn’t mean you can’t revise your to-go list or be spontaneous. Just be aware that it’s your decision.
Be proactive planning your downtime. Pay attention to your body. And your emotions. They’ll let you know when something is and isn’t the right thing for you to do. If you’re feeling run down, don’t push through it for fear of letting someone else down. They may be doing the same. This is also the busy season for colds and the flu. If you’re run down and exposed to everyone on Whidbey, you’re a likely candidate for some unplanned downtime. Why not schedule those downtimes at times of your own choosing?
Yes, this is the season for baking and cooking. But remember how resentful you got last year after making and delivering your special recipe peanut butter cookies with the chocolate stars, and Aunt Hazel let her great nephews eat off all the stars? Or when you bought those expensive oysters to put in your family’s traditional oyster stew, but no one will eat it any more anyway? Could you cut the PB star recipe in half and make some smoked salmon chowder instead of oyster stew? I’m giving you permission.
How about that big party you throw every year? I know. They all expect it now, and you work for weeks preparing, and then you cook and serve all night, cleaning for a solid week afterwards. When was the last time you really enjoyed yourself during the party? Not counting the compliments. This year, ask friends to bring dishes, and to take them home at the end of the party — after you empty the contents into containers for your lunch the next day.
Give some thought to your gift-giving. Now. No more trips to the mall, frantically finding something— anything — for anyone on your list, at the very last moment. Clear off a shelf in a closet corner, and when you find something that’s perfect for someone you love, wrap and tag it. Unless you’re one of those who love the cheeriness of frenzied shoppers or the idea of driving endless miles — and that’s just looking for a place to park. If “I’m glad that’s over” is the sentiment you’re looking forward to, then think again. You’re more creative than that. And so are our talented artists here on Whidbey (in case you’d rather pick out something than make it yourself). Plan to check out the Whidbey holiday markets, such as “Handcrafted on Whidbey,”to find special gifts.
Let your house be lived in. Pick things up a little if you like, but don’t make yourself and those around you crazy trying to totally do a home makeover before the holidays. You won’t have any energy left to enjoy the home or the crazy people!
Stay home more. Light candles, put another log on the fire, listen to the music that’s perfect for the mood you want to create, read a book, play board games, do a jigsaw puzzle. Sing out lines from your favorite seasonal songs. “Baby, it’s cold outside…”
Create new rituals for the holidays, and keep the ones you truly love. (Yes, this is another plug for throwing out the oyster stew.) On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), we set empty boxes under our tree and everyone contributes things to bring to our amazing thrift stores. On New Year’s Day we write our resolutions in the sand at low tide, then watch them disappear. Our theory is that they either get swept out into the universe to become reality, or there’s no sign that they ever existed. Either option is good with us. More on that in January…
The author on the beach offering up her New Year’s resolution to the universe.
So what it boils down to is this: Do what you want to do. No shoulds. It’s your choice. Make it about what is meaningful for YOU, not what others expect. And if you’re thinking this post didn’t have anything about creativity in it, read through it again. Creativity is paralyzed by shoulds, perceived expectations, drained energy, meaningless activities, and wasted time. Take care of yourself and you’ll be a lot more fun to be around this year. And a lot more creative.
Tell people how you’re going to be more intentional about where your energy and time go this holiday season and in the coming year. Let them know the specifics, especially if it involves them. Encourage them to do the same. Stay sane — or at least sane enough to choose where you exhibit your insanity. It’s the Whidbey way.
How will you be more intentional this holiday season?
Lund walks the beach after resolving to let it all go in the New Year. She is the author of four children’s picture books, including “Monsters on Machines,” “All Aboard the Dinotrain,” “Dinosailors,” and “Tell Me My Story, Mama.”
Deb Lund creates in the middle of chaos, and her life shows it. She needs to practice what she preaches more often, which is why she makes these articles public. It’s an accountability thing. You may see her singing at a few tree-lighting events next month, maybe signing books somewhere (need autographed picture books?), and hopefully dragging her kids to fewer holiday events this time around.
The veil between worlds drops away, to join gold and red carpets of oak and maple. We watch leaves descend, fly, spiral, blow far across our field to some other vista, or float gently down to land among their leafy brethren, laying in a collective pile at the foot of the tree, where they sprouted, unfurled and lived their seasons.
Perhaps their ending is why many Celts consider this time of Samhain (pronounced “saw when,”) from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, a marking of the end of the year, and the beginning of a new one.
In this liminal space, (“liminal” from the Latin “limens” meaning threshold), it is important to take stock of what has come before and what we wish our future to hold. While the branches are bare in winter’s sky, perhaps they will dream of their splendid leaves to come. But will they remember the leaves that adorned them through the past year, ever-changing to meet the clouds’ and the wind’s temperament, until they let go of the branch altogether?
During Samhain, people would dress up in “guise” or costume, and knock on their neighbors’ doors to offer up a verse or song.
Besides the departed souls, who come close during Samhain, it also believed that the sidhe (pronounced “shee”) or the faery folk, are also out and about dancing in the wind. So much about this time and season is about a stirring; we’re like leaves dancing before the great settling of winter inhabits our human bones.
Death is all around us now in nature. Even as we pluck the apples from the tree, we understand that death is part of the harvest. The apple lived while it stayed connected to the tree. Now it lives in us.
Gravestone at a cemetery on the coast of Northern Ireland. / Photo by Joni Takanikos
In the garden many plants are cut completely back to the ground, beginning their winter life in the underground. So this particular time of year, it is no great surprise to me that we remember the dead right alongside the living. We co- exist with those who have given us life, love, wisdom, pain, and the sweetness with which to remember that we inhabit a body that can taste the fall in the apple, dance in the leaves, lean into the rough bark of the great maple, and be grateful for each moment, good or bad. Many cultures of the world celebrate this time as a remembering of loved ones, who have “passed away,” as we often say. Like leaves.
Some go to cemeteries to clean, decorate, and either leave food or enjoy a meal for their departed one. Others might set an extra place at the table. Elaborate altars are dedicated to departed loved ones on the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and include food, drink and other items that were enjoyed while they lived.
The Christian holiday, All Soul’s Day, also known as Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, is celebrated on Nov. 2.
In celebration of All Soul’s Eve a community event of remembrance will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. tonight as it is every year at the Langley Woodman Cemetery. Luminaries line the road, and visitors receive luminaries that they can place graveside or in an area for loved ones who are not buried in the cemetery. As the evening progresses, the cemetery fills with light.
“La Muerte No Nos Separa,” a painting by Gina Simpson.
But certainly any small prayer uttered during this time of the leaves in flight, must have special powers bestowed on it. Make a wish. Dream a little dream.
For more info about the All Soul’s Eve event at Woodman Cemetery, call 360-221-6046.
Poet, singer and performer Joni Takanikos is preparing for a winter of cozy, deep dreaming, music-making, writing and remembering.
It was 10:30 at night, and I was sitting in a small deli/café in Frederick, Md. about an hour north of Washington, D.C. In town for a conference, I rode with my good friend Matt (who had recently moved back east) in his pickup truck to see Slaid Cleaves, a legendary Texas singer-songwriter. Matt had made the acquaintance of Michael Jarrett, who was the opening act at the show, so he wanted to see him, as well. I, as always, loved the idea of a road trip to hear some good music.
Slaid Cleaves album cover “Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away.”
Michael did a nice first set of dusty, windblown folk songs, with plenty of storytelling mixed in, and Slaid’s first set with Michael O’Connor on guitar and Eleanor Whitmore on mandolin and fiddle was magical — country, folk, minor-key murder ballads, even a Woody Guthrie sing-along.
During a break, opening act Michael — renewing his friendship with Matt — and Eleanor came to our table to sit and talk. Matt and I had been plowing through local East Coast beers, and Eleanor had a wine glass about the size of a small bucket. In short, it was a pretty loose, red-cheeked affair; the kind where enough alcohol is present to make everyone sound like a philosophy major.
Caught up in the moment, filled with malted beverages and minor-key folk songs, I asked Michael a personal, probing question, something I would never do in other circumstances with someone I had just met.
“OK, Michael. I love your music, but here’s the deal: What is it about Texas?”
I told him how in the past 10 years or so, I’d been haunted by, and obsessed with, the music of Texas singer-songwriters ─ Townes Van Zandt, Alejandro Escovedo, John Dee Graham, James McMurtry, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle and Robert Earl Keen. Plenty of room in my heart for the older generation as well: Willie Nelson, Billie Joe Shaver, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
Michael stared at me blankly across the table, though he was clearly thinking about my question as he brushed his long hair away from his face.
“So is it,” I continued, waving with my drink in my hand for emphasis, “the heat and the weather? What makes Texas music so much better and more soulful? The landscape, or the ‘sense of place’? The influence of Mexican music?”
Michael continued thinking. I continued to pepper him with questions and brilliant observations: “I’ve always thought,” I said, “that it was a mix of the Tex-Mex stuff, and all the German immigration into Texas at the start of the last century.”
Ok, now I was clearly just showing off. As an ill-informed, wannabe musicologist, I knew about German immigration and music into southern Texas; that’s why there are accordions and trumpets in Mariachi bands. How many beers have I had?
Eleanor Whitmore in performance. / Photo by Bill Ellison
Michael put his drink down, took a deep breath, and leaned forward. Eleanor raised her eyebrows — clearly I had made a bad first impression. Michael said, “Well …”
Michael’s from Austin, so “well” had about four syllables, drawn out and thoughtful. I clearly remember thinking, Holy s*#!**, this is it — I’m really gonna find out. The secret to Texas music… I don’t believe it! This is great!
Michael leaned in, and said, “The secret is… boredom.”
Silence at the table. Eleanor laughed.
What the…?
“But, no, Michael …” I stammered. “What about the heat, uh… landscape… German influence… Mariachi…”
“No, no.” He interrupted me. “Dude, it’s boredom. Nothin’ better to do in Texas.”
Ah, well. Burst that little bubble, I’d say.
The beauty of music is its ability to be both high art and low art at the same time. On one level it’s an essential human element. On another, it’s folk music played by working-class people in road houses and biker bars. What was a significant cultural inquiry for me was just the local entertainment for Michael. Or, like native Texan James McMurtry says on his “Live in Aught-Three” CD, “I used to think I was an artist. Come to find out, I’m a beer salesman.”
How true.
Lyle Lovett stylin’ in his Texas duds. / Photo by www.knoxville.com
It’s nothing, and everything. It could be Liverpool, Seattle, Muscle Shoals, New York or Asbury Park. It could be the guy playing at your local bar. It’s part justifying God’s ways to man ─ as Milton said in 1667 ─ and part beer-drizzled coyote howl of lust and loneliness.
Erik Christensen teaches English at Oak Harbor High School, writes songs and poetry, and prefers flour to corn tortillas.
Erik Christensen Band plays at Front Street Grill in Coupeville from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec.11, and at Bloom’ Winery in Langley from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. Info on Christensen’s other band, Jacobs Road, can be found at www.jacobsrd.com.
I went looking for Chanterelle mushrooms the other day but I didn’t find any. Let me clarify, I am a Northwest girl and I know where I know that the Chanterelles arebut I was checking out new, local habitat; to no avail. Coming up empty-handed is a defeat that’s hard on a committed forager: wild blackberries, clams, agates, Chanterelles and pussy willows are the seasonal bingos for this seeker and it was discouraging to not find what I was looking for.
Instead, I found other things.
Forest delights.
Ain’t that the way, the other things? What is that magic formula of discovery of something new? It’s so easy to be kidnapped by disappointment. That is it exactly; my little girl is stolen away by my big ego demand, “Chanterelles or nothing!” When in fact, she is out wandering in the woods looking at anything and everything and not really caring how it turns out.
I wanted Chanterelles sautéed in soft scrambled eggs with toast or in heavy cream sauce on big flat noodle pasta; I want, I want, I want. So, took my iPad and styli and water to drink and my boots and my swimsuit on underneath my jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and paper bags and a little knife and dry paintbrush for dusting off the pine needles and I headed up the road to a state park to find my mushrooms.
A friend and I had recently walked in the woods and in my mind’s eye I remembered large expanses of fir forest with no understory, but when I got there it wasn’t how it was. I stopped at two other likely spots on my way up the island, but didn’t enter at the trailhead because of the warning signs for hunting season. (I do have a neon orange penny I could bring next time, but I hate the gun thing.)
So I drove further up the island to another state park and trekked out on a trail, but not before a little side trip out to the high bank above the beach. The sun was shining through a thick layer of fog and the water was a washed-out color of blue that bleached into the sunlit grayness. The hillside was silver and golden, with sunshine and fog at the same time.
Yikes, I thought, I have to draw this.
But on my mind were the Chanterelles, the pasta, the bags of buttery sautéed goodness for my freezer. I turned into the dark forest.
It was a Monday and there was no one else around, and the trail was dry. It had been five days since the torrential downpour that had inspired fairy rings in my backyard. There was a ton of lichen, fungi and mushrooms in the forest, from the absolute tiniest darling ones to a big honking phallic thing that grew erect out of the side of a tree, but there were no Chanterelles.
By now, I was hot and sweaty, and I figured I would go back to the bluff and look at the fog and the silver hillside and forget the Chanterelles and draw something. But, alas, the fog had disappeared. I headed down the steep trail to the beach. Forget the drawing; I would hunt for agates. I had easily found a handful of them the last time I was here. It would feel good to find an agate, maybe even go for a quick swim after the frustrating morning.
This particular beach is on the big water of the west side of Whidbey Island. You can stand and look straight out the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Japan. Big kelp beds hang 50 feet out from the beach like an old-fashioned, brown lace collar, and a directional buoy tolls a warning. The tide was out and sadly the rollers were big. (Surfers hang out here.) I decided against the swim. I sat down in the hot sun, and dispiritedly sifted the medium stones for agates. Over my shoulder, a big eagle sat sentinel.
I didn’t find any agates.
I was getting hot. I had on too many clothes for the sunny beach, thinking that I was going to be bush whacking through the woods collecting grocery bags full of Chanterelles.
I’ll go back home and stop at Holmes Harbor for a dip, I thought. So I went to the car, threw my backpack into the backseat, ate a banana and slurped some water.
Driving down the highway, just past the cow hole, I turned to go to Ebey’s Landing. I really had a hankering now for an agate, and the beach at Ebey’s rarely disappointed. I parked and walked down to the beach. There were very few people, and the sun still beat down and gave everything a dried out look. The straight up angle of the sun didn’t help the agate foraging and, after a half an hour when I was still empty-handed, I got in the car.
Chinese-red orange pumpkin of Coupeville.
I drove back to Prairie Center and took a left up the hill. To the right was a field of squash of some kind. I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of squash, but the vines were long and the big leaves white with end-of-life mold and sun bleached. There was a tractor road that led to an outhouse, and I drove off the road and into the field and got out. There, underneath the huge leaves I saw the orangest pumpkins I had ever seen; pumpkins that were a deep, Chinese-red orange, sitting on the beautiful dry silt of Ebey Prairie.
I pulled out my iPad and my stylus and sat down in the dirt, too hot in the straight up sun, but now I didn’t care. I gave up and sketched the pumpkins and time went by and the fog returned in the distance over Admiralty Straits and the peaks of the Olympics floated above the cottony fog in Sumi brush indigo.
I found something; not what I wanted, but what I needed.
Siri Bardarson is a musician devoted to synthesizing her classical and popular music skills on her cello. She sketches to connect in the “now,” and she writes a lot. She is ecstatically happy!
As someone who fell in love with acting more than 25 years ago, I was happy to accomodate when actor Kathryn Lynn asked if she could be a guest at Duff ‘n Stuff and peel back the curtain on her process of tackling the character of Elvira in Whidbey Island Center for the Arts’ production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.”
Besides coming down wth a nasty cold, which is never fun when you have to perform, Lynn talks about the formidble challenge of playing Elvira in this classic comedy and the sometimes treacherous road an actor must go down to finally arrive at that place that lures one to the stage in the first place.
Please enjoy this guest blog by a local thespian.
“Being Blithe” by Kathryn Lynn
I can’t ever remember being sick in the middle of a run.
I can’t ever remember being afraid for my physical capability to perform a show, but hey ho! There I was, last Thursday night, at pick-up rehearsal headed into the second weekend of “Blithe Spirit”… in my pajamas and slippers. Cup ‘o tea… loads ‘o honey… coming off an anxiety dream about having to cancel the Friday night show halfway through and tell everyone to come back for an exclusive matinee finish all because Elvira had lost her voice.
Kathryn Lynn at the dressing room table before piling on the face that helps transform the actor into “Elvira.” / All photos courtesy of Kathryn Lynn
I had told the director, Phil Jordan, I’d be low energy… I imagined myself running through the rehearsal as little more than a robot reciting lines in a British accent and moving along a preordained track.
The moment I stepped on stage, slippers or no, I felt it in my bones. I felt it in the way I made facial expressions as my character. I felt it in all my being that I can’t possibly describe as my body. I felt it so poignantly that I was aware of the effort it took to firmly move Elvira aside —this character does not like to be told “No”— and step to the front as Kathryn-who-is-sick-and-needs-to-save-her-energy.
Why do we do it? Why do I do it?
I have to tell you that the first time I was cast in a lead role (high school, junior year, Mary Hatch, “It’s a Wonderful Life”) my director told me she “needed real tears” in a scene when George Bailey (played by Seth, a senior, who is still very gay and who I very much thought I was in love with) and I were professing our love for each other over the phone. Yeah! Right… actual, physical, sopping-wet tears… sure! So I turned my back — so taboo! — to the audience and faked it.
I also have to tell you that about a year ago, after hearing a fellow actor say that he had never reached tears on stage, I determined that neither would I, and I was cool with that, because here’s this actor that I respect and is a damn fine actor and he’s never reached tears, so I can be as respectable as that without reaching tears, too. Fine. Great. Done deal. It’s settled.
All right, back to Elvira.
One of the most manipulative personalities I have ever encountered. I was afraid of her for a long time. She’s stubborn, she’s wicked intelligent and, as Charles so eloquently puts it in the first scene, she has an extreme acidity when she doesn’t get her way over something. There’s no other way around it; she can be a huge bitch — and here I am thinking to myself, “This is going to be so much fun!” And then I’m thinking, “I have to dig up this awfulness from somewhere and live it for three weekends in October… what am I going to become? How can I do this to my loved ones!?”
All right, a little dramatic perhaps, but what else can you expect from an actress, honestly?
Phil Jordan, director, Bob Atkinson and Kathryn Lynn gather around a table for the first reading of “Blithe Spirit” in Langley.
Two days before opening night, I turned my back on her. In complete seriousness, I wouldn’t have known it had I not had Phil Jordan as a director, who picked it out right away and told me spot on that he watched it happen. I was crushed at first. I had stopped feeling with her. I had chosen to let her do her mean little thing, while I turned away and she lost her heart. The truth is there is more to Elvira than malevolence, and this was the most beautiful and most difficult thing to discover, despite how obvious it can seem.
Elvira has very high and specific expectations of those around her and she has a strong talent for predicting the behavior of others because she isn’t afraid of trial and error.
She is also still very much a child.
Why do I do it?
I had been convinced I never actually would shed true tears on stage, that I would spend the rest of my acting career faking it. On Saturday night, something changed. Something changed for me and something changed for Elvira. I became her match, I became her partner. I allowed myself to trust her to take the helm and we sailed. She let me in. I felt her anger, I played her games, and I cried her tears. It was all true. And it was more powerful than I ever could have imagined.
Lynn becomes “Elvira” for Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley.
I do it to learn. I do it to look at my reflection through the mirror of another. I do it to grow. I do it to create. I do it to tell a story and form relationships with my cast, crew, the audience, my character and myself. I do it to refine my worldview over and over and over. I do it to discover the things I want to take with me on my journey, and those I want to leave behind.
Come sail with us.
Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 25 and Saturday, Oct. 26 at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. For more information, call or visit the box office: 360-221-8268, 565 Camano Ave., Langley or visit WICA’s website.
I read an article recently that talked about how high-pressured business leaders, who need to deal with the chaos in their extremely dynamic environments, can improve their ability to better conceptualize the world — and communicate it through presentations or writing — by reading poetry. Reading and writing poetry can exercise one’s capacity to communicate more clearly to others.
Apparently, the creative capabilities spurred by poetry can help executives keep their organizations entrepreneurial, help them to glean imaginative solutions to problems, and to steer through problematic environments, when good ’ole, previously reliable data alone doesn’t help them.
I’m so happy to hear that there is this glimmer of light slipping under the doors of corporate conference rooms. I have so many ideas for suggested readings of poets! How could anyone possibly narrow the field, when there are so many good poems to read and so many corporate executives to help? (I love poetry. My favorite moment of every weekday is at 3 p.m. when Garrison Keillor chooses a poem to read for the Writers Almanac on NPR.)
Here’s one by Billy Collins that might be good for the harried executive:
I Ask You
There is poetry in Johannes Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid,” painted between 1658 and 1660.
It gives me time to think about all that is going on outside— leaves gathering in corners, lichen greening the high grey rocks, while over the dunes the world sails on, huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table there is nothing that I need, not even a job that would allow me to row to work, or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4 with cracked green leather seats.
No, it’s all here, the clear ovals of a glass of water, a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin, not to mention the odd snarling fish in a frame on the wall, and the way these three candles— each a different height— are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me if I lower my head now and listen to the short bass candle as he takes a solo while my heart thrums under my shirt— frog at the edge of a pond— and my thoughts fly off to a province made of one enormous sky and about a million empty branches.
How about this one by Walt Whitman for that old sexist male exec?
A Song of Joys
O ripen’d joy of womanhood! O happiness at last! I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother, How clear is my mind – how all people draw nigh to me! What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more than the bloom of youth? What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?
Necessary to any clattering board room of corporate chaos is certainly Naomi Shihab Nye, who calls herself the “wandering poet” and puts words together in a way like nobody else. Here’s her take on the most appealing kind of fame.
Lorinda Kay’s photograph of the “Hay Moon” over Whidbey Island in July 2013 is a kind of poetry itself.
Famous
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets, sticky children in grocery lines, famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.
High on my list of recommended reading for conflicted corporate leaders would be William Butler Yeats, whose poetry has often led me away from a certain chaos in my own mind to a place of light. It was Yeats who once remarked that ”poetry is born out of the quarrel with oneself.” I think he meant that writing poetry is one way to give yourself some clarity; to divine from your own mind what’s essential and important.
Here’s a Yeats poem that might remind executive leaders that some things are more important than business; that how you love will be remembered, rather than all those deals you cut. Life is short, corporate dude.
When You are Old
Pablo Picasso’s “Old Guitarist” is a painting that, to me, is also poetry.
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
So, says the article, leaders and their colleagues might find themselves more hopeful and flush with purpose if they take some time to write and read poetry. They might even find their work infused with more surprise, meaning and beauty.
The thought of corporate America sitting quietly reading Yeats or Nye is utterly satisfying to me and gives me some sort of fresh hope.
The other day I was in the local thrift store looking for something I needed, and ended up with something that I did not need.
I bought it anyway, because it reminded me of someone I used to know long ago.
The item was three 1970’s Colonial Park Lane water goblets. I’m not a fan of this particular style. They are much too small, and awkward to hold, unless you are a Hobbit.
No, I would not recommend them.
However, they have one single, redeeming quality: They are avocado green, the exact color that reminds me of that person I mentioned. I will forever associate her with this tone of green. In fact, for me she is: The Lady in Green. Her name is Patricia G. And, no, the G does not stand for green. (Her last name does begin with a G. Let’s just leave it at that.)
The chunky, avocado goblets will forever remind me of the Lady in Green. / Photos by Julie Cunha
Patricia G, was one of the travel clients of the family business, who quickly became a close friend of the family. I’ll never forget the first time I visited her home to deliver airline tickets.
Yes, her house was green.
But nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary ─ EXCEPT ─ when we rang her door bell, instead of the standard yellow or orange glow, it had a green one! I am NOT! kidding.
The sight of that glowing green orb made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. My tongue went dry and my fingers curled a little tighter around the airline tickets. I had a feeling something was going to be different about this client!
The door opened.
Everything happened in slow motion. I looked at my mother, and she blinked in slow motion. I looked back in slo-mo…
Standing in front of us, framed in a backdrop of countless shades of green, stood “The Lady in Green.” She was elf-like; her features sharp and delicate. Think Audrey Hepburn, but all in green. And yes, everything she wore (including her tortoise-shell glasses) were green!
I was mesmerized by the woman standing before me; something was triggered in me.
My trance was momentarily broken by mother grabbing me from behind, and stepping forward to introduce herself (and her half-witted, daughter; the still mesmerized me). All I could do was nod, and partially close my mouth. I noticed that my mother, too, was dazzled by this exquisitely dressed “woodland creature” I had already named The Lady in Green forever.
Fortunately for us, The Lady in Green invited my mother and me into her home for a glass of tea.
Now, before I launch into detail about her house, I just need to tell you that if you guessed that everything in the house was green, you would be correct. Well, with the exception of the family dog, her children’s rooms, and the black-and-white checkered floors in the living room. EVERYTHING WAS GLORIOUSLY GREEN!
The Lady in Green seated us in her kitchen, where we sat on these mint-green enameled, metal-looking stools, which resembled praying mantises. Directly in front of me, sat a small television encased in plastic the shade of “army” green. If there ever was such a thing as a “cute” T.V., this one was off-the-charts cute.
As I looked around her kitchen, I suddenly realized the mundane had been transformed by a single color, and done so, beautifully. Especially the contents of her kitchen cabinets. All of her glasses… in every shape and size, were all drenched in liquid Jell-O lime-green. I was in green heaven.
Her living room was also a kind of shrine to the color green. I was beginning to think The Lady in Green really was a woodland elf. She had a baby grand piano in the corner. Guess, the color? And her sofa ─ a perfect shade of moss-green. The objects on the mantel and on her coffee table, were layered in tones of green that sparkled with an odd kind of magnificent brilliance; like genuine souvenirs straight out of the Emerald City at Oz.
I understand now, that nothing in her house was gratuitous. In other words, she carefully chose each item that best represented her passion for the color green. The Lady in Green collected and curated this color like no other person I’ve ever known.
Most people would never pay that much attention to a single color. Yet, she did. And she did it well. I regret to this day, that I never asked her why she loved the color green so much. I wish I had.
The whole idea of submerging oneself in a single color, might be a bit too much for most people. I might agree, to a certain point. Nonetheless, The Lady in Green woke me up to the countless possibilities that a single color could achieve. It’s like looking at a color for the first time. Thank you, Lady in Green.
I smile and think of the Lady in Green every time I reach for one of these goblets.
So, remember those Colonial Park goblets that I didn’t care too much for? Well, they sit proudly in my kitchen cabinet with their stout little-avocado green chests puffed out because they are in the most prominent place.
I can’t help but smile every time I reach for one of those goblets and fondly remember the collector who had a passion for the color green.
Julie Cunha Interiors, specializes in expertly edited restyled vintage and modern interiors. She lives and works on Whidbey Island. To inquire, or make an appointment: Juliecunha5@gmail.com or cell, (360)969-9921.
