I hope that you have been visiting Ronni Bennett's blog, The Elder Storytelling Place, which is a place where elder bloggers can share their stories.
Just in case you need a little encouragement, let me modestly guide you to my own stories that appear there, including one today. All of these have appeared previously here on The Zees, but feel free to read them again.
Fins and the Art of Swim Kick Maintenance
Hope Wins; How We Heard the News in the Reddest Part of a Blue State
My mother, Elva, was born on December 27, 1914, and died in 1997, although we would have sworn that she was immortal. In honor of her birthday, I'd like to share one of my favorite photos of her, which was taken in 1978.
Here is some information about both from a recent press release: Close to Home and Far Away captures the immediate surroundings of artists, portraying people, animals and places with an eye open to new experiences. The exhibit includes works by Jon Andazola, Elaine Archuleta, Heather Aragon, Cindy Billings, Cindy Brannan, Cheryle Coburn, Ian Donaldson, Marc Frye, Lena Han, Angelica Harrison, Esteban Lujan, Jimmy McGlaughlin, Dolores Montoya, Georgia Moya, Priscilla Rodriguez, Steve Romero, Adam Smith, Stephanie Trujillo, Helene Valdez, all artists from the VSA Day Arts Program at North Fourth Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Flowers and House, by Angelica Harrison
I've been listening to a great selection of Christmas music mixed by National Public Radio. It's called Jingle Jams, and consists of 100 holiday songs, familiar and not-so. You can see the playlist here, and join the streaming continuous loop of music by clicking on the link on that page.
One song was new to me and I found it a little offensive at first. I'm a traditionalist, more or less, and have a picture in my mind of what a family Christmas should look like. Of course, that sort of thinking often leads to disappointment. This song, "Merry Christmas from the Family," gives a far more realistic representation of some of the characters we may actually have in our families, and of some of the quirky events we may experience during our holiday celebrations.
Just for you, I found a video of Jill Sobule's rendition of the song. It's a riot and I'm getting fonder of it all the time. One of my favorite parts is of the jellied cranberry sauce being dumped from the can onto a paper plate. Watch for it!
I've just started the book, The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin. What a relief! I had been trying to make my way through a travel book on Great Britain in which the author was finding fault about almost everything--not a pleasant read, and not a book I'll name here, since I'm finding fault about it. Lucky for me, there was one more unread book in my library bag.
I picked up The Songlines last night just to take a look at the table of contents and then found myself, half an hour later, many pages into the book and marveling at the lovely writing of Chatwin. He is interested in nomadism and the way that some cultures wander the earth, and has ended up in Australia. He has explained how the Australian aboriginal people "sing" the world into existence. Beyond that, I cannot tell you yet, but I am struck by his eloquence on every page.
You can tell that these are vacation clothes that we are wearing because they are matching outfits, and because we kids are wearing hats with our names stitched on them.
Interestingly enough, my own grandchildren posed for a similar photo in California, not too many years ago. They live a wonderfully healthy lifestyle, as their home is situated in a dead-end court where the neighborhood kids join in playing ball and riding bikes--not so different from my own childhood. Except, as my son would say, their life is in color.
Dressed up in spring
You know, we used to get pretty dressed up to "go downtown." For me, always a coat and matching hat, if possible (my mother made a lot of my outfits), and a little purse to hold my white gloves. My mother insisted on those gloves when we rode on the streetcar. For my mother, a dress, high heels (how did she do it?), matching purse, coat, hat, and gloves.
Fancy family dress
My parents bought their first brand new home in 1956. It was in one of the new suburbs that were being built outside of San Rafael, in what was to become northern California's very fancy and expensive Marin County. 
The kitchen barbecue, spit and all
The kitchen contained General Electric's very best and latest appliances--countertop burners, a wall mounted oven, a built-in dishwasher, and a washer/dryer combination that no one ended up liking very much. My dad eventually took it out and built a matching cupboard for the space left, and we put our replacement washer and dryer out in the garage, as did most of our neighbors. The kitchen was small, but very workable, and opened into the dining room so the cook could have company. The most interesting appliances in the kitchen were the wall-mounted countertop-height fridge and freezer--three little doors, conveniently placed right at eye level. I've often wondered how people managed when those fridges wore out and needed replacement--there was literally no space for a big fridge.
Riding the Iron Rooster; By Train Through China, by Paul Theroux (1988).
I am so grateful to Paul Theroux for taking this journey, as I am sure that I never would undertake anything like it. He describes 22 different train trips through a China that few of us might ever see.
He shares his sleeping compartment, as is the custom in this overcrowded land, with a variety of travelers--even some honeymooners. When he offers to leave the compartment so that they can have some privacy, they cheerfully reply that they will have privacy in the upper bunk. Indeed, in a place where every room of every home features at least one bed, privacy is a state of mind.
He describes a country where almost every natural feature has been reworked by the hand of man--mountains that have been carved into steps for growing crops, rivers that have been swallowed up, and valleys that have been dug over, inch by inch--and where wild animals are almost non-existent and seen always as something to be eaten.
I was fascinated and appalled to read about the effects of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which the country was recovering from during Theroux's railroad trip. "It was a mistake," most Chinese told him. [While reading the book, I even dreamed that I was working at a school during a cultural revolution, and found that my library was being used for calisthenics, and that I was expected to deliver books to classrooms on a cart, but the cart was in a closet and needed to be put together before I could use it, and the schedule for visiting the classrooms was secret, and, oh, yes, I looked just like Ugly Betty, which had nothing to do with anything].
This was a nice, long (480 p.), and very satisfying read. I really didn't want to put it down, and I read it while drinking cup after cup of tea, of course!
Something had obviously been missing from his life, and we discovered what it was when we introduced him to Leny (short for Magdalena and pronounced Lainey), our beloved Sharpei/Lab mix who accompanied us on this trip. Here she is, looking especially winsome and photogenic in the first photo, and with her usual Scooby-Do-ish look in the second. 
Where'd she go?
