Farewell Tour – the Finger Lakes

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

We moved through the Finger Lakes from north to south, staying with dear friends all along the way. Echoing my own years of living there, we first stayed in Ovid, NY, about a mile from the beautiful Victorian house my first husband and I bought in 1976 for $22,000, and soon filled with our growing family plus a stream of housemates and guests, including Ganesh Baba and his followers: psychedelic seekers, scientists from Cornell, and hoards of hapless hippies -as he called us- from all over the world.

The Women’s Peace Encampment at Seneca Army Depot was born in that house in 1980 when the young neighbor who babysat for us mentioned that her father dismantled outdated nuclear weapons for a living. As proof she brought over the safety manual given to employees at the local army depot. We were already active in the anti-nuke movement so, through connections with the Syracuse Peace Movement, our friend Fred Wilcox brought a reporter from New York Times to see the manual. The cat was out of the bag.

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Our stay in the area this time was less momentous but considerably more heartwarming. From Roxanne Gupta’s beautiful house in Sheldrake, and Durga Bor’s in Trumansburg, and Kip Wilcox’s in Ithaca, it included a week’s worth of wonderful meals with dear old friends, tasting cider at the Finger Lakes Cider House and cheese at the Muranda Cheese Company, a visit to the Ithaca Farmers Market, a picnic on Cayuga Lake, wine on a friend’s dock, and more at a blueberry farm, a morning at PRI’s Museum of the Earth, and lots of glorious rain. It was especially good to spend time with our old friends’ grown children and their children.

Of course, we went to see Taughannock Falls, site of Tom’s and my first date, and many, many hikes over the years, as often as we could fit it in.

It was hard to leave. So many memories, so many good times, so many dear, dear friends.

Thank you.

Farewell Tour – Chicago to the Finger Lakes

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Our visit to Chicago was packed with visits with friends, and Tom’s uncle and aunt, who took us to the Holocaust Museum  and the Botanical Garden. It was much too short!qrVM8qK9T9mr81d15NMJ0Q

A day-long drive through Indiana and Ohio followed.

A stop at Native Coffee
Bellefontaine, OH

We arrived in Athens just in time to join a not-so-silent vigil, the 54th anniversary of such activities with my middle and high school friend, Wendy McVicker.

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Our three days with Wendy and her husband John were the perfect birthday gift.

With my best friends in high school
One of many great conversations on the porch
Wendy and John say goodbye

Next, we spent the night in Pittsburgh with Tom’s cousin, Barbara, feisty activist lawyer, who took us to the best barbecue place in town for dinner and a classic diner for breakfast.

On our way to the Finger Lakes region we stopped in Cleveland to have lunch with Tom’s marine biology professor at Oberlin.

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Our stay in Trumansburg merits a page of its own, so I’ll send this off into cyberspace before sharing that.

Love to you all!

Farewell Tour – Early Morning Harvest

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In the midst of the ongoing barrage of bad news about the way the current American administration is treating the earth and the people who depend on it, some good news:

It began Sunday evening, after a hearty meal with Tom’s cousin Kathy’s whole clan, grown kids and grandchildren crowding the big table, dogs underneath. A scoop of locally-made ice cream (another story) topped the perfect whole wheat crust on Kathy’s mouth-watering strawberry rhubarb pie. The flour in the crust, Kathy told us, was organically grown and milled just down the road at her friends’ place, Early Morning Harvest organic farm and mill.

The next morning, Kathy’s friend, Ronda Hafner, gave us a tour. We saw the mill first. The grain gets separated from the chaff in a big sifter before being milled.

 

 

So many products are milled and packaged there:

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The farm, originally a dairy operation, has been in the family for generations with a notable exception of the period when it was taken over by eminent domain by the DNR (that’s the Department of Natural Resources, not a last wish) so a coal-powered energy plant could be put in there. After a number of years, when the coal plant never materialized, the grandchildren, Jeff and Sharon Hafner, were able to buy back a portion of the property from the government. It’s now farmed by Ronda’s husband Earl and their son Jeff, and provides grain, milled products, a huge array of aqua-ponically grown vegetables and herbs, and some organically raised meat to stores, restaurants, co-ops, and individuals in the Des Moines area and beyond.

The aquaponic operation came before the mill. Now there are big greenhouses with hydroponic beds and even more raised beds outdoors, all irrigated with the water from the tilapia tanks.

This old fish swims over today hello to visitors as they come into the greenhouses. IMG_2917

Hello to you, too!

Farewell Tour – Oregon to South Dakota

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On Monday morning July 9. we said goodbye to Keith and Shelley, and drove along the Columbia River to Hood River, where we had breakfast at a delightful Swedish place, Broder Øst.

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Then, there was a long drive across Oregon and half of Idaho.

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After a good night at an Airbnb an Twin Falls, ID, we ate breakfast in a diner by the depot.

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The road the next day was long and filled with trucks, but we reached Boulder in time for dinner and a visit with Catherine and Steve at his elegant and comfortable home.

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I wish we’d planned a longer stay in Boulder.

Morning found us saying goodbye to the Flatirons:

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and spending the first half of the day on the interstate. By then we had our routine for long days on the road down: a simple breakfast followed by a morning ride listening to recorded books (it’s Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth at the moment, because it’s set in the region we’re moving to), lunch in the downtown of some small town, coffee in the middle of the afternoon, and dinner in another small town.

Coffee in North Platte, Nebraska:

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The GPS took us onto the back roads after that, a fine decision. Nebraska is a beautiful, pastoral state. We ate dinner at the Sandstone Grill in Burwell, Nebraska.

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Late last night, car covered in dead insects, we arrived at Tom’s mother’s home in Vermillion, SD.  Breakfast this morning in the family room:

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Tom’s mother, Dorothy, is a force of nature. At 94, she still lives alone at home and runs her own shop, Ot ‘n’ Dots Art, Antiques, and Collectibles.

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Tom and I are so pleased that our son, James, flew out from New York to join us here.

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Why is David clothed in that picture, you might ask? It’s because we’re in South Dakota.

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Farewell Tour – California and Oregon

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A week on the road and I thought surely I’d have something profound to share, but this series of pictures and a simple record of the events will have to do.

Above, always stunning, Mount Shasta as we passed it on our way from Berkeley to Ashland.

We spent our first night in Santa Rosa, where we left our sweet Olive with our friends, Monica and Mark. Olive moved right in.

On Sunday we spent a delightful day with Denise, and an equally delightful evening with Linnea, her fiancé Justin, and his family at Justin’s place in Pleasanton.IMG_2733

Monday was a day of rest at Elisa and Martin’s place in Berkeley, including a walk down to Shattuck Ave. for lunch at Saul’s and coffee at the original Peet’s. It’s heartwarming to see so many of our things at the homes of our children.

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On Tuesday we retrieved the things we left in Santa Rosa by mistake. The cat had no need for my laptop or Tom’s shaver though she probably liked the bag of dirty laundry. Certainly we’re carrying too many things with us, but those weren’t the right things to leave behind. We continued on to Sebastopol where Susan and Steve made a beautiful and delicious lunch for us.

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That evening we enjoyed a Chinese meal with Martin’s mother and aunt, and Linnea and Justin. Great conversation and food!

The following day we took to the road, arriving at Steve and Melinda’s in Ashland, Oregon, in time for a light dinner and a relaxing evening in their beautiful home and garden, followed by a day of great conversation and a little travel to a winery in Jacksonville and a walk sadly shortened by the heat of the day.

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By Friday afternoon we were in Portland at Shelley and Keith’s.  The next day we went to the farmers market and appreciated the green of the campus of Lewis and Clark College.

The hardest thing about giving up our home in California is leaving friends and family. The best thing about our farewell tour is seeing friends and family.

Especially in their own settings.

A moving sale pop-up store

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In less than two weeks Tom and I will pack up our old station wagon and head east on our farewell tour, traveling slowly across the US visiting friends and family. Even though our grown kids rented a truck and filled it with family furniture, art, and almost all the potted plants, our little house in San Luis is still filled with beautiful things that need new homes.

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With the time so limited and all those years of running the shop at Mama Ganache behind me, I’ve decided to create a moving sale store in the living room of our little house.

It’ll be open whenever one of us is at home, partly by schedule, partly by serendipity.  Every day, as I continue to sort and pack, I’ll put more items out.

I’ll post the schedule here, on Facebook, Instagram , and on Nextdoor.

 

IMG_2500At the beginning the store will have smaller items in it: folk art, art supplies, kitchen things. As the end comes near, we’ll sell the furniture.

Letting go of so many things is easier than I expected. A sensation of lightness goes right through me as I walk through the increasingly empty rooms of our little house.

When did I last use all those beautiful rubber stamps? I remember exactly where the pot with the frog on top went in our big house, but it never had a good place in the little one. Surely someone else will love it as much as I did.

 

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I wish we could take all the art! The signed and framed prints, handmade pottery, and charming folk art pieces are the hardest for me to part with.

Tom feels the same about the cookware he’s leaving behind.

It pains me not to take along everything that was given to us as gifts over the years.

Please come by to see which of these loved objects might find a new home with you.

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The moving sale store is at our house:

729 Park St. (Park and Mill), SLO

Hours:

Wed-Thurs-Fri, June 20- 22:    2-6 pm

Sat, June 23: 10am – 6pm

Sun, June 24: 10am – 3 pm

Mon- Fri, June 25-29: 10am – 6 pm

I hope to see many of you this week or next. Take this as one more opportunity to say good-bye!

 

Bodhisattva

Eve Neuhaus 7 Comments

Bobbe Scott

July 14, 1937 – June 2, 2018

 

The Bodhisattvas, they walk among us,

and sometimes we lend ourselves and they become us.

The hand of spirit is the hand you raise

when you weave the strands of your nights and days.

Charlo Vogt, Weave your Reality

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Bobbe Scott was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.

She was radiant, she was impossibly energetic, she faced life with endless grace. Her laugh was contagious, her smile delightful, and she was always beautifully dressed, right down to the rings on her arthritis-gnarled, stubby fingers. Bobbe’s eulogies should overflow with admiration for the many ways she dealt with that arthritis.

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Bobbe was wise and funny, as all the best Buddhists are. She loved life and the arts, Los Angeles and New York. She was perpetually of service to others, and graciously asked for and received the care of others when necessary. When I sat in a room in meditation with Bobbe, I would be drawn to a level of serenity that I rarely reach on my own.

Bobbe was a dear, dear friend and mentor to me, precious beyond words. She made me feel deeply known and profoundly loved. Our relationship was intimate and authentic.

And I am one of many people who feel this way. Bobbe loved us all.

In my notes from one of the One Year to Live classes Bobbe taught at SLO hospice, I found this page. It’s from the session on end-of-life paperwork, during which we discussed assisted dying.

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“If I can’t enjoy a good meal, if I can’t remember what I ate yesterday, if I can’t get to the Palm Theatre, put me out.”

The next year, she put it more simply, “If I’m more disabled than I am now, that’ll be it.”

That happened.

And she chose to leave as gracefully as she lived.

 

 

 

 

Two Suitcases and One Pallet

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The current state of the pallet.

We’re experimenting with what to take and what to leave behind, and piling up various configurations of it on the driveway. Pretty soon we’ll have a good enough idea of how and what will fit and the pile will move indoors.

Since my project is called Two Suitcases, I took the idea of moving to France with two suitcases pretty seriously. Well, with two suitcases apiece. Eventually it came to me that, though it would offer me to opportunity to partially replicate my parents’ arrival in the same part of the world in 1940, it was a thoroughly romantic – and therefore impractical – notion. We shifted our thinking to shipping one pallet of boxes.

Right now the boxes making the cut contain: the library I’ve collected to use as background material for Two Suitcases, a few boxes of my papers and other books, some of Tom’s papers and books, framed photos of the family, art, kitchen things, winter clothes, and some items to make our new home feel like our old one. Carpets, my computer, Tom’s keyboard, and more art will be shipped separately.

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Most of my days are filled with sorting and packing. This box has our favorite mugs at the bottom, some delicate pieces of art and glass in the middle, and at the top, some of the birds that lived in our houseplants or flew around the ceilings in our home here.

At its center, packed very carefully, is the crystal bell my father bought my mother with his first paycheck in 1943, less than a year after they arrived in Philadelphia. He always said he bought it to remind her of what is important.

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A thoroughly romantic notion.