Month: October 2015

Finding success, in the face of failure.

~ TiffanyCreek

In Part IV, ‘The Ancient People’, of Cather’s “Song of the Lark”, Thea Kronborg, having become ill and stressed by her pursuit of musical success in Chicago, is embarking upon a trip to Arizona, through Navajo country.  Sent by her new found Polish friend, Fred Ottenburg, a sort of patron of the musical arts, Thea is once again, off in search of herself. Her good fortune to be taken under the wing of this man has enabled her to go on this retreat. Her destination is to stay in Panther Cañon, where the Polish man’s father owns a ranch filled with Cliff-Dweller ruins.  Thea, finding a dismal life in the Windy City, where she is passed on from music teacher to teacher, teaching also, as a way to make a living, enduring a life of personal failure, by living in dusty dirty and mold infested boarding houses, is more than happy to make the trip.  The ending of the first chapter, from Part IV, describes the transition Thea is making, where failure rescues her from an undesirable urban existence.

So far she had failed.  Her two years in Chicago had not resulted in anything.  She had failed with Harsanyi, and she had made not great progress with her voice.  She had come to believe that whatever Bowers had taught her was of secondary importance, and that in the essential things she had made no advance.  Her student life closed behind her, like the forest, and she doubted whether she could go back to it if she tried.

Probably she would teach music in little country towns all her life. Failure was not so tragic as she would have supposed; she was tired enough not to care.

She was getting back to the earliest sources of gladness that she could remember.  She had loved the sun, and the brilliant solitudes of sand and sun, long before these other things had come along to fasten themselves upon her and torment her.  That night, when she clambered into her big German feather bed, she felt completely released from the enslaving desire to get on in the world.  Darkness had once again the sweet wonder that it had in childhood.

With two more Parts left to the book, i.e., “Dr. Archie’s Venture,” and “Kronborg,” it will be interesting to see what lies in the future for Thea. We’ve seen this young Swedish woman, move on from a small girl in her hometown of Moonstone, fight for survival in the big city, try to make a musical career for herself, and now, take an R & R in the South West. Will she follow a path of enlightenment? Will she continue to conclude that success is a many faceted experience, and that it is necessary to face failure, before one comes to find purpose and meaning in life?  Will Thea realize that happiness is derived from other vital driving forces on the journey?   One hundred and sixty pages will tell, what’s in store for the end.

With Love, Lizzie

~ TiffanyCreek

As the train sped away to Minnesota,
Her message was loud and clear:

‘Crete,

I left, too sick to say goodbye.

With Love,

Lizzie’

The 20th day of July,
in 1870 she died,
at 37 years.

Lost letters, and diaries, her story they tell,
They say, ‘Lizzie’s body, lies here’.

By TiffanyCreek

Baptist, another view DSC_4436

Photo by Dave Dreimiller

Lizzie Atwood was best friends with Lucretia Rudolph Garfield. (“Her worries, Crete took away, Lizzie loved her, until she died”). Lizzie married Arthur Pratt, and had two daughters named Mabel and Cornelia. Her mother and father were Elizabeth Yeatman Garrett, and Edwin Atwood, of Garrettsville, Ohio.

“I cannot not sail”

~ TiffanyCreek

While the grogginess of waking comes over me, on this gray rainy morning in early October, an autumnal mood hangs in the atmosphere. Yesterday, we were forewarned of the coming of Joaquín. Beware! A huge hurricane was riding the waves of the sea!  Relieved, we were spared from another big one.

With the season in our midst, I remember the occurrence of Hurricane Gloria, at the end of September of 1985.  Coming from the Midwest, this was the first hurricane I experienced in my life.  Similarly, my husband came from the Ring of Fire, where earthquakes are the norm. In light of the newness of it all, fear was not on my agenda, having lived through many a Wisconsin tornado and blizzard.

The morning before Gloria’s expected arrival, on the advice of a vigilant neighbor, I hurried out to buy batteries, only to find every store, wiped out of supplies. No new batteries, and no duct tape, to secure the windows. Making do with the Duracells, found around the house, I prayed the panes wouldn’t break. Well, the storm, a lesson in science, was proven to be an all day process, moving into the next. As I stood, looking out the divided lights, I saw the trees bend and sway back and forth. They moved 180 degrees, from one side to the other, like sticks of licorice. The daunting speed of the wind caused the trees to crash to the ground around the house. One, two, three and another, uprooted from the base, they fell with a huge thump. The house was being spared, except for the electrical box. Without warning, a trunk like branch from a tree fell on the wires extending to the street, and the metal case was abruptly severed from the clapboard siding, strewing live wires all over the ground, outside.  Then, an incredible stillness enveloped the air as the eye of the storm passed overhead, only to be followed by a more gently flowing wind. Nearing the end, Mother Nature had orchestrated a tremendous performance, with her emissary; The great and powerful Gloria!

Life was disrupted for several weeks into the month of October.  The clean up was slow going, and the crews worked morning and night to restore electricity. The public waited patiently, as fleets of trucks, were sent from Quebec. They were like the Messiah, coming to bring everyone out of the dark.  A heavily wooded state, storms inevitably pose a problem for Connecticut, and its residents can pretty much expect to cook with propane, and burn the lamplight oil.

Well, we survived. I look back, with gratitude that I had no small children to watch out for, and, there was no loss of life, at least that I know of in Connecticut, or New England.

Sitting on the Atlantic Coast, we wait patiently, and ponder, as hurricane season descends upon us. Will the brewing storms perish at sea, like Joaquín, or should one  “batten down the hatches’, before it’s too late? In my quest for enlightenment, I ask myself, “What kind of a sailor will I be in the next storm?  Will I have duct tape and batteries, and jugs and jugs of water?  Will my bathtub be filled, and overflowing?”   The question is not; Will another storm blow in? but rather, How can I ever be prepared? Having not the answers, with affection, and humble regard for the unknown, I recall the beloved words of E.B. White. “I cannot not sail.”