Hi all,
I noticed a glitch in the way that wordpress in sending subscribers my post. The formatting of my photo galleries, and two of my YouTube videos, did not come through in their email! If you want to see my most recent post “In Summer, the Song Sings Itself” as I intended it to look, please click HERE!
Enjoy,
Meg
This is a quote I love from William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Botticellian Trees.”
And here is another quote I love written by my Tibetan friend, Shawo Choeten, after reading my memoir about traveling solo around the world.
“I hope all is well and your soul is swimming in an ocean of happiness.”
Seldom has anyone pinpointed so well the purpose of my travels, or the joy that still swims in my heart and soul as a result of these experiences. These words kept my spirits up last winter when unexpected illness came to my door, and they speak to me of new possibilities entering when old patterns have to be changed.
I do have sad news to relate about the death of a close friend and colleague many of you may have known from my days as Executive Director of MEH (Music Education for the Handicapped). Alf Gabrielsson, a professor of music psychology at Upssala University in Sweden, a member of our Board of Directors, and an outstanding presenter at several of our symposia, died of pneumonia on May 24th. He was a bright light wherever he went, a caring teacher of all ages, and a magnificent musician who could wow you with jazz on the piano or Bach on the organ. His books and his research into the effect of music on the human psyche and behavior were ground-breaking and their influence will remain immeasurable. Alf was also very interested in not only life in his community, but politics and opinion throughout the world as it affected our lives and the environment. You will not be forgotten, Alf.
The past three months of Whidbey Island sun and cool breezes have buoyed me up, and the summer peaked with new optimism for our country’s future. I start with a sample of our colorful plants and flowers that add zest to the endless year-round blanket of green that is surrounded by tall Douglas fir, hemlock, and cedar. We have dozens of succulents, orchids, fuchsias, and exotic plants nurtured by son, Tom, who I call the “plant whisperer,” as well as a plethora of blossoming trees gracing our walkways and forests. I am thoroughly enjoying the present and am deeply thankful. I particularly love the fortitude of the long-stemmed amaryllis.
One of my favorite activities is a daily walk through the beautifully landscaped Langley Woodmen Cemetery, conveniently located right across from Upper Langley, where I live. Halfway through my walk, I enjoy a sit on the bench built for the husband of a dear friend of mine. See if you can find me in the daisies, before I start pushing them up!
The 4th of July was a hoot and unlike any other I’ve experienced on the island.
All over Cascade Avenue were onlookers spellbound by the continuous display of drones instead of the usual fireworks. Stories were told in sequence, flower and Orcas flew through the sky, and bright-colored flags rippled in the wind. See the YouTube videos I made of them HERE and HERE.
A walk on the Langley Beach
Tom has converted my sunporch into an extra bedroom, so we’ve been able to welcome several family members for short visits, and, at the same time, help them escape the broiling sun of the city. Martha was the first to grace the sunporch.
Grandson Thomas Bixler also visited. He lives in Austin, Texas, and was really glad to get away from the heat, and be in the forest.
The Shakespeare Festival was in full swing. Here we are during intermission at King Lear, not exactly my idea of a happy story, but a very satisfying performance.
In between all the visits, we enjoyed Deception Pass, helping Cary in the garden, and a beer at Double Bluff Brewery where… heads up… I’ll be celebrating my 97th birthday next June!
Robert, my youngest, turned 65, much to his surprise, in September. I was surprised, too. Give me a break, Father Time. I can absorb just so much aging in one calendar year. I was still getting used to Cary having turned 72 in July!
Then, we welcomed Martha back and were totally surprised when she arrived with her son Adam, who took a break to visit me just before launching a new enterprise in New Jersey. How about that for fun?
A lot has been going on in the field of affordable housing. People are stepping up to the plate to help solve a very serious problem here on the island.
We know it’s pervasive throughout the rest of the country, but, like all problems, it works best if you start at home. When it comes to solving problems and making progress, Cary is the best example I know of citizen awareness and subsequent action. She’s done it with the environment, the cemetery, the food bank garden, the school farms, and many other projects since she moved to Whidbey. Check out this latest and one of the greatest!
It’s called Whidbey Home-Raising, and the website is HERE.
They started with the foundation dig out in September, and are now working on the framing.
I apologize for the length of this blog, but you didn’t expect me to sit in the house during the summer and write when the sun was shining and the woods were beckoning…did you? Ha ha. Remember, we island folk have to soak up our good weather when we get it. Fall is fast approaching and the winter winds are just around the corner knocking at our door. So bundle up, don’t mess with those Halloween witches, and have a spectacular Thanksgiving. And don’t forget to vote!
It’s been a terrific summer! I’m feeling stronger the further away I get from the pneumonia that knocked me out last winter, and am finally returning to my writing. I have just posted a few more short family memoirs. Hope you liked the first 17, but I fear that I didn’t announce those episodes clearly enough, since several people have told me they didn’t see them. You don’t want to miss any, because they’re full of the craziness, humor, and pathos of everyday interactions in a family…mine! I bet that you can relate to what is shared in these tales. Enjoy!
Here are the four latest ones.
Religion: It Should Be So Simple, But It Isn’t
Music is a Tradition in Our Family
But if you missed the first ones, here they are.
You can also find all of them here.
Watch Out…Here Come the Babies!
Don’t Come Back Before Supper, Unless You’re Bleeding!
Guess What? Your Brother is Gay
High Drama at the Junior High, and Other Fashion Notes
Who’s Afraid of Measles, Mumps, Chicken Pox, and Tonsils?
And there will be more to come!
Ninety-six has finally come and I can shut the door on ninety-five, my worst nightmare! Blessed energy is returning and I’m ready to hit the road, if not running, walking with confidence. Who was it who said, “Slow and steady wins the race?” Well, I’m finished trying to win races…I just want to get to the end of the trail in one piece!
On June 3rd I awoke to a bright sunny day. I did not expect a big birthday celebration this year, but could not ignore the occasional whisperings among well-wishers, “Don’t say anything…it’s a surprise.” Nor could I help noticing that the Common House here at Upper Langley was bustling and Jerene behaving as if she were preparing the minions for a viewing of the Holy Grail. I knew something was in the wind, so I grabbed my pen and pieced together a thank-you poem in advance. I was right on every count. The entire HOA membership had put together a party extraordinaire. Mully fitted a superb handmade headdress of flowers and herbs onto my head as I stepped into the dining room; stretched in front of me a table fit for a queen was suffused with lighted candles, decorations, and glittering silver; balloons and tinsel, ribbons and colorful tapestries adorned the walls; and a sumptuous meal, prepared by Anne Zontine, was served elegantly by Don Zontine and Lee Compton, dressed as Indian waiters à la New Delhi. After dinner we were treated to a superb rendition of the allegro from Bach’s A minor sonata #2, performed by Whidbey’s own virtuoso violinist, and my neighbor, Gloria Ferry-Brennan. The celebration ended with two scrumptious cakes baked by daughter, Martha, after which was candle blowing and a special circle where people shared words that captured their feelings and wishes for me. I was really moved! What a wonderful way to welcome my new year!
(Click on photos to enlarge)
TO MY WONDERFUL BUDDIES!
Big cheers to Jerene and her friends, hale and hearty,
Who, a-long with the Zontines, have fashioned this party;
They’ve cooked, helped by Martha, and fashioned décor
Superb and artistic, I couldn’t ask for more!
This menu’s a total surprise, even Cary
Denied any knowledge, ‘though I was quite wary,
For who would instruct me to not make my salad
A staple of potlucks that makes the meal valid?
But I am a lover of wild innovation,
And want you to know I am filled with elation
To see how my friends have stepped up to the plate,
And made this particular birthday first rate!
I could not ask for a more loving community to usher me into the coming year!
My pneumonia and subsequent hospitalization in January crushed any plans for travel adventures in the spring, so I decided to TIME TRAVEL instead!
Many of you know that I’ve been writing a book for quite a few years about raising children in the 50s, 60s and 70s, “I Love You to Death, But….” and I’d like to share it with you. Talk about traveling back in time…! 
It is not written in linear form, but as short essays or episodes. I picked this photo of me stepping out of the 17 ft. trailer I pulled behind our station wagon for 6,000 miles, in 1969, as I drove my children across the U.S. and back. It gave them a glimpse of our vast country and its spectacular National Parks. I especially like this picture, because it shows how alike in appearance my sister, Anne, and I were growing up. 
It was while I was going over pictures to accompany the announcement of the book that she died. She was close to my family and a big fan of my travels, so I think she will be glad that, finally, I am sharing these memories with you. (Here we are on Webster Cliff in the White Mountains, NH.)
I will add new material from time to time, especially about our two most exciting trips — the sojourn around America, and a two-month backpacking adventure in Germany, Italy and France. So you see, I don’t have to be traveling to think about it. And neither do you! Stay tuned….
To read these Family Memoirs, click HERE.
Click on these family photos to enlarge.
I bet most of you are experiencing a luscious spring blossoming. Since I’ve inundated you in years past with my colorful display of rhododendron, lilac, dogwood, flowering plum, and you-name-it-we-have-it, I’m giving you a respite this year. Besides, it seems to me to have been the wettest, coldest spring since I moved here, and I’m tired of being told that trees and plants need water…no kidding…duh! But it does afford me an intermittent chance to dance wildly whenever the sun shines and the sky turns blue behind the billowing clouds. Give it up for experiencing joy and gratitude whenever possible.
With Cary at Ebey’s Landing. Not exactly Nepal, but it’s a start and it’s local.
The three sisters at a family reunion.
Let’s hear it for the three Noble sisters…Anne, Cary, and Meg…an exciting piano trio back in the late ‘40’s, beloved for their famous renditions of Mozart minuets. They also did a great Christmas day performance for the Noble family every year until they graduated from college and got married. Thus began the proliferation of grandchildren numbering fourteen.
I hasten to add another sister speciality. All three of us took tap and ballet lessons as young girls. What endured, well into our seventies, was a lively tap version of In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree, danced with locked arms, high kicks and much laughter!
Here is Anne in her 90‘s, without a trace of gray hair (I swear, scout’s honor) with Frank, her adoring husband of 68 years…and with me, her adoring sister, outside their home in Peterborough, NH.
This was my beloved older sister, Anne Elizabeth Noble Magill, 97, who left us on April 26, for a freer, more peaceful space that none of us yet knows, but all of us will discover. Anne knew when to go, and she was ready. The whole family loved her intensely, as did a myriad of others who had known and worked with her. The memories are deep and will not go away. Nor will she. Ever…
I remember when I was about eight and I threatened to jump out a second-story window if Anne didn’t give me her new dress. She always got the new ones and I got the hand-me-downs. She shook her head ‘No,’ so I put one leg out the window. In an instant she handed the dress to me. Was she angry? No, she was so gentle to me and seemed only to be relieved that I was OK. I hope I was ashamed, but can’t remember that part. I also remember when she visited me in Germany just after I was married, and we went to magnificent Florence, after which I put her on a ship returning from Europe, and guess what? She met Frank.
Anne was always kind, always the peace-maker, until the time I tried to win over Bud LaFlash, a favorite college boyfriend. That was a tiff I lost big-time!
Years later, when I was living in New Jersey, we binged on New York Theater, using my $3.50 Audience Extra tickets. Hard to believe, eh? Those were the days when we bummed around the city, experimented with oddball restaurants, and even stayed for several nights at a midtown hotel after being given comp tickets. We walked and walked and walked….
We found adventure everywhere. We were each other’s foils. That was special.
And we had been walking places together as far back as I can remember, starting with kindergarten. Miles to school, with Anne protecting me, her younger sister, and making sure at one point that I didn’t get eaten by a cruel man I was told captured and ate children in his old garage on Ridgewood Street. I was not afraid when I was with her.
And then there were all those hiking trips in the White Mountains, not far from our cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee in Alton, NH. But the highlight for me was a weekend in Acadia National Park, Maine. Mountains, ocean, blue sky, sunsets, cricket serenades and a small tent anchored deep in the woods. We loved to swim together in the Maine lakes, but screamed with the cold, which was part of the fun. Yes, Anne was fun, a good companion, and eager to try new things.
Over the almost ten decades of our lives together, we played music, climbed mountains, fished, camped, went swimming morning, noon, and night, attended weddings, welcomed babies, raised children…It has been rich and it has never been dull. Nobody could have had a better sister with whom to share all of this. How lucky we were to have had each other for so many years.
Anne, I love you.
Anne, Cary and me with our mother, Grace Kepner Noble, on her 80th birthday.
This was going to be a very different holiday season from past years when Cary and I had gone to Nepal for the better part of November and December. Instead, after visiting Nepal and South Korea, Cary headed to China to teach English to Tibetan monks and, in turn, study Tibetan, and I went off to visit my other daughter, Martha, in Colorado, and get some sunshine and mountain hiking. Whatever happened, we knew it would be an adventure. It was!
Kissing the Manitou Springs bear
For the first two weeks Martha and I visited some lovely places near her home in Manitou Springs, with 14,000 ft Pikes Peak rising above us. We went on interesting, relaxing walks in old Colorado City, and strolled among the red rocks of the Garden of the Gods. Glorious vistas! Then we enjoyed a joyous family Christmas with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Click on a photo to enlarge.
How quickly life can change! Was it the higher altitude and the dry climate and the extreme cold? No. I’d been here before and I was no stranger to winter. I began coughing uncontrollably and as the New Year approached, multifocal pneumonia exploded in my lungs. On January 2nd I found myself in the emergency room needing oxygen, gasping for breath. Happy New Year! Cary rushed back from China and after a week of skilled care from the doctors and nurses at the Grandview Hospital, she and Martha pulled me back from the brink, which is what it seemed to me. I learned first-hand what devotion and love look like. Credit also goes to Doug Hammond, Martha’s partner, whose sense of humor and endless stories, especially keeping things light after the pipes froze in the kitchen (no blame…it was minus 3 degrees), added a feeling of adventure to my personal almost-disaster.
The three musketeers leaving for the airport, oxygen and all.
Then we had the hurdle of flying back to Seattle with a portable oxygen concentrator that required lots of airline paper work. No small feat. God bless Cary for handling it all! I hope none of you ever has to deal with this. She got us back to Whidbey Island and dealt with all the deliveries, company visits and pick-ups, like a veteran. Now I’m almost back to normal and have one salient word of advice: Never let a cough get the best of you, and stay away from pneumonia!
On the bright side…spring is popping up all around me. Hailing from the frigid East Coast, it’s always a miracle to see flowers blooming in February.
Of course, Whidbey’s rain helps a lot. Cary has already started bok choy, lettuce, and peas for early spring planting. The earth is waking up. I’m so enjoying the radiance of the sun, and everything seems more vibrant. It’s great to be alive!
The one thing that our island children are missing, however, is our plethora of feral bunnies…the result of escaped 4-H domesticated rabbits from the Island County Fairgrounds. Some people loved them…gardeners and farmers called them pests. But children found them adorable and couldn’t get enough of feeding and chasing them. I spent lots of time photographing them. A catastrophic pandemic of Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease suddenly wiped 
them all out last summer. Langley, the Northwest Rabbit Capital, just wasn’t the same.
But, just last week on my daily walk I spotted a small tan rabbit scurrying across the field. Hmmm, could it be? Take heart, children, they’ll be back. Yes, it made me very happy.
I was also very happy to welcome my old friend and theater buff Arpie Maros, whom I have known since the days when he and my children were in high school together. He’s a talented actor and singer and the owner of Ahrre’s Coffee Roastery with two locations in New Jersey (Westfield and Summit). He also combines his charm and talent hosting house concerts with touring singer-songwriters. Be sure to visit his website: www.ahrre.com
Arpie comes to the Northwest four times a year to visit his friends, and see if the sun is shining. Ha ha! I’m one of the lucky ones.
Oh Meg! What do you think is going to happen next?
Cary is in China now as you read this, and I am in Manitou Springs, Colorado! Both our last two weeks have been eventful, but I dare say that hers were more interesting. On the eve of her departure to Chengdu, we WhatsApp video called from our respective locations around the world…me with Martha, and Cary with Shawo Choeten, whom she was visiting in South Korea. (Cary and Shawo were wearing masks because Cary had a cold.)
Here is a little news from Cary…
I spent a very focused week at the Shechen Guest House in Boudhanath doing kora and studying Tibetan. Very focused! I visited Pasang Lama and his lovely family and gave them a gift from Mom. We’ve known them since the girls were toddlers and now they are very smart middle-schoolers.
Happy to have finally arrived at the Seoul airport!
Because of a flight cancellation, getting to Seoul from Kathmandu was as grueling as the week in Boudha was relaxing and restorative. What would have been simple turned into a 2 1/2 day ordeal, 3 flights, changing airports in Chengdu, and an overnight on a bench in the Beijing Airport for 9 hours. My immune system, great in Nepal, wasn’t up to the stress of hopscotching across China, and I caught a cold.
But that didn’t stop me from enjoying my visit with Shawo Choeten, whom I’ve known since his first days at the TCV School in Suja, back in 2008. Shawo just received his Masters from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, and is now taking a gap year before continuing on to get his Ph.D.
Besides working on a paper that he will be presenting at a conference in Oxford, England, this summer, Shawo also teaches Tibetan online to Korean students.
We have spent hours conversing about life, culture, language, and society and also enjoying many tea houses, coffee shops,, and restaurants along the way.
I’ll be coming back through Seoul, again, after my month in Chengdu. I have no idea what the internet situation will be with Wifi access and blocked websites. I’ll let you know in January! Sending love to all of you!
No matter how bad things seem to get on the world stage or in our own dramatic corner of the globe, when the New Year rolls around we see a chance for improvement. You know the litany: Things can’t get much worse…the only way to go is up. Life is lived in a resisting medium…the only way we coast is downhill. In other words, don’t coast, keep climbing, keep striving. Knock yourself out. You can always do better. But by now you know that life isn’t perfect. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, yes, but it may turn out to be an oncoming train (for the jokers). So, try giving acceptance a chance. You may learn something…about yourself and about your life. Wake up or you’ll never know what’s just around the corner…
Yes, there’s something I truly love about January first of each year. I’ve given up on writing resolutions which I’m too old to complete, anyway, but I breathe the air of that chilly morn as I walk up and down the roads and woodland trails near my home…alone, except for the intermittent chirping of woodland creatures, and give thanks for all my blessings, putting the complaints and downers back in the box for another day. It’s a new start. That’s how I feel.
As I’ve written before, I’ve had a few downers since my birthday, which have caused me to cancel a much-looked-forward-to trip to the East to visit old friends and relatives in Jersey and New York over the holidays, returning by way of Manitou Springs to visit Martha, Doug, and grand and great grandchildren in the Denver area. Here’s where acceptance comes in. Had a recap of my earlier ear problems so flying was out of the question. But now, Buddha be praised, it looks as if the Colorado trip may be possible. Stay tuned and when Cary returns from China, Nepal, and S. Korea she’ll put up all my photos and stories. In the meantime, she is going on her fantastic trip to Asia from Nov. 26 to January 18…the first time in years that I’m not accompanying her (acceptance, again)…and hopes to write about her adventures, putting them up on MY blog…hot off the griddle…for all of you to enjoy. How great is that? Cary is a master blogger and will have you on the edge of your seat!
I end this holiday greeting with the announcement that I have started putting up my most recent book on my website/blog, delayed for several years due to my most skillful non-virtue, procrastination. It’s a work-in-progress and tells the story of the Peterson family escapades over the years, more in essay form than as a linear memoir. Title: I Love You To Death, But… It will be under the Family Memoir tab on my blog, and next to the Essays tab. They are now posted in a more clearly readable form than previously. Enjoy! And blessings on you all.
On August 29, Cary and I started out for Vancouver, British Columbia, a beautiful, bustling city in Western Canada surrounded by sea and mountains. The purpose was to pick up Martha, who was returning by seaplane from the well-known retreat center, Hollyhock, on Cortes Island, where she had been teaching a week-long workshop called “Free Your Movement.” She will teach the same workshop in Mexico in Jan. 2024.
Getting to Vancouver is a picturesque three-hour drive from Seattle and, fortunately for us, we had a quick stop at the border to check passports. We made our way through a city that was both elegant and unusual, modern and old world, with skyscrapers, boulevards, parks, and quaint buildings with artistic facades tucked among the modern clusters. Our destination was the Sylvia Hotel, an iconic old structure nestled on the coast and draped in a cloak of Virginia Creeper, looking out on a glorious beach on the dramatic inlet, English Bay, whose curve reached to faraway islands in the Salish Sea (Puget Sound).
An assortment of ships resided at a distance, making an artistic backdrop for the setting sun. How lucky we were! Rain had been predicted, but stayed away for two days, until we had gone. Before bedtime we walked on the beach, enjoying utter peace and tranquility.
After a delicious breakfast at the hotel restaurant, looking out on the bay, the morning was spent exploring the beach and luxuriating in the wild birds and the driftwood relics left at high tide.
Close to the hotel, and down the beach in Morton Park was a fascinating group of sculptures called A-maze-ing Laughter…bronze figures sculpted in 2009 by Yue Minjun. They depict the sculptor in various poses of boundless laughter. What a great way to start the day! You mustn’t miss it when you come to Vancouver.
By 2 PM we were at the seaplane landing area, watching like hawks for Martha’s plane. Perfect landing, right on time. Out came five happy passengers, four of whom were Martha’s students at the Hollyhock retreat.
After a glorious reunion, we headed back. Just after we crossed the border into Washington, we stopped at Que Onda, a Mexican restaurant in Blaine.
We had no idea how good it was and were told that the owners started out as a food truck, which, because of the excellence of the food, has now turned into a gustatory gem.
As we were leaving, who appeared but Jim and Sarah Mullally, our friend, Mully’s, brother and his wife, who live in the area. What a fun meeting!
It was still light as we wound our way through Deception Pass and across the spectacular bridge, following the winding road leading us back to Langley. The trip was a short, but delightful change of pace!
© 2024 Meg Noble Peterson
