Joy in the Tulip Fields

Springtime is rejuvenating, and little enthralls me the way a visit to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival does. I can well understand Tulipomania, the Dutch phenomenon in the 1630s that led to wild speculative prices for particularly hoarded hybrids. Here in the Northwest, many await the opening of the tulip cups with similar enthusiasm, and this year we've waited longer than I can remember--Al Gore's Global Warming brought us an icier winter that delayed the fields' splendor nearly a month.

But we who consult Tulip Maps like astrologers plot the planets were overjoyed to find this weekend peak. And so my husband, son and I got in the car, singing along with oldies, and drove the hour north of Seattle to the Mount Vernon flats.

Unfortunately, pent-up eagerness for the flowers' bloom brought out masses of fans of fringed, parrot, Triumph and double (a great number of them, for reasons I can't really understand, East Indian, many in sparkly saris and other delightfully-hued garb). Out in the fields, where narrow roads transverse open acres, cars were lined up helplessly, stopped dead for quarter-hours at a time. We were among them, frustrated. But quiet about it.

The sun wove between the clouds and haze, and even infrequent advancement was bearable on a Sunday where your fellow traffic victims join you in such a pleasant purpose. Admittedly, Skagit Valley is far less hospitable in its April display than it had been in the early years we attended, 1996, 7 and 8. In those days, more farmers opened up their fields freely. Cars parked alongside the fields or on the host's turf; there were no fluorescent-orange-vested traffic directors, no ticket booths, no merchants offering $6 packs of tulip-themed paper napkins, lawn pinwheels or imported-from-China trivets painted with quaint European street scenes.

There was an art show in a a barn (which continues) and a grower who let kids pet his tame alpacas. More family farms carried on the Dutch flower-growing traditions, and welcomed yours to stroll into the field, gawk at the rows of color, and chat a bit.

Now, only two farms remain, and they've made tulip-admiration into almost as big a business as bulb-vending. Parking lots are cordoned off into rows, and entering the fields or displays requires a fee, $4 at Roosengaarde, and $5 at Tulip Town. Cut flowers and especially, bulbs, offered with "deals" like a fifth bunch free, or 20 extra bulbs when ordering others, are for sale by plentiful clerks. Kiosks for Kettle Corn, corn dogs, nachos and other fair fare provide a pungency more conducive to nausea than communing with nature.

But pass the distractions and there are the flower fields. Even when lined with tourists, God provides there a breathtaking spectacle. Astonishing rainbow rows of intense color bring smiles, gratitude and praise. Families squat, smiling, arms linked for the camera, among the sturdy stems, vibrant bowls of vivid petals enveloping them, joining them together in exhilaration.

Everyone is snapping photos, eager to capture the intensity, the brilliance, the astounding beauty. I've made the tulip pilgrimage many times; how many ways can you photograph a flower? "Say cheese!" "Don't move!" my verdant subject cooperates and I giggle, grateful for digital cameras and giant photo storage. It's all here for the imbibing, the enjoying.

That's why the interminable traffic was bearable. Little is troubling when God colors the world.

Alive in a Snapshot World

I've been gratefully receiving much positive feedback about the eulogy I wrote for my father-in-law, David (below). With my husband sitting shiva in Jerusalem, and days filled with phone calls of condolence, I find the rest of my life eerily on hold. Everywhere I look, Zayde is there, as he always was. You see, as a compulsive photographer, insistent (to my children's chagrin) on documenting as much of our precious life as I can, I have hundreds of photos of him among the 33,000 digital photos on my computer and at least that many taken with my film SLR before I went digital.

Before digital (for me, January, 2004), I'd print doubles of my photos and put many of them up on a bulletin board over my desk, inside my clothes closet--even in the medicine chest. This is a bone of contention with my husband, as he thinks them supreme clutter. To me, they are moments of life that I relive with every glance. Since the clever invention of slideshow screensavers, I sometimes waste time with the arrow buttons speeding up the slide show (or dwelling on photos I want to savor longer), jumping from one year, one festivity, one poignant heart-tug of my life to the next. Because I was there for every one of them, each photo is a literal time snapshot that instantly recalls an entire scene and envelops me with the emotions of that moment.

A couple years ago, I got new kitchen countertops, a combination of butterscotch travertine and a display tray about a half-inch deep topped with glass. My latest exhibit is a collection of photos, many in colorful frames, interspersed with sparkling trinkets. I enjoy it every day, though I did hear my husband mutter with disdain just a week or two ago that I've expanded my clutter even into our shared kitchen world.

But it is partially because of my photos that I'm having trouble accepting that Zayde is gone. There he is in my kitchen, in the same places he's been, hugging my daughter, hiking a verdant path with us, posing with the family at my son's bar mitzvah gathering in our back yard. I'm looking at him now, smiling down from my bulletin board with the rest of us, with a mountain peak and fir forest behind. There he is to my right, surrounded by his sons and grandkids, poised near a Colorado lake.

I lost my own parents four and six years ago. They are still real to me, grinning from walls and from my kitchen counter and in countertop frames. That they remain so clear; that my dad's voice I still hear in my mind, grants me some ease with the passing of Zayde, because he, too, can remain with me in his snapshot existence.

Unless You're a Photo Nut, Skip This Post

I'm an avid photographer. I figure if life is worth living, it's worth remembering. Well, most of the time.

So, to my family's fatigue, I snap photos of what we do together. If we're on a vacation, I'm recording it all; I download these moments and relive them on my slideshow screensaver with great delight. My middle daughter, to my heartbreak, will allow herself to be in one or two photos during an entire trip away. If she sees me raise camera to brow, she puts forth her open palm to block out her face. I must have hundreds of photos of "the hand," ruining my reminiscences of family gatherings.

Though before going digital in 2003, I'd lug my Nikon D60 with Nikkor 28-200mm lens with me everywhere, since then I've become spoiled by the "throw my camera in my purse" joy of a Kodak DX7590 with 10x optical zoom. It does away with carrying a separate video camera, recording my daughter's performances and our family by the pool--limited only by the size of its SD card. I love that I can control the flash, deciding when I want natural light (just don't open it) or fill (an easy button on top). It focuses smoothly and accurately.

But, it's only 5 megapixels, and it takes FOUR SECONDS between pressing the shutter and taking the picture. I've lost way too many photos that way. Cute expressions on toddler nieces just won't wait that long.

I've been looking to update for a long time. I even bought a Kodak P712, 7.1 megapixels and 12x optical zoom. But I hate it. I didn't know that it has an automatic flash; in order to override it, you have to go deep into menus. I don't have time to do that when the groom and the bride are being hoisted on their chairs at a wedding. Also, that camera has a jerky zoom; when I see a photo, I want to just go there; I don't want my zoom to keep moving in too close after I've stopped pressing it.

So it's been several years since I've bought a camera, since nothing's been made that addresses my needs. My husband, who hears my muttered curses while I wait the four seconds between pressing and shutter release, keeps urging me to buy a replacement that's faster. I keep looking for a toss-in-my-purse mega-zoom cuz I won't return to the lens-toting or changing of an SLR.

I thought I'd found it when I came upon the Nikon P80. With 18x optical zoom, a flash I can control, 10 megapixels, compact size--all the specs united to send my heart a-flutter. Then, when Costco put it on sale in a package with case and SD card, I caved.

I read the manual carefully and last week went out with my husband to the Skagit Valley to view the flocks of snow geese and swans that over-winter in the barren tulip fields and other farm-y expanses. Snow geese congregate in enormous white masses, commonly 50,000 or more. Trumpeter swans' white swaths are fewer birds, but they're fatter and far grander when they fly. A swooping raptor can set them into a magnificent tizzy.

It was a frigid and mostly overcast day, but being out in the open fields was energizing. We followed the course suggested by a newspaper article on the geese, and indeed, there they were, gathered in a formidable line just closer than the horizon. That wasn't good enough--we went on the proverbial wild goose chase, seeking to come close and watch their group ascent.

Not to be. But I tried out my new camera on fluttering birds on a nature preserve pond, views of Puget Sound, winding trails bordered by pink-branched bushes just barely budding. I saw two enormous eagle nests, and some herons flapping across the sky.

The photos are dark, their elements blurry. I can't figure out how to turn off the auto-view that pops up when I want to keep shooting, showing me the photo I just took. I am not happy with this camera. Every picture I took--outside!--needed editing. I'm headed back to Costco. And my husband, once more, will start his nagging for me to find a new camera--or stop muttering.

Unfettered Performing at Seattle's Folklife Festival

As I mentioned in an earlier post, street fair season is upon us. But famous in my region are two bookends to the summer--Northwest Folklife Festival, every Memorial Day Weekend, and Bumbershoot, every Labor Day. Folklife is my favorite--a free (donations suggested) and crazy display of every type of music. Aging hippies are much in evidence, with their folk groups of banjo, guitars and--choose one from each column--washboard, fiddle, bass, tambourine, mandolin, autoharp. But equally present are ethnically-inclined groups--Polish, African, Peruvian (same guys as pictured in earlier post), Celtic, Hawaiian. Then there are the solo players--the ones with a violin and its open case. Or weirder instruments made often of gourds. The Hurdy Gurdy men, who, when I casually threw out the first line of the Donovan hit, replied, "but we don't come singing songs of love." If you get that reference, you're a boomer.

Folklife is fabulously ad hoc. Anyone can come with an instrument, or a group, and just plunk himself down anywhere and start playing to an appreciative audience. This invites a lunatic panoply of participants. Many have matted hair. Lots sport Goth black leather and spikes. Tie-dye is de rigeur. National costumes from Norway and Nigeria are equally in evidence.

In the middle of the huge complex called Seattle Center is the International Fountain, a two-story tall silver ball in the vortex of a shallow concrete bowl several hundred yards wide. The wonderful trick of the International Fountain is that it sprays water from many holes in the silver orb, at unpredictable intervals. The arcs of water make designs in the sky, and create an exciting game for all who venture it. You run toward the sphere to touch it, trying to avoid being drenched by a strong stream of water. Most people get completely soaked, but they're all laughing. Two-year-olds and senior citizens both sprint toward the center. It used to be that the fountain's squirt was calibrated by computer to music from various parts of the world--thus the International Fountain. Lately, however, the miss-the-stream-of-water game has had only giggles for accompaniment.

One Hundred Sixty vendors' booths share the cacophany. Most are hippie independent crafts people peddling their pottery, leather goods, tie-dye masterpieces and photography, but a large number offer imported goods. I love the Guatemalan textiles, the artist of dogs in tu-tus, and the rainbow-hued boiled wool shoes. This year, I bought some squiggly-cut wooden utensils for my kitchen.

If you don't require kosher food, you have a world of tastes to sample. For some reason, everything mango was popular this year. This is not the usual carnival food--no, here you find crepes next to African dishes next to northwest salmon. Most everything was vegetarian, though. This is Seattle.

My favorite activities at Folklife can be done simultaneously. Just noticing the people there fills me with delight. They gather in clusters around the musicians positioned every ten feet or so. As the viewers smile, tap their feet, or grope for a few coins to throw in a hard-shell instrument case, they become part of the show. Nearby, a young woman who made herself into a wings-to-toe white-clad fairy stands motionless on a pedestal until someone drops coins in her box--at which time she startles all with a series of jiggles.

From jiggles to juggles, as an astounding foursome combines acrobatics with flinging pins, swords and flaming batons, bringing oohs and ahhs from an impressed crowd. Face painters, henna-appliers, and balloon-animal creators all captivate children and their delighted parents. The International Fountain is ringed by hundreds of people, each one an observable and fascinating sight. So I combine my fun--watching people, listening to performers and--photographing it all, very subtly.

Life is always a show, but here at the Folklife festival, everyone feels freer and more joyful about making his or her own two feet of space on this earth into a stage.

Kodak Moments

Just got a new camera. An upgrade of my old one, a Kodak...new one has twelve times optical zoom, image stablization, manual focus. I don't think I'm the only one in the world for whom taking photos is important--just look at the proliferation of photo upload sites, sharing sites, image manipulation software, printing options. Photos have become something different from what they were--when I was a kid, my dad loved taking slides but very rarely he'd spend the time sorting them into slide trays, setting up a screen and projector and putting on a show. So rarely, I have only vague remembrance of maybe one.
What that meant was that my childhood is largely just a shadow. I don't have any visualization of myself in, say, first grade. Or second grade, or third. There must be photos of me--or slides, somewhere in the collection of stuff my sister sent me from clearing out my parents' garage after their passing. But where? How do I sort through everything, or use the gadgets I bought for digitalizing what I find? I have a old few photos...I have one on my desk, with my mother standing in a pool, holding me in the water...my face looking down, mostly the view of a helmet of brown hair. I look to be about five or six.
Who was that person? I can't remember those days; where I was, how I really felt. But if I had photos to bring back those moments, I could recapture my childhood, and the relationships that formed me.
And that is why I am a fanatic about photography. I want to capture, to freeze-frame, the moments of my life. To document, to preserve. I don't want my children to grow up, leaving me only shadows of their lives, and I don't want them to find themselves like me, feeling warm and nostalgic and yet only having some fuzzy intangible, a few distorted scene fragments, to cling to. I want to remember especially my children, my moments with them, my youth, my time of health and energy, because I don't want to let it go.
And yet...when I see my photos of years ago, the small children who reached for me, who craved me and who cried when I left them with caretakers, I am sad. Where are those children? I felt at the time that no mother could feel closer to her children, could have a more solid, indestructible bond, than I did with each of them. But, I was deceived. Each one grew, each one took a different direction, and needed me less and less, until now, viewing those toddler times does not bring joy in the past experience, but sadness in the loss of it.
I still take photos. I can't help it, because I still want to capture my life, to keep it from moving on. But more and more, I find myself an observer, capturing my surroundings for others. I take photos at a friend's wedding, documenting her moments of happiness. I take photos of visitors, delighting in viewing our city through fresh eyes. I take photos of trees and flowers and sunrises, because they are beautiful, and I want to remember their beauty, and yet, they mean little ultimately because, after all, I can always download beautiful trees, flowers and sunrises from the Internet. They may not be the flowers in my yard, or the azaleas at my park this springtime, but who can tell?
So far, I'm thrilled with my new camera. I'm in its learning curve, but eager to fill up another 2-gig photo card, download my pictures, and perfect each one with my software. Still, I see that at this late time of life, I can't take photos of my babies; there won't be more snuggles with my children eager to cuddle Mommy, and while I'm proud of what each of my children has become and hopeful about what each will accomplish, it's just not the same.
Still, my life is much more vivid because of my photos. With digital, I relive happy moments each time my screen saver slide-show kicks in. Sometimes I delay going out just to see a few more images on my screen, just to enjoy the colors, the composition, the recollections even of the last three years since I got a digital camera. Because of these innovations, I get far more pleasure out of my photography than I ever have. And that is something that makes me happy--admiring the world a second time; being brought to places and people and joy in a way unlike any other, because when triggered by a photo, I am there again. The people at my son's bar mitzvah. A day at the beach with a city backdrop. An array of hydrangeas excited to bring summer
There's a downside and an upside to photos, but on balance, it's better to savor and capture life than to let it fade. Now, if I can just get my children to be less weary of posing....