No smoke coming through the screen or the keyboard, just evidence of smoke in green circles turning to yellow, then orange and finally red, on the AIR NOW page or my cellphone. Red—like the sun has been lately. full orange moon. Outside we are mostly in a barbecue setting, and I have two #95 masks I wear at the same time, as I had lung problems not so long ago and like to take an hour outside walk.
How do we cope with knowing that nearby beautiful trees and hillsides and small animals have flames and hot air all around? I don’t know. I feel gratitude from time to time. I am grateful for my life. I have been cooking blueberry cobbler and writing. I move the air purifier machine from room to room, and sing on Zoom with my husband, Shabda. Here is a poem to share.
Fire Flowers by Emily Pauline Johnson
[Tekahionwake—her native America name]
And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.
And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again
This poet had an English mother and her father was a Mohawk chief. They lived in Ontario. She was born in 1861. What kind of life would that have been?
May you who are reading this have full breath, a comfortable house to live in, food on the table and friends to give support when you need it.
Here are some walking pics to make a record of this strange masked time.
July eleven has that special ring to it with the sound of Solomon’s laugh and the twinkle in his eye. Just when I feel he is far away, something happens to remind me—and same for many of his friends—that he is ever nearby. This year I took a pair of his laced shoes to Nicole’s house to celebrate his day of passing 8 years ago. After dinner I went to the Unitarian Church on Franklin in SF for the second part of the Ram Das memorial. After admiring my friend Trudy’s sparkly black lace-up shoes, I was gifted with them. Hmmmm,
Solomon, Shabda and Terry in India 1999
poster from the gig in India
Let’s say you were asking me ♦ What’s up? ♦ I’ll write you back here and now.
Subhana Ansari cultivates beautiful “Day Lillies.” 
said yes.
Abdal-Hayy Moore and me at our poetry reading
Ahamed Granoff, Khalifa Abul Fathi, and Sheikh Tijani
January 30
Django and Solomon are cousins born exactly 4 months apart – 11/11/77 and 7/11/77
Cousin Runni or Rah Vermel
A favorite evening was time Solomon was voted to be the top DJ at the Black and White Ball. Here he is in front of City Hall in San Francisco. A dance party in every sense of the word—on Van Ness Avenue.
The years go by…..None shows the time better than two pictures of Oona, Solomon’s niece, back when she was 3, with the red balloon, now going on 9 years.
Lloyd Lewis House 1939, Libertyville, Il.
The Pitkin House on Sapper Island designed very early when Wright was still an apprentice
Actress Island next to our house. Sapper Island to the left behind Picture Island, Desbarats, Ontario
In 1957, Marilyn Monroe contacted Frank Lloyd Wright about building a home for her and her husband Arthur Miller in Roxbury, Connecticut. Wright expanded the original plans for Crownfield, complete with movie theater, pool, and nursery for the children Miller and Monroe planned to have. But the marriage did not last and Wright died shortly after, leaving the unfinished plans archived…. Until it was developed and completed in 1993. The place became the King Kamehameha Golf Course Clubhouse in 2006. There was a coziness and joy I felt moving inside another Wright creation, seeing how he framed the view from the West Maui Mountains, the slope of the floor.
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