Okay, it is time to check in and consider opening up this blog.  I am sitting outside on my back porch or catio as the 2024 solar eclipse is happening.  It is a pretty cool event and we have UA solar glasses for it.  I do need to restart my writing, somehow, and maybe, this is the way?  

Checking in

 I asked this question almost a year ago:  should I continue this blog?  I guess I am asking again just to prove to whomever sees this, I am still alive and writing, sometimes.  My focus is mostly my Nature Journal and Free Time/UA Poetry Program.  So write me at anitafonte@gmail.com  if you want to encourage me to keep writing.  Or just to check in an let me know how you are doing!!

New Beginnings?

 It’s another year (2023), and reconsidering if and when to restart this blog. Knock, knock: does anyone out there think I should?  You can let me know via email: anitafonte@gmail.com

Considering forward

 Not sure if I want to restart these blogs since my serious health diagnosis in June, 2019. Part of my caution is I am not clear if anyone reads my blogs.

If you are a reader, will you respond on my FB page, Anita C. Fonte? Just tell me if my writing matters to you in a few simple words.

ending

Is this this the end of my blog?  Time will tell, but, for the time being, I am closing the book.

An autumn album

I love this season, it's textures, colors, scents and changing light.  Enjoy these images from Madera Canyon

My front window

In this week's Writer's Digest Prompts, the suggestion is to write (daily) about a specific subject that allows me to observe and be introspective.  It's based on Mary Ruefle's essay "My Search Among the Birds". 

I love to look at birds, too.  Most times I watch them while I am at breakfast, looking out my patio window.  But I woke up at 6 a.m. today and saw dawn creep across the western horizon as I look out my front window.  Feng Shui suggests my desk face away from the window, toward a door, but I like to sit and watch the birds around the bird feeder, so I ignore that suggestion.

It's so early (and so cold in February--winter has finally come to the Sonoran desert) that the birds are not out yet.  So what I do see are a few cars rolling by and the color of soft pink lighting the sky. 

The mesquite trees are stilled in their winter dark shadows.  There is no wind so my sunburst chimes hang with no movement, no sound. 

I am not an early riser by nature.  But these past few days I  have had nervous energy at odd times of the day and evening and so here I am.  Not quite ready to face the day, but facing the dawn seems to be a safe place to begin.

What's funny about Clouseau?

I am catching a Turner Classic Movie Channel viewing of "Shot Before Dark", one of the first Petr Sellars/Inspector Clouseau/Pink Panther movies.

What's funny about Clouseau?  His accent, his deadpan looks with rolling eyes, the hat and trench coat, with hand tucked into the coat pockets? The slapstick moves and sight gags?  Preposterous plots?  Inconcongruous pairing of Clouseau with a beautiful woman?

You tell me your favorite comedic element.  I like them all.

I don't laugh easily, but when I can catch some slow time with Inspector Clouseau, I make the date.

900 years ago

Two pit houses, Walnut Creek National Monument, near Flagstaff, Arizona,  photo by anita c. fonte 7.4.17

I am awed by the reminders of how short a life span we have, how our time on earth, and in this land is brief.  Maybe we leave behind a few rocks to say "we lived here," or a poem, or a painting.  But all things eventually are worn down by time, and that humbles me, brings me to appreciate this moment, now.

Creative Clutter

Clutter has been criticized for being a messy collection of things that should be reordered, discarded, or avoided.  But I am arguing that clutter can be creative, too.  Having a collection of things that are bound together by a creative urge, idea or practice can be a stimulus to create.  At least, that works for me these days.  Walking the World by Julia Cameron and Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey led me to shop for small blocks of cloth, needles and pins so I can start a small hand sewing project.

What do you think?  Can creative clutter be a "push" for you to create something new? If yes, send me a photo and brief description of your creative clutter. and I will share it on my blog.

The Creative Lives of my Mom and Dad

For most of my life I have not thought of my parents as creative people. Children of the Depression Era, they both worked hard in and out of the home.  But, as I reread Julia Cameron's book, Walking in This World..., I have come to understand a broader definition of being an artist.

My dad, while still in high school, made this cabinet.  First, for his mother, and then it became his wife's sewing cabinet.  The top drawer is still full of her sewing tools and the side shelves used to be full of patterns.  I recall her putting patterns for ballet costumes, dresses, and aprons into those shelves, the tissue paper rustling within the McCall's envelopes.

play ball

Summer can be, and is, a tough season for those of us who live in the Sonoran desert.  I have found one way to beat the heat is to follow the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball games on tv, in the comfort of my living room with good air conditioning, and, once or twice a season, I see them live at Chase Field. (I used to be a White Sox fan, but only check them out in the newspaper now, having left the Chicago area years ago).

My love of baseball started early with my dad tossing me the ball in our backyard on McClure Ave. in Elgin, and listening to the games broadcast on the radio.  He had a white and red transistor radio that now sits on a shelf in my husband's office, and it still works in a scratchy sound kind of way.  Once a year in the summer, Dad took my sister and me into Comisky Park.  I think, at some point, she stopped going, but I continued into my early teens.  It was a rare way for me and my dad to have a good time together and I cherish those memories.

Ralph Fonte, a White Sox Fan, two weeks before he died, 8/14

In my thirties, baseball became a conversation point that I had with Henry Kissinger.  Yes, I met the former Secretary of State at the LBJ Library and Ranch when I worked with the Kettering Foundation.  We talked about baseball as a way to find common ground on the issue of National Security which he and I definitely did not agree on in any way.  Years later, when Kissinger came to Tucson as part of a community forum, he crossed the yard at the resort, with local security tagging behind, and said, "Oh, my little activist!"  Then he proceeded to tell me how our baseball conversation earlier (he hadn't understood the game), eventually led him to have box seats at New York Yankee Stadium.

I don't pretend to be a political guru from that experience, but, as demonstrated at the recent moment of  a "coming together" baseball game between Congressional Democrats and Republicans, playing baseball, talking about baseball, watching baseball can move the needle enough to create space to share our uniquely American sport--between political parties, a liberal activist and Secretary of State, and a dad and his daughter.

On line coloring by Anita C. Fonte

update summer 2017

Keep watching this site. It will be updated soon to reflect my renewed creative and, yes, slow life.

Words and Phrases of my Life for 2016

(partial response to the poetry prompt from Poets & Writers, 11/17/16)—a. fonte

Sports:  Cubs win, Olympics in Rio are a bust.

Politics:  Bernie’s tufts of white hair, Hillary’s white pantsuits, Trump’s “Make America White Again”.

Home:  New carpet is a mottled cloud, Gray (the cat) helps us play quiet, neighbors come and go, wave their hands, avoid making eye contact while dead palm tree fronds clutter the pool.

Work:  Stuck in second gear.  Like a kid struggling to ride a bicycle, I fall off TENWEST, pick myself up with TEDx, bump into BuildUP^, and coast through do happy today.

Writing:  Stuck in second gear.  Poetry is my harbor; fiction is my reading compass; non-fiction is my bread and butter.  Blogs are bittersweet.

Travel:  Too brief a time in Maui where the water is warm, the sand pillows around my toes and wind blows flower petals across my eyes. I learn hula and let go of my hips, eat homemade granola for breakfast, and am delightfully dampened by mist at a luau.  My husband and son learn to play together again.

Remembering Aunt Mollie

Today is the funeral for my Aunt Mollie, formally named Mollie P. Ianno. Her maiden name was Fonte and she was my dad's eldest sister. Actually, her name was Mary Pauline Fonte, but her mother was also named Mary so, she became "Mollie." Mollie took care of my dad and her other seven siblings as well as she could in a large and poor Italian home. She spoke often about how my dad was a "good boy" and had a tough tone to her description of three other siblings.

She was tiny.  Like a hobbit.  In 1967, I remember visiting her when I was eighteen and she danced the tarentellla for me in her Arcadia, California kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the windows and bounced off the white porcelain sink as she twirled with a sharp tomato-cutting knife in her hands. Her husband, Frank, made fresh pasta.  He loved to drive his car on the wide streets.  His belly rubbed behind the steering wheel as he chauffered me to see Blue Boy at the Huntington Library and Museum.  My cousins, Chuckie and Frankie, took me to my first trip to Disneyland.  I don't remember any details from that drive or visit, except the speed of the freeway with convertibles flying past us like noisy blue jays. Jeannie was married and out of the house then with her own growing family of three, but we have bonded since she became Aunt Mollie's companion and caregiver.

Many visits to California to see my auntie since then. First in Hemet where Aunt Mollie had Christmas cactus on each windowsill in their sun room. For twenty years the one she gave me flourished in my bathroom, but this Spring, as her 102 year old body finally began failing, the cactus also began to shrink.  Still struggling to survive, it's on my shaded patio, returning full circle to its place in the sun.  Later, my husband and I visited her in Fountain Valley where she was the little queen in Jeannie's home, celebrating her 100th birthday under the magnolia tree with friends and family.

After my dad died in 2014, Aunt Mollie was my last link to him and to the childhood stories about Dad that gave me insight into his adult behaviors. Her stories, no doubt embellished with the love of a big sister and adjusted memory of an old woman, helped me forgive him for his many faults and helped me appreciate the deprivation that drove his demons.  My dad always saw the cup as "half empty" or nearly so.  Aunt Mollie always saw the cup as "half full" or full to overflowing.

She's gone now, too.  Buried today in Calfornia...where the dreamin' for some, still goes on.

photo of Aunt Mollie at the Ted DeGrazia Chapel altar

My tiny tribute poem reads:

Becoming Mollie

she lived for ten+ decades with

an orange tree's deep roots.

My favorite TV Dad (response to Poets & Writers non-fiction Time is Now: Week 25)

I had a challenging relationship with my dad while I was growing up and even into my early adulthood.  Two strong personalities, Italian-heritage, and I understand now, he struggled with PTSD from World War II and growing up in an alcoholic Italian home.

So television in our household became a refuge from reality and, as I respond to this prompt, Danny Thomas from the Danny Thomas show popped into my mind as my favorite TV dad.  As I remember Danny he was funny and urban (they lived in an upscale yet still modest apartment) in NYC.  He had funny friends such as Hans Conrad and a wife who wore dresses with a white ruffled slip.  She always wore high heels, too.  Was she called Margorie or Margaret?  That I don't remember.

But I clearly remember Rusty and Linda and the fondness Danny would show for them even amidst their escapades and mild misbehaviors.  I couldn't imagine Danny taking a wooden painting stick and spank Linda or shake Rusty's shoulders until Rusty's head hurt.  No, Danny wouldn't do that.

My least favorite--although the prompt doesn't ask me to name one--was Ozzie Nelson.  I thought he was boring and stupid.  He wasn't funny and I couldn't understand how he could have two cool sons, especially Ricky. And tho David was less cute he was smart--smarter than his dad.  Maybe that was the point: two boys, and often the mom, Harriet, could always outsmart Ozzie.

Interesting times to grow up in and reflect upon as Father's Day approaches.

And I will not end on a sour note about my dad. He did the best he could under the circumstances of the 1950s.  He worked hard all his life, often in two jobs, with an education six weeks short of high school thanks to his dad who yanked him into the landscaping business rather than let him graduate. If he had that high school diploma, even after the war, I can imagine him using the GI Bill to better his life and the life of his family.

But even without that diploma, dad (and mom who also worked--a rarity for her generation) left his life with more than a wheelbarrow (the sole legacy of his father).  After a near death experience two months before his actual death in August 2014, his first questions to Mark and me were:  Did the mail come? Did I get my Social Security check?

I can't imagine Danny Thomas or Ozzie Nelson asking that question. Sometimes reality outplays fiction.

Signpost

image by Life is Good

(response to prompt from Poets & Writers Week 21)

It's been almost a year since I have added to this blog.  Of course, such a time lapse is a "no-no" in the blog world.  But most of my writings have gone to http://anitawritesforyou.blogspot.com .

However, today's write is about looking for markers, signposts, markers that guide me on my own spiritual path.  And I feel I am at another crossroads where the signpost (above) is significant.

For almost three years, I have been diligently working to become more optimistic.  I read today that optimism is moral courage.  And, also today, by David Brooks in the NY Times, the concept of "big love."  I have big love for my community of Tucson and affection for S. Arizona from my work years ago with the Arizona Community Foundation and UA Cooperative Extension.  My work since 2012 (leaving the paid community work because I felt it wasn't authentic and didn't inspire my loyalty nor affection) has been on generating positivity through Do Happy Today.  All good.

But, on a deeper level, I am searching for something more.  A month ago, I made a small emotional and financial commitment to join a two year spiritual group in the fall.  But my initial interview, a couple of weeks ago, stirred up anxiety about that commitment.  I felt trapped in a space and, literally, found it hard to breath in the living room where the interview took place.

Was it the room itself (too warm and stuffed with clothes hanging on movable closet racks, books, scattered on chairs, tables)?  Or were the questions and suggestions becoming barriers, not dooways, to my spiritual growth?

I still don't know.  I am waiting for a few more markers to show me the way.  But, for today, I will consider this marker: the yellow tape stretched across our neighborhood roads as they are being surfaced. The yellow tape won't be stopping our traffic forever.  It will be gone in two days with smoother roads to take us in and out.

So, perhaps there is yellow tape on my spiritual road right now.  I do have faith that, when the time is right, I will find my way.

The way I remember the 4th of July in the midwest.

Always on the 4th of July there was a picnic, even if the clouds were building for a summer rain, and sometimes we did two picnics over the weekend. 

The Fontes met at Wing Park in Elgin, Illinois or Trout Park and the men gathered to drink beer and poker while we played on the hills or at the playground.  If we were at Wing Park, my dad and uncles would throw horseshoes before and after a meal of fried chicken (my mom's fried in bacon grease), lasagna and other pastas (my aunts'), cookies and cakes and a tossed in olive oil and red vinegar salad of tomatoes, iceberg lettuce and cucumbers. 

The Dice family would gather at my grandparents' farm.  Grandmother made potato salad, spiced with mustard and fresh rolls for sandwiches (usually ham that she also baked).  There might be pies (cherry or rhubarb my mom would provide), deviled eggs (from relatives driving over from Indiana), and the piece de resistance would be hand cranked ice cream, guided by the strong arms of my granddad.

At the farm, we could have sparklers as the sun set and would write our names in the dark and catch fireflies in a jar--usually released as we would drive out of the gravel road from their house and head to Wing Park for the fireworks.

There, we would sit on worn cotton sheets and try to catch the burning pieces of fireworks' papers as they drifted down from the sky.  Tired on the way home (we often walked to avoid the parking) and cranky from the end of the day thrills and maybe fussy from mosquito bites, Mom would sponge bath me and my sister before we put on our seersucker pajamas and slipped into bed with a book.

As I got older, my 4th of July days started with marching in the summer band parade down the streets of Elgin and/or playing at the band concert that night at the Wing Park Bandshell.  By that time, spending fireworks with my boyfriend Steve became the thing to do at night and now I wonder how my parents felt as I pushed away from their rituals.  I never skipped the family picnic, though, and that's the part I tried to continue as I married and Mark and I became parents.

So here I am today, definitely an empty nester with my only baby bird working each holiday as a chef, cooking for others so that they can enjoy bbq without the hassle and hurry of doing it themselves.  It's not the same, but we have to adjust as we age and let go of the details of the holiday, holding on to the memories and to the essence of the meaning of "pursuit of happiness."  Which is not about hot dogs, beer, even music and patriotic words. Rather it is about the original/Greek (how ironic with Greece in such an economic turmoil today) meaning of "happiness"--not individualistic pursuit of pleasure, but of the shared experience of community.

On that note, we (my hubby and I) are off to a community lunch at our occasional Methodist Church (a holdover and tribute to my maternal Methodist upbringing), followed by "big Methodist music" of the popular, patriotic type.  I will make time to see our son and give him a heartfelt hug as he wraps up his long day in the kitchen and be grateful for the memories of his youth...and mine.

After the rain today

It's been a long time since I posted on this site and I guess it's because I didn't feel my life was "slow."  Just this summer I realize how much of the last year I was spending time with my dad and supporting my husband in care of his dad.

With both dads passing (August, 2014, my dad; November, 2014, Mark's dad) and finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with financial details for both, Mark and I are just now beginning to feel the pace shift down a bit.

This last Monday we resumed our "mountain Monday" practice we tried to maintain since his early retirement and the day trip to Mt. Lemmon was lovely.  In the next few weeks, longer local trips are planned.  So yes, life is slowing down a bit.

After today's rain, it cooled enough for us to eat on the patio and then I picked off dead leaves from my spider plants.  Pretty sunset tonight and even comfortable enough for a walk on Mountain Ave.  Life is good at this moment.

hot day

Tried to post this quickie about a hot day that ended on a warm porch.