Christmas 2012

The noble was our tallest ever; the price tag came with 3 lumberjacks & a chainsaw.

Really friendly guys who loved chatting, eating croissants, having moved out here for the surf. 

Last year was our Swiss break, so it was great to rediscover all the ornaments and retrace things - the memory tree. Jack's "panic" 2 years back - all the ornaments predated him - was gone, as he took ownership;

ie loves the bell, as did Michael before him, driving us crazy anew.

 

 We also put on a "tea" again, loading the table with familiar starters and clementines. We only wish there was a way to include more guests without sacrificing atmosphere. With 2 fireplaces, the house now feels very homey and we love spending time here.
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Beacon Hill's Christmas program reflected the school's growth - 100 plus - thus a bit tedious, but community strength nonetheless.

Our new digs has superior facilities and hosts events less awkwardly, although I hope it never loses its homespun quality.

Michael turns on a metro/flaneur quality at these events, donning jacket and tie, being scheduled to narrate a story about Martin Luther, the songsmith.

Headmaster Smith - preacher at heart - delivered the word.

 

I am struck at how key persons are to any human endeavor, different mix of characters bringing out new qualities; the "live" aspect of working together and sharing ideas & work changes everything. Denny makes a big difference.

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Our church is small with struggles, but shines during Advent & its many events: caroling, gift exchange, offering of song & poetry to God & one another, weekly vespers, Lessons & Carol Service, and Christmas morning.

Jack explaining "Stomp Rocket" to Evan.

Sidenote: never in my life have I seen quails, but they love this corner near the pond in back. Unlike the suburban wasteland of my childhood, the high desert valleys we've made home in recent years are friendly to local "wildlife," coyotes & reported rattlesnakes.  

On to northern CA for family yuletide. Merry Christmas!

Secret Agent Michael

We finally celebrated Michael's 10th birthday with a secret agent party, while fighting rain - the first time the icing didn't struggle with SoCal fall temps - holding much of it indoors.

 Carolyn delivered again with a party capturing these boys' imagination. A laser beam obstacle course was an initiation rite,

ending with an ambitious scavenger hunt, complete with bomb deactivation

& party favor mug shots.

 We were a bit nervous with the energy level, but had great assistance from Elle, who has been through every one of these events: Indiana Jones, Narnia, Charlie Brown, Safari.

Closer to the actual day, Carolyn baked marshmallow-iced cupcakes for school.

 

We noticed a stronger sense of community with church and school circles overlapping, creating a peer identity;although the brothers' bond is, as others often comment, amazingly strong.

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Speaking of community bonds, GRC began an Awana-style, shared teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism for children & adults, creating a more active investment in one another. The famous summation, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," perhaps, reflecting a later formulation, the distilling of a tradition borne of struggle and centuries of getting it right. Certain reformed thinkers are now refining the "enjoy" part - ie, what happened to it - even as the Reformation nearly vanishes from the larger culture's memory.

For us, not so much a definite place, rather than a definite idea of place, seems to comprise a concentric pattern of church, school, family, & friends, threading together an intentional identity.

Furusato: Terminal Island, BHCA

Furusato ("homeland"), a powerful, nostalgic term from the 1930s - like patrie, heimat in France & Germany - gives a sense of belonging, tying culture to place and was dangerously identified with race. It is also the name of a video documentary about the pre-war Japanese community on Terminal Island in San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles.

A thriving ghetto of canneries, abalone fishermen, schools, churches, the island posed an economic threat to competitors who were all too glad the community ended with the internment order in 1941, following Pearl Harbor. 

Almost all physical traces gone - buildings razed - the living survivors rallied to establish a memorial whose 10 year anniversary we attended.

My father was born on the island, returning to the village of Tanami, Japan when 3, until 17, when he returned Stateside to attend Redondo Beach High.  Like Sicily's dominant showing of Italians to New York, Wakayama Prefecture represented 40% of the island, their dialect prevailing.

I am attached to the idea of Tanami, whose immigrants  crisscrossed SoCal for annual picnics, carnivals, and company dinners; a tie I never understood until  the death of my father, when our living room filled with persons dressed in black. All the weathered faces I suddenly recognized as  "villagers," who had come to mourn one of their own.

After the ceremony, we cross the Vincent Thomas Bridge to Long Beach to visit my cousin's family in Seal Beach. Patty, another cousin, dropped in and we had a rare afternoon of reconnecting, swapping stories.  Turns out another Tanami figure - Jim Yabe - who'd lived down our street in Gardena, became prominent in the martial arts world of karate & kendo (swordfighting) and gave Luke Skywalker lessons on using the lightsaber!

 

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Elle & Carolyn hanging an origami mobile for

Parent's Night at Beacon Hill. Carolyn is teaching art in Elle's homeroom class.

  The hobby of my childhood has turned into an international phenomenon and, for some, a key to the mathematical structure of the world, explored in the film, Between the Folds.

Beauty, art, and mathematics - the formal nature of aesthetic principles - is readily demonstrated in David Stephanson's study of gothic cathedrals, Heavenly Vaults:Contrasting with modern notions of art as equated with expressivity - or even therapy - the premodern held it as pattern to be discovered, explored, exalted; the mind of God, if you will.  A structure you encountered rather than an emotion to be channeled, this would seem opposite to contemporary notions of worship & art - the affirmation of the everyday world of the self - so popular these days.

In my dreams, the children & parents of Beacon Hill will be able to enter these spaces, connecting their learning with actual geography and architectural space. 

These Camarillo children, along with church, comprise Michael & Jack's community - an intentional one we cobble together more-or-less bereft of natural family ties; admittedly, a project we engage in, as well.

Now

Left Lausanne July 10, but went up to Whidbey Island, returning to a friend's guesthouse in 1000 Oaks, finally moving in mid-August, our first unfurnished rental.

All to say, I share newly uploaded, but older pictures without chronology. The left is "Big Jack," a Lausanner and excellent skier who skied with Michael all day while we stayed far behind with Jack. A fondue at a former Alpine "refuge" ("mountain hut") with Effy, our Tacoma guest, behind the camera. The refuge system in Europe is extensive and affords basic lodging and food - hearty bowl of soup - for mountain hikers.

Effy is a professional, this summer handing us a CD inventory of her Swiss pics.

Love these jackets Carolyn found.

 
On to Whidbey: dungeness crab freshly trapped by a friendly neighbor - sorry to say that all that shelling wasn't our speed, but made for fabulous crab/artichoke dip. My heart sank when he offered more a few days later though.

TWO eagles out in back - a first.

 

Our favorite hike along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where you can see cruise ships, Trident subs, sea lions.

Joined this year by the Bonds.

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Michael loves to draw, joined by Jack's moon.

Makoto Fujimura offered an intriguing interpretation of Starry Night at Biola's 2012 commencement, analyzing Van Gogh's situating of a Dutch reformed church from his youth in the south of France. The only structure without light, out-of-place, in pale contrast to a glorious creation enlivened by the Spirit of God - a transformed creation - thus the phantasmal Sun-Moon in a pulsing, vivid sky.