Silver Valley History: Hiking the Pulaski Trail

Four years ago Paul and I were involved in the 100 year commemoration of the 1910 fire in the town of Wallace.

As part of that summer, we were tour guides on the 1910 Fire Tours.  Paul portrayed Ed Pulaski, and I portrayed his wife, Emma Pulaski.  We would take people on the tour up to the Pulaski Trail trailhead, and walk along the part of the trail that was paved.  Ever since then I have wanted to hike the Pulaski Trail.

I had hiked it one other time, during the spring of 2010.  But I don't think I got the full advantage of the experience.  It was with my friend Marian, and a group of students from Mullan.  It was pouring down rain for the majority of the hike that day, so I didn't really see a whole lot of the trail coming up or coming down.

Today I finally got to hike to the top of the trail and back down, and take full advantage of the hike, looking at the interpretive signs along the way, and taking photographs of the beautiful scenery.

My friend April #1 joined me on the hike.  As April has confessed many times, she is really not really into "nature", and between me and her husband and son, she has experienced quite a bit of nature in the last few months.

But April is a trooper, and we hiked the four mile round trip trail to the Pulaski Tunnel site and back.  Fortunately the temperature cooled down today, but the sky was still hazy from fires in Washington state.  But I felt like this was quite fitting for our hike up the trail learning about the 1910 fire.

Here are some images of our day.

 

Here April is at the start of the trail.  The tools on either side are called Pulaski's.  Ed Pulaski designed them and used them when he worked for the Forest Service.

 

Along the way, there are many interpretive signs that tell about Ed Pulaski, his story, and information about the 1910 fire.  They are all very interesting.

 

 

Other signs point you in the right direction.

 

 

This points to some old mining equipment still up on the trail.

 This is a plaque remembering the men who died in Pulaski's crew.

There are many snags along the trail that are charred and are remnants of the 1910 fire. 

Here is one they singled out.

 

As you hike along the trail, there are markers every quarter mile to show you your progress.

 

Here we are at the top....we made it!!!

 

When you reach the top, you look across the creek to the Pulaski Tunnel. Ed Pulaski took his men and led them to this tunnel and saved them during the fire.

 

 

The trail follows Placer Creek, and there is some beautiful scenery along the way.

 

There were wildflowers along the trail, including the beautiful state flower, the white Syringa.

 

 

 

There were many benches along the way to stop and rest if needed.



 

 

The hazy sky.

 

 

Along the path.

When we reached the end, we were greeted by Isadora, this beautiful half black lab/half greyhound dog that belongs to my friend Rhonda.  April and I fell in love with this dog.

 



You hike about 800 feet from the trailhead to the Overlook Loop.  There are a couple of steep places, but nothing too difficult.  We both enjoyed the level of difficulty of the trail, and the beauty of our surroundings.  It took us about 2 hours to get from the trailhead to the top, with stops for taking photos and resting.  It took us about one hour to come back down.

 

If you want to find out more about the Pulaski Trail, you can visit this website here.

 

Orofino, Idaho

Growing up, I knew one family vacation destination.....Orofino, Idaho.

Every summer our family would travel to Orofino to visit my Grandma West, and my aunts, uncles and cousins.

Mom graduating from Orofino High School

My mother grew up in Orofino.  And, since she was a teacher, she had the summers off, and Dad would take a week off from work, and we would pile in the car and drive the curvy road to Orofino.

Mom was the Queen of the Clearwater County Fair.

It was a ritual with our family.  That was our family vacation.

I have a memory of going to the site where Dworshak Dam now towers over the Clearwater River, before the dam was there.  If my memory serves me right, there was a visitor's center that showed you what the dam was going to look like, and where you were standing looking at this map under glass, it said on it that this site would be under water.  I remember seeing big machinery moving dirt.  I would have been pretty young to have this memory, but I do have a memory of this.

As I grew older, you always new you were getting close to Orofino because you saw the dam rising above the river up in the hills.

The majority of my time was spent at grandma's house.  One thing I love about being at grandma's house was she had a piano.  I would spend hours playing on the piano.  The piano was actually my mother's piano, but Grandma had the piano because Mom always said she kept it in Orofino because there was no where to put it at our house in Kellogg.  I learned to play Chopsticks with both hands on that piano, as well as Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater, and various other tunes.  How I longed to have that piano at our house when I was growing up.  But, later in life I got my wish, because it now sits in my living room here in Kellogg.

One of my earliest photographs of me taken in Grandma West's house.

Grandma always had flowers and a vegetable garden.  I remember going out to her vegetable garden and her dirt always had a very distinctive smell.  It was very dark in color, and boy could she grow vegetables.  I'm fortunate that both my grandmothers loved gardening, and I know continue to carry on the tradition.

We knew the neighbors on either side of my grandma's house.  The Stanleys were one one side, and the Erbs were on the other side.  The Stanleys had a daughter close to my sister's age.  I remember tagging along with her sometimes to go visit at the Stanley house.  They had a big curved staircase in their house with big wooden bannisters.  One time in particular I remember being up in the bedroom with my sister and her friend, and they were playing the song "Sealed With A Kiss".  Funny the things that stick in your mind.

The Erbs on the other side were very nice people, too.  They had a son John who was older than my brother and sister, and it seemed like I remember he was always lifting weights.  Norm, the dad, was in a wheelchair because he was missing a leg.  He ran a bar downtown that my dad came and worked at one summer when the Bunker Hill was on strike.  Norm was always very friendly and kind.  Mrs. Erbs was always very nice, too.

One night when I was about nine or ten, I was standing out on the porch, because Mom was going to take me to someone else's house to sleep that night.  As I was standing on Grandma's porch, a bug flew in my ear.  They had to take me to the Emergency Room to get it flushed out.  It was not a pleasant experience, but I do remember the doctor being very nice.

My Uncle Bob and Auntie Ronnie owned a business in town called West's Gun and Tackle Shop.  Uncle Bob was my mom's brother.  One summer the let me work there during the week.  One of my main jobs was showing the fisherman the bait they were buying to make sure the worms and maggots were alive and squirming.  After working there for the week, I got to choose something out of the store as my payment.  I believe I chose swimming goggles.  I'm not sure how many days I actually worked there, but I look back on that time very fondly.

Auntie Ronnie and Auntie Lila

My mom's sister Lila also lived in Orofino.  We would often go down to her house for dinner while we were visiting.  We would eat in the side yard, and often partake of the delicious vegetables Lila grew in her garden.  She also had beautiful flowers in her yard.  Lila was married to Ted.  One thing I remember about Ted is he chewed Copenhagen, and was from Wisconsin and had an accent. 

Two of Lila's children lived in Orofino, my cousin Lura and my cousin John.  Lura and Lyle lived on Riverside, a part of town that was on the left side of the road as you headed out of town toward Lewiston.  They had two sons, Derrick and Mark, and they were a few years younger than me.  I remember once having a Slip and Slide at Lura and Lyle's house and playing on it with my cousins.  People always said Lura and I looked alike...which I always took as a big compliment!!

Grandma West surrounded by her grandchildren.  Front row, Christy, Grandma, Me.  Second Row, John, Judy, Bill Lura.  This is up at John's house.

My cousin John lived on the other end of town.  To get to his house, you had to drive past Auntie Lila's house, and through Konkolville.  Konkolville was an area where the Konkol Lumber Mill was located, and there was the Konkol's house that had a fountain in the front lawn with different colored lights shining on it.  There was also a motel in Konkolville.  John was married to Linda, and they had there kids, Paul, Matt and Summer.  When I was really young, I remember John was in the Army and I think he and Linda lived in Hawaii at one time, and they brought me back a little hula girl doll as a gift.  I still have that hula girl.  John was always so nice and always pleasant to be around.  His kids were younger than me, too.

The Clearwater River ran through the town of Orofino, and I remember almost every summer we would take a day and go to Zann's Beach.  It was a white sandy beach down past the turnoff to the golf course.  One summer, the summer I saw the movie "Jaws", I would not go into the water for fear a shark would attack me.

Lila also has a daughter Judy, who lives in Boise.  Her there daughters are all close to my age.  There was a few time, when I got older, more junior high age, that they would be visiting Orofino the same time we were there, so I got to hang out with them, too. 

There was a girl that lived on the street behind Grandma West's house that I did play with a few summers,  But then they moved to Lewiston.  When I was in junior high, she ended up being at one of our dances, because one of my classmates who had just moved to Kellogg from Lewiston, invited her to the dance.

Tonight as I sit in my backyard writing this, there is a smoky haze over our valley.  This also reminds me of Orofino.  It seemed like there was always a fire burning somewhere when we were there, and I remember the moon looking so big and red as it came up over the hills when we were driving home from someone's house in the evening. 

Growing up I think I grumbled a bit because we never got to go anywhere else for our vacation in the summer.  But now that I look back, what a wonderful ritual I got to be a part of by connecting with my mother's family at least once every year.  With the arrival of Facebook, my siblings and I have reconnected with most of our Orofino relatives and a couple of years ago had a family reunion in Orofino at my cousin Lura's house.  Many of the relatives were there, and it was nice to take the time to visit.

My Uncle Bob, my cousin Lura and her husband Lyle, and their son Mark are the only family that remains in Orofino.  Grandma West passed away the year Molly was born, then Uncle Ted, and Auntie Ronnie, then more recently my cousin John and my Auntie Lila. 

Hopefully there will be another Orofino reunion in the future (fondly named "Last Cousin Standing Hootenanny).  We all so enjoyed spending time with one another.

Even though I didn't grow up in Orofino, it has always been a part of me, because of those times we spent visiting Grandma West, our aunts, uncles, and cousins, and those times helped shape me into who I am today.

(I may have got some details wrong, so if any of my cousins or siblings want to clarify some things, please feel free!!)

Favorite Color

My favorite color changes.

At times it is red.

It has been blue many times.

Lately, my favorite color has been yellow.

As winter was turning to spring this year, I felt like my living room was dark and dreary.  I needed some color to brighten it up.

I needed yellow.

One place stated that the color yellow means this:

In the meanings of color in color psychology, yellow is the color of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice.

I like how this picture puts it:

One of the cheeriest flowers in my garden is the Moonbeam Coreopsis.

Paul does a Color Coding test with his students, and I have taken it many times.  My color is always Yellow, and it means:

Need to be noticed and have fun. They love life, social connections, and being positive and spontaneous.

Another favorite flower of mine is the Sunflower.  I think I will actually have some bloom in my garden this year.  This photo is of a field of sunflowers north of Spokane, Washington.

 

One of the first signs of spring is the happy daffodils.

 

Daffodils always remind of the William Wordsworth poem "Daffodils" that I had to memorize when I was in Mrs. Tregoning's sixth grade class.

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
                           And dances with the daffodils.                             

Happy Birthday Zoe

Well, Zoe turned 20 years old today.

She didn't celebrate her birthday in the typical fashion.

When asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, she replied, "I want us to all paint my bedroom."

So that is what happened today.

I fixed Zoe the breakfast she requested, scrambled eggs, huckleberry muffins and bacon.

Paul, Coco and Zoe cleaned the room out, and cleaned and prepped the walls for the paint job.



Before, with the yellow color, or scathingly yellow, as Zoe describes it.

Paul doing the work by the ceiling.

Sisters working together.
 

Second coat all done!!

This door is getting painted over!!

So as those three painted away, I fixed the requested birthday meal and cake, which consisted of Greek pizzas (with homemade pizza dough with some fresh herbs from the garden thrown in), a fruit salad with Honey Greek Yogurt, and a Huckleberry Cake.

Greek Pizza with olive oil, pesto, Kalamata Olives, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, feta cheese and Mozerella cheese.  Delicious!!

We all took a break from the festivities, so I could go to my Pottery Class, and Zoe could go out to Rose Lake and interview the women who sell their produce and flowers from Killarney Farms for an article for the Shoshone News Press.

When I got back from class, the bedroom had received a second coat, Zoe was cutting her sister Coco's hair, and Molly had arrived home.  On to the next phase of the birthday....(as if painting a bedroom and cutting her sister's hair weren't enough excitement for the day!!)

We had a few leftover fireworks from the Fourth of July, so we did some in the driveway.

July 15th Birthday Fireworks

Zoe requested we watch the movie "The Book Thief".  It was a beautiful movie that was very interesting.  I may have to read the book it was based on now.

Halfway through the movie we paused to light the candles and have some birthday cake....the Huckleberry Sour Cream Cake was a hit!!

That is one of the things I love about Zoe...she is not conventional...she is very unconventional.  She does her own thing.  She has wanted her bedroom painted for a very long time, so why not enlist your family members to help out on your birthday?

Quiet Times at the Redsun Labyrinth

About a month ago, I saw a list called "This Is The Most Spiritual Place In Your Home State" on the Huffington Post Religion twitter feed.  I was curious so I clicked on the link, and found where you can go through as, according to the author of the article Yasmine Hafiz, she chose certain places in all 50 states and D.C. as the most spiritual place.  If you are curious, the link is here.

As I was going through the list, I found that in Montana, there is the Redsun Labyrinth.  About the time I found out about this labyrinth, I was scheduling Artist Dates each week.  I thought this would be a perfect Artist Date.  To remind you...
The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore
something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly
“artistic” — think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the
imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the
play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well
of images and inspiration. When choosing an Artist Date, it is good to ask
yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it.

So last week, my friend April and I sojourned to Victor, Montana, about a two and a half hour drive from Kellogg, and found the Redsun Labyrinth.  I had to do a bit of research to find out what exactly one does in a labyrinth.  Once we arrived, we picked up a brochure, and here is some of the information from the brochure:

The twisting symbol of the labyrinth has been traced back over 4500 years.  It occurs in different cultures, at different points in time, in places as diverse as Peru, Arizona, Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, Crete, Egypt and India.  The design of the labyrinth symbol consists of a single meandering pathway that leads from the entrance to the center.  Throughout the world and throughout history, it has been carved on wood and rock faces, woven into the design on blankets and baskets, laid out on the ground in the desert and on shorelines, in colored stones or tiles on the floors of villas, churches, and cathedrals and cut into the living earth on village greens and hilltops.

The labyrinth-spiral in the Christian tradition came to represent a spiritual journey, the winding path of the soul through human life on a pilgrimage to the sacred center and union with the Divine.

I came to the labyrinth seeking God.  It is a time of prayer and meditation.  It is a patient, waiting time on what the Lord has to say to me. 

I am still processing my sojourn through the labyrinth.  As you stand inside the labyrinth, you gaze out at the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana.  As I looked out at the beautiful mountain range, this is some of what I wrote down:

"What bitter root do I have in me I need to let go?  What Do I need to release to make me love others more?  Search me, O Lord, and know my heart.  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Let go of things I don't need.  Bring in things I can use to make others loved.  That is my lesson from the Labyrinth today."

It was interesting sharing this time with a friend, because our experiences were so totally different.  She saw things in the labyrinth I did not see.  I saw things she did not see.  We focused on different things.  Our sojourn was together, yet we each took our own paths.  I think that is part of the beauty of this spiritual exercise.  To find our own path.



 As you walked along this path, there were signs with quotes on them.  As we started reading the signs, and looked  up and realized we had a greeter at the end of the path, perfectly framed in the archway.

The deer stayed a few minutes, then by the time we reached the archway, the deer was gone.  But it was a beautiful thing to be greeted by the deer.

 

Below are some of the quotes I liked that were on the path to the labyrinth.

 

Here I am entering the Redsun Labyrinth.

 

 Below is the labyrinth.

 You enter and start walking along the path until you reach the center.

 

After our time at the Labyrinth, we drove down to Victor, and sat at a picnic table and talked for a couple of hours about many things.

 

It was a rich, full day that "fed our creative work by replenishing our inner well

of images and inspiration." 

Just the kind of day we wanted it to be.....and more.

Vacation at Home: South Fork Riverwalk #2

I took another walk along the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River recently.  This time I went across Bunker Avenue and headed west on the south side of the river.

It took me about five minutes to walk to this trail.  The views of the river are very beautiful.  The banks of this river have changed so much since I was a kid.  There used to be just rocks along the river, no trees or vegetation whatsoever.  Now it is a very scenic walk along this beautiful river that flows through my hometown.



The beginning of the trail.

Signs at the start of the trail explaining the Ecosystem Restoration.

A Birdhouse on a pole.



Blue Wildflowers along the way.

Interstate 90 Bridge

Bench before I turned around.

The trail heading back.

View of Interstate 90.

River Beauty.

Who wouldn't want to walk along with trail with a view like this?

All this beauty, minutes from my front door.

Lavender

I love flowers.

There are many that rank at the top of my list.

But my favorite is lavender.

Maybe because you can do so many things with lavender.

I love the smell.  It is calming and relaxing.

You can dry lavender and cook, bake and make jelly with lavender.

You can do different crafts with dried lavender as well.

In the language of flowers, lavender flowers denote purity, silence, devotion and caution.

I also love the color of this flower.

I love walking by my lavender plants, and brushing my hands up against the plant, then my hands smell all lavendery. 

If you need some calm and peace in your life, I suggest you find some lavender and take in the fragrance.  It will make you feel much better.

Serve One Another in Love

Different songs have been coming to Paul's mind lately, and this morning he played one for me on You Tube.  This is a song he used to sing when we lived in Meridian.

The song is called "Serve One Another in Love".  Here is what is sounds like:

 

I like how The Message Bible interprets Galatians 5: 13-15, the verses that are the basis of this song.

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

This is so simple, but we make it so complicated.  Serve one another in love.  Love others as you love yourself.  But we get hurt.  Someone makes us mad.  We don't agree with someone.  Our pride is hurt.  Oh, I can go on and on why we don't love others as we love ourselves.  But even if we all TRIED, what a big difference it would make in our world. 

Serve on another, serve one another, serve on another in love.......



Landslide

This morning I was taking Coco to her job at McDonald's and the Fleetwood Mac song "Landslide" came on the radio, and the words to the song stuck with me all day long.

I know I have been talking about being at a crossroads in my life, and this song really spoke to me today.

Landslide

I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down

 

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
And can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

 

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older I'm getting older too
Yes I'm getting older too, so

 

I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I, I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too oh yes
I'm getting older too

 

So, take this love, take it down
Oh if you climb a mountain and you turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring you down, down
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills

Well maybe the landslide will bring you down
Well well, the landslide will bring you down

As I thought about the words to this song, and my life at this moment, I wonder what the landslide is in my life at this moment that is bringing me down? 

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
And can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

I need to get rid of some things in my life, and make it through the ocean tides, that are sometimes wild and sometimes still.  What is love, and what are the things I love in my life, and can I handle this next season of my life that is coming my way?  These are some of the questions this song brought up today.

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older I'm getting older too
Yes I'm getting older too, so

Often it is hard to make changes in our lives.  I don't think of a person when I see the line "Cause I've built my life around you."  The you makes me think of all the busyness I have in my life, and how my life has been created around a lot of things, and that I need to see what is purposeful in my life at this time...at this crossroads.  I find time does make you bolder and able to step out and make some changes and decisions about your life, because my children are getting older, and I am getting older too, and I realize I don't want to waste my life with just busyness anymore, I want my life choices to have more purpose.

Like my word for this year....purposeful.

For me I have a landslide of things I am looking at in my life that I want to get rid of.....things that in the past may have been important, but because I am changing they no longer hold importance in my life.  Yet there are other things now that do hold a purposefulness and place in my life.

I am looking at my reflection, and asking myself some tough questions, and seeking the answers to help me make these decisions, so there will be a landslide of things fall from my life that I no longer want or need.

If you haven't heard this song in a while, enjoy Fleetwood Mac singing "Landslide".

Healthy

Last month I shared about my decision to change the way I am eating this summer.

My plan is to eat no meat (except fish) and no sugar (natural sweeteners are okay) through the end of August.

Well, so far, so good.

I only had one relapse, and I hadn't even realized it until the end of the day.  It was Father's Day, and at our fellowship hour after church, there were some meat and cheese platters, and Paul and I both loaded up our plates with pepperoni, sausage, cheeses, etc., but not having any of the cake, of course.  No one even realized that we were eating meat. I think we were more focused on eating no sugar.  I finally realized it toward the end of the day...to funny!!

But, other than that, I have learned to cook fish and seafood in different ways, and use vegetables and beans more prominently.

It really hasn't been that hard.  I have loved the shrimp kebobs, and barbequed salmon, and fish tacos, and the lentil sloppy joes, and homemade hummus, and grilled veggies.  I have loved trying things with tuna and salmon in the foil packets.

I am looking forward to when the bounty of my garden will be here so I can start picking veggies to cook from the garden.  I have picked a few radishes, and it looks like one of the kinds of lettuce is also ready to be picked.

Soon there will be zucchini, yellow squash, beets, Swiss chard, other kinds of lettuce, kale, peas, and Roma tomatoes, Better Boy and Beefsteak.

Each day, morning and evening, I go check on the progress of the veggies, and pull the weeds and grass that pop up, and also thin out the radishes.

Some of the green bean vines are starting to work their way up the poles.

The tomato plants are starting to get blossoms.

So, do I feel healthier since eating this way for the past month?

Yes, I think I do feel better.  I have lots a few pounds, and my clothes seem to fit a little better.

I seem to eat smaller portions, and I don't stuff myself.

I make better choices in eating, because I now choose a piece of fruit to eat or a handful of nuts instead of a piece of candy or a cookie as a snack before bedtime.

One of our summer traditions is to go up to Murray in the summer and eat at the Spragpole and order hamburgers.  Paul was talking today how one of those hamburgers sounds really good.  I have always said they are the best hamburgers around!!  But I'm not sure I want one this summer.  I may make an exception that one day when we head up to Murray, but I may not, and may go with fish and chips or some other fish option from the menu.  But either way, I won't feel like I missed out.  Because I could order either way.

The sugar thing has been a good choice as well.  I did discover a thing called Stevia in the Raw that you can use in baked goods as a substitute for sugar.  Zoe made me a peach pie for my birthday using the Stevia, and it was really good.  But that is a unique treat.  Staying away from processed sugars has really helped me feel better.

So, my eating adventure continues for another month and a half.  Maybe it will change the way I eat, and I will keep with only fish, and focus more on beans and other types of protein.  If it continues to be this easy, I may just have to stick with it!!

Madeleine L'Engle

My favorite author is Madeleine L'Engle.

Probably her most well-known book is "A Wrinkle in Time".  I enjoyed those books in that series, but it is her memoir writing that I think I enjoy the best.

She wrote a series of three books called the "Crosswicks Journals" that told the story of her and her husband Hugh Franklin moving to a big farmhouse in Connecticut, called Crosswicks, and living there.  It was a big move for a family who was used to living in Manhattan.  Hugh was an actor on the soap opera "All My Children".  He played Dr. Charles Tyler.

One of these books was called "The Summer of the Great Grandmother" and was about Madeleine's mother moving in with them, and how their family handled the fact she was going to die, and her death.  I always appreciated how she wrote about her mother's death, and how she made it seem a natural part of life.  I remember rereading this book when my dad was going to die, and it really helped me.

L'Engle is not only a favorite author of mine, but many of her writings helped form who I am today as a woman.  Her insights on life, her faith, and her Christian walk were quite a inspiration to me, and made a big impact on my Christian faith.

One of my favorite books of hers that I have read two or three times is called "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art".    Here is what the description about the book says:

In this classic book, Madeleine L'Engle addresses the questions, What makes art Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian artist? What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L'Engle's beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one's own art.

Through reading this book, I had my first glimpse of what living a creative life was all about.  Here are some of the things she wrote about in this book.

“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.”  

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“In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.”  

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“The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.

...I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.

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As for Mary, she was little more than a child when the angel came to her; she had not lost her child's creative acceptance of the realities moving on the other side of the everyday world. We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss.” 
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“We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.

Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”  

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“As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.” 

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“Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts...”  

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“If the work comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am, serve me,' then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist's talent is not what it is about. Jean Rhys said to an interviewer in the Paris Review, 'Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake'.”

The first time I visited New York City, one of the things we did was visit St. John the Divine Cathedral.  For many years, Madeleine L'Engle was the Writer in Residence at the Cathedral, and many of her young adult fiction books were written with the Cathedral as the setting.  It was wonderful to walk around the Cathedral, and the grounds, and catch a glimpse into L'Engle's world as that she created in her books.

Madeleine L'Engle's words make me want to serve the art....to not get in the way as I create a story.  Because that is the way living the creative life should be.....being obedient and humble about what is about to be created.