SUZALLO LIBRARY
As acolyte at the University,
I am entranced by the long shelves
that reach unending around corners,
flooding floors and buildings,
a bounty of accumulating wealth
bound into books,
worlds upon worlds,
all mine.
Here I'll find the fabled golden fleece
in a fever of fresh ideas and the
questions that pose new questions,
giving birth to dreams,
possibilities,
the significance of worlds,
some now gone forever,
but still quick on the pages
of books
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Endings
I have packed my Gypsy books into two boxes, folded and taped the cardboard down into a manageable size, and then with some difficulty, delivered them to the local post office. The books are headed for Professor Anne Sutherland's office in Houston; she has a student inerested in Roma.
Looking at my 3 half-empty bookshelves, I wonder how I feel? Mostly relieved, I guess. The hardest part was the packing; I tried not to read anything but book titles and the chapter headings of journals. Books are, for me, ideas and ideas are not people Nearly all my Machvaia friends have left for the Other Side. None of their descendants live in Seattle where I live. Forty years of studying and writing are over. Two books, six articles are published. Releasing makes room for the new and yet to be experienced. But, in this moment, I feel the passing of time and a fragile emptiness of loss.
Once, years ago, I met a young New Yorker considering Roma as her fieldwork topic and she asked me, Gypsies being notoriously hostile, if I knew how she might gain entry and acceptance. I suggested she find a Gypsy kind she liked a lot -- liking and caring provide incontestable rights. Of course, that was Machvaia, one group, the only kind I know, and there are many kinds of Gypsies.
I bought most of those on-their-way-to-Houston books in 2009, when I was writing The Church of Cheese. Also, for the first time in years I was near a university library, the University of Washington's Suzzallo. In California, where I formerly lived, it was one bus, BART, a wait, another bus, and a walk to the Berkeley library. I didn't go often, but once, when writing about folktales, I made friends with Alan Dundes, a generous mensch of a person. Later, I hear that a former grateful student gave him and his Folklore Department a million dollars -- yes that's true!
Yesterday, Red Square was crowded with students eating lunch and, after returning several books, I stood at the top of the stairs, facing west, and said goodbye to Suzzallo. The blessing of the Seattle sun was out. I remembered how, after my divorce and during graduate school, Suzzallo had been my safe haven home and exactly where I wanted to be. But that was before I met Lola, Stevo, Katy, Zoni, and the rest. I thanked the Universe for everything, the whole shebang. I believe in formal endings.
Despite buying books and reading all those books, I found no overriding theory of anthropology that impressed me as relevant and can only hope that The Church of Cheese is sufficiently detailed for other scholars to use as a theoretical springboard -- or whatever. I believe my book saves the people's once vital rituals and beliefs for posterity, for their great-great grandchildren to come, for the good luck of honoring the India connection, for a future none of us can know.
Lola's is the family I miss most. Her granddaughter called last spring with a welcome gift. She said that after reading my book, she feels proud to be a Gypsy. She said she now tells everyone she is Machvanka and she shows them her book, our book, my book, Lola's Luck, and the pictures of her family. How grateful she says she is that she now has a history, like other people, like Outsiders. Little Sonia gave me the reward of writing her a history and it was more than I ever expected to accomplish in this life.
Looking at my 3 half-empty bookshelves, I wonder how I feel? Mostly relieved, I guess. The hardest part was the packing; I tried not to read anything but book titles and the chapter headings of journals. Books are, for me, ideas and ideas are not people Nearly all my Machvaia friends have left for the Other Side. None of their descendants live in Seattle where I live. Forty years of studying and writing are over. Two books, six articles are published. Releasing makes room for the new and yet to be experienced. But, in this moment, I feel the passing of time and a fragile emptiness of loss.
Once, years ago, I met a young New Yorker considering Roma as her fieldwork topic and she asked me, Gypsies being notoriously hostile, if I knew how she might gain entry and acceptance. I suggested she find a Gypsy kind she liked a lot -- liking and caring provide incontestable rights. Of course, that was Machvaia, one group, the only kind I know, and there are many kinds of Gypsies.
I bought most of those on-their-way-to-Houston books in 2009, when I was writing The Church of Cheese. Also, for the first time in years I was near a university library, the University of Washington's Suzzallo. In California, where I formerly lived, it was one bus, BART, a wait, another bus, and a walk to the Berkeley library. I didn't go often, but once, when writing about folktales, I made friends with Alan Dundes, a generous mensch of a person. Later, I hear that a former grateful student gave him and his Folklore Department a million dollars -- yes that's true!
Yesterday, Red Square was crowded with students eating lunch and, after returning several books, I stood at the top of the stairs, facing west, and said goodbye to Suzzallo. The blessing of the Seattle sun was out. I remembered how, after my divorce and during graduate school, Suzzallo had been my safe haven home and exactly where I wanted to be. But that was before I met Lola, Stevo, Katy, Zoni, and the rest. I thanked the Universe for everything, the whole shebang. I believe in formal endings.
Despite buying books and reading all those books, I found no overriding theory of anthropology that impressed me as relevant and can only hope that The Church of Cheese is sufficiently detailed for other scholars to use as a theoretical springboard -- or whatever. I believe my book saves the people's once vital rituals and beliefs for posterity, for their great-great grandchildren to come, for the good luck of honoring the India connection, for a future none of us can know.
Lola's is the family I miss most. Her granddaughter called last spring with a welcome gift. She said that after reading my book, she feels proud to be a Gypsy. She said she now tells everyone she is Machvanka and she shows them her book, our book, my book, Lola's Luck, and the pictures of her family. How grateful she says she is that she now has a history, like other people, like Outsiders. Little Sonia gave me the reward of writing her a history and it was more than I ever expected to accomplish in this life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)