Impressions

Spring was busy with guests and garden work. So it took me a long time to finally sit down and write.

Susan left us rather fast. I mean we didn’t expect her health to go down so fast…We just came from New Zealand and I planned to spend more time with her but never managed. I would say she felt really sick and in plain for some 3-4 days. Still watched a movie almost every night, I found her watching even Slumdog Millionaire  – she seemed to enjoy. Alison was reading her the Tibetan Book of Dead every day for an hour or so – Susan enjoyed that a lot, that is what she said to me. She wasn’t very much interested in my impressions from NZ – which is understandable. She was already thinking about the next stage of her soul’s journey. Morphine made her feel really bad, so from that point of view she did not suffer too long…But she was such a lover of life on this planet, particularly in Rockville – from that point of view her leaving so soon  is very sad. And also – we, all her friends and relatives miss her a lot.

So on March 25th I ran to her house and saw Marie, her daughter, crying on the phone. Susan was on her bed motionless, but smiling, as usual. It seemed very peaceful. A Memorial party was held in a couple of weeks  – Susan wanted it to be call “Going away party”. Marie was a good organizer  – everything was as she wanted. It was held in Rockville community center, with lots of Buddhist decorations, flowers and food, lots of Susan’s friends and relatives. Here are some pics from Susan’s Going Away:

Susan’s portrait was done by Sharon, her artist sister from New York.

Marie, Susan’s daughter, the talented organizer:

Susan’s sister from CA, David -Susan’s best friend, and me:

Susan’s sister from New York Gloria:

Here is Sharon, Susan’s younger sister, the artist  – she dressed in the way Susan would have liked:

Genvieve, a girl from the neighborhood that was very close to Susan drew a picture about how Susan’s soul is traveling to heavens where nice people are waiting for her in the castles and birds are accompanying her journey while a King snake is watching from the land and Pegasus-horses  are creating a good atmosphere for that :

For me personally this picture is like a masterpiece. I wish Susan could see it. But we don’t know what she sees or cares for from that other side of the curtain… So here is the author of the picture, little Geneviev:

And here is she with her mother while explaining to us all her picture:

There were beautiful speeches said:

When most of the people left,  Bernadette recited her poem, also a masterpiece in my opinion, but she was very shy:

Susan somehow had a talent to inspire many of us…The air around her was usually more alive than anywhere else. She knew how to enjoy every beautiful moment she came upon, every nice person she met, every tasty meal she ate. She would have enjoyed the meals that were served during her last  party:

She had the Buddhas, Ganeshas and Shivas watching  us:

Most of her memorabilia pleasantly presented on the wide shelves of the hall:

Some of the participants:

And here was she – our Susan, in this little clay pot  by a tree and plants she loved..:

When I reflect now almost two months after she is gone – what is it about that human life – a short stay here in this world among those people, with all your ups and downs and when you are gone – life goes on…as if you never existed. Maybe you stay in memories for a while but then those memories will fade, life consumes us until we are gone, too. Wise people say that you have to live in the “now”. As opposed to tomorrow or yesterday.  But where is a place in the “now” for our loved ones who are gone forever? I wish I could ask Susan because she would have a smart answer as she always had…

Finally, I can’t sustain from posting this pic with Susan just this January – who could have imagined that lest that 2 months were left for her…We were celebrating her sister’s birthday. Is it a smile of Budha?

I am sorry, I guess my mind was somewhere else, that I didn’t describe our New Year’s celebration in St. George. First of all  – we do it every year. Since we figured out that it is so much fun. Maybe it was the fourth year we participated in the First Night – that’s how they call it. I consider it to be an incorrect name – because the celebrations go from 7 pm on the 31st of December till 12 am. Which makes it the Last Night. But  maybe it would sound too gloomy, like “the last night of your life” , almost reminds Halloween, so they named it  optimistically.

No pictures from St. George, sorry. It was dark already, lots of trees diligently wrapped with red and blue lights and several very tall pine trees all decorated with colorful lights to the very tops. I bet they did a lot of work there. The celebrations were held in the Ancestor square – newly arranged square in the place where old library was demolished. There were stages with rock music going, vintage car show, painted kokopellies and food booths, but the main thing for us was in the Arts center – they were showing short movies non-stop from 7 pm till 11:45 pm. The movies that had won prizes in Red Rock Film festival. On the top floor of that building there is a fantastic newly remodeled hall for dancing. With a small orchestra playing swings and foxtrots. So our evening looked like this: first figuring out what where the movies worth watching and then running up and down the building – to see some movies, to dance, then again to watch, etc. The only time we sneaked out of the building during the evening – was when we literally ran to a school on the other side of the square to watch a magic show by Max the local Magician. Which was entertaining and good. The room was over packed, everyone laughed and happy so that that the good mood spread around. I think people who live around could even feel it. Why not to be happy  – no traffic jams, no problems to park the car, all the events going on close around, just relax, consume and enjoy.

At 12 am people gathered from dances, movies and shows and saw a 15 min firework show which was fantastic! I mean fantastic for a small city like St. George, because maybe a good 10 years ago I happened to see the Independence Day fireworks in Washington DC  – they were similarly good. And that is it – no more activities, you just find your car and head home. Oh, one more detail – no alcohol in this celebration, it is run by Mormons. Who else would desire to sacrifice their New Year’s night and volunteer…except for the saints. Therefore I doubt other cities with non Mormon population can have such a First Night.  And the last detail – all this costs $5 a person, totally, food not included. Except for some cookies with hot chocolate in the dance hall. They were included .

Meanwhile we managed to visit Bellagio in Las Vegas and here is what they had for Christmas and for the Chinese New Year which started on January 24th:

Those snowmen are all made of white carnations. They smelled good!

Based on the Chinese calendar this is the Brown Cow year. Some call it Ox year. Whatever – but this bull is standing on a platform covered with real mandarin oranges…

My mom came to visit us, so here we are after we picked her from the airport.

With another version of cow in the background…

This is how she enjoyed the fountain show by Bellagio. They start at 3 pm, so we had to wait for some time and then they start it with American Anthem. Another song follows after – it means we were lucky – we got two shows! for the price of one (the price was our waiting time).

And that is it from Las Vegas.

Happy New Year, Happy Brown Cow year!

Here in Rockville and Springdale we are blessed – we have Yoga ant Tai-Ji classes! It is hard for us to choose where to go or to find time for both. Ann Rutz teaches Anusara Yoga and David Rutz teaches Tai-ji. They are both wonderful teachers, what a family!

This time I will talk about Tai-ji which we usually have on David’s terrace, and that is how we usually see him :

And this is us, his most devoted students: Susan, Genevieve and Nida:

It all started several years ago – David got engaged in his Master’s Chungliang Al Huang classes in Oregon and even invited him to our canyon one of the beautiful autumns maybe a couple of years ago.

Here Chungliang is in the middle of the circle teaching us to relax in our movements, to dance in his class and through life.

He also showed us how graceful he is while doing Chinese calligraphy:

At the end of the classes as usual we were taking pictures with him:

But then he left and David decided to continue teaching us the Five Elements and Four Circles of Life. So we are enjoying every minute of it:

Especially when the weather is nice enough (which is almost always we have it on the terrace with the magnificent views of Zion:

That is why when we come to class we at first all exclaim what a wonderful weather we have here, how beautiful the mountains look and how grateful we are for that:

Then we do the Five Elements and Four Circles of Life created or choreographed by Chungliang, trying to be as graceful as possible and also trying to feel the energy floating around and through us:

And at some point we always discuss things like whether there is a bad and good energy or just the energy we need and use and the energy we don’t utilize (Susan’s brilliant thought). We discuss Chinese symbols, some philosophy and then David tells us something in pure Chinese language, which to him sounds musical and to me – not so much . He is a very good student of everything Chinese! There are quite a few Chinese paintings in their house, so when the weather is not the best -we do Tai-Ji in the house and admire the art:

There is also another Buddha outside who watches us while we dance and gives us a hint to be as Present as possible:

We usually end the class with the healing movements of Spring Forest Chigong and then usually Ann, our Yoga teacher, comes back from walking their dog Lao-Tzu and we have a nice chat with her:

And then David sees us off, till next Saturday:

Thank you, David!

I guess – every little town has someone. We have Susan Taylor. She simply shines. Not only that she eagerly helps in every Rockville event, but her presence is more than her help. Seeing how people love her I dare say that she lifts the vibrations not only in me. Today – March 10th – was Susan’s Birthday. Here is how her house looked in the morning when we came to congratulate her:

Susan’s daughter Marie organized the most beautiful Birthday party for her I have ever seen. It was in Rockville Community Center and how many people participated?…Sorry, I was so excited that I didn’t count, but my guess is – no less than a hundred… Here is how it looked:

And here is our Susan, alone and with Marie:

And with our outstanding photographer Jim who is reading a poem specially created to Susan (he and his wife Carol are also poets). He was also very excited, he could hardly see what to read:

Though the invitation said “no presents”, Susan got two. Well, she got some more, but the others were not official. Under the experienced direction by Alison a bunch of women created and sewn a fantastic quilt – a very personalized one for it had the pictures of Susan and her friends on top, several of Susan’s best pictures of Zion park, Buddhist monks and Rockville under snow (which rarely happens) and Buddhist prayer flags on the bottom. It emphasized not only Susan’s social talents, but her talents as a photographer as well. I bet she likes the quilt because she is a picture lover and keeps boxes and boxes of them.

So here is the quilt:

And here is the other present:

This fancy man (Agent 007) simply emerged from the box while Susan was unwrapping.

There were lots of cards, but this one requires to be shown separately. It is made of metal and is huge like a sculpture:

This is the most magic moment – and what do you think – she blew all of the 58 candles at once! What a lung capacity!

And here are some of Susan’s friends, sorry, I didn’t take them all…Some pics were blur, too excited to have steady hands…

Alison and Johnny:

Oh, I have to mention – almost all of us has green dots on our noses – to show we belong to “Susan’s gang”:

Delores is embraced by the man who is not her husband – she is the artist of the metal card! Such a delicate and tiny woman and so strong…

Ann Weiler Brown with Trista and Allan:

I can’t mention our wonderful Yoga teacher Ann with the best yoginia’s:

Susan with Sandra, Kim and the legendary La Berta:

With Margot:

And with Fay:

Logan is the journalist and politician – he helped to introduce democracy in Lithuania and other Baltic and previous Soviet Union countries, not an easy task. He even knows some words from each country he has worked and always greets me with “Labas”. On his teeshirts he always has something peculiar. Good that Lenin here has this punk comb on his head – otherwise it wouldn’t be funny to me, having lived through his established regime:

Robert Perkins with Fay (both artists and neighbors as most of the people here):

The end.