I left Chicago on Sunday after attending
church, at the Basilica of Saint Hyacynth’s.
There was no other way to get inside.
To see for myself. The church
that brought Pope John II several times before he reached
popedom. That is not significant or meaningful
to me, except that it must be a place of grandeur and beauty if you like that
sort of baroque pomposity. I also go
because mass will help settle me and seat me, outside of my car and outside of
my head that has more of a Jean-Michel Basquiat- MoseT-Andrew Wyeth-Artists in
Contemporary American Art mind set. The
baroque thing generally throws me over the top, a place I don’t like to
go. So much to attend to all at once,
curves and curlicues and porticoes and retablos and oculuses. Even baroque terms have twirls and spins and
extra ornamental hoo-hah. Give me a
wattle and daub and send me on my way.
But at church, baroque might be the saving grace for many. As soon as you need to shut down the sermon,
or more so, the sins of your own world you can travel around the cornices and
visit the ignudis and cherubs and settle your soul for the next coming of urges
and temptations and send out a prayer or two for the taking, and the giving.
I like the routine of mass, the tradition, the reliability
and predictability. I am on a
journey. I am on a pilgrimage of sorts. I am religio-curious. I would have to say all of the above. But
dear gentle readers, religion and spiritualism and universal pulls greet us all
in one serendipitous way or another.
Take what you wish from my journey, glaze over any references if you
must, sit back and enjoy the ride. There
will not be a double collection today.
Nor a single plate or basket passed.
I do however, find it a little
disconcerting that many have outrageous and discomforting reactions to the
mention of God or religion but words such as poverty and rape and war do not
stir nary a sigh. Artwork is the
language of all things. And I am paying close attention on this journey.
On my way out of town I was planning on visiting two other
churches to photograph and explore. The
structure, and the ornate, towering reminder, of God, of community of service
and selflessness. The mass I attended
speaks of laboring and lamenting, of possession and obsession. There aren’t many issues to cover in a
Catholic Mass. You know, the seven
deadly. Seven isn’t such a large number
and several of those I have no fear of, or interest in. Well maybe 3 but we don’t have to get
technical or sooooo personal here.
Maybe part of my pilgrimage and journey is to stop worrying
about when and what if and Oh, God please if you, then I’ll…deals,
negotiations, promises, broken, forgiven, so on and so forth. It is time to lighten my load on this wagon
train headed west, and shame, and guilt, lamenting and laboring, must be
dropped off somewhere before winter settles in and there is no other human
around…is cannibalism a deadly sin? I
can’t recall.
Maybe the trip to Saint Hyacinth’s was unnecessary, but boy
was it beautiful! And just for the record and snide commentary….it is a little
peculiar for the priest to be discussing possession and obsession in a basilica
painted in gold with baroque flourishes on the baroque flourishes. I head out of Chicago and decide to stop at
Niles Polish Deli. Because when in Rome,
or Warzsawa for that matter… do as the Romans, or the Poles, for this
matter. I think maybe, just maybe there
will be pottery, those beautiful, dancing daisy adorned dishes. Plates I would like to possess! I enter and cannot believe the wall of snacks
and candies and cakes. Oh I like it here
already. I see the wall of
pickled…. everything….no…look…what?....patty pan squash? I have to have those. I might easily become obsessed with patty pan
squash. What’s not to love here?
I will slow down my journey to stop and tell this tale. One summer early in my new life in the Hudson
Valley when my children were young and still had that sweet smell of childhood,
you know before that smell of teen age rebellion moved in and then the labor
intensive scent of adulthood and near grimness…anyway they were young and sweet
smelling and we played and worked in the community garden at Bard College in
Annandale-on-the-Hudson, and later joined a CSA and picked up our vegetables at
the local health store because we had time and the goddess Ceres to guide
us…There were patty pan squashes. They
made me happy in there golden yellow, robust and round little crown
shapes. They look like the little garden
fairies came around and pinched the little dough crust into a perfect beaded
crown. How on earth does a vegetable
grow like that?! And the name!
Another story comes to mind, join me, it will connect…When I
was six or seven, The Charlie Brown Christmas Story was playing at Radio City
Music Hall, but when we got there, all excited and wiggly, we learned it was
sold out. My mother, and my aunt knew we
had our hearts set on a movie, so they improvised quick on their toes and maybe
afraid of the anarchy that could rise.
Four small children that may or may not have smelled sweet would have
all started crying or waling or kicking and hollering, maybe just pouting and
grim faced, we would have been an unpleasant mob just the same. We ended up at some strange and bizarre
Beatrix Potter film. It was the late
sixties or very early seventies, and I was little, but this movie was one drug
trip away from promoting LSD for toddler consumption. The animals were talking and acting and Peter
Rabbit and Jeremy-whoja-call-it was looking rather dapper. But I have been a fan of Beatrix Potter
little cute books since the beginning of time.
These little bitty books are like finger sandwiches for literary
aficionados. And the titles? The
Story of the Fierce Bad Rabbit. I love that!! I think I might be a fierce
bad rabbit, I am sure I know others! Ginger Pickles! C’mon who doesn’t like that? The Pie
and the …..yup……Patty Pan!!!!
Bingo! So I am in this polish shop and I
can’t leave without buying pickled patty pans and yes my name is Ginger and it
just all gets me in the right frame of mind as I head onto Wisconsin. Me, Ginger Pickle with The Tale of the Pie
and the Patty Pan guiding my way toward lightness and more Heartland.
I am thinking of just keeping this jar as a trophy on my
shelf in my kitchen. And I am a little
smug at my newest possession. But
somewhere just across the border a memory comes to mind. I start laughing, that loud crazy kind of
laugh that just comes up from the toes and I am again happy to be in my car and
not around anyone that would look at me with consternation and hold their own
smelly children tighter in my presence because I am still that happy and presently laughing near hysteria.
Good thing I have a firm grip on the wheel. A while back, out with friends, somehow or
other we started talking about baby teeth or children or both. We were maybe
talking about cleaning our homes, and when can you start letting go of all
those things you save that belong to the children? Or are connected
somehow? When I moved a few years ago
and brought those big overflowing boxes of each child’s childhoods, papers and
drawings and what not. My now mostly grown
children laughed right at me, when we pulled out the once fruit-loop glued masterpiece
to find it was ravaged by a hungry varmint.
What did you think would happen? One child implored. Stunned, I responded, buh, whah, huh???….It
was their artwork…how could I throw it away?
A friend has kept the baby teeth on their way to the tooth fairy via a
bedroom closet. I start laughing at
this. My patty pan squash look a bit
like some organs in a jar. The baby’s
tonsils? We keep these momentos of our
children’s lives like historians preserving the past, holding that smell of
innocence and perfection. But when my
friend tells of these baby teeth, I envision them all falling out of the closet
getting stuck in floorboards, or rolling into corners awaiting some house guest
or another. Well I don’t take it that
far…but the idea of these teeth and the patty pan make me laugh at what we preserve
and what we cast away and why fruit-loop art cannot be saved in a big old box.
Wisconsin has only begun and again I am laughing and
happy. I am excited about making this
trip a journey into heartfelt and handmade.
The first stop on my outsider art tour is rather silly. I uploaded an app that takes me to those
quirky little homes and gardens where some crazed, discontented spouse toils
away fifty years making a mini replica of the Battle of Gettysburg with matchsticks or hairballs or rewrites the
bible on grains of rice or in the case of my first stop, takes all their broken
dishes and sticks it onto a birdhouse and a garage. Were they broken in passion filled fights of
love and desire? Were they broken
because the owner needed glasses and missed the shelf each time she attempted
to tidy? Impressive, but not worth the
detour. It does get me deep into The
Little Switzerland of the USA, New Glarius.
And I am transformed to, a small movie set? It just doesn’t feel like the Swiss Alps,
although it is trying. I could have had
my choice of faux lederhosen inspired t-shirts or embroidered stiff-waisted
aprons. I pass on each. I don’t pass on the bakery stop and love the
handmade, heart felt cheesecake. I tried
to ask the local, native, probably not even of Swiss-descent shop keep for a
recommendation and she can’t give one. I
wanted her to say the names of the apple, lemon or ginger pastries in her Swiss
tongue. But it wasn’t even Swiss, her
tongue, so I get the cheesecake because it looks fabulous, and it absolutely
was, and I yodel along my way.
Belly-filled, and content.
Suddenly, I realize I am off the path I was going to be on
in the internet and wireless neutral zone of Little Switzerland and I’m not
sure which way to head. I have been
getting reliant on Siri, even if she isn’t the most personable passenger. But now she’s sulking and ignoring my
requests and won’t even mutter, What can
I help you with in that flat, affective tone of hers. I have to pull out and plug in Simon. The
Tom-Tom travel companion that once seemed so sexy. Now I feel I have to bang out each letter and
wait lifetimes for him to string together Sioux Falls, or Praire du Chien. At least Siri knows what I’m thinking and
gets some passive pleasure in telling me before I finish. Simon Tom Tom, that wily Australian keeps
taking me into some public works parking lot and expects me to drive through
the corrugated steel building. Maybe
this is the inner sanctum of heaven and my willfulness and frustration just
blew the chance of a lifetime. I decide
to override Simon and do what I like.
Hmmm, could use a sermon for that issue, but I’m not sure if there’s
enough baroque in Rome to help me out
of willfulness and frustration, in between toothy hysterical grins.
And then I barely
catch on the side of the road the sign that says blah blah Engelbert. Drive on, whistle, hum, hope for internet
zone soon….WHAT? HOW THE HECK? Engelbert as in Nick Engelbert???? Screech, turn, gravel kicked up to the
Universe in an offering of love and great, grinding gratitude. Grandview!!!
I am in Grandview!!! Nick
Engelbert did not simply stick broken dishes on the side of his garage,
although he did do that too. Nick
Engelbert built a shrine to America, and pride, and the gratitude of an
immigrant at home in the Heartland. “If
a man can’t be happy on a little farm in Wisconsin, he hasn’t the makings of
happiness in his soul.” Said he. Is that not perfect? I want to pick Simon up and twirl him and
kiss his whole…oh, yeah, I know, he’s just a little GPS mechanism. Smiles, joy, happiness. And I am not sure, but are those baby teeth
in the concrete sculpture of the stork holding the baby? Nah…..well, maybe. Look and see for yourself. 
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