Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween: Bride vs. Indian

Every Monday in October we celebrated Halloween at the resort, much to the delight of our largely European guests. Pumpkin carving, trick-or-treat (with a big box of dress-ups I put together for children who didn't have a costume) a haunted house and Halloween circus show, the complete American holiday. I dressed as a ghost and performed a hoop act in the circus show, I’m a little shy, but if you promise not to laugh you can see it here. I'm back in Maryland now, so I spent the day poking through old photos. Here are some highlights of Halloween past. An eternal question emerged... who would be the blushing bride and who would be the wild indian...

Baby Amy wearing my outgrown halloween costume, mama made this by hand

Bride and Indian strike again!



My mother lovingly sewed the whole family indian costumes, hand beading and fringing each piece. They are a staple of Halloween in the Merrick house to this day. The gown above was originally intended to be my mothers wedding dress. In the end she opted to wear a simple Gunnysack (much more her style) and the fancy dress was reassigned to the dress up box.

later mom crafted this magnificent horse to snaz up the old costume

This time I'm wearing my fathers indian shirt as a dress.
Later my mother crafted this amazing horse to snaz up the old costume.
It makes me laugh to think that Amy and I can still be found dressing up brides and playing hunter-gatherer for wild berries and branches in the woods...


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

love in the banyan trees



Key West, 1976.
Their eyes met, dancing in the sunset, bare feet in the sand.
They disapeared into the twisting limbs of the banyan tree.
Branches entertwined, roots mingled and overtime
grew together to became one.


A few weeks ago they came to visit me in florida and I caught a glimpse of those two young lovers.

If only I could be so luckey


mammerrick climing the banyan tree

thirty one years of marage

After 31 years of marriage my folks are still kissing in the banyan trees.

Happy Anniversary

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Amy in action...


Maybe it's because she is my lill sis but I have always thought Amy is just the cutest thing...





I think there is something to be said for the radiant beauty
of a person doing what they truly love.


Thursday, March 12, 2009

Little House

My mother nick-named the farm house where I was born, in rural Maryland tobacco country "Little House on the Patuxent" and I'm sure Laura Ingles would have approved. A tiny tenant farmer shack with three rooms and a wood stove for heat, rented by my parents for fifty dollars a month, (including use of the the barn and fenced fields!!!) Sigh, I long for the days when bohemian visionaries could score a spot for a song, spacious in land, character, and creative potential, if not in rooms.

My Mother lovingly recorded it all for me, through the filter of her own vision and simple folk artistry, recording the substance of childhood memory with more accuracy than any photograph. This hand drawn fabric book, made to teach me the names of household furnishings, is now a touchstone with my past, and my folks so radiant and full of life. So excited to create there own beautiful utopia, chalk full of home-made style, and bohemian flair.






Man, was I a lucky kid!




This is what I've learned...

Any home worth it salt must have:

hardwood flors
claw foot tubs
houseplants
thrifty antique furniture
big trees
A good home is better with:
big porches
fire places, or wood stoves
streams, ferns and mosses
lady slippers in the woods,
hikeing trails
wood shingles
wooden beams
big barns
big fields
a chicken coop
ponies and chickens,
gingerbread on the porch beams
an old weathered boat and a dogwood tree in the front yard,
a tepee sweat lodge and rainbow school buss,
a hand painted swing set
love
and family
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