The Byrne Diaspora

San Nicolás llegó!

A few weeks ago I was G-chatting with Dad, Belize direct to the Pittsboro library, and he said, "I have to go. I have to play Saint Nicholas at 6pm for Niko and Laxmi." Nicole had already set up a smiling but somewhat sinister figure in the foyer, under which Niko and Laxmi would deposit their shoes. 

What happened after that depends on who you ask. Dad says he made it halfway across the walkway before he let out a bloodcurdling yell that echoed against the forest, and then knocked on the house with his walker "for about five minutes" while Pam deposited the candy in the children's shoes.

If you ask Niko, he only said, "Boom!...Boom."

...and Laxmi kept her silence, sucked on her candy, and pondered all these things in her heart.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

The e-diaspora

Above: Showing my Dad the awesome Photobooth function on my new Mac, February 2008. 

As we get back up to speed here on the Byrne family blog, it occurred to me to chronicle all the other places we Byrnes show up on the Net. Some of us are more active than others...which is a nice way of saying that I'm hopelessly addicted, and the others are to a less extent :D

For five years, Clare was posting "weekly rites," or meditative dances, on her blog here. I loved reading and watching every Friday, and monitoring my responses, which is part of how Clare taught me to respond to art---not judging good or bad, but just observing what energies come up. Julie tweets for both herself and on behalf of the Hofstra religion department. And I (Monica) also tweet for myself and for my theatre company, have a web site that chronicles my writing, and a blog. Oh and also!---a site for my scientific editing service, BySci. It's a lot to juggle :)

So come by and visit us there, too, on our many "front porches"!

--MCB

 

Message in a bottle

I just received a phone call from my dear brother Donald, who was leaving Annville after driving up for his 25th high school reunion at Lebanon Catholic. He sent the above photo. These are the boys who hung out in my brother's room listening to The Police when I was four. I thought they were all very handsome then, and I still do!

He also told me that a few of his friends had asked about the Byrne family blog. It's true, both Julie and I have had so much going on (both finishing books!) that we've been remiss in posting. And there's a lot going on. Some of it's really wonderful, like that Laxmi is giving besos! Some of it is really difficult, like that Dad's decided to sell the farm. And some of it is just plain ol' bittersweet change, like that I'm going to Belize for the entire winter, and will spend my first Christmas away from my family, which aches even three months off.

So a lot's going on. And there is much to tell. In the meantime, here is a lovely video portrait of sister Clare, talking about dance, bodies, and "c"atholicism. 

Life after

Life after that relationship. Life after that death. Life after that illness. Life after the oil crisis.

Life after you have kids.

Don Byrne II is on vacation in the Outer Banks with sweetheart Pam and her family. Don Byrne III is at home with Nicole & the babies, minding the farm. In the last few years, father and new father both have done a lot of clearing, planting, harvesting, teaching, cigar-smoking, drinking, courting, dreaming and birthing (human, animal and other). They're minding the future.

Lately they've been noticing the reality of fracking in NC. How close will it come to the farm? What happens then?

But it was before the move to NC, in 2006, that Don II wrote these poems.

To all you marvelous fathers, blessings for Father's Day.

--JEB

Every Girl meets the world

Monica's play What Every Girl Should Know, commissioned by the Little Green Pig and performed to sold-out audiences the last three weekends, also featured choreography by Clare. It is about four girls in a 1914 Catholic reformatory discovering Margaret Sanger and themselves. It eerily coincides with current events in which Catholic bishops add to Republican calls for roll-backs on federal funding for women's health and birth control, as well as abortion. Which has led Monica to bypass the usual pathways and send the play "out there" to the rest of the world, social-media-style. Yet the play is the opposite of polemical. In fact, it is unsettlingly complicated and very funny. The "crimes" of "sexual irregularity" that have landed the girls in the reformatory turn out to involve equal parts poverty, games, prejudice, spirit, hurt, fantasy, abuse, experimentation, sexism and adolescence. And then ... the miracles start. Bravo!!!--to Monica, Clare, director Lucius Robinson, actors Marie Garlock, Carolyn McDaniel, Alice Rose Turner and Skylar Gudasz, and all involved in the production, including the soundtrack by Jane's Addiction. May the play have a long and influential future!--JEB

Jordan-Matthews is #4 in NC

Don III teaches ESL at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City, NC. For the second year in a row, Jordan-Matthews, which enrolls among the highest percentages of Latino kids and economically disadvantaged kids in the state, has ranked among North Carolina's top high schools, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Don said the whole school is super-proud. All the more, with the realities that teachers and students face. Poverty means not having enough money for necessities, but also, for schoolkids, it means family disruption, not enough sleep, not enough routine, not enough reading. More, dozens of kids at Jordan-Matthews are undocumented, meaning that no matter how well they do in high school, they cannot attend college in the U.S. We need to pass the Dream Act already. Meanwhile, Don III says they motivate the kids by advising them to graduate, do a correspondence degree from a Mexican university, and hang on til things change. Above, Jordan-Matthews seniors (and members of the state-championship soccer team) on graduation day. What can be said about such an image? GO JETS!--JEB

Esta es nuestra sobrina

Last weekend I got to meet Laxmi Sade, who is giggling, testing, trying, "talking," and mostly looking, looking, looking. Also I saw two performances of Monica's play, one with Donald, after which we called Clare, because the choreography kicked a$$. Saturday was full of activity. I hung out in Bear Creek while Pam did Zumba, Don III did soccer, and Nicole did a fish fry (a new venture!) for the opening of Nancy Harmon's midwifery clinic. Niko and Laxmi hung out with Nicole and friends. On Sunday we re-celebrated Don II's 70th--yaaaaaa papa! yaaaa abuelo!--and had a great time catching up with Monica's friend Allison, too, who is living and working with NGOs in the Dominican Republic. So. Did I successfully pictorially document all the variety of NC people and activites? As you can see, not nearly. But hopefully there is a glimpse of everyone, and more of the babies. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!--JEB

The family business

Sister Clare flew down to North Carolina just in time for the fullness of spring--dogwoods blooming, pollen snowing, and little green worms paratrooping out of the sky on ther silver threads. Each day, I drove Clare to a studio deep in the woods at Carolina Friends School, where she worked with my actors on six (!) dances for my upcoming play. I mostly exiled myself from rehearsals, but Clare invited me back fifteen minutes early each day to review the day's work. I couldn't have been more happy--Clare's instincts for the raw, feral, liturgical energy of the play was just perfect. You'd think we shared genes or something... ;)

 

Painting and rescue

Our uncle Joel Wysong is the brother of Sr. Marjorie Raphael, a sister of the Episcopal religious community the Sisters of Saint Margaret. Sr. Marjorie, known as Dodgie in the family, is now retired but spent most of her life in two pursuits: a mission of presence and service with her sisters in Haiti, and painting. The mission life took up more time, of course--34 years. But having come from a family full of sculptors and painters, and studying with a famous muralist before she entered the convent, Sr. Marjorie found occasional time, she said, "to paint Haiti's beautiful mountains and seashore." She also spent three weeks in 1989 in British Columbia, painting with her blood sister Becca, and took holidays every year in the western Catskills. Everywhere, she painted. Her pictures covered the walls in the Haiti mission.

When the mission collapsed in the Haiti earthquake of 2010, the paintings fell with the building. But everyone on the premises was ok. And the paintings were rescued from the wreckage and flown to the motherhouse near Boston for restoration. 

Right now and til the end of February, Sr. Marjorie's paintings are on exhibit in the Helen Bumpus Gallery in Roxbury. There have been a number of articles about the exhibit. Other events included Sr. Marjorie speaking about her work at a recent memorial for the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, and a reception that was cancelled due to snow but still gathered lots of family to celebrate. Both Joel and our aunt Laura Wysong have been working steadily with Dodgie to make all this happen. And it's not over: there could be a memoir ...

The painting above, Joel writes, is in the Catskills, in the locale of the first house he built, while in college. I liked this line from Dodgie's journal of that 1989 painting trip with her sister: "Becca and I spend some time each day looking at our paintings.  This is practical for we figure out what is not clear or where the message is not readable.  But it is also spiritual ... It is a time of being in touch with the particularity that is myself and that is loved by God."

--JEB

Sunshine

No apologies: this is an entirely gratuitous gorgeous sleeping baby post!

Nicole sent this pic today, with the note that Laxmi loves the sunshine. She is two months old and about thirteen bouncy pounds.  Everything is well in NC, from all reports. Italy, too--Clare was there. Belize, too--Monica IS there. Happy blue-sky day, everyone, wherever you are.--JEB