It's hard to remember back to what I was thinking in 1988, but I suspect I was interested in printing on this Mexican bark paper and knew it would chew up my type if I did. So I carved my story backwards onto linoleum instead. Rock Dove is a two-part short-short story of house and home, and a mother and son relationship, their memories, projections, fears, and feelings. The first part, "Rock," is from the son's point of view, the second, "Dove," is from the aging mother's viewpoint. And while the son seems to talk constantly, so much is not said.
At the same time, we had just bought a house, so there is a tiny sidebound booklet of photocopied rooms sewn inside the house-shaped book. Additionally, there is a tiny haiku in the eaves about the Rock Dove (a pleasant name for the pigeons we are accustomed to seeing on the street). I do remember watching the birds at my feet while I was eating lunch one day.
Happy Mother's Day!
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Mother's Day was originally envisioned as a peace holiday, preceded by this 1870 proclamation by abolitionist and feminist, Julia Ward Howe. Although she speaks as a Christian, Howe called upon all mothers, no matter their belief or nationality to unite and recognize, among other things, that "the sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
On May 10, 1908, Anna Jarvis, daughter of another social activist, memorialized her mother with a ceremony honoring all mothers: the first recognized Mother's Day in the United States. Sadly, though, Jarvis wanted to rescind the holiday as she fought against what became its commercialization.
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