Home Again after Ten Days in Georgia and Virginia

It was a perfect  trip--half of it with Day and Carlene in Athens, then the other half with the Learys in Virginia.  

One of the Georgia highlights was a day trip to Madison, we three plus Luci, where we saw one shop in which every window was filled with enormous papers flowers on green covered stalks.  Note to self and Day--make some of those flowers ourselves.

One of the Virginia highlights was that Marcus, Jackson and Deanna drove from Richmond to share the weekend, Marcus on a five day trip to do sports announcing!  Day's dream is a backyard studio and we all spent Sunday afternoon measuring it out with string, 20' x 12'.  

The Leary dog, Tucker,  finding a sunny spot on the kitchen floor on a cold day. 

Day making sour dough bread

Day and Jackson by the trampoline which they are getting rid of.

Marcus measuring with string

Tom practicing a golf swing
with a studio-measuring stake 

Day and Tom in their third decade together, happy as ever! 

Jackson, Deanna, Marcus and Scout 

Before driving me to the airport yesterday, Marcus and I had lunch at Nando's. 

Nana and Day at Presbyterian Village 

My beautiful mama and I in her room. 

Jackson is winding into the last two months of his graduate program and he gets his Masters Degree in April.

Marcus--whose goal is sports-casting--is getting jobs already in his sophomore year at VCU! 

Deanna (Jackson's girlfriend) is awaiting news on her own graduate school admission, and she's working with children with autism. 

"I''ll have what she's having!"

       If you don't know Meg Ryan's most famous scene, where were you in 1989? 

      You can Google it if you like, just search for "diner scene in When Harry Met Sally"--as I just did.  The best spoken line in the scene was delivered by an older woman at the nest table: "I'll have what she's having!"

      When I feel that way, when I most want what another person is having, it's when I see artists at work in their studios, or the products of that work.  

       Growing up in a small town in Georgia, we didn't have art supplies to speak of--maybe a yellow box of Crayolas, Magic Markers, and poster paper for school projects.  No art shows or classes, and no art supply stores, unless you stretch the definition to include the fabric section of McConnell's Dime Store--which, having spent countless hours there as I child, I do.

       Nor did our small town have book or record stores or car dealerships selling suspect "foreign cars." We did have the messiest everything store called Jazzbo's where, if you were lucky, you could find the latest 45 records or a random 59-cent Nancy Drew mystery.  

       I can remember my mama coming home with a bag of fabric and patterns and pins, but I find it unimaginable that she, or any other mama, would come home with non-utilitarian "art supplies."  Mamas didn't buy such frivolous things, and if they had wanted a canvas or a pad of watercolor paper, say, they'd have to get it in Atlanta. 

       In the 70s here in San Antonio, the scrapbook industry set up shops all over town and in the aisles of the big box stores, selling stencils, paints, gel pens, rubber stamps, etc. 

       I made a few scrapbooks, a legitimate frivolity because it led to documenting the family's history,  with flourishes and decorative borders.

       It didn't take long for us to find other applications for all those art supplies.  Scrapbooking, per se, seems to have gone the way of counted cross stitch, but those art supplies stayed around.  

       I was sad to see yesterday that Jo Ann's is filling bankruptcy and closing half its stores.  Luci and I will miss our  field trips there and I'll miss having so many fabric and paints under one roof. With the brutal competition of Amazonians, so many brick and mortar stores have folded. 

       But Jo Ann's? Really?  

       Online shopping provides specialty niches for artists and craftspeople, but I'll miss being greeted by clerks with "Hey, Luci!" --reminiscent of the Cheers theme song--"Sometimes you want to go. where everybody knows your name." 

Sunday, February 9

Yesterday, in a poetry/collage class, we were asked to pick a line at random from a book the class had published.  The line we picked was to be the first line of our timed writing.

This is the line that jumped off the page;

"I hesitate to call myself an artist."  

 I hesitate to call myself an artist. Not only do I have no art degree, but I married a man who had already appropriated that domain for himself. 

 I was 18, new to San Antonio.  He was seven years older with an MFA degree, teaching kids my age at San Antonio College--where I took algebra, English,  creative writing and philosophy.

One day he came home with a stack of colorful artwork from his students, geometric shapes glued onto paper. They blew me away--to borrow a 1967 cliche.

What are those? I asked, curious, intrigued, itching to know more.

"Collages," he said stuffing them into his bag out of view as if he'd been caught red-handed with pornography,

"Collage???" 

I made a mental note to look for books on the subject. As I skimmed through books in the S.A.C. library, I thought, That's what I'd have majored in if I'd known it was a thing.

 "You're a writer," he said.  "Stick to that."

 Throughout our marriage, the lines only got thicker.  Home design and decor were his domain.   "Serious artists"--I came to understand--knew Important Things that I wasn't privy to. They had degrees, credentials, exhibition aspirations.

 Those not in the high society of "real" artists  were Sunday painters, dabblers and dilettantes. 

After decades of staying in my lane, then divorcing and putting a toe in the art world,  I learned that not all artists hold what they know so close to the vest.  My artist friends are generous and share freely what they know. 

 I'm thinking of Joy, Nellie, Lyn, Victoria, and Barbel, all successful artists. They invite novices, like me,  to hop on The Art Train and go for it!

I've learned from them--as well as those who teach collage and book-making online.  The joy of making art is contagious.  

There's plenty  to go around. 

Oh, the Possibilities!

 I dwell in Possibility – (466)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

*******

Today when I was looking at my art supplies, I was reminded of this poem by Emily Dickinson

Oh, how I relate to these words!  

I used to think that I was the odd one, loving to arrange my beautiful art supplies as much as making things with them.  Little bottles of ink, a row of threads for book-binding, gorgeous artisan and handmade papers, colorful stamp pads, an array of pens and brushes--all bespeak Possibilities! 

But no.  I have met many odd souls like me in the past few years. It's its own kind of house with way more windows and doors than we may ever see in actual houses or pictures of houses.  In an actual room, the eye stops at the ceiling, but Imagination is limitless as the sky!

On My Soapbox

In my pursuit of proficiency in the craft of making books, I may have put in more hours studying than I did in graduate school.  The internet is full of good teachers, and I've tracked down more than I can count.  One leads to the other.

The Handmade Book Club has guest artists every month, and of course, I follow the trails.

One video taught me how to make a book out of soap box, a class touted as a way to recycle.  I wasn't fooled by that part--especially after copying the extensive list of supplies--but I was fascinated by it and made a few.  

To make said soap box book, you need book tape or gaffer tape, a Crop-o-Dile for setting eyelets, double-stick tape, buttons for closures, a cutting mat, craft knives, and paper.  I happened to have had almost all that, but did purchase a Crop-O-Dile and eyelet and a six pack of Irish Spring soap. 

When the teacher laid out the tools and supplies, it would have been daunting for those who don't have, as I do, "enough art supplies to last until Jesus comes." (A phrase borrowed from my preacher's-wife-Aunt Audrey in referencing her shoes.)

Making tiny books can be as complicated as making larger ones.  These taught me about paper grain, setting eyelets, button closures, and extending the accordion structure as long as you want it to be by hinging the panels. 

This video showed up on a site called Creative Bug, part of Jo Ann's Fabric stores, along with some excellent videos by different book artists.  I eat them up like popcorn!

If you measure a project's viability by the standards of saving trees, soap box books don't pass muster. 

But if your yardstick is personal satisfaction and learning new techniques, book-making is (for me) a many-faceted pleasure.  We live in a chaotic and frightening time. 

As an old book of the 70s had it, we should "follow our bliss" whatever that looks like.  Music, gardens, good books, building things, making balloon donkeys, remodeling a room--whatever gives pleasure is a good road to follow. 

Weekend in the 70s.

 On Saturday, on a beautiful sunshiny day, I took a walk or two with Luci and grained all the papers in my stash.  Turns out paper has grain, just like fabric, and it has to run parallel with the spine of books.  If not, the folds can be wonky and the book may refuse to close all the way.

I also made two small paper kimonos based on one of Lyn Belisle's online class.  

Today, I went to see A Complete Unknown with Jan and Linda. We talked about how good it was to go out into the world, into an actual theater, with friends--since so many of us tend to spend most of our time alone.

Here's a link to a discussion about being alone vs. being with friends: Fresh Air podcast

The movie about Bob Dylan and the musicians around him (Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and others) catapulted us all back to the Sixties.   

Lenses

Today has been a remarkable day for me--thanks to an epidural yesterday.  The sciatic pain that has defined the last month or so has (knock on wood!) gone on its own mysterious vacation!

Instead of planning my days around chunks of time available to do anything productive, I experienced such minimal discomfort in back and feet that I was able to get my phone fixed, pick up my new glasses, spend an hour in Nowhere Book Store, make lunch for Will and Bonnie who are using the casita as an office away from home some days, get shopping done at  Target, Pop Shelf, Central Market, and watch some inspiring art videos by Sally Hirst.  

I don't know how long this will last, but the relief is deeply appreciated, Universe!  

My news lenses are sharp and clear and the frames fit perfectly.  This got me thinking of lenses in general, and how pain has become a lens through which I see things.  Physical change, as we all know, especially if it drags on for months and years, can change how we see ourselves and time and other people.  In pain states, my enthusiasm diminishes.  If I have a big decision to make, Day always says, "Don't make it in pain brain."  Pain Brain is a thing.  It colors my confidence and sense of possibility.

That said, I managed to plan a five day trip to Athens with Day in three weeks.  We found a wonderful BnB not far from Carlene's new apartment at Presbyterian Village, a place with porches and rocking chairs and what looks like some woods.  After that, I'll fly back to Virginia with Day.  

Excitement is back.  I can do this.  I can manage dog, bags, airports, and UBER. We're gonna have fun.

Mornings at 609

We got up early on Monday to take Elena to school.  Last year she dreaded waking up for school and I've heard that she was a pill to get out of the bed.  Now that she's a seventh grader at St. Mary's Hall, she is up and perky and working on her curls in plenty of time to have toast and get there by 8:00.

On the way, her only complaint was that her required uniform for Mondays feels like a tablecloth.

Luci was confused, however.  When I said, "Hop in!" meaning we're going somewhere in the car, get in, she went for her leash and brought it to me, saying, "We always do Leash before Hop In!" 

I haven't taught her to tell time or read thermometers yet, but she knows all that by heart. If it's really cold, or rainy, she knows before I do and prefers a while longer in bed.  If I get up in the middle of the night, she joins me in the kitchen, hoping it's Snack Time.  

If, after walking, I take a bath and dress for Going Somewhere, she watches me with intense interest, her eyes asking, "Am I going to get to go? Or is this one of those awful days when you're going to desert me and leave me disconsolate and depressed and anxious all morning?"

Did I mention that her doggy eyes have quite an extensive vocabulary?

Tables Turning

"I know what it is to be young.  

But you don't know what it is to be old...."

In an ancient recording I found online, a choir of young voices sings this song and the deep voice of Orson Welles speaks them. 

When talking to younger people, these lyrics are often the soundtrack running in my mind.  

On days when I'm feeling energetic, creative, socially engaged, and curious, I'm not particularly aware of age.  But most septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians are not always at the top of our games.  

Last week, I was having one of those days but intent on stocking up for the impending freeze, walking the aisles of HEB.  I wondered when I saw younger people how this woman (me) lacking even lipstick might look in their eyes.  Invisible, probably, but "old" for sure.  

When an adorable young man, with a brilliant smile,  approached to ask me if Luci was a Corgi, then showed me a picture of his own dog, he lingered to talk.  "She's so well behaved, so soft," he said up to me from his squat.  "Does she bark a lot?"

"Only at the postman who throws bombs through the mail slot," I said.

"You won the dog lottery!" he said.  "My dog barks all the time."  He didn't rush away, he actually wanted to talk longer. 

For hours after that surprising conversation, I felt better.    

When I was young, I wasn't like this young man.   Anyone over 50 was really old.   I barely noticed them.  They all looked--I'm sad to say--pretty much the same to me. 

That has changed.  I love observing people my age and older. Some have radiant faces, smooth skin, easy smiles.  Some faces are etched with boredom or anger or pain or loneliness.  A few--like me on good days--seem to be having a good old day at the store.  I try to meet the eyes of all people as I walk down the aisles, but am now more attracted to the faces of those in my generation and my parents'.  

When you're young, you may not know you're beautiful or brilliant or funny.  You're so cued in to what others say you are.  Now more than ever, with social media, kids get moment-by-moment assessments from their peers. 

Last week, the day before Elena's 13th birthday, she sprained her ankle in fitness class. When I picked her up from school on her birthday, we stopped for boba tea.  This time it was she who sat and waited while I delivered the tea to the table. 

"Until you hurt yourself, you take it all for granted," she said.  "Walking, running, jumping--it's all so easy." 

Throughout life, it's like that, I told her.  Until you find yourself on crutches, or limping along, or dealing with some pain or injury, you don't realize what you've taken for granted.  

She laid her sweet hands on the table and told me that her fingers were not pretty.   Some were crooked.  Some nails were weird.  To my eyes, they were perfect.  

I laid my red puffy hands beside hers and told her that my hands looked very much like her hands once upon a time, skin smooth, nails polished.  

I could have said more but didn't want to be a party pooper.  Anyway, when you're young you don't truly believe much of what is said by people who're very old.  You have forever.  You'll beat the odds.  You'll be different. 

The tunnel of Ogden Lane

Luci has a new preoccupation--building a Luci-sized tunnel under the fence between our back yard and the neighbors who live in the blue house on the corner.  For all these years of neighboring, she's been oblivious to their yard.

Apparently there's a new pet or a new threat over there.  While I can't determine what it is, I did see the tail end of it scooting under the house one day last week, something grey.

My girl, however, has taken it on as her job to attend to it from our side of the fence. To observe it for long stretches of time.  To begin the tedious and thrilling vocation of building a tunnel for herself. To occasionally express herself with threats-barks alternating with greeting-barks.

I have attempted to block the potential opening of the tunnel by throwing a rock or two into the hole she made progress on yesterday.  Then I found a board, stuck it in there, too.  But the passage to her worksite is hard to enter for a human, a narrow space behind the storage room full of pokey things. 

While she usually sleeps like the proverbial log all night, she's taken to meditating on her plan during the night.  If I so much as move, she nudges me, "Hey, Ma, I got an idea!  Let me outside!"

I'm onto her.  I know there are only so many times a day when an 11-pound mutt can pee.  Without a doubt, she has a new strategy tucked up her sleeve and the night vision to achieve it if only her human would let her get to it at 2 in the morning.

After the second trip out in the wee hours of this morning--and her reluctance to return, even for her favorite salmon jerky--I refuse.  I explain to her that her work privileges depend upon her obeying my call when it's time to come in--not to mention that the scent of skunk, cold weather notwithstanding, permeates the back yard. 

She may be a bit timid in the light of day, but in the dark, she's a hunter and a warrior, brave and strong!