Halloween Party was great!

Tonight was one of those nights that makes a long drive worth it!

Will and Nathan and Elena came early and it was Nathan who was enchanted with my new doll collection.  He enacted the whole Wizard of Oz story on the floor, using dolls and stuffed animals to play the parts of the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the witches.  That was the highlight of the day--watching the way his imagination works to create a story.

Veronica and Will made and decorated bat and pumpkin sugar cookies, and everyone brought food.  I honestly didn't know this little house could hold so many people at once.

Darth Vader and the Cow

Veronica dressing up Skippy for the party

Elena's new friend, Emily, was a doctor.
"What kind of doctor?" I asked her.
"A body doctor," she said.

The body doctor and the cow

Will with Veronica's sister, Brenda

Linda and Mark and Hayden and Andrew came from their new home in Hondo--and it was so much fun to see them all.

Linda Q and I met on the floor of Border's Book Store seven years ago and have been friends for all these years.

Mark and Linda

Andrew, Linda and Hayden

I think Halloween may be my favorite holiday! I could have taken hundreds of pictures, but my iPhone's storage is full.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I woke up this Halloween morning to the sound of rain and thunder.  Before going back to bed, where I belong, I checked the weather and heard that it's going to be gone by tonight.

Then I remembered the best Halloween of my childhood.  We were visiting the cousins in Chattanooga who lived in an urban neighborhood of old dingy houses.  When my cousins and Bob and I returned, our brown grocery bags filled with candy, we did what children everywhere do on Halloween night: we dumped our treats onto the living room floor and separated our favorites from the marginals.

Then I remembered: I had seen a new word scrawled on the wall of a building.  It started with F and had four letters.  "What does F-O-C-K mean?" I asked the parents who were sitting in a circle around the room.

There was a lot of clearing of throats in that house of Baptists at that moment, a hurrying to change the subject, but I noticed a sputtering of quick grins appear on the faces of the menfolk.  I'd spelled my new word wrong--I'd later discover--but I'd stumbled across a new knowing: certain words could cause big people's faces to turn red.

Baby Ruths and Reese cups were my favorites--still are--and on that night we were allowed to stuff ourselves until bedtime.  Hard candies and butterscotch and mints went back to the bottom of the bag and I woke up the next morning under a blanket of Baby Ruth wrappers.

Re-entry

The last day of driving isn't anything to write home about--just long long roads, every patch looking like every other patch.

I stopped at some kind of beaver store (Buccees?) and got some cheese and candy and chicken salad to eat in the car, then drove into my driveway just before dark.

Picked up the mail all over the floor, unpacked the car--and was happy to see a big red wagon from Mike and a lamp he made me out of a buoy and the little oak desk that Carlene has been keeping and protecting from me since Day was little.

Now--to the job of unpacking and putting things in their places!

Pursuing happiness....

As part of her interfaith dialogue, Krista Tippet's recent podcasts include a conversation with the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a Muslim scholar, and an Episcopalian bishop.

When asked about the pursuit of happiness in a tradition that includes a lot of pain and suffering, Rabbi Sacks said:  "It is true, that if you read Jewish history, happiness is not the first word that comes to mind." (The audience laughs loudly at this, of course!)

"We do degrees in misery, post-graduate angst, and advanced guilt, and we do all this stuff, y'know, and yet somehow or other, when all of that is at an end, we come together and we celebrate."

He mentioned the Dalai Lama who has come through exile and suffering, still smiling.  "And that's how I describe my faith as a Jew.  Jacob says something very profound to the angel, 'I will not  let you go until you bless me.'  That is how I feel about suffering.  When I have suffered some bad thing, I will not let it go untilI have discovered the blessing that lies within it."

When  the Dalai Lama's spoke, he said, "Of course my life not easy, that is clear, but when I see some problem, some tragedy, I always look from different angle, and sometimes that same event may also have some positive thing....Happiness not come down from the sky.  We have to make it."

And then, of course, he laughed that contagious merry laugh of his!

From Pascagoula to Mandeville to Lafayette

One of my favorite towns heading west is Mandeville, Louisiana—thankfully spared by the spate of storms a few years ago that hit Biloxi,  Gulfport and New Orleans.  My mossy Mandeville is right next to Covington, home of the writer Walker Percy.

My  Mandeville has Cajun music and cattails and houses on stilts—and a view of the bridge leading to New Orleans.  I didn't drive on the Lake Pontchartrain bridge into New Orleans, but Kate and I did a few years ago.

At a gas station, I met a friendly boyish young woman with enormous blue eyes and tattoos scattered randomly up and down each arm.  Each tattoo had a sort of do-it-yourself look. “Where do the locals go for seafood?” I asked her.

That’s how it works traveling in any direction—you ask and you receive.  Fifteen miles later, I was in downtown Covington looking at art in galleries and eating the best corn and clam chowder and fried shrimp at Buster’s Place.  The waiter was an ever-smiling young man named Neil who seemed to have all the time in the world to talk, and by the time we left, I almost suggested we trade e-mail addresses.

People are extraordinarily friendly in Louisiana, I’ve noticed, and seem more light-hearted than people in other states.  I wonder why.  Maybe it’s because they dance a lot?

Just before arriving in Lafayette for the night, I drove through Breaux Bridge for old time's sake.  I've had lots of good times in Breaux Bridge, and if I get up early enough in the morning, I may go back for a quick look-see.

I visited a great quilt shop in Gautier (pronounced Go-Shay; who knew?) and found a quilt pattern with Mini Coopers.  Had to a buy it! One of these days I'll have to make a Mini wall hanging or something and use up all my scraps.

The sky was a brilliant blue all day.  Just as I was driving across the Atchafalaya Bridge past Baton Rouge, the sun dipped down like a brilliant gold ball behind the streak of clouds I'd been watching, a great light show!

I always say "Atchafalaya" all the way across the bridge, like a chant, an incantation.  I love these Cajun names for rivers and bayous and swamps and bridges.  I love the Louisiana air, the sunsets, the music emanating from any place people gather, the open smiles on the faces of people sitting on sidewalks smoking and talking.

Faces and Flowers in Mountain Towns

Gospel Music and Fried Pies and Gold Leaves

I discovered a new station--for those of you who like old classic, gospel music: WTBI.  You can listen online if you want a taste of the music of old-time revivals.

What I call "classic gospel" are those old songs my daddy used to sing in his quartets--not the same as contemporary "praise music" and nothing like high-church music. I haven't done a real study of it, but I know it when I hear it.  Some of it is downright hokey, some of it is close to bluegrass, some of it is frankly beautiful, but it's country white-church music with terrific harmonies and a certain raw poetry that I love. Right now, I'm hearing a shouting sermon online, a genre that most of you have probably never heard in person.

Whether you agree with all the words or not, the songs between the sermons have harmonies and lyrics that take me back to that time of sitting on pews in revival meetings like nothing else does.

I'm not sure if this is the genre you'll hear every time you tune in to this station online, but Carlene and I listened to it as we drove to and around Highlands, North Carolina last week and it swooshed us right back to the days they used to sing these old songs together, my parents in duets and Lloyd in his quartet.

The foliage wasn't quite as vivid as it's been some other years, but it was beautiful in its own 2014 October way.  We had a terrific time wandering around the mountain towns, staying in Hiawasee on Lake Chatuge,  eating Georgia barbecue pork in Dawsonville, and going to Sleepy Hollow to look at those wonderful fairy houses I like.

Lake Chatuge (Hiawasee) early morning

Seeing double in Lake Chatuge

Miss Carlene in Blue

Carlene at the Scenic Overlook at the top of Georgia

A week ago today--the day of the Fried Pies in Apple Country

Pascagoula, Alabama

Truman Capote and Harper Lee grew up and were friends not far from here--in a little town called Monroeville. Mike and I went there one December afternoon, seven years ago.

We were driving my first Mini to Texas that year and we took a back-road detour, as we both like to do.  Small towns were lit up for Christmas with twinkly lights.  We walked through the courthouse on the Monroeville square after which the one in To Kill A Mockingbird was modeled.  We saw a small town holiday parade and ate barbecue we bought from someone's beat-up pick-up truck. And on that Sunday morning, we visited an all-black church--a lively service I'll never forget.

I passed the sign to Monroeville yesterday and was tempted to take it.  I'm always tempted to take roads I've gone down before.  Returning to a place I remember refreshes the memory of that other time, connecting that Then to this Now.  It's like listening to music evocative of another time, back when I was a younger version of myself.

But I drove on.  I have promises to keep--a Halloween party for Nathan and Elena and their friends.  Will called and we talked for an hour as I was driving through slow Atlanta traffic.  He didn't say so, but I suspect he wanted to give me some company on the road for a bit, knowing I'm always sad to leave Carlene's.

Then the thick trees on both sides of the Atlanta-Montgomery-Mobile Interstates reduced phone signals, and I went into Road Reverie for the rest of the trip, listening to podcasts and old gospel music.

Later, I passed the exit to Dauphine Island.  It would soon be dark and I didn't have time to explore.  But I made a mental note to plan my time next trip to go there again, to get on the ferry as I did a few years ago, to take pictures of the many colorful houses on stilts.

Yesterday's driving was a day for making time--so I left Carlene's at 8:30 Eastern time and stuck to the main highways all the way, 85 South, then 65 toward Mobile.  The only stop I made all day was to poke around in a ginormous antique store called Angel's in Opelika.

I've driven these same roads so many times that I know the route like a neighborhood--yet passing through a town or a city doesn't mean knowing it, not really, just knowing where it is and how it's positioned among other Southern towns.  To stop is to uncover a tiny bit of it.

On that seven-years-ago trip with Mike, we had breakfast in Tuskegee, then walked around an old cemetery.  He, as I do, traveling solo, always asks the locals for directions to the best places to eat.  At a local greasy-spoon restaurant with salty country ham and mounds of grits and biscuits. we got into a conversation with a young woman who had long, long fingernails with tiny landscapes painted on them.  I commented about the elaborate tiny polish-paintings, and she said, "I got 'em did in Opelika."

Ever since then, whenever I pass the Opelika sign, I think about her words: "I got 'em did in Opelika."

I spent the day listening  to pocasts: interviews with the Dalai Lama, Yo-Yo-Ma, Michel Martin, and several other people participating in Krista Tippet's interfaith dialogue.  In my moving listening booth, I enjoyed both the content and the variety of different voices.  Both sides of the bland highways were rimmed with pine trees and kudzu and a few trees with colorful foliage.  Other drivers, each in their own moving listening booths, seemed like a band of good fellow- and sister-travelers.  I wondered what they were listening to--gospel music? the news? red-neck ranting? opera? audio books?

Just before reaching Mobile on 65, I decided to take a little detour into Bay Minette to get a whiff of the Gulf air, then connected with I 10 just as the sun was going down.  The sky was a blaze of red as I drove through Mobile, then dark as I drove here to Pascagoula, where I finally stopped after twelve hours on the road.

It's hard to stay on the wide roads.  Backroads are where you'll find pool halls and cemeteries, flower shops and rusted trucks, beauty shops and churches with signs like "Honest to God church"--as I saw in Bay Minette.  Backroads are where you see bales of hay lit by the fading sun, dogs running free, and all the hodgepodge poetry of real life off the beaten track.  If I had time, I'd avoid all interstates.

The more boring the roads, though, the better for a certain kind of reverie. I wanted time alone to seal in all the things that have happened since I left home on the 13th, to reflect on each detail of being There, before arriving in another There.

It occurred to me that my love of roads is a perfect template for the way my mind works.  But that's a topic for another day, another post....

Uncle David Ogletree: 1936-2014

Uncle David was the bachelor uncle who was the favorite of all his nieces and nephews.  I was his oldest, born when he was 13.

Carlene tells me that David used to sit and watch me sleep--entranced as he was by my baby-ness.

When David was a teenager, he used to entertain us by playing the piano, and we watched in amazement as his skinny fingers danced all over the keyboard.  He played hide and seek with us.  He picked us up and swung us around.  And he let us empty his Abe Lincoln bank of pennies on the chenille bedspread in his Lincoln-library bedroom.

If you've read Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, "The Great Stone Face," you remember how a young man stared at a face carved in stone so long that he became "like a twin" to that face.  David did a similar thing regarding Abe Lincoln.

A lifelong avid collector of Lincoln books and lore, he was tall and thin--probably never weighing more than 120 pounds. He had trembling hands and migraines--and as the preacher said in his eulogy yesterday--he tended to be nervous.  He was vivacious and funny and had an incredible memory, always able to quote a line that fit into any conversation.

A pastor at First Methodist Church in Atlanta until his retirement several years ago, he was always surrounded by children and babies and old people. He had charisma. He didn't care a hoot about money and had no mind for practical things, but he used what money he had to buy presents for people he loved.  Many of the teenagers who were in his youth groups (now-grandparents) were at the service yesterday.

I remember him bringing me a  stack of books about Tuscany when he heard I was going there. He published five books of poetry--not with a big publishing house, but on his own,  just because he wanted to. He read and loved Eudora Welty's books, and I claimed a book of photographs by Welty from the table of give-away David books yesterday.

There was a table of scrapbooks at the church he'd kept throughout his life--possibly as many as fifty. He never threw away anything.  Any card he ever got, any picture, was in those books and we were able to take whatever pictures or cards we wanted.  I took a few but it would have taken days to go through the whole collection.

The eulogy was given by a man named Sam who had worked with him throughout his career in Atlanta.  "He was the last man to gossip or say anything negative about anyone.  He loved everyone he met and could make a washerwoman sound like a queen."

When someone you love dies, you wish you'd spent much more time together, called more often, and asked more questions.  The retired David usually ate alone in his car--his favorite food being chicken nuggets.  Because of his shaky hands, he preferred not to eat in the dining room at the retirement center.

"Beautiful" and "wonderful" were probably the two most-used words in his vocabulary.  On the last day they visited, he said to Dot and Carlene, "My beautiful sisters!"  Everyone he met was--as described by David--"wonderful."


A perfect summation of David's life is described in these words by Abraham Lincoln:

Mike's Barn in Hartwell--North Georgia

When I met Mike in Hope, Arkansas, seven years ago, he told me he was building a barn.  I pictured a tiny little barn in the North Georgia mountains.

When I finished my New England sojourn and saw him again, I saw this three-story barn on what he calls "Brown Mule Farm."

This is where he lives.  Next door is a warehouse he built to house his huge collection of fifties memorabilia and street rods.  Next door to the warehouse is a Shell Filling Station he built before I met him--complete with restored gas pumps, working juke boxes,  a barber shop and soda fountain.  Neon signs are everywhere.   It's like an always-open museum, and people stop by to see it every day.

Does he want to sell anything?  No way.  This is his lifelong project and he does it for fun.  "I don't care about money," he says.

He has a sign on the front of the barn that sums up his passion for what he does: "Just another day in Paradise."

Visiting Mike on Monday, I spotted a beautiful antique red wagon--and before I knew it he was lifting it out to send home with me.  "Are you sure you want to part with this?" I asked.

"You can have anything I've got," he said--and he meant it.

I'd taken my one Madame Alexander doll from childhood to see if he could re-string it.

"You know I can!" he said.  "I can fix anything but a butt crack and a broken heart."

I'll be heading back to Texas on Tuesday.  In the back of Blue will be a little oak desk that used to be Day's when she was Elena's age; a red wagon wrapped in a blanket from the Brown Mule Farm, and a perfectly restored sixty-year-old doll.

A picture of Julianne--from Janet

Julianne was a hospice nurse who talked about her work as a "midwife" to dying people.  She was a mother and she was a grandmother to three little boys she adored.  Often, between shifts, she would drive to Copperas Cove to be with them.  Recently, she was so excited because two of them spent the night with her in her house on Dewey Street in San Antonio.

She often told me she'd been a wild child growing up.  She had a twinkle in her eyes.  When I knew her, she was a gentle soul, kind to the core.   Sometimes she'd call me and tell me she'd bought a Groupon coupon for dinner for two at a restaurant and we'd meet and have long conversations over a meal.

I can't believe she's gone.

Her service was on Friday.  I was unable to be there because I'm here, in Georgia, and going today to a memorial for  my Uncle David, my mother's youngest brother.

"Do you want me to go for you?" Janet asked. What an incredibly generous and kind offer--to go to a memorial service for my friend for  me!  I said yes, of course, and she went on Friday to say good-bye to a friend of mine she'd only met twice.  One night--not too long ago--Julianne and I swam with Janet in her pool.

After the service, Janet sent me pictures of the service and this picture of Julianne.  This is the only picture I have of her--as she never liked to have her picture taken.

She always told me she would never live to be an old woman.  But--she said, with that twinkle in her eye, "I'm already a little old woman."

Everything she did, she did very slowly.  It took her twice as long to eat a meal as it did me.  When she washed dishes, she might spend a full minute on each glass or plate.  She drove slowly.  When she worked on people (back when she used to rent my apartment for that work) she might spend three hours.  She talked very slowly and deliberately.

Our last conversation in person was at the Blanco Cafe--where she told me how much she was dreading an upcoming talk she was giving to an audience of doctors about her work as a lymphedema  therapist.

She loved cookies--and I would sometimes pick up her favorite ranger cookies at a cookie bakery near her house. But she couldn't gain weight, hard as she tried.  I'd be surprised if she weighed a hundred pounds.

On Wednesday, right after sending me a Happy Birthday text, she had a massive stroke, brought on by an aneurism she didn't know she had.  Passersby found her slumped over on her porch and called EMS.  She never regained consciousness and died the following day.

Julianne wasn't religious, though she did believe in an after life.  She used to tell me remarkable stories about the conversations she had with her patients just as they were dying, and she felt that death wasn't the end.

I hope she's right.  I like to imagine that she's living a different kind of life on a plane we, the living, can't see or imagine.  I like to picture her taking fifteen minutes  to savor one tiny little ranger cookie.

more pictures from our day in Columbus

Linda, Dottie, Carlene

Mary Beth--my Columbus Cousin

Columbus Dames

Yesterday, Carlene and I drove to Columbus to visit my cousin Mary Beth--whom I'd not seen in many years.  She lives in a beautiful loft--converted cotton gin--by the river.  Two of these Boston Terriers are hers; one is her daughter Missy's--who lives down the hall from her.

They were not happy about being put outside for company!

And here are two little old ladies I love so much!  Carlene and Dot, while little, are anything but old!

Dot is 83, Carlene 89

Julianne Moore of San Antonio

On Tuesday, I got a text from my dear friend, Julianne Moore: "Happy Birthday!  Hope all is going well on the road.  Enjoy."

Twenty four hours later, as she was working in her yard, she died of a massive stroke.

I received a phone call from her son, Matt, today--as he had found that text on her phone.

We two Libras always celebrated our October birthdays together.  Our last meal was a dinner last week at Blanco Cafe--for her 56th and my 66th.

A hospice nurse, Julianne was one of the kindest people I've ever known.  My cursor is flashing over the place where the next line should be. It will take me a long time to find words....

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time,
seven years ago,
I drove East-Texas Highway 79,
the same one
I traveled on Monday.

The same one
where once upon a time Little Will's plastic Go-Kart
flew off the car and bounced roughly down the road
still new from Santa Clause.

Seven years ago, I didn't know
when I stopped to take a picture
of my brand new first Mini by a wooden roadside flag,
that I'd meet a biker named Mike
in Hope, Arkansas--further
down the road

No one on any planet
has ever been sillier over
or more enamored with a car
than I was driving tiny pepperwhite
that September morning,
heading toward Cape Cod,
taking her picture, for Pete's sake,
like a mamma taking a snapshot of her baby.

Then I rolled on down the road,
seven years ago,
and met Mike in Hope
at an old train depot-turned-visitor's-center.

Two days ago, just as I spied that same painted roadside flag,
seven years older and showing its age,
at the exact moment I was remembering that day in Hope, that trip,
the phone rang, and it was Mike!

"How cool, how ironic, how timely!" I said

We talked about that day, we laughed, we remembered
that train depot.  "I got lost there and can't find my way back," he said.

"I'll be sixty-six tomorrow," I told him.
"That's just a number," he said.

I'm way past taking pictures of a car,
for heaven't sake!  Who would do that, but a young
girl of 58 in love with a car, in love with rolling
along back roads, and about
to fall in love with a stranger in a depot?

I'm way past that silliness now,
way down the road,
now all grown-up to Sixty-Six
seven years north on Highway 79

The former U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins

\ Billy Collins, live, and very much alive, and animated: This is an amazing video! Billy Collins: Everyday moments, caught in time by TED Billy Collins shares a project in which several of his poems were turned into delightful animated films in a collaboration with Sundance Channel. Five of them are included in this wonderfully entertaining and moving talk -- and don't miss the hilarious final poem! Credits for the animations in this talk: "Budapest," "Forgetfulness" and "Some Days" -- animation by Julian Grey/Head Gear "The Country" -- animation by Brady Baltezor/Radium "The Dead" -- animation by Juan Delcan/Spontaneous More at: http://http://www.bcactionpoet.org Help center • Email options • Report spam ©2014 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Conversations in the Car

I had great company on the road today.

I'd loaded my phone ahead of time with podcasts which--along with more Leonard Cohen and other music--accompanied me on the long, otherwise-uneventful Highway 20.

Krista Tippet's show, "On Being," (formerly "Speaking of Faith") is a great source of thoughtful interviews with people of various faiths, agnostics and atheists, physicists, rabbis, theologians, novelists, artists, and musicians.

Today I drove across Louisiana and Mississippi with Rosanne Cash ("Time Traveler") and Desmond Tutu ("A God of Surprises");  the late-Rabbi David Hartman, and the late-Sherwin Nuland, physician and author of  How We Die and several other books. (See Onbeing.org if you'd like to hear these and others)

I also listened to piano music of my friend Gary Lane who died almost exactly two years ago. I was teary listening to him play, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"--which I heard him play live many times for the residents of nursing homes in San Antonio.

Thanks to technology, the voices and keyboards of so many who are no longer living among us are still very much alive.   Driving along listening to one after the other, I wondered why I so seldom make the space to do that at home.  The car is a solitary listening booth, no interruptions.

Billy Collins is not only a spectacular poet, but he's a genius at talking about poetry.  If you want to hear an interview with Diane Rhem on NPR, you can hear his resonant voice as he talks about the poem, "Aimless Love," and about poem-making.  I love this poem!


AIMLESS LOVE

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

 - Billy Collins

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

I want to call or text or e-mail all of you who have sent me messages of good cheer today!  I had a long driving day with sketchy phone coverage and was unable to take many phone calls as I drove here.  Just checked in to a friendly Best Western--after a long day of driving.  No picture-taking except for a snapshot of the Mississippi River Bridge--which I have crossed, I figure, about a hundred times.

The weather has been beautiful, the sky clear all day on Interstate 20 from Shreveport, no deviations onto the back roads.

Seeing texts, reading emails and listening to voice mails was like a basket full of presents to open when I got here!

Barbel and Beverly

My birthday began on the fifth floor of the Best Western in Shreveport with a phone call from Beverly and an email from Barbel--two "B" birthday conversations that lingered throughout the day.  As I wrote this line, I knew it sounded familiar, and finally recalled where I'd heard it over and over:

"A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the 12th floor of the Acme building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye."

Beverly and I have been friends for over 40 years, and it was fun to talk about music and books and travel. Retreats have been part of the fabric of our foursome group friendship (Beverly, Mary Locke, Sylvia and I)  for decades--and we're planning a 70th birthday retreat for Beverly this November.   At sixty-six, I'm the youngest of the group--but not by far.

Then I got an email from Barbel--who's visiting her mother in Germany--with some art-making advice I love:

DRAWING: I am so glad you are OPEN to learn a NEW and unfamiliar skill. Try to stick with it, its a most HELPFUL  T O O L  to learn to LATER ON  express yourself creatively. It will take lots and lots of practice and various techniques. It's worth it, even though at times you may feel 'it's a pain in the ass'.

If I may say so - my advice to my friend:

go with YOUR flow
dont compare yourself with others who are more skilled already
dont look for results too soon

In Artschool I HATED drawing and ended up finally loving it.
What you are doing right now is EXPLORING - learning something which gives you a chance to take it further where you want to be.
It is NOT fast path.

Shreveport Morning at the Best Western

I woke up at seven to hear that Atlanta is having quite a storm, power outages everywhere. I called Carlene--without whom I wouldn't have a birthday!--and she's fine, with power!

As I was passing by the desk, the woman, maybe 19,  who worked there (deep in conversation with a large overall-wearing man), called out to me: "Mam, don't you agree that childbirth is disgusting?"

So there we were, on the morning of my birthday, me reassuring this young woman that if it is, you forget; it's worth it.

"No way," she said. "My mother had three and I'm the only fabulous one.  My brother is a screw up and my oldest sister--I won't even go there."

She was rather fabulous, I had to admit.

Then I went to breakfast for grits and sausage  and watched Fox News with an Asian-American woman who was following the news about Ebola with great interest.  Turns out, she's a nurse from Houston.

She was visiting to help her son get settled in for his new job here and was radiant.  "I love every minute of being with my son," she said.

We talked about what mothers talk about--our children.  When I told her I had four grandchildren, she beamed.  "You are so blessed!" she's said.  "I know you miss them when you're away."

"Without childbirth, where would be our future?" she said--apparently hearing the loud conversation with the desk woman and the man in overalls.

She expressed surprise that I had a daughter who's forty-three ("You look so young," she said)--exactly what one wants to hear on one's 66th birthday!

By the time we parted, we were wishing each other safe travels and I was wishing her safety when she returns to her work in the emergency room.  We swapped email addresses and will stay in touch.  I might see her when she and her husband come to San Antonio to see the Christmas lights.

When I got back to my room, I noticed that I had several Happy Birthday calls while I was out--which I will return on the road, soon as I take my bath.

I don't know how far I'll get, but I'm behind the storm, Carlene said.  I'll be a storm-chaser, take my time, and have a wonderful birthday on the road.

400 miles, In Shreveport on the night before my birthday

What a great day!

First, I went to the Mini Cooper Center to get Blue's tires checked for travel. In the waiting room, I looked around for something to draw--and voila!  I spied two vending machines with a big fake coin on top, a mop between.

When Charles, the service manager, came to tell me the tires were all set, he said, "Wow!  I love your drawing!"

I must confess: I was thrilled!  He wanted to make a copy, have me sign it! Talk about a burst of encouragement for a novice drawer!

Charles, a writer with a book coming out next month,  moved to San Antonio from Lilburn, Georgia--just a few miles from my destination, Lawrenceville.

With Charles' encouragement echoing in my ears, I drove all day like a real artist, looking at everything as potential material.  The clouds were heavy and grey as I drove out of San Antonio, but soon the sky cleared and it was a beautiful day all day to Shreveport.

I stopped at Naeglin's Bakery in New Braunfels for bear claws, then stopped briefly in Buda to take pictures in a pumpkin patch.

Just north of Austin, I pulled off onto Highway 79 and a string of little towns with beautiful things to see from Taylor to Shreveport, Leonard Cohen's "Live in London" the soundtrack of the day.

Cotton fields, long silver trains, scarecrows, barns, and pine trees; a sky with puffy white clouds--the route was painted in all the colors of October, reminiscent of the scarecrow day in Cambria, California, a year ago.

After a delicious Mexican dinner, I drove the last forty miles to Shreveport, singing along with Leonard all the way, loud and proud!

Here are a few of the many scarecrows I photographed in Buffalo, Texas:

Six Weeks, Six Different Teachers

Sketchbook Skool is now in week two--and the topic of the second lesson is Reportage, with a focus on making expressive lines.

Teacher #2 was not as inspiring as Teacher #1 for me, but the real problem is not the teacher; it's the fact that I have so far not gotten the hang of drawing. I've discovered no latent talent in myself, but I expect to stumble across a line or two in the next week on the road that will at least encourage me to stay in the game.

What I'm doing tonight is browsing the many drawings from my classmates all over the world. I just captured a few that I want to put on my blog so that I can study them carefully, see what these artists are doing. Our assignment was to walk in a park or a public place and sketch what we saw.

I should credit the artists here, but for now, these are just going up as some of my inspiration pieces:

Getting the details of the poochy-bellied man with the cap,
the woman wearing a hat from behind: I think that's what I'm after.

I like the simple lines with just a little color in this one.

And this one, too--the little bits of color in the fruits
at the farmers' market.

Here, I like the color of the crowd of people, the tent.