Happiness is...

I graduated high school in the class of '66.  Now I am about to join the class of another Sixty-Six.  When we graduated, we sang "Climb Every Mountain"--though at the time there weren't all that many mountains from which to choose.  Many of us climbed Marriage Mountain, but all the others were obscured: Career Mountain, Adventure Mountain, Art Mountain....

At this Sixty-Six, I see peaks everywhere and want to climb them all!

My birthday was launched last night--dinner at Cappy's with two of my oldest friends (not age-old, but friendship-vintage), Freda and Bonnie.  It was wonderful to eat delicious scallops and creme brûlée outside on the patio and open presents and talk!

Then I came home and continued my conversations on the web, tried out my first homework assignment for Sketchbook Skool, and played with different kinds of markers and pencils.  Our assignment was to describe, visually, the story of a process: how we do or making something.  My attempt is very amateurish compared to so many artists in the Sketchbook community, but here it is:

This morning, I met my friend Pam at the McNay for a painting class--which, actually, wasn't a class but a gathering of women with easels doing whatever we felt like doing.  I made my first painting ever, and I enjoyed being with Pam and meeting new people and playing with acrylics.  

Pam and Ellen

Pam and Linda

To close out my reporting of yesterday's Liz Gilbert interview, I'd like to try to capture the part that keeps echoing in my mindl:

She talked about the monsters and demons that live in her brain.  When she let go of the wrong path and started on her real path, she had to confront them all.  But what she did was to put them in their place, not give them such power over her as she had previously done.  She took control.  She imagined each one of them as a little kid--all  part of her, but none of whom got to boss her around.

"Mama's driving now," she told them, patting them all as she would real children.  "You just go to sleep."

I loved that analogy: mama driving, fear and guilt and all the other "monsters" shrunk down to size and relegated to the back seat!

Oprah has done a great service to women over the years--by bringing together voices of wisdom and inspiration. So many of her guests, like Liz Gilbert, remind us of how important it is for women to claim their own journeys....

A happy day ended happily with a wonderful writing group and Charlotte's Italian cream cake! We wrote about our own individual heroine's journey--naming our questions and our obstacles.  In a way, no matter what we write, that is the story vibrating at the center of it all, isn't it?