Leap Day

Today Mike, MoJo and I enjoyed a sunny spring-like Leap Day with Joy,  Frank and Max.

From Joy's studio window, we watched Frank feeding apples to seven deer, three of them hand to mouths!

Frank and Mike are both avid collectors, and they love showing and talking about their finds and treasures--from antique guns to old rusty restorable carnival rides.  Some money was exchanged and Mike drove away with a rocket from the old Playland Park that used to be a big deal in San Antonio.

Joy made us a delicious lunch and we stayed til 3:00 in the afternoon.

Their house and lakeside property is a fun showplace of art, blooming  plants, and antiques; for me--lucky friend and recipient of their hospitality for over 40 years--it's also a place that feels like a second home.

My First Art Class

I won't count the one in first grade.  The one in which I colored the courthouse purple--after which the the teacher walked me to the end of the hall to show me it was "really red." The  one in which the teacher held up my colored mimeographed courthouse to tell the class "not to color hard like Linda."  (She then leaned over my hard-colored one to show me that "light wispy strokes were more ladylike.") When I got a fresh mimeograph to start over,  I painted the red courthouse so light and wispily that it was almost pink.

But wait, there's more: "Color in the lines, Linda.  The lines are there for a reason."

Most of us probably have similar art, music, and word wounds from elementary school days; that was my first and most potent one.   I wonder how many potential talents and curiosities are destroyed in the bud in classrooms.  I saw it every day when I taught writing in college--kids so frozen and shy with fear of mistakes that they loathed writing.

My first actual art class was yesterday's one at at Lyn Belisle's studio: Composition Camp and Transfers.  She opened with a slide show of works she'd made to demonstrate the layers of techniques we'd learn: using graphite paper, ironing on images, and incorporating white tempera paint, watercolor pencils, rubber stamps and stencils.  At the end of the class, we all had a piece matted and ready to frame.  We were asked to name our pictures, tell what we were most proud of and what surprised us most.  What surprised me most is that I managed to make a face!

Lyn uses all kinds of techniques to create her paintings and three-dimensional pieces--and I was inspired to learn them all.  She teaches lightly, encouraging what works, suggesting ways to improve--the essence of good teaching.

When Lyn held up my work today and said something positive about it, I recalled the holding up of my courthouse in first grade and felt a little teary with gratitude.

"You're channeling Anne Morrow Lindbergh," she said--pointing out that my finished piece had a feather and a shell in it.  I hadn't consciously thought of that, but when she pointed it out, I realized that much of what happens on a page is unconscious, one thing leading to another.

"I don't like this horse," one student said--and Lyn showed her ways to work over it.  "It's still in the history of the piece even if you can't see it," Lyn said.

Visual art is like writing that way.  The work that goes into a piece isn't always in the finished product, but it leads to what we want to keep.

Tea

Mike went to Harbor Freight to get a saw this morning to work on the screen we're building outside my bedroom window.  He also brought home the yellow enamel table--which he got for a lot less than the original price--and a railroad teapot, white with a silver-plated topper.

After a morning of running errands, he felt that he was getting a relapse of his bronchitis and spent most of the day in or near bed resting.

So here we are, having Teavana tea, on the beautiful yellow table, listening to Pandora (Nina Simone channel is great!) and I'm pretty sure he's going to be well tomorrow.  Lemony hot herbal tea in china cups (another thrift shop find) and good music will cure whatever ails a body, I think.

MoJo and Me

How to Dress for a Blind Boys Concert

If you have tickets for a Blind Boys of Alabama/Dirty Dozen Jazz Band concert, here's what you do:

Go to the thrift shop and buy black jackets.  My 100% wool blazer was $2.99.

Lay them on the floor the night before.  Go outside and get paint left over from past paint jobs and splatter it all over the jackets with a knife.   If you really want a cool tie, go to Boysville and buy a hand-painted one.

The Dirty Dozen band and the Blind Boys were terrific!

Where to Invade Next

Imagine sending children to public school knowing that their meals are prepared by chefs who take nutrition seriously.

In Michael Moore's newest movie, "Where to Invade Next," Moore pretends to be a one-man "invader" of Germany, Finland, Italy, France, Tunisia, Slovenia, Norway and other countries--not to conquer them or teach them anything, but to learn what they can teach us. It's a thought-provoking film, to say the least, and I highly recommend it.

In France, American Michael Moore sits down with a quiet group of children eating family style, passing the vegetables and fruit and cheese trays to each other.  They are served things like scallops and cabbage and Camembert cheese.  He offers them a sip of his coke, which they politely decline (all but one girl who takes a tiny sip and says "it's okay").

He shows the chef texted-from-home photos of American school lunches and the chef says, "That's not food!" The children in the French school don't eat french fries but once or twice a year, and are never served sloppy joes, pizza or canned vegetables.  And the cost of their fresh meals at school?  Less than American schools spend!

Happiness and fulfillment are viewed in some countries as top priorities, and education is as challenging for poor kids as kids whose parents have means.  Teachers don't teach to standardized tests and the kids don't take multiple choice tests.

Prisoners are treated well in Norway, and prisons are meant for rehabilitation. The mindset in so many countries offering workers extensive paid leaves for vacations is that those on the lower rungs of the corporate ladders should be given the same time off for relaxation and rest as those at the top.

"How can you Americans go to sleep at night?" one woman asked, "Knowing that your friends and neighbors are struggling to eat and get health care?"

Wednesday

Today Mike and I shopped thrift shops, and then Pam joined us for more.  We're painting black jackets to wear to the Blind Boys concert tomorrow night.  At this point, they look rathe like Jackson Pollock paintings on black canvases. Tomorrow, I'm going to sew on brightly colored buttons.  Mike got a great hand-painted tie at Boysville and a string of fake pearls for me.

Mike took us out for the best spinach enchiladas ever at Lisa's.  Then we went to Pickers Paradise and got some wood for a project we'll be working on tomorrow.  Mike's building a screen outside my bedroom window for plants and bird feeders--and to block the view of the house next door.

It's been a fun day.  We're heading out in a few minutes to see the new Michael Moore movie at the Bijou.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Today, Gerlinde made a delicious lunch of gumbo and pie with ginger snap crust in honor of Charlotte's birthday.  Here they are, three of my best diva friends, Gerlinde, Charlotte, and Kate.

After lunch, Gerlinde's sweet husband Tim made coffee for these coffee lovers.  Even though they were all oohing and aahing over his coffee, I said, "No, I don't drink coffee, never have."

Here I am drinking my first cup of coffee ever--Tim's Americana with whipped cream.  Yummy!  Such a nice drink for our first chilly day.

The wind is howling tonight as a cool snap finally makes its way to Texas.

Full Moon and Lightning

Finally, we got some rain--and it's a beautiful light show tonight with the full moon.

Mike and I spent all afternoon at the rheumatologist's office.  The previous doctor way back had diagnosed "minor scleroderma" and a very strict diet.  This new doctor said I only have one of the five markers for that and that the all-over body aches I've been having don't add up to fibromyalgia either.  So he's prescribing a medication for the body aches, avoiding stress, getting plenty of rest, and exercising and doing yoga three or four times a week.  I can do all that a lot easier than a diet of all celery and cabbage and coconuts.  He still wants me to get a couple of other tests this month, but for now, I'm relieved that I apparently don't have scleroderma.

So tomorrow, I'll get back to the gym and go to yoga on Wednesday--and I'll be on the road to wellness.

It was so good to have Mike with me for the doctor's appointment!  I'm squeamish about blood work and he stood right there with me and made jokes, rendering the whole thing almost painless.

Sunday in San Antonio

After the flea market, we did the Bil Haus Studio Art Walk.  It was so much fun to meet the artists and watch Mike converse with them all.  We met a fiber artist--Jane Dunnewald--who gave us a tour of a beautiful house on Woodlawn that she has taken from trash to treasure in four years.

Then we had a delicious dinner at Lisa's,  an excellent Mexican restaurant (Bandera at Woodlawn) recommended by Pam.

Then went to AT&T and got the phone fixed.  Turns out I'd locked it by mistake.  To fix that, you simply push down the home key and the power key at the same time and it reboots and all is well.  This is my fourth of fifth iPhone and I never even knew it had a lock function on it.

Mike and MoJo

The first thing I heard this morning, when Mike and MoJo came back from their early walk was this:
"MoJo, people around here run for fun; they aren't stealing anything.  You don't have to bark at them."

We went to a flea market along with 200,000 (not exaggerating) of San Antonio's population.  After a little nap, we're going to the Bil Haus art walk.  My new replacement iPhone isn't working--just in case anybody is thinking of calling me.  I hope to get the replacement phone replaced in a day or two.

"The Kindness of Teenagers"

For Christmas, Day gave Carlene (Nana) a subscription to Bella Grace.  Unbeknownst to Nana and me, Day recently submitted an article to the magazine--but Day didn't know they'd chosen to publish it until she got this email today from Nana:

...It is so beautifully told that I thought for a minute we were all back in our room in Hiawassee telling stories.   How fitting for this wonderful issue highlighting the contradictions and differences and empathy of our world.  It doesn't surprise me that this came directly from your heart and teaching.... Kindness ... It sits so near the heart of peace. 

One thing they left out in the bio about you - do they not know that you are also a grandaughter
and how I cherish you?   And the contribution you make to "Life's Beautiful Journey"!
Nana

After calling Day to congratulate her, I drove to Barnes and Nobles to get a copy, but it won't be on the shelves until March 1.

I've had a few days of extraordinary encounters with kindness myself--in emails and texts and phone calls and visits.

And from Mike--who's in his truck with MoJo driving toward Texas for an unexpected February visit.  Due to about seven car accidents, it took him hours to get through Atlanta, but he just called to say he's already in Mississippi.

At the Alabama Welcome Center, he told MoJo to stay in the truck.  When Mike got back, MoJo had devoured the Subway sandwich Mike had planned to eat for dinner and was sitting in the back seat looking all happy and innocent.  "All that was left were a bunch of onions and tomatoes on the floor," Mike said. "I guess he doesn't care for vegetables."

The Improvised Life

Pam forwarded her daily email from this site--it looks like one of those sites thatI could spend all day reading, as one article leads to another and another.....

http://www.improvisedlife.com/2014/10/30/marie-kondo-philosopher-declutterer/

A Mother's Reckoning, Sue Clebold

It's hard to believe that it's been seventeen years since the Columbine massacre.  When these tragedies happen, I always feel most pain for the mothers of the victims, but I rarely think about the mothers of the perpetrators.  

Sue Clebold,  mother of Dylan Clebold (one of the Columbine shooters)  has published a memoir about her experience as "the mother of a monster." She was featured in a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer (ABC) as well as yesterday's "Fresh Air" on NPR.  She's an articulate white-haired woman of 66 now, and in the last two years she and her husband have divorced. She talks about spending the last seventeen years grieving the death of her son and his victims and admitting that for many years she "just wanted to die."  But then she got breast cancer two years after the tragedy.   That brush with her own death made her want to live--and it also made her want to do something constructive.  She often spends time at the Columbine Memorial as a way to be close to the teacher and students killed by her son.

While doing a great deal of research on suicide-murders,  she's admitted her own guilt in not knowing the extent of Dylan's depression and rage.  She describes Dylan as a little boy as brilliant, creative,  and sweet--though she wishes she had probed  further when, as a teenager,  he became distant and depressed. She even wishes that she had violated his privacy and read his journals--which might have led her to get help for him.

Terry Gross asked her, "After the massacre, after the grief, after all you've gone through, do you still love your son?"

"I will always love my son. I never stopped loving my son, not for a moment, and I will love him until I breathe my last breath.  I carry him with me, like an invisible child, everywhere I go."

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/

Taking-A-Break-Tuesday

Three years ago, Joy started me a subscription to Oprah magazine--and tonight I'm having a delicious evening, home alone, perusing and cutting out recipes and book reviews, quotation and pictures,  from the past four months' of magazines.

I had two long phone conversations this afternoon--partly in a chair at Off My Rocker (a consignment store where I was weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a particular yellow enamel table for my kitchen.)  I've been thinking about it for a few days--as it takes me a while to make purchasing decisions.  Just as I was looking at it, Carlene called and I texted her a picture of it.  "Do you remember we had one of those when we lived in the sawmill house?" she asked.

As it turns out, I don't consciously remember it--I was about five at the time--but maybe on some level, I did remember it because its bright yellow enamel surface gave me such a strong sense of home.  I could imagine dunking graham crackers in milk on such a table--which we did do in the sawmill house!  It was a red house and we drove a blue '55 Pontiac.  I remember learning to ride my bike on the road that led to the Faulk Sawmill, the exhilaration every kid feels when she realizes, training wheels off, that she's pedaling on her own.

We lived on the sawmill property until our brick house was built on Ann Street, and my mother kept books for the sawmill.  I remember nice men coming in in overalls and  lying on a green leatherette couch and watching the long strips of papers cascading onto the floor from Carlene's adding machine.  (I didn't call her Carlene in those days; I called her Mother.) I remember Mr. Jones from the grocery store bringing Bob and me little brown bags of penny candy every Friday--Mary Janes, peppermint, and little wax bottles filled with something wet and sweet.  I loved those little strips of paper with candy buttons in all colors. I loved bubble gum and chocolate balls.

Memories reside in objects and flavors.  Otherwise, why would we hear over and over in antique shops, "My grandmother had one of those"?  Or--"My mother made biscuits in a bowl just like that"? I will probably be at Off My Rocker when it opens in the morning, and I'll likely bring home a yellow enamel table.

But for tonight, I'm clipping words and pictures from four Oprah magazines and feeling lucky to have such a night.

Inside the magazine are little tear-out quotations.  Carlene always typed quotations and taped them onto the inside doors of the kitchen cabinets.  We share a love of words and inspiring sentences.  Here's one from last month's Oprah:

"As long as I'm alive, I will continue to try to understand more because the work of the heart is never done."

Muhammad Ali

Kayla

For many years, I taught Freshman Composition, Argument, and Speech at UTSA--as well as teaching literature at Palo Alto and other colleges.  It was such rewarding work!  Years later, I often run into former students or hear from them.  I'm grateful to Janet Oglethorpe for sending me this article in which a former student named Kayla credited me (by my married name) for encouraging her to tell what was then a very painful story.

I remember Kayla well and it was so gratifying to know, years later, that the writing made a difference in her life!

http://therivardreport.com/building-bridges-of-friendship-to-women-in-the-sex-industry/

On-Screen Love and Loss

Watching any on-screen love story (tragic, cheesy, bittersweet, sentimental, or ecstatic), I can easily transport myself right into the heart of it.

1.

After watching 45 Years, the story of a couple married for 45 years, Cindy and I talked to a few women in the lobby, and we all identified with some aspect of it, and we all left feeling a bit sad.  For me, it was that awful, beautiful and memory-loaded song, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."  It made me cry.

I used to like looking at Fifty-Year-Anniversary pictures in the paper. So often the couples I used to call "old" have grown to look alike and even wear uncannily similar facial expressions.  Now, many of my friends have reached their 50th anniversaries!  Had I stayed married, I'd be less than two years away from my own. I fell in love (or whatever 15-year-olds fall into) dancing to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."

In the movie, the final scene focused on the very fluid and bereft facial expressions of Kate, the wife.  The music throughout the film was a  haunting soundtrack of the Sixties,  back when we believed that we were headed toward a lifetime of marital bliss, when all we really heard in "better and worse" was the first part.  These songs shaped our attitudes about men and women and marriage, and I can only listen to them sparingly.

2.

Last week, I watched a series on PBS recommended by Freda.  Afterlife is the story of Robert Bridge (played by Andrew Lincoln), a psychiatrist and professor who's writing a book about the paranormal.  He's skeptical about it all, but follows his friend Alison, a medium, as she uses her powers to connect with the spirits of the dead.

I fell a little bit in love with Robert Bridge.  He was a kind and generous soul. His speech was measured and slow, British style. And he was an incredible listener.  (He must have been written, cast, and directed by women!) Unfortunately, he's way too young and he's not a real person and by the end of the series he's actually dead.

American ghost and after-life films have never appealed to me, but I liked this British one.  Americans talk and speechify more than the British and leave less to the imagination.  Conversations in British dramas are usually more nuanced, the faces and gestures speaking as much as words.

3.

Chip on Fixer Upper is also worthy of a crush--a man I see as a younger version of Mike. A Texan, he's more lively and talkative than Robert Bridge, and he's always wonderfully sweet, easy-going and upbeat.  He loves his wife and four children and he knows how to do anything with an old house.  Even when he accidentally rolls his new Jeep into another vehicle, he's only momentarily shaken. He has a great sense of humor and playfulness--very much like my real off-screen Valentine!

Pain in the neck

Years ago, I remember reading in some New Age book that we should pay attention to the language of our symptoms.  According to that book, many of our non-physical complaints have physical corollaries.  If we "need to get something off our chests," and if we say someone or something is a "pain in the neck" (or other bodily part), watch out for symptoms arising in the chest or neck!

Yesterday, I got my Skin and Bone house checked, poked, and x-rayed. My only complaint was a persistent pain in the neck.  I've been treating it with chiropractic and hot packs.  If the language of symptoms has meaning beyond the obvious, I'm wondering, what could possibly be a "pain in the neck" in my life?  I don't know....

I love my doctor, Dr. Heller.  She takes her time, she covers all the bases, and she talks like a real person.  She showed me a big bruise on her arm, for one thing, and warned me that taking a baby aspirin a day (which she recommended I start doing) will result in easy bruising like it's done for her.

She ordered an MRI, but the x-rays of my neck area showed what looks like osteoarthritis--the crooked wings on the discs touch each other instead of keeping their distance as the discs on younger people do.  When the MRI office person called today to schedule the procedure, she asked me if I were claustrophobic or if I'd do okay with a washcloth over my face for half an hour.

My lab numbers were pretty good, even my bone density test--thank goodness.  But, in addition to the MRI,  it's time to do the dreaded 10-year colonoscopy, see a dermatologist, a rheumatologist, an ophthalmologist, and the dentist, which I've spent today scheduling.

Dr. Heller recommended continued chiropractic work with the excellent Emily Oliver and a return to yoga for stretching out the crowded discs and strengthening the core.  She recommended a light dose of statins for cholesterol, upping the dose of Vitamin D and drinking more water--along with lots of lotion after a shower for dry skin.

It's amazing how much time and work go into the maintaining of one aging body! Since my body and my house are exactly the same age, I know.  Electrical circuits can stop sending the signals they are supposed to send. Walls can crack.  Locks can break. Plumbing can stop up.

Some of a house's ills can be covered with the cosmetics of paint.  Some can be fixed.  And some you just have to start calling the charms of age, and love them the best you can.

Refurbishing Old Houses

To counteract a bit of a slump, I've found some good medicine in the middle of the night: watching Fixer Upper episodes on Netflix.  Kate advised watching Lewis Black, a comedian that had her laughing all day on Saturday--so that's next on my list.

Houses, according to Jungian analysts, can represent the psyche.  When we dream of houses, it may say something about the state of the soul.  Maybe watching houses being transformed suggests a need for some renewal of the psyche? Maybe the soul wants some walls taken down, or installed? More light from certain corners?

"Let's just cut out that wall and open up the space," Jojo, the designer, says to her lovable husband Chip, the contractor.  It's amazing to watch the transformations on dingy little houses after the two of them work their magic.  In 27 minutes of air time, 30 days of work time, the results are phenomenal.

They usually start with houses most of us would reject from the get-go,  houses long neglected and cramped and sometimes quite ugly.  But in the end, they are staged (as they say in the business) with beautiful furniture and lighting; walls removed; new countertops installed, and voila!  Happily Ever Afterwards.

House builders, remodelers and decorators have a vocabulary that strikes me as odd.  "Master Bedroom" (often abbreviated as "The Master") sounds like a relic of plantation days, and I wouldn't want to name a room after a master. Why not just "Mama and Daddy's bedroom" or "the largest bedroom in the house"?

"Powder Room" is a silly euphemism. Who powders noses in other people's bathrooms?  But maybe they do--as these house buyers often talk about "entertaining" in the house.  I'd prefer hospitality to entertainment in anybody's house.  

In spite of these odd words, I enjoy watching Jojo and Chip shopping for and re-using old materials to make new tables and mantels and doors. It's fascinating to see an old throwaway transformed into a jewel.

A House of My Own--Sandra Cisneros

Those of us who live in San Antonio know that Sandra Cisneros ( author of House on Mango Street and other books) angered the Powers-That-Be by painting her house in the historical King William District purple.  Purple, they said, was not historically accurate.

She writes about that in this most recent of her books: A House of My Own/Stories From My Life--a collection of previously published essays with recent commentaries.

I loved her purple house, and also the newly painted Casa Rosa version of it--pink with a green door, pictured on page 176.  It's not a timid pink, as mine recently was; it's a bold candy pink.

"Color is a story.  An inheritance....Nobody wants to live like they're poor, not even the poor.  The poor prefer to live like kings.  That's why they paint their houses with the only wealth they have--spirit."

She writes:

A house for me has been a lifelong dream.  Owning one, having one, retreating to a space one can call one's own, where a radio or TV isn't blaring, and someone isn't knocking on the other side of the door saying, "Come on out of there!" A house for me is the space to decide whether I want to be sad and not turn on the lights, to sleep until noon or beyond, read a book propped up by fringed pillows, shut off the ringer on the phone, wear my pajamas all day, and not venture farther than the backyard fence if I feel like it.  A house is the right to leave my hair uncombed, walk around barefoot, be rude.  I don't want to be quasar bien, that terrible syndrome of las mujeres. I like the civility of incivility.  If someone rings the doorbell, does that mean I have to answer it? If someone says hello, do I have to grin like a geisha?  I like the military chin flick of the men.  I see you, you see me. A house for me is the freedom to be. To go back to bed after breakfast.  Peruse mail order catalogs while in the tub.  Eat pancakes for dinner.  Study the New York Times while ironing.  A house is about safety and privacy of doing what others might think odd, or eccentric, or wrong, and if I live alone there is no one to tell me "You can't do that!" It's the richest indulgence I know next to writing.  

Sandra likes to write, smoke her cigar, collect art and travel.  She writes about the moment of sadness, though, when she leaves her house--and the moment of joy when she returns.  I feel that way about my little house.  I also relate, when I'm feeling sad, to this sentiment:

Sometimes my house is lonely, but I mostly enjoy the aloneness.  Aloneness is a luxury, like grief.  Sometimes society tries to kill.  "Don't be sad."  "Why is the door locked?  What are you doing in there?" For a writer, both loneliness and grief serve their purpose of allowing one the heart dialogues. 

Experimenters

I remember, back in college, learning about the obedience experiments: participants were asked to administer shocks for "wrong answers" to a series of questions.  The person giving the jolts of electricity were told to up the voltage for every wrong answer.    In reality, the person receiving the jolts, was part of the experiment, an actor on the team--but the jolt-er did not know that.

This film, Experimenters, streamed on Netflix, is about the sociopsychologist, who was responsible for those famous experiments.

65% of the participants administered shocks even when they thought they were inflicting pain on another person.  The question at the core of the experiments is: How far will we go if someone in authority asks us to do something that goes against our moral and individual grain?

Interlopers

Estate sales are sad.  In the absence of the person who's recently died, strangers (like me) poke around in their private spaces, looking at what mattered to them in life.  In the case of the one Cindy and I visited this morning, what mattered to the late-owner of the house looked very much like what matters to us.  "She would be our friend!" we said.

Agnes was an artist.  We looked at her unique art pieces made out of found objects, bottle caps and paint.  They were not for sale, but her art supplies, jewelry and dishes were.  Her bed was for sale, her furniture.  There were boxes of fabric and buttons and threads--all sadly speaking for all that she still intended to do.  Her book shelves were filled with books she'd read, many the same ones I've read recently.

I bought a beautiful hand-smocked dress for Elena and a couple of pieces of vintage fabric. I bought a blanket for my bed, freshly laundered and sweet smelling.

Other women like me were in the bedroom, spreading crocheted tablecloths on the bed.  We spoke to each other in whispers and quiet voices.  We all knew we were in the presence of death--Agnes' and our own.  What would we leave behind undone?  What strangers would one day look at the tracks of our lives as we were doing in Agnes' house?