Victoria's Suescum's Happy Trees in the Jungle

"Joyful Jungle August 9 - 31, 2017 AnArte Gallery in The Collection 7959 Broadway #404 San Antonio, TX 78209 (210) 826-5674 Opening on Wednesday, August 9, 2017 6:00-8:00 p.m. Tuesday - Friday 11-6 Saturday 12-5** FREE ADMISSION

Victoria's artist statement and news about other shows in which her beautiful pieces are featured:

The upcoming exhibit titled “Joyful Jungle” work will feature “Happy Trees” blooming with recycled plastics which have been cut, melted, punctured, spray painted and flocked to provide them with a rich surface treatment. Bright colors and sensual surfaces draw one’s attention, and the jewel like quality of each blossom invites closer inspection. The paint drips and swirls in an amalgam of delicious colors, velvety flocking contrasts with smooth plastic, heat makes tendrils of plastic curl.

The Happy Trees are celebrated in 4x3 foot oil on canvas paintings which are also brightly colored. The paint is creamy. The trees stand against Jungle backgrounds in raspberry, turquoise, orange and lemony green.

In Joyful Jungle I remain true to my interest in mixing low/ high art, non-traditional art materials and found plastics. Work in Joyful Jungle builds upon earlier pieces such as can be viewed at the Centro de Artes in an exhibit curated by Kathy Vargas titled “A Woman’s Place…” which features a gigantic 9x24 foot work on paper with a surface which contrasts monochrome pigments in surprising combinations of light and shadow, opacity and gloss. Four pieces from my study of street signage (again, low art) are included in a second exhibit at the Centro de Artes curated by Diana Molina titled “Icons & Symbols of the Borderlands." Here works on paper set images found on neighborhood store fronts in a fine art context. The subjects incude raspberry raspas, aguas frescas and paletas.

"A Woman's Place" is open till August 20, 2017
"Icons & Symbols of the Borderlands" is open till December 17.2017
Centro de Artes at Market Square, San Antonio, TX
Tuesday-Sunday 11-6
210-206-ARTS

A retrospective of my work is on exhibit at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center until August 2.

My work is also on view at the McNay Museum of Art("To See is to Have") and at the Weston Centre ("LoneStar presents...") in San Antonio, TX

Looking Up

This morning I didn't quite make it through the entire hour of dancing, but almost.  NIA is an excellent exercise regimen, my class led by Jan Jarboe Russell at the Synergy Studio. About fifteen women dance on the shiny floor to different routines each class, today's being Sanctuary.

After NIA,  I copied this poem by St. Augustine on the NIA bulletin board:

I praise the dance,

for it frees people from the heaviness of matter

and binds the isolated to community.

I praise the dance, which demands everything:

health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,

who are in constant danger of becoming all brain,

will, or feeling.

Dancing demands a whole person,

one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,

who is not obsessed by lust for people and things

and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person,

one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.

I praise the dance.

O man, learn to dance,

or else the angels in heaven will not know

what to do with you.

St. Augustine


Later, Elizabeth, my physical therapist, inspired me to make dietary changes and shared yummy-looking recipes, including the following:

Baked Avocado Breakfast:

1 organic Hass avocado, cut in half with seed removed

2 organic farm eggs

1/2 t. Mexican seasoning or equal parts cumin powder, garlic powder, oregano and chili powder

1/4 cup organic shredded cheddar cheese

Fine sea salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Place the avocados in a baking dish and stabalize them with a little foil. Crack one egg into each empty pit of your avocado halves.

Season with a bit of salt and pepper. Sprinkle half the seasoning on each avocado half. Top each with cheese and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.  If you like, serve with salsa.

Ring Around The Collar

These commercials ran for years:  Ring Around The Collar--each featuring a wife looking pitifully chagrined when a parrot or a chorus of children screeched, "Ring around the collar, ring around the collar!"

"You've tried soaking them out, spraying them out, scrubbing them out," the male voiceover says to the women, as if giving them credit for all their hard work on their husbands' collars.  The pathetic sadness of the women's faces relaxes for a minute--they're getting credit from an invisible man for their strenuous attempts with their husbands' not-quite-perfectly cleaned white collars. The solution? Wisk!

Wisk rinses all that grime out of the collars and all that shame out of their wives, easy peasy. Until they get the solution, however, they are shamed by parrots, kids, neighbors, and others.  Some of the earlier commercials even used the words, "Shame on you."

Until this morning, when I checked out a few retro Wisk commercials, I couldn't remember the product being advertised, only the embarrassed faces of the women.

These--like so many television women--were part of the corps of role models for girls growing up in the Fifties, the Wisk Women the worst of the bunch.  What we saw on the 1950s screen helped lay down the foundation of our attitudes about our gender and what we could do.  If we were very very good, we could get our husband's collars presentable!

Avuncular Walter Cronkite reported the news.  Voiceovers were always male. In the culture at the time, almost all voices of authority were male voices. Church leaders, doctors, lawyers, legislators, judges, all men back then.

While there were a few women in some of those roles, they weren't featured on television or in the books we learned to read by.  Mother and Father had distinctly different roles in Dick and Jane. Father did real work in the real world, Mother baked cakes and dressed up for shopping trips into "the city." Father drove, Mother was passenger.

As always, I begin my day with NPR, and often end the day with snippets from  CNN or MSNBC.  In the realms of news, women are now as visible and outspoken as men, thank goodness!  Girls today will not grow up with gender-limiting stereotypes.  And they won't give a hoot about collars!

Joyful News!

Joy Hein is the first place winner in the Kerrville Arts and Cultural Center's juried show, running now through August 20th!

I asked her if I could post pictures and information for you all and this is her own description of the painting that won:

My HAPPY BEAR painting was created as the last page of a book I've written and illustrated titled HUNGRY BEAR, GRRRRRRRRR…  It's a book to show our endangered, keystone spiece, Grizzly Bears diets are only 10% protein.  That includes protein filled insects which are their favorite along with sweet, ripe berries. Each illustration in my book is filled with hidden animals who want the same food Hungry Bear needs.  I painted wild bearberries, buffalo-berries, crowberries, elderberries, huckleberries, raspberries and strawberries. Can you find the hidden Cedar Waxwings in the elderberries?

I also hand-painted the frame.

I know those of you who know Joy will be as delighted to hear this news as I am!  I look forward to seeing the show after my Virginia trip!

Here are some photos of Joy, the winning person, and the HAPPY BEAR, the winning painting--though she has two other beautiful paintings in the show as well:

Joy's birthday is August 6th--what a happy way to celebrate!

Great Big Happy Bear Hug Congratulations to you, Joy!

Prosperity Smoothie

Recently, my mama gave me some extra money to play with, and play I am!

I started by scraping the popcorn ceiling in the living room, then one thing led to another, and before I knew it I was in the middle of a summer-long project of changing my entire house.  It's been one of those sky's-the-limit projects in my world.

I told Kate, "I love this temporary prosperity!  I could get use to this."  She cautioned me to avoid the word, temporary.

But it's got me thinking about the word, prosperity.  It's all relative.  If you have it all the time, maybe you take it for granted?  I like it this way.  It's been, as Carlene said, very much like building a quilt--a patch of this, a patch of that, until the overall effect matches the idea in my mind.

Due to the coming and going of fibro, I can't actually do all the things I could do ten years ago, but I have Edward, who's loyal and competent and funny.  Even he can't do some things--due to a hernia--but last week when Will and my kind neighbor hauled in my new dining table, he thanked them both for "helping Miss Linda."  I provide lunch, take naps, run to the store when he needs something, and he hammers, drills, paints and climbs on ladders, none of which I'm inclined to do.

I wanted a couple of projects painted with chalk paint.  Edward was dubious.  "This isn't the way you paint with real paint," he said.  "It's time-consuming and odd how you do the strokes."  But in the end, he did a great job of painting and waxing and the pieces look great.

Yesterday Kara came over and brought in a new mosaic floor lamp from my car. When she arrived, I had a red multi-colored rug under the new table, but everything else was blue and turquoise and white.  Sometimes you need a second pair of eyes to see things clearly.  She wisely suggested we take out the rug and keep the room in cool blues.  It was amazing to see how the room was altered by that one change!  (I knew that one or the other had to go--the rug or the curtains.)

I looked in my trunk and found several table cloths I'd had for years, all in tones of blue. I chose two from which I will make kitchen curtains.  As it happens, the colors we are drawn to keep showing up, and when the time is right, they find harmony together.

I've hauled home enough curtains to wrap my entire house five times over, and taken back all but the blue and turquoise ones from Anthropologie. I've shipped back about seven area rugs--and Edward has wrapped them all tight in plastic for their journeys back to Wayfair and Houzz.

Two more rugs on the way--these the final choices; the backsplash installed--and the project will be complete.   I'm going to miss the process, but I'm ready to settle in and enjoy the peacefulness wrought by all these changes.

Kara made me a smoothie yesterday.  She was telling me about the one she enjoys and I happened to have every single ingredient, even frozen bananas.

Here's the recipe:

A handful of greens
some almond milk
A handful of almonds, another of unsweetened coconut
banana and blueberries.

It was yummy!  After I drank one, she put the blender jar in the freezer--I'd never thought to do that!  Now all I have to do to have another meal is to turn on the blender and let it whirr!

Healthy Options #2

My physical therapist highly recommended this site, so I'm just putting it out there (as I begin to look at it) in case anyone is interested.....

https://draxe.com

Hot City

Yesterday, my car's thermometer said 108 at 6:30!

This extreme heat keeps us all close to home--venturing out early, being home by ten, then waiting out the peak heat of the day to leave again.

So this morning, my plan was to stay home all day, but I got a text from Kate announcing porch visiting time, so I popped over at nine for kombucha and conversation.  Kate's porch is a gathering place for interesting women, no appointment required, no agenda.  Kate and her new neighbor and friend, Ann, talked me into buying a fit bit like they both wear to track sleep, heartbeat, exercise, and a whole bunch of other things.  Mine arrives on Tuesday, turquoise of course.

On my way home, driving through that stretch of antique shops on Blanco at the roundabout, a turquoise something caught my eye.  I stopped to check out the new shop on the corner: 1812 Blanco.

Marc, the owner, calls it THE MARCANTILE--to incorporate his name. One side is a neat little antique shop with kitchen wares, books, costume jewelry, and other things, everything artfully displayed.   The other side is a coffee shop.

They serve lunch and breakfast sandwiches (every day but Mondays and Tuesdays) and have a little patio out back as well as a small space indoors for drinking tea, eating muffins, or having yourself a bowl of organic salad with homemade chicken or tuna salad.  I didn't try out the food today, but I will.  It's open most days until about four.

The farmer's market at the Quarry is back on Sundays, by the way.  It was too hot to stop in today, but I'm glad it's back.  That, along with the big one on weekends at the Pearl, are two of San Antonio's special happenings.

I'm excited about my upcoming trip to Virginia.  Will's family and I are going to spend five days with Day's family, leaving on Friday.

Sunday, July 30

Carlene and I started today--the 15th anniversary of my daddy's death at 80,--talking about how much he left us and how we still feel him showing up from time to time, cheering us on.

Carlene is wearing the birthday skirt and blouse I gave her (for her early 92nd August birthday) to church.  Lloyd would be saying: "Doesn't she look pretty?"  I think he said that every Sunday of their years together!

Even though he only got to meet one of his great-grandchildren (Jackson as a baby), they've all heard so many Granddaddy stories that they must feel they know him.  Will said that they told Granddaddy stories around the campfire in Colorado!

Sometimes even now, at 39, Will will ask me (regarding a career or real estate decision), "What do you think Granddaddy would say?" Those two had a very close relationship, and Will always ran decisions by him. If Granddaddy gave the thumbs up, Will was all in.

When I shared these Colorado pictures with Carlene this morning, she said, "That's my version of immortality!  As a daddy, he's just like Lloyd."

Singing to his kids, teaching them to fish and love nature, joking with and hugging them all the time--these pictures are deja vu for me and Carlene.

Friday, July 28

This Friday turned out to be a good day!  After table delivery and nap, the fibro began to lessen considerably.  I did my first Face Time today--with Miss Precious who lost her first tooth today.

Before my nap, Edward made great progress on the backsplash and is coming back tomorrow or Monday to finish.

Still trying to decide:
The curtains, the rug, or both

I got to see lots of pictures from their trip to Colorado.

What was your favorite thing? I asked.

The Aliens Museum, she said.

Next summer--I'm going to Colorado!

We're having triple-digit temps every single day

and not a drop of rain.

This is the hottest summer on record--105 tomorrow!

Conway Twitty in the surrey with the fringe on top
in Colorado

Picnic skirt

I'd brought this ruffle skirt back from New Mexico, intending to save it for part of her Christmas present--but couldn't resist giving it to her early to wear on our vacation to Virginia next week.

When she sat down and spread it all out, she said, "I could have a picnic on myself!"

She loved it!

Will and Elena came over this morning so that Will could pick up my new dining table at Old El Paso.  My neighbor Curran helped us move it in--it's very heavy--a round 54 inch table.  Now I can have more than four, so I can have dinner guests if I ever get back in the cooking mood.

I moved the David Marsh table I've always loved )in spite of it being cramped when family come over) into the casita.

The fibro is not letting up, so I'm going out to the casita to take a nap while Edward installs my new backsplash.

Here's the table while it was still in the store:

Healthy Options

On my third day of on-fire fibro, I went to physical therapy--and left with so much good information I can share with you San Antonio people.

I'll start with this:  There is a store off Broadway (outside the loop) called Koch's Country Store that is just a jewel to know about!

They raise all their own animals, grass fed from birth to slaughter, as they say.  They sell the meats you can get on Saturday at the Pearl Farmer's Market as well as products made from their animals--frozen meals and bone broth.  They also sell products from other local farmers, as well as a few top notch Texas wines and mead, jellies and condiments, eggs and cheese, and a few fresh vegetables.  Their products are pricier than those found in the grocery stores, but I'm going to give them a try.  They even had quail and duck eggs, everything organic.

My physical therapist underscored the importance of drinking lots of water and avoiding the chemicals that are in almost everything we eat or drink.  This is critical for people who have autoimmune disorders, as I do, and helpful in preventing them for those who don't.

Anti-oxidants and probiotics are particularly helpful for cleansing the body of toxic build-ups, too.  I'll tell you more as I experiment and learn more.

Longevity Advice from a 105-year-old

http://www.improvisedlife.com/2017/07/27/longevity-life-advice-from-an-105-year-old-md/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+improvisedlife+%28Improvised+Life%29

This is from "Improvised Life."  To read full articles, you need to subscribe for about $18 a year.  To get "daily doses" you just need to sign up for emails.

My friend Janet, activist, mover and shaker

Janet is my friend who painted my living room and got this whole house ball rolling with blush white.

She has a Ph.D, and has had a variety of careers, doing one only as long as it's juicy, then changing to something else: professor, realtor, NIA and dance instructor.  Decorating and painting she does for the fun of it--for herself and a few friends. When I met Janet many years ago, she was selling shoes at Body and Sole and we connected instantly.  She married Bill shortly after that and joined my Thursday night writing group.

Since the election, she's been doing at least one thing every single day--volunteering for Planned Parenthood, talking to representatives, and marching in protests, including the Women's March in Washington the day after the election.

Today, the SA Express published this editorial she wrote after one of her protests:

http://m.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Arrest-a-worthwhile-inconvenience-11410318.php

While almost everyone I know (like me) is grumbling and wringing hands about the daily horrors of this administration, Janet is doing something tangible every day to effect change and protect the rights of people who are at real risk of losing health care and choice.

Pictures via Text from Colorado and New Mexico

The Painter

For about ten years, Edward has been painting for me when I need it. He arrives about nine and stays until dark--painting, listening to country music, and taking care of everything on my list as long as it doesn't involve electricity.  Today, I wasn't feeling well, so I went out to the casita to sleep, and when I came back, he'd washed the dishes and cleaned the bathroom and done several other things I hadn't even asked him to do.

Edward takes about three smoking breaks an hour, but he factors that in when he tells me at the end of the day how much I owe him--which is usually, "Whatever you want to pay me."

After my nap, a younger guy showed up with birthday cake in hand.  It was Sebastien, sharing his 9th birthday cake.  I told him he's the coolest nine-year-old I know--which he is.

Edward and I sat down and shared that delicious slice of birthday cake and talked.  "You know what I want engraved on my headstone?  That I was born to help people.  And the word, Peace."

"So why are you talking about gravestones?" I asked Edward who's in his mid-fifties.

"Well, because I still haven't done everything I want to do in this lifetime."

"So what do you want to do?" I asked.

"Have a quiet peaceful place to live like yours.  Maybe jump out of an airplane.  And race a car at a hundred miles an hour.  Mainly have a place of my own to live without having to share a house with my two deadbeat brothers."

He's been telling me this for years, but he can't afford a place of his own.  The three brothers live in their parents' house and he promised his parents before they died that he wouldn't throw them out.

"I love 'em, but I don't respect them. They just sit in front of the big screen TV all day and eat crap and do nothing. I swear if there was a hole in the floor, they'd walk around it and not fix it.  They don't wash the dishes, don't clean up after themselves.  It's like living with two hoarders.  And I like kids, but I'm tired of the five kids next door coming in to use my water when theirs gets turned off."

The last thing he does is toss the two paper plates in the trash.  "I'm just like my mother," he says.  "She was always cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  That's me.  It's hard to believe we were raised the same and my brothers turned out to be slobs."

The Improvised Life

If you don't already subscribe, let me introduce you to a site you'll probably like--if the following speaks to you.

Improvised Life Manifesto

Improvising is a powerful operating principle.

You don’t have to be an expert to improvise.

Improvising is a practice, like yoga or cooking; the more we do it, the better we get at it.

Creativity can be cultivated.

We can learn what we don’t know.

We believe in asking “Why not” when we have an interesting idea, and trying our idea out.

We can be afraid to do something and do it anyway.

Mistakes are often paths to unexpected solutions.

Making mistakes is the way we learn.

Perfection is over-rated.

Constraints are challenges rather than limitations — whether money, space or materials.

Making a mess is an essential part of improvising.

Improvising is an antidote to limiting ideas.

Improvising guides you to the solutions you are looking for.

Improvising is a path full of richness and discovery.

WOW--Wonderful Old Women

Yesterday's panel discussion was so much fun!  I think we were all surprised at the size and enthusiasm of those who attended our panel, "Interviewing Our Elders."

The Gemini Conference might be something you writers want to attend next year, a weekend of hanging out with writers and getting tips on the craft as well as publishing.

The topic of the conference was "Writing for Change."  Jen Hamilton had great questions for us and the attendees asked questions as well--about interviewing techniques and what we learned from the women featured in the book, one of whom was present.

It turned into a conversation that could have gone on for much longer than the allotted hour.

Joy, thank you for our miniature book pins!

One of the things I suggested in interviewing our elders (or anyone really)--is getting the Story Corps app, through which you can interview and record interviews for posterity.  One thing I kept hearing is "I wish I had interviewed....my father, my grandmother, my friend, before it was too late."

Who wants to be a little old lady?

Today I will be participating with Bonnie Lyons and Deb Field, the writers/interviewers of Wonderful Old Women,  in a panel discussion at Gemini Ink's weekend of writing workshops and panels.  I wish all the women featured in the book would be on the panel as well--because it's the women themselves who make it interesting.

As I was driving down Austin Highway this morning, I was musing on Old. I'm in the decade when some of my contemporaries have been diagnosed with illnesses or taking care of parents or partners who are. The mortality cloud hovering over Sixty-Plus is real.

We're doing what we can to delay dying, disease, and death--while not caving in to the stereotypes that go along with Old.

When Janet teasingly (but truthfully) pronounced my former sofa fabric as looking "little old lady," we both knew it had to go. A small swatch of it was cool; a whole sofa of it was too much to be cool.

Who wants to be a little old lady?  By most standards, we are--let's face it--old.  But we're not little, most of us--though as women we prefer "small" to "big."

"Lady" suggests prissy, proper, prim; we prefer to be called "women."

People often add the diminutive "little" not to suggest physical size but to dismiss the importance of a person--as in that "little Mexican man" or that "little guy."  Size matters, especially to men in this culture and  "little" is disparaging, sometimes inflammatory to them.  If I had a dollar for every time Trump says "big" or "very big"  or "huge," I'd be as rich as he is.

Women are usually okay with little, but not when it's paired with "old." Just as some men build huge things to reflect their largeness, or desired largeness, we women choose clothes we hope will disguise our bigger parts.

People in the know about home decor advise hanging your "window treatments" high and wide to make your house look bigger.  I did that for many years, then I realized: this is a 932 (or thereabouts) square foot house with eight-foot ceilings.  It is what it is.  I don't want to make it to look bigger; I actually want it to look exactly like what it is--a little house.

But I don't want to be dismissed as a "little old lady." Little old lady drivers, little old ladies holding up the line, little old ladies past their prime--these stereotypes are what Bonnie and Deb wanted to smash when they interviewed interesting, vital, smart, creative, beautiful women over 80.  Women whose faces--though  etched with markers of their years--reveal intelligence and grit and a sense of humor it takes decades to acquire.

We admire patina and cracks in vintage furniture, yet as a culture we often consider age an affliction, not a badge of honor for living seven, eight, nine or ten decades.  We went to "look younger."  We want to iron out our creases with creams and surgeries, and we cover the gray in our hair with golden--until one day we decide to let the coloring go and embrace gray.

I heard on the news that an "elderly" woman had been hit by a car.  I listened carefully to get her actual age.  She was 60!

My taste in decor often leans toward what marketers of products call juvenile--bright Crayola colors.  But then, it just as often veers into what's associated with the taste of aging women: lots of flowers and birds. I love both--maybe because inside I am both.

As teenagers, we wanted one minute to be kids, the next to look, act, and be perceived as "adults."  We didn't quite fit in either camp, so we felt awkward in both worlds.

As women of a certain age (say sixty or above), we sometimes feel the same way: Does the clerk think I'm trying on clothes that look "too young" for me?  Do 30-Somethings secretly think I'm a doddering antique relic who's hard of hearing?  Is that tattooed pick-up truck driver honking his horn in my direction (with his third finger raised) spewing insults pertaining to my gender and age?  Have I suddenly joined the Invisibles due to the number of years I've lived on the planet?

The women interviewed for the book are role models.  They are busy traveling, writing, making art, and enjoying their lives and friendships, not sitting around in rocking chairs waiting to die.  They inspire those of us a decade or two behind them to live vital lives all the way to the last chapter.

A beautiful quilting story

I couldn't possibly have picked a better next door neighbor than my dear friend Jan!  Not only do I get Jan, but I get precious Kate and Sebastien and Makken!

Jan sent me this essay she got  published this week in the Missouri Star Quilt Company and I loved it so much I asked her if I could post it.

      Makken, my grandson, was born in Qatar in 2012. I’d never been to Qatar, but I knew it was a hot, sandy, dry land. When I began piecing his baby quilt, my creative intention leaned toward sweet baby blues. But Makken entered my subconscious and led me toward greens of every hue and all the cool blues of the earth’s waters. He told me he needed the nurturing greens of lush plants, trees, shrubs and grasses and the life-sustaining rains and oceans and rivers that make their growth possible. And so I made his quilt, sewing love into every stitch, in greens and watery blues aplenty.

     When he was just a few weeks old, I met him for the first time and gave him his quilt. He greeted it like an old friend, cooing, smiling and rolling around on it, wadding it up and stuffing green pastures in his tiny mouth. But it wasn’t just the quilt. Even as a baby, he had an instinctive appreciation for the sensual feel of good fabric. His fat little baby hands would grab the silk scarves I wore around my neck and he’d nuzzle, babble and wrap himself in the softness. He had an affinity for purples, so I bought a big floral silk scarf of many purples and wore it every day because I’m shameless and I knew silk was a Makken magnet. He could not resist and I basked in hours of baby love while he talked to my scarf and grabbed its folds, flipping the airy fabric like a fan and bubbling over with joy.


      Makken is five now, in a pre-K program where they are required to take a nap every afternoon. The naps have been his bane. He hadn’t taken a nap since he was two years old. Each child must bring a napping blanket on Monday and on Friday, the blankets go home to mommy for laundering. Recently, his mom noticed his blanket was still clean at the end of the week. He said he left it in his cubby because it was too hot; the fabric felt itchy. He asked if, instead of the fleece blanket he had schlepped around all year, he could take his baby quilt to school. After the first day of napping on his beloved quilt, which usually is on his bed at home, he reported that the quilt was perfect, warm, not hot, and not itchy. What did you like best about it? we asked. He said, "It smelled like home." Is there a better argument for the joy of a handmade quilt?

Jan Schubert Norris

Jan with the new quilt in 2012

Makken today with the faded version
that smells like home! 

Saturday afternoon

Houses are also a canvases of other journeys: the places we've been, the people we've met, even the people we used to be.  Taking out photo books in order to paint or move a heavy piece of furniture took me down the sentimental journey where I saw past places, younger faces, and kinky hairstyles that make me wonder: What was I thinking?  In 1974, I had a bottled frizzy white-girl Afro!

Chris just left and I miss her already!  She's so easy to be with and we enjoyed two luxurious girlfriend days of shopping and talking over good meals that neither of us cooked.  We met years ago in San Marcos at a Story Circle conference and recognized each other right away as kindred spirits.

At Off My Rocker, I bought a vintage garden wagon from Germany that will become a side table.  Chris found a box of thousands of huge turquoise-colored beads, and I bought the whole heavy box, cast-offs from someone else's journey--possibly garlands for Christmas trees.  Christ almost bought a camel saddle from Morocco to use as an ottoman and she looked for footstools to cover with her hooked rug pieces. We both love poking around consignment stores and buying (and just looking at) things we can re-purpose for something else.  It's like borrowing pieces of someone else's story and working them into your own.

At Kathleen Sommer's we tried on clothes, bought some things, and chose a birthday present or two for Carlene's upcoming 92nd birthday in August.  She found her footstool at Old El Paso and I found my just-right coffee table.

We traded book titles and helpful hints about hand exercises if you happen to have arthritis and she helped me choose tiles and the table.  It's been a great journey of friendship and relaxation, and I love for friends to visit and spend the night in the casita.

The journey continues....

Journey's End

I've noticed that after a move or break-up or other big life change, my journey of choice is making changes in my house.  Fifteen years ago, I had a very nice five-year man-friend who made a beautiful Mexican backsplash in my kitchen.  After we went our separate ways, I  covered it with bead-board. Last week I asked Edward to take the bead board off and see if the tiles were still intact.  They weren't.  The adhesive had ruined the tiles and ripped off the color in big patches.

So that leads to the next step in the process: a new backsplash which Edward assured me is his specialty.

It's been a wonderful week of playing house.  I gravitate to the journey metaphor when I'm engrossed in a project.  Stop here, look there, double back, take pictures--and leave things you no longer want  (biodegradable, of course, in this analogy) in a ravine somewhere.  One road leads to another, there's no GPS, and you never quite know where you're going to land for the night.

I've been ordering curtains and rugs and sending back what doesn't work.  My new favorite places to shop online are Anthropologie, Wayfair, Houzz, and Soft Surroundings.

Carlene calls this journey "coming home"--and today that rang especially true when the paint I chose for the casita was called JOURNEY'S END!  I love it. I'm going for a quieter look than orange peel and the light blue is exactly what I wanted.

I've taken loads of things to Boysville and Off My Rocker, kept only the things I loved, bought new lamps, curtains, rugs, and side tables; various items found homes in different rooms than where they started.  My only compass when choosing accessories is: do I love them? With few exceptions, I find that when I choose things I love, they usually lean in affectionately toward each other.  Bring in one okay thing just because it's a bargain, and all the other things shun them and encourage them to leave on the next train.

Chris arrived today and we had a terrific day--lunch at Adelantes, poking around consignment shops,
watching Edward paint, then delicious dinner at Cappy's followed by a massage at the Chinese Foot Spa.

It's been a year and a half since my breast cancer and the mammogram letter arrived yesterday announcing all is NORMAL!

Sunday, Deb and Bonnie and I are participating in a panel discussion at Gemini Ink to talk about the book, Wonderful Old Women.  Joy made each of us a little pin in the shape and color of the book and we'll be wearing those, of course.

Relaxed as can be, today's journey is coming to an end and we're heading to bed, Chris in the casita, me in the happy messy house.

What's happening to our national treasures?

“The world is so full of a number of things, I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”  

Robert Louis Stephenson's words woke me up this morning, as they did yesterday and the day before....(Do you ever get a phrase in your mind and can't let it go?)

I'm pretty sure he meant animate "things" as well as objects made of glass and fabric and wood.

Yesterday, repainting a scuffed and dingy hutch with a fresh white coat of chalk paint,  I musing about how all this energy stirring in my house has taken on a life of its own.  One room spills over into two, then three.  That's my journey right now--not entirely unlike traveling in a car and looking first at one thing, then another, through the window.

What was playing on NPR was a program called "Think."  It just so happened (as I was thinking about wanting to go to Glacier National Park before all the glaciers are gone due to global warming) that Terry Tempest Williams, a naturalist and my mentor at Breadloaf twenty years ago, was being interviewed about national parks.

The program was entitled "National Parks in Peril," and she talked about ways to take better care of our natural wonders.  She's written a book entitled  Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks.

When I started this blog four years ago, I was setting out on my last solo trip to the west coast.  (If I ever do it again, it will be with a traveling companion!) My goal was to see as many national parks as possible, but that was the month the government shut down, so the only one I was able to see before it closed was White Sands.

Terry (from Utah) knows the national parks intimately and describes Texas' Big Bend as her favorite. She's always talked about nature with such awe, and she names the parks she goes to over and over like old friends.

My favorites are Yosemite and Glacier--both breathtaking.

If you're a park lover and nature lover, I hope you'll hear this interview.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/478859728/think

Storytelling

https://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction

My NIA teacher, in her Sunday night letter to Monday morning dancers, recommended a book,  Forty Rules of Love, by  Elif Shafak.  I'd never heard of the book, so I downloaded it, then tracked her down in this Ted Talk.

Sunday

Sunday, historically, has been my least-favorite day of the week.  It's the day when I'm most likely to collide with some feeling previously stored in a vacuum-packed plastic bag.  It's the day when I'm most likely to feel lonely or sad or grumpy or just broody.

When I was younger, I used to dread the end of the weekend and going back to school on Monday. Weekends were favored over school days, but the final moments of a weekend were marred by the fact that the weekend was skidding to its inevitable end.

Day rarely recommends a book as enthusiastically as she did America The Anxious.  Ironically, I have spent much of my grumpy broody Sunday reading this terrific book on happiness.  I rarely laugh out loud reading a book, but I've done that a couple of times reading this one.  Ruth writes in such a smart and breezy style that I feel like I'm sitting beside my British best friend.  She's funny and self-deprecating and fair minded and in synch with a lot of the things I've been thinking about lately.

But between chapters, I feel lonesome and zapped of energy and teary.

From time to time, I promise myself that I will be proactive about Sundays and plan something happy and energizing, but this has been a packed-full week and I forgot Sunday was coming around the bend until it was suddenly here with nothing on my Sunday To-Do List but to call Roadside Assistance and get the donut installed and the flat tire removed.

Mr. Roadside was barely out of the driveway before I began getting texts to provide feedback. What should I say?  That he arrived and did the deed?  (I'd already told them that on the phone twice when they called.) That he screwed on the bolts with stunning proficiency?  And what if I don't respond with answers to their twenty questions?  Will they refuse to show up next time?  Responding to (or ignoring) feedback requests makes me mildly anxious.

The author of the book, Ruth Whippman, attends a happiness seminar, critiques the hyper-parenting of today's American toddlers, visits Zappo's and other businesses heavy into happiness-training for their employees, interviews a Mormon couple (after reading that religious people are generally happier than non-religious ones and that Mormons are happiest of all), scrutinizes Facebook--all in the quest to figure out who's happy and why.

One of my take-aways is sort of this:

So what if you're depressed or broody or grumpy? We're not in a race to get the most gold stars for Smiley Faces and "likes" on Facebook. Avoid spending too much time on social media (and anything else that makes you think everybody else is happy happy happy) and spend that time instead with a real friend in real life who's, on balance, about as jolly and about as miserable as you are.  

Some secrets of happiness we forgot when we grew up

Without reading a single book on happiness, Elena knows the secrets:

Every sound is interesting.  So is every bug.

You're so at home in yourself that you cuddle up with people, teddy bears, and blankets--sometimes with your two sleepy fingers in your mouth, twisting your hair, watching a movie about horses.

You pick up chickens.  You aren't afraid.  You ride your horse at the rodeo.

You know what you like--and nobody need try to convince you otherwise.

"Is there anyone you don't like?" I ask.

"No," she says.  Then she remembers a little girl who's been mean to her lately.  She doesn't like her.  "Me and Mommy think she's a brat," she says.

"She'll probably grow out of it," I say.

"I guess so," she says doubtfully.

So today we went to the museum of Central Market.  We tasted samples of food and bought her a watermelon slice and blueberries and macaroni and cheese for lunch.  Then we spent a good half hour looking at flowers.  She was fascinated by lilies and irises and roses and carnations.  We brought home a few and she helped me arrange them in vases.

Seeing the world through a five-year-old's eyes makes me see everything as if for the first time.  Hanging out with this five-year-old makes me happy every time.

"How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks"

Reading America the Anxious, I'm intrigued to see America through the eyes of the author.  As a "cynical Brit," Ruth Whippman regards America's "pursuit of happiness" through skeptical eyes, trying out--for one thing--a happiness seminar that promises "personal transformation."

I'm reminded of some of the New Age events I attended in the Seventies.  We had New Age food, New Age prophets and gurus, and whole bookstores devoted to New Age Thought.

Crystals, psychic readings, alfalfa sprouts, a"Question Authority" bumper sticker,  yoga, protests,  Tree Huggers, Circle Dances and the East-West Journal advocating macrobiotic eating--all these were part of the New Age phenomenon.

For the sake of her research for the book, Ruth grudgingly gives up three days of potential happiness with her baby and husband to join happiness seekers for an intense and structured weekend event designed to increase the happiness of those willing to reveal their deepest and darkest secrets to the rest of them.

Her account of the weekend reminded me of a one-night "Human Potential" workshop a friend and I attended years go.  The leader was a charismatic speaker (there were many of these self-proclaimed gurus in the 70s) and she had many followers.  We were curious.

At one point, the leader had the participants "whisper compliments in each others' ears," even though we'd never met each other.  I can't recall the purpose of this exercise, just that it was a terribly awkward forced intimacy with strangers.  Then she directed the participants to crawl on the ground like animals to the beat of music.  I believe the point was to replicate various stages of evolution, to have the crawlers "get in touch with" earlier  species--but I'm not sure.  When the crawling began, my friend and I went outside for a smoke and returned only after the crawlers had evolved back to humans.

When I first moved to Texas, I attended a "Bible study" at San Antonio College--and got to see my first (and last) "speaking in tongues."  People stood up and said things that were presumably utterances in other languages, though they didn't understand the words and neither did anyone else.  After the first person started, soon everyone (everyone but me, who didn't "have the gift") was speaking in tongues all at once, louder and louder, until it reached a crescendo and stopped.

It may have been a kind of group hysteria for all I know--but at the age of 18, I was impressed by the drama of it all and tried out some faux African dialects in the car on the way home, to no avail.

There have been so many paths to happiness that you'd think America would be universally jolly by now, but we're not.  We're actually not even near the top of the jolly list.

According to Ruth Whippman, the seeking of happiness (on which Americans are spending billions) is making us "nervous wrecks."  For all the hype and all the pages of ink devoted to increasing our joy, it seems that many of these path-showers are just giving us one more thing to feel guilty about--not being as happy as we ought to be!

Two books I'm reading

Hillbilly Elegy paints quite a portrait of poor white Appalachian families.  He's one of the few who reached the American dream--thanks in part to his Mamaw and Papaw who raised him.  Papaw quit drinking at some point, and both were harsh people, especially to those who hurt children.

Mamaw, bless her hillbilly heart,  was as likely to call J.D. a "fucker" as to tell him she loved him, but on balance he adored her and she saved him from his mom's addictions and parade of different temporary father-figures. He also credits his years in the Marines between high school and college for teaching him things he never learned in poor Appalachian family or school, things as basic as how to balance a checkbook and eat nutritiously.

This was my world; a world of truly irrational behavior.  We spend our way into the poorhouse.  We buy giant TVs and iPads.  Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans.  We purchase homes we don't need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake....

Our homes are a chaotic mess.  We scream and yell at each other like we're spectators at a football game....

We don't study as children and we don't make our kids study when we're parents. Our kids perform poorly at school.  We might get angry at them, but we don't give them the tools--like peace and quiet at home--to succeed."

If kids like J.D. are lucky enough to have grandparents who care for them, they have a chance of succeeding, but happiness is rarely the point of family conversations; life is more about survival and getting back at those who deserve a kick or an insult or a look down the barrel of a gun.

America The Anxious, however, is a book that has me nodding and laughing along--a book about one British woman's perceptions when she moves to California--about how our happy-hungry America is obsessed with self-improvement and the pursuit of happiness, how we feel guilty when we aren't as happy as our neighbors and how we take it as personal failure when we aren't smiley face happy.

We are, bless our hearts, trying so hard to be happy! Billions of dollars are spent annually on books and self-help programs that promise to make us happier.  Yet we are not at the top of the happiness list in the world; we are quite a way down the list.

More on that next time....

Three-Generation Roadtrip!

Thanks to text messages and photos, I can follow along vicariously as Kate

and her daughter Lisa

 and Lisa's daughter Emma take a two-week road trip!

Heading toward Colorado today, then on to Montana, then to California, these three super-cool women are just beginning what I'm sure will be an unforgettable road trip, Emma (with her shiny new driver's license) doing most of the driving.

They've already encountered aliens apparently, so they must be in New Mexico this Saturday morning.  Their next stop, Colorado--where they will stay for a few cool days.

When Lisa's two older sons turned 16, each of them took their mama on a road trip, too.   What a fantastic tradition of initiating 16-year-olds into road trips and driving!

And now for Class Two on Full Moon Academy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veEQQ-N9xWU

Full Moon School

Sometimes it happens, that even when you're really tired, you don't sleep all night.  Maybe you wake up at two or three.  Maybe you decide to walk outside or take a drive.  (In my case, I rattle the keys this time of year to let the possums and skunks and raccoons know a human is out and about to avoid face to face encounters.)

Maybe then you notice (I almost always do on these sleepless nights) that the moon is full.  Or almost full.  Or just waning from full.)

So I read or watch something on YouTube.

This talk is by Carolyn Myss.  Twenty years ago, when I was going through a hard time, someone gave me a set of cassette tapes by Myss and I listened to them over and over.  They were just right for that time, as this talk seemed just right for this full moon night.  It's about choices that make a difference in one's health.

In Myss' view, these choices are not the "big" ones, not even so much what we eat or don't eat.  These choices have to do with living life with integrity, telling ourselves the truth, taking risks, passing on wisdom instead of woe, and knowing that this day, this very day, is where the richness is found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KysuBl2m_w

More Conversations with a five-and-a-half-year old

__ So one time Mommy and Daddy and I were playing charades when Nathan was at his dad's, and Daddy was reading the words to me.  When I was acting out my word, I started doing digging motions and making a dead face, and it turned out that the word was "marry" and I thought it was "bury!"  It was funny but also a little bit embarrassing.

__ I can see how you made that mistake.  They rhyme.  (I didn't make a cynical counter joke about other possible similarities, even though one came to my mind.)

__  Yeah, Nathan always says "You have a lot to learn, Elena!"
 

                                                                 ***

We are watching a movie.  Two girls in the movie are surprised that the third never celebrates her birthday.

"Why don't you celebrate your birthday?" they ask her.

"Well, something always goes wrong.  Like one year my dad sat on a bee hive and then there was the molasses incident.  I still feel sticky when I think of it."

___Wait, Elena says, rewinding the movie to that phrase.  "What is a molasses incident?"

I explain that molasses is like syrup and an incident is something that happened, in this case involving spilled syrup.

The brain of a child doesn't skim over words and pretend to know.  When you have a lot to learn, you take advantage of every possible opportunity, even rewinding the movie to be sure you get it right.

                                                              ***

When the glass man comes to install my new windshield, she watches intently.  She wants to know how he gets the sticker back on, she wants to know what he's putting in the crack.  "Some kind of glue," I say, "To seal the glass in."

When he tells us not to drive for an hour, she wants to know why, and I explain that the windshield could be loose until the adhesive sets.

"That would be really embarrassing," she says, "To drive down the road and your new windshield pops right out!"

                                                             ***

After swimming, I tell her that we need to be home by 2:30 when her mom is supposed to arrive.  We stop by Julian's to get some Italian food.

"We're going to be a little late," I said.  "But not much.  Maybe your mom will be a little late."

"Does late mean the next day or the day after that?"

The Keepers

I've just finished the seventh and final episode of this unforgettable documentary series.

It's a story of secrets and horrendous abuse of teenagers in a Baltimore Diocese.  It's a story of classmates who loved their murdered teacher enough to dig into every crevice in attempt to uncover the truth, and who continue following every thread of evidence fifty years later.

Each layer opens up another layer of horror--as women who were high school girls in the Sixties report repeated cruelty and sexual abuse by a priest who was a counselor in their school.  The murdered teacher of those girls was a young and vibrant nun who had promised one student to "make it stop" shortly before she disappeared.

What makes this story compelling on another level is that what happened to them was so horrific yet they had no voice at fifteen and sixteen to tell about it.  They'd been reared to believe so strongly in the priesthood that they  followed orders and took on the guilt of what happened.  Most of them never told anyone about it for twenty years until a Jane Doe stepped forward.

The cover-ups of the Catholic Church, the refusal of the courts at that time to acknowledge "buried memories," and the fact that these girls kept quiet while it was happening--all add up to a kick-in-the-gut story.  Maybe they could have talked with their parents?  To each other?  To teachers?

Oddly--even as they are now parents and grandparents themselves--they ask those same questions.  Looking back, they believe that other adults might have been looking the other way, that it was known that "something was happening."  But when they were being victimized, they were so brainwashed by the priest to believe that they were "evil whores," that they were terrified to report it to their parents.

Suddenly, Elena (almost five and a half) seems like she's taken several leaps in growing up.  She's her same cheerful and funny self, but now she's using expressions that reflect a more nuanced way of thinking.

For example, today on the way to the pool:

"Yenna, you know me and Nathan think farting is really funny.  Grownups don't think it's funny.  But recently I was laughing so hard that I started farting in rhythm to my laughter, and Mommy and Daddy--who usually act all serious about it--couldn't help but laugh too."

Of course, I laughed at the very reporting of it--to which she said, "You totally get it, Yenna. You totally get it."

Then she said, "I notice you always laugh when things are funny."

To which I said, "I guess that's because I have a sense of humor like you."

"That's because you're mostly always really happy," she said.

When she first arrived in her fuzzy pajamas this morning, we put some fruit-flavored electrolyte tablets in our water.  She learned the word effervescent.  She loves new words.

Here she is discovering effervescence.  When you're five and a half, everything is SO interesting--from all angles.

"I really think it's cool being a little sister.  Cause your big brother is the one who usually has to clean up everything after you play."

"I think you're losing weight on your arms," she tells me.

"Do you like skinny grandmothers or not-so-skinny ones?" I ask her.

"I don't care.  I just love you the way you are, exactly the way you are."

"I love to look at animals and figure out what's wrong and see if I can fix it," she says.

"Then you would probably be a good veterinarian," I say.

"Even if someone brought in a possum, I wouldn't be grossed out or anything," she tells me.  "But I am starting to be a little bit scared of spiders."

A few middle-of-the-night snapshots from Day and Tom's family anniversary trip to Chicago:

4th of July Weekend

The weekend began with flags at half-mast.  A 34-year-old policeman died from a gunshot and his partner was also critically injured.  Officer Miguel Moreno and his partner stopped near SAC on Thursday to question someone behaving suspiciously and the person shot both policemen then himself.  I looked long at the picture of the deceased policeman--a young man with a bright face, nine years into his career, senselessly killed.  Somebody's son, somebody's grandson, and brother to four.

****

Elena spent this Saturday morning with me while her mama did yoga.  We discovered a new children's series on Netflix: Free Rein, an excellently-written story about young teenaged girls and horses.  Zoe, the protagonist, reminded me of Elena (long curly hair and a love of horses), and Elena noticed the similarity.  She was entranced by the story of a courageous, outspoken girl who was the only person who could manage a run-away horse.  "I'm like her," she said.  "I'm not afraid of any animals.  I even like the animals you think are gross." (I think she was thinking of possums.)

*****

After Elena left, I drove to Bill Miller's to get a sandwich and stopped at a festive lemonade stand two blocks down my street.  I hope they get lots of customers.  This is a day these two kids will remember when they're old--setting up balloons and flags and banners with their mama and daddy standing off to the side.

*****

I'm staying out of the heat reading Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.  It's hard to put down.  My daddy often told stories of growing up poor in a "holler" in Tennessee, and the hollow (pronounced "holler" there, too) Vance remembers was in Kentucky.  In both cases, some of the children grew up and got college degrees and achieved middle class lifestyles that were almost impossible to imagine in their youth.

This book starts with the story of being raised by his grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw.  They were part of the hillbilly migration to Ohio (married at 14 and 17) to find work.  Papaw became, among other things, a mean drunk; Mamaw was ferocious as well--except to children whom she adored.

The book is also a vivid and fascinating portrait of Appalachian poor people and the history of Vance's people.  He knew the famous Hatfields and McCoys.

Y