Clean, organized, and beautiful

Today five of us had lunch at Janet's--and she inspired me to clean out my closets all over again!

The idea of what some call "death cleaning" (not as morbid as it sounds) is to get rid of excess stuff and pare down to only objects and clothes you most love and need.

Her closet and pantry have been completely organized--and I went straight to Container Store to get a couple of things to make a stab at further organization.

So much fun to have delicious food and conversation at friends' houses--and we five enjoy birthday and other gatherings in our homes about once a month.  Brunch today was delicious egg strata, fruits, salad, and yummy desserts.

Kate and Charlotte
Just months ahead of me in turning...
you know what number!

Janet showing us the towels she's made
out of pure linen! 

Lois Lenski

I'm thinking about how the books we read as children shape our love of reading.

When Betty and I were in elementary school, the library was attached to the school.  Both of us being avid readers,, we loved going there and carrying stacks of books home.  We didn't have a book store in Cochran, and except for the annual ordering of Scholastic paperbacks, buying books was a very rare treat.

My favorite author and illustrator was Lois Lenski who published so many beautiful books for children in her lifetime.

The one I read more than once, probably more than twice, was Mama Hattie's Girl.  Many of Lenski's books feature children who live in different parts of the country, and reading her books was a kind of travel. Seeing these online evokes such nostalgia.


























Now it is only available through Kindle and expensive collectors' editions.   The library used to have it, but they took it out of circulation.

Here are some of the illustrations that are so characteristic of Lois Lenski's books:

On Saturday,  I attended a neighborhood party in someone else's neighborhood.

The hostess and one of her neighbors decided to get to know their neighbors better, so the party was planned to introduce some of the people they'd met on their walks.

It was terrific.  Every neighborhood should consider having a party from time to time.  I was inspired to propose to Jan and Peggy that we have an Ogden party soon.

Ceviche, cheese and crackers, wine, sparkly waters, and fruit--it was delicious, and colorful--and I met people I liked very  much.

You know how you meet someone sometimes and find coincidences coming up  in conversations?   You grew up in a similar place maybe, or you read the same books, or you both like to dance or paint or share a certain affinity for a place? Then you find chairs next to each other and keep talking?

One of the party-goers likes to make art journals, which is what I'm attempting to do with my notebooks.  We're planning to schedule an art journal day after she returns from an upcoming trip to visit her mother.  If anyone else wants to play, let us know!

Susan Sontag

Sontag was once asked, "What must a writer do?"

To which she replied:

Denise McNair's Mother

Watching the film, Four Girls, was heartbreaking.  But in an interview with Denise McNair's mother, thirty years after the death of her little girl, I feel her anguish so powerfully that I feel teary every time I think of it.

Her words come out haltingly, her pain as raw as if the murder had happened that day, not thirty years before.

They carried me on to my mother's house

And when I got there

I couldn't stop hollering

I couldn't stop screaming....

And I can  just see myself

Sitting in that chair

Being so upset

In a place I wanted to rub

And I couldn't rub it....

Jorge Ramos is an award winning journalist and longtime anchor on Univision.  You may remember he was thrown out of a Trump  conference by security guards because he didn't stop asking a question Trump didn't like.  ("Go back to Univision!" Trump shouted at Ramos.)

In an NPR interview, Ramos talked about his new book: Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era: “There are times when I feel like a stranger in this country....I never would have imagined that after having spent thirty five years in the United States I would still be a stranger to so many. But that’s how it is."

"They're bringing...rapists..." comment by Trump is one of many that fan racist attitudes--reminiscent of the stereotypes about "colored people" in the Jim Crow era.

In the South of the early 20s and 30s, a black man had only "to look at a while woman" to lose his life.   The rallying cry was "rape."  Yet studies show that a white woman was more likely to get struck by lighting than to be raped by a black man in those days.

Painting any group with a wide brush is the stereotyper's best tool for pitting people against people, saying "They are all like this," then trivializing in tone and words the exceptions, as Trump did in a dismissive tag line after his racist comment: "There may even be some good people, I don't know..."

Spike Lee's Four Little Girls shows some diabolically racist white people, but also some compassionate ones.  Not all white people were racists.  But Bull Conner, Bob Chambliss and George Wallace couldn't have inflicted their well-known abuse without plenty who cheered them on or looked the other way.

Denise McNair's father (Denise was one of the four girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham bombing) said it best:

"A Bull Conner couldn't exist without a nod from the status quo people--you know, the big boys in any town.  No Bull Conner could exist without them.  He may be the person who actually does the talking, but believe me, the Bull Conners have the blessing of somebody else."

The Warmth of Other Suns

"Across the South, someone was hanged or burned alive every four days from 1889 to 1929, according to the 1933 book The Tragedy of Lynching, for such alleged crimes as stealing hogs, horse-stealing, or trying to act like a white person. One was killed for stealing seventy-five cents."

The Warmth of Other Suns (The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.is the most impactful and detailed history/character study I've ever read on this time period.

It's a long book, and I have miles to go, but her writing and mastery of historical details have already convinced me that it should be required reading for all Americans, especially now--when horrific  echoes of racism are being heard again in states including, but not limited to, the Southern ones.

Writing About Carlene

Every single day I wake up confronting a fact of life I never imagined.  Either that fact presents itself as a sentence, or it shows up in the mirror, or I feel it in my joints at yoga class a little later on in the morning: I'm getting old!

Having recently photographed the astonishingly interesting Over-80 women in WOW--Wonderful Old Women, by Bonnie and Deb, I don't say "old" disparagingly.  It's a mixed word: on the one hand, it reminds us that the time ahead is way shorter than the times remembered.  On the other hand, it beckons exciting prospects ahead that we didn't have time or money to pursue when we were younger.

As I grow older, I'm getting much more selective in what I choose to do with my time--because there are so many things calling at once. Do you know what I mean?  Feeling like there are more things than ever that you want to do?  And worrying that you'll give out of time before you get them all done? That it is absolutely impossible to read all the books you still want to read, visit all the places you still want to visit?

When engaged in a project that interests me a great deal, I cast off the word old and proceed, foregoing sleep if necessary.  I was up most of the night writing a story Day and I hope to publish about Carlene,  Day's Nana. Nana to Day.

We three read a magazine called Bella Grace that is targeted to younger women.  They may or may not choose to publish what Day and I are writing, but I'm hoping they will--to give younger women a glimpse of one lively woman in her nineties who inspires strangers to ask her every day: "How do you stay so young at your age?"

She tells them she eats an apple a day.  She tells them she walks two miles every morning and loves oranges.  She tells them it's probably good genes, or that she grew up eating organic food before "organic" was a label.  Then she sums it up this way: "Gratitude. I have so much to be thankful for."

Remembering her childhood--the death of her ten-year-old brother when she was seven, the burning down of the house, the sweetness of her parents--I sat here on my bed and realized I had tears in my eyes.

I had questions.  I texted Carlene for facts. (The fire, she said, happened when Bob was a baby, before she was born--I'd always thought it happened in her lifetime.)

So now I'm getting out the pages she's written and will re-read her story in her own words today, as soon as I return from an afternoon party.

I have a lovable cast of ancestor characters.   I'm lucky that she's taken the time to write about them so I can  meet the ones I never knew and revisit those I knew and loved.  The one-never-met that I'd most like to meet is Cana, her grandmother.

Writing about Carlene is easy in one respect: I know most of her stories by heart because she's always been such a good keeper and teller of them.

But it's hard in another: Every detail is connected to all these other people, all these other lives, and I want to follow every single thread that comes up when I unwind this great big skein of story.

Last night, Bonnie and I met at the McNay to see the film, Four Little Girls, part of  Black History Month.

This documentary was made twenty years ago by Spike Lee, but I'd never seen it before.  (It's free on Amazon Prime.)

Spike Lee interviewed the parents, families and friends of the four little girls who died on that Sunday in 1963, who talked about the aftermath of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

One of the things that struck me watching it was the music--the Black gospel music, the church music, the choirs.  In those days, in the South, there were two worlds: "Colored" and "White."  While we passed each other casually in stores and on streets, we didn't really know each other--except in cases of black women serving as "maids" for white families.  Schools and churches were segregated.  Lunch counters and restaurants were "for whites only." At the movies, "Coloreds" had to sit in the balcony.

I'm looking for a word to describe my feelings when I am reminded of the cruelty of so many white Southerners to black people.  While "shame" is usually a word that describes personal regret (of which I have a few), there must be a word to name the experience of sorrow over what "our people" have done to others.  As I learned last night, Birmingham was the "most racist city in America."  But as one of the speakers said, we couldn't have had a George Wallace or a Chambliss (the killer) without a shared world view by so many who made their presence possible.

Music crossed the racial lines.  The song playing in the background of the film at the 16th Street Baptist Church was one known in all Baptist churches: "The Church's One Foundation."

It mystifies me still--how segregation and discrimination could have lasted until the 1960s in the South and even more so that it still exists in many places.  Blacks and whites might have shared a foundation, in soil, food, religious beliefs and geography, but we were so far apart that the memories of the South are entirely different depending on the skin color you happened to be born in.

To see clips of police dispersing peaceful protestors (adults and children) with fire hoses, to see  dogs trained for viciousness attack adults and children, and to listen to Sixties Southerners of both races recalling the cruelty of that time--these pictures always evoke something akin to personal shame, just as hearing the current plight of so many Native Americans evokes when recalling the massacres "our people" perpetrated on them when we  took over their peaceful homeland.

Throughout my teaching career at UTSA, I always assigned Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail.  Before reading it with my students, I showed them the film of the March on Washington and the "I Have A Dream" speech.  These two, along with King's letter, echo in my mind as I hear young people protesting for change in 2018.

People of all places and times find ways to discriminate against other people--for their race, their beliefs, their gender or sexual preferences, their age.  Those in power grab more power by favoring those who look like them, believe like them, and spend financial and political capital as they do.

But these Florida teenagers and their parents are going to keep speaking truth to power and the world is taking notice.  "The answer is blowing in the wind," but their courage gives us all hope.

Fog

Fog is not in itself beautiful; it's what it does to everything else the eye sees.It erases the background noise in scenery, so that what you see is starker, yet softer; cleaner, more dramatic.

This morning I drove around for an hour looking at trees and houses and dogs.  I wound up at the Fort Sam National Cemetery.

These are a few photos I took with my iPhone:

Books and Travel

On Wednesday, Gerlinde, Bonnie and I had lunch together at Silo's on Austin Highway.  Few things are more invigorating than spending a couple of hours talking travel and books with two kindred spirit friends who love both....

On Travel:

Gerlinde and her husband Tim have taken several Road Scholar trips all over the world.  I always perk up when she shows me pictures or tells stories of her travels, but until yesterday, I thought I wasn't a cruise person.  These trips, however, are not your usual cruises.  The more I heard, the more I thought: this is something I have to do this year!  

For one thing, they are more educational than entertaining kinds of trips.  I'm just beginning to research Road Scholar online--will write more about these tours as I learn more.

On Books: 

Gerlinde recommended a book I've long been meaning to read: The Warmth of Other Suns.  Bonnie suggested Just Mercy.  When I popped on Amazon this morning, they happened to be right next to each other, one of those synchroniticies that made me order both.  (I'd planned to go get them from the library today, but it's pouring rain this morning--and besides, these are the kinds of books I'll want to write in and share with friends afterwards.)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Isabel Wilkerson, "chronicles the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life."

About Just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption, the prize-winning book by Bryan Stevenson,
Amazon says: "A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time."

"Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever."

Kids from Parkland Speaking Out

How heartening for the future to hear these Florida high school student survivors speaking out in public, more articulate and eloquent than most of the politicians we're accustomed to hearing on cable news!

One young student said, "We are just children, but we are not irrational.  We more than anyone else understand the violence that comes through these guns.  We more than anyone else know what it's like to grieve the deaths of our friends. "

Lobbying money from the NRA may speak to the established politicians, but not to these teenaged future voters who are vowing to do whatever it takes so that this "never again" happens.  Maybe this is a turning point--victims and friends of victims turning their anger and anguish into action, demanding action.

"We're tired of hearing about thoughts and prayers."

"We're tired of waiting."

"I understand what it's like to text your parents while locked in a closet: 'Goodbye.  I might not ever see you again.  I love you.'"

There will be a town hall meeting tonight.  Both Trump and Governor Rick Scott (and many more legislators) are "unable to attend."

Learning to Draw

https://mailchi.mp/sketchbookskool/skoolzine-08?e=09062c57a3

Nellie introduced me to Sketchbook Skool a few years ago.  For those of you who are interested in art classes online, check this out.

All Passion Spent?

This is the book I ordered this morning:

And here's what Amazon says about it:

Irreverently funny and surprisingly moving, All Passion Spent is the story of a woman who discovers who she is just before it is too late.

After the death of elder statesman Lord Slane—a former prime minister of Great Britain and viceroy of India—everyone assumes that his eighty-eight-year-old widow will slowly fade away in her grief, remaining as proper, decorative, and dutiful as she has been her entire married life. But the deceptively gentle Lady Slane has other ideas. First she defies the patronizing meddling of her children and escapes to a rented house in Hampstead. There, to her offspring’s utter amazement, she revels in her new freedom, recalls her youthful ambitions, and gathers some very unsuitable companions—who reveal to her just how much she had sacrificed under the pressure of others’ expectations.

Sugar and Word-Games Anonymous

I remember a Bible verse from my childhood: I'm always doing the stuff I don't mean to do and not doing the stuff I intend.  (rough translation.)

On Tuesday, I went to HEB to get all the healthy groceries I intended to get: fruits, veggies, nuts and cheeses. At the door was a cute little girl in a golden costume selling Girl Scout cookies.  One box is called Tagalongs.  They are neither sugar-free nor gluten free, but I thought I'd put them on the back shelf on the pantry and save them for the grandkids.  Long story short, all that is left of them is an empty box!

I will not buy Tagalongs again.
I will not buy Tagalongs again.
I will not buy Tagalongs again.

There.  Penance complete!

I also downloaded another blasted word game--which is visually beautiful.  Crossy Word (a crossword puzzle game) has serene music (which I turn down so I can watch the news while I play) and very Zen-like backgrounds.  It is fun and challenging enough until, for me, Round 319 when they started wanting longish words I've never heard of. I have resigned, but enjoyed it for 319 rounds, then they wanted me to buy clues, which I'm not doing.

My name is Linda and I'm an addict--of sugar and words.  But if some man shows up with sugary words again, I'm not opening the door!  (One won't, trust me.)  I know how easy it is to fall into both of my addictions when they are offered together or separately.

From today's Brainpickings

Many of the problems of the world might disappear if every child grew up loving animals, art and music; if every child felt loved; and if every child believed (rightly) that his or her people were beautiful, loved, respected, and celebrated....

Listen to this poem by Langston Hughes:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/05/i-am-loved-nikki-giovannis-ashley-bryan/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=ef7c534b69-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-ef7c534b69-235042797&mc_cid=ef7c534b69&mc_eid=7940cd5ca2

"Beautiful are the eyes of my people! Beautiful are the souls of my people!"

I Am Loved
Nikki Giovanni poems

"Skippy's okay! It's a miracle!"

Elena and Conway this morning
so happy that Skippy's not sick anymore

Elena and Nathan's pigs

Baby Elena holding her chickens

My Texas grandchildren love animals--lots of animals. Chickens, a horse or two, four dogs, a couple of rabbits, who knows who all resides in their yard from day to day?

Last week, Will called and told me Skippy--due to a reaction to heart worm medicine--was in the hospital, blind and suffering neurological problems.  Nathan loves that little rat terrier especially because Skippy came all the way from the  North Pole a few years back.  He's been "praying with all his heart" all week for Skippy, but he's not home this morning to hear the good news.

Well, I just got a call that Skippy is fine, and he can see after all!  They were prepared to watch him learn his way around blindly, but that won't be necessary.

I was looking (unsuccessfully) for picture of Skippy to post this morning and found hundreds of snapshots of Elena and Nathan with animals.  In NISE, the movie I watched last night, one thing that was particularly moving was that the patients formed their first relationships in the hospital with stray dogs.  So I wanted to go back and look at some animal history....

Elena rescuing an injured bird at the park

Nathan and Conway Twitty two years ago

Elena and Conway

Elena riding rodeo with her mom
two years ago

Elena petting Chris' horse in Kerrville

Nise: The Heart of Madness

I'm thinking this morning how fortunate we are to have the prosperity and freedom to pursue  pleasures and passions.  To play with children and animals, to feel the rain on our skin, to make and do whatever brings joy--these are such big deals!

In the movie I stayed up until 2:00 watching, based on a true story that takes place in Brazil in the 1940s, I'm reminded of the opposite of those freedoms.

When the psychiatrist, Dr. Nise De Silveira, arrives at the National Psychiatric Hospital in Rio De Janerio, she sees a dirty and barren-looking hospital controlled by a team of doctors who are sold on treatments she refuses to participate in: lobotomies and electroshock therapy for those suffering with schizophrenia.  "I will not do this!" she says.  "I refuse to treat illness with violence."

For her refusal, she's demoted to a program staffed by two nurses with no training in occupational therapy, and she sets about cleaning the filthy space allotted to them and to observe the patients.  Then slowly, fearlessly, she works with them, treating even the most violent and aggressive ones with respect.

She and her small team introduce them to art. One man--formerly considered so dangerous he's put in solitary confinement--pounds clay and makes sculptures; another paints mandalas. Soon (how soon we don't know) the bare walls are filled with paintings and sculptures.

Nise begins a correspondence with Carl Jung who says of the paintings, "It's clear that these patients are working with people who are not afraid of the unconscious."

Patients formerly restrained and subject to shock therapy begin to create vibrant art. A formerly violent woman begins to take care of animals, mostly stray dogs, that someone brings in from outside.

When their paintings and sculptures are exhibited in a gallery, a man who's worked with the patients says this:

"One of the most powerful functions of art is the exposure of the unconscious--which is just as mysterious in the normal as in the so-called abnormal.  The images of the unconscious are only a symbolic language that psychiatry must decipher. But nothing prevents these paintings from being harmonious, dramatic, captivating, alive or beautiful, such as true works of art. This is an opportunity to see what conventional psychiatry is attempting to stifle."

At the end of the film, the actual now-aged Dr. De Silviera is interviewed.  "There are ten thousand ways to belong to life and to fight for your own time. We intend to recuperate men who are considered garbage towards a socially useful life. And maybe even richer than the lives they were leading before."

Pleasures: a writing prompt

Today I had two pleasurable visits--one with Victoria, one with Jan.  So I started thinking: what brings pleasure in life?

I'm going to write an alphabet of pleasures right this minute--and I'd love it if you'd do it with me!

A for apples and cheese.
B for bags--I love pretty bags so much Carlene once called me Bag Lady.
C for creative endeavors
D for dancing with men who know how to dance better than me
E for eating out
F for friendships

Which reminds me: Carlene is giving up her cookbooks for Lent!  (This made me laugh because she never uses cookbooks!)

.....

I'll keep working on my list, hope I get some from you!

You can have more than one thing for some letters if you like....

Thoughts and Prayers

I can't figure out how to get the picture from Facebook, but Jan told me Victoria posted this suggestion and I think it's brilliant:

We all write letters to our congressmen and include a check.  Instead of a cash amount, just write "thoughts and prayers"...along with a cover explanation:

Dear Representative or Senator So-And-So:

Since you and your colleagues in Congress seem to feel that this is the solution to mass murder, please accept this contribution. 

Signed: Yourself

After every mass murder in this country--in schools, the Florida nightclub, the Texas church, the Vegas concert, etc--Paul Ryan always says, "It's not time to talk" about changing gun regulations yet; we need more data, blah blah blah.....  "This is a conversation" for later.

We can "talk about" mental illness, but we can't touch gun regulations--and anyway, who's doing anything about mental illness?


Here--Victoria sent me the picture:

As a  former teacher (whose worst classroom problems were so minor I can't even remember what they were), I am, along with everyone else, horrified  every time I hear of another crazed shooter  killing children.

All these dead children, all their murdered dreams and loves!  The devastating impact on their siblings and parents and grandparents and friends!

I keep seeing one girl who survived yesterday's tragedy.  She's standing in the school yard holding a giant teddy bear, apparently brought to her by one of her parents for comfort.  The teenager is looking intently at the big brown face of her bear, girls around her on their phones, probably calling their parents.  What this girl has seen and experienced she can never un-see, un-know.

Everyone wants to name one cause of all this mayhem, all the repeated mass murders.  Is it the ease of availability of guns? Mental illness?  Violence in the media?

In a year of 18 school killings in America in six week, the phrase of politicians--"thoughts and prayers"--has lost its meaning. These killers are kids who in so many cases have posted videos and social media messages that they like to hurt animals and people.  This one said his dream was to become a "professional school shooter."  It's way too late for "thoughts and prayers."

Nothing is wasted in the realm of compassion, but what tangible things can be done to stop this American nightmare?

As a mother and grandmother, I do what we all do: imagine what it would be like if one of those children were one of mine.  The impact of all these senseless deaths hits all who've loved our children since the moment we first heard they were in utero, from the days we first celebrated their births, through all their years of school, sports, music concerts, report cards, and birthday parties.  What a terrible atrocity!

Everyone Has A Story

https://www.holstee.com/blogs/reflections/sonder?utm_campaign=Reflections+-+Feb+W3+-+Sonder.+N1+N2+%28KYZu98%29&utm_medium=email&_ke=bGluZGFfaGFycmlzNDhAbWUuY29t&utm_source=N1+-+2018+Master+-+Non+Members+-+all#article

Following up with pictures

These travel notebooks (made by various companies--I love the Chic Sparrows) are leather covers that hold 4 to 6 "inserts"--which can be lined, blank, gridded, etc.  The inserts are available from lots of companies, including Chic Sparrow, Amazon, Jet Pens, and Etsy.

Or you can make your own--or ask your artistic daughter or friend to make you some.

Here are the two that Day made:

This one is covered with fabric (which happens to be printed with a grid of colors.  The inside pockets give you a place for pens, glue, scissors, passports, pictures, etc.  One of the pockets has a zipper closure.  (Day also finds cool ideas on Pinterest.)

This is the back of the watercolor insert and the front of the fabric one.

This is the front of the watercolor insert.
The pages inside are blank watercolor pages.
When she attaches a photograph to the cover,
she varnishes over it with some kind of
acid free medium. 

A Good Monday

Today started as a 3 on the mood scale, but gradually I watched it movin' on up!

Maybe a dream, maybe a floating remnant of a memory, who knows why?--sometimes days just start off Low on my Personal Mood Chart.  So I decided to go back to sleep and start over for an hour or two, which had a salubrious effect on my mood.

One test of a good book for me is that it makes me want to stay wide awake and write.  Today, I  read a chapter of Strout's novel, said "Wow!" and started writing.  I read/wrote/read/wrote all day--until it was time to get ready for my writing group.  Charlotte's Birthday-Ending-With-a-Zero is happening this month and I wanted to get a particular dessert from Central Market--which they didn't have--so I made a banana pudding.

Then Charlotte brought yummy spreads, cookies and brownies from Bird Bakery--so we had all the makings of what Clarice calls a GALENTINE DAY party--a Valentine's Party for Gal-Friends.

I love my two writing groups!  Seven talented women in each, it's always energizing and illuminating to hear what everyone has written!

We did an exercise I borrowed from Andre Dubus III--saw it on Vemeo: We all wrote a list of smells associated with a certain person.  (I chose Miss Marguerite, mine and Betty's piano teacher). Then we wrote about that person's gestures, then we wrote about how we remember them in certain lights.  The writing that came out of that series of exercises was extraordinary poetry about people we've known who've impacted us.

At noon, the mailman brought me a package from Day that made me so happy.  She had made two inserts for the Chic Sparrow notebook, like the ones she made for herself.  One was a booklet made of watercolor paper; the other was a fabric insert with a pocket on one side and a zipper compartment on the other--both beautifully decorated as Day does all things.

There was also a white stuffed kitty in the box; only she and my mama would know why that particular present brought tears to my eyes!

I'd slept with a kitty very much like this one throughout high school and earlier.

On the day of my wedding, I had to decide: do you take a stuffed animal on your honeymoon?  Or do you leave childish things behind?  I chose to leave it--meaningfully--behind, to place it on my bed as a symbol for anyone who might want to know that  I was, henceforth, a bonafide adult.

But here we are, Day and me, playing with notebooks and watercolors and paint pens!  It took me a long time to learn that we should never leave childish things behind.

Words to inspire travelers

I got these from the site JetPens.com

Elizabeth Strout

It is not “good” or “bad” that interests me as a writer, but the murkiness of human experience and the consistent imperfections of our lives.

— Elizabeth Strout

Today I've been reading Anything is Possible, another brilliant novel by Elizabeth Strout. She captures--more than any other American novelist for me--the "murkiness of human experience." 

This may be my favorite of her novels so far, but I'm about to read the others all over again with a new appreciation for her captivating writing: Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys and others.  

Get the Kleenex!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P3uDR6JSHM

"Send in the Clowns" by an 82-year-old singer in Ireland....

Thelma and Louise and Lucy

After my last blog post, I got a delicious blueberry muffin top and a text from Louise, dubbing me Thelma!  So instead of Lola, I'm Thelma now, at least to Louise!

To limber up my joints and head for writing group this afternoon, I went to the Chinese massage place (Foot Spa by Big Lots on San Pedro)  on a whim--and lucky me, I got Lucy again.  We don't speak but three or four English words in common, yet she has such a sense of humor and affection that I leave feeling happy, loose in the joints and clearer in my head!

For those many of us who don't have romantic partners on Valentines Day, the lead up to it can be a bit gloomy if you let it.  There's no one to rub your feet or your back, for one thing.  As Lucy was kneeding the knots in my neck, I thought, "If I were a dog, you'd be the person I'd choose to adopt me!"

She can say "Okay" and "You okay?" and "Thank you"--which is three phrases more than I can speak in her language.  While you're getting a massage, they play very soothing instrumental music, Asian and American.  When "Sounds of Silence" or a Josh Groban song is on, I add the words in my mind, but for the most part, I just enjoy the silence and darkness (A warm towel on my face) and the pampering.

Now I'm going to arrange Trader Joe dark-peanut butter cups in a heart-shaped tin and serve those as Valentines to my Saturday writing group!

If you're looking for a good Netflix series, and if you don't mind reading subtitles, check out Morocco, Love in Time of War.

Learning to Love Oldishness

Jan and I have both had some health challenges lately, and when we have them, we're not the most cheerful women on the block.  Like yesterday at yoga: We love the restorative yoga class we take together on Fridays, but yesterday, the teacher chose to play some dirge-like Indian music and led us in some moves that were  difficult if you have joint or knee issues.  When we left, we both felt ancient and stiff and depressed!

This morning, Jan was walking Esan when I was coming back from my coke run.  Esan has gotten old, arthritic, blind and sometimes incontinent, and that in itself must be a challenge!  I still remember her when Jan first found her--a precious little puppy.

Yesterday she was writing a text to Kate about bringing something home for Esan--and auto-correct changed Esan to Edna.  So they've decided to call her Edna henceforth--as it's such a good name for a little old lady not in the best of health.

Turns out the boys like it and they all love Edna even more now that she has a name that befits her  "little old lady" status.

"We should do that for ourselves!" I said.  "Pick a name that goes with our oldishness and embrace it!"

Jan's going with her middle name, Louise.  I'm going with Lola.

As we talked about age and how we felt after yesterday's yoga she told me something that made me laugh:

One of her older friends, now deceased, told her once that she no longer wore eye make up.

"Why?" Jan asked.

To which Beverly replied, "You'll find out."

Nobody can tell you when you're young what growing older feels like, but when we stumble upon one or more of the signs of it, we find out!

I don't wear eye make up because I never really got the hang of it back when I could have seen to apply it without glasses, and now I don't even try.  But according to Jan (I mean, Louise)  there's another reason--besides the difficulty of seeing with your glasses off: Louise tells me that now eye make up finds every wrinkle and crease and courses down your face in unattractive black streaks!

Old Town Helotes

When I picked up Elena today, we decided to walk into old town Helotes and visit a couple of shops there.  She SAYS she "doesn't especially like old things." but she also says school is boring--both of which may not be entirely accurate.

Shops of old things are like museums for little girls.  We saw a slide projector--which fascinated her so much I considered buying it but the light was out and the cord frayed.  I told her I still have some of my daddy's slides and that made me wish all over again that he could have met her--though she says she "remembers him from Heaven.'

We saw a princess phone, gaudy jewelry, old doors, and other antiques. Everything gave me a chance to tell her about how old it was and if I'd ever seen one of those before.  But as always, she chose only one thing to buy--a tiny tiny stuffed kitten with its own little bed.

Helotes is not old town Helotes anymore.  When we moved there in 1968, it was a sleepy little town: a grocery store, El Chaparrals, Flores Country Store.  It brings back so many memories to walk that street and tell Elena what it used to be like.  We had puffy tacos at El Chaparral, still my favorite Mexican restaurant--though it's way bigger than it was in the Seventies.

Then we came home and made valentines and she wanted me to sing to her--my first singing request in many years.  "Sweet Sweet Spirit" works every time, just as it did with my kids.  She's now sleeping with three stuffed animals.

Flax and Walnut Granola

This is a recipe I tore out of a magazine article about Omega-3 Fatty Acids and their role in reducing inflammation and boosting one's mood.

I just made it and put it in the oven and it's so delicious raw I could have eaten a bowl of it without cooking:

Preheat oven to 325.  Line a 15/10 baking pan (I didn't measure, just used a cookie sheet) with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/4 cup pure maple syrup, 2 T. olive oil,
1 t. vanilla, 1/2 t. cinnamon, 1/4 t. salt, and 1/4 t. nutmeg.

Stir in 3 cups of rolled oats, 1 1/2 cups of chopped walnuts, 3 T. ground flaxseeds, and 2 T chia seeds.

Spread mixture in prepared pan.  Bake 45-50 minutes, stirring after 20 minutes.

YUM!

I am a would-be journalist, though I have no training in that field and have never sought it out and nobody has appeared on my doorstep asking me to be one.  My dream career--besides the one I already have--would be to travel the English-speaking world and write about places and people I meet.

Most of the traveling I've done this winter is vicarious, in books and movies.

Calvin Trillin's book, Killings, is a collection of previously published essays in The New Yorker, all having to do with murders and unexplained sudden deaths.

"I sometimes read murder mysteries, and the ones I find absorbing are those that evoke a specific place.  I'm more interested in what life is like in a Boston hospital or on the Navajo reservation than I am in who done it."

When he goes to a place to write about a killing he gets to know the victim (through stories) and the killer.  He follows the trial.  He talks to townspeople.  He acquaints himself with the prejudices and cultural beliefs of the place.  "When someone dies suddenly, shades are drawn up, and the specificity of what is revealed was part of what attracted me."

May Sarton's journal, At Seventy, describes an entirely different kind of place--her own personal country of being seventy. I am reading this book to prepare myself for my actual arrival there.

"What is it like to be seventy?  If someone else had lived so long and could remember things sixty years ago with great clarity, she would seem very old to me.  But I do not feel old at all, not as much a survivor as a person still on her way.  I suppose old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward, but I look forward with joy to the years ahead and especially to the surprises that any day could bring."

"In the middle of the night things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame and woe.  But all, good and bad, painful or delightful, weave themselves into a rich tapestry, and all give me food for thought, food to grow on."

She relates a recent poetry reading in which someone in the audience asked her, "Why is it good to be old?"(after she had said that she felt she was in the best time of her life.)

"Because I am more myself than I have ever been.  There is less conflict.  I am happier, more balanced, and more powerful." She goes on to say that what she should have said is "I am better able to use my powers....I am surer of what my life is all about, have less self-doubt to conquer...."

As I, at 69, am looking ahead and wondering what the next stops on this life journey will be like, May Sarton at 70 did the same.  She writes about Camille Mayran who wrote "a magnificent book in her nineties" and who tells her that "well over ninety, she sees so change in herself except for a slight slowing down.  She [Camille] is all soul and mind...."

Sunday Morning

I love the luxury of Sunday mornings...

Reading Brainpickings, which arrives in my inbox every Sunday, reading a novel called Rules of Civility, (which I read until 3:30 this morning), writing on my blog and in my notebook, planning what I'll do at my two writing groups next week, taking a Sketchbook Skool class on drawing, and then falling back to sleep for another dream.

Sunday mornings are like taking classes in everything of interest, nothing required, all wearing pajamas.

It's its own day of the week, without interruptions, without shopping, without errands.  After my nap, another day of the week begins, and that's called Sunday Afternoon.

A bit of this mornings Brainpickings....

“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them,” Emerson wrote....Hardly anything does this for us more powerfully than art — it unsettles us awake, disrupts our deadening routines, enlarges our reservoir of hope by enlarging our perspective, our grasp of truth, our capacity for beauty.

This singular function of art is what Ursula K. Le Guin(October 21, 1929–January 22, 2018) reflects on in an interview:

In a roaming conversation over tea, “with only momentary interruptions by Lorenzo the cat or chimes from the grandfather clock,” Le Guin tells White:

The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.

Saturday Night

After a noon yoga class, forgetting for the rest of the day to turn my phone back on, I watched six episodes of River--an original Netflix series.

About midnight, I decided to take a drive, get a coke--it's Saturday night after all and a woman's got to have herself a weekend.

Mr. T at the drive-through window may be the purest soul I've ever met.  When he hears my voice on the creaky speaker, he says, "Come on to the second window, my friend!"

He gives me a fried apple pie and a cookie and a huge coke--the kind it would take all week to drink. I plan to find someone to give the pie and cookie to.  He refuses as always to take the money I offer.

"How's your mama?" he always asks, having met her once.

"She's great!" I say.  "She's 92 and I can hardly keep up with her."

"Well, that's exactly how you're going to be when you're 92," Mr. T says.  "I promise."

He tells me about his sick uncle in a nursing home, and he tells me where his parents work--one in the oil fields, one at a mental health facility--and since nobody else is in line, we have time to talk longer than usual.  All the other workers come to the window to wave and say hello.  "We haven't seen you in a while," one says.  "Where you been?"

"I'm not drinking Diet Cokes much," I say, "But you know, it's Saturday night."

They agree with Mr. T when he says, "You're our favorite customer." You can tell everyone who works there loves this young man--and I'm not sure I actually count as a customer since no money ever trades hands.

As I drive away, Mr. T says, "I love you, Darlin.  Keep staying blessed."

I feel so happy I decide what the heck, eat that apple pie!  So driving home in the dark, listening to Willie and Wynton and Leonard, I scarf down a hot apple pie all by myself and feel like I'm having a party.

Sometimes love shows up in the most unexpected places, and you just have to let go and go with it!

I woke up this morning to the sound of the phone ringing--and it was one of those calls that begins "We've all okay but...."

Turns out Jackson, the tallest guy in our family at sixteen, was riding his bike to school this morning when a driver of a car decided to run the stop sign and ran right into Jackson on his bike!

He's fine, Day assured me, as she returned to the school where she's an instructional coach and he's a junior.  Their high school is only a mile or two from home; Jax rides his bike there, Day walks.

The driver got out of his car long enough to  yell "You okay?" but Jackson wasn't yet prepared to assess his condition, so he sort of nodded and the man drove away, with a dent in his car and a missing mirror.

Three witnesses captured the car on their cell phones.   Three witnesses called 911.   Tom was still at home and went straight to the scene to retrieve Jackson and take him home for the day.

When I called he said he was fine, just his wrist and foot were hurting and he had some scratches.  Luckily, he was wearing his helmet as he always does.

These are the calls you never want to get, but the "we're okay" preface was the best news I've had all day!