Paper Mosaic

Kate is spending a few days in the casita to avoid paint fumes at her house--and it's looking beautiful over there!

She's watching me do a paper mosaic, cutting up pieces of wrapping paper and Elmer-ing them onto a desk top.

Our candidate, Beto O'rourke

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

The world out there is so full of joy!
It comes rushing into my world when I least expect it (as well as when I'm looking for it).  Often, it wakes me up in the night as an Idea (for something I want to make or do)--like the iconic symbol of Idea, a light bulb.

Making something, a trip,  seeing someone I love, the colors turquoise and red, the eyes of children--these are a few joy infusers.  Falling in love--that used to mean one thing, now it means another--is clearly among the big Joyfuls in life.  Dancing, music, laughter, poetry, well-made sentences, painting, good food, beautiful landscapes--all are joy bringers.

Joyful/ The Surprising Power of  Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness comes out September 4th; after reading the intriguing sample on Kindle, I ordered the hardcover last night.  A yummy, engaging, re-readable, underlinable, sharable book on paper pages--that's joy!

Having dinner in a lovely cafe with long-time friends last night--that was joyful!  The coincidence that three of the four of us being dressed glamorously in black and white (like the restaurant itself)  was an added spark of joy, like a grace note on a musical scale.

Aretha sings joy....

https://www.improvisedlife.com/2018/08/29/aretha-sings-joy-blue-brothers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+improvisedlife+%28Improvised+Life%29














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Matinee Cafe Basse Road

Freda suggested we go to a new place for dinner tonight--and Charlotte and Kate met us there.  We loved it!  The food was wonderful--our table got great appetizers, souvlaki, lasagne, then shared one of their homemade pastries with dates in it.

My sweet friends were all dressed in black and white--which looked great with the black and white decor.  I was the only one who didn't get the color memo!

A bloody good time will be had by all....

In one of the antique shops I visit when I need a little something, I always enjoy talking to one of the owners who is British.

I told him Betty and I are hoping to do a spring trip to England and Ireland and he said he'd love to tell me all the "magical places" off the beaten track.  Due to jet lag, he advises staying put the first two or three days and hiring a car or riding a bus, then driving is the only way to go after you're rested enough to orient yourself to the "wrong side of the road"--his term.

"When I tell you where to go, no matter when you go, you're going to have a bloody good time," he said.  "But the best months to travel there are October and April."

Jan Schubert Norris

HAPPY BIRTH-WEEK to my dear friend and neighbor Jan--another Virgo dear to my heart!  Last year we celebrated her happy birthday in Connecticut together and had a wonderful visit with our friends, Lorraine and Kurt.

This morning I got this email from Jan, such a great teller of real-life neighborhood tales!

"Are you smelling skunk these nights?  We have a saucy little fellow living in our yard(s) and the past two nights he has sprayed outside my bedroom window, infesting  my dreams with unwanted odor.  In last night’s episode, a dream of Thanksgiving dinner, no one could eat anything — the turkey, potatoes, dressing all tasted like skunk!  I may call Animal Control today to see what we can do.  He is eating the food we put out for our feral cats, threatening them with his bristly tail high in the air, and yesterday, he threatened me when I returned from my walk.  Aaargh."

Three of My Virginia Family--on their way to school.

For so many years, first-day-of-school snapshots have been sent from Falls Church....always taken right beside the mail box.

Here we have the two students and their assistant principal mom heading off to school....

Hoping it's a happy school year for all of my peeps and yours!

Marcus and Day

Day

Jackson

JOYFUL by Ingrid Fetell Lee

On the night I slept in the casita, watching the final season of Roses,  I took a break and went outside after the most romantic episode in which Louisa's handsome man sang a version of "The River is Wide" to her  It put me in such a joyful mood that I couldn't stop singing that song for about an hour!

The very next day I saw a book reviewed in a magazine and ordered a Kindle preview of it--the title is JOYFUL.  It's a fascinating book about how we find joy in every day things, exotic or close to home, and the first chapter is all about color.  I get teased a little from time to time about my "always changing things" in my house, but my house is my canvas and playing with colors is my favorite thing to do!

In the book, the author tells a story about a dying crime-ridden grey city in Albania.  "The city was dead.  It looked like a transit station where one could stay only if waiting for something." When the new mayor (Edi Rama) was elected, he started painting buildings bright colors to bring it back to life.  He started with orange, then proceeded to have hundreds of buildings re-painted in all different colors, and decrepit buildings were demolished.

Soon, the crime and litter virtually stopped!  Bars came down out of windows and people started eating in cafes on the street.  The entire city changed, starting with one outrageous orange building.

"From the moment I first started studying joy," the author writes, "It was clear that the liveliest places and objects all have one thing in common: bright, vivid color.  Whether it's a row of houses painted in bold swaths of color or a display of colored markers in a stationery shop, vibrant color invariably sparks a feeling of delight."

"While contentment is curled up on the sofa, and bliss is lost in tranquil meditation, joy is skipping, jiving, twirling, giggling.  It is a uniquely exuberant emotion, a high-energy form of happiness." 


The book poses questions like these: What lights you up inside?  Who are the most joyful people you know? What places bring you joy?  Do you feel joyful when you walk into your house at the end of the day?

A Shaved Ice place on Fredricksburg Road near Five Points

First Day of School

Five in my family started a new school year--Day as assistant principal of her high school, Jackson and Marcus and Nathan and Elena as scholars!  I don't have photos of Jackson, Marcus and Day yet, but here we have Nathan going into sixth grade, Elena into first.

What students of all ages may not know is that their teachers are as excited and hopeful as they are when school resumes.  Driving past Cambridge Elementary--five blocks away--just now, I saw a few classrooms with the lights on, teachers decorating their rooms--and it almost made me want to go back to teaching!

How fondly I remember making lesson plans and arranging the desks in my classrooms in a circle.  I remember the smell of chalk dust (no longer a presence in modern tech-y classrooms), the fragrance of new shoes,  clothes and text books. So much to learn, so many friends to make!

Vibrancy

Yesterday, in Ironside Antiques, I noticed a pretty young mom and her little boy squatting beside a glass case filled with little cars.  She smiled at me and then her little boy smiled the exact same way.

Later, I was looking through the booth I like best there, and I heard her say to the owner: "I'm looking for a gift for a friend of mine who has a very vibrant life.  She loves birds and plants, maybe something bird-housey."

As she continued talking about her, I said, "She sounds like someone I'd like to know."

"You'd love her," she said.  "Nobody ever walks away from her without smiling."

I loved her expression, vibrant life!  Isn't that what it's all about, living with vibrancy?

Every day is its own journey, and this one, today, has been a good one.

At ten,  I drove to a garage to pick up Pam and got stopped by a train--which I decided to make into a windshield panorama.

After that, avoiding my wonderful but overly-chatty handyman and looking for a drawer pull and some solitude, I stumbled across a place I'd been looking for ever since they moved from Hildebrand.  What a wonderful place it is, Pickers Paradise, filled with old architectural things, doors, windows, hardware, chandeliers, shutters, salvaged when Kurt demolishes old buildings and houses.

It's moved--if you're in the market for such things--from Hildebrand to Five Points on Fredricksburg Road and it's now a multi-roomed warehouse of architectural wonders.

After that, I came back and made egg salad for Ed and me and he always finds things that need fixing that trump the things he came for.  But a house of this age needs occasional tending and he's the best one to do it.

By nightfall, I was in the mood for a retreat, so I am camping out in the casita, just me and the characters on Bed of Roses.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to CARLENE!

On August 24th, 1925, Carlene was born, the second of five children to Mimi and Papa--Mildred and Earl Ogletree.  When I called to wish her a happy 93rd birthday, we talked a little about her childhood and how she loved her older brother Bob.  Her favorite memories of are riding on the school bus with Bob and playing with him on the farm.  Bob died at ten, and Carlene--at seven--had to go through the unimaginable pain of losing her big brother.

Carlene at ninety-three is remarkable and inspiring--and she's also the one to whom we attribute Elena's bossiness and humor!   She teased  this morning that she got so many birthday cards that she had to hang a big plastic bag on the mailbox to collect them--and this was after her three-mile walk!

Elena said yesterday that she planned to be like Nana--and she remembers that one of Nana's many secrets to living a healthy life is eating an orange every day, so eats a lot of oranges.

Elena and Nathan remind me of Carlene and Bob--at least the Carlene and Bob I know from pictures and stories.  Yesterday, Nathan rode in the front seat for the first time--just as Bob rode the school bus before Carlene.  Elena was jealous, but Nathan said, "Elena, I've had to wait a long long time for this and you'll just have to wait."

It's unimaginable for a child to have to lose a sibling!  They have their own inside jokes--mostly about their parents--and they have so many of the same memories.

Carlene and Dot, the two sisters, are the only ones left in their original family and to hear the way they laugh together is hilarious.  I can always tell when Carlene is talking to Dot on the phone!

Carlene, I wish you a wonderful birthday and many many more years of laughter!  I love you to the moon and back!

Carlene today--sent to me by Jocelyn

My first birthday, my mama and me
with Mimi and Papa and Uncle David

Grandchildren at the end of summer

There's nothing I wouldn't do for a little boy with big brown eyes or a little girl with quite a few teeth missing--even if the results are puffy fingers for a few days.

Nathan, our little bee-keeper and drummer, starts middle school on Monday, and Elena, our budding gymnast and comedian, starts first grade.

Nathan arrived wanting to sew, so we got out the machine, threaded it, cut some fabric, then he decided he wanted to make a pecan pie! On our way home from California Pizza, we stopped in at Trader Joe's for our pie supplies.  Who can keep gluten-free rules when a little boy labors over a pie all by himself?  And who can turn down one tiny pizza while being entertained by two munchkins?

They re-enacted scenes they find hilarious in a certain movie, then told me that Mom said it's inappropriate.  "It's got bad words in it, Yenna, so you probably shouldn't watch it," Elena cautioned.

When we called Nana from California Pizza to wish her an early birthday--she turns 93 tomorrow!--Elena, always a tad bossy, advised Nathan on certain things he should say to Nana.

"Go away, Elena!" he said.  "I don't like people telling me what to say on the phone!"

She appeared slightly crestfallen for about a minute, but she bounced back and all was well.

***


There's nothing I wouldn't do for my two Virginia teenagers, either--though I have, unfortunately, fewer chances to eat pizza and make pies with the big guys.

When I asked Day how they responded when she got the news that she's been picked for Assistant Principal at her school, she said--"They both responded in their own ways...."

Marcus, more ebullient, did his Marcus version of jumping up and down, as he is wont to do--"Yay, Mom!  That's terrific!  You're going to be great!  Yay!"

Jackson, more grown up and subdued and understated, said in his deep man voice , "Cool, Mom..."

Maybe there's a metaphor in here....

Have you ever smelled something that stayed in your nose for hours?

I remember this happening years ago when we had a wood stove--which must have gotten clogged in the vent or something.  For hours after fixing it, I had a bad smell look on my face all day.

Same thing happened this morning.  Edward had used a spray paint for one small item in my bathroom.  I noticed the smell at bedtime, but went to sleep in spite of it.

This morning, I woke up with a headache and my nose was tightened up in a scowl-y expression.  Immediately, I recognized that the bathroom smelled unbelievably awful.

Until Edward could get here to rectify the situation, I went to the car wash and noticed that indeed my face still carried the look of stink.

Made me wonder: how many things do we not notice in life that affect our visage, outlook, and senses for a long time afterwards?

Bed of Roses Season 2

"We are shaped and fashioned by the things we love."
Sandy, a charming fellow with early dementia, Minna's gentleman friend, thus quotes Goethe when he hands Minna a bouquet of flowers from the community garden.

Minna is Louisa's feisty mother.

This series is wonderful!  It reminds me of watching McCleod's Daughters years ago along with several other people who talked about it like we knew these good people in Australia personally.

I'm staying away from news, mostly.  You can watch one hour or six and they all tell you the same old same old over and over.  Rachel said last night, "Sometimes I just want to put my hands over my ears and wait til somebody tells me this is all over."  My sentiments exactly.

I prefer to stay in Rainbow's End and watch more human struggles and romances blooming and unfolding.  And spot an occasional kangaroo and kind and quirky people caring for animals and each other.

Unwelcome Inspiration

A front page story in our paper yesterday featured a well-known poet in San Antonio--someone I barely know--who for years taught poetry in local high schools, colleges, and UTSA.  He's probably in his early sixties.

Several women who were his students have recently begun telling stories of this man taking them under his wing, tutoring them in poetry, and gushing over their work.  They were, he said, "his muses."  They should have been his students, period.

He crossed some lines that should never be crossed between teachers and students, especially young and vulnerable girls of 12 and 14....

Unfortunately, this story is quite common: older men preying on innocent young girls, grooming them, and violating them in various ways before they are old enough to understand what is going on.  At those young ages, girls may think they are more mature than they are--and these men tell them that they are.  But they don't usually have the language to tell adults what is happening to them, or they think they are all alone, or they are confused by the excessive attention.

This doesn't just happen in Alabama and Texas; it happens everywhere.  And most of the time, it takes years for little girls to grow up and have the language to tell what happened to them.

I admire these young women who are now telling what happened, and their stories are so similar regarding this man!  In this story by Lauren Caruba ("Unwelcome Inspiration"), all the women talk about his flattery and unwelcome crossing of boundaries to claim these women as "his" inspirers.

All day I have been thinking about the last lines of the article by one of the brave women who has spoken out:

"If somebody steals your wallet, you report it to the police.  If somebody steals your childhood, you don't tell anyone."

Bed of Roses

I was up much of the night with a puny stomach, during which I discovered a perfect-for-a-sick-day (or any day really) series on Acorn TV: Bed of Roses is a three-season Australian series about a young woman of 49 who is suddenly widowed and bankrupt and has to start her life all over by moving back to her hometown near her mother.

Now that the plumbers have come and gone--and will come back tomorrow to finish the work on my AC pipes outside--I'm going to stay curled up in bed and alternate between sleeping, Roses and a novel I'm enjoying, recommended by Pam, The Atomic Weight of Love.

My long-time dependable plumber never responded to my texts and phone calls, so I went to Next Door Alamo Heights and found Chambliss Plumbing--the most highly rated plumbing company on the site.  Customers raved about their work and their integrity and after being burned a few times by less than honest and skilled workers, I called them right away and was very impressed by them.

And for AC repair inside the house, I'm also impressed with Christiansen AC--recommended to me by Will and Veronica.  Together, those two companies are getting the AC humming again without dripping--though now I'll need to find someone to repair the small patch of wood flooring that buckled before I knew what the problem was.

Also--have a new lawn mowing and trimming guy, Tony, who's excellent--if anyone is in the market for that sort of work. He's the shuttle driver for VW and formerly worked in construction, so he also does handyman work.

So now that I've done all my to-do list things for Monday,  I think I'll pop back over to Australia now and watch Louisa (named after Louisa Mae Alcott) rebuild and re-roof her little shack of a house with the help of great friends.  She says she's going to sell it when it's done and move back to Melbourne, but I'm thinking that after all her work, her mama nearby, and her new friends, a very attractive eligible neighbor, she's likely to wind up staying in Rainbow.

A wonderfully whacky window designer, a crochet artist, a spray painter, a dancer--these are among the short videos of creative people you can see if you sign up for a free week of Bluprint, formerly Craftsy, all really inspiring.  One common theme seems to be, in the words of the dancer, I think: If you want to be creative, keep your child self alive.  Play and work as if no one is watching.

For the past three days, it's been 103-106 in my car when I've gotten out to run an errand or whatever.  I have the energy of a sleeping fruit fly and only do one "out" thing a day most days, but I do so enjoy refueling with these short videos by artists.

The long paths of practice

"On the long path of practice 
we move from living from our self-images 
and our many stories 
to living more from our deepest values, 
our most authentic self."

Jan Jarboe Russell, my NIA teacher, sent out this sentence from a Buddhist text this morning and I re-spaced it to remind myself to pay attention in a different way.  Jan was relating this line to the practice of NIA, and I believe it may apply to whatever our practice is. 

Like most people my age, I feel that this is a great age to be my most authentic self.  If not now, when?

We're all doing different things to get there.  Some are retiring from careers and marriages and trying to find meaning in different ways. Some are dealing with pain and health challenges, searching for new paths to healing.  Some are changing things in houses, making art, dancing, writing, gardening, traveling. Most of us are doing a patchwork of practices, all leading us to be our most authentic selves. 

Whatever we are doing, it seems to me that the real challenge of growing older is to let go of whatever doesn't work and claim what does. As the Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit says:

“Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

Aging is its own practice--winnowing out the beliefs, old worn-out stories we tell ourselves, chairs and relationships that no longer fit and choosing the ones that do. 

STAY HERE--on Netflix

The only reality shows I watch are those that deal with transformations, shows like Queer Eye and Stay Here, both binge-able on Netflix.

Stay Here features a realtor-marketer man and a designer-decorator woman who advise people on marketing their short-term rentals, turning them from drab to glamorous in a week.  The first episode turns a shabby house boat in Seattle  into stunning in one week, and the realtor assures the owners that they will get three-times what they've been asking after the renovations and jazzy marketing.

Another episode turns a plain Jane cottage on a California vineyard into a romantic destination for weddings and honeymoons.

I've learned a lot watching the first four episodes--though the changes I've been making moving things around in my house are not aimed at income but my own enjoyment.  Kate went with me yesterday to put her stamp of approval on the only actual purchase I've made--a  black chair with an ottoman.  I had designed my living room around a fun multi-colored rug, but until this incarnation, the rug hadn't showed to its best advantage.

One phrase on Stay Here repeated on every episode is "Look for social media moments." That phrase says a lot about how reality is shaped for Facebook and Instagram. Their reasoning, however, is that clicks on social media translate into rentals or "heads on beds"--which is the goal of short term rental owners.

A few great lines from this week

"Maybe if you can't find the right answer, it's because you're asking the wrong question."

(The mother of Camille, one of the detectives in Death in Paradise.)

"I can just share your money!" 

Elena to me when the sewing machine she wanted cost more than the spending money I'd just given her--which was and is true!

"You don't have to cook, you can order out!" 

Kate to me (this morning on the phone)  when I told her I don't have people over for meals because I don't especially like to cook anymore.  This--to me who's never ordered food delivery in my life--was a game changer!

"Let it out, Yenna--just let it out!" 

Elena to me when she did something hilarious (and a little risqué) and the grown up part of me was trying not to laugh.

"It's just tuition."

Carlene to me when I think I've made a costly mistake (like hiring some incompetent people to do a job)....her way of saying 'You learned something from it so it's worth it."

"Don't think of it as an ending but a beginning!"

Victoria--on the subject of re-thnking turning 70 in a creative way!

`

Death in Paradise

I've discovered yet another winner on Netflix--a light-hearted murder mystery filmed on the Guadeloupe Islands, The French Caribbean Archipelago.

Death in Paradise, as is essential for any good murder mystery, requires a murder each episode, but the up-tight English detective and his half-French sidekick, do what good detectives do and find the killer.  The murders are not the focus, nothing gory here, but the focus is on the brilliant solving of the crime, much like the way we used to do it on the board game, Clue.

Interlaced in the solving of the crime are fascinating bits of science and the loosening up of the Englishman by the native people.  Episode 3 revolves around the prediction of her own murder by a Voodoo practitioner....and that's all I'll say about that.

After seeing all the colorful houses, the marketplace, the scenery of the island, and doing a bit of online research, I'm putting Guadeloupe on my list of places to go.

Wednesday

Today Bonnie and I celebrated Joy's birthday belatedly at Cappy's--and here's Joy blowing out all sixty-eight imaginary candles and one real one on her birthday "cake."

When I got home, I had a door tag from Fed Ex announcing that they had attempted to return my computer--almost two weeks in repair due to a tiny little blueberry incident after falling asleep in bed with a movie and finding a blueberry on my keyboard the next morning. I drove to the Fed Ex place and picked her up, and she's good as new.

Southern accents and dogs

Way back in college years, we had to take a test in speech class--beside each of a hundred words, we had to write the "correct" pronunciation.   I missed two:

On and Pen.

On, in standard non-Southern English I learned, is not pronounced with a long O.

And "pen" and "pin" don't sound exactly alike.

When I went to Breadloaf in 1997, the comments on my writing always mentioned my "Southern voice."  People from Up North really liked it.  But I couldn't figure out at the time what was Southern about my voice on the page.  I made a point not to say "fixin to" and other phrases I knew were not part of the standard vernacular.

You can take a Southern girl out of the South, but you can't take the South of her mouth.  It bleeds through in expressions and the ways we shape stories, influenced, I'm quite sure, by years of listening to preaching.

As it does with Rheta Grimsley Johnson in her  book about dogs.  She sounds like where she came from.  And since we came from near bout the same place, she sounds like people I know.

"When those dogs died, I said to myself the things you are taught to tell children when a family pet dies: Death is part of the natural process.  Death is part of life.  I think cliches are coping mechanisms that we dole out like Halloween candy."

"Before Mabel, I loved dogs, I did.  But I didn't really know them.  I prided myself on treating dogs like dogs, not people. They were more like neighbors down the street I waved to now and then.  Nature had not intended dogs to live inside and become dependent on their owners for everything.  At least thats what I'd been told and what I told myself.  Somewhere it was written.  It was one thing from childhood that seemed to have stuck."

"Mabel's burial began the pet cemetery which will be here when I'm gone and forgotten, the latter to occur exactly five minutes after the former."

"Nothing says retirement like a petunia."

I've enjoyed all of Rheta's books and this one most of all.  If you love dogs--and even if you don't yet--this book is a keeper!

IT WAS A LOVELY WEEKEND MAKING THINGS AND READING--BUT NOW MY COMPUTER WILL ONLY DO CAPS--WHICH SHOULD BE REPAIRED AT THE APPLE STORE AT 5 THIS AFTERNOON.

I PAINTED A DISPLAY FOR SOME PHOTOS OF FUNNY DOLL FACES AND PAINTED THE MIRROR FRAME OF AN OLD MIRROR WITH SUNS AND GEKKOS.  NATHAN CALLED TWICE TO SHOW ME ON FACETIME SOME LAVA AND HULA DANCERS....AND INVITED ME TO SPEND THURSDAY NIGHT AT THEIR HOUSE, THEIR FIRST NIGHT BACK HOME.

ON FRIDAY NIGHT LARRY--MY MOST FREQUENT GUEST AT THE CASITA--AND I WENT TO CRACKER BARREL FOR DINNER.  JUST AS HE WAS COMPLIMENTING MY CAR, THE BATTERY DIED, AND I HAD TO CALL ROADSIDE.  TURNS OUT THE ALTERNATOR IS BROKEN AND I'M WAITING NOW FOR ANOTHER ROADSIDE JUMPSTART SO I CAN DRIVE IT TO VW FOR REPAIR.

The Dogs Buried Over the Bridge

Rheta Grimsley Johnson's book,The Dogs Buried Over the Bridge, a Memoir in Dog Years, may be the best of her books yet.  The inscription says, "For Linda Harris--who actually pays attention to my words--with thanks...."

I related to her previous books so much--as a sister Southerner--that I wrote to tell her so and she sent me an autographed copy of this, her most recent book.

The writing so beautifully captures people and places--and now dogs!

In reading it, I went back and looked at a few pictures of my children's growing up years to confirm what I'd suspected I'd see--that almost every photograph features a dog.

Here's Will feeding Spike an ice cream cone in Colorado:

Here's Day with either Cookie or Pollo--

they were almost identical dogs.

And here's 3-year-old Day--and Nana (Carlene)

and Tony, the best dog we ever had--

the German Shepherd we sold the wedding silver to buy!

Tiny Perfect Things

Tiny, Perfect Things  by poet M.H. Clark and artist Madeline Kloepper is a lyrical invitation to apprehend the small wonders that strew the everyday: the yellow leaf blown to the ground, the smiling face of a neighbor, the spider laboring at her web, the red feather in a passerby’s hat, the snail triumphant atop the fence, the pale, luminous moon against the nocturne."

Quoted from today's Brainpickings...as an invitation to appreciate the tiny and perfect things around us.

This appeared in my inbox on the day before Joy Hein's birthday--she who observes and knows the name of probably every blooming thing in nature and who illustrates books with beautiful renderings of flowers, bees, insects, and other tiny perfect things.  

Happy Birthday, Joy! 

The Best Intentions

Thanks to Gerlinde for the recommendation of this excellent Ingmar Bergman film on Amazon--truly a "visual delight" as she promised!

It's the semi-autobiographical story of Ingmar's parents--beautiful Swedish places, photography, and period clothes, plot and acting.

A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

When depression passes, and it always does, it's like a rusty old train disappearing into the distance.  While severe clinical depression doesn't always pass, and can do severe damage to the person suffering from it, what rolls in on my tracks from time to time is garden variety funk.

When I'm on the train, I look  backwards and try to figure out where it came from (did I eat something that caused it?  did somebody say something that set it off?  am I a self-centered pathetic person?).

Is it--we who feel such antipathy for Trump ask each other--the Trump effect?  Does depression come from a sense of powerlessness in a climate of lies and bullying and negative news?  ("Don't rock the boat or you'll lose your votes" seems to be the motto of many in power who must be privately aghast but unwilling to speak out.)

I was talking this week to a younger friend who said that she wakes up every morning since the election with a sense of dread, despondency, and depression.  Limiting our news viewing seems to help.

When depression passes, new energy comes in--and I have enough things to do that I know I'll never live long enough to do them all.

In my next life, I think I'd like to be an artist or decorator.  Nothing stirs my juices at the moment like changing things around in my house and discovering new patterns just moving things from room to room.  Photography, journal-making, travel, good books and movies, and writing--these are constant sources of pleasure.

I've  often mentioned Janna Malamud Smith's book, The Absorbing Errand--the premise being that we should all have things to do that absorb our attention so much that we're less free to worry about other people, ourselves, or even the state of the country.  When we're absorbed in an errand that totally engages our creative energy, depression finds it hard to find a place to land.

Preparing for England

As Betty and I are gearing up for our trip to England, Ireland, and Scotland in the spring, we've been comparing notes on glimpses of the beautiful views of countrysides and villages we've seen on our screens.  We've both clocked in enough hours watching detectives pursuing murder suspects through serene English villages that we're pretty sure we'll do okay driving there.

Betty's now watching Poirot and Miss Marple.  I was up til 3 am watching the finale of five seasons of DCI Banks.

You know watching murder mysteries, even those from the BBC that are less predictable than this one was, that the bad guys (usually guys, but not always) will be caught.  But in DCI Banks, they string you along for five seasons with the possibility of a romance between Alan and Annie, partner detectives. which adds sparks to the mystery.  I love romance--even more than solving murders--but both are vicarious experiences in my world at the moment.

You have to have wonder how murder can even happen in such pristine green places, but apparently they do--as do drug habits,  mental illness and outright cruelty.

But the police are so polite, usually taking in their suspects without guns, always with this caution:

“You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

So should I be arrested for anything while visiting the UK, I'll know the words beforehand.  And I'll know to call my solicitor straight away and respond with "No comment" if I have something to hide.

Should I accidentally start a fire while making chocolate chip biscuits, I'll know to call the fire brigade--not 911.

And if I want to have some time alone, I'll "keep myself to myself."

If someone offends me, I'll call him a "#!@ing sod."

And if I need to pursue another car on the left side of the road, or speed through a roundabout--I think I've got that covered, too.

One of the joys of any season is conversing with friends of all season over a good meal--which is what Gerlinde, Charlotte, Janet and Kate and I just did at Nosh on Austin Highway.  The food was good, and the atmosphere quiet, a great place to at least scratch the surface of catching up on each other's travels, past and future, and to talk books and a little tiny bit about our shared political points of view.

I think I am a tiny bit bipolar.  I have spent the last two weeks mostly in isolation, feeling like I'm not good company to anyone when in a funk, which started after the lake trip (an LFT--look forward to--for so long) was over. We used to call this Christmas Night Syndrome--the feeling of loss after the long-awaited happy day was winding down.

Last night, the mood lifted and I stayed up until 3 in the morning moving furniture and curtains and other stuff around in my house--good medicine for shifting from funk to fun for some people, like me.

Wagging her tail while waiting for news

Day, along with sixty others, has applied (reluctantly, with encouragement from staff) for a job as assistant principal.  We'll see how it goes....

But either way, she's got two good options: continuing as academic coach or moving into what she started out wanting twenty years ago--school administration, which is what her master's degree was all about.  Since then, she chose not to apply for a vice-principalship because she wanted more time at home with her kids.

Marcus asked her, "Mom, do you think you'll like that job?"

To which she replied, "I'm pretty much of a tail wagger, Marcus.  I like whatever I do...."

I'd never heard her refer to herself as a tail wagger, but it's such an apt analogy.  She loves what she does--whether quilting or making things or teaching a class.  Now I have a new phrase for the kind of enthusiasm I've seen in my daughter for nigh-on 47 years.

Betty and I will design our trip to stop in Virginia for a birthday layover, hopefully on a weekend--to celebrate her birthday, Jackson's 17th, and mine, on 3 consecutive days.