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Sunday, March 31, 2019

Last weekend in March

Yesterday Joy and I went to a reunion of Helotes friends from 20 and 30 years back.  I've been trying all day to put into words what that was like. Suffice it to say, for now, it was fine.  Everyone was friendly, we didn't get into politics or other charged topics, and it totally threw me back into memories of my years of Helotes life, raising kids, all the kids and parents celebrating birthdays together in back yards.

Afterwards, Nathan and Elena both came for a sleepover.  We did a little crafts, a little dancing, a little gymnastics, a little movie-watching--but their attention spans were shorter (for crafts) together than either one usually has when it's just one at a time.

We did some cool Gelli prints--using paint chips from Sherwin Williams that are shaped like houses.  Then we die-cut some shapes and glued them on and played a bit with stencils.  Long story short, the house looked like it had been hit with a dinosaur afterwards, the dining table and floor covered with papers and inks and stamps.

I didn't bother to clean up until I'd had myself a play with ink sprays and a successful attempt to make a book out of watercolor paper for traveling.

Nora is coming on Thursday to do some house magic, and Edward is coming tomorrow to put a new screened door on the porch, so I think I'll just let the house be (put it on the shelf, as Gerlinde says) and get a good night's sleep.

Happy Birthday today, Victoria, and tomorrow, Freda!
And Happy April, All!


Friday, March 29, 2019

Frenetic, Frantic, Crazy

From Merriam-Webster:

"When life gets frenetic, things can seem absolutely insane - at least that seems to be what folks in the Middle Ages thought."

"Frenetik, in Middle English, meant "insane." When the word no longer denoted stark raving madness, it conjured up fanatical zealots."

"Today its seriousness has been downgraded to something more akin to hectic. But if you trace frenetic back through Anglo-French and Latin, you'll find that it comes from Greek phrenitis, a term describing an inflammation of the brain."

"Phrēn, the Greek word for "mind," is a root you will recognize in schizophrenic. As for frenzied and frantic, they're not only synonyms of frenetic but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenitis."

Why am I looking up "frenetic" on this otherwise peaceful Friday?  Because I too often slip from peaceful to frenetic,  trying to get too many things accomplished while depending on people who are unable to meet deadlines as promised.

Frustration of this kind sneaks in and robs me of inner peace if I let it, so I'm going to take a deep breath now, and do what I can and stop worrying so much about what I can't.  It will all get done in its own sweet time.   Otherwise, I will slip into stark raving madness--and what good is that?




Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Marcus : Student of the Month



Our family is so proud of our Marcus for being chosen for Student of the Month in his school. This commendation was written by his math teacher.

YAY, Marcus!

Elena got the dictionary I sent her today, and her daddy said she's thrilled with it.   It won't have enough words in it to describe Marcus, but I'll attempt to list a few that apply to my second-oldest grandson, Marcus Paul Leary.

Marcus is awesome: affectionate; happy (I called him Buddha Baby when he was little because he was a chubby little baby who smiled all the time--except when his mama was out of sight); a creative thinker, consistently kind, a movie-lover, a basketball player,  a saxophone player, curious, and huge hearted.






A photographer having a play

https://www.instagram.com/wrightkitchen/

I discovered Brittany Wright (the link here takes you to her Instagram account) who lays out fruits and vegetables on a large white background in beautiful assemblages, then photographs them.  Beautiful!

Having a Play

I fall asleep nearly every night to the sound of Mike's voice--Mike Deakins, that is, the one from the UK who says corny things like "Hey Ho" and "Waste not, want not," but who also shows me all these cool things I can do with ink, string, paper and glue.

Often he sits down at his craft table and says, "Today I feel like having a play...." with--whatever materials he has neatly laid out on his glass crafts mat.

Well, here it is 2:30 in the morning at my house and I feel like having a play all day on Wednesday.  No handymen here, no yard man, not one thing upon my calendar except what I reserved this Wednesday for when what was originally on it got canceled.

(Edward was here all day yesterday and got the ceiling of the casita painted--due to the fact that I chose to run errands to avoid Mr. Talkative, self-dubbed "the Mexican Eddie Murphy.") That he is--but I don't feel like paying hourly for comedy at the moment.

Or--as he gave me yesterday--a run down of "what women want" based on a book his newly divorced pal is reading by the same title, being sure to let me know that he--lady's man he's always been--would never deign to or need such a book.

I don't feel like going to the grocery store or cooking or cleaning my house.  I feel like going back to  sleep, then awakening to a day of having a little play.

In case you want to join me long-distance, here's a video, not by Mike, but by a woman named Marsha who shows you how to use your Gelli Plate to make a little book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvD_Q18rBtY


Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Tuesday

Last night we had a small, but good writing group--with Gerlinde visiting.  For two of the current members and Gerlinde, it was a reunion from the original Monday night group, with lots of comings and goings in between, and a chance to talk about the publication of her recent book that she started in writing group six year ago!

This morning I took Miss Kate to the doctor to find out what the MRI machine discovered about her injured little foot.  (She has a broken heel that's been mis-diagnosed for the past two years, and she has to get a scooter this afternoon and stay off her feet for eight weeks.)

Now Edward is here painting the ceiling in the casita after we went to Pickers Paradise and bought a great new screen door for the porch.  If you don't know Pickers Paradise, and if you want old sturdy doors and windows and hardware, this is where you'll find it all--in a huge warehouse on Fredricksburg Road. We decided that this old door matches the vintage of my 1950s house and is way sturdier than what I'd found at Home Depot--though it will need new screens and lots of elbow grease and paint.

I'm happily getting ready for a visit from my sister Jocelyn starting on April 5th--during which time we plan to drive to Castroville and see the poppies and have dinner with Will and Bonnie and the kids at their house.  I'm really looking forward to introducing everyone and all the animals to Jocelyn, who loves animals as much as they do!

Other than that, her only request is to have a glue party--which I introduced her to in Georgia!



Monday, March 25, 2019

"Ink, String, Paper and Glue"

This was the mantra of the encyclopedia salesman with whom we spent a memorable hour--our first San Antonio guest, 1967.

Winded from the one flight of stairs, the rumpled man sank into our one brown chair--did we have something to drink? maybe water?--and began his spiel with newlyweds who'd have had to sell the car to buy anything beyond groceries. We let him roll.  He lit a cigarette, gulped the water, and unpacked his bulky bag.

He spread cardboard displays on our brown carpet, while I sat on the brown sofa and my groom continued to add ink to the painting above the book man's head, one he'd started in graduate school and hauled to Texas.  I thumbed through the A volume, flipping the pages under Anatomy that revealed a layer of plastic pages each showing a map of its own territory: muscles on one, bones on another, organs on another.

The painting above the salesman's head featured an abstract female nude body.  Since we lacked funds for more ink and more canvas, the only thing to do was to continue adding black to the canvas of the one piece of art in the house.  (Adding ink, I can't resist saying, until it was completely black, and had to be tossed on the curb as garbage shortly thereafter.)

"All you're paying for is ink, string, paper, and glue," the book man said with a dour expression on his sweaty face, laying out the monthly payment plan, just a few dollars a month.

In future years, we'd often quote the book man, cementing that phrase in our memory: "All you're paying for is ink, string, paper and glue."

While we didn't buy his books, then or later, he'd given us a catchy phrase, one that I'm thinking of lately as I actually purchase inks, punches, papers, adhesives and other paper crafting supplies:

alcohol inks
Yupo paper
water colors
pencils
strings and threads
stencils

Acquiring the right supplies--whether for cooking (if you still cook) or making things or traveling--it's a sign that you're all in, that you can play better with possibilities.  When we can afford ink and string, paper and glue, we can make up for poorer times and avoid overworking the same old canvases.



Sunday, March 24, 2019

Sunday

Since I knew Elena was going to spend the day with me after their church, I decided to meet them at church on Bandera Road--though I was half an hour late because I thought church started at 10:30 and missed Jason's sermon.

After church, Jason and his kids went with us for Thai lunch, then Elena and I went to the zoo, along with half the population of San Antonio.

Elena and I spent half our time looking at butterflies, me snapping with the iPhone, she with the Nikon.  She's always loved the butterfly house and is thrilled when a moth or butterfly lands on either of our hands.  Here are a few of Elena's photographs taken with a zoom lens.




Usually, I buy her a present at the gift shop, but this time she insisted on taking her own money--$82 in birthday money and tooth fairy coins.

She enjoyed using her own money to buy a sparkly giraffe and a turquoise snake....

Elena and her giraffe

A little girl we met who looked like she belonged on  a magazine cover

Girl after my own heart, Elena loves taking pictures



Since the zoo closed early, we were able to catch an episode of Queer Eye before going to California Pizza with her parents.

It's been a wonderful spring day in San Antonio!


Saturday, March 23, 2019

Saturday

Today, Pam's birthday,  has been a cloudy good day.  I joined Pam and a few of her friends, as well as her daughter Claire and family, at The Bread Box at Artisan's Alley--a good meal topped off with a yummy carrot cake--though they didn't try to fit all 72 candles atop this cute little cake.



Lita's youngest grandson, William

Lita's oldest grandson, Ben


Thursday will be Betty's birthday--a year since we celebrated her 70th in New Orleans and  and six months since we celebrated mine on Cape Cod.

Betty loves Mayor Pete as much as Kate and I do.

"I adore Mayor Pete!  He seems authentic, stunningly smart and well informed.  He gives thoughtful answers and he listens.  Mayor Pete doesn't seem to be in a hurry.  He feels both soothing and passionate, a tricky combination indeed.  After watching a Mayor Pete interview, I notice that I feel hopeful and more relaxed."




Since he happens to be gay, we imagine that Trump will have a field day hurling insults at him, but Betty and I agree he can handle it just fine.

Gerlinde recommended a book and a movie and I went to the library today to order the autobiographical trilogy:

"If any of you love beautiful words, in poetry or other fanciful tales, treat yourself to an Amazon lovely, old-fashioned movie called Cider with Rosie.  Better yet, find the exquisite book by the poet Laurie Lee called Cider with Rosie. It has been my companion for years – it is always fresh and generous-hearted and so very enjoyable. I am thrilled it was made into a movie – the setting is the old English country side, its characters so lovely!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful March and April BIRTHDAY FRIENDS, from me, standing by the river in tiny little Welfare, Texas.






Mayor Pete of South Bend, Indiana

Our party has a growing field of candidates,  and I may have just picked my top choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXD8uFU-xgM

This brilliant South Bend mayor and Afghanistan veteran, if elected, would be the youngest U.S. President ever.  The audience at South by Southwest in Austin is representative of a smart young liberal audience, granted, but he's obviously struck a good note with them, as well as this Texas grandmother.  He's very clear on his policies, unbelievably articulate, and is comfortable with any question he's asked.

I hadn't heard of Buttigieg until today when Kate directed me to some You Tube videos.  My first impression is that he'd be a good caretaker of his and our children's and grandchildren's futures.

I'm picking daisy petals: Kamala/ Pete.  Kamala/Pete....

But we're just getting started.



Friday, March 22, 2019

Women of a Certain Age

Jan just sent me this essay and I wanted to share it with all of you who are 70, will be 70 one day, or who already see 70 in the rearview mirror.

In a two-week span, I have five friends celebrating March and April birthdays, one still in her fifties, one in her sixties, and the rest 70 plus.  Here's to having a "shelterbelt" of good friends with whom to celebrate the gifts (and overlook the flaws) of who we've become!

                                    The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s

                                                                   By Mary Pipher



When I told my friends I was writing a book on older women like us, they immediately protested, “I am not old.” What they meant was that they didn’t act or feel like the cultural stereotypes of women their age. Old meant bossy, useless, unhappy and in the way. Our country’s ideas about old women are so toxic that almost no one, no matter her age, will admit she is old.

In America, ageism is a bigger problem for women than aging. Our bodies and our sexuality are devalued, we are denigrated by mother-in-law jokes, and we’re rendered invisible in the media. Yet, most of the women I know describe themselves as being in a vibrant and happy life stage. We are resilient and know how to thrive in the margins. Our happiness comes from self-knowledge, emotional intelligence and empathy for others.

Most of us don’t miss the male gaze. It came with catcalls, harassment and unwanted attention. Instead, we feel free from the tyranny of worrying about our looks. For the first time since we were 10, we can feel relaxed about our appearance. We can wear yoga tights instead of nylons and bluejeans instead of business suits.

Yet, in this developmental stage, we are confronted by great challenges. We are unlikely to escape great sorrow for long. We all suffer, but not all of us grow. Those of us who grow do so by developing our moral imaginations and expanding our carrying capacities for pain and bliss. In fact, this pendulum between joy and despair is what makes old age catalytic for spiritual and emotional growth.

By our 70s, we’ve had decades to develop resilience. Many of us have learned that happiness is a skill and a choice. We don’t need to look at our horoscopes to know how our day will go. We know how to create a good day.

We have learned to look every day for humor, love and beauty. We’ve acquired an aptitude for appreciating life. Gratitude is not a virtue but a survival skill, and our capacity for it grows with our suffering. That is why it is the least privileged, not the most, who excel in appreciating the smallest of offerings.

Many women flourish as we learn how to make everything workable. Yes, everything. As we walk out of a friend’s funeral, we can smell wood smoke in the air and taste snowflakes on our tongues.

Our happiness is built by attitude and intention. Attitude is not everything, but it’s almost everything. I visited the jazz great Jane Jarvis when she was old, crippled and living in a tiny apartment with a window facing a brick wall. I asked if she was happy and she replied, “I have everything I need to be happy right between my ears.”

We may not have control, but we have choices. With intention and focused attention, we can always find a forward path. We discover what we are looking for. If we look for evidence of love in the universe, we will find it. If we seek beauty, it will spill into our lives any moment we wish. If we search for events to appreciate, we discover them to be abundant.

There is an amazing calculus in old age. As much is taken away, we find more to love and appreciate. We experience bliss on a regular basis. As one friend said: “When I was young I needed sexual ecstasy or a hike to the top of a mountain to experience bliss. Now I can feel it when I look at a caterpillar on my garden path.”

Older women have learned the importance of reasonable expectations. We know that all our desires will not be fulfilled, that the world isn’t organized around pleasing us and that others, especially our children, are not waiting for our opinions and judgments. We know that the joys and sorrows of life are as mixed together as salt and water in the sea. We don’t expect perfection or even relief from suffering. A good book, a piece of homemade pie or a call from a friend can make us happy. As my aunt Grace, who lived in the Ozarks, put it, “I get what I want, but I know what to want.”

We can be kinder to ourselves as well as more honest and authentic. Our people-pleasing selves soften their voices and our true selves speak more loudly and more often. We don’t need to pretend to ourselves and others that we don’t have needs. We can say no to anything we don’t want to do. We can listen to our hearts and act in our own best interest. We are less angst-filled and more content, less driven and more able to live in the moment with all its lovely possibilities.

Many of us have a shelterbelt of good friends and long-term partners. There is a sweetness to 50-year-old friendships and marriages that can’t be described in language. We know each other’s vulnerabilities, flaws and gifts; we’ve had our battles royal and yet are grateful to be together. A word or a look can signal so much meaning. Lucky women are connected to a rich web of women friends. Those friends can be our emotional health insurance policies.

The only constant in our lives is change. But if we are growing in wisdom and empathy, we can take the long view. We’ve lived through seven decades of our country’s history, from Truman to Trump. I knew my great-grandmother, and if I live long enough, will meet my great-grandchildren. I will have known seven generations of family. I see where I belong in a long line of Scotch-Irish ancestors. I am alive today only because thousands of generations of resilient homo sapiens managed to procreate and raise their children. I come from, we all come from, resilient stock, or we wouldn’t be here.

By the time we are 70, we have all had more tragedy and more bliss in our lives than we could have foreseen. If we are wise, we realize that we are but one drop in the great river we call life and that it has been a miracle and a privilege to be alive.

Mary Pipher is a clinical psychologist in Lincoln, Neb., and the author of the forthcoming Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

More good stuff!

I recently met the artist who made these cartoons--Andy Thornton, who's showing tomorrow night at the Brick at Blue Star.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/646700840/yes?ref=related-6

Really love these cartoons, and thought you might like to see them at Etsy!


An artsy calendar

Nellie sent me this link and I'm going to give it a go for April--maybe you'll want to try it, too!

http://www.lesliefehling.com/2019/03/february-calendar-sketch.html

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Namaste

All day, even into my meditation at a yoga class at Alamo City Yoga studio, I've been thinking about the word, making, and a few of the phrases that start with making:

Making do
Making space
Making excuses
Making time
Making love
Making exceptions
Making up
Making money
Making friends
Making someone happy
Making changes
Making memories
Making peace
Making mistakes
Making amends
Making up for
Making a date
Making dinner

I've decided to do a visual journal page, or more, on this word and its associations.

The yoga class was wonderful, introduced to me by my friend Victoria.  The teacher is excellent and the class is right on my level--easy peasy, half of which is a guided meditation.

If you're interested in classes (they have all levels) check out the schedule online.  The beautiful spacious studio is located right behind Adelantes.

Before yoga, I had happy hour with Pam and Bill and TriBeca, and I considered not going.  I always consider not going to exercise classes, but I'm so glad I didn't back out.  I'm inspired now to buy a class card and continue with weekly classes.

Before I sign off, I want to share with you a painting Nellie sent me today--a wonderful response to the class by Marieke Blokland I shared.






Making

Yesterday, on the anniversary of my daddy's birthday, I was thinking about that book I always mention: The Make It Book he gave me when I was about 10 or 11.  By today's standards of children's books, it wasn't particular original--just a collection of instructions for how to make things out of felt, cardboard, soap, and fabric, household objects close at hand.

It was, however, my first hardbound book and it was about what I liked to do most--make things.  I pored over it for hours and made a few things in the book, but the best thing was that it was a perfectly wonderful present, out of the blue, not on a special occasion, from my daddy who knew what I loved to do.

Sixty years later, I still love to make things--journals, rooms, collages, gifts, photographs, and cakes.
Instead of (or in addition to) books, however, I'm watching video tutorials every day.

At lunch on my daddy's birthday--when he was uppermost in my mind as he's always front and center in my heart--I met a man who is an artist.  He had the sensibility of an artist, a freedom of spirit, and an openness to the adventure of creating.  Creativity (doing it or appreciating it)  makes adult humans juicier and more like little kids, always on the prowl for a good play.

We were talking about Julia Cameron's suggestion (in The Artists Way) that we give ourselves an "artist date" at least once a week.  On that date, we take a break from  routine and we set out on a day of adventure, whatever that means to us, and just play.  Or gather materials for art,  Or try something new.  Or whatever.

I want every day to be an artist date--and this man agreed!  But then he added something I hadn't thought about before.

As a child, he could never understand why, when he wanted something, his mother said, "Wait til your birthday."

Why wait for something wonderful and pleasurable? he wondered.

So he doesn't wait any more.  He buys himself little presents all the time, and he loves giving presents to friends--who likewise give presents to him. The gift might be something you find in a store or even a thrift shop, or a new book, or a handmade journal, or a special soap--whatever it is that reminds you of your friend and what he/she would like.  It's a kind of playful karma, he said.

Here's to playful karma, gift giving on any day of the year, and making things!  Here's to the books of childhood and the many teachers along the way who inspire us to do new things!


Saturday, March 16, 2019

Junebug

Last night, Freda invited me over for dinner and recommended a movie I've just finished, and may start all over again.  I love this movie--more than any "Southern" movie I've ever seen!

The South, the Deep South, the Bible Belt South, fascinates people outside it, but most movies hokey it up so much (either that or romanticize it into saccharine)  that I can't bear to watch them.  Amy Adams and the whole cast of this show did a spectacular job of capturing the nuances of the South as I know it.  Except maybe for the accent of one of the characters (the artist), the movie is blessedly lacking in caricature and phony Southern accents.

Most people who try to "do" Southern accents make me cringe and shout, inside my head, in a genuinely angry Southern accent, "Pleeeese stop!  You're killing me!"

When I studied Southern literature in college, I read William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom, I didn't yet understand the ambivalence people feel about the places in which they grew up--captured so well in one character's words about the South:

“I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!”
― William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

The last words of Junebug echo the spirit of Faulkner, the protesting--too-much of a man who both loves and hates all that his North Carolina childhood small town represents.

I'm struck by Amy Adams' character's irrepressible optimism, the visiting art gallery owner's  understanding of her husband's Southern family, the silences and unanswered questions in the plot, the understated tokens of love, the anger over dreams that dried up too soon, all the things that are said and unsaid that add up to an amazing portrait, not of "the South" as a whole but of one believable and authentic Southern family.

I was so moved by the movie, can't recommend it heartily enough! I loved the hearts of the characters, the tenderness that rarely finds words, and the tragi-comedy of family discords. I was moved to real tears by a little carved bird made by a man for a woman he loves and understands--but who can't seem to muster the words to tell her so.  To the wife of his son, he simply says, "She keeps herself hidden."

The ways people annoy, misunderstand, and comfort each other--the makers of this movie get it.




Friday, March 15, 2019

Where my grands are

Spring Break week in San Antonio--crazy traffic, a good day to stay at home--or go somewhere.  Whatever!

I've never been skiing so I feel like I get a virtual trip downhill with every sweet FaceTime.  Will and Elena just called to let me see her skiing down a big hill their last day in Colorado.  "We could live here," Will said. "It's like a second home for us."  Clearly, they are having a great time and it's really fun to see her skiing--she took to it naturally, as she does most things athletic.  Veronica and Nathan were skiing elsewhere so I didn't get to see him ski yet.

Here are Nathan and Elena warming up yesterday before their ski class.



And here's another face drawing by Elena between slopes


My oldest grandson, Jackson, is looking like a man now at 17, playing lacrosse.  I'm hoping to make a trip to see him play in person sometime in April. He may be the tallest kid in his class--he's the tallest in our family for sure at about 6'4" last time I saw him in October.




The Virginia kids, Jackson and Marcus, aren't on Spring Break yet, but it sounds like they are going to be visiting colleges in the spring.

Four adorable kids, 7 to 17--I love being a Yenna!


A beautiful post by Danny Gregory

Thank you for this, Pam!

https://dannygregorysblog.com/2019/03/15/how-to-feed-your-soul/

Getting together

In 1950s and 1960s Georgia, when you ran into people you knew at, say, the grocery store or filling station, one or the other of you would say, by way of farewell, "Y'all come see us!'

In time, some of them would come--or vice versa--because that's what people did.  People stopped by.  Doors were rarely locked.  Usually the on-the-spot hostess found some cake or pie to serve, along with sweet iced tea.

Back then, we didn't say, "Let's get together for coffee or lunch soon"--in part because going out for coffee or lunch wasn't yet in the mainstream culture of middle-century/ middle-class/ middle Georgia, and in part because we were practical and frugal people and our mamas cooked three meals almost every day.  Besides, our little college town had only three eateries, The Grill, Scott's Barbecue, and a fast food burger joint called The Brazier.

Homes were where people gathered--spontaneous biscuits and sausage after church on Sunday nights, pop ins, the occasional "company" dinner, or out of state relatives who stopped by on their way to Daytona.  Homes were (and still are) the quiet places to have conversations without interruptions by waiters asking, "Are you still working on that?"--which always makes me think of dining as a chore in need of heavy tools.

I love meeting friends at cafes or in their homes or mine, but it takes planning ahead to make home-cooked meals for friends happen.  It takes a lot of juggling of busy schedules. If you stopped by my house unannounced, I would rarely have cake or pie at the ready and I might be taking a nap or not home.

Sometimes I feel nostalgic when I remember my daddy saying to everyone he ran into at the barber shop or the post office, "Y'all come see us!"

I still smile whenever I remember him saying, loud enough for the unannounced guests to hear, "Hide the pie!"--whether there was pie or not.

I get teary when I think of how he met me, or anybody else, at the door and said with a big smile, "Come in this house!" --as if whoever was standing at the door was exactly what the house needed to be even happier.













Thursday, March 14, 2019

Life after Life is a six-episode series by Ricky Gervais. A Man Called Ove is a novel by Fredrick Backman.

Both film and novel feature a man whose wife has recently died.

Tony, played by Ricky Gervais who wrote the story, watches videos left by his wife and considers suicide--his overwhelming grief leaving him with no reason to live without her. "I"d rather be nowhere with her than somewhere with anyone else," he says.

At the cemetery, he meets a recently widowed older woman who befriends him and advises him to keep on living and do what he can to leave his little patch of world a better place. At his father's nursing home, he meets a compassionate nurse.  As a reporter for the local free paper,  he meets a drug addict, a prostitute, and a cast of quirky characters in his town, each of whom impact him in some way.

A Man Called Ove is a story about an older man, also recently widowed.  I'm not far into the book, but I'm loving the way the author captures the inner life of a man struggling to find meaning without the woman he loves, a man like Tony in Life After Life who's considering suicide.

"Won't it be nice to slow down a bit?" they said to Ove yesterday at work.  While explaining that there was a lack of employment prospects and so they were "retiring the older generation."  A third of a century at the same workplace, and that's how they refer to Ove.  Suddenly he's a bloody "generation." Because nowadays people are all thirty-one and wear too-tight trousers and no longer drink normal coffee.  And don't want to take responsibility.  A shed-load of men with elaborate beards, changing jobs and changing wives and changing their car makes.  Just like that.  Whenever they feel like it.


Knowing what it is changes everything....

Spring fever in this particular brain has manifested itself in peculiar ways: a little garden variety anxiety about a couple of things, a smidge of the blues, nothing major, probably nothing that couldn't be remedied by a road trip and some exercise.

This morning, I decided to get a massage at the Chinese place to see if that would help. They are strong and efficient and they get the kinks out.  I had the camera in the car and had planned to take a drive into the country after the massage.

Nearing the end, I felt something nibbling at my finger and recoiled in horror and a shriek.  The massage woman said what sounded like "shit!" and got the offending nibbler out of the room, but the room was too dark to see what it was.

It felt like maybe a cat, but I'd never seen a cat in that particular establishment and I asked her repeatedly, "What was that?"

She doesn't understand English (and I don't understand Chinese)  and she led me to believe it was nothing worth worrying about and tried to draw my arms back to their dangling position.  I refused to budge my arms.

My greatest fear in the animal kingdom is a rat--or anything that looks remotely like a rat.  I was too frozen in fear to get up and leave right that minute and I knew it was almost over, so I lay there, arms under me for the final taps and rubs.

When I got up, I asked, "Does anyone speak English?  I need to know what bit me."

One of the women led me to the back and showed me the nibbler--a beautiful gray cat curled up innocently in his basket.

But still, the horror of the possibility that it COULD have been a rat left me unnerved and even teary for a while, so I can't say this particular massage did the trick.



Sunday, March 10, 2019

Words

Today I am feeling a little lonesome, a little deflated--though neither in the way of needing anyone to fix either, just a naming of a Sunday morning mix of feelings that will slide away and turn into different feelings once I get my day on a certain track.

What I'm thinking of this morning is how good it is to have a lot of words, good words, many of which are in the vintage dictionary I bought for a dollar to cut up and use in collages.

"What's a dictionary?" Elena asked yesterday.

I showed her how to find words and read their meanings.  She loved it--as she loves everything new that she gets to learn about.

So I woke up thinking about words.  Trump, in spite of his claim to having "the best words" shocks us all with the paucity of his vocabulary every time he speaks or tweets.

I find good company, when I'm lonesome and when I'm not, in reading pages of writing by those who have rivers of complex and nuanced words at their disposal, like Ross Gay this week, and the ways they are able to convey layers of thoughts and feeling.

It's like music really--good writing is.  The ways words are connected into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into stories, reminds me of complex compositions--while the Trump style of discourse reminds me of a child's wooden piano played with someone's one finger.

In music, there are rises and falls, phrases and pops of color, poetic surprises, plunges into bass notes and flights into trills, lyrical meanderings and strong definitive statements of arrival.

I stopped there and went back to sleep and woke up to this on Brainpickings, ironically on the subject of loneliness and belonging, also my every Sunday morning feast of good words.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/03/07/over-the-rooftops-under-the-moon/?mc_cid=1d875ee9e9&mc_eid=7940cd5ca2




Saturday, March 9, 2019

Saturday

A day can hold so much when you're seven--and if you're seventy, you can end up happily exhausted from the sudden twists and turns of attention!

In one day, we sewed fancy stitches on my machine.
We made dream eye patches out of felt on Elena's--after Jan came over and repaired the presser foot.

In between, we went to Michaels to buy felt and elastic for dream eye patches.

Then she ran over to invite Makken and Sebastien to come help make slime--as she had also purchased a box of slime ingredients. 

I wasn't available to read directions because I was telling Abe what to hang where, so the slime didn't work as promised, but it did create some slimy little jelly beans with glitter. 

We watched a video on drawing faces and Elena drew faces in her art journal to her utter delight.  "I love them!" she said. "I always thought I was not good at faces, but these are amazing!"

Then Elena, Makken and Sebastien created spyware out of cardboard and foam board and various other items found in my house; at one point two of them were hiding in my closet and one was under the television and Abe was asking me questions about what to hang where and Jan was remedying the pressure foot problem and sharing some delightful old-fashioned spools of thread from her mama's stash--with the price of 5 cents to 25 cents printed on the wood of each spool.

By then, my multi-tasking along with the pain in my back from unloading 30 bags of mulch began to stir frustration and I asked Abe if we could postpone the interior work until next week and he went outside and cheerfully spread the bags of mulch in the flower beds and pulled out weeds and I took a nap while Elena finished watching Christopher Robin. Then we washed her thick curly hair, finished her dream eye patches, and hurried off to Chama for Brazilian steak and an amazing salad bar and celebrated Nathan's 12th birthday.

In the rush to get there, I'd forgotten my phone, so I don't have pictures of the party, but I do have the memory of Nathan opening the bag from Papi (the owners manual to a go-cart! which he'd go find at Papi's house after the party) and watching Nathan give Papi a huge hug, arms outstretched as he strutted back to his seat.   "I feel like Jesus!" he said, our funny little twelve-year-old. 


The spyware creators,
scientists and artists and cute little kids




To add to the delight of Saturday, my package of India Inks arrived from Amazon, happily packed in rolls and rolls of bubble wrap, which can be used to stamp textures on ink creations:





Inspired by Marieke Blokland's tutorial, Wanderlust

Elena's drawings, rather Picasso-esque, don't you think?






Weekend

But first, yesterday was a red letter day for Carlene.  She had her new Malibu delivered and she is one proud Mama! Here she is with my brother, Bob.  Jocelyn sent me a whole lot of happy mail--aka texts--of the event.




Then my new handyman Abe came over to assess the work he's coming back today to do.  I really like him a lot and will send info if anyone needs a carpenter or picture hanger or mulch spreader or whatever!

Then Elena came for our sleepover, bike riding, sewing, movie-watching weekend.  She's a whiz on the machine and made a list of things in her journal, things she wants to make today.  We went to sleep at midnight, having watched only the first half of Christopher Robin on Netflix--which is delightful, maybe even better than Paddington.


We need to put a stretcher on our day today to do all the things we have planned!




Friday, March 8, 2019

Even if Book of Delights is not entirely your thing, I still love it and want to say one more thing about it to all you writers out there in Literary Land:

His sentences are pure pleasure to read, as they loop around and inside out and include parentheticals and asides and long wending sentences that are easy to follow.  In one essay, he writes about the delight of wearing a scarf a woman friend knitted for him, how he loves wearing it, how ten years ago he would never have worn such a "feminine" item of clothing, but how he now knows it doesn't take away from his big manly self to wear it.  The sentences he writes to explain this are like knitted yarn!

They are also a bit like riding down curvy roads, not knowing what will show up over the next hill and around the next bend.

In other words, the writing reflects what he's writing about and are written in longhand, not on the computer, which he says allows him to write more naturally.  (Of course somebody had to put the same words on the computer for us to read them.)

Handmade things, handwritten sentences, are among life's lovelies.




Words of wisdom shared by a friend of a friend

"My shrink says: To be/ or to find/ your ‘true self’  pay attention to the moments when you feel the contentment in which you are fully fully engaged and REALLY present and not thinking about it. You are probably being yourself then."

That's easy, right?

"Feel" is a key word, albeit subjective.  When do I "feel" contentment?

When I'm writing this blog, learning something new, practicing what I've learned (which tonight is transferring images from high-contrast magazines on Gel Plates).  When I'm engaged in a stimulating, honest conversation;  getting a massage; tasting something delicious; taking pictures on a long road trip; being with people I love....

Contentment: Peaceful, relaxed, not stressed, not worried, interest piqued, inspired.

Fully fully engaged: Losing track of time, don't care if I do, completely absorbed

REALLY present: not multi-tasking or talking on the phone or watching TV while doing the thing I'm doing, 100% there in the moment, not anticipating what other people will think.

Voila!

That, according to the therapist of a friend of a friend, and probably all who make art every day or do whatever makes them stumble upon delight, is being your very own authentic and self.





Thursday, March 7, 2019

Ross Gay

The Book of Delights is exactly the cup of something delicious I wanted today.  I'm savoring it slowly--a collection of essay-ettes by Ross Gay, the poet I hadn't heard of before Pam directed me to his book.

I'm only halfway through the book and several essays are worth copying verbatim, but I'm only going to copy the closing paragraph of one right now to give you a taste of the freshness of his voice in finding something to be delighted by every day.


#24: Umbrella in a Cafe

(closing paragraph)

A guy on his way out, after buying his Americano and scooting by my big red bobbing foot, and smiling softly at me, and me at him, looked at the drizzle through the big plate-glass window, put his coffee down, opened his umbrella, put it over his head, picked up his coffee, then realized (I presume)                                                             that he was still inside this bakery.  (The window was very clean.) I saw him giggle to himself, realizing, I think. what he had done--let me interrupt to mention that a man with a sack of some sort slugs over his shoulder just entered Choc-O-Pain and exclaimed, "Good morning, Jersey City family!"--and so lowered his umbrella and walked quickly out, with a smirk that today I read as a smirk of gentleness, of self-forgiveness.  Do you ever think of yourself, late to your meeting or peed your pants some or sent the private e-mail to the group or burned the soup or ordered your corrode with your fly down or snot on your face or opened your umbrella in the bakery, as the cutest little thing? 





Tuesday, March 5, 2019

For all you grammarians and writers out there...

I heard snippets of an interview with Benjamin Dreyer, Elizabeth's Strout's editor.  Strout is the author of Olive Kitteridge (and I learned a new Olive book called Olive, Again).

I will listen again online after my nap, but wanted to pass this on to all you writers out there in Literary Land:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/03/05/benjamin-dreyer-grammar-guide

For all of us who cringe when we hear certain grammatical rules broken, here we have it straight from the horse's mouth that certain old rules can be broken with impunity.  However, if we break them, we have to break them with good reason, and we have to expect other grammarians to raise an eyebrow!

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Sunday with Art and Birds

Since I had no recording devices or even my iPhone camera with me today, here's a snapshot of what it was like being in Victoria's amazing tree house studio.

Surrounded by her vivid, beautiful paintings, Victoria was sitting on the floor with papers and brushes, bowls and trays, water, alcohol, different kinds of paper, and India ink.

Agile with youth and yoga practice, she's able to move about on the floor with an ease I envy, painting and reaching and dipping.

She gave Elena and me some pre-cut Yupo paper and brushes and we set out to paint, delighted with the action of inks on Yupo, the ways circles bloomed like magic on the page and unexpected dances of color happened.

My own efforts are prosaic by contrast, but I'm a kindergartner in this realm.  I'm timed with materials, careful not to break any rules (of which there are none in Victoria's studio), and I tend to make light little lines.  Victoria says, "Do you mind if I show you something?" and she takes a great big fat brush and smudges more pigment onto the page.  Wow!  Now that I see what that feels like I could do this all day!

Elena is pleased with her three paintings, as excited as I am--but as a seven-year-old, she's also wanting to go inside Victoria's house and see Reyna and Mugwort again, so we do, taking Paco along for a bird play date.

I wish I had captured the look in her eyes as Mugwort landed on her leggings.  Paco, a baby after all and new to playing with other birds, "hissed" at Mugwort but to no avail.  "This is my house and I'll do what I want," said pretty little Mugwort.

Will and Kent looked on, all the while talking fish and camping sites and boats.

"What was your favorite thing?" Will asked Elena in the car as we headed home.

"Everything!" she said.

Back at my house, Elena and Paco....









Sunday

Since Nathan's still feeling puny, Will and Elena are coming for lunch today--poppyseed chicken, asparagus, and pound cake.

Oldenheim 12 is captivating, even with subtitles.  That and photo transfers kept me up til 2:00 so I'm getting a slow start this morning.

On NPR, I heard an interview with T. Kira Madden, the author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls/a Memoir.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/03/699797236/t-kira-madden-on-long-live-the-tribe-of-fatherless-girls

The interviewer asked her, "What's the question you wrote this book to answer?"

What a great question!

It's questions, posed or not, that drive most memoir-writing, I think.  Who was my father, really, apart from the public image or notoriety?  Why did I marry Mr. So-and-So? Why was I unable to fully feel the impact of Such and Such?  How did this particular event shape my life?  How have I triumphed over it and found strength?  

Maybe, to start with a question and follow it wherever it leads is key to a memoir's vitality.

Every writer of memoir will tell you that in writing the book unexpected answers surface--much more than just writing a treatise filled with answers already formulated.

Sometimes when a story is told over and over, it becomes a sort of family or personal mythology and it's hard to find ourselves into the crevices of the real story.

We can't do that by "thinking about it" because we'll fall into the familiar grooves and not be open to surprise.  So we have to put pen to paper, or open the keyboard, and let the story move without thought of who's going to read it, what they might think, and how to clean it up into a story for others to read.

I love the genre of memoir!  When it's real and honest and revelatory, you know it.  You may even find parts of your own life in it--as I did this week reading Slow Motion by Dani Shapiro.  I've never used alcohol or cocaine to numb feelings, as she did, but I do look back on certain chapters of my life and wonder, as she did, "What was I thinking?" or "How was I so numb to my real feelings?"


Saturday, March 2, 2019

Saturday

Freda bought a bird bath and plant stand at Nando's shop in Helotes, but we three were unable to lift the bird bath from the back of my car, so Will is going to do that for us tomorrow.

El Chaparral, was--at its been for fifty years--excellent.  We got there early and avoided the lunch rush.  Although we didn't go, the first Saturday of every month, we learned, is Market Day in Helotes if you're interested in shopping for crafts and antiques.

After my nap, I learned how to transfer photographs onto canvas and was happy with the results of my first efforts.  I used three flat small canvases and three reverse-printed photographs.

                                   Here's how:

You print out photos on a laser printer, mirror images. My new Epson inkjet printer is supposed to do the same thing as it uses a permanent ink, but I'd already copied these three at Kinko's.

Be sure to print the photos as mirror images.

Cover the canvas generously with matte medium, then cover the FRONT of each photo with the same medium.  Place the photo on the canvas, image down, leave it for a few hours or overnight, then scrub off the paper pulp on the back of the photo with a wet sponge.  Voila!

Then you can paint or scribble or write on the canvas around the photo and even on top of it if you like.

I learned this technique on Bluprint.  The artist, Adam, used much larger canvases and photographs than I did and he did some cool writing and coloring of the photos and backgrounds.

Now that my canvases are done, and now that I've made two little baby cakes, one for Elena and Will for lunch and one for her best friend, I'm going to watch a Dutch series Betty recommended on Acorn, OLDENHEIM 12.


D, too, for March 2

Delights:

Pam recommended a book to me: The Book of Delights by Ross Gay.

I loved the title so much I downloaded a sample for my Kindle, and decided last night, reading the sample, that I wanted a paper copy of the whole book to underline and savor.

It arrives tomorrow, and I'll tell you more about it when I get more than three chapters--but I think we're all going to love the honest, poetic, stream-of-consciousness style of his writing as he writes an "essayette" every day (skipping a few days) about something that brings him delight.

I'm cooking for the kids to come over tomorrow for lunch, then to Victoria's for bird and art delights. But first, Freda and Bonnie and I are heading to Helotes to look at bird baths and pottery at Papi's store, then to have my favorite Mexican food at El Chaparral's.

This promises to be a delightful day with friends, followed by another tomorrow.  I hope your weekend is filled with delights!

B word for March 2: Best Friend

Elena called to ask me to ask Victoria if she could take Paco over to her house (in his birdie back pack) to meet Victoria and her birds.

"Of course!" Victoria said.

That night after dinner, Elena announced to her parents, "Victoria is my best friend."

When Will called to tell me, he did have one tiny caveat--Elena's "best friends" do change often.  Last week it was a new boy in her class.

But for now, her Best Friend is Victoria, an excellent choice in best friends!


Friday, March 1, 2019

Speaking of Activating Colors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD6GydXg0sg

Here is one of hundreds of You Tube videos by Mike Deakin that could inspire some of you to give it a go!


Agency, Activation, and Angel Andy

               Three "A" words for the First of March:

1.    Agency : the  capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

     Alexandria O. Cortez (and scores of strong women) exemplifies a kind of agency many of us in the Sixties didn't know existed. (We still had the word, obey, in our wedding vows!) 

     These women aren't taking superficial answers for facts. They aren't looking away, obeying, submitting, or talking quietly among themselves. 

      Maybe it took the election of the current occupant of the White House, to bring Stacey, Alexandria, Amy, Elizabeth and Kamala (and a lot more)  to the center of the political stage. If so, let's count that one hugely positive result of the 2016 election.




     I was in awe of the clear-eyed questioning of Cohen by Cortez at the hearings this week.  "So how do we find out more?" she asked.  "And who else do we need to talk to?" 

    And to the way Kamala made Bret Kavenaugh look like an inexperienced first-year debater when he went all mushy in the Supreme Court hearings.  "I'm asking you a very direct question, Sir, yes or no? Who'd you talk to?" 

    And Stacey who came close to winning the Georgia election by, among other things, calling out her vote-suppressing opponent. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/discussing-democratic-response-stacey-abrams-podcast-transcript-ncna976151

    Women now have agency not only to tell their own truth, but reject claims that what is being done to and for them is "for their own good."   

     I'm giddy with delight when I hear women way younger than I am standing up to those old voices! No more grabbing, no more deciders, no more jokey little comments that used to be okay. 

     I can't count the times I've looked the other way, pretended not to see, or even appeared to agree with those who had "power."   

      When women have authentic agency, the old earmarks of "power" look pathetic by contrast.  Like long ties and pushy gestures, buffoon-ish and dated, on the road to extinction.   
    
    
2. Activation:  To make something active.

     I'm learning in classes related to painting how to "activate" paint on a page. By spritzing water on wet paint, for example, you can make it run and move in really cool ways. 
     
      While doing these pages, aspects of myself are activated, too.  I am happy, intent, focused, and sometimes exhilarated playing with colors and shapes, not caring how anyone else might assess my efforts. (School teaches us to care overly much about the opinions of teachers who, as in my case, chasten us when we paint the red courthouse purple or color outside the lines.) 

      In a state of playfulness, which is a close-cousin of meditation, buried memories also surface.  Sometimes the memories are pleasant, sometimes terrible.  I might go to bed thinking of something I could do to enliven a page, and I wake up the next morning with clarity about something beyond the page. 

     Creative efforts activate the psyche to places that need attention or kindness or expression.

      It's not the things we make that matter so much as the process of making that brings stuff from out of the dark into the light. 

      

3. Angel: For me, "angel" is a figure of speech, a metaphor for unexpected  generosity or kindness. 

When I went to get my morning coke, a new-to-me young man was at the window, a curly-haired man with an endearing smile and voice.

I reached for my dollar and he leaned out the window and waved away my cash.

"Are you an angel?" I asked, half-teasing.

"I try to be, sometimes," he said.  

It wasn't the free coke I meant.  It was something about the way he looked me in the eye that summoned the word.  The way he told me his name and asked for mine. 

Often, if you look in unexpected places, certain people pop into view who seem intent on giving, not getting, who seem rare and other-worldly in acting from their big, wide open hearts.