Virginia and Colorado

Day and Tom, one year ago
Still love birds after all these years

Day and Tom--23 years ago


A couple of photos of Will and family
in Colorado

It's 10:00--and I know where my children are.

Will's family got as far as Amarillo tonight on their way to cool Colorado!  They sold their large travel trailer and downsized to a much more compact one Will made and finished last night, just in the nick of time for the drive.

Will and Nathan doing something
with chains in the tree

"Her default emotion is pure joy"

Kayak, Canoe, Truck, Trailer, Fishing Poles, and Cook Stove
Colorado Mountain Bound

Now that school is out and Jackson's drifting event is over, Day is finishing up this gorgeous house quilt--here it is, front and back.

Tomorrow is Day-and-Tom's 23rd wedding anniversary!

The back

The front

Drifting in RIchmond

If you know stuff about car events, they have a thing called Drifting. Jackson, one of my "giant boys who thinks he's a puppy" (according to his mom) is in Richmond this weekend drifting, his dad with him.

He's so excited for his first time participating in his own classic red BMW that he's worked on for months getting ready.

They are sending videos of him driving and I hope by the end of the day to have a better understanding of exactly what drifting is.

At the point, I know this about cars: How to gas one up and how to drive one.

(6) Telling the Truth

Positive spin notwithstanding, the writing of the last post left me cranky.  "Shredded" was the word that came to mind.  I felt depression roaring in.  My energy was nil, enthusiasm dried up.

Unnecessary, unasked-for criticism, is hurtful, even if you do have a permission slip from yourself to do or say whatever you please!

Here's how I express anger:  I don't.  (rarely, anyway)
Instead, I go first to the frozen version of anger: depression.

Maybe I should quit this blogging business?  Maybe she was right?  Maybe I shouldn't have posted that entry?

But then some magic happened.  Nine of you amazing friends emailed (and one texted) me the kindest, most supportive letters!  I will never forget who you are because your words totally shifted my mood.

(5) Telling the Truth

Four years ago, a friend-at-the-time  told me that she had quit reading my blog. I wondered why she needed to announce it, why not just move on to something she liked better?

But more was to be revealed:  (1) my blog made her think I was "trying to be Paris Hilton or something,"and (2) telling too much about one's personal life "takes away your personal power,"and (3) my posts were just "too much" to read.

I had to look up Paris Hilton to find out who she thought I was trying to be. When I did,  I was reminded of the question I often heard in another chapter of my life: "Who do you think you ARE?" (Subtext: How dare you, an ordinary not-famous person, presume to think you have anything worth saying?)

My blog is random, scattered, all-over-the-place, and it lacks a unifying theme. (for which I'm not apologizing.) Though it started out, seven years ago, about traveling solo, it's not even about that anymore.

Writing is my way of being in the world.  I can't not do it. Even now that I'm timidly and gleefully putting my toes in the river of paint, writing is still my first creative love.  Many years ago, I gave myself a great big  permission slip to do it and so far, it hasn't managed to steal my personal power.

Over the years, I gave the same permission slips to college students, later to my writing group members. I'm still thrilled when I run into a former student in a store or get a note from a UTSA student or writing group member telling me, in various ways, "You made me love writing!"

That's what we teachers do.  We bring other people into what we love, and some of them find that it's as empowering (and worthy of love)  to them as it is to us.  We don't require celebrity status; in fact, we don't give a hoot about celebrity.

Just writing about teaching makes me miss it right now!

So this random scattered blog is my practice, like practicing scales on the piano or practicing yoga.  It's not about me telling "the" truth.  It's about mucking around in my mind until sometimes, if I'm lucky, my truth finds it way to the page in a few more or less coherent sentences.

Sunday Moments

Before daylight

At 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, I had an interesting conversation with one of my favorite window people, Persephone.

"Most people can't pronounce my name so I go by Percy," she told me.  No line at that hour, we had time to talk about books. She wrote down the title, The Bluest Eye.

She was an English major at North Texas but  gave out of money and had to come home.  "I made a foolish choice," she said.  "I should have stayed home and gone to junior college."

I told her what Carlene always says about wrong choices: "It's just tuition."  She brightened when I told her that.

She has seven siblings and her mother works at H.E.B.  She works nights at the window.  One of her brothers is named Demetrius, another Dorian Grey.

"Come back tomorrow," she said.  "I love talking to you."


Morning

I'm trying out my Arteza gouache colors by making a sample page of circles in each color.  Experimenting with various hues and shades and mixes.  Trying out getting more and less opacity.
Watching as the edges of one waterly circle bleeds into another.  Magic!

Why did I wait so long to open these tiny tubes of color???


Afternoon

Jerry's Art O'Rama, my favorite store, was having a paint sale.  I've been wanting to splurge on some Daniel Smith colors--the best of the best they say--so I bought three little tubes:

Indian Yellow

Transparent Red Oxide

Amazonite Genuine Green

I just love the names of colors, many of which are barely pronounceable.

George, the manager, gave me lots of information about weights of paper and told me something none of my online teachers had mentioned: taping paper to the table to prevent warping and buckling, then leaving it there until it's dry.

Tuesday

Last week, I picked up a discarded old doll house on the curb.  (Jan is not the only scavenger on Ogden Lane)  Many of its shingles were missing, the rest crooked.  It has a staircase and interior doors, and I saw some potential.

Elena's never been one for dolls (she much prefers animals) but she loves fixing, making, doing--so we spent most of our day together remodeling.

It's a large sturdy doll house with sloppily painted walls and torn wallpaper.  We sprayed the walls with vinegar and scraped and scrubbed until we had it down to its bones. On our next day together, we'll paint--if I can resist the urge to give it its first coat.

Elena in mask getting her flower girl dress altered
for her cousin Jade's wedding on Saturday

Spraying wallpaper
"Who puts wallpaper on floors?  Who does that?"

Hanging the new bird feeder we bought at Schnabels.

Clean and ready to paint

I got her home just in time for a Zoom dress rehearsal for a dance recital that may or may not happen  in August.  I watched for an hour, then drove back home, teary all the way.

Dress rehearsal 

Her daddy setting up the zoom

(4) Telling The Truth

An  excerpt from Adrienne Rich's book,  On Lies, Secrets, and Silence (Brainpickings)

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

(3) Telling the Truth

The powerful movie, Selma, opens with Annie Lee Cooper (played by Oprah) attempting to register to vote in Alabama.  The white clerk asked her to recite the Preamble to the Constitution.  She does it flawlessly.

Then he asked her how many judges are in the state.  She answers, "Sixty seven."

"Name them," he says, sneering.

This film is all about speaking truth to power--as Martin Luther King, Jr. argues with President Johnson that it is way past time Negroes to be granted free access to voting, a right already on the books but disallowed in states like Alabama led by the racist governor, George Wallace, speaking from "the Cradle of the Confederacy."

It's about being beaten (and some murdered) for the right to have a voice--while white citizens of Alabama sneered and cursed and waved little Confederate flags.

The speech Martin Luther King gave when the marchers reached Montgomery is timely today--spoken in the film as we see actual footage of the marchers, white and black.

When I taught a course in rhetoric, I always included the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the "I Have a Dream" speech. After reading these semester after semester for many years, I know whole chunks of them by heart. If I were teaching today, I would include this one:

"...Our society has distorted who we are.
From slavery to Reconstruction, 
To the precipice at which we now stand,

We have seen powerful white men rule the world
While offering poor white men a vicious lie as placation.

And when the poor white man's children
Wail with hunger that cannot be satisfied,
He feeds them the same vicious lie.
A lie whispering to them that regardless of their lot in life,
They can at least be triumphant the knowledge 
That their whiteness makes them superior to blackness.

But we know the truth....and we will go forward to that truth to freedom....

No man, no myth, no malaise,
will stop this movement...."

(2) Telling the Truth

Betty hated truth sessions, but she's a truth-teller by nature. She also 'fessed up that it was she who informed me that I wore my socks wrong-side out--but truth be told, I've always taken care to get the sock seams in the right place after that revelation.

We never would have considered wearing mis-matched socks--as Elena does on purpose.  If we had worn bluejeans, which we never did, we wouldn't have dared worn them with holes in them.

Betty, driven by her instinct to help out, once initiated a fashion do-over for Louise, a girl in our class who hadn't gotten the memo that dresses with sashes were passé.  Plaid dresses, gingham skirt, and black and white saddle oxfords: that was the way to go.

Betty and I picked each other before we knew how to read, and it stuck.  How did we recognize each other as kindred spirits at such a young age? I wonder, the only two in the class who would grow up to be rebels and Democrats.

After a particularly fiery sermon one revival night, Betty and I sat in the car and de-briefed.  We disagreed with the premise of the visiting evangelist, that if you didn't believe a certain thing you'd go to Hell.  It wasn't fair, we agreed--we two who even then believed in the fairness principle we made up as we went along.

Here we are in our 8th decade of living, and we have such a lifetime of shared history that we can talk in shorthand.  We find the same things hilarious.  All she has to do is mention Ronnie Henley's mother and we both laugh--though it's not a story that translates well; you have to hear it and see it re-enacted in her own words.

I haven't had a particularly stellar picker when it comes to men--especially in the truth-telling department.  But in women friends, my picker is spot on.

Makken and Chloe

This is my precious neighbor Makken (8) and his cat Chloe.  For his birthday, all he wanted was a cat stroller so he could take her on their daily walks.

I captured this beautiful photo as I was walking to my outside laundry this morning.

After this photo was snapped, Jan took the boys to the botanical gardens for their writing group--third year of writing together in nature.

The boys are going to invent a character and write about that character's adventures all summer.

(1) Telling the Truth

I'm pretty sure I've told y'all about truth sessions before, but I feel like remembering them this morning.

Back when Betty and I were growing up, we used to participate in a bizarre sub-cultural ritual called Truth Sessions, particularly popular after lights out at summer camp.  A whole group of us sat in a circle and promised to tell each other the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, a phrase we got from Perry Mason.

At that age, we weren't talking about ultimate truths, but our opinions of each other and who we'd manage to become in our first few years of living.  "You wear your socks inside out," or "You're so flat chested," were two I heard, though I don't remember which girl in the circle informed me of these flaws.

At exactly the pre-adolescent ages when we were discovering our own lumps and bumps, I guess we needed each other to guide us to the Cochran version of perfection. Conformity was, after all, the name of the game.

We only had Channel 13 on our black and white TVs in Cochran. For a few minutes around supper time,  good ole infallible Uncle Walter  summed up the true facts of the whole world for our parents, though I don't recall paying attention until 9th grade when President Kennedy was assassinated.

Among our limited fare of shows:  Miss America, The Donna Reed Show, Gunsmoke,  Perry Mason, and The Millionaire.  And of course, who could forget Oral Roberts, the preacher whose gig was healing people? He grabbed the sick and the lame by the head and shouted "Heal!  In the name of Jeee-sus, Heal!"

It worked every time.  The poor guy in the wheelchair or the woman hobbling on crutches would rise right up and walk the aisle (to applause), arms waving, wheelchairs and crutches abandoned forever.  Those who had invisible  ailments, chronic pain, and cancer would weep and smile and announce that they'd been healed.  "It's gone!" they'd say, and Oral would say, "Praise Jeee-sus!" and weep and laugh along with them.

My parents found Oral amusing.  They didn't take him one bit seriously.  But it was the closest thing to theater we had on TV.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect  that it was I who created the unfortunate consciousness-raising activity called Truth Sessions.  But more on that later....

Postcards to Myself, Good Eyes, and Figs

https://www.etsy.com/listing/822170933/postcards-to-myself-an-all-level-mixed?mc_cid=b7d35f8d41&mc_eid=74ad53ee3d

Lyn Belisle has created another stellar class! If you'd like to play, follow the breadcrumbs above.

This one is called Postcards to Myself, available for $18 at Etsy, including about 3 hours of video, two PDF downloads, a supply list, and easy to follow instructions.

Along with a PDF of images to use in the class, she gives sources for images in the public domain (no permissions required to use them).

The course covers so many aspects of mixed media that it's a great place to begin--as well as to continue if you're more advanced in painting, collage, and encaustics.   I've watched (and loved)  the first two hours and only have four more sections to go, which I'll save for tomorrow.

Lyn's online classes are exceptionally wonderful from start to finish. (This one is technically called an e-book, with links to about 20 videos.)

                                          On eyes:

Some of you have kindly asked about my eye issue.  My eyes are fine, just droopy sleepy at the moment.  Floaters, Dr. Gutierrez said, are very common; we don't worry about them unless we have quite a lot of them.  They go away on their own.  He gave me drops and advised using them with a hot compress to relieve the irritation.  No cataracts, no glaucoma, not even a need for a prescription change.

                                       Another highlight of the day:

Elena Face Timed me while she was researching fig trees and what kind of soil they need.  Second grade just ended and she's continuing to study as she prepares to plant a fig tree her other grandmother gave her.

It was fun to watch the ease with which she navigates the iPad to get information.  "I'm going to plant it so I can climb it," she said.  "It has smooth bark and Audrey has one in her yard and we like to climb in it."

"As for me," I said, "I want to come pick figs with you and make fig newtons."

"Oh yeah, that too."

The witching hour

Tomorrow I will find out what's irritating my eye, but for now, I'm just washing it and taking Benadryl to stop the itching. When anything goes even a little wrong with the eye, it's unnerving, these two my windows to everything.

Without fail, without alarm, I wake up at 3:15, every morning.  When I do, I hear the water pipe surge in the wall, as the irrigation system was set to 3:15, morning and afternoon, announcing water's on. But for decades before I had automatic watering, it rarely fails: three-fifteen is wake up time.

Sometimes I read a few pages and fall back to sleep; other times I stay awake, drive to Whataburger, once in a blue moon getting a chocolate glazed donut, and listen to "Hidden Brain" on NPR--all of which I did this morning.

The eyes and the brain, the ears and the taste buds, the heart and lungs--such too-often-taken-for-granted bringers of pleasure.  We rarely consciously think of them unless they act up.

I love looking at faces and flowers and trees, colors and artful spaces!  I love looking at whatever shows up through the moving window of my car, day or night.

Right now, with this tiny floater or scratch or whatever, I get occasional glimpses of a non-existent fly or gnat when I look to the left, sometimes the tiniest flash of light, like a Christmas sparkler.

Ocean Vuong's debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, is written as a letter to his mother.

          You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation.  How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing.  The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch way, just as hungry, as empty.  Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, "Look." 

I've only read the sample to this novel so far, but Vuong's writing is extraordinarily beautiful, and I look forward to getting the book.  I ordered this sample after hearing him interviewed on "On Being" by Krista Tippet.

It's now 5:18, and the Benadryl is kicking in, so off to bed I go, phone ringer on silent.

Making a folio or cover for an iPad.

Some of you may know Lyn Belisle, San Antonio artist who works with paper, fiber, photography, and clay to create pieces wonderful pieces of collage and sculpture.

Pam and I have taken several classes in her studio, and we think she's an extraordinary teacher.

The class I watched today was about two hours long at the ridiculously low price of $10.  I thought that must be a mistake, but no--it's for real.  Just go here if you'd like to try your hand at making a cover for an iPad or Kindle using many fun techniques: https://lyn-belisle-studio.teachable.com

Even if you have no intention of making a cover, you can also apply these techniques for other projects, or you could make the folio and use it to hold a notebook or a legal pad.

I find it mesmerizing and inspiring to watch her work, and she explains every step with precision.  I'll watch it again as I attempt to make one for myself. That's the good thing about these online art classes: you can watch them at your own pace and as often as you like .

Let me know if you decide to give it a go!

Jackson's Drive-By Graduation

Here he is, my beloved 18-year-old grandson after his drive-through graduation from high school with a 3.8 GPA!  In a way, a drive-by graduation, Jackson driving his own red classic BMW, is perfect for someone who's always loved cars!

He just called to tell me about it: the graduates and their families drove through the school parking lot to Pomp and Circumstance and were given their diplomas by the principal.  "What are you going to do next?" one of the teachers asked him.  "Disappoint my parents," he quipped.

I'm all teary and sentimental at the moment, looking at his handsome face holding his first diploma, remembering when--it seems like no time ago--he was a little boy, joy of my life, first grandson.  He still is all that, just a very tall version!

"That's my grandmother's Mini Coop-ah!"

Every day is its own tiny story

Now that the days are blurring together, I've started asking myself each day: What's this day about?  What's its main point?

What little paragraphs and word choices are going to add up to a whole?

What unexpected phone calls will move the plot of the day?

What unexpected event will puncture holes in it?

What gifts will come?

What memories will rise up out of nowhere and make me wince or smile?

What conversations will put things right?

On painting days, I leave my phone in the house and spend the first half of the day in the casita.

Last night I stayed up so late watching Press that I wound up derailing my painting plan for today. Due to a little floating thing in my eye, I decided to change course and go to Vision Source (where I was able to get an eye appointment for Monday). Then I went to my favorite store (Jerry's Art O Rama) and bought two little pastels to try out, then to Jo Ann's to get a gold Posca pen.

Two visual gifts arrived, along with intangibles:

The bark of a tree

A stack of hula hoops at Jo Ann's

I called Kate and she gave me the name of the dentist who has replaced the one we both used before he retired.  While she was at it, she gave me the name of her new favorite AC man recommended by our shared plumber, Tony.

I thought a good cry might release whatever is in my eye, so I watched "Call the Midwife."  It didn't get rid of the spot, but it cleared out my eyes and soothed me, as it always does.

The nuns and civilian midwives, the townspeople, a nurse's dying grandmother in prison for performing illegal abortions, the doctor, the young doctor whose drug habit is revealed: everyone is kind to patients, friends and strangers.  Kindness is a sweet remedy for almost everything.

Another gift: the episode ends ends with the voiceover of the writer of the memoir on which this series is based:

The seasons will always turn,
The clouds will gather,
And the cold will come.

We will survive them and grow,
regardless of the weather.
We will know wonder
where there has been despair.

And there will be happiness,
and we will remember it.
There will be friendships
that we won't forget.

Love is the constant
whereby we endure all winters
and all storms.
It is the climate in which all things can thrive.

Welcome the darkness
Embrace it as a canopy
in which the stars can hang,

For there are always stars when
we are where we ought to be,
Amongst the faces we love best,
each with our place, each with our purpose....

The darkness is beautiful.
For how else can we shine?

Tuesday Night

Today was a watercolor blackberry cobbler sort of day.

In case you would like to have such a day, and if you are a fan of blackberry cobbler, you can find one made by the kindly Mrs. Smith in the frozen food section.  I bought mine to have a quick dessert on hand in case people come over unexpectedly, which--let's be honest--never happens.... As my friend Barbel says of ice cream, sometimes you just have to go ahead and eat it "or it will go rancid."

So I tried something fun with watercolors this morning, thanks to a link in the Daisy Yellow class announcement Nellie sent me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLc1TV7Nins&t=1633s

My tiny little book turned out adorable if I do say so myself, and I'm going to use it as an anniversary card for Day and Tom later this month.  I love playing with colors and water, watching shapes happily bumping into each other.

Now I'm watching a really good four-episode Masterpiece series called Press.  While I wait for my Pepcid to take effect.  You can watch it on Amazon Prime or PBS Passport.

Say his name!  George Floyd!

Say his name!  George Floyd!

Say his name!  George Floyd!

I go to sleep every night and wake up every morning with this chant repeating in my mind.  As we might expect from the African American community, whose music is imprinted in our collective psyche, these words capture the whole story.

When people are not called by their individual names, when painted with the broad stroke of prejudice, they are inevitably, in every culture, mistreated.  This week, they are speaking out and teaching the country how to treat them: say our names, don't look away, don't let the bad cops get away with killing us. 

I've been listening to Keisha Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta;  Gene Robinson;  Martin Luther King III;  the Episcopalian bishop of Washington, D.C.; John Meecham; David Brooks,  and many other activists, political leaders, historians, writers....

Smart and caring people have a frame of reference, a perspective, connections with each other and other good people of the past. They read, listen, study, and ask questions.  They appreciate the humanities.  Some follow a religious tradition.  They laugh and they cry.

Keisha Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta, quotes Audre Lorde, poet and activist: "Your silence will not protect you. I am deliberate and afraid of nothing."

John Meecham, the brilliant (and usually restrained) Presidential historian, compares the current occupant-of-the-White-House (I refuse to call him president) with Nixon: "Trump makes Nixon look like Mr. Rogers."

Martin Luther King III echoes his father as Civil Rights Leader.

The Episocopal Bishop in Washington decries Trump's mockery of a spiritual tradition by doing a photo op at St. John's Church, holding up the Bible as a prop, while enacting the opposite of the words in that book.

We have a man in the White House who calls American mayors and governors "weak" and who calls Putin on the day of the murder of George Floyd.  All we have to do to see into Trump's  mind is to listen to what he calls other people.  His projections are transparent.   He praises himself profusely and "takes no responsibility"--but other people, according to the "stable genius," are stupid, weak, fake, bad, and crazy.

midnight

Monday is turning into Tuesday, and I have listened to too much news today.  That and buying groceries in a too-loud store, then spending the rest of the day cleaning every surface, every nook, every cranny of the casita.  Sometimes I think I enjoy moving stuff around and cleaning as much as I enjoy making things.  A room has to be just so--that's how I roll.  It's pretty close to just-so tonight and I'm exhausted in a good way.

It's amazing how much stuff accumulates under sinks and in trunks.  Most of it went to the curb for tomorrow's trash pick up--except for a basket my scavenger friend Jan spied and liked.

I also received a rug I ordered about three weeks ago for the living room and I carefully unwrapped and unrolled it (in case I wanted to return it) and it turns out, it's just fine.  I like it.  I just wish I could pick up the sofa enough to scrunch it under the front a bit.

When one cannot change the enormity of what's wrong in the world, cleaning out drawers and boxes is a reminder of just how tiny a space in the world one can control.