Kindness

Yesterday was a day of so much kindness I'd like to bottle it for the new year!

The kindness of friends and family, always Number One.  The Airrosti doc lets St. Lucia wander all over his office space until he actually does the treatment on my feet--when said saint jumps all the way from the floor to the table to sit protectively on top of me. The kindness of strangers, like the men at the car wash. 

Freda took Luci for a long walk in the sunshine.  When Luci hears Freda's voice on the phone, she 'bout knocks me down with her joy.   She would if she were much more than eleven pounds.

Meanwhile, my little Virginia grand-pup Tucker got into a bar of dark chocolate left on the coffee table.  His heart was racing, his pulse over the top.  One large bar of dark chocolate can do that to a small dog.The initial charge for the emergency vet was $2500--though they kindly refunded about half that because Tucker didn't need much more than an injection of potassium and overnight observation after he threw up the chocolate bar. 

It's often the little things that can turn a day.  A phone call, a word of reassurance, a listening heart, a letter or email, a waggy tail.  

As I go about my errands this morning, I hope to encounter and deliver more patches of kindness.  

Christmas Eve 2022

Jan just sent me this, said it reminded her of me.  I wonder why?

For almost two years, Luci has been everywhere with me, as you know.  I've met such kind people in grocery stories, craft stores, Lowe's, and thrift shops, dog lovers everywhere.  Central Market has been one of our favorite outings--and that counts for a lot right now. 

Last week, I was accosted by a security guard.  Well, to be honest, I was first asked if she was a service dog and I didn't lie.  I now know that there are certain instances in which a white lie might be forgiven in the big picture of things, but in the moment, feeling secure in my favorite grocery store and being in the middle of a conversation with a dog walker from Columbia, I went with my natural instinct to tell the literal truth. 

But then he got preachy and followed me to the check-out to be sure I left. 

Some workers know Luci by name.  Just last week, a woman who rescues dogs said how nice it is to see a dog in a store, "like at home in France. There, dogs go to restaurants and grocery stores all the time."

So I was taken by complete surprise when I was lectured in the middle of a pleasant encounter with the sweet Columbian woman who wants me come to her house for Columbian soup.  Until the run-in with the security guard, it had been a  "happiness is a warm puppy" kind of day.  I was so angry I cried in the car, but only until I got home, resolved to do what I can to make her officially what she already is unofficially, my support dog. 

I texted one of the docs I've been seeing about my feet, asking if he felt comfortable writing a letter attesting to her status as a service dog. Without hesitation, he said yes and a letter arrived in my inbox the next day!  

When I first took her to Central Market two years ago, I asked first.  "Sure, she's welcome!" one of the checkers told me. "We aren't allowed to ask."

Apparently the guard didn't get the memo.  

I remembered a kindness in Biloxi in September. Later than I usually stop for dinner and a bed, I was exhausted enough to ask the manager of a Waffle House if I could bring Luci in.  "Of course," he said, winking.  "I can tell she's a service dog.  Wherever you go, just tell 'em she's a service dog and they can't do a thing."

So now, just in time for Christmas, I have a service dog!  

Happy Holidays Everybody!

My Texas family is among the throngs of people waiting at airports today, but here are my four sweet grandkids in Virginia at Aunt Day's and Uncle Tom's house:

I opted to save my trip to Virginia and my trip to Georgia until after I get some resolution of my foot pain.  I went to Airossti for treatment #3 but was too inflamed with CREST to do the treatment, so will resume it this week.

Luci and I on my one pain free day since Thanksgiving--thanks to steroids, but my doc does not want to prescribe more due to possible side effects. 

Apparently, my feet are "crunchy" with scar tissue; next step an orthopedist who specializes in feet.

Meanwhile, Luci and I have a tiny tree and a warm house on this cold cold morning, water but no hot water, and so many beloved friends and family members.  We wish you all a happy healthy peace-filled holiday!

My guy Marcus

Marcus wants to be a journalist.  Here he is filling out applications to colleges, writing essays.  He's already been accepted to VCU where his brother Jackson is.  They've visited several colleges and he's hoping to find one that has an outstanding journalism program.

He's editor this year of his high school paper, plays football and lacrosse, and is an all around wonderful boy, all six feet plus of him.  

He and his dad went to Buffalo this weekend to watch the Buffalo Bills play.  The whole family loves the Bills.  Whenever they are on TV, they all dress up in their jerseys, even puppy Tucker.  

Home for a Quarter of a Decade

When I moved into the "cottage district" of Alamo Heights 27 or so years ago,  the owner happened to be pounding a For Rent sign into the all rock yard of this then-pitiful little concrete block house just as Mary Locke and I were driving by. 

She was driving me around looking for apartments a few days after I had moved out of my Married House in Helotes.  I had no money at the time except for my skimpy UTSA salary and couldn't even imagine renting anything in posh Alamo Heights.  The owner showed me a lease agreement, and the rent was $700 a month--which at the time looked exorbitant.  

I think of that  today when I hear of the soaring rental rates and the number of young people moving in with their parents.  Even on salaries way higher than mine was then, so many cannot afford houses. I talked with a woman at the vet's office this week; all three of her children at various times have come back home.   "They are all in their twenties, all college educated, one a Marine," she said.  "We've never had an empty nest."

So I looked at the $700 and felt dismayed.  The house was ugly, yes, with peeling wallpaper and an orange cracking kitchen and painted walls that looked like they'd been done by stoned painters with no masking tape.  But I could see potential in it, felt it somehow needed me for restoration.  I already loved it, but today I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

Mary Locke suggested we call my parents and see if they could help--which they didn't hesitate in saying yes to!  

This morning, as I was driving back from my coke run, the trees spilling gold and orange leaves on the ground under the umbrella of limbs on my pretty street, I got a flash of the street when I first found it.  Back then, all the houses were small like mine, or at least middle-sized.  There were spaces between them for visiting and parking.  

Year by year, more large houses have taken the place of smaller ones.  Lots that used to give some houses a nice patch of yard have been taken over by large houses.  Two houses, one of which is super modern,  have filled the space where my late-friend Allen used to live in an historic Alamo Heights house.  He always claimed it was the first house in '09.  In some cases, the spaces between houses is minimal, as little as four or five feet.  On every street, large new houses have appeared as if overnight, the little houses beside them dwarfed and shabby looking.

And yet, when I moved in here, the dwarfed houses were charming.  Lights glowed in their windows.  Yards may not have been much more spacious, but it felt like it because they were crammed so close to other houses. 

It was an amazing neighborhood back then.  It still is for lots of reasons, and I love it dearly.  But "cottage district" is now a misnomer.  

People flock to Alamo Heights and pay top dollar for properties in part due to the reputation of the schools. The houses today are larger and closer than I'd have thought space allowed.   Some of the original houses do indeed look a little sad beside their shiny neighbors, but not all.  It's a quiet wonderful neighborhood of dog-walkers and friends and cheerful-seeming people and pretty lawns. During this season, many of the houses are wrapped in festive colored lights.  

I wish sometimes that it was like it used to be, a neighborhood of bungalows and cottages with large yards and no mega-houses blocking their sunlight.   But time marches merrily along and that's the way it is.  

My first Christmas on this street (as a $700-a-month renter)  I was complaining to my parents about the drab condition of my house, about not being able to fix it up for their upcoming visit.  

"I think you can do anything you want to with this house," my daddy said.  "Let's call it your Christmas present!"

Without my having a clue, they had purchased this house!  I remember walking around in a daze for days.  I had a house, a home, a yard!  

It's now covered with stucco, the rocks are gone, and flowers of every color attract butterflies.  The walls have been painted many times, the bathroom and kitchen updated, wood floors installed.  It has a casita in the backyard that was home to writing groups for many years.  It is--for what I love and need--perfect!  

I wish this for everyone, young and old, single and married--a home, a canvas, a place of peace, a yard for a dog, blooming plants, and, on this December day, a yard filled with golden leaves. 

Bridge to Competence

I've been a semi-hermit the last couple of weeks--due to seasonal allergies and a flare of foot pain.  Increasing my competence in little things keeps me from sinking into some murky bogs.  Learning, I realize, has always been my best bridge. 

Let me wax philosophical for a minute: when I struggle to learn something challenging, I think back to those few of my former students who struggled to read.  I particularly remember a junior high school Title 1 remedial reading class I taught at Mark Twain fifty years ago.  Some of my students barely spoke English. Others may have been dyslexic--though I had no particular  training in teaching either. I was a second year teacher (and only did this gig for a year, in a broom closet with six students per period) so I borrowed some materials from the real reading teacher and did it by the seat of my pants.  

Never mind that the district should have done more training--or at least quizzed me on my knowledge. The students and I were holed up in a windowless room and I sat beside each student, witnessed their frustration, and made up games and exercises to build a bridge between the indecipherable words on the page to meaning. On a good day, someone saw a light at the other side of the bridge and delighted in reading a word or two.  

As a young teacher, I had the natural energy of a 25-year-old and I tried to make it fun.  Now I realize, knowing more, that it must have been extremely frustrating for them to learn to decode words--a skill that had been easy for me. 

I was reminded of these classes last night as I was trying to complete the five-day challenge in the Book Club.  Previous lessons had prepared me for finding the right papers and threads, measuring, poking holes, and attaching covers.  But the previous books had been way simpler and easy to follow, so I had the satisfaction of competence from the get-go.  These coptic bindings made me feel like a kindergartener sitting in on a college lecture.

I watched the video over and over, stopping to copy each move, but my stitches looked atrocious. Luci jumped in my lap and got tangled in the long thread.  My thread kept wrapping around various items on my table.  Then the needle slid off the thread to the floor--three times.  I pulled the stitches out twice and started over.  I was in over my head and my wonky stitches didn't lie. 

At the end of the night, I had exactly what I had at the beginning: eight stacks of signatures with holes poked in the right places, a cover I'd made by gluing gel prints on book board, and the extra flourish of signature wraps, also made of gel prints. I was so deflated by my many failures (at something that looked so easy) that I planned to email the club tomorrow, tell them I'd take a sabbatical.

This morning I put the components in a box so I wouldn't have to see them ever again. 

But they niggled at my mind every time my eyes fell on that dumb shoe box. 

I'm sitting on the bridge still.  I'm intent on getting the book made and making it to the other side--to competent book binding.  

I don't need another blank book--that's not the point.  What I need is the feeling of following through and mastering it, even if it takes tutoring from Day when I see her next.  

As a quilter who gets math better than her mama, she's always been there for a quick tutorial when I want to change the scale of a book or figure out a tricky measurement.  She makes it clear with algebra and geometry and drawings and texts me a series of short videos.  I needed her today!

"Bring it when you come next and we'll figure it out together," she said--this being more of hands on project that can't be demonstrated with math and drawings. 

So until I see her, or get the courage to try again on my own, I whipped up a tiny easy book tonight, just for fun.  It was simple enough that any child could do it, but it renewed my enthusiasm and determination.  It was quietly reassuring. 

That was my bridge for today.  That and watching a fascinating video for an intricate Chinese Thread Book--the making of which will be my reward for finishing this  mess of a coptic binding.  

 

Bridges #4

I haven't tried that.

Mostly, I've learned whatever I know by trial and error, books, and people smarter than I am in whatever it is I want to learn.  Every day there's at least one life lesson.

Maybe soon I should try the Pooh method of education and go find a bridge over a river. 

Bridges 3:

We build too many walls
and not enough bridges
Isaac Newton

If you listen, as I do sometimes, to news as background, you'd think that the whole world is intent on building walls. 

The rhetoric of America's far right is terrifying: anti Semitic, anti people of color, anti-women, anti-gay, you name it.  

The women I know talk about books and music and the interests that keep us alive.  Women tend to each other and make connections.  We build bridges.  (So do countless good men who aren't focused on power and control.)

How we choose to use our time on Planet Earth defines the kinds of bridges we make--whether it's cooking and sharing food, painting, writing, planting, or quilting.  We do our best to take care of our little patches of world instead of opining about what other people should do. 

The unspoken mantra is Live and Let Live. 

When I hear Trump's maniacal dinner guest Nick Fuentes ranting his racist poison, I want to say, "Get a life, man."  But he's already found his gaudy costume, his stupid script, his nodding audience and support from the likes of Marjorie. He wants Trump to take his rightful place as president again and "then not have any more elections" ever. 

Such a contrast to the news of would-be dictators and king-makers is what happens when creative people get together. 

I was in a Zoom class today with 400 women from around the world, all ages, making beautiful handmade books. 

A woman named Angela (in her late 80s) is going back to college to get a degree in astronomy and planetary sciences!  In the chat, we all gave her kudos. Angela is not hanging out near the end of any bridges; she's starting her own new career and bookmaking as a hobby. 

In our grandmothers' day, women had quilting circles.  In the movie, How to Make An American Quilt, the older women initiate a younger woman into the community of quilters and the shared wisdom that shows up while pushing needles through fabric.

Wearing the hat of writing group leader for many years was a bridge to friendship and creative expression. I miss it.  But my path at the moment is learning about the structure and design of blank books. And making spirit boxes through Lyn's class.  

Today I went through a box of letters and cards looking for a letter from my dad.  I wanted to incorporate his handwriting in the cover of the book I'm making this week.  

Before I found it, I shuffled for hours, stopping to read words written by my family and close friends; from men I've loved, teachers' comments on my elementary school report cards, Betty's entry in my autograph book, love letters from my ex-husband in airmail envelopes, recipes Day wrote as a little girl, artsy handmade cards and envelopes from Nellie, 2004 letters from a writing group on my birthday (written when I thought they were busy writing to the prompt of the night.) 

It occurred to me that handwritten messages may be among the best and most treasured bridges between people--and we do too little of that now that we're entrenched in emails and texts. .

The background music looping in my mind as I write this is John Lennon's "Imagine" 

alternating with Leonard Cohen's "Democracy is coming--to the USA" 

and Keb Mo's "Life is Beautiful" 

and Josh Ritter's "All some kind of Dream." 

I love to imagine what could happen if millions of men and women, no geographical, national, sexual, racial boundaries, started some clubs and communities, got to know each other, asked more questions, and attended to their passions.  

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one  

  

Bridges 2

 

For a long time I held a grudge against a person.  I didn't see her enough to really think about it much, but when I did, I avoided her.  

She had done something I considered unforgivable.

Yesterday we were at the same Thanksgiving dinner.  Sitting at the opposite end of a long table, she said something amusing and I laughed in spite of myself.  I saw a bridge appear against a cloudy sky.  I could either cross it or burn it--and it turns out that in this case, the two actions were the same.  

I thought about something Freda said recently, "We are too old to be awkward!"

And so we talked.  I found out that her ex-husband had recently died, a man I'd liked back in the days we were all young together. I found out that her daughter had survived a very frightening illness.

We had both gone through three decades of good times and bad times.  We'd grown too old to be awkward anymore. 

Word by word, like tires thumping on a rickety old bridge, white knuckles on the steering wheel slowly relaxing, we got to the other side.  

Bridges #1

I've been thinking about bridges a lot lately.  It started on my recent drive to Georgia and back.  Crossing the Mississippi River is unavoidable driving to Georgia, and it's always felt like an important and joyful part of traveling to and from my former home, to and from my present home. 

On this recent trip, maybe for the first time--because I noticed it--I felt fear.  I clutched the steering wheel and didn't allow myself to look to either side, kept my eyes focused on the road ahead.  

I may have felt fear when almost ten years ago, I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge in a Mini Cooper--at night--to find a place to stay in San Francisco.  But I don't remember feeling a sense of panic as I did leaving Natchez heading west. 

That West Coast trip coincided with my 65th birthday--an age which seems incredibly young as I begin my 75th year. Maybe my sense of adventure and freedom was less jaded than it is today?  Maybe age has taken a bit of a toll on my confidence?

At any rate, my thoughts lately have not been so much about actual physical bridges but about less tangible but powerful connections between ways of thinking and seeing the world. 

I plan to spend the next couple of blog posts reflecting on some of the bridges I'm discovering. 

How to do joy Part 2

Be a ten-year-old girl.  Be on the ready to try anything.  

Get yourself a violin and join the orchestra.  Ride rodeo.  Make and sell jewelry.  Grow succulents.  Love animals.  Cook.   

Today started with a FaceTime call with Elena who made crepes for her family for breakfast.  

Nutella and strawberry and banana, ham and cheese, and spinach and cream cheese.  She'd had them in Peru this summer and decided she'd like to make them.  Will said they were the best he'd ever had.

Last night at my house where we had our early Thanksgiving dinner, she made elaborate menus for her brunch special.  She gave us each a menu and walked around taking our orders.  

Nathan--who had been entertaining and educating us on war-craft in the Middle Ages (the kid is brilliant in history!) balked at playing restaurant.  "She's almost in middle school and still pretending," he said a bit grumpily, being a nearly sixteen year old and doing what sixteen-year-old boys do. 

Elena kept on taking orders, then she followed through by making real crepes this morning.

"I pretend every day," I said--in her defense.  "I get up every morning and pretend I'm an artist."

"There you go!" she said. 

While we were on the phone, Will said, "This reminds me of your making crepes when I was a kid."

Flattered that he remembered me making crepes, I noted that Elena's crepes were served on the same plates he grew up with, my wedding dishes. 

How to do joy

  "Let’s create joy today-inside, outside, everywhere we go! Luci will lead the way! She is an excellent wayshower on how to do joy."

This email  from my friend Pam was my first message of the day, and it gave me a nudge to spread some joy.  To be honest, it was Luci who got the credit. 

She met the most adorable little boy in Jo Ann's.  Luca looked to be about a 18 months old.  "Your name is kind of like Luci's name," I said--but he didn't appear to see the resemblance, or care. 

His grandmother kept urging him to come on!  "But I yuv the puppy!" he said.  "I want to stay with the puppy."

When finally she urged him to come along and get that heart necklace he wanted, he reluctantly said, "Bye, Luci.  I yuv you.  Bye, bye, bye...."

Then he looked at me, "Why she won't say bye to me?"

I assured him that she was saying it in her dog-way.  "Dogs don't use words like big boys like you do." 

In HEB #1, Luci met countless admirers.  Almost every customer we met (and there were so many today) wanted to pet her, asked me her breed, and told me about their dogs.  Those who didn't stop to talk, smiled.  Faces brighten up at the sight of a cute little dog in an unexpected place.  The two women behind me in line said, "You are so blessed." 

Same thing in Central Market.  Her admirer in the check out line said she had recently gotten a puppy because her husband needs a new hunting dog.  "He's driving me crazy, the little monster."  I told her that when Janet found her for me she said, "Don't get a puppy!  Get a grown-ass dog!"

"That's great advice," she said.  "I wish someone had told me that." 

Just by being her fluffy little self, Luci makes people smile--and that fuels my day for joy. It's not the normal experience of grocery shopping--to see so many faces light up like proverbial Christmas trees.  Ordinarily, people are so intent on shopping and marking items off their list, me included, that they barely make eye contact.

  

First "Spirit Box" almost done

Here she is, the Elena Spirit Box--who's spirit animal is the chicken--almost finished. Tomorrow I will make faces out of clay to affix to the other five bodies I've made. 

I'll collect a few more feathers on my chilly walk with Luci in the morning.  

Tuesday Morning

Monday began with a text that Day was in the ER with intermittent pain in her lower back.  After spending the morning with the phone attached to my ear, I finally got the good news that she's fine.  She had a CT scan and was pronounced healthy, just some kind of muscular fluke. So our Thanksgiving visit was going to happen as planned--for about ten minutes.

Then Tom tested positive for COVID--two weeks after Day's bout with it.  Day's case was hard--"the sickest I've ever been," but we're hoping Tom's will be way lighter.  So far, he's just sneezing, but he had to test before his planned flight to Berlin for work. The Texas-Virginia Thanksgiving is now iffy again at best.  We won't know until he tests on Thursday.

Everything I used to do in one or two days now takes a week, so this week has been focused on getting ready for the rare Thanksgiving visit with my kids, Day and Tom, Will and Veronica, and four grandchildren, Jackson no longer officially a child,  all in one place for a few days.  I've been moving myself to the casita so the four Learys can sleep in the house, buying groceries I never buy (Big Red and ice cream for the boys--do they even like these treats at their ages of 18 and 21, I wonder?), and planning outings and innings.  

So now we are on pause. 

I woke up at three and decided to return to Season Five of The Crown.  It's the best season of all, this year of the Queen's death, in part because it's cumulative of former seasons.  Margaret and Peter Townsend see each other after 35 years; each of her children has a marital crisis; there is a terrible fire.  Watching it, we know now when the queen will die; when Diana and Phillip will die; and that the words to the tune, "God save the Queen" are now "God save the King."

I've just pressed pause after a poignant conversation between Elizabeth and her sister Margaret.  

Margaret has just proposed they get away together and drink and talk, but her sister has too many official duties as usual. Beside the bedside of "Lillibet" is a basket with her Corgis, Brandy and Sherry; Margaret is spending the night alone with her dog, Rum.  

It's a rare scene in the years we've watched these sisters struggling with the demands of royalty and personal sacrifices.  The scene closes with their telling each other (possibly the only time in the entire series), "I love you.  I love you very much." 

The Light We Carry

As you probably know, Michelle Obama's new book, The Light We Carry, is coming out on November 15th.  

Before it started, I almost fell asleep, pressed record, but was so engaged I watched the hour-long interview with Robin Roberts on ABC, filmed in the Obama's living room.   

What a charismatic, wise and down-to-earth person she is!  

When asked where her home is, she said, "Where Barrack is.  He's my dude!"  Married thirty years, those two obviously have the secret sauce.

When asked how she gets through these crazy times, she said she's taken up knitting--and later showed a half-knitted sweater and shawl she's made.

She told a story about visiting their grown daughters, Sasha and Melania who live together in California.  They were served "weak cocktails" and handed coasters to protect their new furniture.  "Coasters??? They never were so careful about my furniture in the White House," Michelle said. 

At a dinner party, several girlfriends and her mother talk about a friendship that includes lots of exercise and talking late into the night about the things no one ever prepared them for--like menopause. When her friends visited at Camp David, they say that Michelle made it like boot camp, exercising three times a day. 

And her mama?  She's just glad "not to be living with all them anymore and to have her whole house to herself every night, no man, nobody, just me, doing what I want to do." 

Terrific interview with a touching surprise ending, the kind of interview that will have millions doing what I did, going to Amazon to pre-order the new book. 

So many friends, so little time

When we humans meet as strangers, we make quick assessments.  When we meet a potential life friend, we know it pretty fast.    

The older we get, the more selective we get because as Kate said last week, "We've only got about this much time left"--showing how much with her fingers measuring about half an inch. 

In the big picture of the universe, that's certainly true, even if we still have a decade or two or three left.   

But dogs don't know all that.  They don't look for signs of political allegiance (bumper stickers, etc). They don't care about age, infirmity, color, beauty, or breed.  

When Luci sees a dog she leaps toward the stranger.  They sniff each other and wag their tails.  They kiss each other's tongues--a potential playmate, oh boy oh boy!  

Luci and Francesca met at the car wash.  Francesca is a wooly Shih-tzu.  I let Luci off her leash in the lobby and she was euphoric.  The attendant gave them treats.  

It was Best Friend Land until Francesca came over and let me pet her.  Then Luci leaped to my feet as if it was emergency.  She cuddled up against my leg possessively.  This is Luci-speak for "That's my person!" 

Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been. – David Bowie

When COVID came, a few members of the last writing group to meet in person decided to send occasional prompts and write email responses.  Yesterday, Jan sent this quotation by David Bowie. Here's my response.

Linda, 1950

This little girl is a former version of me, with her saddle shoes and clean white socks, her hair pulled back in a barrette, wearing a light colored cotton dress.  Her mother made the dress.  I know this because she made every dress from baby to bride.  

The sofa behind her (looks like a day bed with pillows) was also upholstered by her mother, a greenish fabric, possibly a remnant she could have afforded on a clearance table?  A satin-shade lamp (Green Stamps?) and a framed picture of Linda Gayle sit the end table along with a figurine of an animal

The background: white Venetian blinds and a temporarily abandoned doll.  

Her mother has spread newspaper to protect the carpet, but the little girl seems engrossed in painting her right hand with a paint brush in her left hand. To her right, she has painted two blobs, possibly circles? 

I love this picture because it portrays me as the person I have become in my seventies. I’m oblivious to everything else, I’m melding with the brush, the paint, the quiet moment. I love the silence of my solitude except for the photographer who's made it possible.  

I didn't study art in college because it never occurred to me. I'm not a professional in these endeavors.  In college I was married to a "serious" artist--and art was his domain in our house. 

My only art lesson in first grade was discouraging.  When I painted the mimeographed courthouse with a purple crayon in dark thick happy strokes, the teacher held it up to show the class what NOT to do:  My color was wrong (the courthouse was red), my pressure wasn’t “ladylike,”  (way too much pressure for a girl) and I hadn’t stayed inside the lines of her courthouse lines.  "The lines are there for a reason, Linda." 

To hell with art! I decided. It was too hard to get all that right in one picture. 

I turned my attention to words—which I  love for their color, tones, and textures. But after teaching writing for  decades, I am now painting on my hands again. As I type this, I have glue on my fingers and a dab of red paint on my right hand. 

The pretty doll I loved is out of reach, not the focal point at the moment-- like other aspects of past selves that aren't calling for my attention as they once did. 

In this stage in my life, few things absorb my interest like playing with papers and colors.  The seeds of This Me are evident in That Me.  

Edward's rusty brown truck was in my driveway for two days.  His pokey pace can be unnerving if you're in a hurry, but he cleaned both the house and casita well enough for anybody's white glove inspection. He's been painting and handy-manning for me for ten years.  Jan, however, is not willing to put up with his talkativeness, frequent smoke breaks, and taking all day to do a job that could have been done in half the time.  I get it.  Some days I say, "Never again," but at the end of the day, I'm happy with his work and trying to keep the house shiny until my family from Virginia arrives next Friday. 

"Don't worry," he said.  "I'll come, no charge, and do touch ups before they arrive." 

The minute he left, Jan texted me: I just poured myself a glass of wine and was wondering if you could use a little alcohol given two days of Edward and all the election hoopla fear mongering.

I happily took her up on her offer.  I walked over and we sat on our porch and watched the pooches play in the dark yard, then she offered to walk Luci for me and the three of them headed out, flashlight in Jan's hand, for a walk around the block. 

I woke up the next morning to "no red wave."  Beto and Stacy didn't make it, but the overall results are not as bad as we'd feared. Maybe a lot of people are tired of the Trump game? And many didn't want their freedom curtailed?  Time will tell.  But for now, I'm going to focus on the fact that we didn't get a nationwide shellacking! 

Today was a lovely day--a belated birthday lunch with Freda and Joy and Bonnie!  Cappy's had shrimp and grits and everyone was in a good mood, even the one who's facing hip surgery in a few days.  There's a light at the end of the tunnel of hip pain, and we're all celebrating that in advance.  We were laughing so hard at her napkin antics that a man came over and said, "I see where I should be sitting!  Laughter is the best medicine." 

Saturday in San Antonio

Luci and I started this Saturday walking familiar streets on an art walk, seeing what local artists are making-- jewelry, pens, scarves, pottery, and paintings.  

Luci likes making, too--making friends with people and dogs. She wanted to romp with every dog she met.  She soaked up the attention of humans who gave her treats. 

I wore my Beto earrings in a neighborhood filled with Beto signs.  Even the postman called out, "Love your earrings!" 

After that, I spray painted a shelf and five little Altoid boxes for backing my spirit dolls.  I chose some faces and embellishments and laid everything out on the table for tomorrow morning's assembly.   

My day always shifts when my feet stop wanting to do foot things, and I sat on the porch and read chapters in a novel.  

So then it gets dark and I look for a movie.  Tonight's choices were two documentaries by Alexandra Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi's daughter): one about Ted Haggard's falling from church grace when it was discovered that he was having sex with men and buying drugs; the other about Pelosi's 2006 road trip getting to know Ted Haggard (before his fall) and other evangelicals in mega-churches.  

If you want to see how America ever got a Trump, these films are worth seeing.   The huge coalition of evangelicals shun science ("no evolution!"); consider themselves "pro life," believe in procreating to build up their tribe. They like Confederate flags, Christian billboards, and huge crosses.  And they don't want anyone messing with their guns.  

 .  

Every Brilliant Thing: on HBO

I absolutely loved this film of a play!

The narrator plays the part of a man whose mother suffered from depression.  At the age of 7, when his mother first attempted suicide, he began making a list of "Every Brilliant Thing" worth living for.  Number #1 was "ice cream." 

That's all I'll say--except to say that it is unique and laugh-out-loud funny in places (in spite of the seemingly morbid topic); it is poignant and touching; audience members are drafted to read lines and play various parts throughout the performance.

A Giant Squid Dances for Three Hours at Helotes Elementary Pawfest

Last Friday night, unconnected to anything, invited by no one, Elena (after donning her inflatable squid costume) danced for three hours.  I have tried several times, with no success, to post the video clips her dad sent me because it is impossible to watch without smiling. 

Other kids and parents milled around, some looking, some not paying any attention at all. But she kept dancing, oblivious to everything but the music and the dance.  I was reminded of one of Day's favorite adages, "Dance like nobody's looking."

She was, as Joseph Campbell wrote, "following her bliss."  Ignoring critics.  Being in the flow.  Not caring what anyone thought of her.  

So what comes close to that for me and you?  What do we do that allows us to lose track of time, ignore the news, and be fully present in the flow in what we're making or dancing or planting?

For me, it's taking an art classes and trying out new techniques.  

https://www.handmadebookclub.com

I love the Handmade Book Club.  I don't need more blank books, but Ali Manning (the mama of the group) and lots of guest teachers incorporate so many techniques that it becomes more than just making books.  I've learned so much about watercolors and markers, lettering, binding, and beautiful papers that can be used for pages and covers.  I've learned that all machine-made paper has a grain to it, just as fabric does.  And I continue to be amazed at the creativity members bring to the table.

If you are interested:

Three times a year, Ali and her team lead a five day challenge for $10.  Absolutely the most bang for bucks out there in the paper crafting world!  Membership is open to new members at the end of the five day challenge--for $25 a month, an incredible bargain with an extensive library of tutorials, virtual retreats, and a Facebook group for members to post what they make.

A few days later, membership is closed until the next challenge.

The next five day challenge starts right after Thanksgiving, November 28th:  Copic stitched binding. 

Nellie and I are also taking one of Lyn Belisle's online classes on making spirit boxes--which I've previously mentioned. Her classes, in person or online, are always wonderful!

https://lyn-belisle-studio.teachable.com

Whenever I don't get my eight hours of sleep, it's not because I have insomnia.  It's because I have stepped into the rabbit hole of dancing like nobody's looking.  Because nobody is....

The Day of the Dead

Among the many Texans who celebrate  Dios de los muertos with altars, flowers, photos, and memorabilia, my friend Pam makes it an art form.  

Tonight she invited a few friends to dinner and asked us to bring pictures and stories of friends and family members who are no longer with us.  I made a pound cake--my daddy's favorite--and goulash. He'd have been 100 this year. Here's a man I could talk about for hours, but suffice it to say, every time I tell a story about this dearly loved man, it's as if I bring him back for those who didn't get to know him. 

On a table and a piano, Pam had arranged photos so festively you'd have thought it was a party of living people who might show up--her parents and grandparents, her sister and her sister's husband, a former colleague from her teaching days, her son Tommy and her former husband, many friends, even her daughter's beloved dog. I loved hearing her tell stories about these people, all but one of whom I'd never actually met. 

In a bowl on her coffee table, there were more pictures, poems, handwritten notes, an award ceremony honoring her friend Ruth shortly before her hundredth birthday. Another friend--fit and healthy "who did everything right"--died in his forties. 

Day of the Dead is a lovely tradition.  In a way, all the people do show up! What they loved and brought to the world shows up.  Their quirks and habits show up.  For an hour or more, the living and the dead have a party, celebrating who they were (and still are) to us. 

I came home and searched for pictures of others I love who are no longer living: my grandparents, my Uncle David, my dog Tony (and a few other sweet dogs),  Brooke and Meredith (daughters of two of my best friends), Julianne Moore ("not that Julianne Moore" she always said) Mary Frances Weathersby, my yoga teacher and dear friend, Gary Lane, poet and teacher and piano-player who entertained residents of nursing homes with the music of their youth, Lea Glisson, the oldest and one of the funniest and liveliest members of my writing groups, and Jan's wonderful husband Gene, my next-door neighbor. 

As the song goes, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends...." 

Lloyd Harris, my daddy
Teaching Will to play guitar, early 1990s

May 2001
Our last visit
I wore this watch to Pam's party tonight....

Parking Lot Rage

Knowing I'd be driving through the rural areas of Southern red states on my recent trip to Georgia, I removed my Beto bumper sticker.  I was afraid small town Trumpers might run me off the road, or worse. 

At the same time, I cringed at silencing my point of view out of fear. So yesterday, I put up a new yard sign and replaced the bumper sticker. 

Today, waiting in a drive-through line right here in San Antonio, I noticed a car coming toward me as if to tell me something.  Maybe I had a flat tire?  She stopped inches from my car and began yelling atrocious and vicious lies about "Cocaine Beto El Paso Bastard," then she drove away shooting me the bird.  

Before today, I have had mostly complimentary comments from strangers.  One man offered to load up my groceries for me because he "loves Beto, too!"  A young woman with a baby in a stroller said, "Love your bumper sticker!" 

For the next week, I will wear the Beto earrings Pam gave me.  I won't take down my yard sign.  And I won't remove my bumper sticker.  But today, I was glad that the stranger who needed to spew her rage didn't have a gun! 

Saturday Night Birthday in Helotes

Elena made a two-tiered chocolate cake and Nathan made brownies.  The horses were out when I arrived,  so Elena ran to open the gate while Nathan stayed inside so he could greet me as the Mexican cowboy he's going to be for Halloween--just waiting for the mustache and shirt like Papa's to make his costume complete. 

Elena is going to be a giant squid.

Dinner on the porch at sunset, cake and brownies for dessert, lots of show and tell, a beautiful present from Filandia, Columbia, a colorful woven vest--it was a very happy birthday celebration! 

Elena's newest venture is making and selling earrings for a recent Market Days. (I bought four pair.) Nathan is raising a new pig, competing with his band on Saturday, and making all A's in high school.  

Thank you to my precious Texas Family for royally celebrating my 74th birthday!

Birthday Party #2

Last night Lorraine and Jan and I went to Pharm Table for dinner--a wonderful place to sit outside and enjoy healthy delicious food!  Then we came back here to continue the conversations in the casita.  

Here you can see the adorable Carma and her cute human a sari skirt, Jan. (Lorraine was reluctant to have her picture taken at the moment I was snapping my iPhone camera--but she was equally adorable!)

Lorraine asked one of the best possible questions,  "What are you  both doing to feed your creative spirits?"

Jan's been teaching herself watercolor--making impressive strides and beautiful fruits and vegetables on the page.  Also doing gel prints on fabrics and t-shirts--two of which I now own and love wearing. 

Lorraine is acting in plays and we both think she's a natural.  We ask her for monologues every time and we're in awe of her ability to switch voices and gestures and become somebody else. 

I showed them my baby armature for spirit boxes I made yesterday.  So far the two I've made are only gel-prints wrapped around the basic shapes, but it's a start. 

Now Lorraine's considering asking Janet if she can find a dog for her: "A cross between Luci and Carma." 

Birthday party #1

A big thanks to Kate and Charlotte and Janet for a wonderful birthday celebration at Kate's today.  Kate made butterbeans and cornbread and Charlotte made chocolate cake and we had loops and spirals of conversations.  Three beautiful women sang to me and had the generosity to make me have to blow out only one candle! 

Courage

Two friends in their seventies are doing something brave.  One is in the process of having her beautiful Indiana house unpacked for moving, leaving behind much that will not fit into her San Antonio condo.  It must be incredibly stressful to make the choices, what to do take, what to sell or give away!  After it's all done, she will be driving here alone, except for her cat. 

Another friend moved to The Netherlands in September. Barbel sold all her furniture, home decor and collections before she left Albuquerque, taking only the basics (clothes and art supplies) to live with the man she loves.  She doesn't  speak the language--yet--but I predict she will learn it soon.  When she moved to America from Germany as a young woman, she didn't know English--but she's very proficient in language and adventuring.   She came to Texas with no friends or family; she left with a huge circle of friends in San Antonio, Alpine, and Albuquerque! 

And I thought a cross-country trip with a tiny dog, hurting feet and a heavy heart was stressful!  

Woo-Hoo, Nellie!

Nellie is a professional artist and retired art professor.  She was the one who first inspired me to do collage and I'm always intrigued by her work.

We both love the work and classes of Lyn Belisle.  Since Lyn lives in San Antonio, I've been lucky enough to take two of her in-person classes.  But her online classes are equally wonderful.  She's generous and precise in her instructions and even a novice like me can can follow along and make good stuff.

Before I left on my trip, both Nellie and I signed up for Lyn's class, The Secrets of Spirit Boxes.  This is a photo of a Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine featuring her work and an article she wrote about spirit boxes.  

While I've only gotten through the first three lessons, Nellie has made several--and she gave me permission to post these photos:

As you can see, she's made clay faces and adorned her pieces with sticks and clay and handmade papers.  

Here is a close up of one of them--spectacular!

The "secret" in the title refers to the fact that each doll is backed with an altered Altoids box to hold secrets messages or gifts or whatever.

I'm inspired by Nellie's dolls.  As soon as I get properly unpacked and wash the car and the dog, I am going to get started.  

Some highlights of the last two weeks

Carlene turned 97, August 24th.
Part of this trip was intended as a belated birthday party

 

Nellie (who so generously offered to fly to Atlanta and drive me home after the accident)
 sent this picture of us taken in Lawrenceville
more than 20 years ago. We both look exactly the same today,
of course!
In this Christmas picture we were re-uniting after many years--since our1966
graduation from high school.  

Luci and I sitting on the Harris Greenway Trailhead monument at Tribble Mill Park--
a new addition since I was there last. Named after my daddy, Lloyd Harris would absolutely love this
park and seeing so many walkers, runners and dogs enjoying it!  
I can't think of a better legacy for a man who loved the beautiful outdoors. 

Carlene is in love with Luci-
and I think it's a mutual admiration thing.

Luci in Rose's lap (Rose my niece), then my nephew Micah, and Nana
At our pizza lunch in Ellijay

3309 miles from doorstep to doorstep--with some meandering miles while there--and we are now home.  I don't care to see the inside of a car for at least a week!  

Driving to Texas on Day's birthday

This is the last night of my last solo road trip for a very long time. We finally found a pet-friendly room in Palestine, Texas with 230 miles to go tomorrow.  I could have found one sooner if I'd stayed on Interstate 20, but I was determined to get away from the steady stream of 18-wheelers, the sun in my eyes. 

An accident a couple of weeks ago changed the trajectory of the visit. Almost all  plans were upended dealing with the after-effects.  It was hard to leave, but it's time to get back home.  I plan to spend a week recovering.

Luci and I stopped at the cemetery where my daddy was buried twenty years ago. He's So Everywhere for me, but he's not there.  Even so....

Then Will called to wish me a happy birthday.  I was sad about leaving Carlene.  I was sad about the trip going on an unexpected series of tangents.  

Will said, "Being on the road will help, Mama.  It always does."

At our first stop in Alabama yesterday, I heard a conversation that tapped into my sadness.  A customer in a hoodie said to a clerk,  "I tell you one thing I'm proud of.  I raised a good man.  When I see him in the morning, I think 'I just put you to bed a baby and you woke up a man.  I didn't get a chance to say good-bye to my baby.'"

I walked to the car and she followed me out.  She was a small Black woman in her forties.  "Oh, Mama, you so pretty!" she said to me.  Me--tousled and puffy-eyed and sloppily dressed! 

I thanked her for an uplifting compliment on my birthday and  told her I had overheard her story about her son and was moved by it. 

"Your birthday?" she said, leaning in to the car.  "Can I hug you?"

So there we were in a parking lot, a young trucker hugging the haggard 74 year old with miles to go before she sleeps.  

She warned me about driving.  "They is a lot of crazy people on the road.  If you see someone acting crazy, just hold back.  Get home safe."

That cheered me for quite a few miles!

Claire and Xander's wedding in Georgia

Betty--my dear friend since kindergarten--gave Claire the most beautiful wedding!  I will post more pictures as soon as I get my iCloud settings adjusted, but here they are on the day of their rehearsal.

They are clearly in love--Claire the spirited outgoing and bossy bride (I love her!) and Xander, shy and smart and good!  

There are many stories to tell about the perfect wedding--after threats of having to change the venue due to the storm--but I'll keep this midnight post short for now and add on later.

They were married at the farm of their uncles, Deron and David, and Deron was the officiant.  The farm is lusciously landscaped by David.  

Their first dance as a married couple was, 'Will you still love me when I'm sixty four,' and I'm sure he will and she will.  Their love for each other was the brightest light of the day! 

Mississippi and Alabama

It's been a wonderful day! We backtracked from Biloxi to Pass Christian and then back again and to Ocean Springs. All these towns are pet friendly, and Luci is a perfect traveler.  Whoever taught her to walk on a leash so well (whoever had her before me)  did a great job.  She was warmly welcomed in the few stores we went into and Maison de Lu (house of Lucy, really!) where I had soup and luscious lemon pie with raspberry sauce on top.

Then tonight she was welcomed into The Shrimp Basket here in Evergreen, delicious dinner of shrimp and catfish and slaw with steamed shrimp.  When I walked in, the hostess said, "She's a service dog, right?  Say yes."

Early this morning, we walked for an hour on the Biloxi beach, then spent another hour at the Bark Park where Luci got to romp with a dog named Max.  His owner was a young man, about forty, who's already had two heart attacks.  "I'm also bipolar," he said.  "And so is Max.  It's good for us both to hang out with you two, helping us learn to socialize." 

There's a wonderful bakery/book store overlooking the beach in Pass Christian.

For the hour it took us to drive to Ocean Springs, I listened to a delightful program on Mississippi Public Broadcasting by a man who calls himself The Gestalt Gardener.  

http://gestaltgardener.mpbonline.org

Sunrise in Biloxi

Mississippi Gulf Coast Travelogue

I. Biloxi Thursday Night

This is such a beautiful stretch of the South, Highway 90 right along the coast line, a short dip down from Interstate 10.  Ever since my 1967 trip to San Antonio, it's been the highlight of the southern route between Georgia and Texas. (I will take the northern route back, the one that includes The Natchez Trace.)

Like everywhere else in my married days, however, we didn't stop; we just looked from the car.  We didn't walk on the beach or explore, we did what Will called his dad's "Operation Haul-Ass" style of travel: drive the whole 1100 in 24 hours, maybe grab a motel if there was a game on he wanted to watch.  (It doesn't take years of therapy to explain why I later chose Traveling Solo--or traveling with fun, compatible traveling companions.) 

I have loved Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, for the past 25 years when I first went there with Minnesota Bob.  He took his time, bought great food, went to local museums, always on the lookout for learning about the history and culture of places we visited. (Unlike me, Bob did great pre-travel planning and discovered Breaux Bridge.) 

I took Kate and Carlene there, separate trips, and Kate danced Saturday morning zydeco.  Mike and I had hummingbird cake in a bakery where the banjo players jammed and danced at a big Cajun food restaurant--then wended our way down the coast and visited Mandeville and Covington.  Betty and I didn't go as far west as Breaux Bridge on her 70th birthday trip, but we sat  in a little gazebo on the Mandeville edge of the lake, across the causeway to New Orleans.  

To revisit all kinds of personal history, I always feel compelled to stop in all these places on solo travels. 

2. Present Day

Breaux Bridge seemed changed, the bakery and art gallery gone, the antique store still welcoming but less intriguing than before. 

After the storms, Mandeville and Covington were forever changed from sleepy little towns to traffic filled cities with high-rise hotels, malls, and chain stores. Thousands of displaced people relocated to these towns after the hurricanes. 

The coast itself has been modernized with walkways and steep concrete steps, but the sight of the beach, walkers, gulls and kites always makes me happy.  The countless grand houses flattened by  the storms have been rebuilt or replaced.  Bay St. Louis to Ocean Springs is still a beautiful drive. I didn't discover Ocean Springs until a couple of trips ago, a charming town just east of Biloxi where I'm staying tonight. 

It's extremely difficult--I discovered yesterday--to get down the steep steps onto the beach.  I did find handrails at one spot in Gulfport, so Luci and I walked to the water's edge and back.  This is the only photo of that venture:

3. Traveling with A Dog

Beaumont to Baton Rouge was tricky.  Dogs are not allowed within 300 feet of the Visitor Center restrooms and it's too hot to leave a dog in the car.  The only way to make that equation work is to have a human traveling companion  to hold on to the dog while you go inside the bathroom. 

A woman outside the Mississippi Welcome Center said, "Oh, you have your baby too!  My husband has mine!"

At first, I was a little envious.  She had a sweet, jolly, helpful husband, someone to walk around with her dog!  

In a few minutes, however, I saw said husband.  A paunchy grumpy-looking man held the dog's leash and stood staring into the distance.  He was wearing a red Trump cap.

My envy evaporated. The slight snags in my day suddenly diminished imagining a day in that particular truck, leash holding notwithstanding. 

4. A Good Ending

I'm spoiled by San Antonio.  Luci is welcome almost anywhere I go except indoor restaurants.  We have enjoyed water-bowl-provided meals together on patios.  The clerks in our favorite stores call out her name when we walk in!  So I was surprised when I had phone trouble yesterday that the AT&T store (in spite of my being stranded for a while without a working phone) wouldn't allow Luci to come inside.  

San Antonio is, I now see,  extraordinarily pet friendly.

Last night I was having second thoughts about traveling with a dog.  I was tired and hungry after eating only fast food and snacks.  I took a chance.  I asked the manager of a Waffle House on the beach if he would let Luci come inside.

"Of course! She's a support dog, right?" --wink wink.

"That she is tonight," I said. 

When I left, he said, "Just walk in like you own the place and nobody will say anything.  Just say she's a  support dog.  Go to Ocean Springs tomorrow.  They love dogs there!"

That Waffle House meal--and their hospitality--made it the best meal I'm likely to have on this road trip!  

Luci--the best-behaved dog ever--sat quietly at my feet while I scarfed eggs and grits and waffles. 

My hopes returned--for a good Day Three, a stop in Ocean Springs.  I will not let one challenging day make me forget: "All dogs are support dogs; some just free-lance."  

This chalked sign on a neighborhood sidewalk where I walked Luci (Beaumont yesterday morning)--was one of the hidden treasures of the trip so far and coincided with some more--but those stories would take two or three more pages!)