there are days i know my poppo is in the wind. i can feel him there. somehow he lets me know. it was six years ago today that he left this earth and, before he said goodbye, i made him promise to hang around. i told him i had no idea how i was going to adjust the timing on the ’71 bug without him, i wouldn’t be able to call him on the phone to ask him how to rube-goldberg a fix on something, i would be missing his “hi brat!”
with him in the wind and my sweet momma and my big brother and all the others who i miss, i have help from guardians. with everyone who is by my side on this beautiful planet, close or far away, i have help from champions. we each do.
we face into the wind, challenged by change and our ever-fluid lives. we put on our invisible capes, take a deep breath, hold onto each other. together we are superheroes.
we look at the news app often these days. it’s kind of like we don’t want to miss anything. so much seems to teeter on the edge it makes us feel we need to stay apprised. the news is scattered all over: places in the world suffering, places in the world ravaged by war, places in the world devastated by natural causes, places in the world with people who do not have good intentions and countries divided by selfish, self-righteous motives.
david’s painting EARTH INTERRUPTED VI: NEWS.WORTHY. makes me feel like i am looking at the earth with the earth (the blue of sea, the green of land) in the background, a kind of three-dimensional surreal view of our mother planet.
i chose this morsel SCATTERED NEWS because the play between the blackness and the newsprint intrigued me. it reminded me that, despite the news app and the paper and the reports on tv, we are only hearing bits of news. there is so much more happening each and every day that doesn’t make it to us, that we don’t know. there is so much more impacting people all over our world. the thing is, we are all in this world together. like the pastor (bishop michael curry) who preached for the royal wedding said just a few days ago, imagine how the world would be if love were the way: “when love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.” we may be scattered, but people are people. we all breathe in and out the same way. and we could all stand to remember that.
ah. “a sanctuary.” so if we step outside the world and look back, perhaps the scattered bits of news would all be stories of “a new world”.
i have literally sat across the restaurant table (or the kitchen table or the living room or or or) from him, on date night or any other night or morning or day, staring at his face, thinking, “geeeeeeez. you are DEFINITELY an acquired taste!” but then, a few moments (ok, or longer) go by and love swirls around me and i like him again.
i KNOW you have been there…whether on a date or with your significant other…the times you think “whattheheck??!!??” thank goodness that is balanced out with “you are totally my type!!!” or there would be NO relationships in the world.
i’m guessing he thinks that about me too (but only RARELY. lol.)
the moment i saw this trailmarker it made me laugh. i was feeling exactlyyy this way, so this lightened my mood. (yes, yes, i understand that the marker made sense, but if you flatten it out (as opposed to three-dimensional) it is admittedly funny and a little confusing.)
middle age (ohmygosh, yes, middle age) seems like a time of arrows every which way. where we’ve been, where we are, where we are going…these questions are all different now…different from the striding times even a decade ago. time is starting to mean something else; i recognize the scarcity of time-limitlessness.
i lost one of my very best friends from elementary school, junior high and high school last week. kenny was brilliant and funny and courageous and a really good person. together with his twin richard and i, we were often thought of as “triplets” in school, mostly because we were all platinum blond kids growing up. i haven’t seen kenny for many years. the last time i can remember was having coffee with him at the atlanta airport; he was an airline captain and based there so we met when i flew through with a tad bit of a layover. he was thrilled to catch me up about his beautiful wife and son and he joked about how long it took him to find her. even though i saw him rarely, there was something about knowing he was in the world that was comforting…a piece of my long-ago-past that i could still talk to or text with, maybe see from time to time, who knew me when i was little, when i was a preteen, when i was a teenager, when i loved calculus. i tried to explain this to d…when certain people who connect me way back to my roots are no longer present on this earth, it is as if i can feel the earth tilt on its axis; it wobbles. and nothing will ever be the same. i can’t get to ken’s service, but i hope to carry with me – always – a piece of kenny and our growing-up history. i hope to honor him somehow.
and the next time i wonder “which way” in angst, i hope to stand still, right where i am. time is not unlimited. i don’t want to waste it.
dogdog doesn’t like the rain much. he pretty much avoids the puddles in the backyard…that is, until one neighbor or the other lets their dogs out. then? then he doesn’t care; all inhibitions are off and he runs like a maniac, his long aussie hair first flying, then clumping and muddy, joy joy joy on his face.
that’s probably a good lesson for all of us…inhibitions off and joy joy joy. despite the messy puddles and the bad hair day. my sweet momma used to sign off her letters with “enjoy, enjoy!” yes. enjoy, enjoy.
i have a lot of conversations with God. they aren’t really formal; instead we just chat. well, i chat. or implore. or express gratitude. or cry. or ask questions. sometimes my head is bowed and my hands are folded, but other times i am driving or playing the piano or walking or eyes-wide-open. for me, prayer is not just that thing i do at church or before a meal or at night before i go to sleep. it’s just an anytime, everyday way of being, with this magnificent higher power watching over the universe.
anne lamott’s book Help, Thanks, Wow is a gorgeous primer for anyone wondering how to pray, a beautiful reinforcement of the internal power of prayer, an outline of simple spiritual praying. i have read it many times, nodding my head and struggling to always remember, remember, remember the important stuff.
this painting PRAYER reminds me of the quiet, the steady rock, the essentiality of praying.
mama dear (my grandmother) used to sew with her lips pursed, straight pins held between them for quick access. as a little kid, i thought that you had to spit on pins in order to sew; as i grew up i realized that this was a falsehood (i’m sure you are thinking, “wow. what an enlightenment!”)
mama dear was the person who taught me how to sew. with an old-fashioned singer, a red pincushion, a blue sewing box and good sewing scissors, she set me on a course of many projects through my life…outfits in the 70s, curtains and shutter screens for the nursery, jumpers that matched The Girl’s when she was little in the 90s, pillows and stuffed animals, mending jobs, craft projects. my sewing machine is set up again, adjacent to d’s studio where he says he likes to hear me talk to myself or hum as i sew, and i love spending time at my machine, dreaming up things to make.
one thing i am proud of these days – that hanging around me (sewing or doing whatever i am doing) david has picked up some of the vernacular that comes out of my mouth….like “oopsies!!!”
if my sweet momma couldn’t find me in the house, she knew to go outside, round the house to the maple tree just beyond my growing-up-window and look up. there i would be, sitting in a crook, notebook and pencil in hand. it was a place of inspiration for me, a perch for penning thoughts, reflections, poems, stories, lyrics.
i think we all have one…a poetry tree. it may be the kitchen table, an adirondack chair on a porch, a blanket on the beach, a desk tucked away in a quiet spot of the house. or a time that gives us more room to think; for me, it can be walking, blowing my hair dry or those moments that brilliant (or not-so-brilliant) ideas strike in the shower. we have a spot that helps us think, sort, dream, create, rest. a spot that fills us with creative juju. mine was a tree, just like chicken’s.
several people lately have asked us what we meant by “products”…the “products” we were designing to go along with our blog post images. many of you may have noticed these product bars on our blogs each day. we understand that not everyone has seen these or understood our intent. we have been seeking the easiest way to present these products as options and so we listen to each suggestion we get.
there is sure a lot of fodder in our studios: paintings, music, cartoons, graphic images, photographs, writings…a melange of our work. it’s fun (and necessary) for us to turn all of this into a line of things that are purchase-able: wall art, tote bags, mugs, leggings, throw pillows, home accessories. i love the design work and have learned so much in the process!
we thank each of you who have taken a look at the sites where these are available (we have five storefronts on society6.com.) we have been told and have seen firsthand that our designed products that society6.com ship are of good quality and they stand behind them if you are not pleased. if you have any questions, please let us know. we appreciate you so much.
this week’s product line links are right below. the link brings you to one of the products in that line on society6.com. if you scroll down the page a little, it will say “also available as” so you can see the image in its varying iterations.
we walked The Girl to kindergarten. it was spring and sunny and warm. dandelions were everywhere. on the way home, The Boy dropped my hand to toddler-zigzag around a yard where dandelions > grass by far (kind of like ours.) he bent down and picked yellow flower upon yellow flower. until he came running back to me. he held up his sweaty-dirty-little-boy fist, full of bright yellow and green dandelions and said, “woses for momma.”
david’s painting EARTH INTERRUPTED VI: NEWS.WORTHY.
reverse threading 