we are incessant trail-watchers. even after a fascinating show seeking life-in-some-form in some other part of the universe, we took to the trail. with our mind’s eyes full of scientific wonder, we hiked along the pct with the wanderwomen and headingsomewhere and followed redbeard and checked to see if joey coconato posted anything new. on our hike yesterday, somewhere in the middle of our six miles, we talked – again – about hiking the pct. we figure in a few years it might be something we would truly consider.
the pct has plenty of obstacles; many people start this hike but fail to finish it. we read a blogpost (by mac) about some of the challenges. but, the bottom line, as he pointed out, was that “the unknown should instill you with excitement, not fear.”
this week is a time to acknowledge gratitude. with thanksgiving merely a few days away, preparations are a gathering storm. and, though there is a specific day that has been deemed ‘the day’, yesterday as we walked together we talked about our gratitude. we are reminded that there is nary a day that goes by that one shouldn’t be grateful.
yesterday i suddenly realized that i was also actually grateful for the unknown.
the blank slate that is in front of me stares at me. it makes me ponder. it makes me squirm a bit. blank is uncomfortable.
the blank slate that is in front of me beckons me. it makes me step. it makes me put a toe in the water. blank is tentative.
the blank slate that is in front of me challenges me. it makes me yearn. it makes me stretch. blank is exercise.
the blank slate that is in front of me encourages me. it makes me think outside the box. it makes me dream. blank is generous.
the blank slate that is in front of me urges me. it makes me yield to the new. it makes me let go. blank is learning.
the one thing – now – at last – that the blank slate that is in front of me doesn’t do…is scare me.
i started a business when i was young. nothing cost more than about a dollar but i was a zealous salesperson. i pulled a red wagon around my neighborhood, going door to door – in the days when that was actually safe – and sold cactus. my sweet momma had prolific succulents and would pot tiny offshoots and volunteers into cups or chipped mugs or little clay pots, turning them over to me to sell. it’s amazing how many people would buy a 25 cent baby cactus from an eight year old at the door. i was thrilled counting my earnings at the end of the day and would impatiently wait for the next proliferation of cactus pups.
after a while and some market research, i decided to add candles to my stock. i purchased wax and three-dimensional plastic molds, tape and had a perfect little finnish knife to trim the wax after taking it out of the mold. i never lit any of those candles. they seemed more like decorations and less like candles-to-burn. funny to think about not-thinking-about-lighting-them and i wonder how many of the candles i happily sold on the streets of my growing-up were ever burned. though i’d love to revisit that project now, for fun and maybe to actually try the candle as a candle, my supplies are stuck somewhere – since 1979 – in the somewhat-finished attic room closet of a methodist church on long island, where i had helped with a youth group and taught them how to make candles.
i wonder now about what someone will think when they stumble upon all of that – my dad’s old hard plastic luggage case with molds and wax. i wonder if they will laugh thinking about the simplicity of it. after all, for my tiny business all i really did was melt the wax in a double boiler, choose a color dye, place the wick, tape and set up the molds, pour the wax into the molds and wait. once they were set, i trimmed along the seam line to create a seamless looking alligator or snail or mushroom or a variety of other marketable shapes of candles i can’t recall. i simply changed the form of wax.
i suppose it’s all like that. changing the form. the notes float and the composer grabs them out of the atmosphere, placing them together into a piece of music, changing the form of their ethereal bobbing-around-out-there. color bursts around us, nature offering us every iota of choice, and the painter gently retrieves them and places them together on the canvas, translating the iron oxide red of delicate arches into a vibrant sunrise or the flower of a still-life. the butterfly on the wing dances and the ballerina’s steps mimic the form, an expression of freedom and joy. words and expressions whirl around and turns of phrases hide inside dictionaries and the writer plucks and chooses, creating poetry and story from the raw.
my sweet momma and poppo discovered ikea in their 80s. they were intense fans. from time to time i would get big ups packages from them – ikea runs – with new wooden spoons or lanterns or cork trivets or tealights or whatever was their latest discovery there. and so i became a tealight fan. we burn them often. to light the table on our deck, to light our pop-up, inside all around the house, to honor someone with a flickering flame all day, safely burning on the stove. i guess that these are a lot easier to make than alligators or snails. and i know that they are obviously a lot easier to light and actually burn.
i still have a round yellow happy face candle i received years ago. i haven’t burned it. something about not messing with its form, i guess. why do we have candles we aren’t going to burn?
today, i think i might take out that round happy face candle. maybe i will put it on the stove, in a safe-to-burn-all-day spot. maybe it will infuse inspiring form-changing into the air around me. there’s much to purge from more recent times and much to welcome in next days. it’s worth a try.
the tomato plants are coming to an end. the temperatures are dipping at night and, three times now, we have covered them in plastic to keep them warm, encouraging them a few more days, a few more days.
i’ve read up on what to do with all those green cherry tomatoes. i know the time is near. i’ll put them all in a brown bag with a banana, hoping that the ethylene gas released by the banana will aid in the ripening of those tiny green orbs. i’m not anxious to pull the plants out of the pots and clear the potting stand. it all feels like it went by fast. but there is no doubt that fall is here. the sun isn’t bathing the barnwood stand in light anymore and there are not happy red tomatoes beckoning picking each day.
regardless, our tiniest of farms was a grand success and we are looking forward to having a repeat season next summer, maybe with a few additions besides the tomatoes and basil and a little more wisdom.
the thing we guess for sure that helped was the nurturing. every morning we greeted those sweet plants, watering gently and snipping off stems of browned leaves. we watched carefully as they grew, adding support for the branches, checking for disease, trying to provide the most positive environment for their growth. since we are not tomato or basil plants ourselves, clearly, we intrinsically knew that most of the work would be done by these tiny living things, most of the wisdom would come from them and we would follow their lead, researching to aid them and not deter them, to encourage them and not quash them, to provide all the essentials for them and not undermine them with anything toxic, to extol goodness on them and not to be aloof or reckless.
it occurs to me that these are likely ingredients for any successful growth. in a garden, in a family, in a community, in an organization or business. it’s too often nurturing goes by the wayside. i think of all the fine meals nurturing these little tomatoes and basils provided. i think of all the bursting-with-possibility families provide each other. i think of the fantastic synergy of a community based on wholeheartedly and without prejudice nurturing each other. and i think of all the collaborative, congenial camaraderie, the good work done by an organization actually based on truth, transparency, nurture and goodness.
“when she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. they wanted her to change back into what she always had been. but she had wings.” (dean jackson)
“trust the wait. embrace the uncertainty. enjoy the beauty of becoming. when nothing is certain, anything is possible.” (mandy hale)
i had an IME on tuesday. an IME is an independent medical exam. it is a brief exam ordered by an insurance company and the physician is both chosen and paid for by that insurance company. it is defined as an independent assessment of an injury or illness, in my case, my wrist, and the determination by the doctor-chosen-and-paid-for-by-the-insurance-company-paying-for-treatment will be placed next to the reports of the medical hand specialist and the occupational therapist who have been treating me consistently for the last five months. a basic review of articles about IME reveals that the insurance-company-paying-for-treatment will pick the report they wish to concur with and that will decide if there is to be future, in this case, my future, treatment. so be it.
there is nothing to do now but wait.
my OT is wonderful. she has encouraged me, pushed me, held me accountable and she has brought me from twenty degrees of forward right wrist movement to fifty-five. this is big news, since, at first, six degrees was all i could muster. brutus and my OT have caused me much pain, but what’s that saying? no pain, no gain. we have worked hard. and, in the way of hard work and healing, there are things i can do now that i wasn’t able to do a few months ago. and there are things i fear i will never be able to do again. uncertainty.
there is nothing to do but wait.
sometimes i wonder what life will look like in a year or two years. i wonder what i will be doing. if i looked back a year i would never have guessed back then what this year would have looked like. no, last july looked very different than right now. it just suggests that truly everything is uncertain, that everything is in the act of becoming, in the middle of the fire, maybe everything is ashes transitioning to riches over and over again. possibility, evidenced in tomato plants bearing fruit on an old barnwood potting stand, evidenced in a nest-home created in a birdhouse hanging empty for years, evidenced in the smell of the rain bringing cool on a summer morning.
there are times, when you are simply going about your business, going about life, that you don’t expect change. you don’t expect to be thrust into ‘different’. times when you find out the caterpillars were talking about you all along. after reeling from the surprise, after trying to grab the wheel to stabilize, after railing about the unfairness of it all – for life does not seem to be fair, you find yourself out of the deep, dark water – in the shallows.
and in the shallows there is abundant life, abundant food, abundant shelter. in the shallows we can rest and nourish and breathe. we can sit in uncertainty and the unknown. we can imagine new. because anything IS possible.
there is nothing to wait for and everything to wait for. it’s now.
peter max, a pop-art-expressionist, popped into my mind when david showed me this sketch. add bursts of color to this and it’s the happy full-spectrum pieces of the 60s and 70s, full of rainbow and light.
one of the presents i received for my birthday this year was a coloring book and colored pencils. at the time i was unable to use it, but i put it aside for when my broken right wrist might cooperate and i might be able to lose myself in good-old-fashioned coloring.
i dropped david’s sketch into photoshop and started to peter-max it.
the more i worked on it, the happier i became. it was so messy. but it was just so – fun.
color – this infinitely wide range of possibility – fills the lines, goes out of the lines, overlaps and bleeds into the next, reminds me that life, even in these very times, times of chaos and unrest and pandemic and exponential worry, is not just black and white. and, surprisingly, not just the blurry grey in-between.
life is much more peter max than that. messier. more color.
which brings me to this: while it is easy, particularly right now, to sort to grey, perhaps an answer to the myriad of questions is to open the delicious tin of 50 premium artist pencils. and just color.
yes. as dear jeff used to say, “that’s the ticket!”
early on…just a little bit of color…and infinite peter-max possibilities
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i don’t subscribe to ‘inspirational daily’ but somehow this showed up in my email feed on thursday, a particularly good day to read the wise words of eleanor roosevelt. an activist, the first lady regularly published her musings and views. her accomplishments as a diplomat were far-reaching; her life story difficult and profoundly inspiring. and she was wise. her words remind me of sue bender’s words (from ‘plain and simple journal‘) “to reconcile our seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is our constant challenge.”
what would either of these wise women say about our current climate, i wonder?
would eleanor roosevelt pine for the fine-tuned, thoughtful, intelligent discussions of her lifetime? would she abhor the fact-less, jarringly aggressive re-telling of stories, of narrative, all-dressed-up and skewed to one side? would she shudder to hear of attempts to decimate human rights, to place limits, to undermine? i can’t imagine that she would consider the display of indecency, of avenging and putrid name-calling ‘great-mindedness’. i fear she would, instead, point a wagging finger at the players and implore them to be wide awake, to be thinking, to be discussing idea and possibility and wholeheartedly move forward with conscience.
i wonder, does sue bender, in her middle 80s now, feel a sense of deep disappointment in a society that does not attempt to reconcile seeming opposites, does not see them as both, does not cross the aisle but instead builds walls of hateful rhetoric, looks for the worst in each other, advances the ugly? what would her kind soul say about the divisiveness, poisoning all in its rampant siege, a pandemic reaching unsuspecting venues, its toxic arrows out of the quiver and readied. how would she parse out the arguments, the lack of concern for the victimized, the harassment of those on the other side than the leadership?
goodness knows, i suspect both of these amazing women, living in different generations, would be saddened by this climate. they might weep in absolute dismay. or, they might just whisper into the wind, to whomever might listen, “great minds discuss ideas. average minds discuss events. small minds discuss people.”
“one minute you’re a snowflake with possibilities and the next you’re wearing a scarf and goofy hat.” that sounds like a statement of judgement. a measurement of sorts. and i suppose it is. possibilities of profound impact on the world, on science or art, in music or film, medicine or education. we measure ourselves in this society by our success; our merit based on what we reap financially, what we individually or collaboratively have contributed to the furthering of humankind, this good earth, the animal kingdom, worlds unknown.
but pay attention to the next snowman you see. does his sweet nose make you smile? does his crooked grin make you stop? does his hat make you think of your dad, your brother, your best friend? does the snowman make you happy – and do you carry that happiness with you after you pass him by? of what value is that?
never underestimate the power of who you are. your impact on the world will spread in concentric circles rippling outward. whether nobel-prize-worthy or under-the-refrigerator-magnet-fame, your scarf-and-goofy-hat-ness counts. your kindness is contagious. your good intentions affect the one closest and, in turn, and with a sureness of the way things truly do work in this world despite all efforts for the opposite, they will land in the heart of someone you may never meet but who will have been impacted by you, from way back in the middle of the concentric circles. right in the possibility-filled-snowflake-heart of the snowman.
we are living the contrast principle. the elementary-school-workbook-page-which-one-doesn’t-fit principle. that can actually serve you well or it can be the bane of your existence. i’ll allow you to decide which one you think it is for us.
we are not from here. we do not have roots that go back a generation, two or three generations, seven generations. we weren’t born here, nor have we been coming here for decades on vacation. this is a new place for us. we chose to come here. and we came here out of great and positive intention.
when i first saw the ad for the position we ultimately accepted, we got excited and were instantly full of ideas and possibility. with our backgrounds, our education, our professional experiences, it seemed a perfect fit. with our artistry, our passion, our zeal, our energy, our ability to facilitate positive change, it seemed a perfect fit. but that assumes a “fit” and it assumes trust and it assumes the best of the contrast principle.
we work to create relationship, to mend the crevasse between arts organizations and between groups of people, to structure and build community and let the arts rise. we brainstorm and read and study – new initiatives, data of the past, stories of success and stories of failure. we strive to re-commit each day, choosing to step past the rifts, past the dysfunction, past the you-don’t-belong-here-ness of it all.
because we did choose it. we chose to be the daisy in the field of black-eyed-susans. we chose to be the new in the old. we chose the contrast principle. it would just be nice for it to be a tad bit easier.
it is monday morning and i suddenly realized that this blogpost posted without my finishing it. there is so much i wanted to say, too much. my heart breaks, thinking of this world you are inheriting. and my heart soars with wishes for you. both of these.
and so, rather than speaking of vast and chaotic brokenness as well as hopeful and inspired possibility, i’ll take it as a serendipitous sign to let desiderata say it for me. this really sums it up, better than i could. it IS still a beautiful world. in the middle of glowing aspens or the front row of the ballgame. in the high mountains or on the shore of boston harbor. anywhere you are. anywhere you go. you bring it – beauty – and you are standing in it. remember that.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
i have a unique front row seat to paintings in process. running downstairs to throw in another load of laundry or seek out a tool i need, i will glance at the easel in the studio to peek at what’s up next…this time, the sketch of two people dancing made me stop. it immediately made me thinking of when we have danced in the front yard or the kitchen or out on the deck or on a mountain trail. i got lost in the tango and wandered back upstairs, no new laundry spinning in the washer or tool in my hand.
the next time i looked at the easel i found these two people emerging and color exploding off the canvas. i have learned, in this time of living with a brush-in-hand-artist, that this is the under-painting, a place that involves steps at which i often want to tell him to stop!wait!it’s perfect! sometimes he does – stop. other times he keeps going, for the vision in his mind’s eye is beyond what is on the easel and there is more to develop.
it’s a unique place in the front row. maybe more comparable to back-stage or the green room or the recording studio before “record”…a place of preparation, a place of reflection, a place of swirling beauty, a place of possibility, a place where the-painting-someone-dreams-of-hanging-on-their-wall is being born.
reverse threading 