getting there

I'm getting there.
Most gifts purchased, wrapped and under the tree. I can now see the dining room table.
A fresh wreath on the door. Tree trimmed. Candles in the candle holders. Plenty of fake logs - lame I know, but it is Arizona, and the fake ones pollute less.
Cookies and cookies and cookies.
Menus planned.
Tomorrow I will clean the bathrooms and check that the linens are fresh.
Monday Liz will be here!!!! I can't wait to see her... and this new person she is bringing along. This new person who wants to meet her family (just the teeniest bit stressful).

This old year is slip sliding away and though I want to savor every moment of this next week when I have my daughter here, I am so looking forward to the clean slate of a new year and a new beginning.

my day

Today is Monday... all day... and the kids came to school with no brain. Their bodies were there, but nothing else... a perpendicular line... they had no idea what that was.... they could not remember anything about last week. what they learned, where we were with the project... I told them we would try again tomorrow. I can appreciate where they are... I am barely there as well. It was the same for all the grades... paint. glue. They could do those things.... they just could not think about it.

I pulled a boy's tooth today! My first ever. What fun... his tooth was so loose at lunch he was having trouble eating and the gal I do lunch duty with asked me if we should send him to the nurse... I scoffed... it is a tooth, I said. I will pull it out if he needs it... I went over to him and offered to pull his tooth and he clamped his hand over his mouth and gave me this big-eyed no! No, he wanted nothing to do with me pulling his tooth... but later, out on the field he came to me and asked if I would pull it. Sure, I said. .. and he opened his mouth (turn your head Kathy, no I did not have on latex gloves, I had not washed my hands with sanitizer... ) and I put two fingers on the tooth and out it came.... was the thing connected at all??? His eyes got huge, he stuck his finger in his mouth and felt the spot where the tooth had been. I put the tooth in his jacket pocket (it zipped) and later saw him with his tooth out, showing a girl, with the biggest grin on his face. Pretty exciting for both of us, really.

My mom is in the hospital. She fell and cut her head and needed stitches, (her head is wrapped up like Marley's Ghost)... but because of her age and how fragile she is, they kept her. I went to see her and aside from the fact that she complained about the hospital food as she ate nearly every bite and asked the same questions over and over, she seemed pretty good. My dad thought he would be able to bring her home today... now he thinks it will be tomorrow. Borrowed time. That's what they are living on. All I can do is love her, love them both.

After I went to the hospital I came home and ate a light dinner and then went to the gym to walk the tread mill and take the palates class... I feel like an awkward cow in that class, but the music and the instructor are fabulous... so I will stick it out until I improve.

number three

Pete's 3rd birthday and we are at the fire department. The whole force turned out for him and the kids and parents who attended. It was really great, even I learned a thing or two about what a fireman does.
like the foam they mix into the water is often just detergent.... the detergent acts to smother the flames... even the water coming from this hose was laced with this foaming stuff.

W gets his shot at manning the hose. They saw the ladder go up on the fire engine, watched the helicopter take off and land, saw where the fireman lived and had about a hundred questions answered... The guys at the fire department were great.

They even had a few minutes to play around the water before they were herded off to see something else.

Even Mom was given a turn to have some fun as she donned the fire suit complete to helmet, mask and oxygen tank...

Star gazing

My grandmother's sugar cookie recipe. She made them every Christmas and every Easter they would reappear as chicks and lambs... they were so good.

She decorated each one individually, red icing for the Santa's, green for the Christmas trees. The stars were yellow and blue. The icing had a hint of almond and the cookies did not taste that good the first day... it was when they were three or four days old that the frosting and the cookie part finally came together. I have her recipe (I got it from my sister, since the last time I asked Gram for it she told me she had already given it to me... apparently one shot was all you get).

I only made stars this year. White icing with blue and yellow sprinkles. Kept my life a bit easier. 68 cookies in all. I had pondered taking them to the cookie exchange... but these, I think I will hang onto. Share them with family and friends in the weeks ahead.

They sat on my counter tops for hours drying before I could put them into tins, then it took several hits with a wash cloth and a scrubby to get the dried frosting off the counter.
But I find them nearly perfect. They are Christmas for some reason.

I have a week until the cookie exchange.... I'll come up with something.

mess

As I sit here, in front of my computer I can see into my kitchen. My kitchen is a mess. A couple of dirty dishes, a dishwasher full of clean waiting to be put away, a Kitchen Aide mixer sitting out waiting for the next batch of cookies, some clean towels, some not so clean, a cook book, a bag of flour... disarray.

I went to my cranial sacral person today... she moved some of the bones in my head and my headache is mostly gone and my eye-twitch is a thing of the past... if you do not have a cranial sacral person find one immediately...

I went to the dentist, too. Needed three little fillings that they managed without the need for pain killers... no numb mouth, hallelujah!

I also went to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical, an hour with my trainer, and 20 in the jacuzzi

Then easy dinner, then Private Practice, then here... no dishes done tonight...

I am a morning person. tomorrow morning the clutter will bother me, but right now I am just going to turn off the light and mosey down the hall to my bedroom and crawl into my unmade bed and read until my eyes no longer focus... not a bad plan.

faking it

I wrote and reminded my book group we meet next Monday and asked for an rsvp... but I did not mention I have completely forgotten what book we are to read or where I have put it.

I'm not too worried really. The book is short and it must be around here somewhere.

normal... for my age

On Saturday I had a cat scan... long story short, I smacked my head a couple weeks ago and the pain had not gone away and I had developed an annoying twitch on my right eyelid and the school nurse said maybe it was a hematoma and a friend of mine freaked out and said I might die and must seek medical attention immediately, and so Saturday I went to emergent care and they sent me for a cat scan and the results said my brain was "normal for my age"

Now what the hell does that mean?

For a couple years I subscribed to the magazine More, the one that says it celebrated the over forty woman... but every ad is filled with age defying makeup and hair color... all the models have flawless skin and if they are forty, fifty, or heaven forbid, MY AGE, well, then the editors and photo people have been pretty generous with the airbrushing... I didn't think they were celebrating at all. They were trying to tell us how with just a little more effort, with a few more dollars spent, we could remain 30-40 forever. I don't think it works that way.

I don't know who I am anymore... normal for my age... what is normal?

Things are happening to my body that are truly alarming... flesh, skin is accumulating in the darnedest places. I can fill in my bra with skin that I scoop from here and there... the skin around my knees is sagging and I will not even begin to talk about my stomach, which first thing in the morning, when I am standing and holding it in looks pretty much like it used to, but by evening has puddled down into this forlorn sack under my rib cage. The other day I commented that I had a brace on my knee, orthodics in my shoes, and a magnetic bracelet on my arm... I remember my friend and I doubled over laughing at the pathetic truth of the situation... but then later that day I got a call from the doctors office that I had mild carpal tunnel and should wear arm braces to bed every night.

Over a year ago, I made a break with the life I had told myself I would lead. Since then I have been floundering a bit... trying to get my sea legs, so to speak. Trying to find out who I really am. Letting my hair go gray and naturally curly. It's been like a bumper car ride, careening this way and that. Connecting to things that feel like Source, like art and spirit and grandchildren... and then bumping into that other thing... what is it... I don't have a word for it, but you know what I mean... that thing that makes you feel unsuccessful, unloved, and old.

So that's why the words normal for her age struck me so hard... that is what I'd like to be, just normal for my age, but I don't know what that is anymore... there doesn't seem to be a model for it out there. I am really tired of chasing the brass ring of youth but not yet ready for the old folks home either. There is an in-between time, isn't there? Just a few years of grace when you are certain about what you needn't do anymore. Those few years when your voice is strong and so is your resolve. That time when you are finally wise and powerful and beautiful... but in a classical sense, like an old Victorian home that has been well maintained or a tree or a smooth stone...

Normal for my age. People my age cry for no reason at all, they like comfortable clothes, and cannot tolerate bullshit or wasted energy. People my age have some wrinkles and saggy skin and knees that give them fits. People my age live with a little pain and learn how to ignore it. People my age like a glass of wine, Meet the Press, and other people who can remember the words to Hey Paul, Hey Paula and Soldier Boy. People my age appreciate quiet and beauty and a little sarcasm. People my age know how to suit themselves and sometimes do so at the expense of someone else's comfort.... or at least that's what I think.

Maybe it has nothing to do with age. Maybe it just has to do with me. What do you think?

my day

It's Thanksgiving day and I have a turkey breast in the oven complete w/ stuffing and a pecan pie. My dad and mom will come by later and bring potatoes, cranberry sauce and "the green jello"... it will only be the three of us, but that's okay... I think I'll stick a log in the fireplace, it rained today, excuse enough to build a fire in Arizona...

I'm turtle sitting! And here he is, Lucky, the African turtle. My car pool buddy raises them. She has two really large ones that live outside, but they gang up on this guy so he can't get into the heated shed at night ... and she has little ones that live in an aquarium until they are big enough to not be bird food. Lucky gets moved in and out every day. At night he lives in a box in her bathtub, during the day he is out. I'm doing the same for him... look at him, isn't he a beauty?
I tried to get the glisten of the sunlight on the raindrops... it thundered here around 1 pm and dumped a bunch of rain, but in true Arizona style, the sun came out immediately after and the raindrops looked like thousands of diamonds on the leaves and buds... breathtaking!

Earlier today I took the grandsons to the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Fountain Hills. The parade wasn't quite as big as the year before... I think the rain kept some of the entrants at home... but P and W enjoyed it just the same and waved at every entry that went by, called out Happy thanksgiving, and scrambled for the candy that was thrown.

W. used to be such a sweet boy... but anymore he only wants to do these fierce faces... because he's a Ninja, you know.

Sitting on the parade route with Fountain Hills lake and palm trees in the distance... this is the time of year we are so thankful to live in the desert. (Lou, don't you wish you had had the sweats W has on? You always wanted to be a skeleton...)

Other than this, I have been thinking about status. I finally got around to establishing a trust and one of the questions was whether I was single or divorced... this always bugs me since I don't feel either... divorced sounds like such a looser status and single is a word that swings quite a bit more than I do... can't I be just unmarried but open to all of life's possibilities? Or person of independent means? Or grown woman? Something that really describes my situation...

I told Bill(who won't be here for Christmas) that L was bringing new friend home and that Katie was concerned about a Christmas stocking... I mentioned I would just give the new guy his. Bill objected saying he wasn't ready to give up his Christmas sock yet... then he said the new guy could use his but that it should say "boyfriend" with the suggestion that he might be able to upgrade to a permanent sock at another Christmas gathering. Wonder what Bill's sock should say, un-boyfriend?

My parents will be here in 20 minutes... they are never late and I still need to clean off the dining room table!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I have to remember

busy day today... didn't go to work, but busy none the less, doctor appointments, dentist appointments... and while I was buzzing around enjoying not being at school I began to make a list of things that work and don't work in my life. I need to remember this...

What doesn't work:

Trying... trying definitely does not work, never has, never will... though I have spent 85% of my life trying... trying is a total waste of time and I am really going to attempt (not try) to never tell a child he/she should try harder ever again.

Rephrasing the question... never works. Believe me, if you ask a question clearly and get an answer you don't care to hear, stating it differently does no good at all. Know when to quit!

Pushing... pushing or prodding may seem to work for a while, but it will backfire. What happens, happens... you just cannot change flow because you wish to.

Controlling things... I met a lady who gave up trying to control her husband for Lent... note that she was doing two things that don't work... trying and controlling.. we know better, we all know better, but we forge on.

What does work:

Smiling... it is nearly magical... and I forget to do it all the time.

Seeing the world as perfect... one day I practiced seeing every child who walked through my classroom as Jesus... it was amazing.

Sending love... same as above

Being happy, having a heart filled with joy... it is infectious isn't it?

Hard work... hard work is not the same as trying... hard work may be hard but it doesn't carry the same stress... I have worked hard, physically, mentally, and felt this good sense of accomplishment during the entire process... trying feels completely different.

I'm ready for a world that works for me... maybe if I just remember what works and practice it, things will come around.

perfect

look at this perfect stack... balanced for the moment... serene and beautiful... oblivious to any danger.

last night I told the story of sitting in the steam room at the gym and forcing myself to see my daughters as perfect just the way they were (the teen years had been tough)... of after that practicing seeing them as perfect as often as I could... and how something changed... me or them, I was never sure... but that shift made everything better.

I've practiced this form of seeing every so often since. With my children, with the students, with people I know... but I've never practiced it on me. I've never stopped and said to myself, "you are perfect just the way you are and when you change, that will be perfect, too."

I have writer's block and artist's block and general social skills block right now and I have been struggling with it but at this moment, I think I need to switch my thinking and not just relax into it, but really see this a temporary state of still-perfection... I need to love this person with no words and no art... I need to do for myself what I would willing do for others.

Gee, I am feeling better already.

goodbye, bogey man

I am always surprised and dismayed when I run into fear... the kind of fear that polarizes some and sends others running to hide.

I've been lucky. I haven't had to experience enough fear in my life (other than mice) to have a deep fight or flight mechanism. I was never abused, battered, or put down enough to create any permanent scars. And although I can get caught up in worry - another senseless activity - I am very seldom afraid.

Most fear is shadow anyway. Not real when you give it a closer look. Most fear will flea when you turn and look at it squarely, will hide when you open your heart to embrace it... so I am left bamboozled when I encounter someone else's fear... when I encounter a fear that might have some basis in their life experience. A fear founded in some region I have never had to inhabit.

I have to let them voice it, right? I have to sit in silence as they wrestle their own demons, find their own truth. My job, I feel, is to remain present. To witness. I can't discount it. I can't rationalize it away. I can't in any way make them think I find their fear silly or unimportant, it is not. So I listen, and as I listen I realise I need to guard myself from taking on their fear, from sliding myself inside it. I have to listen, but I also have to see what they are saying for what it is. Fear, not truth.

Threats of assassination heard repeatedly sound like truth if that is all you hear. Confederate flags hung unrepentantly amongst Budweiser signs send clear messages to those attuned to that type of thing. Ignorance and hate is enough to scare the crap out of anyone.

This morning that fear still clung to me, and when I watched Meet The Press, I watched them closely to see if I could see any fear on their faces, any sense that they were waiting for the shoe to drop. There was no indication they expected anything but a new president in January... I began to feel better. It was a shadow, not a certainty.

Joy Harjo writes in I Give You Back

I release you, my beautiful and terrible
fear. I release you. You were my beloved
and hated twin, but now I don't know you
as myself. I release you with all the
pain I would know at the death of my
children.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back to the soldiers
who burned down my home, beheaded my children
raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who stole the
food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold
these scenes in front of me and I was born
with eyes that can never close.

I release you.
I release you.
I release you.
I release you.

I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved

to be loved, to be loved, fear.

O, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.
You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife.
You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice,
my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart

But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
of dying.

From She Had Some Horses... one of my favorite books of poetry.

up n' down

I've been gone for a while. Out of the country. In Switzerland and Italy. Visiting my beautiful daughter. Climbing upstairs and downstairs... the difference between Phoenix, Arizona and where I've been for the last ten days as far as I am concerned. Phoenix is flat... even the hilly parts are flat, or have been made flat... In Geneva, in Italy, nothing was flat. Stairs everywhere. Liz is four flights up. Every hike we took involved stairs. Walks through town, into and out of the hotels, all stairs. I lost four pounds from all the climbing up and down, but also did a number on my knee, so that the last four days of my stay I felt limpy and gimpy. Still it was wonderful
And I did find one flat place to sooth my feet... but I didn't get to stay there for too long.

We started at ocean level and came up, then dropped back down... then up and down a couple more times. No wonder Europeans tend to be slender... but look at the view. This rusty thing I'm standing by has handles, can you see them? A motor bike of some kind that was reused as some kind of motorized pulley system . Beautiful day and second day of our walk from one end of the Cinque Terre to the other and back again.

Villages and paths hanging onto cliffs overlooking the blue Mediterranean. Spectacular views... and being able to do it with this used-to-stairs-now daughter of mine was wonderful.

I got back to Phoenix Tuesday night. Wednesday, three times I walked out of my house to the car, got in, and went on one errand or another, got back in my car and then walked the twenty or so steps back into my house. If I'd been at Liz's I would have had to climb down four flights of stairs, walk to the store or bus stop, walk back to the apartment house, up for flights of stairs before I was in the apartment. Kind of an eye-opener for me.

I've been recovering from jet-lag and still nursing my knee, but I need to get moving. I need to build climbing up and down back into my life style... there are ways, I tell myself...

what I'm thinking about

I'm thinking about my trip and trying to look forward to putting on jeans and -gulp!- support pantyhose for the 17 hour plane ride... My sister tells me the support hose will leave me feeling energetic and with no swollen ankles when I land in Geneva... she better be right.

I'm thinking about the kids the teachers tell me are rats when they drop them at the door and they are never the ones who turn out to be rats for me... and how I wish they would never do that.

I'm thinking about the bailout and debt and this never ending campaign that leaves me on pins and needles. I'm thinking about where I will spend election night... not home this time... I want to be with other Obama supporters for this one. Where are Obama people gathering on election night?

I'm thinking about Pete who has had a fever and a rash and a little kindergartner who was stung by a scorpion that was in her hair!!!

I'm thinking about the things I don't want to forget and things I am sick of thinking about.

I'm thinking that since I took that writing workshop I have absolutely nothing to say and that I find myself boring and redundant.

I'm thinking about how much I love tempera paint and how glad I will not have to mess with it for a couple weeks.

I'm thinking I need a manicure and an eyebrow wax.

And last, I'm thinking about Fabian, who when I told them to draw a picture of their family and to include pets, drew a picture of an elephant who he told me slept with him and loved peanuts... isn't that great?

happy ending

I met Natalie and Joe this summer in water aerobics. They're in love... crazy, sweet sixteen kind of love... smile at each other silly kind of love... blind to everyone else kind of love... and I think they are about 76, 77 years old... you really feel good just being around them.

Tonight, at our end-of-season BBQ I asked Joe how they met... and he said in high school. They dated for four years in high school... but he went one way for college and she went the other and then the Korean war broke out and he was sent to Korea and when he came back things had happened and Natalie had married Hank, another guy they'd gone to high school with.

Then he and his wife attended their fiftieth high school reunion and he saw Natalie and she saw him. Within four years later both of their spouses were deceased and within months they were together. Natalie has told me she has never been happier in her life. I should tell her it is obvious...

Natalie then tells me this happens. A friend of hers had dated a guy in high school who became a Jesuit priest. She had married and divorced four times, Nat says, trying to find the right guy. A friend of his who knew her encouraged him to call her and he did. When they met they flew into each other's arms... each other was what they had been missing.

The Britcom, Time Goes By was on last night. I think I've seen every episode at least twice. When Lionel bumps into Jean, three decades have gone by. They have misfires and misunderstandings but attraction wins out in the end and in their bumbling, stiff way they end up together.

Lately I have found myself trying to just live today. Trying hard to not think, not dream and for God's sake not speculate on what I am or am not hearing... but today it has been particularly difficult.

the workshop

Spent the weekend in Sedona. Inside. It was beautiful outside, but I was inside. Inside a theater/lecture hall of the Red Mountain High school for two full days taking a workshop with Natalie Goldberg.

I learned some important rules:
use a fast pen. continue no matter what. keep your hand moving. don't be tossed away. don't cross out. be specific. write from your whole body. figure out what your obsessions are. tell the truth. lose control. read it aloud. it is not a precious something... it is just writing!

Some words I heard:
I stopped sleeping on Sundays. symbolic pools of blood. Ramon brought me back to life. they were not killers. I was a hog man. six months away from a heart attack. it's coming and it's coming today. red grass. one, two, three. is is is unraveling. dumb and slow. fuck. all the different kinds of years. my heart is as full now as my desire was full then. he didn't know he was beautiful. unballing.

Some words I wrote:
I didn't have a camera or maybe the energy to pull one out. in the midst of this somberness were light and life. whatever it is, it is not the future. begin to think about the important parts, like shoes. now I'm thinking about it. flotilla of mushroom. polished skull. her neck in cinnamon warmth. light cast with a shade of cool. rough skinned and still cool after all these hours of resting next to my water bag. peel-pull, break off a segment. sits like plates, cockeyed and stacked in the sand. the woosh of snow as it leaves the shovel. soaked through, teeth chatter, can't even talk.

not much else to say right now, but I think you could start in any one of these places and there would be possibilities.

spinach pie and other food for the soul

Cooking is not my first love. I find it nearly impossible to follow a recipe, usually adding or substituting something along the way. The other day I made spinach pie and added some grated zucchini which made it a bit soggy but added little to the flavor and a whole wheat crust, but apparently these additions satisfied my need to dink around in the kitchen... and the outcome was good.
But as usual, too large for one person, so I have been on a spinach pie diet most evenings this week. I've found that a dash of Tabasco really adds to it, and last night I included a dollop of sour cream which wasn't as good as plain yogurt might have been.

While I eat my spinach pie I have been reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, as I will be attending her workshop this weekend. Now that is food for the artistic soul.

She wrote the most amazing thing: The problem is we think we exist.

Don't you love that?! I've been toying it with it all day.

this is about me

Seems this last week strife and conflict has erupted all around me. A friend of mine lost his job, several people at work are bent out of shape, there are pastor/parish conflicts where I attend church and since the Republican convention the tone of the presidential campaign is about anything but the issues.

Often when these kind of things have cropped up around the outskirts of my life I have wondered what to do. How do I effect change? How do I resolve conflict? When do I stand back, when do I step up? Most things I've learned are beyond my control. Most of the time the best thing I can do is bear witness, pray, and live in compassion. Most of the time I am okay with this, understanding that my ability to send love, compassion, and hope to a situation is the way I best serve it. And that is what I will do, except in this one case. Barack Obama.

I am going to work the call centers for Obama, and in fact, today have been calling people in his Neighbor to Neighbor program. For the past two presidential elections I have voted, I have prayed, I have put bumper stickers on my car and endured people driving by shouting obscenities at me, and I have sent money. In the two prior presidential elections I have been disappointed by the outcome. I do not want the same thing to happen again. Obama is right. This is not about him. This is about me.

I want a country my grandson's can grow up in and be free to express their opinions, disagree, without someone else shouting them down and calling them names. I want a country where every family can have a doctor and every child is provided the best health care available. I want a country where people can earn a decent wage for an honest days work. I want to live in a country that realizes we must love out neighbor as ourselves regardless of his faith, age, nationality, color of his skin, or sexual preference, and find a way to live and flourish while remaining constant to that golden rule. I want to live in a country where being educated, innovative and thoughtful are not only valued, but considered essential. I want a country that looks beyond the moment and considers the future when it makes decisions on the environment, military action, and social reform. I want a country that cherishes values but understands that core values can be nurtured in diverse beliefs.

I believe that Barack Obama would stand with me on these issues, that he would listen, that he would refine what I have only roughed out. His opponent would not.

I don't expect a free ride. I don't think these things will be easily come by. I think it will take years of hard work and no little sacrifice to make all I can see for this country, for my grandchildren, happen. But I believe the American people are equal to the task if we tell them the truth. If we explain the steps we need to take to get from here to there. I am done with fear and manipulation. We are a great nation only when we think great thoughts. The time is now. We have waited nearly too long as it is.

My sister told me Obama needs to get tough and attack back and I asked her if that is really what we want from him. Win at any cost? Win even if you have to hit as low as your opponent? I don't know. I don't think we really win when we play their dirty games.

But this is important. Too much is at stake to let this election slip through our fingers. I have to stand up and do what I can.

food

I have noticed that I have not been eating well. Oh, I do all right for breakfast and lunch. For breakfast I eat basically the same thing every day, and lunch I pack in to school and it usually involves a salad and rice or beans or hummus, and maybe a small granny smith apple. Almonds to snack on, or maybe half of one of those new protein bars. But it is dinner I have really been slip-sliding through. I eat with disinterest and I am beginning to think, poor judgement. I eat like I don't really care about myself and this has got to stop. I have this really beautiful kitchen now and I feel like I'd like to begin celebrating it and myself with delicious, healthy food.

This morning I browsed through my Real Food Daily and Vegetarian cookbooks and began to look at some of the beautiful, healthy entrees I find there. I tend to like the vegetarian cookbook better - fewer, simpler ingredients and plus they are smaller, so I don't feel like I need to throw a party to get rid of all the food - and identified a couple things I'd like to begin with. A spinach pie or a tomato feta pizza. Each easy and straight forward and nutritious... the protein-carb-fat ratio is within the realm of acceptable. And they look yummy and just right for still hot late September in Arizona.

I need to clean this desk I am sitting at, and the whole room really, then clean my refrigerator, which still has not been organized since the remodel. After that I will know what ingredients I need to produce my first dish.... I think the spinach pie....

I want this to be a new leaf I am turning over. One that says I value myself and I am worth beautiful healthy meals every day.

peace, love and vote Obama : )

voice

This is a magic lantern... my most recent double page in my altered book. I have been thinking about magic, miracles and expectation for the last couple of days since I watched the DVD, The Secret, last week. Also today, I went to see my spiritual director, as always a treat for me as I never fail to come away with this view of my rag-tag life as a whole organism moving in a purposeful direction.

We talked about art, my life at school, and the movement of the holy. I showed her my book so far and told her about the staff-meeting discussion I've had with my principal, told her about my vision board and my recent journaling. This discussion turned toward expectation and the role it plays in my life. I told her about a Jan Richardson quote from her book Night Visions: it is, "know your anger. use your voice. expect resurrection." This quote has always had a strong influence on me, reminding me to find the power in my anger, the energy, and to harness it with my voice, always expecting rebirth and redemption.

I hold onto expectation. hope. I look for things to turn out well. I expect them to. Yes, I have a short list of personal expectations, but I told her this is not really what I mean here... then I told her of another quote I think about often.... from The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer; "We all spend so much time not saying what we want because we know we cannot have it.... Go on. Say what you want."

I told her I have been practicing saying what I want. Not just for me, though I say those things too, but I say things I want for the world. I want peace, real peace, and I want to see the people of the world to be fed both nutritionally and spiritually, I want to the earth to thrive, to see disease and suffering to end. I said that there are plenty of people out there who do not want me to say these things, who tell me they are silly and can't be had... there are people like my dad, whom I love, who see the world divided up into those Democrats, those minorities, those freeloaders, those sexual deviants who only want to see the cup half empty and are slightly put off by my Pollyanna-ish ways. There have been people who have told me peace is an idea that will never be because all the nuns and priests pray for peace and still there is no peace. there are folks who have asked me to listen to reason, see the world their way... and I have tried it from time to time, but it is just too damned grim.

We need to say what we want. We need to expect what we want. If we never say in unison that we want peace, will pray for peace, will live for peace we will never have it. Miracles are not things we can just leave up to the nuns. We have a responsibility and until we become one voice saying what we want that we have been told over and over we cannot have, we will never have it.

Me? I choose miracles. I choose expectation. I choose the happy ending. What I want might not happen in my lifetime, or even in my grandson's, but if I do not voice my want loudly and repeatedly then it will be as if it never was.

There is a magic lantern. rub it and ask for what you want.

my hike

Yesterday I hiked Mt. Humphrey's.

My friend Sandy had e-mailed me and asked if I would be interested, and I completely shoved aside the thought that I had not hiked all summer... certainly not up-hill anyway and that I have been experiencing chronic muscle pain and said, yes. We met at 6am, picked up two more hikers, and headed up to big pine country.


I skied this run in March!!!

I was pretty concerned by the time we reached the trail head. My legs had been giving me fits for a couple of days. Historically the person who leads the hike, I told them I would stay to the back and just see how I would do. I took smaller steps, letting them pull out in front of me... I like the silence of the forest anyway, and one of our group was a talker. They would stop pretty often, I thought to wait for me, but eventually when they stopped and I caught up, I just kept walking... slowly, paying attention to my pace... at some point I began to get out of breath... elevation and grade catching up to my lung power... but I started counting my breathes... doing a belly breath. Four steps per in-out breath for a higher grade, three and even four on a flat grade. I think the oxygen was feeding my muscles... I was feeling no muscle fatigue at all.

As I reached the saddle, not the peak, I began to feel my Achilles tendon in my right leg. That was the end of the hike for me, but I had done so much better than I'd expected I wasn't complaining.

Only three of us made the saddle, the other gal had difficulty with the elevation and had turned around. We ate lunch, enjoyed the view, and took a couple pictures to document our accent. Then we headed down.

Down hill was much more difficult. We were tired from our climb. Gena and Sandy both fell as we went down.... I was fortunate that I kept my feet under me... by the time we reached the midway point we stopped and tossed back a couple Advil's... I began to long for Phoenix and the jacuzzi at my health club... as we moaned and complained and wondered both to ourselves and to each other when the end of this descent would come, we also agreed that we had a great day, that we would not have passed it up.

Dela was sitting on the ski lodge patio munching on french fries and sipping a libation. She was glad to see us and we were glad to see her. We decided to grab food there, in the beautiful mountains, rather than in a congested Saturday afternoon Flagstaff.

The jacuzzi was wonderful last night, and when I got home I pretty much fell straight into bed. This morning I still felt okay, but took a couple more Advil as a precautionary measure. Now it is 4:30 and parts of my lower body are really beginning to get stiff. I'll walk later on and pop a couple more Advil before bed.

I remember ten years ago it would take me three or four days to get over a tough hike. I wonder what it will take this time.

moving forward

I've been working on this altered book for about a week now... it is my first, and after a tentative start, I am starting to feel more confident.

What started out as a hum-drum page started to pick up steam when I began to collage on dyed bits of phone book and paint spattered & stained newspaper used to protect the tables when students paint. I also tried my hand at pen and ink... it has been a very long time since I played with that media.

Here's a close up... I lightened the photo trying to help you see what is happening, but think I only managed to make it look washed out. I don't think this is done yet, but as of now have no revelation where it will head next.

This is the second double page spread... again, I was just playing with colored newspaper, plus my gessoed surface has a lot more texture. As of now I don't seem to have much to write, but as I trudge along, I imagine this will get easier... anyway, I hope that is how it works.

peace

hump day

One month to Geneva, Switzerland... yippee! And doesn't the cold whiteness of the snow look good on this hot sunny day?
********************

A Monday holiday means that Wednesday comes almost immediately.... two more days until Friday! How sweet....

I have been working on my altered book at school and finally feel I am pulling myself forward a bit on it... I'll remember to take my camera tomorrow and get some pictures... also went to the school library... they are weeding out tons of books and I picked up a pile of poetry books and some old picture books I'm going to play around with... I cut trees, paper doll style, out of watercolor and tempera stained newspaper and pasted them to the bottom of a collage. I love, love, love colored newspaper... so many ideas, so little time.

I find I am smiling a lot. Why is that?

love/peace

nothing accomplished

I had not planned this weekend on purpose.... seems so much of my time has been over planned, tightly scheduled... the only thing I told myself I wanted to do was clean my office, and that is the only thing I did not do.

Saturday wandered an hour north of here to Seven Springs with daughter and grandsons and spent the day watching and trying to help catch crawdads. The water was refreshingly cool, the crawdads were almost alarmingly plentiful, and the boys were in little-boy heaven. Honestly, even though when the day was over I was more than ready to go home to my quiet house and take a long shower, it was a great day, totally unstructured, and just what I needed.

Sunday I ran around... accomplished very little it feels like, just took care of errands, went to Borders and bought two books, one about writing and the other about art journals and picked the boys up at 4:30 to spend the night. Funny, even though the boys wear me out after a time, they also relax me. When they arrive the rest of my world must stop. Like holding a baby... when you hold a baby, nothing else in the world matters... anyway, we swam, ate dinner, built a fire in the chiminea and toasted marshmallows, took a bubble bath and read 6 books.... after that Grandma needed to go to bed, she was tired.

Monday the boys left at 11. I wrote in my journal, told myself to clean my office, but found something else to do instead. Parents, daughter and husband and glorious grandsons were coming to dinner at 4:30... I prepared my shish-ka-bobs, then sat down and leafed through a book. 8p.m. they all left and I packed up a box of art supplies to take to school tomorrow... I have some ideas and some extra time this week where I might be able to think about my own art.

I got nothing accomplished... or maybe I got everything accomplished... there are still piles on my office floor, but I did locate my encaustic book. I found a site on encaustic monotypes I'd like to play with and made reservations for a room in September so I can attend the Natalie Goldberg workshop in Sedona. Things are rolling out even though I don't know what they are rolling out to....

I guess the bottom line is though, I spent my weekend with the people I love the most, the people who love me, and I can't imagine it being better than this. No, I did not get the clutter cleaned up in my office, but it will wait another day or week for me.

love and peace

my role

I haven't been here for a while... off playing the role I think God put me on this planet to play... the role of the squeaky wheel.

I hate this role. I really try to avoid it most of the time. I try to stay in my classroom, mind my own business, keep my head down and my mouth shut... but it is so danged hard when you bump up to bureaucratic mubbly-jub.

We have staff development meetings every Wednesday afternoon. Some are worth going to, some not. I have taught myself to do breathing exercises through the trying meetings... I used to knit, but was told I could not do that any more. I'm usually okay there. Learned not to roll my eyes, keep my mouth shut, fill in the evaluation sheet in a non-committal way... I survive.

But this year we have staff meetings twice a month after the staff development meetings. These meetings are technically after school and for the last several weeks I have one appointment or another after school on Wednesday... so while I make the first meeting, I have not been attending the latter. Personally I find it no big loss, but my principal stopped me Wednesday and asked me about it.

I told her I had doctor appointments...
She said, Every Wednesday?
I told her I was working through chronic pain issues.
She said I needed to make these meetings.
I told her I could go to most of my appointments after school on Wednesday, or I could take one day off a month...
She told me she would send me a meeting schedule
and today, I sent her my doctor appointment schedule for September... honestly, some of these appointments I scheduled two months ago...

but here is the thing, the first meeting I missed I asked what had gone on and was told she (the principal) told us about the new initiative to improve teacher attendance... if we have perfect attendance for a nine week period we get to wear jeans the last day of the quarter... oh, goody! And that they watched the blood born pathogens film. The next day I got the film from the nurse, watched it... and tried to forget I had ever heard the blue jeans thing...
the second meeting I missed... yesterday's meeting... the meeting where you needed to sign in to prove that you were there... announced that the vice principal had moved on to greener pastures, that the student advisor had moved into the asst. principal role, and that the last eighth grade teacher was finally found... and oh, we could all stay for going-away cake. I understand this took 45 minutes.

I hate to have my time wasted... hate it. I began to feel my self-control crack... So while I did send my appointment schedule as an attachment to the principal, I couldn't quite help telling her that I had been told last night's meeting announced Mr. B's departure and some cheerful going-away cake and that I trusted in the future meetings would be about meatier stuff...

You know, tomorrow she will want to have a talk with me. I think I am rather looking forward to it.

love and peace

play

I played today... oh, I worked too, but I began by playing and ended playing and in the middle, while I was working I was thinking about playing... so I pretty much played all day.

Last week while browsing altered art I found a site... here it is.. that had a altered page challenge. They challenged the viewer to take a book page, find words that make a poem and then decorate/alter the page to make it also an object of art... Today I did just that with a page from a discarded Goosebumps book... My poem, if you can't read it is:
Wow. I can fly!
weird
actually can fly
arms stretched out
sailed
through the air
he whimpered
"come back, Don't fly."
I laughed.

Anyway for a play-around, I am pretty impressed with the outcome. Took my original to a 7th Language arts teacher who, I know, likes to teach a poetry unit and she loved the idea...

Then I moved on to playing around with my altered book/art journal I've decided to do. Realising more and more, I just need to do this and quit worrying about raising to some bar I've set....
The painting began after school.... I am not a complete slacker...we had 'curriculum night'... no one ever visits my room, so I always treat these as personal art nights... I worked on the first two pages... beginning them much like I would begin a piece of furniture.

big funny plants, a turquoise sky... yellow ground, because I did not have the colors I like the best... words that I am only half happy with... few details... but I think as I push this around they will come.

by 6:55 this is what I had done and I needed to pack up to get out the door. I don't like the orange letters... I think a minty green would suit me better... and the yellow ground needs to be mellowed out. Also I think I may experiment with a glaze of some kind and some kind of collage action to give it more depth and interest...

This is fun and I will try bringing it home and working on it over the weekend, in between babysitting and putting everything away in my kitchen (new counter tops tomorrow!!!) Mostly I want to keep this 'just see what happens' frame of mind as I go through this process... in fact I want to see this as a process rather than a product... maybe as it gets done I will see that I have grown towards some new jumping off place...

Anyway, late. I ate a burger and fries with a chocolate milkshake while I watched a re-run of Gray's... I nearly never eat that way, but smelled french fries on the way home and I was hooked... my head if full of color and problem solving, my belly is full of fried food and calories and tomorrow is Friday. I'd go for a walk if I had any ambition at all... but I think I will just hit the shower and go to bed... so I can begin to look at art again tomorrow fresh and alive.

small discovery

I have been on an art making jag... the classes, school starting and the art that is related to that... being back in my classroom with room to work and great lighting. Plus right now I have some time... my schedule really kicks in next week and for the last two I have had time to play, to think and to work a little.

This is from a collage I started in July... I've been looking at it, looking at all of them really and struggling about what I could do, where I could start. I wanted something from these beginnings... that undefinable 'something' that we get ourselves hung on all too often... That's why I like painting furniture.. I don't feel a need to be inspired... I just have fun...and it always turns out wonderful.

So today, standing at my work table I was looking at these collages playing around with one( I thought I had an inspired idea, even though I knew I was copied an idea... why, why why?) and all of the sudden I thought, 'oh, heck, just do what you know... so on one I gessoed out a background that left a tree, on another I gessoed out an area and left a house... and on this one I left a bird, and all of the sudden I felt like I was cooking.

I need to remember I do not have to reinvent myself... I need to remember that trying to reinvent myself is a) trying; and we all know that is not how it works.. and b) I am perfect just the way I am and that if I do not start right here, I will never reach the perfect that I am becoming.....

I've been here before, but it was never art related.

So anyway, what do I like to paint? Chickens. Big leafy plants and cactus. Jaguars with teeth and stiff legs. Like Rousseau and Matisse with a little bit of Suzi Klotz contemporary, off beat southwest thrown in... primitive, flat, with outlines... so that is where I begin. Right here where my comfort zone is, where I know what I am doing, where it is fun.

today

Today I painted a table for my daughter. She is in Michigan visiting the in-laws, having fun on a farm near Lake Michigan. She will be home Tuesday. I felt 'deadline' looming... time to paint with no boys, no interruptions....

I began yesterday by painting the table a shade of brick orange. In church today, while pondering the Jesus walks on water story (I get something different every time I read that one) I sketched a design on the back of the bulletin.

My design was basically this. A square in the middle with a line running through it and a border line, that had this decorative square in the corner.

After I put in the lines I put four clumps of ZZ plant and wrapped a vine-type plant around the center line.

I filled in the background with a light blue, trying for lots of brush strokes and surface blended colors.

The other day I bought this dragonfly stamp... I couldn't help myself... I added it in.

But I thought the table still looked too plain... I stamped 'Dreams' onto one side....

and 'Dragonfly' onto the other.... still it needed more oomph....

so I pulled out my caulk pastels, filed them onto the table surface, and rubbed them in.

Tomorrow I need to go back and put a sealer coat on... I think before I do I will hit it a bit with my colored pencils to define some areas, put in some little detail...

If I'd had more time, I might have worked harder at mixing paints and not fallen back on the caulk... on the other hand, since the classes I have taken in the last week, I feel freed to mix it up quite a bit... I am interested to see how the table will look with the sealer, I am using a polyurethane, since it will be their main kitchen table... what I hope is that the sealer will bring the colors out more and make the whole piece more vivid....

happy to you

It is nearly 6 a.m. the morning of the 10th in Geneve, Switzerland... when she finally awakens it will be her birthday... and like so many of them since she has grown, I will be here and she will be there.

But I wish her a happy day, a joy-filled year, and a lifetime of blessings to see her through the tough times.

Happy to you, Roo.

I love you as much now as the first time I saw you.

love,

Mom

Art Unraveled: Part 2

Ooooo, two days of art classes... don't know if it is that or the caffeinated beverage I drank before class started tonight, but I am completely jazzed.

Plaster. Wax. Texture. Color. Possibilities, possibilities, possibilities.

Part of the fun is doing.... of course that is always part of the fun... starting something knowing nothing and discovering this works and that needs to be completely scraped away or covered up.... of course it is wonderful when you see that something you have done seems to be working out, or when you think of what you could do if you had your entire storehouse of this'n'thats to work into the piece.... but then you begin to wander around the room. You see that this lady over here has woven a ribbon into her piece and you stand and chat, ask questions and watch her work for a minute... then you stray to the woman who has nothing colored yet, but she has pressed these things into hers and you again quiz her on how she did this, where she could go from there... or the woman behind whose colors ran like a rainy day on the window. Lovely, you say. The wire... there are so many options to the wire, or instead of the wire... and it does not have to be a book you discover... it could be anything. Anything. A purse? Well, maybe no... at least not an entire purse, or anyway not a purse that would be overly functional... And I'm not interested in making a purse, really... but I could, that's all.

I didn't take any pictures, though I took my camera. (the excuse) My hands were completely filthy within minutes of starting... and there wasn't much to clean them off with... but the real reason is I was just too busy. So sorry. Maybe when I get whatever I have started finished... or at least to stage two... maybe I will take pictures then... but this thing, book, I started today is just for play. I have other ideas now that I have walked about the room.

I want to hold onto this.... this excitement, this memory of walking the room, talking to people, asking questions... this feeling that if I just would let myself I could unzip this bodysuit that says I'm thus and so, and let my real butterfly free, I could soar.

Art Unraveled

Today I played hookie from my teaching job and drove across town to the Embassy Suites to attend an encaustic class at Art Unraveled... what fun.

I have been enthralled with encaustics for six or seven years, since I saw my first encaustic painting in a gallery in Ketchum, ID. And since I found out what it was called I have been saying, I want to take an encaustic class... Well, it has taken quite some time, but I finally made it.


I took my camera and had planned on taking many pictures of the process, but only one was taken... once I got going on a piece it took hold of me and I thought of nothing else. This was my first one... at one point there was lots more on here, but I scraped a bunch off and ended up here. I love the bug and the dragon fly stamps.

These are the two pieces I made today. What I learned is I can begin this using white beeswax only and add in colored wax as I feel more confident... that most of your color can come from pastels, collage, and stamping.

While I was in Kentucky last month I picked up three grape leaves the insects had eaten out. I've been saving them in my journal just for this occasion. Now all three are preserved in wax.

I loved the bug pictures.... and they fit so well with the skeletal leaves... In this picture you can begin to see the translucence.

Here is another bug... I played around with adding color to this guy... see where I stamped Be Free... the other picture says Enter Here...

I go to work tomorrow, but tomorrow night I have another Art Unraveled class. Maybe I will use my camera more.