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September 2013
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November 2013

Into The Woods

The weekend started out energetically with a long walk in the woods with the puppers. Mr. Pom refused to let me bow out and sit with my coffee in the warm Starbucks. He insisted I come with them, so we took our coffees with us and I'm so glad we did.

 

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The leaves are just turning here,  mainly yellow with occasional flashes of red. The air is spicy and smells like pistachios. We had a mild freeze last night but deep in the woods, the ground is warm and all the  bushes  hold the heat, so the effect of the freeze were minimal.

After we walk for 5 minutes, we leave behind the sound of cars and the softball game at the field up the street. All we hear are the birds, the occasional cracking branch, and our own footsteps scuffling through leaves.  Sounds echo and a dog's bark from inside the dog park carries through the clear air. 

 

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The dogs are both frisky and focused in pursuit of smells that only they can discern, snouts close to the ground, running in tandem as they pause from path to brush and back again. Suddenly, they stop, tails pointed, paws raised, and  and we look around to try to prepare for whatever they have seen or heard or smell.  With  our inadequate human senses, we  are relieved when they relax and go back to running ahead and turning to make certain that we are only steps behind. We have no desire to see a deer or a skunk come ambling down the path and the subsequent panic when the dogs take off after them.

Today we went on the back trails, over the small wooden bridges built to portage streams. We've had so listen rain that the bridges are covered with dust and Brewster's favorite mudding area is gone. I am wearing clogs, which is hardly the footwear for hilly, root-furrowed, rocky terrain. Mr. Pom holds my hand as we go down rutted paths and the dogs run up the side of the huge granite outcroppings, looking back at us plodding humans with pity. 

 

 

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Mr. Pom takes me up a cliff and down again. He has a secret to show me. A shelter built out of stick sticks deep in the woods.

 

 

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We don't know how long its been there. Or who built it. 

 

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It's rather eerie, camouflaged in a little dale behind a huge granite outcropping that we climbed up slowly as the dogs ran up the side and made fun of us. 

But we made it up and down without incident and reached this crudely constructure shelter. 

The construction is not elaborate, but it has stood up to the elements long enough for vines to grow over it. 

 

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When I was a kid, I was not much for playing outdoors unless it involved taking my Barbies and letting them fly down our slide (a REAL slide: the kind made with aluminum that heats up and burns your butt off in the summer.) But, when I could be coaxed to put down my book and GO OUTSIDE, I was charmed by small places to hide and play house - and read my book.

 

 

 

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One of my favorite places to hide was under the forsythia that grew between our house and the house next door. Or at  the end of the front yard at a little  little point where a cluster of trees grew with small boulders between them.  We played boat on them preNext to that was a huge azalea with a big rock in front of it, and it was the perfect place to spy on older sisters when they came home from school.  I liked nesting outdoors and making hidden places where I drank dew out of the azalea blossoms and  pretended I was Laura Ingalls Wilder in my little house on the prairie (i.e. the hydrangeas between my neighbor's driveway and my front yard). 

 

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 So in other words, I liked being outside by creating nesting places that replicated being indoors. 

 

Trust me, this shelter was not that. 

 

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I was a little timid to walk in, not sure what -or whom - I would find.

 

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Brewster, however, had no fear. He plunged right in, which is surprising because he really is a scaredy cat dog. Sarah hung back behind my legs. There was nothing untoward in it, no evidence of human occupation, a fire, trash, or much of anything but some flat rocks. 

But there was something about it that was not inviting. It did not welcome me. There was an abandoned feeling to it and I just poked my head in. 

 

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The woods are full of mystery. There are secret shelters, bridges to nowhere, and fields covered with vines that hide all manners of creatures, big and small. When we walk in the woods we drop our thoughts of work and money and chores behind us like Hansel and Gretel making a trail of crumbs.

Nature suspends our worries. We live in the moment of kicking at decaying logs, marveling at weird funghi decorating tree trunks, search for chestnuts or wild apples under the fallen leaves, and throw sticks at the dogs to release the nervous energy that has become the third partner in our marriage.

I wonder these days about this new chapter of life. We are both afraid to enter this temporary shelter, knowing full well it is exactly that: temporary.  I have no answers for you but I can tell you that  Mr. Pom and I are gathering our sticks and propping them up around us while we sit in what feels like a rather abandoned place.

 We are piling up sticks carved with our imagined visions of the future, totems against fate,  and hoping when our pile is big enough, it will enclose us, shelter us, protect the heart of our marriage  from the elements. We are trying to embroider curtains to keep out the cold empty space we often find ourselves in and cushion it   with plans  to be  bold and adventurous together.  The farther into this empty nesting we burrow, the more we find ourselves stripping back to that original "twoness" on which all our lives together was built. 

 

 

 

 

 


Games We Play

 

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Mondays are always hard in the opening and draining in the closing.

So I thought I'd take a cue from the lovely A Bloomsbury Life, who today is writing about the author Cyril Connolly. She's listed a few of his acerbic, witty quotes.

This one tickled my fancy:

 

He appreciates style.

“For an angora pullover, for a red scarf, for a beret and some brown shoes, I am bleeding to death."
and 
When he gets depressed he lists things that make him feel better:
 
"Enemies of angst: the morning awakening of a house, dogs being let out, the smell of breakfast, Sunday papers, taps running."

 

 

Shall we try?

 

What style am I  bleeding to death for this fall?

-For a black and white marled cardigan with zipper closure and leather patch shoulders;

-For my father's silk navy and red paisley foulard  that I last saw in the hall closet but has been removed by The Borrowers;

-For black booties with a chunky wood stack heel and some type of harness closure/adornment, that does not weigh as much as a saddle, and is not any one of the 3 pairs I have bought and returned;

-For a slouchy  brown tweed boyfriend's jacket, that one perhaps would wear  walking around Oxford with Evelyn Waugh.  

 

What things do I list when I am depressed and want to feel better:

The smell of woodsmoke in the mornings and the evenings;  a satchel full of magazines by my feet on a car trip; Sarah's silky sweet ears and Brewster's long snout routing for a pet;  something cooking low and slow in the oven on a Sunday afternoon and kids on their way home; and a stack of notebooks on the bedside table. 


Will you play along, please?


Surfacing

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Came home from Art Is You, 3 days and 3 nights of art, old friends, new friends, round the clock coffee and evening cocktails, watercolors and trades, inspirational students, and even an auction prize win!

I don't have any photos loaded yet, so you are due a proper post about it in a few days.  I went right back to work the next day and it was a rough one. I came home sleep deprived, a tad raggedy and frayed, and took myself to the supermarket to find some real food. Any thoughts of cooking were quickly squelched by exhaustion. Mr. Pom was out for the evening, but I wanted a proper meal after 3 days of hotel food.  I was headed for the roaster chickens, but found instead a roasted half turkey breast. That plus a small can of turkey gravy, a tiny can of cranberry sauce, some semolina bread, and a little yam that fit into my palm would be my quick fix comfort meal. 

I suddenly needed an old-fashioned evening. The kind I used to have back in the day, when the kids were finally in bed and I could climb into mine with a cup of tea and  a stack of magazines. 

Remember magazines?

 

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This is my favorite season for ripening magazines. There are the gourmet magazines with mouth-watering covers of short ribs and cornmeal short bread cookies. Martha Stewart has her usual gorgeous pumpkin chiffon pie covers and there is the early edition of 100 cookies to bake for Christmas. I wanted a Gourmet magazine that would show me the perfect chestnut stuffing and silky chocolate pie.

I wanted those magazines and more. 

I wanted to read Country Living when it was filled with wing chairs and Sturbridge checked drapes. I wanted Country Home with its long pine farm tables and dressers filled with Staffordshire urns. I wanted Victoria and a spread about a restored Victorian house in the country where the family gathers for a snowy Thanksgiving. I wanted an old Mary Engelbreit with the sons trimming a tree in her red family room with the mantel painted with a bowl of cherries. I wanted a Gooseberry catalogue with Kraft paper pages filled with apple corers and feather trees. 

I wanted to go home to my self of 2o years ago, to my little house upcounty in the boonies, and take my old dog and my  little kids for a walk to the lake and kick at the leaves and make a little campfire to roast hot dogs and come home and decorate for Halloween.  I wanted to grab a Christmas magazine and feel that excitement in the pit of my stomach at decorating with boughs of pine and big red plaid boughs and real leaded tinsel.  I wanted my old house in Memphis filled with neighbors as they admired our 3 trees and walked around the dining room table for a cookie swap. I wanted to start making my grocery list for Thanksgiving and callthe sisters and The Empress to chart what pies they were bringing. 

 

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I managed to scrounge up a Bon Appetit, a Holiday Cottage (or is it Cottage Holiday) and something about flea market finds.  I took my precooked turkey home, microwaved the gravy and the yam, cut some cranberry sauce out of the can, and climbed into bed. As I leafed through my magazine selection, I felt a little of that old self surface, the one that kept every single edition of Country Living from 1980 to 1995 under her bed. 

When did my life pare itself down to all activity and no dreaming time? When did art become project after project for various deadlines and stop being about embroidering felt mittens to hang on my little feather Christmas tree? When did I stop dreaming about quilts and glittered cards for Christmas and handsewn stockings for each child and watercolored Christmas cards? When did I begin to order art supplies online that stack up in boxes in the studio. When did I turn my back on crafting and feel each minute spent in the studio was to push myself to become a "real illustrator"?

How did I lose my way in the world of things that made me happy, that defined me as a wife, mother, and daughter? Why have I let work beat me down so much. 

And why do I feel like that it is all behind me and my time now is just to watch?

Let's face it: you go back to work full time, kids grow up, parents pass on, neighbors move, cookie swaps make you fat,  blogs replaced magazines, Facebook replaced blogs, Instagram replaced Facebook, and Pinterest is about to replace it all. Everyone has a cell phone camera that is better than that Nikon I got for graduation. Everyone takes artful photographs, has Etsy shops, websites that include blogs that morph into books and tours and endorsements.  

But sitting in bed at night with a plate of warm food and the cold light of the monitor that brings you seventy cajillion images from around the globe is not the same as patting the pile of monthlys that you have hoarded for weeks, waiting for just this moment to lean against the pillows and savor them all. 

What is the point of all the charming home decorations and seasonal meals if it's just Mr. Pom and me watching the evening news and trading stories about how bad we each have it at work?  After all, I had my entire family over for brunch two weeks ago and all the glassware and good dishes are still stacked in the dining room because I haven't had the time to put any of it away. 

And the house! Oh the house! The repairs and redo's are a list as long as my arm but the weeks go by and in the spare minutes of the weekend downtime, neither of us manage to put the phone and the post it note with some handyman's number in the same place at the same time. 

And then. 

And then I came home from Art is You to find two scarecrows set up in the front yard. The front bushes glowed orange from Halloween lights. There was a small witch on a broom hanging on the porch and pumpkins and Mums on the steps. The living room mantel was full of my folk art Halloween decorations and a black and orange garland surrounded them all. Our ceramic pumpkin collection was artfully arranged on tables.  My glittered "boo" sign was propped in the window. 

Mr. Pom had decorated. He was lonely when I was away. He misses "us", too. He misses a family life, a houseful of people, traditions, and the things that made us for 33 years. 

So here's my thing, starting today.  I am not taking on any more projects, classes, teaching, or trips for awhile. I'm taking a sabbatical from all art commitments in 2014. I'm cleaning up, pruning, purging, and going back to the land. 

There shall be meals! Groceries! Candles! Seasonal throw pillows!  Crafting with glitter! The making of felted acorns! The sewing machine shall be permanently set up somewhere! I will start painting in big journals with gouache again! I will stay home and make cookies! I will use vanilla on a weekly basis! I will walk hand in hand with Mr. Pom in Central Park! I will have a tea party on a Sunday afternoon even if I have to bring in strangers off the street!  

And I will drag out all my old, hoarded magazines (ssh don't tell Mr. Pom I have them squirreled away.)  I will even read the actual gorgeous art magazines and books that I order on Amazon and stack up on tables all over the house.

I am going back to the land, folks. I am tired of being tired and I am tired of being busy - even with good things.  

There may actually be a return to regular posting.

Be still my heart!


Oh Hey

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Completely unrelated photos as I haven't had time to transfer any from my phone. 

 

Sitting outside on the porch at 8:30 on the first weekend in October. I will not complain about the mosquitos, the humidity, or my frizzing up hair because I can't recall a time when we were still having pie and coffee on the porch in our shorts the first weekend in October. 

Traditionally, I am having a massive panic attack the last week of September and first week of October. Art is You is next weekend and although I've been preparing my class for ELEVEN MONTHS, there are always so many last minute things to do. I have to pack up the kits, figure out the class supplies, figure out an "arty" wardrobe for several days, get ahead of myself at work because I take that Monday off to teach but the next day I am right back in court, and prepare for a few small events I will help with. 

And "trades". OMG the trades. 

Going to a weekend long, residential art retreat is not unlike summer camp. You hope you get a good bunkmate, that your counselors  will like you, that you know where everything is, that you didn't forget how to paint or draw (or swim) and you need to bring little favors to trade with others.  In Girl Scout camp, we all made little beaded, thready, yarn and feathered thingies that we tied to tiny gold safety pins and traded with each other to pin on our straw cowboy hats.

Could you imagine how adorable??

Kinda the same thing at art retreats.

 


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After the first few years, I figured out that making 50 little thingies was more stressful than teaching a class. I have no time, no ideas, and did I say no time?

So I cheat and bring my business cards (Moo cards - google 'em) but I haven't gotten new ones in a few years and people may fling them back at me when I proffer a retread of  a card they got lat year  in exchange for their handmade, silver clay, baked in a kiln exquisite tiny replica of an acorn in a nest of gold wire that they tatted on their grandmother's crochet needles, 100 times over. 

Seriously, I always say I am just NOT going to trade anything and ignore it all and then someone is wearing these amazing origami earrings and when I ask where she got them she tells me that our friend Nancy made them as trades and I am all over Nancy shamefacedly begging her for a pair in exchange for a drawing of a daisy hastily scribbled on a tag I found on the floor in one of the classrooms. 

Sigh. 

I just can't do it all. 

So I'm not going to try.

 

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In the meantime, it's good to keep busy. This weekend all the kidlets have come home  to be en famille for a memorial for The Empress. The sisters, husbands, and kids are all going to Mass together. We will sit right in the pew where my mother sat for 40 years, and then we will come back to my house for brunch. 

I am a bit cautious about myself this weekend and next. I'm not sure if I can face being in the same classroom and areas I was last year when Mr. Pom called me with the dreadful, unexpected news. 

 

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Pork tamale and pull apart baguette with Irish butter. 

 

But I know one thing. I will be among family this weekend and dear friends next weekend. I will not be alone with my sorrow. Nor will be allowed to stare off into space and wallow, which I have a strong tendency to do. I will be sharing waffles one weekend and paintings of waffles the next. 

Life is good.