Ornamental

artful journey workshop february 2013

   "Last Night's Dream" shadow box of prayers and intentions - featured in seth apter's lovely new book, The Pulse of Mixed Media

i wanted to give a little heads up to a brand new workshop i'll be teaching next february, at the lovely, lovely, lovely Artful Journey retreat, in the redwoods of central california.  this will be my third time to teach there; it makes my heart and soul feel warm and full of light, just thinking about the place, the people, the spirit in the air.  it is a sacred time, surrounded by quiet beauty.  cindy woods o'leary, the retreat orchestrator, does an amazing job of making sure that each and every participant (and instructor) feels comforted and pampered (there have been, in the past, huge bowls of chunky homemade cookies, little bamboo plants, journals for everyone made from vintage papers and bound in scraps of antique quilts), and the classrooms are full of light, with views of natural beauty all around.  i love this project - the incorporation of one's wishes and hopes and prayers and intentions into a work of art, something tangible and tactile, contained in a box that can then be tranformed into a piece of artwork hung on the wall or placed in a sacred spot on a table or shelf.  the environment will be perfect for three days of quietly tinkering, stitching, wrapping, binding, and sharing our notions and our inspirations.  i'll be bringing poetry and snippets of favorite book passages to read with you as well.  i'll also once again encourage my students to bring boxes of their favorite hot teas and cocoas for our daily afternoon teatime there in class.   the dates are february 28-march 4, 2013; registration opens july 10, at 10am pacific time.  i know from past retreats that classes fill up quite fast, so if this sounds like something within your means and certainly within your dreams, don't wait too late.  i would truly love to have you join us there.  xo

whirlwind

  regal moth, found dying in the grass out back... such a tender gift

i feel like all i'm doing here at Ornamental these days is sending you little bits and snippets of fly-by days, moments that are (thankfully) frozen with the help of a camera grabbed and snapped.  my life, it seems, of late is a series of visits and separate weeks strung together to form what i call Life, which the older we get, the truer this is.  days are SO MUCH shorter than they were back when i was a little girl and the hours felt like they moved in honey, sluggish and sweet and slow. 
i'd like to sit here and write you for hours, telling you about all the many days that have slipped past, the highlights of each, the lows as well.  but time is mercurial and elusive to this middle aged self, no matter how hard i try to pull it in with invisible thread, and there are chores to complete, work to execute, preparations for two back to back workshops (my first in nearly a YEAR, i will teach six days in a row) that loom ever large.  i leave a week from today, and am trying not to let the panic set in. a few days after my return from alabama, i had the pleasure of a visit from roy and his sweetheart from wilmington; it was a haphazard time of in and out, here and not, as they set off to camp overnight with friends in panthertown (below is roy's birthday gift to me last year of a drawing he made me of that incredible wilderness area an hour from here), as meals were prepared in my tiny kitchen, as they were eaten on the porch in evening darkness and in morning light. (also in the photo are a stack of bristlecone pine coasters, slabs harvested from fallen limbs of those ancient regal trees; robin sent them to me from the wilds of colorado, a gift so sweet because of their background story...)

i've managed to squeeze in a few walks by the river, where surely that water rushing over stone and root changes the energy in the air; i've watched birds dip and fly away again with insects in their mouths, i've watched fly fishermen and women casting their lines through the air and onto the water's surface, i've pined for another dip in the water for walter, but respect the fishing tourists who have begun to frequent the park with their poles and their nets and their lines now that summer has officially begun. 
these images are a little blurry - captured with my phone and processed through good old instagram.  i get it now, i appreciate the little time it takes to pull out the phone from my pocket and snap an image that has presented itself to me.  i'd link you to my fledgling account, but can't figure out how to do that, for the life of me.  meanwhile, the long weekend flew past, my time with roy and lindsey evaporated like mist in the air, and now i'm left with a pocket of images and tender memories to add to my treasured collection.
oh.  oh, oh, oh.  i look at the photograph of these beautiful two and wonder when it was that roy crossed over the threshold from young boy to young man, to man.  when did he grow that beard?  when did he get that wise look in his eyes?  when did he become the fellow who is so very tender with the special one for whom he so deeply, kindly cares? 

my mornings and my evenings here on firefly road are quiet all over again.  the storms blow in from the southwest, i watch the weather fluctuate alone.  the beauty never ceases to pull strongly at my heart.  life is rich.  life is sweet, and it is sometimes, often even, sad.  it is full, so full, and it is ever moving quickly, quickly ahead.  xo

for you, a poem that a sweet understanding friend passed along to me, by barbara crooker:

In The Middle

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window,
green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

postcards from alabama

   dusk in pine level, alabama after dinner at red's little schoolhouse out in the country

  dinner was fried chicken livers, fried cornbread, cooked cabbage, black eyed peas splashed with hot pepper vinegar, green beans, lemon ice box pie (oh, the joys of food consumed in the deep south!), all washed down with sweet iced tea (thank you katie, for putting that bug in my ear)

prolific poop factory, seen every morning on my walk through mama's neighborhood with walter

twilight coming on, from mama's back courtyard

magnolia blossom - i picked two or three every early evening or morning to bring in as a gift from daddy to mama, through his daughter.  for those of you who've not had the heady pleasure of drinking in its lemony scent, i hope you will have that privilege in your lifetime.  they make me remember daddy with a fierce pining.

the road that led me home again; i'd spotted the black skies that were just ahead and thought i'd pull off the main road for a walter pit stop before the bottom fell out.  i've passed this spot hundreds of times on my way back home, in northern georgia, but had never pulled over right here.  the light in this beautiful spot was incredible, sunlight washed over everything in my immediate vicinity, thunder clouds hovering over the rest of my journey, and home.

bed, where i collapsed late last night.  i've finally given in to instagram.  not sure quite yet if i get what the big deal might be, but i'm willing to try.  the artwork peeking out of my book is from my potter/painter friend julie whitmore, and makes a wonderful bookmark where i can see her sweet work every night.

i drove down to alabama the saturday before mother's day, which also happened to be the one year anniversary of daddy's passing.  that sunday, the day of celebrating motherhood, it was just my mama and me, going to early service at her sweet little episcopal church (i wore a lavender frock), spending the afternoon lazing around her house savoring one another's company.  she finally reached a point where she was ready to search for another canine companion, urged me to get online to see what i could turn up in the corgi world.  look who i found:
doesn't she look worried?!  callie is a four year old pembroke corgi, from a small country community outside of jasper, alabama - a three hour drive north from montgomery, where we drove on thursday to pick her up.  i've tried (in vain, three times) to contact a blogging acquaintance who has a treasured cardigan, but never have heard back from her.  anyone out there who is familiar with this breed, i'd love to hear from you.  do they always look worried, like this?  will she stop snapping and snarling at poor innocent walter, as time goes by?  is there a chance that she might stop chewing with little pointed teeth on things that are not hers, such as walter's beloved grollie?!  regardless, we love her; i love her for coming into my mother's life at this late date, for being there to keep her company.  it was a wild week, full of dog preparation, long drives, appointments made, engagements kept.  i stayed quite a few more days than i had anticipated, so that i could be there to help in any new-mother-way that i could.  just look at this photo that i snapped a couple of nights before i left:
i want to call her callie mae.  i think that is a lovely name for a southern gal, the mae being my contribution.  she did come to us in the month of may, after all.  here's what we've gleaned about corgis, or callie, in the few days we've spent with her:  she loves to be around people, and is fond of meeting new folks.  she is territorial about her food.  she flopped down in pine straw and refused to get up, so i'm guessing she lived in a barn where there was hay.  she pushes her food bowl around on the floor with her nose.  she has grown to tolerate walter.  thunderstorms terrify her (i've ordered a thunder shirt to send to my poor mother, for callie mae).  she loves laps, and sofas.  and treats.  her bark, from the little we've heard, is firm and bold.  here is what i never thought about, with a tailless dog:  there is no tail wagging, ever.  i think my mother will miss that; i know i will. we've not seen any displays of herding, but i'm sure that will surface, in time.

walter and i have finally made it back home again, where the rain settled in and refused to leave until this morning, 36 hours later.  my four legged fella is thankful to be back in his domain, where no one protests anything that he does (within reason, i add).  the threadbare tennis ball was quietly placed on the ottoman before me, yesterday morning, as i sat on the sofa and wrote some notes.  dear walter.  dear callie.  dear mama.  dear old longtime friends, dear south, dear life.  xo

remembering the young mama in me

mother's day, 1989, seagrove beach, florida - roy on the left, robin with his plastic alligator in the middle - we were looking down a crab hole where a crab had pulled a stick out of view

i've shown that photograph on this blog more times than i know; it's my favorite photo of the boys and me, and it rests in a frame beside my bed, where i see it every single day and night.  roy was so blonde, then; his right knee is skinned.  robin has a headful of curls, and fat little feet; i think that the shirt he was wearing had a beatrix potter image on the front of it.  i stayed in a bathingsuit and oversized shirt that entire weekend, and we lingered on the beach in the early morning and late afternoons, into the golden early evening.  i was young.  i had the whole of motherhood ahead of me; i was only three years into that role, but thought i already knew everything about a mother's skills.  i knew nothing at all, absolutely nothing.   but i loved, very hard, and love harder and fiercer now still.  being a mother has been the singlemost thing in life i've done where i can look back and say, well done, little mama.  well done.  i raised those boys as a single mother, from the time they were two and four years old; now they are great big tall, lanky men.  they have their own lives, their own tastes, their own hobbies and pasttimes, their own loves.  they have so much of me in them that it scares and startles all three of us, but that is mostly a good thing, in the end.

i'm spending this mother's day with my own cherished mama, down in the southern-steeped world of alabama.  to all you mamas and all you sisters and all you pet mamas and best friends and caretakers and daughters/sons/brothers out there, i wish you the best that this day has to bring.  xo

goodbye mr. sendak

  bed half-made up this rainy morning
sometimes i think i feel things just too damned much.  one emotion will settle in like an unwanted guest and take up residence for a couple of days, or weeks; and when that happens, i curse my sensitive side for feeling every little thing in my life as deeply as i do.   yesterday morning, i received an email from good old npr (somewhere along the way i guess they figured out what news matters to me) that the beloved author and illustrator maurice sendak had passed away.  he was a year younger than my mother; why couldn't he keep going, as she does?  my heart was heavy, heavy.  it still is, today.   like most folks my age, i grew up with his work; Little Bear was one of my brother's favorite books; Where the Wild Things Are came along a little later, but we still loved it, my boys grew up with it, and as adults the boys and i went with excitement to see the film the week that it was released (filmed in beloved australia).  there were so many books, in my childhood house, and many were illustrated by mr. sendak.  i remember a drawing he did of a small boy, bending over to smell the open book in his lap.  that's what his artwork was like for me; i wanted to eat it, to drink it up.   now, a middle aged mother of strapping grown men, i still feel like the little girl of those books when i wander out back and into the sheltering woods. 
i often say no.  i am a wild thing, too, and love a good rumpus now and again.   we all do.  we all dream of going to bed, at least i assume you dream as i do, and dream of watching our bedroom transform into the mysterious dark of the sheltering woods.  i'm still that little girl who talks to rabbits, even to the trees, and the moon.     what was it about his artwork?  about the words he wrote?  the emotions he conveyed?  why does his death affect me as deeply as it has?  yesterday afternoon i listened to a beautiful tribute to mr. sendak on a favorite npr show, fresh air.  you can access it here.  his feelings for the host, terry gross, were tender and dear.  the last words he spoke in the series of interviews have truly resonated deeply with me:  "live your life, live your life, live your life".  i surely do try, mr. sendak.  i do.  after listening, i walked over to my bookshelves in the living room and tried, in vain, to find my tattered copy of Wild Things.  i know now that it is with the rest of the boys' favorite childhood books, packed away in the basement of my parents' cabin.   i had wanted to carry it with me, clutched next to my chest, into the woods out back, to place it at the base of a tree, close to the spot where the bells of the solomon seal are this week dangling from their green stems.  his books have always made me feel that way. 

i cried, yesterday, for this loss.  maybe you did, too. 

safe journeys, mr. sendak.  i hope you are out there having a wild rumpus of your very own.     xo