Author: Becky

Keeping a sense of humor

Sometimes it’s really hard for me to find the humor in a situation or event, but I do think it’s a survival technique. I’m on a text thread that includes Rhonda, Lindsey, Timothy, and Tom, and very often when Lindsey tells us news that could be worrisome, she says something like, “I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

Each time she does that, I’m compelled to share this gif (I hope this link stays good):

This Fine GIFfrom This GIFs

While it’s been a challenging week, we’re all fine. And able to laugh.

Traveling Painter Redux


My painting by Ron Edwards. It still hangs in the library at Houndstooth Hall today.

Back in January of 2006, I wrote a post called Traveling Painter. It was about an artist I saw at the student center my freshman year of college, Ron Edwards, and his unique technique and style. My then-boyfriend bought the above painting and gave it to me for Christmas.

Through the years, several people have commented on that post when they’ve searched “RonArt” and “Ron Edwards” and mine has been one of the few references they can find. Other college students from those years in several parts of the country shared their recollections of seeing Ron at work, buying his art, and sometimes losing track of their art pieces (in one case, losing one to a California wildfire). There’s so much history and goodwill toward the artist in their memories.


Commenter Debbie T was also a college freshman when she bought this Ron Edwards painting she still owns.


Although commenter Jamie no longer has the painting he bought, he was kind enough to send a photo of a Ron Edwards painting owned by a friend.

It’s been cool to connect like this. Though there have been only a few of us, it makes me hope there are more who’ll seek information, find this newer post, and share their stories, memories, and photos of their paintings. Maybe one day, someone will tell us more about Ron Edwards himself, especially if he’s still painting and where he is. One commenter has unsuccessfully looked for his art to buy on eBay, so there are surely other collectors looking for sellers.


This photo of Ron Edwards at work was published on the Internet by artist Gil Pollard.

More random thoughts

The last time I was able to work on my current novel was September 25. Today, I’m going to try again, and I’m creating my own setting to help with my writing’s setting. There are only a few chapters to write before I can finally leave 1974 behind!


Water, music, encouragement from candles all in place.

Meanwhile, cleared my phone of some of the things that have struck me as I’ve perused Instagram while I’ve been down and out, and I share them with you here for your amusement or musings. The first couple made me laugh, though my characters have mostly been kind enough to leave me alone so I could rest.


Damages

This won’t be a cheerful post.

On this day, October 12, 1998, Matthew Shepard, age 21, died as a result of a brutal hate crime. I took pictures of a few of the things that are in my photo album/scrapbook from that incident.


Pages from a Time magazine article.


A local candlelight vigil I attended.


Flowers brought by Houston mourners to a memorial.

I remember that October as being a dreary, cold one. Maybe it wasn’t; maybe it just felt that way. I was working in one of the worst jobs I ever had, for a group of the worst people I ever worked for. I remember sitting in my car in a downtown parking garage at the end of each workday until I could stop crying long enough to drive home.

I guess the date hit harder this year than normal because of today’s news about the judgment against the person who conceived and promoted the lies and conspiracy theories after the Sandy Hook school shooting. He’s been ordered to pay almost a billion in damages to the families of some of those who died. Like all con artists, he immediately denounced the ruling and began fundraising. People will send him money. They always do. I never want to understand him or the people who bankroll him.

I never want to understand how people commit hate crimes.

I wrote a poem about Matthew Shepard, though he’s unnamed, that began in my head when Tom and I were on a trip that took us through Wyoming in cold November 2000. I won’t put it here, but it’s called “Medicine Bow.” When I read it again today, it evoked all the sadness and imagined resolution I felt when I wrote it.

I can’t find words to write about what happened in Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012. I hope the families who’ve so ferociously fought the lies and the hate those lies provoked, further destroying their lives, felt some measure of justice today. I wonder if they can ever find peace. I hope so.