An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
I shot this photo in Houston (EaDo district) 2017.
Paint on concrete, date unknown
Artist: possibly Walker Wooding, coastal Texas
Visual and musical arts
My mood? Saddened by how many people quote or reference Martin Luther King Jr. and heed none of his wisdom.
Current Photo Friday theme: Paper
Reproduction vintage paper (120 pieces!) for crafting, scrapbooking, journaling, collaging, or writing notes to send.
Gift of Debby
Christmas 2023
…when one can get over a hump? Time will tell.
The “Be Positive” coloring and writing journal that Lynne gave me–May of 22?–that I use for coloring and speculating about what I’m writing or should be writing and the inspirations and challenges involved. Today, after I wrote next to the page I’d colored, I closed the book and laughed at that name…be positive. Gotta say what I wrote today in the journal is maybe one of the least positive things I think/feel. The words I almost never say out loud because they would likely be misunderstood or else prompt advice or guidance that I’m not looking for. That’s not my Aries resistance to being directed or told what to do. It’s only that this Aries knows herself–myself–too well to pretend I’m looking for answers from outside when the answers within have been hard won.
On the other hand, the drawing I colored is pretty and untroubled.
Plus I have written today, and every bit of writing nourishes the Muse who in turn nourishes my creative drive.
While writing, I listened to really good music all the way around, meaning of course, music I like/enjoy/admire/feel.
Kicked off with Brighter: A Duncan Sheik Collection from Duncan Sheik, and great liner notes from James Hunter (from Rolling Stone magazine). Certain parts of Hunter’s notes resonate with me, and the music is good to listen to, write to, think to.
Tom and I were on a road trip many years ago when we stopped somewhere and bought a bunch of CDs so we could hear music we didn’t know, and that’s when we got Shinedown’s The Sound of Madness. I used to hear it a lot because I uploaded it to my iTunes library, but after my main iTunes computer stopped working early in the pandemic, the only songs that will play on my iTunes are ones I’ve actually purchased from Apple. We still need to either get that Mac fixed or figure out what we can grab from its backup drive. That task has been “on the list” since the world reopened in 2021.
Finally, The Best of Simon & Garfunkel. No explanation needed, right? WAY BACK when I was given my first record player, a Simon & Garfunkel album was one of the first three I received, probably for a birthday. They never get old, and their song “The Boxer” still does battle with Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” as my favorite song of all time. There’s a nod to the duo in the first novel in the Neverending Saga.
Shared before but always happy to show Becky’s First Record Player. There were times it felt like the only thing teenage Becky could count on. In the current novel in progress, a character has just received her first record player and a collection of 45s. Lucky little nine-year-old. I was a few years older when I got mine.
Couple Riding
oil on canvas, 1906
Wassily Kandinsky, Russia
Colored a coloring page yesterday, but I’m only putting a tiny snap of it here because it’s copyrighted and I’m already being too bold. The coloring page and today’s Kandinsky art are both connected to the character I’m working on in one way or another.
Here’s the music I enjoyed while I worked. Doesn’t go with the novel, maybe doesn’t go with the time period or setting, but it does go with my mood.
[Carlos] Santana: Supernatural, 1999, and Shaman, 2002.
What’s your mood this Monday?
The second week of August, I recorded some intentions in my “Inspire” Journal and posted them here.
A couple of weeks ago, I remembered and decided to revisit those. First off, I stared at the list and wondered, What is TC craft? What is TC song? What was I talking about? I don’t write songs. I have characters who write songs, but… Then I realized. Something happens with one of those songwriter characters in Topanga Canyon in the third or fourth book of the Neverending Saga. “TC” unlocked!
To update:
1. I did finish this craft piece based on the novel and gave it to Lynne when she was here in September. I think it’s hanging in her house.
2. I haven’t written the song, because I haven’t written in that character’s voice in a while. I’ll get to it maybe in the seventh book, or when the time is right.
3. The MagPo box is restored. More about that in a minute.
4. I’m not using the inspiration journal (different from the “Inspire” journal) to plot the seventh book because I’m using a big yellow sketch book Lynne gave me that I’ve been using since… 2019? to tape photos and jot thoughts and ideas for the series. Currently, it’s staying next to me when I write.
5. Schedule physical (routine annual exam). Completed in December.
6. Schedule fall vaccines. Done and received in September.
It feels good to know I completed almost all these goals I set for fall.
About the Magnetic Poetry box. It took water during the Harvey flood and subsequently began to rust.
I knew Tom was taking vacation time the week between Christmas and New Year’s and asked if he thought some Rust-Oleum® would help if he had time to work on the box. I explained that I wasn’t looking for perfection. I didn’t care if it was obvious the box had been restored. In fact, imperfections are part of its history. I just wanted the rust to become a thing of the past.
And so it has.
It made me happy enough that I pulled out my Healing Words MagPo kit to create a poem, a reminder to myself that it’s great to set goals; the challenge is in the work. (Sometimes, even if it’s asking the person who’s right for the job.)
Photo of art previously posted here was of Peace and Love,, acrylic, chalk, Posca ink, mixed media, 2021 by artist Art Sand, diminutive of the name Sandrine.
Happy New Year! January 1 is the World Day of Peace. It seems that every day, I think of, long for, wonder about peace.
It’s commonly said that we’ve never had peace on this planet and never will have. To be informed is to be confronted with constant reminders of violence, unspeakable horrors, and unimaginable cruelty. Though we can find other stories about or personally know people who make positive differences, those often seem insignificant in the face of suffering on what seems like a limitless scale. It can all be overwhelming and numbing.
What do we do? How do we make peace? Keep peace? Encourage peace? Quick, easy answers frequently come from sources whose own lives and time are anything but peaceful. Often their motives are far afield of peace, maybe summarized in words like greed and power; control and manipulation; “winning,” whatever the cost.
I wish I had the infinite answers tailored to all of our unique challenges. I don’t even have the answers for all of my own. I would posit that keeping and making peace in our lives requires mindfulness. Attention. Awareness. Honesty with ourselves. Mental, emotional, and physical effort. To identify where things go off the rails and examine how our habits, personalities, and ego may contribute to robbing our days, homes, families, friends, jobs, and hobbies of peace. What things can we control, modify, or change? What things should we walk away from?
A few things I think about in my own life: When do I need to say no? To not think I must provide an answer to every question? To make more room for stillness and less room for busy-ness and distractions? To mind my own business more and other people’s less? To watch for a subtle shift from coping mechanisms like humor and storytelling to more harmful actions (e.g., belittling, criticizing, judging, mocking)? To recognize when people are directing those things at me (or even to the world at large) and to find the healthiest reactions and choices for my inner and outer peace.
Such a simple yet complex word: Peace.
After hearing some other people’s nightmarish travel stories, I’m very glad we were all safe and sound at Houndstooth Hall yesterday. We had a quiet dinner, a frenzy of gift opening, and some fun surprises all around.
Here are a couple of small things that will make for good times and convenience.
Tom got me a Barbie coloring book. This will be a lot of fun.
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I have a portable pencil carrier given to me by Lindsey and Rhonda a few years back. It has often been a lifesaver when I have long wait times for appointments–my own and those of other people I’ve driven places.
Debby found me an additional pencil case, this one with a capacity for more pencils.
I was able to empty several unopened boxes of pencils that have been waiting in the wings for empty slots to come open. You’ll also see a lot of very used pencils here that I replaced in the other portable case.
Lots of room for more!
In the last section, I’ve put some neons, some flesh colors, some white/gray/black, and a set of glowy pencils. Those white sticks are extra erasers that can be used in the red eraser holder pictured.
Great creativity comes in small packages. =)
The End of Dinner
oil on canvas, 1913
Jules Alexandre Grün, France
This painting appealed to me, because I never went to the beginning of a party that looked this alluring, and this is the end of one. We can all magically imagine ourselves into better places, better times, better company. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whether this is one of the good years or one of the hard ones, I hope you know you’re an essential and loved part of someone’s world, even when it doesn’t seem that way. Be gentle to yourself.
Our Christmas dinner and opening of gifts happens tonight. It’s also Tom’s birthday. Here are a couple of shots of the tables, ready for the festivities.
The photo previously posted here is by Romain de Tirtoff, under the pseudonym Erté, Winter, in pen and ink from 1978.
When I searched the Internet for art with “winter” in its title, this image showed up and made me laugh, something I’d have thought impossible twenty-eight years ago. I’ve occasionally alluded to this story here. My friends know it and have heard me speak of it many times, and the story is long, so I’ll put it behind a cut in case anyone would rather dodge it.