Get woke!

If you’ve been reading along for a while, you’ve noticed that I’m kind of hooked on food TV.

At the moment, Bravo’s Top Chef.

I’m not sure I’d be a realistic candidate. There’s more lifting and toting than I’m used to. And, this season, the whole camping in the Colorado winter thing.

Personally, I like my house with central heat and my glass top stove I can set on low and leave to bubble gently all night.

And, just between us, sleeping in tents is not my thing!

All that being said, there’s still a lot to learn. And not just about food!

But, before we get to all that, there’s something else you should know.

I’m not sleeping much these days.

I get tired. I can even sleep for the first couple of hours after I go to bed. All too often, though, I’m awake about 3:00 am.

The kind of awake where your mind is racing with new ideas and things the paintings need and a new recipe for soup.

I try to sleep, because I believe I “should” but it doesn’t work out that way too often.

Then I wind up in my chair with a cup of hot water and lemon and a good book.

Except that my reading gets interrupted every few minutes by yet another thought that I must write down.

The pile of index cards next to my chair is getting impressive!

One of those cards, from a couple of nights ago, says, “Get woke!” with a note to remind me that this is a quote from Top Chef.

It would be handy if my wide-eyed muse would remember to jot down a bit more information as to episode number, etc., but there it is.

As I recall, vaguely, this may have been from the infamous camping in the snow episode earlier this season.

One of the contestants was telling a story about growing up with his grandmother (I think) in, perhaps, a Caribbean nation.

Apparently, Grandma was fond of instructing the children to, “Get woke!”

There sits the index card.

And, while the exhausted part of me just wants to sleep for a week or so, there is another part of me that suspects that maybe, just maybe, my insomnia is about getting woke.

At the very least, I’m deep in a spell of new learning and creating.

And, what materializes as words and images seems to require a lot of processing, which I seem to be doing while most people are sleeping.

Or, perhaps, other people are not sleeping so much either.

It seems as though this is a time in history that may be calling us, more than any other I remember, to “Get woke!”

Sleeping, clearly, would be easier.

For this moment, though, it looks like I’ll be sipping lemon tea and wondering about the bird who seems to be calling, “Who’s there?” as the sun prepares to rise.

Which is, if we’re getting woke, quite possibly the biggest question of all.

Untitled design-45I have two very dear reasons for getting woke. Kenzie and Taylor are growing up in this world.

A very happy birthday to Taylor who is eight today. And big hugs for both my girls!

 

Now, though, a wee nap. Dinner for the dogs. And glaze!

 

 

 

Voices from the past…

If you’ve been hanging around for a while you know that when Dave was about four — the same Dave who just turned 38 — I wound up, kind of accidentally, in a parenting class called Developing Capable People.

To make a long story less long, I’m so glad I did!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until the cows come home…I’m not sure Dave and I would have made it if it weren’t for the author of the course, Steve Glenn.

Skipping along a bit, I wound up as a certified DCP group leader and, for many years, could practically recite the audio stuff by heart.

Literally, by heart.

This weekend, I’ve been pondering one of the best (and possibly most subversive) things I learned from Steve:

There’s no such thing as failure. Only experience to be learned from.

Read that again, please.

I’m not sure about you, but this is not what I grew up hearing!

I grew up with the notion that failure was shameful and made one somehow less than expected.

And, just between us, I was more than ready to trade that particular perception in for Steve’s considerably more radical notion.

In case you’re wondering why Steve is sitting, psychically, beside me as I write this just now, I have a very simple answer.

Paint.

A very simple answer and a bit of an explanation.

First, we’re pondering oracles in my Legend painting class, and Steve is right up there on the list of the oracles I’ve encountered.

Secondly, I spilled my brush water. Again.

No worries. That’s why my little vintage serving cart on wheels has paper towels.

It’s also why I posted a question for the far more experienced painters in the circle and asked if anybody knows where the cool little beige paint caddies with sides in all the videos come from!

No time for shame and blame or labels like “clumsy”. It takes time away from painting!

Then there were the eyes.

First, let me say that this is only the third painting I ‘ve ever done, and the first where I’ve attempted open eyes. Very scary!

“Not to worry,” insist the experts. “Just paint over it!”

I didn’t really understand.

I just knew the eyes weren’t working for me. I kept adjusting.

For a while they looked a lot like martini olives. Oops!

Finally, it occurred to me that all the fixing wasn’t fixing anything and I could actually start over!

No failure. Just experience to be learned from.

Hence, the rather alien looking being in the photo above. I adjusted the size of her eyes and then painted out the “olives” and, after what I devoutly hope will be a good night’s sleep, I will begin again.

No shame or blame or labels like “totally without talent”.

Just, as the master sculptor of the Renaissance, Michelangelo, would say, “I am still learning.”

What if that was what we were teaching our kids?

And, for that matter, what if we believed?

I believe. (Most days!)