Category: Grandmothers

Well, first let me say that acrylic paint is, quite possibly, a more forgiving creative medium than gluten-free pie crust.

Or, maybe, the whole pie crust thing will just take a bit more practice before it becomes one of Grammy’s super powers!

In any event, we had great times in the kitchen and in the basement turned art studio.

Our theme was Super Power Self-Portraits.

Big Scary Glazes were conquered by all!

Kitty Max, the resident Studio Angel showed up to help.

And we have two new generations of enthusiastic experts in the fine art of prayer dots. We made dots for the victims of the fires in California. And dots for a little girl living with leukemia. And dots for people who have lost beloved pets.

We made dots for people who don’t have enough to eat. And silent, personal dots. And dots for a soccer tournament. We also made dots for a few things that, given our proximity to Washington, D.C., should probably remain nameless.

I made dots for the wonder of super-girls rapidly turning into thoughtful young women, embracing new ways of expressing themselves and being part of the world community.

And, perhaps, just a couple of dots for sleep!

And, best of all, we did it together, which is a very Thanksgiving way to be, even if the pies needed a bit of work. (Though the cioppino and mashed potatoes were  really big hits!)

Who knows where we’ll be next year, or what we’ll paint in the meantime. Until then, I have a word.

Gratitude.

Stay tuned… lots more info to follow.

For tonight, blessings. From all of us to all of you.

 

Somewhere in my family tree, on my dad’s side of the family, there was a guy named Steven. Or Stephen.

Maybe a first name. Maybe a last name.

There may have been lots of them. Like Stephens.

Sadly, there really isn’t anyone left to ask, though Gramma Elsie would have been the expert.

What I do know is that he/they had unusual feet.

“Steven’s/Stephen’s feet and ankles”, to be exact.

I could tell from an early age that possessing the infamous feet and ankles was not a particularly positive family trait.

Flat feet, apparently. And wobbly, kind of crooked ankles.

I think I won the prize.

Once, I told one of my nursing instructors, way back in the days of white shoe polish, that I was becoming a nurse because I could wear comfortable shoes.

It wasn’t long afterwards that I decided I had a definite preference for no shoes at all.

I never wear shoes in the house, despite the frequent bruises on the tops of my feet when the dogs stand on me.

I didn’t wear shoes in my office when I had one.

I got married in a boring pair of ivory colored pumps with 3/4 inch heels and took them off during the reception, which might have been a better look if I’d also given up panty hose at that point.

I’m just really not a shoe kind of person.

Except for the ones that call to me! (A tendency I may also have inherited from my dad!)

Today, a new pair called to me. Or, rather, a new pair followed me home.

You see, today, I scheduled my second post-graduation Intentional Creativity workshop!

Neither of them will be at my house, where I can get away with bare feet.

We’re talking hours of standing on concrete floors in something that is, first, comfortable. And second, something that will tolerate inevitable paint splatters.

(Shiloh, if you’re listening, please forgive me. My feet are just not the hot pink sequined cowgirl boot type!)

I had a plan.

Plain, neutral black running shoes of the same brand I already love. I figured the paint would just enhance them.

Of course, my favorite Big Peach store didn’t have them in black and my feet, apparently, don’t like the new and “improved” ones nearly as well as last year’s way better ones.

The young woman helping me was perplexed. I am clearly not a runner so why, I could hear her thinking, was I so picky about shoes.

Well, it’s not really me who’s picky. It’s my feet. And we made a deal, years ago, that my feet get to choose shoes.

You, however, are a clever reader, and we’ve talked about shoes before. And I do, indeed, have new shoes.

Art shoes.

Not at all plain. Also not likely to care about a paint splatter or two. Definitely feet-approved.

And quite likely to be granddaughter approved!

Plus, they go with my red thread bracelets. And, probably, my funky socks. Which is just as well, because it’s cold!

I have many things to be thankful for in this moment, including you!

And a suitcase to pack.

Wednesday, a special report from Grammy-land!

 

 

I’m guessing you know the old saying, Put your money where your mouth is!

Well, today is one of those days for me. Actually, it’s been one of those weeks.

I’m really glad I know the wise old man at the top of the mountain because it’s been a week full of trip after trip up the mountain where there’s tea and a whole lot of we don’t know whether this is good news or bad news.

We had our online Graduation party from Intentional Creativity’s Color of Woman training which was lots of fun. And sad.

Not only for endings, which are often bittersweet, but because one of our sisters lost her house in the California wildfires.

She and her family are safe. What she owns, in this moment, is the contents of the suitcase she took with her on the in-person graduation adventure.

The print of one of my paintings, which I had ordered as kind of a test, arrived yesterday. It’s great. So much better than my previous print experience! Legend has a mini-me! Whole new possibilities are opening. (Stay tuned!)

My classmate lost all of her paintings in the fire, which tears at my heart.

I’m delighted to have three friends coming to paint with me this week.

And I’m working on a painting for a dear and gifted friend who is leaving Tuesday to move away. Some of the dots in that one are tears.

My Initiate Book arrived yesterday. I’m thrilled, even with the couple of things I’ll change as soon as I recover from the first edition!

Bill went helpfully off to a parking lot today to pick up dog food which, for reasons that still aren’t quite clear, won’t appear until Thursday. PLEASE don’t mention this to the beasties who get anxious when the groceries get low.

I feel totally blessed to be looking forward to Thanksgiving with our kids and — just between us — wishing I wasn’t going to be home alone this week doing all the getting ready things.

All of which is to say that there’s hard stuff even in the midst of all the joyous stuff and, because we are connectional beings, often Kleenex is involved.

I contemplated hatching up some cheerful, funny, poetic sort of story to tell you today but that’s not how we change things for the better.

We change things for the better by being real and standing together. I’m really glad you’re here!!!

 

 

 

 

Today, I do not want to be a reasonable, rational blogger. Today, I want to rant and rave and call names, but I do not believe in that. And I don’t want to model it for my girls.

And so, instead, I am making a gratitude list.

The Democrats have taken back the House, which is becoming more diverse in its membership, for which I am grateful.  Not a perfect situation, in my opinion, as many Democrats are, shall we say, far from perfect, but better than where we’ve been.

We’re still counting votes in Georgia. (Which is an issue for a whole other day.) A progressive, black, Democratic woman may still be elected  governor. I’d feel better about this if her opponent was not in charge of counting the votes. (Another of those issues for another day.)

I made a lot of new friends during this campaign, wandering around with my Stacey Abrams button and chatting with new and unlikely voters about things that matter. And waved at a whole lot of babies.

Students at Atlanta’s Morehouse College were waiting in line to vote at 11 pm, committed to being heard.

I kept my promise to my girls, who are growing up in this world.

Granted, the changes  I believe need to be made are going to take a while longer.

But, Bernie Sanders got re-elected in Vermont and who knows what that might mean.

I have gotten a great deal more willing to speak out about the things that matter in the face of the need for peace and justice and civil rights in this nation. It’s a grandmother thing.

And, I’ve learned to make prayer dots.

A practice that does not hide from the world but, rather, faces the struggles and acts in hope.

I’ll be making a lot of dots today.

Along with a couple of pots of shrimp and crab broth. And a frittata with local, pasture raised eggs, left-over organic roasted veg and some over-the-moon local, artisanal duck and fig sausage.

I’ll keep voting with my wallet.

And with my faith in the future.

2020, here we come. Many of us with paintbrushes in hand!

 

I’ve graduated from a lot of things in my life. I hold two Associate degrees and was, for many years, a registered nurse. More school and a truckload of student loans resulted in a whole bunch of alphabet soup which translates, in case you’re curious, into Bachelor of Arts,  Master of Divinity and  Doctor of Ministry degrees.

This week, I graduated from Color of Woman 2018. I am, officially, a teacher of Intentional Creativity.

I’m really excited!

And, there’s a party. Many of my paint sisters are in Hawaii. The rest of us will join in on Zoom. The directions include “dressing up”. I’m busting out the fancy velvet trappings from the last graduation… and a bit of bubbly. The studio angels have all rsvp’d and are resting up in anticipation, eager, I’m sure, for the promised treats.

Luther may not know it, but he’s been helping me get ready. He’s an excellent role model for what happens when one lets go and allows themselves to have a new experience. These days he actually enjoys meeting new people and being rubbed and petted, which is a miracle, given where he was when he arrived in our lives.

Luther’s new engagement in life didn’t come from him guilt-tripping himself. It didn’t come from me telling him how he ought to be.

Part of it came, I suspect, from experiencing his sisters be with people and be ok.

And a lot of it came from taking tiny new steps, one after the other.

If you’ve been hanging around for a while, you may have heard about a guy named Bill Harris who helped me understand that we pretty much have to have new experiences in order to shift our ways of being.

We’re all busy perceiving our universe through complicated sets of filters such as beliefs, values, language, and so forth. Most of the filtering in unconscious. When we have a new experience there’s an opportunity for new information to get through our filters and begin to shift our map of reality which, in turn, creates the possibility of new responses to life and new choices for the future.

Or, if you prefer, it’s kind of a right brain-left brain thing.

Some of you have been sitting on my couch or in my rocking chairs, sipping tea and looking for change for years. While you were learning, I was learning, too.

Our filters are so strong that talking ourselves into having a new experience is often very hard. We have to actually DO something different. Preferably something that engages us at many levels of awareness.

Pick up a paintbrush. Write a poem. Start a journal. Learn to build furniture. Become a quilter. Plant a garden. Compose music. Make a pot of soup. Find an intentional way to take what’s useful from old stories and manifest them into something you can see or feel or hear and want in your life.

Suddenly, many new things become possible!

I’m all ready for next. And, for those of you in the US, just in case you haven’t yet, please stop on your way to the art store or the journal store or the kitchen or even to the basement to find your fabric stash, and vote. Intentionally.