Lydia

Today, Lydia came with her parents to. my house. I have not seen any of them since February except on FaceTime.  The most difficult aspect of this virus on a personal level is not being able to see my children and grandchildren. But for a bit there, they were all working the frontlines and it was impossible. We basically met outside on the patio while her parents were doing some work in the yard. We always had this space between us. There was no hugs at all, but we blew kisses across the distance. Everyone talked and told stories and worked. It felt so ordinary and yet it was somehow more beautiful and good than it had ever been previously. It was a moment that I captured in my mind, watching it all play out, understanding how we human beings take so much for granted. I will never take seeing my children or grandchildren for granted ever again. I learn lessons easily.

This plague should remind us all to take care of little things. Ordinary things. Everyday things. People things. Hugs. Kisses. I was thinking today, for me, what a lovely thing a whisper might be now.

Quotes on writing

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself. . . . It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.” 

— Harper Lee

Selfie

Today is Friday and I've been writing three days, almost nonstop on various projects, trying to move the motion forward. For a bit there, I was so lost in Plague2020 news that I could not function, but I don't see the reason behind that now. It's a sort of madness to focus so much time online just reading the thoughts of other people when I am sitting here trying to make sense of my own life. So I went back to work. I am still working. I was trying to take a selfie, but it's getting late afternoon here and I needed the natural light from my bedroom window and the cat refused to let me pose or attempt to get a good angle and so I just starting clicking while the cat swiped at me. My bedroom window is her window. As I type this, she is still pestering me, for I don't know what reason. I have fed her, let her outside to roam the backyard, given her treats. She likes dehydrated chicken pieces. They cost more than my own treats, which makes no sense to me. Am I not superior to her?  I have no complaints today. I am alive and healthy. The cat is too. I had a good dinner of salmon and a salad. I might have some bread and butter for a snack later. No chocolate. I have thrown out all the chocolate because I have gained weight since Plague2020 announcements and it was all mostly the chocolate I was snacking on daily. Poof! It's gone. Now I am walking again and working in the garden. I love my garden. It's so green and full of business and that's life things and possibilities. Oh, I must go, the cat is literally whining, wanting something. 

Some thoughts: We are restricted. We are paused in some ways. But we have to go on believing in possibilities. I live in possibilities. I am taking a class on Buddhism and Modern Psychology and I am going to work at learning French, those are Plague2020 things to fill hours I would normally be doing things with other people. I have some regrets. I cannot see my children or grandchildren except from a distance. But I am better off than most. Past experiences have taught me how to be alone in a house, how to be alone with myself. Many people find this very difficult. Their minds begin to wander and they lose their way in anxiety and depression. I have too many words to write. I have too many books to read. Paintings to paint. Flowers to plant and nurture. I can't complain while so many people are sick, while so many people have died and died alone without loved ones to hold their hands and kiss their lips.

A clown, photography by Rolph Gobits

by Rolph Gobits 
From the 'Entertainers' series

It took Gobits twenty years to develop this series,  a circus-inspired collection of portraits of middle-aged clowns, knife throwers, ersatz cowboys, riders of tiny bicycles, accordion players, and masters of shadow puppetry.

I've always been obsessed with it. And began looking at these images for use in my own work, both word and visual.

Capote on writing

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."
–Truman Capote

Caricatures for Albe by Claire Clairmont

Caricatures for Albe

The last his Death. He dead, extended on his bed, covered all but his breast, which many wigged doctors are cutting open to find out (as one may be saying) what was the extraordinary disease of which this great man died—His heart laid bare, they find an immense capital I grown on its surface—and which had begun to pierce the breast—They are all astonishment.

One says, "A new disease." Another, "I never had a case of this before." A third, "What medicine would have been proper?" The fourth, holding up a finger, "A Desert island."


                                                —Claire Clairmont
                                                 on Lord Byron

Carmilla quote

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die -- die, sweetly die -- into mine. —Sheridan Le Fanu, 
from Carmilla

Les Amoureux by Marc Chagall

 

This is Marc Chagall’s Les Amoureux. He is one of my favorite painters, and I was surprised when I learned how his early life was full of unnecessary hardships. He grew up in a Hasidic household, which forbid any images of God’s creations, therefore, he had no visual art. Can you image? No paintings to look at, and yet, he became a painter. I always find this story impressive.

Eve by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Eve, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Coronavirus

The single word none of us will ever forget in our lifetime.
Coronavirus.
The End.

Beloved Books

“By you, I am forever undone.” 

             ― Cardan, from Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

I need to embrace this. Laughing.

Friday afternoon after shopping

Zadie Smith on Fiction

"Fiction messes with our sense of what is possible to do with our judgements. It usefully suspends our great and violent desire to be in the right on every question, and creates an unholy and ungovernable mix of the true and the false. It’s the place where things are true and not true simultaneously: the ultimate impossibility."

Zadie Smith, from “The I Who Is Not Me”, Feel Free: Essays

Favorite Books, The Night Circus

“ ‘It is important,’ the man in the grey suit interrupts. 'Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that.’ He takes another sip of his wine. 'There are many kinds of magic, after all.’ ”

—Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

Welcome March.

This is the end of  February.  

I had an unusual winter. No depression. (I got off pills. I was happy. I was not ill.) And I stayed active. Good thing, because I have gained ten pounds since last August and I have to lose that weight plus ten more pounds from previous winter.  Laughing. But I am all right. Sure, I am frustrated and unhappy with my body but I still love myself.  However, this is way too much weight for someone as short and small as I am. I have learned this the hard way, and I don't want my weight to go any higher. I guess I just ate my anxieties in 2019. Hell, I don't know. It was the year that I began to move back into society, after losing Johnny. Lots of eating out and going places and I just didn't take notice of my eating habits. I probably ate out more than I ever have in the past. I ate more breakfast food. OMG. I was never a breakfast person at all. I skipped it. But no, I ate eggs and sausage and biscuits. I baked too much. And now I am paying for it. Also, I ate a lot of chocolate, which someone said was my way of dealing with moods. Could be true!  However, right now it doesn't matter. I have to watch what I eat and exercise more. Cook more. No sweets in the house. Normal things you do when you want to drop several pounds.

My writing is going good. I love my story, my writing is stronger than ever, and I'm confident that I know what the hell I am doing. It's just slow work. Big novels are difficult because of the time needed to write a very complex structure that is outside my comfort zone. I only average about 4 pages a day when working and I don't write on the novel every day anymore.  Five pages when working is the limit. I actually stop when I achieve that, which is a new way of writing for me. No matter how I feel or how exciting the writing is going, I stop at five pages and I go do something else. I get out of the chair and out of my head and out of the story. This is a new way of thinking about writing and work. But it's been so awesome for me as a person. It is something that has eliminated backaches, headaches, carpal tunnel, spinning thoughts, exhaustion, and increased anxiety cycles. I'd like to thank my therapist for telling me that I needed to write slow and careful. Laughing. I never count words at all and I do not draft loosely. It's never been helpful for me to write a shitty draft and all that. That way of writing has never worked for me. Drafts like that I never end up using. Those drafts just seem to be a way of thinking a story out and they are lost as I write a whole new draft. And then that shitty draft cycle is repeated as my thoughts change and the story develops. What a mess!  Just years of nothing. I now do a lot of work along the way, and I revel in the slow motion of that gorgeous process. Oh, live and learn....


I still consider myself a widow who is grieving a lost friend, lover, and husband. I think it's forever unless I fall in love again or get involved in a new relationship, two things I am not seeking. I was married for a very long time and now I just want to paint, garden, and finish some stories. But it's not easy being alone, doing everything yourself, and keeping yourself out of sour and low moods.  I tend to go into depressions easy. But I've had therapy and realize how quick my moods can go flat. I no longer take antidepressants, something I did for almost two decades. I live drug free now. I guess that might help explain some of the weight gain, because depression and Prozac killed my appetite.  Winters are usually very hard on me emotionally. I dislike winter. But I have had the best winter since before my father died in early January of 2007.  I feel enlightened in a way, that I am so aware of  how mentally to stay healthy now. This probably has a lot to do with Buddhism and meditation, something I became interested in a long time ago and now practice daily. I feel really good about where I am at in my life. But I do miss Johnny. He was an incredible person. But he's gone, and I understand how precious life is and how truly wonderful every day can be.  There is value to suffering. It gives you perspective, a view far from your personal privilege. I've known a lot of it. But I am not undone by it.

I didn't make goals on the New Year. I never do anymore.  I wait till February is over before I start thinking about new things. March is really spring in the South.  I now start working in the yard, thinking about my flowers and other plants. I exercise a lot more. I am out of my head a lot, which is a very good thing. My goals are really not too impressive this year. I just want to write a really good draft of this novel in 2020, one that I can actually revise and feel like it's going to be finished soon. That's all. I want to write new poems and revise some very old ones. I have a lot of paintings to finish and many art projects, so that is where my head is. I think overall, I just want to stay healthy, keep doing the things I enjoy, and be content.

And lose this weight! Smiling.

Johnny

I dreamt we spoke, I dreamt we spoke again
It'd been so long, it'd been so long my mind filled in the blanks
I dreamt we spoke, I dreamt we spoke again
It'd been so long, it'd been so long, your voice was like a ghost

In my head
In my head

Only in, yes, only in a dream
Is anything, is anything the way it used to be?
I dreamt we spoke, I dreamt we spoke again
But when I awoke, when I awoke I could not remember

Anything you said
Anything you said
Anything you said
Anything you said

by Death Cab For Cutie

Light Picture by Vasily Kandinsky, 1913

Light Picture by Vasily Kandinsky, 1913

For many, I remain a mystery.

“But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.” 
                     ― Albert Camus

Unicorn Angela Carter

So I conceal my armoury

Yours is all on view

You think you are possessing me

But I’ve got my teeth in you.

                           —Angela Carter, from Unicorn

Happy Valentine's Day

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world. 

                           —Edna St. Vincent Millay

Working

The Lights Will Stay On by The Walkabouts

This is the first time I ever heard the phrase "The City of Crows" which was the original title for the very first (and now very defunct)  draft of the Fairy tale Novel.  It's a beautiful song and it reminded me of how folklore can look and sound without being overwhelming. It also carries a theme that I now use in all my writing. This video is a very important piece of art which has greatly influenced my own art and yes, my life. It's transformative. 

Reflection Early 2020

Well, I've made "The Shift" as I call it. The Shift is going from being a widow to someone who has decided how she wants to live the rest of her life. I really resisted this moment, hoping to play awhile longer, just float some more and I probably would have done so if not for some unfortunate and perhaps ridiculous circumstances. For people who know me, particularly my family, I am considered a closed-off person, someone who can be cold, indifferent, distant. In the company of people I know, I can be warm but I am not very very giving. I've lived most of my life with one person, John, with books, with paintings, in my garden, alone, doing only what I wanted. The last couple of years I've tried to be more social and have failed miserably. I don't know how to be with people. Laughing. I can be with them in work, in books, in my garden. I'm a good person, but at times, I am naive. I guess this is due to the fact that I expect people to have manners and civility.  I grew up in a household where manners were totally necessary. But in the world outside my world, people are not like this. And I have been foolish.

But I never repeat the same mistake.

And I have moved on.  

All of this online mess I've made has prompted me to go ahead and do what I need to do. Just quit playing, procrastinating, floating in and out. I don't make these big shifts often but when I do, people get confused. They wonder what happened to me. I made one around 2006, and another another one around 2012.  This is probably the most severe shift I have ever made, since I was a very young woman. It's been coming, slowly but surely.  But there are only a few moments in life where we are faced with rebuilding our lives, our goals, deciding how we want to live.

I know how I want to live the rest of my life, and it's not online, in the middle of clusters with people I don't really know. I just can't be there for people I'll never really know. And I don't want to be just a widow anymore. I want to move on and live a rich and full life, to do things and be with my children and grandchildren, my flowers, and my books, and yes, my writing. I want to finish a novel. 

So, I am making online changes. Making it a smaller part of my daily life. 

I am going to write a big novel and then another one. And I am going to smile while doing it.

The Shift in Direction is Completed.

“There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King.” 


—Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Salvador Dali, Flowers

Salvador Dali. Flowers. 1948

Bocca Baciata

‘The mouth that has been kissed does not lose its good fortune: rather, it renews itself just as the moon does.’

                                     Italian Proverb

When I am reminded of Beauty...

Bocca Baciata

Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison

The most important book I have read in 2019.

Writing is not what happens next, it's why it is happening.

The Beauty Myth

“Ideal beauty is ideal because it does not exist; The action lies in the gap between desire and gratification. Women are not perfect beauties without distance. That space, in a consumer culture, is a lucrative one. The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage, its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.” 


                    —Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

Such a desperation lately.

“What I value is the naked contact of a mind.” 
― Virginia Woolf

Art

“In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.” 


                                            ― Robert McKee

More on Art

“Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.”

                                 

                             —Franz Kafka

from “The Place I Want to Get Back To” by Mary Oliver

I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?

                      —Mary Oliver

Doing. Doing. Doing.

Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity, or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere. 

                                —Paulo Coelho

December 25, 2019

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

 
—L.R. Knost

(I am. I am. I am.)

Merry Christmas

“Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for all good.” 


                            ― Charles Dickens

Words to Art By

Words to art by:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. 

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”

                                      ― Martha Graham

I made it

“even 
in the loneliest moments

i have been there
for myself.” 
― Sanober Khan

Reality

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it. 

Daniel Kahneman

Real Change

“There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.” 


                                     ― Douglas Adams

Be Merry.

Desire is the Opposite of Death

“There are no 'good' or 'bad' people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. A blindness to what is going on in each other's hearts... nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see ...each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition-- all such distortions within our own egos-- condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That's how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layer of opacity and see each other's naked hearts. Such cases seem purely theoretical to me...” 

                                                          —Tennessee Williams

THIS

"It’s not dying that I fear, but living in death."

                                                —Albert Camus

December 7, 2019 Selfie

I am sustained by “an unconquerable summer.”

                        MJH

Georgiana Houghton

Georgiana Houghton (British artist and spiritualist medium) 1814 - 1884

Flower of Warrant Houghton, 1861
watercolour and gouache on paper on board

Beloved Books

Hypocrisy

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” 


                                         ― Noël Coward

On truth....

“I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard, and shows the bare bones beneath.” 


                                 ― Wilkie Collins

Alice in Wonderland illustation

Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Helena Watson

John P. Harrison, II

Johnny aka Guitar Man, June 1976

Giving thanks for him...

Patriarchy

“I understand,' said Melanie. An ancient, female look passed between them; they were poor women pensioners, planets round a male sun.” 


                    ― Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop
                        (on patriarchy)

Radical ideas I like

“there is nothing real or true that is timeless” 
                      ― Lee Smolin

Isabella and the pot of Basil by George Henry Grenville Manton

Isabella and the pot of Basil by George Henry Grenville Manton

The choice of colors has always interest me. There are some contradictions. I am always caught by the sight of it. Mesmerized. It's one of those paintings I would love to step into, where I could touch the flowers, the scarf, her hair. Feel the light. Just feel that light.

Respect Yourself and your Art

Phantasie by Emil Nolde

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.” 
                                  ― Adrienne Rich

Cupid's Darts by Phoebe Anna Traquair

"Cupid's Darts" by Phoebe Anna Traquair (1897).

Working through the changes...is like feeling nothing some days.

 Some days I am just floating. I need an anchor. Not likely to find it. And so I float. I just float. And wait. And wait. And I don't even think about anybody but myself. Selfish. A little sad. Flat. I am not even writing this week.  I walk a lot. I talk to neighbors. I smile. I walk. I talk. I smile. I float. Prozac. Prozac. Prozac. All alone. I am floating. 

November Book Buy

Joy Williams on the writer

“The writer doesn’t want to disclose or instruct or advocate, he wants to transmute and disturb. He cherishes the mystery, he cares for it like a fugitive in his cabin, his cave. He doesn’t want to talk it into giving itself up. He would never turn it in to the authorities, the mass mind. The writer is somewhat of a fugitive himself, actually. He wants to escape his time, the obligations of his time, and, by writing, transcend them. The writer does not like to follow orders, not even the orders of his own organizing intellect.”

                                                                      ― Joy Williams

My Truth

“All I wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. I had no need for material possessions, money or even close friends with me on my journey. I never understood people very well anyway, and they never seemed to understand me very well either. All I wanted was my art and the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality.” 
                                     ― Charlotte Eriksson

All Souls' Day (Nov 2)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Remembering (All Souls)

2006—Barbara Ann
2007— Daddy
2008—Aunt Belle
2009—Momma
2011—Gwen
2012—Granddaddy
2014—Marty
2016—Johnny (beloved husband)
2018—Sally
2019—Granny

Shelley on what we Modern Americans Need to Do

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like
dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many-they are few.” 
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

Who tells the story....

“Who tells the story, who recasts the characters and changes the tone becomes very important: no story is ever the same as its source or model, the chemistry of narrator and audience changes it.”

                          Marina Warner

Melancholia

Francesca Woodman

“But I can't do anything for him and he can't do anything for me. We must wail in our own corners.” 
― Iris Murdoch

Creating Art Quotes

“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them,so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

                                                  Rainer Maria Rilke

Things I have learned in the last 5 years about writing

No matter what an author writes, the author cannot hide. Be it the author's subject matter, the sentence structure, the diction, or even tone, the writer's personality is going to be revealed. The author is his or her work and the kind of work does not matter. It can be high art as in literary writing or more common genre writing, a memoir, or a year's string of tweets or Facebook posts, even a song. But the exposure is the same. A personality is divulged.

Yes, some beliefs are openly stated. But others can be eventually discovered in the actual words that an author uses. After all, all writing is about experience, whether it is merely described experience or interpreted. I have come to understand that the best writing is interpreted and is done so, with great sensitivity, the kind of perceptiveness that is made visible.  There is a distinctiveness, a peculiar sound and meaning.

This is one of the most valuable things that I have learned about writing in the last five years, not just the intellect of knowing it as a truth, but observing it in all kinds of people. This new way of looking and paying attention has taught me many lessons, even about myself.

It has changed how I pay attention to the world and how I look, and also how I read. But mostly how I now live my daily life. 

Who knew words could be so powerful.
Who knew that finding interest in the everyday things, in what might be missing counts.

Remembering Mother on her Birthday

l-r Virginia and Pauline Church

Remembering Mother, who was born 100 years ago today in Moorhead, Mississippi. Pauline Church Harrington, born October 13, 1919, died August 27, 2009. An incredible human being. A force of nature. She had many gifts. Her love of books and reading was one of them. She could spin a tale out of thin air and loved a good story. Queen of the Day Trip and Color commentary on life. Fantastic cook. In her 70s, she rode in the back of a pickup truck, over land, from Louisiana to Alaska, with her baby sister, Belle. She outlived six siblings, carried five pregnancies to full term, married two men, buried both of them. It's true, her life was detailed by hardship and suffering, but she was a survivor. On life, she told me, "All I knew was my family, especially my brothers and sisters. I was like a mother to the younger ones. We almost starved one winter. It defined the ones who lived together after Daddy died."  On death, she told me, "It's nothing. Just the end. Everything ends. Think of me as  sleeping."

Sleep well, Mother.

Creating art

An artist must be passionately in love with his art. Obsessed or possessed ― go mad for what you believe in.”


                                  – Charlotte Eriksson

I have witched you!

“I kissed you! I witched you!
I laugh at the afterlife’s dark.” 
― Marina Tsvetaeva

Paysage Bleu  by Marc Chagall