Holy Cow.

I've had an iris about ready to bloom for a week.  Last fall, I hurriedly ordered and then planted a bunch of bulbs and rhizomes last and then promptly forgot what any of them were.  And I'm going out of town tomorrow and thought I would miss this guy blooming before I went.

But, at last.  And it was worth the wait.

The inside is just as pretty.  It looks like a stormy sunrise... *sigh.

What if your aesthetic doesn't match the actual work you produce?

So, I'm having sort of a dilemma right now.  It's not keeping me up nights, but it's on my mind a lot.

I have a bunch of time to be creative right now, and I don't want to squander it.  I'm having loads and loads of ideas--so many that I have to jot them down the moment I have them so that I don't lose them in the onslaught of more ideas.  Some of those are gardening ideas.  A bunch are creative nursery ideas (but if I work on those now, will I jinx the process?  If we're totally unprepared will we get a baby really quickly?). But a bunch are also illustrations and book ideas and toys and pillows.

My desk--that I'm trying to keep so so so clean--keeps getting littered with little scraps of paper with ideas on them.  It's great!  And a little overwhelming.

Here's the actual dilemma, though.  My aesthetic is really pared down, the simplest structure and line work as possible--just enough detail that some other person can understand the thing I have made.  My toys have eyes, but never mouths. I like big color fields.  My favorite color is all greys but the lightest versions that slip into pastels.  I hate pastels. I love all things natural as design elements, but also as textures (don't try to sneak polyester or rayon or Splenda or margarine on me.  I can always tell).  I believe that children's toys should appeal to them, but also to the adult that they will become, and I think they should fit into the decor of their family's home--wood blocks, naturally colored dolls.  And everything I make should be enduring.  It's construction and appeal should last.

But sometimes when I sit down to draw, it all gets really complicated or the colors are whacky.  I start with the idea that I am going to follow the things inside of me that define how I judge taste and the objects I allow in my house, and 20 minutes later, I've not followed any of those rules.  What's up with that?

 

These are slices of a series of heads I have created.  What?  I like them, but how do they get me to where I actually want to go? I don't have this problem with the dolls I make.  I buy yarn and fabric in colors that appeal to me.  But something about drawing digitally. . . there are so many options and cool things to play with.

So, help me/us out.  How do you create within the bounds of your aesthetic?  Does it just happen naturally or do you have to make a conscious effort to constrain yourself?  Where do our aesthetics even come from?  And do you think we can live two aesthetics--the aesthetic of what we create and the aesthetic of what we consume?

And maybe most importantly, is it important to have one strong look and feel for your work?  

 

I struggle with that. I love that when I see illustrations by Mercer Mayer that I can always recognize them.  But I also think it's pretty cool that there are Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Oak Park that you would never recognize as his designs if they weren't on the registry.

What if you want to try out loads of different "looks and feels" in your art work?  Is that a lack of commitment? Or is that unfettered creativity?  I don't know.

I'm not sure I can only still be having this conversation with myself. . . Thanks in advance for chiming in!

What's Happening?

I am approaching two months out of my job of 10 years.  Two months of standing outside a career and a regular decent paycheck and the ability to buy a lot of things or expensive dinners.  It's disconcerting and sometimes it makes me feel uneasy or it makes me worry a little about the future and what that will hold for me when I figure things out.  That's the tough stuff, but there's good stuff, too.

I'm no longer afraid or anxious or nervous. When I smile now, I can literally feel how my face lights up and how that smile is a smile inside and out.  I don't use an alarm clock to wake up any more, and oddly enough, I wake up earlier and want to get out of bed and start the day. I catch myself singing and or dancing while cooking or gardening or cleaning.  I think about things really deeply and fully.  I see details of the world around me that I haven't bothered to notice (a completely shiny silver church steeple in Oak Park.  I looked it up thinking that the shiny-ness was new.  Nope.  I was just so bound up I didn't notice giant 20 feet tall shiny things in a sky that I see weekly). I feel peaceful inside.  I am truly best friends with my dog for maybe the first time in his life.  Dan has a good wife in me now and that makes me infinitely happy and content.

Also, and we'll see if this lasts, I don't really want to buy things. Maybe that's liking kicking coffee or sugar? You just have to go cold turkey, get over the withdrawal, and then you look around and wonder how you accumulated all of the stuff you already have.  And instead of wanting to buy things, suddenly you want to streamline and get rid of things and whittle your life down to just the best bare essentials, making room for thinking and loving and people instead of junk. . .

My friend Slava, who has recently moved her entire life from Chicago to Long Island really abruptly for a new job, has put all of her stuff in storage in Brooklyn and is in temporary digs in Long Island essentially living out of three suitcases.  We talked about this recently, her so far away on the phone in this new life, me in a much different life than when we hugged goodbye in February.  And at some point our conversation turned to the things we owned and why.  She has discovered that all she really needs is the stuff in her three bags and that she's already starting--in just three months--to forget what's in her storage unit.  She and I both were marveling at the surprising sense of freedom that comes from not being burdened by so many things.

We'll see if this feeling lasts.  But I like it.

Also, this morning, I watched this great short documentary about fashion and consumption and whether our level of consumption of clothing is sustainable (spoiler: it's totally not) and then following a few designers around who are trying to investigate ways to make fashion better/more energy efficient/more sustainable and it's fascinating:


I think I aspire to buying fewer things that are of higher quality that will last and last and last, and this documentary definitely is inspirational in that regard.

Upcoming Project

On a family walk today, this beauty caught our eye:

So we drove back once we got home and picked it up.  We have all of the drawers and there are little shelves inside the cabinets.  It's a big piece.  Seems like it's the top of a hutch, but when I get through with it, it will be nursery furniture.  It's big enough to hold all the kid's stuff for a few years.  Super exciting.

When it's made over, pictures will be shared.  Promise.

Checking in

I mean to be posting more, but I have to be honest, I'm spending so much time enjoying my life more that it hasn't been a priority.  I have been writing letters to friends and family.  I have been taking my dog for walks.  I eat lunch with my husband every day (often lunches I have master-chef-ed out of food from the pantry).  I knit and sew and clean and cook.  I draw.  Oh I draw and draw and draw and draw.

I'm also doing some temporary contract work--such a gift.  It doesn't take loads and loads of brain power, but I can do the work at home on my schedule and it's the kind of work I could keep doing once there's a wee person in the house.  Extra cash to make money feel not quite so tight on one salary.  Thank you, Jess, for thinking of me for this.  It was the last piece of the puzzle that makes all of this feel better than okay.

And now there's a word that I've decided I'm going to try to get out of my vocabulary: should.  It's this word that I think I use in a guilty way, as in I am enjoying doing X, but I really should be doing Y.  Or I am making this big life decision because it's what I should do.  But the second I say "should," I know that there's a better voice inside of me that's saying, "don't do it!"  "Should" literally is the word my brain uses to say, "now I have to give up something I like to do for something I truly don't want to do." Why do I do this to myself?

So here are some pictures of my past week:

office clean up.  threw out several bags of garbage.  I'm a pack rat.

but now my office is clean and lovely.  Still.  A week and half later.

Our dog L.P. is sending emails to my niece and nephew. If they get mail, they get to read it out loud in front of their preschool class.  Now that I know that, those kids are getting some mail.

Sometimes, just riding the train with friends is fun. . . 

but it's also nice when there is a baseball game at the end of the ride.

The garden is starting to take care of itself.  Less planting this year.  All the hard work has paid off!

Columbia College Chicago's end of the year arts celebration: Manifest!  A giant art party--who cares if it rained, the art was still brilliant.

These are the kinds of things I should be doing, so I am.  It helps that Dan supports this brief period of discovery and starting over.  I may never be able to repay him for this, but I will love him deeply and  long.

Babies Rule the World

New View

I keep up with a bunch of blogs (see the blog roll to the left of the page) and I learn all kinds of cool stuff from them.  I learn about gardening and design and people's lives in other countries and food and art.  Sometimes I also learn about new or cool technology.  So, this weekend, I got a few new apps (Tangent, Lory Stripes and Fragment) and I'm having a little fun:

So dreamy. . . 

At Last

Winter has been tough in most of the country this year. (Can I get an Amen?)  Frigid. Snow covered. And so ridiculously long.  I mind winter less as I get older, but I have hated this year's.  It snowed just a few days ago.  After a few sixty and seventy degree days--flowers blooming in the yard, me out on the town not sausaged into a million layers for the the first time in going on seven months--enough big fat wet snow fell that it stuck on the ground for a whole day.  In April.

Unconscionable.

I have asked strangers on elevators (in a town where you don't talk to strangers very often), "Why does the outside hate us?"  I was on a walk in the cold with the dog two days ago and a bundled up old guy on a bike yelled as he rode past us, "Do you know when the hell it plans to warm up?"

I'm just saying, people are angry and tired and fed up.

But I think things are finally about to change and I have collected the proof from my very own yard (and the neighbor's):

The very start of lilac blooms.  I love the tight concord grapeyness of their beginnings.

Asiatic lilies creeping out.  Right from the start they're so themselves--pointy and brash.

Is there anything more promising up north than the first prehistoric looking unfolding of Rhubarb leaves?

A hosta spear troop.

Bird's nest on our rolled up awning. (And, um, I think we need to scrub all of that down when the birdie is done.  Dirty, dirty.)

Crocuses!

Neighbor's tree. (totally jealous.)

Spirea leaf starts.

Ruth Ozeki and the Little Wave People

Just recently, I read Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, and loved it. It's sad overall, but is nevertheless filled with so many moments of such honesty and hope, that when I finished the book, I wasn't certain if I should be sad or happy (but happy definitely on the more subtle content end of the spectrum).  It's the feeling I hope to have, maybe, at the end of things?  A mix of important feelings neither good nor bad winning out--as complicated as saying good bye must be and feel.

Anyhoo, early on in the novel, the main character Nao Yasutani (a 16 year old girl set on committing suicide after filling her journal and telling the story of her Grandmother's life as a Buddhist nun) explains the meaning of "ronin".  Long ago, a ronin was a samurai whose master had died, and was then condemned (or freed?) to be a wandering sword for hire.  In modern day, it essentially means a loser kid who hasn't found a path and seems unlikely to.  Nao is a ronin.

But then she further breaks down the etymology of ronin in this way:

The way you write ronin is with the character for wave and the character for person, which is pretty much how I feel, like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.

Wow.  I read that teensy paragraph and felt it down to my toes and had to take a break from the book for a day.  That's precisely how I feel right now. . . like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.

I'm moments from not having my job of ten years any more.  I resigned, though it hardly felt like my choice.  Not that that's important.  What's important is that I am getting out and roaming free for a bit.  I am lucky to have a husband and a family that supports this.  And this is the right move for right now. But it nevertheless makes me feel small, maybe even wee.  And uncertain. . . deeply uncertain. It's scary and lovely and heartbreaking.

In the end, I bet it will be okay.

Later in Ozeki's novel, Nao's grandmother takes her to sea and has her go out and "fight the waves".  Nao thinks it's a bit silly, but does it anyway.  When she returns, tired, to her grandmother, this conversation happens:

"Maketa," I said, throwing myself down in the sand. "I lost. The ocean won."
She smiled. "Was it a good feeling?"
"Mm," I said.
"That's good," she said. "Have another rice ball?"

As simple as that.  When sad or lost, sometimes the cure is to recognize that there are forces so much larger than you that you couldn't possibly win against them.  It's important, I think, to try, but then when you lose, to enjoy the exhaustion of a fight well battled and acceptance of not being a winner without also being a loser.  Important stuff.

Read the book.  I think you'll like it.

On not taking yourself too seriously

My friends have super mixed opinions of Jimmy Fallon.  They either seem to like him a lot or don't think he's funny at all.  I wasn't a huge fan of his on SNL, because he could never keep from breaking during skits.  Before he joined the cast, the moments that the cast or guests broke were few and far between, and so when it happened it felt like a special gift, like you were seeing some rare joyous moment when even professionals couldn't keep it together.  Jimmy Fallon made that not a rarity.  It became a weekly occurrence, and I didn't like it.

But now that I'm older and Jimmy Fallon has moved on to Late Night and now the Tonight Show, I'm a huge fan.  I think the talk shows are a better fit for him--but mostly because it seems like those outlets allow him to be fully him.  He's a joyous dude and maybe he always broke on SNL because he's so filled with laughter.  Isn't that a nice thought?  I don't know him, obviously, but I adore his gleeful child-like approach to humor and entertainment.  It's as if his whole professional career is about not taking himself too seriously and convincing all of his guests to do the same.

He's a breath of fresh air.

And so here's his newest gift:




And how convenient for me that the song he picked for this week's Dressing Room Recording Session is Idina Menzel singing Oscar-winning Song "Let it Go"?

I'm trying to take myself less seriously.  I'm trying to take just about everything less seriously--except for loving people.  Opinions outside of myself shouldn't matter.  And my inner opinions should be gentler and more compassionate.

Let it go, people.  Let it go.

Lightening the Load

Is there a day that listening to a band that includes a harmonium, banjo, and xylophone can't improve just the tiniest bit?

You be the judge:


Thank you, Freelance Whales.

That is all.

Late to the Fair

So, I think everyone has already seen Benjamin Ames and his teeny 4 y.o. singing "Tonight You Belong to Me".  Apparently it was on the news and the video went "viral."  But I saw it for the first time today, and so I'm posting it.  Maybe not for you.  Maybe just for me so that I know it will be safe and sound in my archive, and I will be able to re-find it a year or two from now when I need a cheer up or a little free parenting advice.  It's lovely.



You might have just noticed that I snuck in the possibility of needing a little free parenting advice.  Yah, I'm late to the fair with Benjamin Ames. . . but also with being a mom to some wee person.  No longer.  D and I have started the process to adopt. So, in truth, motherhood will take a little bit longer. This isn't a swift process.  But we're so excited to have started on the journey.

I can't imagine that I will talk about the actual process here a lot.  In large part because it won't just be mine and D's journey.  It will be the journey of the generous birth family who walks the line with us.  And their story isn't my story to tell.  We will have a small private life together that would be wrong to reveal.

But I won't likely be able to keep my hope and joy and love and excitement to myself.  And so this video.  Mr. Ames.  Thank you for showing a sweet way of taking the anxiety out of something scary.  Fireworks--literally things that go bump in the night--get the smack down from singing with Dad.  This will be a solution in our house, and I can't wait.

Lily and Madeleine

These lovely young sisters had a "tiny desk concert" on NPR recently.  Their voices are gentle and sweet and just the thing for a day like today--a cold day stuck inside doing domestic things like baking and cooking and cleaning.  They elevate all of it.



Important to note, I feel only "stuck" inside not "stuck" doing domestic things.  I love to cook food for our eatings.  I love taking care of my people.  And this music is a peaceful soundtrack to that good quiet work.

My Favorite Movie of the Oscar Picks

I should be honest and say upfront that I have not seen all of the Oscar nominated movies.  Okay, I've only seen two of the Best Picture nominees: her and American Hustle.  But I've seen a smattering of other movies that have nods in other categories: Cutie and the Boxer (documentary), 20 Feet from Stardom (documentary), August Osage County (acting nods), The Croods, Despicable Me 2, a number of others.  I will see Captain Phillips and Inside Llewyn Davis and likely Frozen before the awards come around.  But I get excited because my husband gets excited because his twin (who was a film major and loves film film film) gets excited and there's lots of talk about who should win and why.

I should also be honest and say I don't really care who wins.  Giant celebratory awards ceremonies for honoring millionaires for being the best at a job that they adore. . . Nowadays?  Seems a little tone deaf.  But film is still good and moving and important.  And so my pick for Best Picture, simply because it was my favorite film of the year, hands down, is Spike Jonze's her.

Looking at reviews online, it seems like people either love or hate this movie, but I just thought it was beautiful.  When I was a kid, loads of movies about aliens were positive--Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Starman--and writers and directors made space for a vision of alien life being gentle and curious.  That's incredibly rare now. Even Spielberg's aliens are angry and violent now, and it makes me a little sad.  It feels like a lack in our vision, and likely a lack of wonder or generosity or hope. Artificial Intelligence--the other Sci-Fi bogey man--has rarely ever been anything other than terrifying.  Machines become smarter than us, and they immediately set to work enslaving or killing the entire human population.

But not so in "her".  A.I. starts as a personalized OS system that begins its life and learning getting to know individual people, and as a result, it loves us.  It's such a hopeful take and I hope more likely than The Matrix or Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey or even the ridiculously morose A.I.

Beyond the Sci-Fi genre thoughts, her is also, primarily a story about love.  How do we love?  What constitutes love?  Does romantic love happen in your mind or does it have to also be physical? How do we learn that we are loved or even lovable?  What constitutes a human connection and has that been changed by the influx of technology into our personal lives?

It's a pretty thought provoking movie, with the bonus of also being uplifting as well.  In 2014, my year of pursuing love and quiet joy, her was undoubtedly a quiet joy.



Also, I would totally kick ass at Twombly's day job.

Best Book of 2013

At the end of 2012, I was pretty tuckered out.  I spent the year recovering from back surgery and serving on a pretty time-consuming committee at work, and I felt removed from my life and creativity and the people I love.  And I'm not even sure I realized it, until I saw the movie "The Beginners".  Such a quiet lovely movie, and after watching it, I vowed to be more connected in 2013. . . and I think I was.

But as it turns out, being more connected to the people around you isn't enough if you're disconnected from yourself.  I discovered that in one of the hardest ways possible in 2013, before reading A.M. Homes ridiculously strange and beautiful and funny and sad and celebratory novel "May We Be Forgiven."  But "May We Be Forgiven" showed up for me at just the right time as I was swimming back to the surface.

I don't want to give too much away about the book except to say that, for me, while reading the novel, the title felt like a question.  Is forgiveness possible?  Can we forgive each other?  Can we forgive ourselves? And it made me think deeply about how much worry and sadness and embarrassment and fear I carry around with me--most of it over incredibly trivial things or things that I have blown way out of proportion.  Why are we so hard on ourselves?  Why is it often easiest to default to thinking the worst of ourselves?

The characters in "May We Be Forgiven" do far more terrible things than I hope I have it in me to do, but they work to redeem themselves.  And they work to forgive each other and that work comes mostly through love.  And I want to learn from that--to learn to do that work and to also forgive others, even people who aren't interested in my forgiveness.  Because even though forgiveness is a kind of grace, it's also incredibly self-serving.  And not "self-serving" in a negative way, in the sense that it's a way of caring for yourself and freeing yourself from anger.

I was filled with a strange and powerful sadness in 2013, but as it ebbs away and I start building a new future, that empty space is filling with love.  And that's how I will forgive myself.

I want the same for you.

2014 - The Year of Love and Quiet Joy

I have been in a haze.  A little unhappy.  A little unfocussed.  But mostly I would describe it as absent or removed or maybe lost.

I assume this happens to everyone--some period in your life when woe or doubt or exhaustion accumulates unnoticed until you're perpetually carrying around a grey dirty window that separates you from the electricity of the world.  Nothing seems as bright or as lovely or as engaging as it had before.  Maybe you realize that you're bored and that you can't figure out what would you like to do with your free time--you who have so many interests, so much curiosity, so many things you usually want to learn or do or see or experience.

I wish Americans felt more comfortable using the word "ennui," because it's the perfect single word to say what I mean.  And ennui can be difficult to shake (especially in the winter, in a polar vortex, with a windchill outside of -45 that wants to eat you the moment you leave your home).

But 2014 is the year for breaking the grip of my sadness and complacency.  I'm getting back on track and shaking off my distance from the world.  So, as a first step, I am going to take stock of my life right here in public to make a declaration of the things I have to be thankful for:

1. I have a beautiful life in a cozy house with a cute grumpy dog and the perfect man for me.
2. I was born into an amazing loving family--not everyone has this.  This is amazing luck.
3. I have married into another amazing loving family--seriously.  I have two great moms and dads now, and I tripled the number of cool brothers I can pal around with.  Again, how did I have this luck?
4. And I have a small wonderful network of chosen family who I have had the good fortune to meet, collect and hold dear no matter how close or how far they are from me. 
5. I was raised to be polite and empathetic and engaged and curious and to love learning, and those have been the most important skills that have made everything else in my life possible.

And that's the list.  That covers everything.  Every other thing that I might be grateful for is just a subset of that list of 5 things.  It's that simple.  And so I'm going back to that list this year (and I hope every day for the rest of my life) to refocus my life on those things and those people, and I am quite certain that joy will follow.

I invite you to make your own list.  It's amazing how easy it is and how cheering it is to write it down.  

Happy New Year, friends.  May your 2014 be filled with love and quiet joy.

Classy Redwoods

After leaving Eureka, we headed into the National Redwood Forest.  And after a brief stop at the Nature Center and a chat with friendly rangers, we headed off to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove.  And that's where I think we saw our largest redwoods of the trip.  It was a beautifully maintained 1.5 mile hike.

 Did you know that when forest fires sweep through a redwood grove, often the giants are unharmed because their bark is a foot thick?  And when they are burned, typically that injures their heartwood which rots away over time--leaving behind their outer shell which continues to grow?  Crazy.