Art Food Soul

Picture Hope: Gathering Images for the Journey from LittlePurpleCow Productions on Vimeo.

Red Molly is playing up the street from me Saturday, with Tripping Lily opening for them. Just joined a street team. I’ve got to start learning how to use my IPOD.

Here’s Tripping Lily:

And here’s Red Molly:

When I moved back to the cape 11 years ago, my sister had given me the book Simple Abundance. I read it cover to cover that year. There were some days I rolled my eyes at the trite words and other days the writing rang true. I don’t think that’s peculiar to this particular writer, I think it is something all of us writers do at one time or another, and with a book of that magnitude, how can some entries not fall short? And so it is with blogging, too.

Every once in a while, I return to Simple Abundance, as I have again lately. I still roll my eyes at some of the entries, and I still find entries that are powerful.

Yesterday’s was one of those for me. It was about asking. You know like Matthew wrote, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Sarah had me there and then further on she had another fabulous quote, followed by her writing:

“‘It is a long time since I have asked heaven for anything, but still my arms will not come down,’ Spanish poet Antonio Porchia mused, giving voice to the profound paradox of asking. We want, we need, we desire, we yearn, but we don’t ask. Still our arms stay up in the air. Longings cross our mind, but we don’t really commit ourselves. We don’t lay it on the line. We don’t ask because we’re afraid somebody will say ‘no.'”
~Sarah Ban Breathnach

I’m ready to put my arms down and raise my voice instead.

Ad I Saw:

Mother’s Helper:Female: Private Living Space in my home with Cable and WiFi. $120.00 per week OR free in exchange for helping with my family (for 12 hours)… Driving, light cooking, babysitting (supervising) my two children ages 11 and 15. Must have car. Can work more hours then agreed upon for hourly wage. I can work my schedule around your “real” job. I am looking for a responsible but fun, family-oriented role model for my kids who are at a very formidable age. Sorry, no partying in my house. Please plan to socialize elsewhere.

My response:

Hello there,

I am very interested in your position for a mother’s helper for your 11 and 15 year old. My son is now 25, on his own and a musician. My daughter is almost 20, very responsible and returning to UMass for her junior year in September.

Years ago I was looking for the very same person you are looking for now — another me — I was raising my children on my own and recognized that those in-between ages are much more challenging than the early childhood stages. There were a couple of occasions that we got a taste of what it would be like to be in a household with other loving caregivers — it was a joy. I truly believe that it does take a village to raise a child and it was difficult trying to create the scenario then, but it was something I always dreamed of. I would love to be that person I needed then for someone else now.

Sincerely,

Patricia A. Hurley

Attached is my resume. Please let me know if you don’t receive it. Thank you so much.

Her response:

Patricia,
Wow! Your letter made me cry! It was beautiful! I would love to meet you. I am sorry to say that I am running out the door to pick up my daughter from gymnastics, so I can not respond as I would like to. It appears to me that you are looking for a mother’s helper position and not a place to live… Could you just clarify that? I will give you a call if you would like either tonight after 8 or tomorrow.
Looking forward to talking with you!
Nelly
P.S. Do I have your phone number?

Some things just make you feel good, you know?

In spite of myself, I started liking them — virtually, because that’s the only way I “know” them. Not another group blog (as she rolls eyes), with more of the popular names and a smattering of ones I didn’t recognize. I resisted from the beginning but periodically was drawn back to the point where now it’s a daily click. I have less than a few hundred dollars left until my cash runs out (unemployed pending employment this month). Nevertheless, I did this with this. I know it’s crazy perhaps, but this community made me do it — yesterday as a matter-of-fact. Because of this and this.

I read a quote by Willem de Kooning this morning. “When you see the bandwagon, it’s already gone.” to which I say, if I still see it, it’s not gone and if I hope hard enough I’ll catch up.

Personally, I like Demerara Sugar lumps. This video is via Stef’s recent post. I love her brief words, astounding photographs, and raw honesty. “Brevity is the soul of wit” as Shakespeare says and so it is with Stefanie Renee. Use the choicest language to express what you want to say with utter simplicity — the meaning is much more powerful. Small packages can pack a big punch. Her photos do, too.

(That brevity thing is something I aspire to — you’d never know it in my last post.)

Avoiding negatives is more of a challenge than you’d think. Think about it — one of the first words we learn as we start moving independently of our parents is “No” — to protect us from harms we know nothing about — yet — but also to limit what we can and can’t do as in “don’t touch.” I have found that it continues throughout life though as a self-limiting rather than a self-protecting word. I am trying to change that for myself. I can’t grow if I hear no.

I have been trying to avoid negatives in my personal writing lately — using positives instead. It is difficult (originally I wrote “it is not easy” — takes much conscious effort on my part but I am trying). “I am not a photographer” becomes “I am a writer learning a bit of photography.” The bells and whistles intimidate me though. Technique, technical, all of that intimidates me. I am a point and shoot kind of girl so have been playing with a couple of polaroids I picked up. The learning curves always slllloooowwww me wwwaaayyy down. I have four pictures so far after trying out different exposure settings on the polaroids. I tried batteries in the flash and tested it to see if it still works (it needs some help even with new batteries — it may have finished its work for this lifetime).

Where am I going with all this? It’s a personal exercise in accentuating positive talk. “I am not an artist” becomes “I am a conceptual artist and a writer” who has yet to be discovered as I am just emerging. I would like to find my voice. What is my voice? My one true voice — I am very Renaissance in that I am all over the place with so many interests, primarily in the humanities, but also domestic arts and spirituality. Besides being a mom, mate, sister, daughter, aunt, cousin, niece, friend and so on, who am I? What defines me? Where I’m going or where I’ve been? Who am I? What do I do? How am I expressing my creative voice?

Denise does it with her camera and her blog. Starting out with jewelry and a journey. What about Em? Her voice besides her blog writing voice is sewing, scrapbooking, teaching. For Andrea, jewelry, painting and scarves led to jewelry, photography and coaching. They all write as I do. But they also have a vocation that earns them money. Ironic that I worked for almost 7 years helping others find direction and meaning in their work, however humble. I think it makes a difference when “it’s just a job though,” and you’re content with just a job.

I want more. I want to know my one (or two) creative voices amongst my many creative voices. I want to nurture that voice like the runt of a litter — grow, baby, grow. You know you can. Yes, you can.

Sometimes if you want a relationship with someone badly enough, perhaps you have to settle for it on their terms, so long as it doesn’t mean allowing yourself to get beat up. This is how it is with my mother. I can’t totally shut her out of my life and yet her toxicity has had a huge affect on my life. I don’t want to blame, but I do want to break free and live a life of joy and wonder. But how do I find that life? I am still searching. In the meantime, I think I do not want to have regrets when my mother is gone — regrets that I could have done more, visited her more, called her more. I’ve tried at one time or another, and I have had some good memories with my mom, but there is also a lingering melancholy that persists and sometimes it drowns me. I want joy and wonder. I am not sure where to look for it. But this is how I feel today. Tomorrow I meet my childhood girlfriend and the sun is supposed to shine. And that is one place I will find that joy.

These are all highly creative projects/ideas/ways to connect that speak to me through words and images more than an object ever could. They involve people connection which is so sorely lacking at times in our everyday lives. We really have to work at it. I am a fan of many NPR writers from my cousin Sean Hurley to Carol Wasserman (Swimming at Suppertime — a memoir about life on “the wrong side of the bridge”) and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I recently reread her memoir, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I totally got that book because that is how I tend to live and write and create — in bursts, synopses, catching the quick wave of inspiration before it drowns me. Here is Amy’s latest work and you can read more about her here and here.

I have been wanting to clear out my art and crafts supplies — I feel so unfocused when I have too many interests. Marty uses football as an analogy to share bits of insight with me. In this instance, he compares me to the football team with two quarterbacks. For example, Tom Brady is the quarterback for the New England Patriots, and that helps the team pull focus. But some teams have two quarterbacks, essentially meaning they have none.

I have been trying to express this sentiment to him for years in my own language.
It’s why I want to clear out what I consider an over-abundance of supplies. As McCabe says in her classes, too many choices is confusing.

Physical clutter becomes emotional and mental clutter for me. I recently received an email from a local Catholic Church. A group of kids and adults are going to Guatemala the end of June and are seeking art and sewing supplies. I have been wanting to donate my stuff to a group working with children, and voila! It has manifested. Yay!