Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

May your holidays be filled with light and love!

Hanging Out

I've been spending an awful lot of time by myself. It's late at night as I write this and I realize I am a bit lonely. My work as an artist currently doesn't bring me into contact with people. It just seems everything I do to connect with people makes me feel worse.

Over the years I have hung out in a few online chat rooms. I think they are probably the loneliest places I have ever been. Recently I tried out the message boards on IMDb. I like films and some TV programs and I thought it might be nice to chat with people about them. Eh. Not so much. It's a discussion, but no real connection. It looks like I am talking with other human beings, but it's just a bunch of comments that don't connect people together. At least I don't feel connected.

I've taken to eating lunch out at a local cafe. The food is really good and it gets me out of the house and around people. During the summer I sat outside and that was great. Now I sit inside with a book, but I think the other customers think I'm odd to sit by myself. Unless of course they don't notice me at all and I am just being paranoid. Could be.

I've gotten to know the counter ladies. They know my name. They know I always order ice tea. But lately I feel that I'm not making any real contact with them either. I go in and say hi, start up some sort of conversation, but something isn't right. Are they too busy? Do I talk about idiotic things? Am I too old? Are they too young?

I'm going to stop now before this gets truly maudlin. Maybe I'll call my mom. She's odd and irritating, but one nice thing, I never feel lonely around her!

After All These Years

The look on his face is adoration. So sweet!

My husband and I have been together since we were 20 & 21. I knew after 4 days that I would spend my life with him. I was hiking up a mountain. With a bunch of summer campers. They always gave me that assignment cuz I owned a pair of hiking boots. Hiking is a great place to think. I was the last on the trail -- making sure no camper fell off the mountain or got too tired. And it just came to me. This is the man I will spend my life with. Things were very clear that summer. I saw him every day. We ate meals together, spent our days-off doing laundry and getting to know each other. In retrospect I might be tempted to think it was idyllic. But it wasn't. It was real. We belonged together.

At the time I thought we were very mature. Today, looking back, I think good lord we were young! I mean - really? 20? Who knows their mind at 20? But every time I wondered if this was the right path, if we should stay together and get married, I would pray. Every time the answer came back, you belong together.

A few years later a friend of ours wrote a wonderful essay that was published in a national newspaper. In it she talked about our relationship. It was about liking each other and including other people in the circle that was us. It actually inspired other friends of ours, who thought they were just friends, to look and see they really wanted to be married partners. While the writer didn't use the terminology, one theme was we were good together, we belonged.

This has not been a fairy tale marriage. Before our wedding there was family pressure to break up. Over the years my husband and I have had our share of difficulty. Really. Downright crappy times. Not once have I felt . . . "and they lived happily ever after." And to friends who have known some of the troubles I sometimes wonder how do I explain why we are still together?

But as I was watching a TV show the other night I got my answer. In the midst of all sorts of chaos -- you know, flood, famine, evil curses -- one of the characters says to another, "You belong together." And I realized that it's true for us. We belong together.

Taking Back The Music

I love music. Folk music, roots, anything you can dance to, songs from Broadway musicals, the great rock music from the 60's/70's -- of those things, I'm a fan!

When I got married, I gave the music away. You see, it was my husband's thing, music. And I have a long history of giving things I love away if someone else has a claim. I am not going to go into a long discussion of the reasons or psychological background. I'm not sure you care. I certainly don't care anymore! And not caring might be my salvation.

This year I found myself taking the music back.

I actually went out and bought a CD. Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits. Tunes off her albums with Big Brother & The Holding Co; Me And Bobby McGee, which always reminds me of hitchhiking to New Orleans with my pals Linda & Laura; other great tunes I can sing at the top of my voice in the car. I like singing along with Janis. She had a wonderful voice, but my slightly off key singing doesn't sound bad blended with her. I play it on my car stereo & am impelled to roll down all the windows and turn the volume to stun!

It's not that I don't have some wonderful CD's. I'm listening to Richie Havens Live now and before that it was Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark. They were all gifts from my husband. He has no problem buying music!!! He bought them for me, knowing I would love them.

But I have not bought music for myself, probably not since college. I have not claimed the importance it has in my life, nor let myself spend the money, until 2 weeks ago when Janis jumped out at me. I was wandering around Borders and accidentally found the music. It was not an easy purchase. I spent a long time dithering. I even went over to their computer where you can hear a snippet of the songs on an album. In the end, who I am, the woman who loves music, won out.

It feels like a major victory. And I am at peace.

How can you miss me if I don't go away?

It has been an amazing 4 months. I didn't mean to leave this blog. And in odd little ways I didn't. I would be driving and think of a post. And I'd think oh I can record that on my new small hand-held recorder. Sadly, I have not read the manual for the gizmo, so not knowing how to get it not to record over itself, my brilliant ideas were lost -- hence the deafening silence!

The holidays were a bit dis-jointed. My daughter came home for Thanksgiving. My son for Christmas. Different work schedules. I missed having them here together. I love them very much individually. And that's a good thing, for try as I will to make them alike, they are wonderfully different & unique. But I also really love them together. I love how they get along. I love that they "talk" to each other every Sunday. I think it's on IM or txt messages or maybe skype. They keep their relationship between themselves. It's everything I didn't have with my family and I love it!

Then in January, this California girl went home. I spent the whole month in the Golden State. I spent time with my daughter in the bay area. I saw a friend I haven't seen since our high school graduation. I spent my dad's 85th birthday with him puttering around on his boat, walking on the beach, and trying out a new frozen yogurt place. I reconciled with my sister, who I haven't spoken to in 2 years. I stayed a week with my mom. I celebrated my birthday having dinner with 4 wonderful women, friends from PTA, mothers of my kids' friends. I went to Disneyland with my sister and we had a blast! And I ended the month taking a weekend's worth of art classes which changed my life.

There's nothing like a birthday to put your life in perspective. I actually discovered what I want to be when I grow up. And, it's what I've wanted to be my whole life -- an artist. I don't know what it was about the weekend of art, but it was magical. I've taken lots of art classes & workshops -- since I was 11 years old. But this was different. There was something amazingly empowering. I felt welcome as soon as I got to the shop, turned classroom. A lot of it had to do with one of the teachers. She & I had been reading each other's blogs for a couple months. When I introduced myself she was so excited to meet me. It was an unexpected response and set the tone! And that was all before any art was made!

February was spent in bed. On the one hand that was not too pleasant. On the other I spent a lot of time thinking about things, letting the insights I had on my trip coalesce. I also discovered Hulu! Man, there are some amazing old tv shows out there to watch!

They say it takes 28 days to establish a habit. In February I got into the habit of staying in bed, eating a lot of chicken soup, drinking a lot of orange juice, reading in bed, sleeping - a lot, watching tv. So March has been a bit challenging putting my insights, desires and plans into practice. But it has been an amazing year up til now and I feel confident and rather joyful about what lies ahead. Even if it doesn't involve reading in bed all day!

I wish I had a clever title for this post!

I just got an email from an old friend of mine. She's been nominated for a position in President Obama's administration.

What's amazing about this news is my reaction (hey it's my blog, I can have it be all about me!)

I've known K since high school. She & I were in the same tennis P.E. class. She was good. I was good. We tied when we played each other.

We really hit it off. I went with her when she checked out the college she ended up attending. She got interested in religion and joined my church.

We really love each other and are always there for each other. Oddly enough we can go for long times not writing or seeing each other. Yet we always have our friendship in common, even if not a whole lot else.

I love being a child of the 60's. She thinks our generation was selfish and self-serving.

I've been married since college and have kids. She's single with no kids.

I have had a slap-dash career, never sticking to anything for long and making no name for myself whatsoever! (can you put smiley faces in blogs? if so, one would go here!)

She has had a fabulous career: breaking barriers, heading non-profit organizations & academic departments.

And all I could think when I read her email was, how cool! I don't know anyone who's more deserving. I have other friends who have achieved wonderful things in their lives, who get to do neat things or travel to places I would love to see. But I often have an ambiguous feeling -- on the one hand, how nice for them, on the other, envy.

So I was delighted with myself -- amazed, really to realize that, looking back, I have never felt ambiguous about K's opportunities and accomplishments. There just hasn't been envy or jealousy, ever. Nothing but wow, another fun thing she gets to do; another opportunity to do something worthwhile and important.

I love having this friend who sees & brings out the best in me.

Seasonal Memories

I just got the sweetest email from a man I went to college with. His sister passed away, and learning of it, I sent him a note of condolence and to let him know I was thinking of him. I have not been in contact with him since college, so it took a bit of internet searching to find him. But I was successful and he responded.

The sweet part was both that he was appreciative of my comments and that he remembered me. I wasn't sure he would. It's been decades. It makes me smile to know that someone I thought of so fondly has returned the sentiment.

For my first two years in college I hung out in the theatre department. It was a magical place. The women were beautiful, the men were beautiful (it was the late 60's after all) and everyone was enormously talented. I loved it but I couldn't see myself making a career of it, so I hightailed it over to the anthropology department and happily studied culture and primates and early man. I have never regretted returning to an academic field. But thinking about my old friend brought back all sorts of memories. I was delighted to remember the names of the productions I worked on (I did Tech -- set painting, stage crew, costumes), the parties I attended, the romantic intrigues of my fellow students, and now that I think of it, the faculty as well.

Freshman year, around this time -- October/November -- it seemed I and everyone around me was feeling out of sorts, itchy, like something was off, but we couldn't put a finger on it. I was sitting on the stairs in the theatre building, probably looking out of sorts, when the beautiful woman who loved & was loved by the subject of this post wandered by. She took one look at me, sat down, and declared it was "the season of the witch." Brilliant! I knew exactly what she meant. It was that time of the year when things are just weird.

All day I have been listening to 60's music, dancing to Laura Nyro & Van Morrison, and thinking how it's kind of that time of year. As I was writing this post I found Donovan's Season of the Witch and listened. The lyrics don't really say anything but the music reminds me of old friends never forgotten. It's ok if things get weird. I'm still smiling!