Walkin' yes indeed I'm walkin'

Today I was actually eager to get out, after doing a project that meant sitting on my butt for 2 1/2 hours. But, gol, I am so lacking in energy. CF previous sentence? It is such an incredibly irresistibly fine day that I should have been all la la la, but instead had to consider do I really want to walk more or just do a few blocks?

I duly noted the trees still flowering, and the flowers coming on (the irises are looking so promising--have never seen the leaves so tough and strong) but kept my feet moving briskly, in order to not fall over.

I was only four blocks from home when I finally got that tingle in my finger tips which means the blood is flowing. Not impressive. I bethought me that there has to be a better way--like duh! walking at 10AM each day, instead of waiting until my butt et al is sagging.

Yeah, I think I will try that.

How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy)

This is a hilarious take on the excuses we all offer for the decisions we make. I nearly passed this up--in fact got all the way out the door--when I saw it on the shelf of the Hollywood library, while picking up the Di Camillo tickets. But I had leafed through it--OMG, that was me on every page. I popped back in and checked it out, then read it on the bus, probably convincing my fellow riders that I was nutso, since I was soon laughing out loud. They would have really thought I was nutso if they had known I was laughing at myself!

The text is by Julia Cameron (of The Artist's Way fame) and the cartoons are by her sister Elizabeth.

Here a few sample excuses (I am just opening the door randomly, to any page):
How to avoid making art? Make your first project really BIG.
Burn yourself out in nurturing others so much that when you hear Florence
you think Nightingale not art.
Watch TV instead of the movie in your mind.
Choose someone who feels their dreams and goals are far more important than yours.
Demand that what you do be absolutely original, totally brilliant, and never done before.
Demand 8 pristine studio hours before you will pick up a brush.
Focus on how much is left, not how much is done.
Under no circumstances make any art just for fun.

* * *
Well, I could go on and on--I read myself on every page. The book is a hoot, with all the different creatures in the cartoons. (What is that one on the cover? A hippo?)

Close to Nature

Watching the sad but determinedly constructive PBS film, Journey to Planet Earth, narrated by Matt Damon, what struck me was peripheral to the central message (the Planet is in trouble, we are in trouble; we need to do soemthing to save the planet, we need to do something to save ourselves.)

What struck me was the lives of the cowboys in Florida, the black sheepherder in South Africa, an the cowboys in Montana. Hard physical lives, hard physical work, done out of doors. Not indoors, at the computer, or with book in hand. (They may have iPods, but probably don't use them while herding.)

There they are, in 2006, people still doing what people did 100 years ago--and what they are doing is precious to them.

For me, the most moving part was the bit about the Blackfoot Challenge, a group of people in a small community in Montana who have decided to live with the grizz;y bears, for the benefit of the bears, of course, but also to preserve the life--the environment--that is dear to them. (Whoa! Imagine choosing to accept that grizzly peering in the window!)

Amazing.

So, what do we do to curtail the Sixth Extinction? I don't see what we can do about the polar bears drowning--can't stop the ice from melting.

Or can we? I realize I haven't a clue where to begin to do my bit to heal Planet Earth.

Because of the Green

My former husband (I am trying to drop that X thing--he isn't dead, after all, just gone) had a relative who spent time in an institution. The letters he sent home were all about the Green. "It is because of the green.....If it weren't for the green.....I am so lonesome for the green. I do miss the green."

Yesterday out running errands on both sides of the river, I was thinking the green. The green in my eyeballs. The green in my heart and gut. The green of the hedges, the fir shrubs, the spring grass, the euphorbias. Even the ginko leaves are small to begin with--and that green. The vibrant green. The green. The Green.

I don't get out much

Yesterday was magnificent and we had errands to run--trip to PT, and to the vet, to take Patchie. Not really fun stuff. It was so nice, though, with the breeze and the flowering trees everywhere where there weren't burgeoning green leaves, that despite worries about the cat and our continued mobility, I saw many things to amuse me. Like at Kaiser a white Scottish terrior, with a tiny miniature white Scottish terrier racing to keep up. (OK--I am easily amused.) Downtown, someone moving in a small station wagon with all this stuff piled on top: a leather drum, half a dozen bicycles, wheels spinning, and topping it all, about 200 hangers in a variety of colors. Oh, for a camera to capture that sculpture!

I had skipped Yoga yesterday because we were running late for our first appointment. It would be so easy to make an excuse every day, but I try never to skip more than one day--any more and the habit will be lost. I need the Yoga too much to get out of that habit, which has been long in coming.

I sometimes wonder why I bother. Ever closer to shedding my mortal coil, I can see the daily deterioration in the mirror and certainly feel it in my joints. Despite stories about the (rare?) 72 yo running marathons, or the 90 yo still lifting weights at the gym, realistically, my back knees and hands are not going to ever feel the way they did when I was 40.

So why do I bother? This morning, after all, working with the Rodney Yee tape it seemed especially ridiculous. He looks to be around 30 sitting there relaxed, on the tape and here I am, nearly 67, with knees that won't ever get any closer to the floor, while sitting in simple cross-legged pose, and hips that ache so badly, while sitting in simple cross-legged pose, that the ache completely fills my consciousness. (I always end with a chair corpse pose, which takes the pull off those sad muscles.)

But earlier, I was able to do that cobra right along with him. Hah!

I get up feeling better than when I got down on my purple mat, and thinking who knows? maybe eventually these old hips will not hurt so much, sitting there in simple cross-legged pose.

Searching for Mr. Bird

My sable cat trying to find Mr. Bird. Listening, head cocked to one side, walking back and forth in front of the little CD player, peering behind the TV, where of course he is not. She gives up, goes back to her perch in the kitchen window, to resume watching birds rain and neighbor cats.

Comes back to nap in her favorite chair, not eight feet from the CD player. Opens her eyes wide, then narrows them and lays her ears back, watching me dancing wildly to "Satisfied."

The Accumulative Effect of Andrew Bird

Humor is cumulative. While going through a book of cartoons, say the Farside ones, the cartoons are moderately amusing at the beginning but gradually they become funnier and funnier, until eventually it is hopeless and I am laughing till the tears come, tripping on the edge of hysterical laughter.

Today hearing Andrew Bird for the first time, listening to The Swimming Hour, I experienced the accumulative effect of Andrew Bird when I reached "Satisfied, " the tenth song. I felt moved beyond the words--looking at them now, I can't say what they mean. Naw, it was the sheer delight of his musicality.

Why did it take me so long? Maybe because it was the first time hearing him and my mind was working too hard, taking in the sounds, the instrumentation, the words, the variations of his vocalizations. But it might just be that particular song.

Need to listen again--and then many more times. Thanks, Jen.

Kate DiCamillo

Tonight I took one of my granddaughters to the Kate DiCamillo lecture. A small woman with big hair, Kate DiCamillo (wonderful name) was down to earth and feisty. Edgy. She is not all sugar and sticky candy, that's for sure. After announcing that she hates giving speeches, she gave a speech in which she told about what may have been her most embarassing moment. As a child she copied in long hand a story from Humpty Dumpty magazine and her mother leaped to the conclusion that she had written it--which she had, in a sense, which led to a misunderstanding which balooned up into a massive ugly sad mess.

The point was that the attention she got when everyone thought that she had written the story led to her deciding to become a writer. During college and after she always told everyone she was a writer and bought a lot of black turtle necks and went around looking aloof and morose.

But she did not actually write anything that was published until she was 36. At that time, she had an epiphany: If she was going to be known as a writer, she would have to write something.

She lived in Florida most of her life, but at the age of 36 moved to Minneapolis. (She is now 42 and still lives there.) This is the story of why she moved to a climate she likened to that of Siberia, after living in sunny FL most of her life:

She had been going with a guy (she pronounced his name slowly and clearly and even provided the spelling) for ten years and was thinking it was about time he asked her to marry him. So when a friend said she was moving to Minniapolis, Kate DiCamillo said she would move with her, thinking of course this would put a burr under his saddle. When she told him she was moving to Minneapolis, he offered to help her rent the trailer.

To sum up, Di Camillo's advice to writers just starting out is to write. And, oh, yeah, to read a lot, also.

She did not suggest that writing is easy. Rather, she said it is painful process for her, but she loves the finished product! That book she can hold in her hand.

I bought two of her books, Because of Winn-Dixie, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane for my granddaughter, but since getting them signed meant standing in line for two hours, we had to forego that pleasure. Because of Winn-Dixie has a huge smiling galumphing dog in it. (I may have mentioned that I am a sucker for dogs or cats, anywhere, anytime.)

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is about a stuffed rabbit toy that winds up naked in the ocean. I have not read it yet--I'll have to borrow it from my granddaughter. I think DiCamillo's most famous book is the sweet onceuponatime story of a mouse who falls in love with a princess, The Tale of Desperaux.

In my mind, there is no division between children's books and adult books--a good book is a good book is a good book.

the greening

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,and from thy slender storeTwo loaves alone to thee are left,Sell one, and with the dole Buy Hyacinths to feed thy Soul
—Sadi

How fortunate we are! Today we can feed our souls without relinquishing even a crumb of bread. Spring has waved her wand here there and everywhere, greening the earth. And the hyacinths still are hanging on, thanks to the delicious cool and the delicious rain.

Glorying in the glorious day

I got out to run an errand--pick up tickets to the Di Camillo lecture--and it was glorious! What a wonderful day! Too good to miss. Absolutely perfect! The temperature, the sun the sky, the flowers, the birds--all of them singing for a mate--or to celebrate the one they have, like the red-headed finch I saw, serenading his less showy wife.

I came home fired up and diddled a little in the yard. We are having a time attracting birds, whereas we have always had a yard teeming with them. Could it be the cats all the time prowling out there?

After I emptied the feeder that none of the birds seem to find attractive, and refilled it with thistle seed, I took a little time to enjoy the wild life. Our double kitchen windows look out on the yard. A squirrel, tail held high, nibbling away at the sunflower seed I dumped in a spot that nothing ever seems to grow in. And a pair of robins, the female perched on the bird bath, the very showy male across the fence, on the broken-down pear tree that is blooming there. A chicadee hanging out in the plum tree, and then making fast forays to one of the feeders. Back and forth, one seed at a time. Most beautiful, seen through the binocs, a white crowned sparrow, so plump! on the fence.

For me, the star of the yard is that aforementioned plum tree. My daughter gave me that tree, and a cedar tub, two years ago. This is the third year I have had it and it is blooming for the first time! I have no idea if it will bear fruit or if it is merely ornamental (she doesn't either; I called her to check) but I love the white flowers, which cover every branch.

So, I am gazing out there at this idylic scene, but what is that, creeping through the fence? Ah, yes, the neighbor's canny little black neutered male, with a red collar, his eye fixed on the squirrel. He creeps closer and closer and the squirrel ignores him , making a dash for it at the last minute, after a few more bites of sunflower seeds. By which time the robin is already gone. The cat crouches by the bird bath, to await more prey.

I think I will buy that cute kitty a present--a little jingle bell.

Walking upright

I got out for a brief walk today and amazingly I felt drawn up to my full height from the get-go. Those extra two hours of sleep? (No, not a Spring Forward hangover--benadryl grogginess.)The Yoga I did earlier? Heck if I know, I just hope my back continues to offer me its strong support.

April is doing her shower thing, but I managed to avoid a downpour. Saw the results of her work, though: all sorts of cheery flowers, including species tulips in a luminous orangey-red, purple and white anemones, their stems all straggled about but still bravely holding their own. And what are those puff ball flowers? I loved those. They were white, sort of like a round cluster of stamens, each strand tipped violet. Not a very good description. I have forgotten most of what I ever knew about flowers--I will have to look those up.

It was dark and drear, but only one house had blue smoke pouring from a wide chimney.