A Few Slings and Arrows

Turning 65 and planning cataract surgery have made me ponder aging more than I'd like to. I think it is healthy to acknowledge feeling badly...and then go on to try to fix as much as possible and accept as much as possible. Maybe even some bonuses.

I talk with my patients, with friends and family, and with my online Hot Flash Women group about expectations, aspirations, and taking responsibility for doing as much as we can to first, realize what our expectations and aspirations are, and then do our best to make them happen.

Time rushes by more quickly as I age...and it's even more important to fully APPRECIATE each moment and all my numerous blessings.



I spent the weekend in Seattle with
David and Brian, Doug and Amal, Serene and Thayer. I'm so lucky to be in a family where we
all like each other and enjoy sharing food
(spectacular Thai dinner created by David,
Doug, and Amal). Brian and I got to see David's
999 Amazing pictures from his trip to Thailand.
I love to share vicariously in his experience, but
can give up the desire to travel to exotic places myself.

We saw the Gaugin show at SAM, and I found
it very interesting, both to see the way his
work matured over time, and to hear about how
much his painting, print making, and carving was influenced by his gallery in Paris, and trying to
make things to sell, to support his wife and children...and maybe to justify his love for exotic places.

David, Doug, and I continue to make 2-D Art, even when the chances of selling anything seem
quite remote. I thanked Mom on the phone yesterday for encouraging our art making both when we were children and now. In a world full of turmoil, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to keep making pictures that will accumulate in our garages...but I can't think of anything more exciting than to develop a skill and keep pushing to see where it goes.

Two more of my 100 Hot Flash women series, Joanne Hays and Renne Brock-Richmond. Next Friday's Sequim Art Walk theme color is Pink, so I'm going to have to finish a few more paintings for that. See you at Sequim Sunshine Cafe on Friday, April 6th!

Life is Good, even when I feel grumpy.

Families, Friends, Connections

My father's older brother died this morning, our/my Uncle Jack. I hadn't seen him since Dad's funeral 23 years ago, but Jeanne and Jack's, and then Jack's Christmas cards followed me wherever I moved.

I remember him from when I was a child, even the story his mother would tell about how he release the hand brake in one of my grandfather's cars and got it rolling down Route 5 in Bradford, VT. Jack's subsequent sporty cars, and since he was a Westinghouse engineer,
he came to visit us with the first transistor radio
I ever heard in his coat pocket.


Through FaceBook we've reconnected with our cousins and grieve with them, remembering when our Dad died, and also how very important we are to each other, carrying these genes and memories on through time.

This is a large part of my immediate family, taken 5 summers ago...we don't do the formal portraits at every holiday that we used to...Maybe this year at the now traditional Thanksgiving at my house, we will.

Here's to all genetic and chosen families!!!

On The Many Meanings of Friends and Home

I recently returned from my every-other-year pilgrimage back "home" to VT, where I spent wonderful days and night with old friends and family, who I miss on a regular basis, even though I'm very happy here in my new "home" on the Olympic Peninsula.












There are some friends with whom one picks up
just where we left off the last time...is it shared
experiences, shared years, or just a special kind of chemistry, that happens only occasionally in great loves, both platonic and not.


















Tim, David, and I in Montpelier, VT, July 1987.
Tim and David and me and David, together
again, October, 2010. We've known each other
25 years, though marriages, divorces, children,
Major Life Changes. What could be more precious? Home is the place where when you go there, they have to take you in. I am lucky to have so many homes and friends...Do we get what we deserve? If so I am very lucky.

25 Germain St, Burlington, VT. I lived in this duplex, on a block-long street surrounded by cemeteries for 5 key years, with good friends, uproarious dinners around the rosewood table that's in the dining room behind me now...the first piece of real furniture I ever bought, in 1969, scene of so many happy times.

Tim and his wife, Katie, whom I introduced in the kitchen here, now own the house, and keep it up more beautifully than I ever did. I was always distracted by making art.




Another home, the old schoolhouse in East Ryegate, VT. The 6-foot tall beautiful windows have been removed, the color changed from our original red and gray, it looks even more shabby now, and is for sale again. I wonder if the bell
is still in place in the cupola...we used to ring it on New Year's Eve over the small paper mill town.
I painted, made fiber arts of all sizes, became a bit famous here...and was often miserable, sitting on the baled hay out back in the moonlight, wondering if I would ever get free of my abusive
marriage. Those of you who've read my book, DOLL MAKING AS A TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS, know how I broke free.


There is something so special to me about the rocks and hills of Vermont...different from New Hampshire or New York, that don't stir me in anything like the same way. I drove and soaked up the scenes.

A friend of David's bought this quarry near Barre, VT, with a panoramic view and piles of sparkling gray granite--raw materials for a Fantastic Home! with many years of work ahead.



On the Olympic PeninsulaThe rock patterns in my current Home/backyard., there is often no rain all summer long, so gravel and beach rocks make a sensible, as well as artistic yard.









The Hastings stone in the cemetery in Passumpsic, VT. My father and his parents' remains are here. Is Home where one's people have lived? Ghost trails of past lives, mine and my family's, haunt the green hills of VT, and when I come home to Vermont, I am in the home of my ancestors.


My grandfather's law and town clerk office was in the bottom window of the dark tower in Bradford, VT. I remember the crud-encrusted spittoon by the side of his desk.















When I was seven, I was considered mature enough to walk "down street" with a dime to spend at Hills on a new paper doll book. David and I had lunch in a Chinese restaurant next door. The restaurant was not in operation 56 years ago.

David and his youngest, Theo, outside of Artisan's Hand in Montpelier. I used to escape to the coop's previous location to sell my wares, and be away from the Old Schoolhouse and it's dread for an afternoon.

I am a story person, it seems. I'll weave you more tales another evening.

The most precious commodity is Time!

Clouds over the Olympics on one of my recent walks. The last three days have been Glorious!!! with snow only on the mountains--where it belongs--and flowering trees and perennials down below at 500 feet above sea level, where I live. Temperatures in the high 60's and SUNNY!!! after Such a long and gray winter.

I am more aware than ever how my exciting projects stretch out in Every Direction, and how quickly time flies by. Breakfast this morning with my happily newly-retired friend, Katie. They decided that Mike should retire this year, too...life is TOO SHORT to work for a few more years for a few more hundred dollars in retirement. Somehow they've managed to travel and be together no matter what.

The AARP newsletter has an article about people
who are living on little money in order to be free
to do what they want with their time. I've decided
that I need to work another 5-10 more years at my "regular" job in order to enjoy the freedom of
a roof over my head in retirement. One of my brothers has told me it's a good time to buy a new car because the rates are low...but I'm almost finished paying for the 2004 Honda Civic I have! When I was working a lot of hours for a good salary, but didn't have the energy to create as much as I would have liked, I think I bought myself things to compensate...and I must confess that I did get myself a Chrome Cuisanart food processor on sale today...but it should last me forever...and the events of today, my thinking about what to do to be able to afford retirement, or vacations, or new cars...brings me back to the realization that the most Precious Commodity is TIME!

My heart goes out to those who have too much time because of the Recession and loss of jobs...it's Very Difficult to be creative, when you're worried about keeping a roof over your family's head. I spent enough years in that pickle to sympathize. Finding proper balance is a tricky business. This USA is going through a challenging period of trying to portion out our
great resources perhaps a bit more fairly...since I
have worked in health care for many years, I'm
especially interested in how we can make sure
that all are served as well as possible and that
people no longer have to choose between their
medication and food or lose their homes because
of hospital costs.

I am happy to see that Dr. Howard Dean from
my home state, Vermont, is going to put his brain
and energy to work on this problem...check it out:
http://www.moveon.org/