Thoughts on Thoreau

Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine... Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery.

Buddha

On the road again today – down to Geismar for a voice lesson (for Elizabeth). It seems Geismar was a small community between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that burgeoned because of the Crescent City exodus caused from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.I have driven nearly two hours and Elizabeth will have a 2 hour lesson from someone worth the time of this trip. Anyway, here I am sitting at an unfamiliar dining room table for the duration of the lesson – an opportunity to write. This entry will be directed towards me (if you choose to read it, I hope something is there for you). I am away from my house so all I can do is write and think – I can’t jump up at the sound of a buzzer to fold clothes or run to the kitchen because the pasta is boiling over, or say “I’m not interested” to the telemarketer on the landline or the Mormon at the door; I can’t pick figs ahead of the crows or pull weeds from my unkempt garden; all I can do is write.

I want to build on a thought I had early this morning – I was thinking of all of those years of abruptly springing from bed – snatching myself out of the elusive alpha state – and beginning my day without that creative connection. I am understanding why I chose to put my art in a dormant state for those years of intense, hands on, 24/7 parenting. My creative efforts were all channeled into my children then and I am very happy about that. Now, now that I can, I am enjoying immeasurably the time I have in the morning to explore my alpha state – I can see my life so clearly here. I understand, I recognize the right paths and the “big picture” here in the very early morning when there is no alarm or disturbance from the awaiting world. The more I know , the more I understand how we are hard wired to solve our own problems , it’s all there, we just don’t sit still enough to hear ourselves, we look everywhere for answers, every ” wrong where”, - the TV, magazines, society, everywhere but inside ourselves. Listen, listen. We can’t all physically go to Walden Pond, but, still, it can be a place we can “go”. I see my life better there in the early morning place, I see the beauty and I lessen the “issues”; I understand that my life is wonderful simply because it is “my” life – this is where I belong, right here in the smack middle of it – up to my elbows in the good stuff, the muck, the grime, the stuff that makes it mine. It is so important to reconnect with it to look at it from a distance, a spiritual look, a look at the bigger scheme of things. And in looking this way, all the little things go away, sort of like looking at the planet earth from space. The little annoyances that society says are important – ha – that’s so wrong, so wrong to be filled with propaganda and falsehoods, and illusions, this stuff that we get bombarded with daily is not true – don’t believe it, don’t let it into your life – it’ll mess you up, it’ll make you feel less than you are and that is not what the universe intended – we need to feel good about who we are so we can do good for the world. There, I’ve said it, I expressed how I feel.  I suppose this entry is more of a rant than anything else, but it annoys me so much the way outside forces motivated by money are constantly trying to tell me what is right for me and emphasis what is “wrong” about me and how “they” can fix it. At 57, I don’t fall prey to this gobbledygook (love this word – had to use it!) but I think of how many, mostly young, do. It’s all an illusion – smoke and mirrors – someone trying to sell you something, consumer driven society. Ok, got to go - I have an hour left and I want to put down some thoughts on something else I’m working on. I am where I need to be. We are the authors of our lives.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” Henry David Thoreau …Walden

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lightning bugs and supper

The houses were smaller then and in the late afternoon they smelled like supper. Walter Cronkite’s voice would be part of the background noise along with the banging screen door and the quick staccato ring of the telephone. The carport held only a single spot for the family car, fireflies were called lightning bugs,  and the dining room table is where supper happened. The windows had curtains on them, either homemade or ordered from Sears and Roebuck’s and there was only one TV and it was in the living room and it signed off at midnight. I’m not describing my house, I’m describing everyone’s house in my childhood, just taking my senses back a few decades to that illusive and real “simple life”  - not the commercialized , prostituted version the media is trying to “sell” us now – the mockery that exists here really is stomach-turning and is, for me, consumerism at it’s worse – selling simplicity? Hmmmm. Oxymoron perhaps – better yet, Martha Stewart telling me how to “simplify” - I think the catch phrase here would be, “yeah, right”. No, simplicity can’t be bought and it can’t be organized in Rubbermaids and no one on TV can show you how, simplicity starts from within you and manifest itself in your physical, emotional, and spiritual life and it’s free and freeing…it’s about the choices we make, choices that allow things in our lives, both physical and mental “things”, the more we allow in, the more complicated it gets – it’s just that simple!

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kieffer pears and happiness

The kitchen was hot this midsummer  morning peeling Kieffer pears that had fallen from the tree, fallen from a strong furious wind in the middle of an extremely hot day – trying to cool off the planet but instead made a wreck of my fruit trees. So, here I am in mid-June with a bucket of premature pears. I left some on the ground for the hens – I’ll get them later in the eggs they lay – but I am putting most of them in a crisp or cobbler of sorts. It’s a wonderful summer morning – one I will remember in December when soup is on the menu and holiday anxiety is trying to sneak into my life. I think these mornings are the “times of my life”. I say this with an emphasis on “my”; I don’t include the lives of my family in this, for they are the “reason” for my life and have my total devotion and all of my heart. I say this to refer just to me, if there were just “me” – this would be my kind of happiness, very simple, very non-threatening, very organic living, living that keeps a slow pace that allows awareness and time to extend myself more. My twins were telling me about a study conducted on a college campus about a guy dressed up in a clown suit riding a bike through campus – and when asked if they had seen him, only a very small percentage had even noticed – too busy being “connected” to technology and stress. For that bit of time in the kitchen with my fallen pears, I am content and connected…

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patience and plantations

History seems to be the main event for me these days – the appreciation for and the destruction of. Yesterday was a day of spontaneity,adventure, and history – one of the best kind of days, a day to leave your life for a bit and exist in another – it is so constructive to get out of yourself for a bit of time, to forget what you’re doing and to not care who you are. Elizabeth is engrossed in Gone With the Wind, my mother’s all time favorite book/movie. She is captured by Rhett Butler and is fascinated with Miss O’Hara. The book is page after numerous page of elaborate description of the old South and Elizabeth is no skimmer; she reads every single syllable. I thought, what a great time to see a real ante bellum home… so, we put on some lipstick, grabbed a few bucks and got in the VW. I took her to two houses I had seen years ago with my mom, Nottoway and Oak Alley. It is all so curious this relationship or better said, connection, she shares with my mother; each day unfolds another similarity. I don’t even know how she, a 16 year old, even came across this book and then how a 16 year old would want to read a book about the Civil War that would include 1048 pages – life is magical somehow. I am getting to know my mother better through my daughter . I suppose life really does mend itself if we can be patient. Patience, that is the hard part – we screw things up because we are not patient – we don’t allow the universe to unfold – we become impatient, intervene, and mess up “the plan”.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

Benjamin Franklin

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Joseph Campbell

 I once read something by Joseph Campbell and I took the time to copy the following passage down on a piece of notebook paper that I discovered  last night while cleaning out my studio – I suppose it “spoke to me”. “You must have a room, or a certain hour or a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be, This is a place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

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Francis Chan - The Awe Factor Of God

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clean 15

Something our family has put in place is making me happy. Each morning before the restaurant opens one of my three sons that work there, drives to Loreauville to a farmer’s house and buys the (organic) produce for the day. The farmer is a treat within himself. He is nearly 82 and his garden is unbelievable – it is so well orchestrated and an aesthetic masterpiece. He spends his day there, battling bugs, tying tomatoes, turning over peas for nitrogen, encouraging bees and ladybugs, and staying close to the earth, fulfilled and spent at 5 o’clock. I am so at peace that they are connecting food to farmer and they are loving the link while subliminally incorporating this into their lives –I’m planting seeds!!  Our food is the most important thing we buy/obtain and yet it is so automated and disseminated - processed and treated. One of my readers responded to the “apples and choices” entry and made a great suggestion – that I post the EWG’s list of the “Clean 15” - here it is:

1.         Onions

2.         Corn

3.         Pineapples

4.         Avocado

5.         Asparagus

6.         Sweet peas

7.         Mangoes

8.         Eggplant

9.         Sweet melon

10.      Kiwi

11.      Cabbage

12.      Watermelon

13.      Sweet potatoes

14.      Grapefruit

15.      Mushrooms

As you can see, there is enough good stuff here to keep you healthy and happy. As I said, this is just my humble opinion but it has to be a good idea to be mindful of what we put into our bodies – it all shows up later!

“It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.”

Meryl Streep

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love

I woke up, got up, a little earlier this morning – not before the sun, not even with the sun, but just after. I have somewhat of a blank canvas today to look forward to. I know that something will splatter paint on it soon but for a little while this morning, the possibilities are vitalizing.

Unfortunately, today, I wake with darkness, in the metaphorical sense. There was a tragedy in our town recently, an accident and a subsequent death, and these horrible occurrences of life are nearly impossible to get through – I didn’t know the people involved personally but the effect becomes very personal. What I take from these misfortunes are the instant reassessment of my life and the reassurance that it is all so fragile and fleeting. And with this, I reshuffle all of my foolish and shallow “worries” and know, once again, that all that matters is love – period – there is no more . and with that realization, most of our troubles somehow disappear because they don't really matter much, do they? The people I love are here and the ones that are not "here", I have loved and still love and everything else that is good in my life is just extra. The "extra" will give me temporary pleasures - the new job, the good report card, the new car, the clean house, the trip to the beach, but loving people will fill the void - loving people will fill this blank canvas with beauty and depth and at the end of the day it is the only thing we can give that really endures. 

To be bold and melodramatic, I end with a quote by Og Mandino:

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.



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apples and choices

Somehow, today feels like the first day of summer vacation for me although it began on May 28. I am finally at a place where my mind is clearer and my routine is no longer there. The day is wide open for me. First, I write. I find that when I do things “for me” first, I am more giving later. I choose writing in the early morning and painting late at night – that’s how it works for me. This art, while beautiful and magical, is also a burden; it insist on your time and effort – time taken from daily chores and thoughts taken from everyday concerns. It is something you must do but yet it fills up so much space, space needed to be wife, mother, friend, teacher, gardener, housekeeper. But I don’t know why I even concern myself with this, art it something, like a crying baby, that must be attended to. So, for me, I find that if I just sit here for a bit of time in the early morning before the house stirs and before I become someone’s else, I can satisfy the muse and again, late at night when the house is still again and I have energy, I sit at my easel and paint and the next morning when I get up the first thing I do is go to my easel to see what happened the night before – it is so nourishing.

 I am not here to preach, for I have no credentials and I don’t care for that sort of approach, but I am here to share things I think are worthwhile. So, I have decided to post a copy of 12 fruits and vegetables that you might want to consider buying organically – the Dirty Dozen for 2011.

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Strawberries
4. Peaches
5. Spinach
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes (imported)
8. Sweet bell peppers
9. Potatoes
10. Blueberries (domestic)
11. Lettuce
12. Kale/collard greens

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honesty

I have to be more honest with my work. I have to go a little deeper. It is a total waste of time to be “unreal” and what is art if not about expressing human emotion and consequently causing response. Sometimes art only needs to delight – a simple and pleasant emotion drawn from a simple and aesthetic display of words or colors or shapes – I “paint” a lot of those kinds of “pictures” – “I’ll go make supper”, for instance. What if I’d have said, “I know someone who will go without supper tonight?” – that would stir different emotions – instead of taking you back and feeling warm somewhere in your misty privileged  past, you might feel  awkward here in your abundant  extant. Or maybe not, maybe you feel a bit smug and think – “Well, they should have made better choices – like me”. Hmmmm, choices like having parents who were devoted to you or choices like having parents at all. We don’t all have the same frame of reference and that reference is our perspective of the world, it is how we all respond – from OUR frame of reference. I am not writing this to suggest enabling people or make flimsy excuses for those who blame everything on their past because I tire quickly of that lame attitude, but at the same time, I cannot deny that we all see the world through our unique experiences and an effort should be made to try to understand each other and not be so stricken with the middle class disease of pre judging – because guess what – you are probably wrong – so incredibly wrong. I have caught myself many times; I’m ashamed to say, in that situation. Things are not as they seem. It’s Sunday and this is my overt contribution to my spiritual self – it is doubtful that I will see the inside of a physical church today but I know I will try to see others as they truly are and not judge them from my frame of reference – and I will try to get out of myself and understand why someone is hungry tonight and appreciate and know why I am not.  

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supper

“I’ll go make supper.” Olivia Walton… The Walton’s was my favorite TV show in high school and funny and purely coincidental, the oldest boy was named John (Jon) and the youngest was Elizabeth – so are my oldest and youngest!!!  Anyway, I caught the end of it on Hallmark and this line she spoke sounded so wonderful – the incarnation of home. Making supper – not “dinner”, not take out, not microwave something in a box, none of the toxic interpretations of our contemporary meals. Anyway, I just wanted to post this image. I know Olivia is a fictional character, but I grew up eating supper at the supper table nearly every night and when I heard Mrs. Walton say “I’ll go make supper”, it sounded so comfortable.

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early summer mornings

I will miss these mornings – tapping at my keyboard waiting for the sun to reach a little higher before swimming and then going straight to my garden and picking whatever it has for me on this day and feeding my anxious chickens and sometimes finding a plum or a berry to eat – I will draw from these early summer days when it is cold and dark and I am not here and they will encapsulate the freedom which is summer for me. The middle of the day is not so bucolic but it is good – time in the kitchen, clothes to wash, and some tiny project to do. Yesterday I sorted through socks – ahhhhh simple pleasures. There were socks in the basket with jingle bells on them from Elizabeth’s kindergarten days (I kept them) and socks with pumpkins and holes – those I tossed. Now there will be plenty of room for school socks in August and warm socks in December. Today my little project will be my jewelry (a very loose term) box and my paint box – specifically my oil paints (I at least will screw on caps!). Anyway, not much really planned (refer to previous post) but I do hope to accomplish these little things. Oh, and I have to make more zucchini bread …

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just you

Picasso: “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”

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Miami Heat

I think I am happiest or most content when I think less, “think” meaning prejudge, assume, expect, anticipate – I group all of these words into a negative, toxic bundle. For me, they are destructive. The flip side is to be open to everything and expect nothing – this gives you freedom from stress and the path to some happy unexpected moments. I remember when my kids were little and something big was coming up – a birthday party, a trip, a new bike - my mom would always warn me – "don’t tell them too much". I get it now (thanks mom) – life is so much more enjoyable when it just happens. Each time I told them, they began to prejudge, expect, anticipate and guess what; their expectation was always greater than the reality of the situation – disappointment. Whereas, if they did not know and here we are on a plane to the Magic Kingdom WOW – happiness.. I remember a much anticipated trip to the Miami Metro Zoo when my oldest was 6. He waited restlessly to get there to see the white Bengal tiger – for some reason, this was fascinating to him. He thought about it , we talked about it, it was paramount -  well, the day we made the long trek to south Miami to see this very new zoo and this exotic tiger was one of the hottest on record and the allusive tiger did not come out of his den! Disappointment…1000 miles from home in the Miami heat. His younger brother, on the other hand, had no expectations and whatever he saw was just great for him! His day unfolded and he was happy with those unexpected gifts of his day. My mother in law used to have a little phrase for this – “anticipation is greater than reality”. I have found this to be true most times.That's why we don't like to tell someone about something "good" that is about to happen, we might "jinx" it - no, you won't "jinx" it but what you will do is start prejudging it and in your mind, it will always be flawless and greater than the reality it will become. I suppose it's just a "glitch" we have - a defense to only allow our thoughts about our future to be "perfect"??

 So, I set forth on this journey of my day with as little anticipation and expectation as possible – I have to work on this – and I hope to, at the end of my day, have experienced and more importantly, noticed, the gifts that are there for me. I hope to carry this even further into a metaphysical realm and not prejudge the people in my life, not determine how “I” think they should be and instead, not only  accept, but celebrate  who they “are” , their true, beautiful, just like God intended being, because , after all, I am just the co – pilot; I have no credentials to fly this ship alone.

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bye bye bees

Well, yesterday has been accomplished – I painted and I went to lunch with my twins – both enterprises were very satisfying and enjoyable. Having 5 children is a bit complicated and I try to capture a few moments away from the group theme and yesterday was one of those times.

this is where Matt, Drew, and I had lunch

this is the painting from yesterday

About the bees; they are gone now. The bee keeper came Thursday and extracted more honey (and gave me a sample quart!) and told me they would be here Friday evening (last night) to move the hives to Arnaudville. It seems the sugarcane is not a good thing for them and they will burrow in the dirt if he leaves then here. They will return in the spring. I will miss them so. I spent a part of each day walking through the field to get to them and just watched them and listened to their onomatopoeia and was totally fascinated by their busyness, then I would sneak past them and come home through the woods – it was such a pleasant excursion and kept me so close to  nature. Anyway, til next spring…it is beyond any words I can transfer from this keyboard – eating honey from my yard and peeping into “the secret life of” beekeepers – simple pleasures are the best, hands down.

and these are the bee keepers

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today

painting today and a lunch adventure with my twins - I hope to post this evening because

I have "bee" news!

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p.s. love the d h lawrence quote today!!!!

attitude

Today was one of those days that filled me up with some sort of peacefulness. Maybe it is because it is June and life will slow down for me for the next few weeks or maybe it is because I just shifted my attitude slightly and made a  choice to see ONLY the good in my life. It is a theme that I have been following lately, an effort to devalue many many things and in doing so I have found contentedness that I have not felt since childhood when my world was so small and narcisstic. That is where I try to stuff myself, in a small world , one where the outside does not really matter – I am not meaning apathy about “the world”, the planet, humankind, but matters of human weakness kind of stuff – like, it doesn’t matter if the kitchen is not clean when I go to bed or if I spilled bleach on my pants or if the backdoor is really old and needs repair and paint (it does) or if I don’t get the grass cut today or tomorrow  or if my neighbor’s kid just got elected president or if I have a new wrinkle  - doesn’t really matter does it? Who cares? I am sorting through things and deciding what I should give time, minutes and hours of my very finite life, to. The answer is easy really – people and for me, my art – people I love and people who come into my life because they need something from me – that’s it – nothing else matters –  I’m not just referring to “things” – it’s situations also that rob me of time, situations that are really superficial and should not hold value. I look back and I can embarrass myself over some of the things in my youth that upset me or caused me concern. Oh well, this is true rambling – it’s late at night and I told myself, and you, that I would make a big effort to write this summer and I am. This entry is so loose and hard to follow; random is the word to use here, but I am celebrating being “chill” – embracing summer and the essence of its spirit. There will be time enough later to rush and scurry –

“So quick bright things come to confusion” Shakespeare from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

He reminds us how quick and fragile these happy moments can be. I will make it a point to find more of them; they are there if we don’t look to compare and if we push out the darkness by allowing the light to come in. It really is all about attitude…



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this says summer

Simple Scallop Squash Recipe


1. Ingredients:
   • 3 medium Squash, thinly sliced
   • 2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
   • 1 teaspoon Salt
   • 1 dash Paprika
   • 1/4 teaspoon Minced Onion
   • 4 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese
   • 1/4 cup Milk
   
   Steps:
   
   1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (unless using microwave.)
   2. Spray 1 1/2 quart casserole with cooking spray.
   3. Cover bottom with squash.
   4. Dot squash with butter.
   5. Season with salt, paprika and onion.
   6. Cover squash with grated Parmesan cheese.
   7. Pour milk on top.
   8. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until squash is tender or microwave on High Power for 5-6 minutes; stirring occasionally.
   
   Serves 6

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possibilities

The house is full of summer – I can tell by the way the late afternoon sun filters in through the blinds and redesigns the keeping room and the kitchen counter is layered with squashes and cucumbers while a tomato ripens in the kitchen window. I can see the changes in the night sky and the June bugs fly around the porch light and the cicadas call in the middle of the day when the heat is deep and the trees are still. I know it’s summer when I see a scattering of unfinished books on sofas and chairs and window sills and the laundry room is harnessed and there is banana bread in the oven and fresh coffee three times a day and my studio smells like turps and oils and my head is filled with possibilities. I love June.

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