Linda Hoye's Blog, page 197

Little Free Library

Early this year we experienced a severe ice storm. Sadly, a birch tree in our front yard was just one of the many casualties in our neighborhood.  We ended up having to cut down the tree but we left the stump behind. We had an idea.

Today, Gerry mounted our very own Little Free Library on that stump. The mission of the Little Free Library organization is to “Promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.” The premise is simple: people can take a book, return a book, and add their own books. Now that’s a cause we can get behind!

We had no trouble filling it with an initial offering of books from our home. Truth-be-told we could put out hundreds of these and not make a dent in the books we own! In time we’re especially hoping to build a good selection of children’s books.

Out of the ravage of a fierce and destructive winter storm comes a neighborhood free library. I like that.

Summer Afternoons

I’m taking a vacation day and this afternoon I’m at home. The sun is shining, it’s hot outside, and inside the house it’s still and silent. I’ve just finished puttering in the kitchen: starting a batch of yogurt, cooking veggies for dog food I’ll be making later, making a pasta salad for dinner, and preparing toasted breadcrumbs that I’ll be using in stuffed zucchini for dinner.

It’s in these moments like these when I’m content to be doing simple tasks around the house that I feel most like myself. Perhaps that’s why on days like this I’m often taken back in time.

Hot summer afternoons like this remind me of settling down in the living room with Mom after lunch (or dinner as we called it back then) for a time of rest. Mom would lay on the couch and I’d settle in to dad’s recliner. The drapes would be drawn to keep out the heat, a fan would be whirring on the end-table, and the TV volume would be turned just barely loud enough to hear.

At 1:00pm every afternoon there was a movie–a matinee–on TV. Perhaps it was a ruse on my mom’s part to entice me to have an afternoon rest, but I remember those afternoons fondly–likely with more nostalgia than I would have of a time spent alone in my bedroom for an afternoon nap. She was a smart woman, my mom. (She used to race with me in the morning to see which one of us could finish making her bed first too. I’ve only recently realized that these races were little more than a way of getting me to make my bed. Again, pretty crafty on my mom’s part.)

Today, as I pad around the house doing this-and-that I imagine I can hear the whir of a fan, and I’m tempted to close all the binds to darken the rooms, and I find myself wishing I had curtains on the windows, instead of blinds, that would wave and dance in the warm breeze blowing through an open window.

Sometimes I wonder if my children have special memories of ordinary moments from the past that creep up on them unexpectedly. Perhaps hot summer afternoons sitting  on a blanket on the front lawn with library books; or summer lunches of fresh fruit, crackers, and cheese; maybe listening to stories played on the record player on nights when it was too hot to sleep.

I’ll have to ask them. I’d like to know what ordinary moments live on in their minds like the afternoon matinees with my mom do in mine.

Guest Post – Destiny Allison

Today I’m pleased to welcome artist and author Destiny Allison to A Slice of Life Writing. Shaping Destiny, is the inspiring story of her life from the creation of her first sculpture to her acceptance into a prominent Santa Fe art gallery. The book recounts her journey from traditional female roles to self-actualization and independence and how she wrestled along the way with shedding and then reclaiming family.

Welcome Destiny!

 The Relationship Between Art and Life

When I think about the relationship between art and life, I think about the story Howard Ikemoto told. “When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work.  I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared at me, incredulous, and said, ‘you mean they forget?’”

Drawing, painting, building forts, and playing make believe are just some of the creative acts intrinsic to childhood.  As we get older we leave these acts behind.  We let the voices of the world steer us toward responsibility and productivity and away from some of the most important parts of life – passion, curiosity, and creativity.

As a young girl, I remember being under constant scrutiny.  Peers, teachers, parents, and strangers all watched to see if I fit, measured up, or was on track toward achieving what they felt it was important for me to achieve.  I was paralyzed for a time – doing my best to color inside the lines.  In retrospect, it seems that my education was about teaching me everything I needed, except how to be myself.

I think many people, by the time they hit adulthood, are afraid of being themselves.  Doubts plague them and they worry about being good enough, talented enough, pretty enough, or brave enough to do many of the things they did easily as children. They trade their creativity and individuality for acceptance and security and ultimately find that the only thing they know about themselves is what other people tell them.  Consequently, they end up consenting to a life not of their choosing.  Hopeless and trapped, stuck in jobs and relationships they hate, they die a little every day.

It seems to me that when they lost their creativity, they lost themselves. In the adult world today, creativity and art belong to the elite.  Did you know that there is no word for art in Native American languages?  They didn’t distinguish it as something significant by itself.  It was just part of every day life.  Sand paintings were made to blow away.  Art wasn’t about the object.  It was about the function of the object, physically and spiritually.

In our culture, we relegate art to museums where it is defined as a skilled rendering, in a known artistic media, that means something.  I think the Native American culture is right.  Art is not about media and meaning is not derived from the object.  Art, and its consequent meaning, comes from the artists’ intention to create something honest and beautiful.  Artists can work in any media.  They can be painters, poets, writers, sculptors, and musicians.  They can also be gardeners, athletes, mothers, career professionals, or volunteers.

The truth is we are all artists.  Life is our canvas. Eventually, if we stick with our passion, expression, and discipline, the art (our life) gets good.  Through our artistic discipline and creative expression, our uniqueness and originality shine.  We develop skills, confidence, and a greater understanding of both ourselves and those around us.  Then, our voice and passion inspire others and our works can become masterpieces worthy of the finest museums.

In the end though, reaching for museum quality work is beside the point.  What matters is the creativity itself because being creative is like turning barren ground into a rich and fertile garden.  Our discipline provides the nutrients and water.  Our artistic expressions are the seeds we plant inside ourselves.  Maybe a seed will grow into a weed that needs to be yanked.  Another will become a rose and we will revel in its beauty.  If we’re lucky, and patient enough, some of the seeds will end up feeding and nourishing our souls.

 

Destiny Allison is an artist, a business woman and a writer.  Her work is collected by public institutions and private individuals internationally.  In addition to her numerous awards for excellence in art, she was also recently named Santa Fe Business Woman of the year for 2011.

In addition to being a full time artist, she is also a managing partner in La Tienda at Eldorado — a commercial complex, community center, and arts center in Santa Fe, NM.

She is represented in prominent galleries across the country and owns her own gallery, Destiny Allison Fine Art, located at La Tienda.

Allison’s first love was writing.  Her first poems were published while she was a child and she received numerous awards during adolescence.  The story of how she became a visual artist is told in her book, Shaping Destiny: A quest for meaning in art and life.  While her focus over the last 20 years has been primarily on sculpture, Allison also paints on steel using acids and natural oxidation, and in acrylics.

The eloquence of Allison’s language dates back to her childhood when art was constantly discussed and debated by her father, a writer, and her mother, a painter. Born and raised inSanta Fe, N.M., Allison moved to Boston after college where she worked as a freelance journalist while raising her three children. It was there that she discovered her voice through sculpture. Predominantly self-taught, Allison apprenticed at a bronze foundry in Massachusetts, and later taught sculpture at the Attleboro Museum of Art and the Fuller Museum of Art, both in Massachusetts. In 1997, Allison returned to Santa Fewhere she currently resides.

Morning Meditation: Priorities, Lists, and Living in the Moment

We’ve been enjoying a sunny and warm weekend in Vancouver, BC this weekend, the climax of which was a beautiful wedding ceremony yesterday for our niece and her new husband.

Our hotel room is on top top floor and we have a spectacular view of the harbor.

Yesterday morning, prior to the wedding, we sat on benches in the waterfront with books and newspapers reading and people-watching.

This morning, I’m having a lazy morning (still in bed at 8:39 “thanks” to the antihistamine I took last night for my swollen-and-still-sore-from-the-bee-sting-and-perhaps-infected foot) sipping coffee in a silent hotel room. Gerry is downstairs having coffee with his siblings discussing the health of their parents.

What has struck me this weekend is how much more relaxed I feel as I’ve focused on doing and experiencing just one thing at a time–experiencing each moment as it happens.

I feel like there is a message for me, whispered words of wisdom, telling me to stop being frantic all the time. The thing is, there are so many things on my mind all the time–writing projects, book promotion, quilting projects I long to get back to, my garden, canning and putting food by for the winter, books I’m reading, and on and on and on.

I’m at the age where I know I’ll never live long enough to do all the things I want to do, and I’ve become a little compulsive about trying to fit as much in as I can. I’m realizing that in my haste I’ve lost something. I’ve lost the pure pleasure in doing these things because I’m rarely just in that single moment.

So, as I look out over the bay this morning, I’m resolving to slow down, to make lists so I don’t lose sight of all the things I want to do, and to tackle things on the list deliberately and mindfully, giving each project the attention it warrants. I’ll likely never be able to cross everything off of my list, but at least I can choose to be full-in on those ones I decide to focus on on any given day.

How do you deal with multiple priorities and projects in your life?

A Barefoot Girl With Shoes On

I stepped on a bee the other day.

I suppose it was only a matter of time, really, because I rarely wear shoes when I’m at home. Inside or outside, rain or shine, summer or winter, I’m usually barefoot.

On Sunday afternoon I was outside, barefoot as usual, walking down the side of the yard checking out the gardens when it happened. At first I thought I must have stepped on a sharp stone or something like that, but it didn’t take long to realize that I had been stung by, what I’m now assuming, was a bee. I’ve noticed a lot of bees in the yard this year–they’ve been especially fond of the borage blossoms in the garden. Bees + gardens = a good thing. I couldn’t be too upset by being stung now, could I?

Over the course of the past few days my foot has gone from sore to swollen to itchy and is just now starting to get back to normal. It hasn’t been pleasant, the aftermath of the sting, but it’s not the end of the world. I’m fifty-three years old and this is only the second time I’ve been stung–and the first time as a result of stepping on the bee. Not a bad run for a barefoot girl like me.

Now I suppose I could think about being more sensible and wearing shoes or sandals, or even flip-flops, when I’m outside.

I could.

But I won’t.

Even when I’m at work or out-and-about somewhere wearing shoes, in my mind I’m always barefoot. I’m simply a barefoot girl wearing shoes.

There’s something free and carefree about being barefoot, don’t you think? And the older I get the less interested I am in being constrained and reigned in so I’ll take the risk of being stepping on another bee if it means I can continue my barefoot existence. It’s simply a chance I’m willing to take in order to be me: a barefoot girl.

Heart to Heart

A  woman came into my office today clutching a copy of Two Hearts.

“I haven’t started to read it yet,” she told me. “I just finished the acknowledgments and the author’s note.”

We chatted about the books she’s been reading, and finishing, before she planned to start reading my book. We laughed together and shared stories about our reading likes and dislikes.

Then she said “I’m on the other side” in reference to my book–she’s a birth mom.

Immediately my office was transformed into a sacred place–a place where truth was spoken freely and two facets of the adoption triangle touched one other. This dear woman expressed some apprehension about reading my book; she’s experienced what it’s like to be blamed, misunderstood, and maligned. She needed to have some reassurance before opening herself up to the reading experience that she wasn’t walking into something unexpected.

I reassured her that the book is not an angry book, that I believe in the blessing of adoption, and that there is a good ending to my story. I was honest with her too. Is there anger in the book? Sure. I told her other birth mothers have read the book and I suggested that some parts might be hard for her to read. I gave her my blessing to put it aside for a time, or forever, if she feels she needs to.

She shared her story with me and my heart broke as she talked about what she went through many years ago. I learned more about adoption from the birth mom’s perspective. I grew as a human being as I listened thoughtfully, respectfully and with genuine compassion to her story.

I’ve talked with birth mothers, adoptive mother, and adoptees, and found ways to empathize with each experience. I’ve sat in a room of raw emotion as adoptees and birth parents, and adoptive parents talk openly about their pain, and I’ve witnessed a social worker in that same room brought to tears at the realization of how the ways of the past hurt those it was intended to protect. I choose to believe that change will come as a result of this open communication and respectful exchange of experiences.

I was accused on another site recently of selling “wound Pablum” and “coddling adoptive parents” instead of being “on the streets trying to actually change things” in the adoption community. If you’ve read my book you know there is a lot of anything-but-Pablum in there–there is brutal honesty, anger, tears, and grief–and yes, eventually, there is gratitude.

I am humbled by the conversation I had with this woman today; I am honored she chose to share her story with me; and I feel renewed in my goal of respectfully, thoughtfully, and openly sharing my story as my way of working for change and healing.

Pablum? You can call it that if you want.

I call it doing my part the way that works for me. Heart to heart.

Technology Woes

I killed my blog over the weekend.

Not intentionally, but it was dead as sure as if I’d purposefully decided to shut it down. I was working on a little project related to Two Hearts and I had been tweaking the site behind the scenes, where I know just enough to be dangerous (obviously) and the magic of Google searches is on hand to help fill in the gaps in my knowledge. All was going well; I was seeing the results I expected; and then it happened.

Crash! The site was broken and I had no way of getting back to the errant code to remove it. If you tried to get here all that showed up was a blank screen with an error message across the top.

What to do? I broke out into a sweat. My blog was down!

I tried, unsuccessfully, to FTP to the site. I logged into my hosting service to double check the parameters I was using, but still no success. I Googled this, I Googled that, I tried one thing, I tried another, but I was still not able to FTP to my site to access the code to fix the problem.

Finally, after spending too much time trying to get to the root of the problem I put in a ticket with my hosting service and went out to the garden to try to reclaim my equilibrium.

This morning I checked my email first thing to see if I had a message from my hosting service. Nothing. So I reached for my iPad and went back to Google to look for a resolution to my FTP problem. I came up with a lot of possible scenarios: my firewall, my internet service provider, my router, my hosting service, the problem could be with any or all of these. The end result–as you can see because you’re reading this–is that I managed to find and fix the problem and get back up and running.

What I realized anew through the ordeal is that it’s a complicated world we live in these days. Oftentimes, without the help of (much younger) support people or our kids we find ourselves adrift in a sea of confusion about the technology that is part of almost every aspect of our life.

This afternoon we took a trip to Best Buy to do some research about the pros and cons of plasma vs LCD vs LED TVs and all that goes with that. A very knowledgeble young woman brought us up to speed on the pros and cons of plasma vs LCD vs LED, smart technology, home theater systems, 3D, and things like Hulu, Pandora, and Netflix.

Crikey.

It’s all enough to make one want to move to the country and raise goats and chickens–exactly what I hope to do one day. Don’t get me wrong, I embrace technology. I love technology! But I’m also mighty glad we have kids and helpful salespeople to help us navigate this rapidly changing world.

Hot Cereal

The house is quiet and still. Gerry has already left for work and the Yorkies have settled into their respective beds for the first nap of the day. Outside, a soft morning rain falls on the garden and yellow finches flit back and forth to the thistle feeder.

I stand at the stove rhythmically, slowly, in figure-eights, stirring a pot of hot cereal. It is my morning meditation.

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day; nutritionally, it sets the tone for the rest of the day. It can do more than that though; done right, breakfast can mentally set the tone for the rest of the day too.

Most often for me these days breakfast is a jar of homemade Greek yogurt and frozen berries tossed into my bag as I head out to work in the morning; I enjoy it with a sprinkling of bran cereal in my office while I prepare for the day ahead.

Sometimes, when I’m organized, it’s one of several jars of cooked steel cut oats I’ve prepared over the weekend that sit waiting in the refrigerator to be dressed up with a dash of brown sugar and soy milk.

On weekends, I sometimes start the day with a slice of toast spread with homemade strawberry jam or a couple small whole wheat pancakes served with real maple syrup.

I’m trying to change the habit I kept for many years of not eating anything in the morning.

This morning I stared down into the pot of Bob’s Red Mill Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal watching craters form and pop and suddenly, in my mind, it was early morning in 1982 and I was standing at a little white half-sized stove in my kitchen making hot cereal for my children.

Somehow, instinctively, I always knew that a nutritious breakfast was important for them to start the day with and I had a diverse repertoire of menu options to choose from.

A sampling of the egg selections:

a three minute egg with toast
a fried egg with grated cheese on top
french toast
birds  nest (a fried egg cooked in a circle cut in the center of a slice of bread)
green eggs and ham (scrambled eggs with a dab of blue food coloring to turn them green and a slice of ham)

A sampling of the cereal selections:

porridge and dates (Michael’s favorite)
cream of wheat and peanut butter (Laurinda’s favorite)
corn meal and cottage cheese
Sunny Boy Cereal and strawberries (or whatever fruit was in season)

Mornings were slow; I had time to be deliberate and creative about what I fed my family.

Fast forward to 2012 and most mornings are hurried; my mind is usually two steps ahead of my body.

My life is different now–vastly different–and while I wouldn’t trade where I am today for anything, I can’t help but be nostalgic for those slow and lazy mornings making hot cereal for my children.

Summer Fulfillment

The problem, if one can describe it that way, is that the summer weather compels me to spend every possible moment I can outside.

This means, of course, I have little time for blogging and staying caught up with things that need my attention.

Last evening as I puttered around the garden picking this-and-that with which to make a salad for dinner I considered that fact.

Then, I plucked another plump pea pod from the vine and tossed it in the bowl.

This beautiful salad? Last night’s dinner? Yes, it was entirely from my garden.

At the moment, I don’t have words to express how fulfilled I felt as I put together this salad to feed my husband and I. Did I mention that I grew everything in this bowl from seed? Perhaps not. Perhaps that fact will help you understand the reason I’ve been absent.

The weather is supposed to be taking a turn though. I’ll be back. I’ll be hanging around my gardening blog–my glog–A Grandma’s Garden too.

Tell me what’s had your attention during these summer weeks?

Friday Fave Five

We’ve been enjoying warm and sunny weather here in the Pacific Northwest and that means I’m spending as much time as possible outside. As a result, I haven’t been doing much writing; instead I’ve been curling up on the patio with some great books.

What better reason to focus this week’s Friday Fave Five on books? My list today includes some of my old and new favorites.

Sharon Lippincott’s The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing was one of the first books I read when I decided to get serious about writing my memoir. My copy is dog-eared and marked up; the sign of a good book in my opinion. This book is filled with practical tips for writing and technical tips for laying it all out. Whether you’re writing for publication or just putting stories down for your family this one is well worth taking time to read. The first page alone contains a quote that I had on my original blog and when I closed that one down it moved to my Facebook page. ”It takes courage to bare your soul for the examination of future generations, and making the effort to share yourself with them is an act of great love.”

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck changed my life and, judging by the comments on Facebook where I recently made this statement, I’m not alone. Peck said that ”Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult–once we truly understand and accept it–then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” That was certainly true in my case. Once I realized that life was difficult, that I wasn’t the only one with challenges, it freed me somehow. This book is a must read. Trust me.

Reading Sharon Butala’s The Perfection of the Morning was like coming home for me. This award winning Canadian author loves the Canadian province of Saskatchewan almost as much as I do. ‘Nuff said.

The Stone Diaries by the late Carol Shields is another Canadian treasure. It chronicles the difficult life of the fictional Daisy Stone Goodwill from birth, which coincided with the death of her mother, through two marriages, motherhood, widowhood, and finally old age and death Shields tells a gripping story about the life of an ordinary, yet extraordinary, woman. One of the things that struck me when I read this book many years ago was that we usually have no concept of the extent of joys and sorrows an individual has endured before we met them, and how what came before shaped the person we see today.

That a beaten-up, well-read copy of The Joy of Stress by Peter Hanson has had a prominent place on my shelf is telling. Also telling, is that I haven’t had occasion to pull it down from the shelf for a number of years but it will stay there in case I ever need it again.

So there’s a sampling of what’s on my shelves. I’d love to hear about some of the old and new favorites that line your shelves (or live in your e-reader)!