Category Archives: Community

New Year, New Hopes

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I feel jazzed at the moment. Out of the blue, yesterday I received a lovely, gracious email from a blog reader — someone who has lurked around here for three years — and it made my day. I haven’t been feeling inspired much to write lately. Hearing from someone that she has appreciated this little world I’ve created nudges me to make an effort. So here is a post.

I recently cleared out the office, which has been the art room and the overflow room. It was cluttered and hardly usable. I’ve now reorganized all the art and craft supplies and labeled the drawers. I know where stuff is and can get to it. The vacuum cleaner fits in the closet. Now it’s ready for me to mess it up again!!

For Christmas I was given a gift card to a sewing store to sign up for lessons. I was given a sewing machine last June for my birthday, but it hasn’t been used yet! Now that the desk is clear, there is room to set it up and try a project. Soon.

We were recently referred to a new realtor by a friend. If you’ve read this blog awhile, you know we’ve been searching for a decent, affordable house to buy in the Bay Area since last January. Husband has been researching online for much longer. We were using a do-it-yourself discount realtor company, and we saw dozens and dozens of houses. We nearly made offers on three. But they didn’t work out, and I was discouraged. I’d lost hope and interest by mid-year.

So we met with this new realtor, and we like her. She has knowledge and expertise and connections with other realtors. Once she is certain about what we’re looking for, she’ll preview properties for us. She’s sending us listings we would not have considered before, because her sense of how soft prices might be means we might be able to buy a house that’s priced higher and negotiate down to our comfort level. She has even made a video of one house she viewed as a way of trying new technology this year. I’m enthused again.

Last year was a year of learning about friendship — how fluid they are. One close friendship from 2008, with a mom I saw almost daily and spoke with on the phone at least as often, ended. There was a misunderstanding, then repair, then a transition on her part to another friend. I felt abandoned and replaced, and it hurt me deeply. It left me reeling, actually, for several months. I realized during this process that I had concentrated my well-being in one relationship to the exclusion of other mother friendships. Since then, I’ve made more effort and thus more friends for me and Bean. I feel connected to a wider community. When I see this person at play group events and parties, we always chat and I enjoy it; but the part of me that broke and let go has changed. Paths diverge. It’s all right.

In November, I had hoped a long-time friend from Austin would arrange to visit with me so I could introduce her to Bean during our visit. (We’d met in 1999.) I’d been close to her when her son was born; I was designated an “auntie.” After I moved, we drifted some and had less contact. She got more passionately involved in other pursuits in 2007 and stopped following through on the small gestures and actions that nurture a friendship. I was a little hurt by this, especially because there was no response to my baby shower or Bean’s birth — and months after her birth, the friend sent a small package of hand-me-down stuff.

Well, the visit didn’t work out, and she was very blasé about it, and I wrote her about how I felt. She conceded she’d dropped the ball and mentioned wanting to connect again, and she pointed out that I had seemed distant as well. I was encouraged and looked forward to responding and trying to reconcile. However, I didn’t reply to her email quickly enough. It gave her time to reassess that she really didn’t feel it was worth it. She decided to “un-friend” me officially from her life: off of Facebook and Flickr, off my blog, everything. She removed my blog link from her blog. I imagine she has purged my contact information. I hate to think what she might have done to the artwork I’ve made and given to her in the past. It was thorough and unilateral, and it first it stunned me. But then, I decided to let it go. If that’s what she needed to do, it’s her loss. Considering the way things were, it isn’t much of one.

Lastly, someone who found my blog a couple years ago became a reader and felt inspired to start his own blog. He is a wonderful photographer and has interesting insights on the politics of our day. As my offline life got busier, I have stopped commenting on most blogs that I read. For some reason, this person felt it important to send me an email with a subject line of “Farewell” and to inform me that he was removing me from his list of blogs on his blog, because I don’t comment enough for it to feel like an exchange. He wasn’t going to read my blog anymore. He assured me that he knows I’m busy with a wonderful child, and this wasn’t meant as a slap to me. Yet somehow, it did feel like a slap. I didn’t dwell on it long, but I was reminded how tenuous our online connections can be.

So my hope for this year is that I manage to nurture the community I have offline, maintain connections with far-flung friends, and revive my online presence a bit. Somewhere in there I want to read books, make art, knit, learn to sew, buy a house, and do fun things with my family. Well, sleep is overrated, anyway.

Happy new year everyone!

Doing Good

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Bean has a little bank — a squirrel — that we put coins into. Any time we find a coin on the sidewalk, or whenever a relative sends a dollar bill in a card, the money goes into the bank. The other day, I told her there are people who don’t have any food to eat, and asked her if she would like to help them. She said yes. I told her to choose a number between 1 and 5, and she chose 4. So we took $4 in quarters out of the bank.

Then at the grocery store, I took her to the aisle that had beans and rice. She chose two cans of beans and one bag of rice. We paid for it at the register. It came to $3.99, and she handed the quarters to the cashier. Then she carried the bag (actually, dragged it across the floor) to the food collection barrel installed by Second Harvest Food Bank. Bean shops often with me and understands you have to give money to take the food or other items home. I’m not sure she entirely understood why we left food in a barrel, because the concept of helping out faceless people is really abstract. But it’s the action that matters. It is the practice of acting with compassion that will, over many repetitions, become part of her world view.

Last night I volunteered wrapping presents at The Family Giving Tree, an organization that undertakes a massive annual effort to collect toys and clothing for people in need. When I saw the items, I just about cried. They are wonderful and brand new. Each child listed a first and second gift wish, and some of these were so small: a bottle of perfume, some colored pencils, a basketball. Others of them were a bit more elaborate: a boombox, MP3 player, or Fisher Price Little People toy. But each child was getting one gift, a toothbrush, and if the toy required it, batteries. I almost cried because my daughter, the only child, only grandchild, only niece in both sides of the family, is going to receive so much for the holiday. We are very fortunate.

I did go to their site later and sponsored two children. I think next year I will get more involved in The Family Giving Tree project somehow. I’m glad that many children will get a gift this holiday; what pains me is that the circumstances of their lives are likely difficult. It’s not just a holiday gift they need. They also need food, shelter, safety, stability, security, clothing, and learning opportunities.

Art Every Day Month – Day 30

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Each year, in the last days of Art Every Day Month, my thoughts turn toward Christmas. If I had time and was inclined to make Christmas cards, I think this would make a sweet design. Alas, this one will have to do. I’ve had great fun this month with the process, and I really like most of what I created. I especially like this small format, because I can actually squeeze a little creativity into the nooks and crannies of time I have.

Happy Advent!

christmas tidings - art every day month 09 - day 30

Christmas Tidings / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage on card stock and fabric

Art Every Day Month – Day 29

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I experimented with polymer clay. The chocolate brown was deeper than I had in mind, so I added transparent gold paint and some green puff paint. It’s not as lightweight as a regular Art Card, but I like it nonetheless. It was a piece I could do while standing in the kitchen as Bean played nearby.

little flower - art every day month 09 - day 29

Little Flower / 2.5 x 3.5″ polymer clay with glass bead and acrylic paint

Art Every Day Month – Day 27

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The base of this card is card stock with a texture stamp in mustard and olive colored ink. I didn’t really like it and thought about tossing it. But I happened to come across some scraps of other paper I used in other cards and got to playing with the arrangement. It absorbed me, and I finally found a use for the random, stray puzzle piece that’s been sitting on my desk for months.

texture 1 - art every day month 09 - day 27

Texture 1 / 2.5 x 3.5" mixed media collage

Art Every Day Month – Day 25

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I wanted contrast and intensity. I had random scraps. This is what came together!

butte - art every day month 09 - day 25

Mesa / 2.5 x 3.5″ collage

I wasn’t sure about the difference between a butte and a mesa, so I looked it up.

A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped hill or mountain with steep sides that is smaller in area than a plateau. A butte is also a flat-topped hill with steep sides, though smaller in area than a mesa. Definitions of the surface areas of mesas and buttes vary. One source states that a mesa has a surface area of less than 4 square miles (10 square kilometers), while a butte has a surface area less than 11,250 square feet (1,000 square meters). Another source states that the surface area of a mesa is larger than 1 square mile (2.59 square kilometers); the surface area of a butte is smaller than that dimension. Some simply define a mesa as a landform that is wider than it is high and a butte as one that is higher than it is wide.

—Science Clarified

There’s your science factoid for the day.

Pangs

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I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and selling their art. Friends are designing clothing and selling the patterns, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend is starting fitness accessory business. Friends write books and hold retreats. Acquaintances are life coaches, writers, have award-winning blogs, make and sell jewelry, and so on.

And I’m here in my little corner of the world, dabbling away. I suspect I’ve always been a dilettante. I walked away from a fledgling career as a professional counselor with her own practice to move here with Husband. (To get licensed here would require almost going through the whole process again — at a cost in money and time that I just won’t spare.) Sometimes I think about setting up a life coaching practice, but what is that, anyway? Everyone seems to be doing it; Google produced 42 million hits for the term. Plus, I’ve been out of the work world long enough that I feel rough and rusty.

One reason I go through sporadic periods of creating is that once I’ve got something made, the question arises of what to do with it. I’ve got knitted stuff stored in my drawers. Art I’ve made sits in a portfolio. Space is limited, so I create less often, and it depresses me to create only to have it sit in the dark. Yes, I could knit for charity — and I do. But there is something satisfying in being compensated monetarily for one’s efforts, and it is validating and heartening to be recognized for one’s work.

I’m not complaining so much as I am musing aloud whether I could be doing more, if I am wasting precious skill and talent by not generating income in some way with all this creativity.

And I’m wondering where these women get the energy. Some of them, in addition to being mothers, work outside jobs, and yet still find a way to create, often at the expense of their sleep and perhaps health. Maybe they can actually function this way. I did it for years in my 20s and 30s, but I’ve found that I’m a crappy mother if I’m exhausted and sick, and I want to be a good mother. I don’t enjoy life when I’m barely able to move or think. There are no sick days available.

So I struggle a bit with… envy? Or maybe it’s worry… a fear that I have retreated into a passive state, almost infantile, in that I don’t generate income, especially from all the dabbling I do. I’m getting to play, while Husband is out there bringing home cash. I don’t have currency in a world where the question, “What do you do for a living?” is unanswerable because I don’t make an income. There was no place on the U.S. Census form that I filled out for our household for me to write that my current job is Homemaker and Mother and that no, I wasn’t laid off and seeking work. It — I — just didn’t count.

I know, wah wah wah. But I do wonder.