Cynthia’s Blog

 

 

 

From my coffee drinking station…

Time to dust off this blog, refocus, make a plan, and begin.

I love taking pictures.  I love letting them speak for me.  I love looking at things, seeing them in a different light, or from a different point of view, and then I love sending them to my kids and friends.  A glimpse of the day!

I have been wrestling with how to use this blog in a meaningful way, in an enjoyable way, and still learn something for myself.  So I am going to practice seeing,  snapping pictures, and posting them here.  I intend to explore and broaden my own vision and sense of composition, and SEE.

Fewer words, unless I just can’t help myself.  No particular theme, unless one shows up…  just views, glimpses, and experimentation.

My goal is to post once a month, give or take.  My practice will be to explore—random and eclectic, weird and wacky, quiet and meditative, color or not, identifiable or not.  Play, see, capture.

So to begin, a few pictures from the past year or so to remind myself that the creative juices have been simmering even though I circled my wagons to cope with trying times.

You are welcome to come along for the ride!  Cheers!

 

Marking this time

I am definitely feeling the swamp of chaos.  I notice I am a bit on the jumpy side, and I have gone on a news fast for a time to be determined. It is difficult NOT to know what is going on, so that is the way it is.

I am taking refuge in the small things, the natural things, the well made things. I am listening to people of goodwill and doing my best to number among them. I delight in the birds splashing in our bird bath, a chipmunk posing on the trunk of a tree, and a damn good biscuit.

Today marks the 55th year of our marriage. Jim and I are reminiscing with smiles, laughs, and even a few tears. Tonight there will be martinis and a bbq’d steak. And hugs.

Counting our blessings….

And we send blessings to you.

Thinking out loud…

I’d like to share some thoughts with you that have been rolling through my mind, rolling and rolling.  I am always searching for the meaning of and in things, experiences, and encounters.  Perhaps you do that too?  So here goes….

I can’t do the big things

But I can do little things

Many little things

Do they add up to a big thing?

Maybe

But all the little things that all the folk do

Add up to civilization

So I will keep on doing the little things that I can do

That make me feel good

That help others to feel good 

That save and protect

And add to all the little things

That need doing

One at a time

One at a time

Thinking out loud…

Something is bubbling up.  A brief but bright spot in my morning thoughts, an idea…..that I didn’t say “no” to.

I can’t say that my creativity has been dimmed over the past couple years, but I can say that it has been splintered.  Splintered into many directions—many directions, and none of them particularly stellar in the world of ART.  I’ve doubted my credibility as an artist, even though I have not really changed how I go about answering my questions.  I have still followed my curiosity.  I have still followed what gives me pleasure and comfort.  I have still questioned and searched, trying to understand.  I have experimented and studied and worked diligently, diving into new territory, or revisiting old territory.  I haven’t changed all that much, but what I have been doing has changed…a lot.

This “sea change” has been coming on a long time, at least ten years.  It began as a growing dissatisfaction with my own work as a quilt maker, a growing sense that I was going through the motions, covering territory I felt done with.  I think there is something that just IS part of my character—to “jump ship” when I feel as though I have begun to work out of what is expected.  When I have gone onto automatic, conveyor belt thinking and creating, I know I need to step off the conveyor belt.  These sea changes have occurred throughout my life, often feeling like a wrong turn at first,  but carrying me to a more satisfying path.

One thing this year of covid has given me is time…time to think, to ponder.  This sequestered year has given me time to be home, to focus on home, to focus on what is right in front of me—always my strategy when things get confused or tough, as things do in our lives.  It has been a time fraught with fear and stress, worry and doubt.  Letting my creativity find its own path, find its own level has brought me through on a jumbled and oddball journey that often puzzled me, and just as often gave me peace.

So I explored…..bread making, sock making, sour dough, wools and yarn-y things.  I let some things pile up, ignored, and kept my kitchen sink clean.  I studied the architecture of sock making, making socks as if my life depended on it.  The mythic mysteries of sourdough became a passion, and my sourdough starter (named Trevor) became my resident pet.  I pursued flat breads to tortillas to focaccia to sourdough pancakes.

And you know, the best thing has been the final feeling that I have some understanding of these things—that I understand.  And that is where I find myself.  Possibilities of quiet endeavor open up.  Ideas drop by and I am eager to see what can come of that.  I say “yes”.

I say “yes”.

Still thinking out loud, in my coffee drinking station…

It’s gonna be all right.  It’s something I’ve said to myself over and over again in the past several months, actually this whole past year.  I feel an immediate sense of comfort received, and sometimes I answer myself with, “How do you know it’s gonna be all right?”

Well, I don’t know…for sure, but when I hear those words, I am comforted.  My shoulders drop slowly to the place they are supposed to be, my heart feels ease.  That, in itself, is enough.  A mantra of comfort—what a parent says to a child, what we say to one another when we confront the hard times.  When uncertainty sits in the room, even a few moments of peace helps.

I found this old tea towel in my overflowing drawer of old and new tea towels.  It is soft and worn, very absorbent—just like a good tea towel should be.  The embroidery is broken and wearing away, it has a few holes, frayed with such soft edges.  I find it more beautiful now than I did when it was new.  All it’s imperfections tell me something, remind me of dishes washed and dried, in company and alone, big dinners, little cleanup chores, folding, washing, drying, and folding again.  Time passed, time used.  It feels comfortable in my hands.  I pat it, I touch the worn stitches, neaten up its folds, and tuck it back into the drawer until I need it again.

Yes, it’s gonna be all right.

 

Just a quick note…

Hello everyone!  My husband, Jim, had heart surgery Dec. 18th to repair the mitral valve.  It was successful!  I brought him home yesterday afternoon—Healing and recovery ahead!

I am very grateful for each and everyone who expressed concern and good wishes for Jim.  He is doing very well, and we will be focused on his recovery for the next few months.  This has been a journey.  Your thoughts and good wishes helped.

Thank you, Cynthia

 

From my coffee drinking station…

This has been a tough time for many reasons.  We’ve all struggled at times, but we have kept on.  We have hung in there!  For that I am truly thankful.

In this time of Covid my husband, Jim, is awaiting heart surgery to repair a leaky mitral valve.  It is looking good to be a successful repair, even though the timing is tricky right now.  In the mean time, Jim is feeling fine.

As you can imagine, all my focus and energy is on the right now in our home—making sure we keep safe and in good spirits.  So far so good!  So far so good!  Our mantra!

So this seems a good time to step away from the blog, and to take a bit of private time.  I wish you all well, and hope you will keep yourselves safe and in good spirits.

So far so good!

Cynthia

Thinking out loud….

From my coffee drinking station at the hour of coffee.  It has been quite a week.  What am I saying?  It has been quite a lot of weeks since things have felt right.

This morning, on the radio, I heard a version of the old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts”.  You know the one, “‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free, ‘tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.”  

With all songs, I don’t always hear the lyrics the way they really are.  So my brain kinda fills in with what seems right to me.  Same with this tune, I hear the first part easily, then lose the words, then I hear the last line, “……turning, til things come round right.”  That’s all I need from the song, that’s what I want to share with you.  Things will come round right.

I have to laugh at myself about another song that I have loved for years.  “The White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, sung by Grace Slick. Now, even back when the song first appeared, many moons ago, I never really understood the words in the song other than it was about Alice In Wonderland.  The pace and the strength of the singing voice was captivating.  But my favorite thing was the last line.  I always heard it as “Keep your head!”, repeated.  Made sense that way to me—you know with the red queen running around in the story lopping off heads, it seemed like pretty good advice.  Back in the 60’s it seemed like good advice.  Apparently, that is not the real lyric.  I looked it up recently and found it was something completely different (which I do not care to remember).  Again, there was my brain filling in with what made sense to me.  I’ve decided to remember it the way I like.  

“Keep your head!”  Still damn good advice!

Thinking out loud…in my coffee drinking station.

This is my theory about worry.   Creative minds are really good at it.  I mean really good at it.  You might think of worry as a side effect of a creative, imaginative brain.  An idea pops into our minds and before we realise it we have created a whole long scenario of what might happen, what could happen, and we end up scared.

I recall many episodes like this when I was a kid, when I took an idea and ran with it until I scared myself silly.  It always mystified me that the adults didn’t understand.  They looked at me as if I was hopelessly from another planet.  Who knows….?

Anyway, as I grew up I gradually learned to handle worry.  I still have a weakness for it to be sure, but now I work hard to stop myself when I notice fear is building.  I can see that I am afraid of what might happen, what could happen.  To counter those thoughts I focus on what is right in front of me right now.  Then I can see that none of my elaborated thoughts are here in the room with me.  The trick is to set fear aside.  That is an act of will.  Time to focus on something else.  Time to corral my thoughts and imagination and do or think something positive.  Dwelling in fear doesn’t help anything.

Making stuff works for me—whether it is following a recipe, a knitting pattern, or writing my thoughts out in this blog, it turns a key that gets my mind busy solving something I can handle.

Creative minds tell stories, we make good things, we turn negatives into positives.  Socks or tortillas, apple pie or art, making stuff, fixing stuff, cleaning stuff—it helps.  Though I am not terribly enthusiastic about the cleaning stuff part…

I could worry about the fact that my tortillas came out too small, and maybe I did for a little while…   Even little worries can be toxic.

The worries are many—social injustice, environmental, political, personal health and well-being.  Finding our way through all the worry is our job right now. Keeping our spirits up so that we can respond to what needs doing is our job right now.

Hold on, hold on.
And thanks for sharing time with me in my coffee drinking station.