The Days of Day

   Okay... so I think I nearly broke the toilet from plopping down on it so hard to go pee.  WHY did I plop instead of coming in for my usual graceful landing?  Because my best friend encouraged me to go to the gym and take her weight lifting class... and because I did it... and because she's so darn encouraging that I tried to show off how MOST people who don't go to the gym for four months would really stink their first time back... but not me!  I decided that I should prove that I am a superhero who can skip the gym for four months and come in looking fresh and fit and strong as an ox... okay, okay... an ox that can lift a 2kg dumbell.  I decided that these sleeping muscles could SURELY do just as many squats as that cute 60 year old woman in the front row whose gluteus maximus muscles look nice and bouncy. I'm just going to have to be deliberate about which chairs I go to sit in today.  Spindly antique ones are definitely NOT my best option. ...

On Friday I thought Marcus, my five year old, was sick.   His big brother was home with strept throat, again, and so Friday morning, when Marcus reported a sore throat, I was pretty sure it was strept. It wasn't.  My guess is that it was a sore throat that landed somewhere between I-Don't-Want-To-Miss-Sick-Time-T.V. and sympathy pains. So, at 10:15 a.m. Marcus was heading to school with a clean bill of health from his pediatrician.  He was petrified to enter class late with a Pink Slip.  In fact, most of the ride to school from the doctor's office consisted of Marcus using his most serious voice to ask every possible permutation of the question, "How does the Pink Slip work?" When we arrived at school, we left big brother in the car, walked into the office, got the dreaded Pink Slip, and headed down to his classroom.  Marcus drew up the courage to carry the Pink Slip the final ten steps into the room, we knocked, and then walked in. The room smelled heav...

I am not made of glass.  I am made of guts and bones and lots of I-Dare-You-To.  I am made of spark and fire, of inner structures that bend and groan, but rarely shatter.  I am made of tender oases of welcoming kindness and verdant pastures of Leave-Me-Alone.   I am not made of glass.   Today these are the words that I write after a day of feeling bitterness toward another adult who bullied and pushed, who took care of business at my expense.  I spent a good deal of last night and another good gobble of today announcing my injury and licking my exposed cuts.   Then, I went to the bookstore, read books, and drank hot chocolate. I opened books by Wayne Dyer that reminded me that I am NOT my reputation.  I opened books by other artists and remembered that being me is not contingent on being well-received.  I came home and never answered the ringing phone.  I worked on my altered book, painted an old doll I found, and played with papier ...

I saw this poster advertising a Joan Crawford movie and thought, "I bet when this "Romance -- Tragedy and Jazz -- Mad Youth" movie was made it was absolutely SCANDALOUS!  The title alone brings to mind families sitting around formica-topped tables eating meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and canned green beans.  The father is sitting with his elbows on the table, completely unaware that his family already thinks he holds enough ground without the added rudeness.  The wife daintily wipes her mouth with her napkin, nodding to help punctuate her husband's edict, "No one in my house will see a movie about dancing daughters!" What he doesn't know is that just that very day the mother had driven two towns over to watch the movie with her very best friend, the one who in a week will be packing her car and her children and moving to San Francisco in search of a life far away from a husband whose edicts are accompanied by a growl and a flexing of muscle.  They went ...

 On the days when my pile of papers to grade and cards to write and parties to plan is small, the idea of living my life as though I only had 37 days left seems easy and joyful, a pleasure to be savored.  But today I struggle with the idea of CONSEQUENCES... Today what I'd do is drive down to Prince William National Forest with my family and dog and go for a hike.  We'd sit by a creek and listen to running water.  We'd lay in the sand with our arms over our eyes and hear no traffic.  But, the park is an hour away, the hike takes at least two hours, and who wants to go with a ringing bell looming on the horizon anyway?   Today is, instead, about doing things I already signed up to do, things I've committed myself to, expectations that need fulfilling if I'd like to have a job next year.  Today is about papers that need grading, parents that need calling, notebooks that need organizing, kindergarten homework that needs doing (with a smile).   The...

Tomorrow is my 39th birthday.  I have always loved my birthdays... always wanted to go up to complete strangers and announce how old I am that day.  I tell people days in advance that the day is coming so no one misses the opportunity to be a part of my walking party on October 15.  In fact, just now I made a birthday cake to take to school because that's what you're supposed to do, right? I've always loved to make announcements, birthday related and otherwise.  One day a few weeks ago I found a slip of paper that I'd written on when I was in the third grade.  It said, "Today felt like it was a special day, but it was not."  I remember the exact moment I wrote those words.  I was trying to communicate that I felt like there was a happy announcement coming and that it had something to do with me... that I was as happy as if I had a birthday party to go to.  And even now, I feel like that sometimes.  I must feel so happy because of some awesome...

So... this is pretty funny.  I opened up my blog to write something and had no idea what I'd write.  My secret for moments like this is that I often start blog entries with a photo I like and a title that occurs to me when I see the photo... then, weeks or months later I open it up and write something. I sat down tonight not knowing what to write and JUST at the moment I opened it all up, I saw the title I'd chosen (still up there) and at the same time heard Tom's ipod, which is apparently set on "random", started playing Robert Earl Keene singing "The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends." That "coincidence" is not enough, though.  I sat down to write while my boys get ready for bed after we kept them up a little late having our Saturday night family party... a party we all desperately needed because the week had just zipped by, leaving us all feeling a little bit like someone riding the bullet train convertible style.   We watche...

I made this book for my friend Jerusha for her birthday present.  That was back in July.  The only thing I've done since then is decorate a wooden block to be a hall pass for my new classroom.  I DID win the school-wide contest for that, but it didn't require ANY glitter at all so I don't think it fully counts as Day-time.

We English teachers usually believe that the WORD, the combination of  letters into meaning,  is the most important tool in the box. In an effort to document my belief that it may be time to consider that  there are other tools that help students  make meaning out of their lives,  out of what they read, out of what they think... I offer this slide show. Perhaps the literacy toolbox could be expanded. I say this knowing that some kids, like my oldest son, might balk... but also knowing that other kids, like my youngest son, would sing arias of found comfort and joy. Maybe next to the words and sentences, some kids could find color  and shape and sticky-stuff...  maybe cuttings and doodles and sketches... This slide show exhibits a visual reading journal using a traditional  text entry and  a webbed entry.  It also shows some altered books.

I've never really cared much for horoscopes, except to read them and laugh about how every single one of them is true for me... or else how every single one of them is true for the poor sap down the road, but not nearly right for me.  I never knew why until this week. I think I've just always been repelled by the idea that anyone can read MY stars but ME.  How can anyone else know what the stars are conspiring to teach me?  And right now, Baby, those stars are aligned and shouting to me with all the power they can send my way.  The message is clear: When I decide what my dream is -- when I listen to my heart to unravel my vision --  the Universe and all the people in it, will conspire to make my dreams come true. The message, though, isn't just for me.  It's for everyone who needs to hear it. So, how do I know the stars are aligned to teach me that? Any one of these things I list here would be enough, but they are all true simultaneously: After a year ...

This summer on our road trip, one of our adventures was visiting my brother's fire station and letting the boys try on the hat of one of their heroes.  I like these photos because Jackson's nearly third grade face says, "Yeah, I'm just trying it on."  Marcus' face, though, says, "Right at this moment, I AM a firefighter."  He looks to me like in his mind the helmet fits him exactly and that Uncle Will's bunker gear has shrunk down to be fire-ready just for Marcus.  He BELIEVES. As I'm adjusting to life with several new hats, I'm struck by how much more fun it is to BELIEVE.  I love the hats of mother to elementary age boys and teacher.  I also love the old hats that still stick around, like director of doing-stuff, cooker of healthy foods, wife and best friend of Tom.  The stress I feel today is in the realization that I have to quickly shift from hat to hat about five times today. So, at this moment, I'm going to take a lesson fro...

  While looking at his daughter's room which was a mess... again... Rabbi Kula, author of Blessings, finally hears himself say, "It's just like Talia: always overflowing."  He realized he was smiling.  He wrote: "Her cup runneth over... Perhaps Talia didn't want these things put away neatly, but left out, exposed as if to say 'Here I am.'  For the first time I understood while Talia always said, 'It's not a mess to me.'" We're home from vacation.  The suitcases are put away.  The clothes have been washed.  The souvenirs seem like friendly old things already.  Now, it's time to start thinking about school starting back in a few weeks.  I'm looking ahead with excitement, but not urgency.  I'm finding the back to school sales AND squishing my toes around in these lazy muggy days. My cup runneth over. I look into the crystal ball of my own invented next year and I see school, baseball practice, grocery shopping, an...

"Turn it over one hundred times, and on the one-hundred-and-first time you'll understand... When you think you understand a teaching, when you have an interpretation of a story or character that feels comfortable or right, it's time to start over at the beginning."   Vacation is letting me turn things over, turning over the perceptions, the interpretations I've held on to so tightly.  And, I know I said I wouldn't write,but there are some things that just can't wait. This last week I went with my mom to visit the writing group she leads.  There were nine women there, all of us interested in improving our writing.  Each woman took a turn reading something she'd prepared and our indomitable leader offered us two opportunities for six-minute timed writings (topic one: the eighth dwarf, topic two: shoes).  The writing was BEAUTIFUL!  And here's what I learned from being in San Antonio, Texas, with a group of women I've never met: There are peopl...

In my research about the differences in the ways boys and girls approach learning I have found one idea repeated often.  Some boys, it seems, produce things in school to entertain their friends.  They are not at all interested in the approval of their teachers.  If what they do in class gets a laugh or a "yeah, you're cool" nod from a peer, then they have succeeded. Girls, on the other hand, live to please the teacher.  They want the teacher to like them and think they're great in every way possible... so some of us girls actually developed an immediate tinge of shame for late papers and incomplete assignments. And, that's where my art-on-the-go box comes in. I've just finished packing for a MONTH away... Georgia, Texas, and all the roads in between.  The car is full of suitcases and an ice chest, some inflatable mattresses and a pool bag.  We've got a laptop to watch videos and some iPods to listen to podcasts.  We've got snacks and water and ev...

I feel like I should send a big high five through the internet to the anonymous person who posted the DETAILED directions for how to make a hat.  It was great!  Here are some pictures: Yes... the pattern making actually required these tools PLUS a compass (the kind with the sharp thing and a pencil, not the kind that indicates true North)... Tom took the boys out to a movie and to run errands so I could really think my way through the process. Here's a photo of the first brim in progress.  At this point I'm sewing MANY concentric circles around the brim to give it enough body to shape as I want it while I wear it.  Looks big, right?  Wait 'til you see this: GOOD LORD!  That is a HUGE hat!  Tom said I looked like Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby.  So true.  Okay... it IS awesome but completely impractical.  So, I trimmed the brim down, added a new binding edge, and voila...  I LOVE it!  Jackson said, "I like it, M...

Not much time to write today... just taking a break from the hat endeavor.  So far, it took me 1 1/2 hours to make the pattern.   Thought I'd share a photo of a postcard I gave to a friend who showed some interest in learning to use the tools of altered books.  I loved how it turned out, but looking at it now, I'd probably add some more to it.  Seems like it's missing a layer of color around the edges to me.   This is how we learn.  This postcard is already out of my hands, but I'm keeping the lesson for next time.

My mom, in one of her comments on my blog, reminded me about how when I was a kid I hated the books she read.  I'd get off the bus, tromp up our interminable driveway, walk in the door and find her sitting there reading what I called "philosophy."  At the time I imagined that she must have been sitting there all day long.  Now that I'm a mom I realize she'd probably just sat down there about 37 seconds before I walked in the door.  After hello (I'd like to THINK it was after hello) I'd say, "Are you reading PHILOSOPHY again?"  I wish I knew why I hated it so much.  I think it was because things seemed so crystal clear to me at that age... and the things that were mysterious were sort of magically so... certainly not worth READING about... not when books like Anne of Green Gables awaited. Anyway, she pointed out how now she reads philosophy on MY blog!! HA!  I never thought about all this stuff I write as philosophy.  Eight year old Day is FREAKI...

I just realized I never posted a picture of the glitter and bead holder all full-up with love!  I just want to EAT all these colors they look so beautiful! Hat update:  I'm going to go for it.

A few weeks ago I found this photo online and had planned to do a blog entry about thorns and roses and all that Hallmarky stuff.  I was going to write about the unknown future... will I get a job or not?  will my family be able to stand me during my transition back to work?   But then I went online this morning in search of a hat.   EGADS!   A couple of weeks ago my friend and I drove into D.C. to Eastern Market so I could visit a hat vendor I'd seen last year.  I tried on every single hat with absolutely no luck.  The sun hasn't gotten any cooler so the search continued today. First of all, you should know that the reason I always wear a baseball cap in the summer is that apparently designers think that only men are allowed to have huge heads.  So, all the dainty, pretty, feminine hats that also protect your face and neck from the sun only come in small sizes... well, I should say normal sizes.  That means that women like me, whose he...

I've written before about how it hurts my spirit to hear someone say, "I'm not creative like that." For many years I wouldn't call myself an artist.  I would say I make stuff or I'd describe my work very specifically.  "I'm not an artist.  I carve and paint furniture."  See, my DAD is an artist.  I've seen his work hanging in a museum.  I've seen his monuments in many places around the country.  But, that's not what I could do. I used to love when he'd let me watch him work.  I could have stood in one place for hours watching him carve clay to be cast into bronze.  I could have stood in the freezing cold wearing his spare welding helmet for days just to watch that metal fuse together into something that never existed before except in his imagination. I wish I'd done it more.  I didn't understand that his not talking to me while he worked didn't mean he didn't want me standing there.  It didn't mean he wish...

Here's the desktop, blessed by years of painting projects.  This is what my fingers would look like if I hadn't been able to wash them. At the moment I'm concentrating my efforts on creating lots of backgrounds for our family travel journal so I'm all ready to go on July 1 when we start our Leary Family Roadtrip. The Happily box is going to get a coat of encaustics (wax paint) on top as soon as I get a full two uninterrupted hours to go outside and work.  

I just LOVE to see where other artists work.  I find inspiration in every single studio I get to see. I thought I'd share a picture of my studio just in case there's a shred of something here that can offer YOU inspiration today.

Teaser from yesterday was that I would write about HOW we get to wear the pearls AND have the dirty fingernails... how we get to hear the stories AND have everyone leave us alone.  Teaser yesterday.  Torture today. Somehow my impossible thinking -- my Wonderland reasoning -- seeped into my Northern Virginia reality and made me think for a minute that there is an answer to that question. There's not one... just a couple of hints. Here's one of them.  If you have a pile of sand, a pile of pebbles, and a pile of big rocks and your objective is to fit them into a big glass jar, there's only one way to make it work.  If you put the sand in first, then the pebbles, then the rocks, you'll have a LOT of lonely rocks that sit abandoned on the table.  However, if you start with the big rocks, then put the pebbles, then the sand... it all fits.  All of it. Here's another one (thank you Lloyd "Grandaddy" Nelson Harris):  Keep the main thing the main thing....

Here's my impossible belief for this very moment: My sons will keep their discoveries and reports of the day to themselves for just a few minutes so I can complete -- well let's me honest -- start AND complete this entry... AND they will also still know that they are the most important things in my universe.  I'll be a diligent and powerful writer AND an attentive, guilt-free mother.  Oh... and I'll be glamorous while I have the foot of a five-year old planted in my thigh! Here's the impossible thought of a friend who decided to play along:   "before breakfast I choose to believe that I am an unlimited source of creativity which insures every project I tackle turns out spectacularly well; every piece I choose to write is Pulitzer Worthy; all the while the rest of my world maintains its own order-as in the dishes wash themselves, the shelves keep dust at bay, floors resist all manner of dirt, dust, and grime. Did I mention the part about unlimited funds and re...

Today I woke up happy.  Today I am spending the day working on art projects... finishing a gift for a friend... setting up another altered book that I can take with me on my trip... completing a disco bird or two... painting and journaling with Marcus.  I hope the day is really that long!   "Try again," says that snappish queen from yesterday's blog.  "Okay," I respond, still groggy from sleep.  "Here goes: My first impossible thing to believe... Today is long enough to do all those things.  There's plenty of time!" So... I only have five impossible things to believe before breakfast, which incidentally is in an hour. I'm off to take a shower.  I'm positive that there will be PLENTY of fodder in there for impossible dreams! Don't forget... yesterday's challenge was to share with me YOUR impossible beliefs.

(Your interaction requested at the end!) The life of a creative person flows in tides.  We know that.  We create easily one day and with great friction the next.  We immerse ourselves in the project and then abandon it like the cat that won't quit peeing on the rug... then back to love with it. I've beaten myself up many times for unfinished projects, but today I'm looking for new lenses to see the tide-ness of my energy.  Here's what I've got so far: When I am loving on a creation, I am fully there... and when I am with a friend, I am fully there.  I'm not half way anyplace most of the time.  That's the shiny side of the coin.   Then, there's the side that needs some polishing from time to time.   In my life I have taken a dose or two of flack for "disappearing", leaving people wondering what I'm doing in my life that makes me unavailable to share in all the fun they're having.  The flack was always good natured, the sort of jokes...

"And the messes are the point.  Joy and sorrow, good and evil, greatness and triviality, hope and anxiety, the ideal and the actual: The ability to live with these seeming contradictions and the ambivalence and tension they create is what gives rise to wisdom.  Our most chaotic periods can be catalysts for understanding."  "...Most of us think life is supposed to work out the way we hope it will or even expect it to.  We secretly want the kitchen to finally be clean.  And yet if the kitchen was always clean, there would be no meals." YEARNINGS My big secret: I clean my house like a fiend before I leave town.   Why?  Because I love the idea that it is going to stay pristine for more than five minutes. I know with my brain that that's only true because no one will be home.  But, in this part of my life Reason doesn't rule. Anyway, it's a secret, but it's not a sign of Crazy.  I've heard that crazy is when you do the same thing over and over...