"Liquid"

I have an indulgence.  Every so often I load up my car with glass wine jugs I rescued from the recycle bins at City Hall.  People around here don’t drink much wine in jugs, or maybe people who drink wine in jugs don’t recycle much, so just finding and sterilizing acceptable bottles is the first step in my indulgence.

The next step is to sit back and take a pretty drive to the country to fill the bottles with spring water.  Spring water used to be free at a lovely spot alongside a river tributary, but people have built fancy houses uphill and messed up that pretty place.  Now I have to drive a little farther and pay 25 cents per gallon.  I think it’s worth it.  Even when I was at my most poor, I kept filling my water jugs.

The place I go now is a trout club, if you can imagine such a thing.  There’s a restaurant with food that looks really good, but us po’ folk don’t get to eat there.  Members only, though we are allowed on the property to fill our jugs and look out the pretty pond and see the goats eating grass because people at the trout club don’t want to listen to lawnmowers, or maybe people with $3,000 to join a trout club have a thing for exotic goats.  You can see the website here.

Part of my pleasure in going to the spring is the community of non-members filling jugs.  It’s a very mixed crowd.  Some people drive up in expensive SUVs and some people drive up in the rattiest pickups you’ve ever seen.  The SUV people only get a few gallons.  The truck people bring many 5 gallon jugs.  I’m somewhere in the middle with a gas-efficient car and a lot of 1-gallon jugs.

We all do the obligatory head bob at each other and scrupulously keep our bottles away from their bottles, and keep our bottle caps separate from their caps.  Sometimes we comment on the weather, such as “nice day” or “can you believe it’s this cold?”  Only the intrepid and the truck drivers come in the winter.  Then we do the head bob with a commiserating grimace as we get our hands wet with ice water.

Sometimes I think that the people around the spring are probably fascinating people with stories to tell, but nobody tells their stories, and I don’t know how to get them to tell.  The old people have a healthy, kind look – the type of people who probably worked as naturalists who retired to a hobby farm with Amish neighbors.  The truck drivers probably hunt out of season and have a deer hanging in their yard.

It’s a place where very different people collide, but it’s a polite and quiet place, and sometimes I need polite and quiet.  It restores my soul to bob my head at people who value chlorine-free water without having to talk about anything other than the varying degree of overcast skies.

When all my bottles are filled, and my heart rate has dropped 20 or 30 points, I get back in my car and drive home, racing along the back roads, up and down giant hills, and back to society.  Sometimes I sing, and sometimes I find room in my head to think about stuff I never have time to think about at other times.  I drink my water every night and relish my indulgence, looking forward to my next trip to the trout club.

"Future"

I listened to an educational program on public tv and learned the greatest indicator of future success is grit, the determination to see something through, planning and acting on goals set far in the future.  IQ, emotional intelligence, and other obvious choices for success won’t do it.  I got a little bored with the program and slept the afternoon away on the couch.  After all, if we’re talking about goals that are years away, I have lots of future time to work on those kinds of things.

Kidding aside, I suspect the earnest public tv speaker is probably right, even though she didn’t have any suggestions how to drill some grit into people.  I also took a few moments to consider the criticism I’ve received for having too much of it.  “Stop and smell the flowers” and “live in the moment” advice from earnestly happy-seeming people started coming back to me. 

I’m sure most of these people were well-meaning, but I couldn’t change my nature.  I had an absolute need to paint pretty things, and most of my life frustrations centered around a lack of opportunities in my chosen field or the obstacles other people put in my way towards reaching my goals.  The more people told me “No”, the more determined I was to show them wrong.

Sometimes I think back on my past selves and wonder how I had the strength to keep banging away at these things.  Absolute focus takes an awful lot of energy to maintain over years, and I got tired, had meltdowns, and kept getting up and doing it again because I couldn’t/wouldn’t change my direction.  Someday somebody’s going to say that stubborn is an integral part of grit.

“Success” is a word with a lot of meanings, and I figure the lady on tv only meant it as professional success.  All those happy flower smellers probably achieved emotional successes that I didn’t spend my time achieving.  I’m not sure if I regret that or if I feel pleased about it.  I’ve had an interesting life, and I got paid to paint pretty things.  I’ve even smelled a few flowers along the way.

I’ve been thinking about these things because of the unexpected turn my career has taken this year.  I spend a lot of my time planning and number crunching, and that’s a long way from my happy time spent painting flowers.  On the other hand, I have a fatalistic thought that somehow all this number crunching fits into the master plan even if I can’t see what the final goals are anymore.  Or maybe all my past grit makes me good at what I’m doing now because I can think ahead to long term goals?

Anymore, I think my long term goal is to achieve a soft retirement.  That’s a long ways away, but I can envision a time when I collect a pension, have money in the bank, and have unlimited time to paint pretty things.  Pshaw to all those people who’ve criticized me for being too single-minded.  I stop to smell the flowers every time I paint them.

This project is something I did for Mrs. Fields.  If you want to buy it, you can go here, but I don’t get anything from it if you do.  The cookies are always good though.  The detail shows what the colors are supposed to look like.  I’ll spare you my internal rant about Chinese printers interfering with my single-mindedness.

"Tribute"

The Illustration Friday word for the week is “Tribute” in honor of its founder, Penelope Dullaghan.  I’m sure Penelope has turned over the reins of the site to very capable hands, but I’d like to take a moment to say thanks for her efforts in creating a forum for artists to post their work and share their thoughts.

It’s inspiring to see what other people can create, whether it’s a website like IF or the individual posts people make to their blogs.  The Mother Theresas and Ghandis and Jane Goodalls are overlooked too often, and so it’s even easier to overlook more human-level accomplishments.  We all need to do our best at whatever we’re best at, and if we inspire others along the way, even better.

Sometimes I think about the blessings I’ve received in life, and most often I think of those blessings as people.  I have been very fortunate to have known some really admirable people who went out of their way to give me guidance and support when I’ve needed it.  In a week when we’re remembering Penelope’s support of artists, I’m reminded of all the artists I’ve known who told me to stick with it when I felt giving up.

In a way, I find this an odd thing to focus on today because I finally updated my LinkedIn profile with my new job which is more about management and a database than art, but I’m also spending my morning in a very familiar way – waiting for a printer to give me proofs.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that I haven’t really given up the art, and maybe this job will give me the freedom to paint what I want in my own time instead of selling cookies?

My apologies in advance for not answering your comments this weekend.  I’m taking a road trip with a friend and may or may not get to the computer.  It’s been a long time since I’ve gone anywhere just for fun, so I’m looking forward to a break from thinking about data and budgets and things.  I’m also starting to appreciate my new roommate situation because I can leave my Penny Penelope puppy at home in good hands.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and let’s all inspire somebody today!

"Farewell"

I dreamt this morning about an ex-friend.  Let’s call her “Deb”.  We were friends for many years, she made me crazy, and finally after the last straw of the last straw and the broken backs of many camels, I finally said “farewell” – and I finally had a life where I wasn’t perpetually put out by her dramas.  My life is infinitely better.

“Farewell” is goodbye, but it’s a goodbye with good wishes.  I’m not sticking pins in a Deb voodoo doll.  I honestly wish her well, but it took me a long time to give myself permission to quit hanging out with someone who made me feel awful. 

Each farewell, even a temporary farewell, rips me apart and permanent goodbyes are devastating.  I try to hide this from people because it just makes them feel bad, or it gives them a power to hurt me, but it’s true – and since we all have the ability to create the situations we most fear, I’ve said goodbye a lot throughout my life.  I don’t know which farewell prompted this poem…

My face is wet with tears

And my chest is clenched with pain

Old sadness has come to visit

With me, yes, again.

This all sounds rather depressing, but the flip side of it is that if we have the power to bring what we most fear, we also have the power to get the things we most want.  If we face our fears we can live our dreams.

I recently acquired a houseguest.  I don’t know how long he’s staying.  What I do know is that my quiet, singular life has been disrupted by Sanford and Son repeats, philosophical conversations, and dirty coffee cups – and I find that I don’t really mind, and more, that I enjoy having him around.  I also find myself contemplating my tub with a deep suspicion that there are invisible dead skin cells lurking in it, and remembering past fights from many years ago that might presage future fights – and having enough personal insight to recognize that I might be looking to pick a fight so I can control how this comfortable living arrangement ends.

Which makes me think I need to confront my issues with farewells.  Farewells aren’t always goodbyes, and maybe it’s time to consider opening my heart again?  If I find myself with another friend like “Deb” or a lover like my ex, I’ve proven I can say “farewell” without the world ending.  I don’t have to put up with people who make me unhappy, and I don’t have to pick a fight to avoid rejection.

I signed up for online dating years ago.  I hadn’t really thought about that much because it was just something I tried back when and I’m too busy working now to think about dating… WAIT!!  I’m working for Religion now, and what did I say in that online profile??  I tore through my old papers looking for login info and revised some things.  I wonder how the “safer” profile contradicts my intention of being open?

Hey, well, maybe I’ll try to be somewhat more open in the future?

"Train"

This train was a bit of tricky engineering because all of the boxes needed to fit inside each other.  That made it much cheaper to ship the boxes from China.  I did this project for 1800Flowers.  They liked it well enough that I did a similar train for Mrs. Fields.  The two companies were working together, so I wasn’t giving away any state secrets in using the same shaped boxes for both.

I used to go to a meditation group that was near train tracks.  This could’ve been seriously distracting, but the woman leading our group gave us the suggestion to put all our troubles on the train and let the train take them away.  I think there must be a stockpile of troubles in Pennsylvania somewhere, but I took her suggestion.  Whenever I hear a train I think it lessens my load.

Sharon Wagner was kind enough to give me a Liebster Award this week.  Yay!!!  This is for bloggers with less than 200 followers, which gives me one reason to be happy not to have too many followers.  (Though I’d be happy if you wanted to follow J)  Visit Sharon’s site  for “illustrations, globe trotting, kitchen creativity, and photography”.  I like visiting because I never know what she’s going to post.

Okay, receiving awards requires me to give you random facts and answer questions…

Eleven Random Linda Facts: 

1)  Athos is my favorite Musketeer.
2)  Filing papers gives me a sense of satisfaction.
3)  I don’t like Mexican food.  It’s a messy textural thing.
4)  Dolls make me angry.
5)  I forget the names of people I know well sometimes.
6)  I remember my best friend’s phone number when we were in high school.
7)  I like to dance.
8)  I write morbid poetry but don’t show it to anybody.
9)  I propagate aloe and give it away because I think everyone should have it in case they get burned.
10) My winter and fall coats are red.
11) I sulked when my brother beat me at chess.

Eleven Questions from Sharon:

1) What did you want to be when you grew up?  An artist.
2) Who was your celebrity crush as a kid?  Rock Hudson
3) Favorite movie?  Good Will Hunting

4) Favorite book/author/illustrator?  I have too many favorites in this category, but love Mary Stewart, J.K.Rowling, Alexandre Dumas, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hans Christian Anderson, Robert Lewis Stevenson…

5) Do you believe in ghosts?  Why or why not??  Yes.  “I see dead people.”

6) What is your stupid human trick?  Rolling my tongue.

7) If you could go back in time and tell your teenage self one thing, what would it be?  Life will get better.

8) Most embarrassing moment?  Right, like I’m going to go there!  How about a lesser embarrassment like when I wet myself when the teacher didn’t believe I had to go to the bathroom?

9) What’s the one thing you’d most like to be remembered for when you’re gone (you know, dead…sorry, kind of morbid, but it’s a deep thought kind of question).  I want to feel like something I did made someone’s life a better, but I’d also like some of my creative work to survive me.

10) Do you talk to yourself (out loud, when no one else is around)?  No, but sometimes I tell my dog things.

11) What is your favorite guilty pleasure?  Ice cream.

Now I'm supposed to nominate 5 bloggers with Liebsters of their very own even though this makes me feel like playing favorites and sorry I can’t nominate everybody I enjoy visiting, plus it reminds me that I haven’t been visiting as much as I’d like since I’ve been wasting all my time working lately...

Anita at Beyond the Diapers and Spills

Rand at Rand’s Place

Patti at Patti’s Page

Heiki at federfund illustration the blog

Susan Sorrell Hill (Susan recently relaunched her Etsy site, which isn’t a blog, but still worth visiting)

"Wild"

Every year my family went camping.  Dad wanted to go as deep into the wild as possible and led us into multi-hour sing-a-longs in the car.  We made words out of the letters on license plates and waved to truckers.

Oh, okay, maybe things got loud when one of my sisters punched me.  I’d holler I didn’t touch her, so her punching was unfair.  “If I have to stop this car somebody’s going to get hurt!”  We believed it too, so we’d behave for a while… until I went back to my favorite pastime looking at Sis #2 in various ways until she exploded and punched me again.  After a while she could sense when I was prepping for another round of looking.  The real beauty of this game is that when my sister screamed “She’s looking at me!!!” my parents had a complete lack of sympathy.  Mom told Sis to ignore me, but Sis was incapable of ignoring me.  This might get us as far as Ontario.

Once in Canada, things settled down into a cement blur of boredom.  Sis #1 studied something useful, Sis #2 would chatter about people in the other cars, and I’d play car games with my parents.  When Bro #1 got old enough, I looked at him too.  I guess I was mastering my future boss persona, and eventually learned that if I look too much at people I’m liable to get punched.

So, after many, many, many hours in the car of family togetherness, we’d pile out and erect a tent on the sharpest rocks in the forest.  Once, we pitched the tent on a patch of poison ivy.  Most of my relatives woke up scratching and complaining, but I was pleased that sensitivity to poison ivy is a weakness of lesser humans.  (I’m afraid to test that theory in more recent times.)

One morning I woke up on the Canadian side of Lake Superior before anyone else.  I remembered the blueberries we’d found the day before and decided to pick some for a blueberry pancake breakfast.  More blueberries were getting shoved in my mouth than going into the colander until I started slowing down enough to notice that I wasn’t the only one shoving down berries.  A black bear was just as interested in them as I was, and he was so close that I could actually see his hair bending under the weight of a black fly walking on his fur.

Oooooooo…. Back away slowly… then… RUN!!!!!

I doubt Mom understood that I could’ve died by bear when she complained I didn’t bring back enough blueberries, but Dad seemed to think maybe we shouldn’t continue camping at this most beautiful place if there were bears around.  I hated to pack up the tent.  The water of Lake Superior was a gorgeous deep blue, we jumped off sandstone cliffs into the pure water, and Sis #2 almost sent herself to America on the raft we built.  Good memories J  Well, maybe Sis didn’t think so because she really did almost get lost on that raft.  Dad had to swim far and fast to get her back while I waved bye from the shore.

I guess it’s a good thing Dad caught her.  It would’ve been very boring to stare at my oldest sister into violence on the drive back.  Besides, Sis #1 punched harder.

This has been a crazy weekend in a crazy week, so sorry, no masterpieces this time.  Besides, it seems to me that I’ve covered “wild” many times in the past.  I asked my brother to be guest artist because I was too tired to draw and this is what he came up with.  I think I should’ve given him a fresh piece of paper instead of having him draw on the backside of a work report.

"Urban"

I used to walk past The City Mission every day.  Scary homeless guys hung around outside, smoking cigarettes and catcalling.  I put my head down and kept my periphery vision on high alert for sudden movements.  Past that gauntlet, I waded through the monthly line at the Welfare office.  Sometimes fat women with too many kids would yell at me about how I didn’t deserve the luck of having a job.  That was the price I paid for 50 cents/day parking in the big city.  If I had been more lucky, I would’ve paid $15/day and avoided seeing that side of life.

Once I was at work, I looked out my 13^th floor window at the ornate capitals of the columns on the next building over.  I listened to my old guys talking about the good old days, and I ate lunch at the Old Arcade  or Terminal Tower.  It was a time of urban renewal, and I enjoyed watching craftspeople restoring long-neglected architecture.  When my work was done, I often drank with my coworkers in The Flats.  It was mostly a good time in life.

Given the opportunity, I jumped ship and took a job in the boonies which is my natural environment.  Whenever I had to wait for geese to cross the road so I could get to work, I thanked God I wasn’t driving in the big city any more.  If a goose made a mess on my windshield, I turned on the windshield wipers and felt grateful I wasn’t watching a homeless guy taking a leak on the street – but sometimes I missed the fun of the city.

Years went by and I ended up working at another urban place, but without the charms or entertainment.  The drive was longer, the traffic was meaner, and the roads were in worse shape.  I didn’t want to go out drinking with my coworkers.  I wanted to get home where I could listen to birds sing.  Sometimes I felt nostalgic for street festivals and eating at the Old Arcade.

My boss gave me a project for graduation.  I gave him a graduation cap.  No, no, no… something more personal.  Why don’t you paint a building?  I screwed up my face.  Why I would draw a building for graduation?  My originally from NYC boss started talking about buildings like they were people.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Manny loved New York buildings more than he loved any humans.  I was pretty sure he was crazy, but okay, I painted buildings.  I guess the client thought he was crazy too because we didn’t sell that job.

Sometimes I think of Manny when I just don’t understand another person’s point of view.  What I think is obviously the only right way to think about certain things.  For instance, my heart bleeds when somebody cuts down a tree.  I had another boss who thought Ohioans are way too fond of trees, which he thought should be clear cut so you could have a better view of houses.

It isn’t just trees vs. buildings.  Sometimes I have to think of Manny when confronted with any foreign thought which runs opposite to my understanding of the universe.  Of course they’re still wrong, and I’m still right, but sometimes I can slow down a little and appreciate some of the things they value.  All that remains is for me to figure out a way to make these people value trees.