This snowless winter has not failed to pile drifts of inertia around my legs.
I want to crawl back in to bed on these gray mornings.
Hibernation. I hear my dear friend Anne Davin tell me January is time to hibernate.
I am healthy. I am well. I am not depressed.
I have taken stock of the past year.
I have stored the seeds of my desires for this New Year, this new year of the dragon-though for me it feels like the year of the squirrel. I host visions of a petite gray furred creature encircled in a nest of oak leaves, sleeping out the windy days in a high treetop.

Knowing that I had work to do today, that napping was an option, I took the morning more slowly than usual. I did not jump on to my computer. I let myself stay in my jammies. Thursdays are my art day. My husband and I have arranged ourselves around this day being the one day of the week where phone calls, appointments, music lessons, SAT prep class arrangements, pizza runs for late night paper writers, laundry duties and all the rest are handled by him. We have a life that has room for this. Jonathan’s office is in our attic. He is very disciplined when it comes to time, so, for one day a week, he makes this work.
When I say Jonathan is my hero, you now know just what I mean.

It came to me this quiet morning that I could treat myself as I would treat my best friend. No hurrying. No pressure to produce. Lots of tea.

I sat in my red chair by the window. This is the place where I write early in the morning, where I conduct my long phone calls, where the dome of silence is almost visible, where I can look out over our yard at crow’s eye level. My red chair is my crow’s-nest on my ship of dreams. There I sat and read this by Jan Phillips as the steel ceilinged morning passed me by.

“…I remember that I owe my creative spirit all the time and tenderness I would give my dearest beloved. One is as precious as the other.”

Now, at the later end of this day where rain has begun to fall, lowering the moods of the skiers in my household, I have risen to the occasion of some creating today. My Arthouse Sketchbook project is coming together. Here is one of the pages I have prepared to write in to. The title, which was given to me, is ‘Forks and Spoons’.
I cannot get away from the ordinary things that make our lives extraordinary. I love that.

What sustains me on days like today, where the momentum of all my projects stills and the energy that is my normal operating speed has slowed by winter grabbing my ankles and thickening blood, is this comfort. Being tender with myself today has made it possible to show up here with you and ask:

What sustains you?
What is it you would do for your best friend today?
Could you possibly do that very thing for yourself?

I listened to a recorded call while I worked at my art table. Sage Levine of Women on Purpose interviewed
Reverend Deborah Johnson about intentional living.
Rev. Johnson said this:

God has given you custody of you.

I have taken custody of myself today. I am my very own best friend.
And, I am taking me to bed.

Tell me more.
What sustains you in the bleak mid-winter?

Thank you for being here,
All my love,
S

PS There are some wonderful things happening on Out of the Mouths of Babes.
Tomorrow, Sherry Collier’s post goes up. Monday, Linda Jackson’s post arrives.
Next week, more amazing women will appear. You are encouraged to visit the blog and comment. Let these long gray days be filled with inspiration from other women.

PPS. If you want to read an absolutely beautiful piece on the power of women’s friendships, read this. Thank you Emily Rapp.

Have you looked at yourself today?
Did you smile?

At 6 a.m. this morning, I passed my 14-year-old daughter in the bathroom. I noticed the austere look on her face as she spread mascara on her already thick long eyelashes. I wanted to chide her to smile a little, ease up on her self for crying out loud, it is only six a.m. and can’t you be shining a little light on yourself today?
But, it was six a.m. and I was not yet up to being parental.

Then, later, I read Berry Liberman’s post on Dumbo Feather, a really fine online magazine from Australia. Berry interviewed Brene’ Brown for that publication. Readers of the Laundry Line may recall Brene’s TEDx talk on shame that I posted a few months ago.

Berry wrote in her post titled “The Scars We Live With and Gratitude” about her own self-image and the scepter of age making marks on her body, breast, eyes, and her waist. About plastic surgery Berry wrote:

There’s something we forget when we try and erase the years and the scars. We forget they are the markers of a life lived, of things learned, of love given and received, of loss, of laughter. How can I say to Willow that she’s enough if I don’t believe that I am? She’ll know I’m a fraud and most likely will feel that putting herself under general anaesthetic and letting someone put a knife to her face and body is quite normal. Necessary in fact.

I keep thinking about what I model for my daughter every day. Do I scowl at myself even before the sun rises? Do my upper arms or eyelids have the first say in whether what I see is beautiful or not?

Tomorrow morning, I will fly to Chicago to meet my sister Becky. We look in to each other’s eyes and see familiar lines, familiar traces of time around our smiles. Our voices lift and fall the same way. We both color our hair, but otherwise, our bodies are the reflection of time as it has made its mark on us. I will look at her and see family traits that I cherish in her, but on any given day I’d critique in myself. Here we are with our bright shiny youngest sister Elsa between us.

I was moved to tears when I saw this movie by Julia Warr of Brooklyn, NY this week. It has stayed with me and penetrates this discussion beyond any words I have about aging. This ode to her friend Maia holds a standard of self-cherishing and grace that I aspire to.

You will hear from women of every age here this winter on the Out of the Mouths of Babes blog series. Today, Kelly DiNorcia’s post about her life as a writer with her son and daughter sheds light on her perception of her value and creativity as it has changed since becoming a mother.

Life is like that. It makes its mark on you. Passion shapes us; time carves experience in to us. My body is as full of stories as my imagination. I desire to celebrate those stories, share the ones that cause my heart to race and step in to loving my body, every mark.

Chicago holds the funeral of my dear Uncle Jim. Close readers will remember him as a commenter here on Laundry Line Divine. When I sat with Uncle Jim during the days after my Mom, his sister-in-law, died, I saw my eyes in his. I saw the way our upper eyelids are shaped around our eyes. I saw his eyebrows lift in gestures I myself make. I am sure Uncle Jim was capable of Catherine’s scowl, but of the time I have seen him in my life, he was smiling or pondering a question with a knit of his eyebrows that drew the together in the center and up on the ends. His voice held all the timbre and lilt of the Banks side of sound for me. I will miss it every day. Here is what he said in response to one of my posts about my Mom’s passing:

‘How many heartbeats in a minute, in a day, in a month, in a year? Each one is a goodbye.’

This is me listening to Uncle Jim with my step-Dad.

Please enjoy Kelly’s post.
Please wink at yourself in the mirror.
Consider gratitude, as Berry does, for your one fine body.
And, as Maia does in Julia’s beautiful film, move in your own beautiful grace.

All my love,
S

I am a woman who enjoys working with other people.
I also passionately crave the company of my own silence.
There are many times that I hanker to be with others making art, making jam, raking, ice skating, working at almost anything.
Togetherness makes my heart sing.

My friend Chandler sent me this quote.
I wish I had the exact source. If you know of it, please send it to me, so I can note it here.

“Design school taught me that collaboration makes ideas and outcomes more meaningful — not only in the final results, but also in the process. Life is so much about the process — having fun, playing with others. My artisan partners are the best part of the work I do.”

I have a slew of artisan partners. I play with Karen Arp-Sandel all the time.
I am playing with Janet Reich, Michelle Gillett, Alana Chernila, Gina Hyams, Jenny Laird, and Lynnette Najimy in ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’.

Coming up on my ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ blog series will be two months full of women writing about their mothering and creativity.
Monday, Shari Simpson-Cabelin’s post will be up.

Later this week, Kelly DiNicoria and Sherry Collier will be featured.
Kelly sent me this note the other day that sums up why I am so passionate about ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’.

I LOVE the idea of nurturing mothers’ creativity in that way! I am taking the Level 2 Momoir course with Cori Howard starting next week (I did Level 1 through SheWrites) and I am really becoming interested in the idea of helping people to tell their stories, especially mothers. It is so empowering to tell your story, and I feel SO strongly that we need to consciously build and nurture small havens of non-judgment for women. We are so hard on each other, and most especially hard on ourselves!

Kelly DiNicoria

See how this happens? One little spark ignites another and soon we are all blazing with warmth of shared wisdom, experience, tears and laughter.
That is what the evening of March 2 at the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers is all about. Please follow our blog series. You are invited to attend our March 2 event. And please, savor the value of your mothering. If you have a story you’d like to share with us, consider submitting a blog post to me at suzi@laundrylinedivine.com.

Your comments are heartfully appreciated.
With love,
S

if you are curious about those numbers, they are there to verify my authorship of this blog so I can play on the Technorati site. xooxox

Today on the Laundry Line I am giving a big shout out to Berkshire Local She-ro, Amy Cotler.
Storey Publishing published Amy’s book “The Locavore Way” in 2009. The well illustrated book is filled with great information on how to eat locally sourced foods and support community based agriculture wherever you live.

Included on Amy’s page of thanks, is my collaborator, Karen Arp-Sandel. Karen must have cooked up some of Amy’s recipes. Aside from being a fervent FeMail artist, teacher and yogini, Karen is a wonderful cook.

Two women and a wheelbarrow full of creativity centered around our most basic task as humans, which is to feed ourselves and sustain our health and well being with nutrition. What a great combination.

In the next weeks, I will be featuring other local authors from the Berkshires.
There are so many. Writers find many warm spots to share their words here in the Berkshires, like at the Tuesday Night Writer’s Room at ybar in Pittsfield.

I have my own venue for featuring some local wonders at ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: an evening of mothers reading to others’ on Friday March 2, 2012. The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers is hosting us at Blodgett Hall on the campus of Simon’s Rock College of Bard. Please join us if you can. Turn to the ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ page here on LLD for all the details and read the blog posts there.

This week’s blog post is from Lissa Rankin, M.D. of Owning Pink – and aside from meaning Medical Doctor; M.D. also stands for magnificent dame! Lissa is a friend through The School of the Womanly Arts in NYC. Lissa is a mother, artist and well spoken advocate for women’s health.

Lissa has written an important and useful book called What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist if She Was Your Best Friend.

Our Sunday night dinner with Shar, Susan, Abbey, Jeff and Melinda.

How about you? Are you reading any of your local authors? I would love to hear about them here.
Be well.
Love, S

This rainbow landed on a magazine photo of this elephant that hangs next to my art table.

I am deep in preparation for my sankalpa session with Karen tomorrow. We will look at our work over this past year and collect our sankalpa (or some may call them desires) for this New Year. Below is one definition of sankalpa, which is so close to my understanding of my desire, that they are one and the same to me. Not a wish list, not a gift list, but something deeper and resonant. By looking over our work of this past year, the themes that emerge and manifestations of our sankalpa from last year begin to take more tangible form. There is something of print making impression that our lives make upon us that develop a pattern- which I dare say is the stuff of my manifesto…but this is getting very wordy.
For now, I give you this definition and then a beautiful interview with Meryl Streep who speaks about her choices around her career and family life. This video continues to populate the ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ manifesto with poignant and clear expressions of the vital importance for our creativity to be expressed. Listen to her very last sentence. You will know what I mean then.

The juicy, precision sankalpa is the resolve, determination and good intention that resonates precisely in your core and aligns sublimely with your essence . It is fluid enough to insinuate itself through the semi conscious patterns of self sabotage, wounded self’s objections and ego discontent. It is a will power that is flexible enough to account for changing circumstances as the sankalpa begins to manifest in your inner and outer world. Yet it is precise enough not to be diverted by the core negative beliefs that stand against it.

this definition of sankalpa is from Saraswati Yoga

Yes, your creativity is important,
Love,
S

Today my walk out in the very brisk New York City weather brought me to this spiral. At first, I was caught by the shadow it created on the sidewalk, then I knelt down to be face to face with it.

I post this here for my friend Kathy Drue.
She will like it, I am sure.

Do you know what your friend would like on a cold day and she is oh so far away?

Here is love to you Kathy.
And to all friends in need of stopping on a cold and wintry street to wonder for a moment.
Yours,
S

This is one of those blogs where you take your shoes off, stand up and sing with Natasha Bedingfield.
Can you read and dance at the same time?
I wanna know, because that is what I am doing.

I got this video from my friend Lissa Rankin who has a very good thing going here.

Until my next post, I will be drifting NYC my my husband during these last 4 days of our marriage improving 10 days on our own while the kids have a fantastic time away from us with our German family. Thanks to Ursula and Werner, we have spent 6 days so far, speaking in uninterrupted sentences. It is a miracle.
And we really miss our kids.
So, if they are reading this post, just know you are loved with the vastness of this galaxy and beyond.

Travel safe and well, wherever you are.
All my love for this New Year,
S

The studio is an extension of the sandbox and the kindergarten playroom. It has a dynamic unlike any office or factory. It’s a room at the service of a dreamer on her way to becoming a master. Wandering from project to project, she moves in a private soup kitchen where there’s always something on simmer. With something to get on with–something to finish, something to start–even the tiniest of workrooms has within it the building blocks of talent. Stay out on the streets at your peril.

from Robert Genn‘s newsletter today.

In an hour I am off to the Cape with my husband for a few days of ocean walks and quiet, as we consider this past year and look forward to the next.
I am preparing for the New Year by writing, collaging and being outside in the wind.
I have an important artist date coming up in a week or so with Karen Arp-Sandel.
My art collaborator Karen and I are fervent witnesses to each other’s expressions all year long.
Last year, we began a practice of meeting in the early days of the New Year to take a look at what we have done in this past year, what we have shared and what we hope to receive in this coming year.
We include all our creative work- and this includes our family and personal lives, our well being and our presence in our communities. We did this with our friend Sarah Nicholson, who is an amazing photographer.

Reading Robert Genn today as I tidy up my studio and pack my art supplies for the week, I am struck by his phrase “she moves in a private soup kitchen where there is always something on simmer”.

My life is simmering.
‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ is taking shape.
My kids are adventuring in Munich.
My husband has launched his new business and slowly the simmer collects in to a boil.

What is simmering in your private soup kitchen today?

Didn’t you love the favorite frames commenters left on yesterday’s post?
Daniel, Karen, Jennifer, Geri and Laura all are actively creative people in their personal and professional lives.
Don’t you wonder what they have simmering?

Here are a few more Favorite Frames of 2011:

1.I loved having our Anna come to live with us. She is here with Catherine under the blueberry bushes. What did I get? An expanded heart and a new daughter.

2.The total joy of collaborating with Karen Arp-Sandel as FeMail and in all the other ways we play together, like assisting her at Kripalu for her Vibrant Visionary Collage and Yoga Immersion, in the collage studio classes that she teaches at IS-183, in our Moon Circle, and all our FeMail travels like the day we spent at PRESS last week with Melanie Mowinski. What did I get? Deepening friendship, articulate collaboration and an immense amount of fun.

3.Seeing Gabrielle Senza work on her temporary installation at the Sanford Smith Fine Art Gallery in Great Barrington. Gabrielle is a daily inspiration and great friend. What do I get from her? A heart warming smile, candor and a high bar of excellence.

4.Seeing our son Ben, DJ at Railroad Street Youth Project and at Berkshire Pulse. He is DJing in the New Year in Munich. What do I get from watching Ben perform this way? So much energy and joy seeing this young man express himself and connect to his audience through music.

5.All the immense amount of fun I have had using the Instagram App on my iPhone. Here are two of my favorite shots from this year. One is up on Mount Greylock where Karen was doing an artist residency and one taken at my favorite nursery, Windy Hill. What do I get? Color and texture play visually and community to share photos. Just plain fun.

How about some more frames from you?
Quoting a line from one of my favorite plays “It’s so eeeeeseee!”.

Love,
S

Late Fragment by Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Did you get what you wanted from 2011?

Here are a few of my favorite frames- moments where I received something so fine I have to share it with you.

1. Swimming with 2 of my sisters, my daughter and husband out in to the middle of a beautiful, clear Upper Peninsula lake. What did I get? Happiness.

2. Saying goodbye to my dear pals, Isabel and Willem, who moved to Canada and the sweet hugs they wrapped around all of us here. What did I get? Joy.

3. Spending 3 and a half weeks with our German family making art throughout the Northeast. What did I get? Inspiration.

4. Leading two FeMail workshops at the Museum of Motherhood with my collaborator, Karen Arp-Sandel. What did I get? Affirmation that my work is important.

5. Fulfilling the role of Big Sister in Mastery, 2011 while assisting my dear Jill Fredal Rogers. What did I get? The gift of leadership with compassion, clarity and fun.

Sitting there, reading mine, I know there will be many of yours bubbling up from the wellspring of your bounteous life.
I send you sunlight upon all that blesses you today.

Yours,
S

Ode to the West Wind
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Why Shelley, such a long dense poem for today?
After the holidays, my brain is a bit tired and I seek nourishment from rich sources. Today I read this poem and one by Taylor Mali titled Thrift Store Chic, which appears in Last Time As We Were.

I am pondering my year, doing ‘favorite frames’ of this past year with my husband. Our kids are together in Germany with our family there in Munich.
I have time and space in these coming days to consider where I have come this year and where I am headed.
This poem came to me today as the winds blow round the house.

Would you give me one favorite frame of this past year?

Here is one of mine:

All the many hours I stood out at my laundry line, even in this past week, barefoot in December, because I like to do that when I can, and feeling the breeze, the pines whisper above and the juncos hopping from ground to tree trunk with a lightness of purpose, diligent in their gray and white coats.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
All my love,
S