Laundry Line Divine

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.

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

Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.

Whatever circles come from the center.

Rumi

There is a tumble of information flowing through me right now.
And, in the event of an emergency, please know, right now, that I love you coming to visit the Laundry Line. I am thrilled for all your support that is helping me birth my first book, “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” and the ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ blog series and event.
I am not planning on dying any time soon, but it is important to me that you readers all know how vital you have become to my momentum. Not that I need you to write or create, but knowing you are out there improves my diction.

FeMail for KA-S 2008 by Suzi Banks Baum

This weekend, JNB and I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum, which is only about 20 minutes from my desk. Our friend Laurie Norton Moffat is the Museum Director. The museum houses the work of one of the wonders of the Berkshires, Norman Rockwell and also hosts a steady flow of intriguing exhibits highlighting illustration art and the people who make it.

this is part of a diorama the Reys created in visualizing a book.

This season NRM features “Curious George Saves the Day” which originated at The Jewish Museum in New York City. I am a huge fan of Curious George, having had those stories read to me, reading them to my little sister and to the kids I babysat, then lately, say in the last 17 years reading them and often quoting those passages to my kids for whom the ‘Man in the Yellow Hat’ and George himself stand for a certain kindness and rambunctiousness that is particular to that sweet faced monkey. Plus, we all share a fondness for bicycles, travel and paper hats.

I heard of this exhibit on my area NPR station, WAMC, where Joe Donohue hosts a daily interview show called The Roundtable. Joe is the best interviewer I have ever heard. Ever. I don’t know when he sleeps because he talks to his guests with such confidence about their work, having read or seen their creations. His personal experience and curiosity sets the guests at ease. So many of Joe’s guests say at some point in the interview, “Thanks Joe, great question, I never thought of that”. When I heard Joe talking to the curators of this exhibit, the story of the Rey’s life as it is reflected in the stories of Curious George and their other books fascinated me. I will tell you more about Joe another time, but if you’d like to hear him at his best, this interview of Michael Feinstein is quintessential Joe.

The exhibit of the work of H.A. and Margret Rey included personal papers, the few of which survived their swift immigration from Europe right ahead of the Nazi invasion of Paris in 1940. The paintings, illustration plates and photographs tell a story of great courage and enormous levity at a time where people like the Rey’s where loosing their lives, their livelihood and family members. I won’t tell you the whole story, because you must see the exhibit or see this timeline about their escape online here.

Something Joe said struck me. He reflected that though the stories and art of Curious George don’t tell the saga of the Reys fleeing Europe, their art stood as an antidote for what they were going through. Art does that. You may not actually depict the storms of your soul, but by expressing yourself, the passion of your inner life gains balance and equanimity or in the very least, your art work stands as a placeholder for your sense of self while all other aspects of your being are washed overboard by life events.

I love the handmade stamp Rey used over his signature.

I know most of you aren’t in a place to see this exhibit. But, you are near a bookstore, library or your own bookshelf, where that curious monkey is cooling his heels until you flip open the pages to see his lively and engaging antics. When you look at the pages knowing that the creators narrowly escaped Paris by bicycle and were assured exit visas by virtue of the illustrations and text they carried with them to prove they had gainful employment, you will realize that every work of art carries the heart and soul of it’s creator, no matter how cheerful or merry it appears.

During the next months here on the Laundry Line, we will be talking more and more about creativity.

Sending you splendid hours,
S

share 1 (shâr)
n.
1. A part or portion belonging to, distributed to, contributed by, or owed by a person or group.
2. An equitable portion: do one’s share of the work.
3. Any of the equal parts into which the capital stock of a corporation or company is divided.
v. shared, shar·ing, shares
v.tr.
1. To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion.
2. To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns.
3. To relate (a secret or experience, for example) to another or others.
4. To accord a share in (something) to another or others: shared her chocolate bar with a friend.
v.intr.
1. To have a share or part: shared in the profits.
2. To allow someone to use or enjoy something that one possesses: Being in daycare taught the child to share.
3. To use or enjoy something jointly or in turns: There is only one computer, so we will have to share.
Idiom:
go shares
To be concerned or partake equally or jointly, as in a business venture.

I love to share.
Sharing means so many things. In this post I am using the verb form of share.
To me, share means to spread the wealth of attention, the wealth of pretzels or the wealth of appreciation. To share can also mean, as in number three in the definition above, verb transitive, to offer a story. At the dinner table, we always ask the kids to share one good thing about their day. This can lead to an argument about ‘always being asked to share’ but as long as JNB and I are supplying the butter for the family bread, we get to ask things like this at the kitchen table. “Share One Good Thing About Your Day”. See? It sounds like a movement when I put it in capital letters and quotation marks.

Sharing, on the Internet, can mean linking to or copying an image from one place and using it in another.

I am a long time collaborator with people, really with life, I guess. I love to share what I learn and how others inspire me. If you go to my Face book page you will see many links to sites that capture my eye or speak to a need I know someone else has. The sidebar to your right has links to websites that intrigue me and I bet there is at least one that will intrigue you too.

One good thing about parenting is I have been teaching my kids to share since they were tiny. Looking at the two of them across the dinner table last night, big as anything, I realized that whatever I have taught them about sharing, making connections, of real time offering of some part of themselves, whether it is a story from their day or a pad of college-ruled notebook paper, the teaching time is over. Now, I just have to live it and hope they are noticing.

Living the way I do, paying attention to the subtle and not-so-subtle clues that the Universe gives me on any given day, I can be awash in serendipity.

Just last week I was driving to the grocery store, listening to Joe Donohue on WAMC’s show The Roundtable, I heard Joe interview author Nathaniel Philbrick about his new book “Why Read Moby Dick?”. I tingled with glee. Just days earlier, at the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival I had met a young knitwear designer, Ann Weaver, who just self-published a collection of her knitted designs inspired by “Moby Dick”. And, to keep the connection even more electrified, I saw that her book “White Whale” was illustrated by mixed media compositions created by artist Matt Kish, who I had also just read about on one of my new favorite websites for culture and news, www.brainpickings.org. Matt has created an illustration for every page of “Moby Dick”. Yes, that door stop sized novel that opens with “Call me Ishmael.”

Is it serendipity that “Moby Dick” shows up in my life four times in one week? I have not even read the whole book. Or that I live not far, like about 20 miles from where Herman Melville lived when he wrote the novel? Or that Joe Donohue, who is one of the best interviewers of artists that I have ever heard, should ask Nathaniel such great questions that I was mesmerized while driving?

You know I started my life, my professional life, as an actor, right?

I learned quickly the importance of attribution, of my bio and credits on a program. I learned from stinging disappointment the heartache of not being mentioned in a program or being omitted somehow from the roster of contributors to a project.

That is one of the reasons you will see lots of links on the Laundry Line. I like you to know where I get my information. I love to share what I have gathered throughout my day, even from my drive to get groceries, or reading a new blog, I love creators to get all the attention they need to affirm in their minds that the world is receiving their work.

Nina Paley, a cartoonist, filmmaker and activist for artist rights created one of the most delightful movies I have ever seen. Here is a trailer for “Sita Sings the Blues”.

My postal art collaborator, Karen Arp-Sandel shared this movie at her yearly Vibrant Visionary Art retreat at The Kripalu Center last year. Nina’s work about the combinational nature of creativity is dynamic and thought provoking. See a great piece on her work on Brain Pickings.

It is beyond the scope of this post to discuss the nuts and bolts of copyright and sharing rights for art in general. What I would love to ask of you my readers is to do what I do and that is to “Link With Love”. If you share something you like here on the Laundry Line, whether it is my art or photography, something I have written or quoted, poems that I post- please give credit where it is due. I just put a “Link With Love” badge here on my sidebar. If you click on it, you will be led to a great site with lots of information about this topic. If attribution and copyrights really call out to you, go to Nina Paley’s website.

And, in terms of what I share on the Laundry Line, these words and photographs and art express my personal experience. I share them with you because it is my life mission to share. My Mom used to tell the story that when I was old enough to use the telephone, a nice heavy black plastic one in a niche in the wall of our Chicago apartment, I would call all my friends on Wolcott Avenue to let them know I was heading outside to play. This was not to boast about my whereabouts, but to call everyone out to play with me. I have always always always loved to share.

“Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief.”

Mom shared this Swedish proverb with me too.

Fun. Grief. Quince. It is always better shared.

xo S