Laundry Line Divine

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

I just realized that all the visitors to this page today were termed Spam. That means that no one who really wanted to read stopped by.
Probably because there was nothing new to read.
Probably because you knew that I am six days away from the anniversary of Mom’s death and just a teensy bit gray and quiet today.
Probably because you, dear reader, know that I just got back from sharing my FeMail at the Museum of Motherhood in New York City on Monday.
Perhaps because you figured I’d be tired and tender and not write anything today.

Well, you are mostly right, as usual.
But, I have been writing.
I am on a self-imposed deadline to complete my non-fiction book proposal for Laundry Line Divine A Wild Soul Book for Mothers by next Tuesday.

A few minutes ago I wandered over to Paige Orloff’s blog, Tales from the Park Side. In a post about grieving the loss of her old boyfriend, Paige pointed me to Marion Roach’s Memoir Project. And then I headed to The Sister Project, to Marion’s post about writing about grief. In it Marion asks the writer, as a jump-start, to complete a set of three lists with these headings: What I brought. What I heard. What I said.

So I did.
I love lists.

What I brought:

1. My daughter.
2. My husband.
3. A black outfit.
4. Lavender oil.
5. Comfortable clothing to sit next to her in.
6. My camera.
7. A few photographs.
8. Phone numbers.
9. Surety of her release.
10. The calm of the oldest daughter about to become matriarch.

What I heard:

1. The raspy shallow breathes of my mother.
2. Incessant noise of the nursing home.
3. Sticky shoes padding along the hallway.
4. Other elders, once the pillars of this small town, moaning in the hallways, calling out for help.
5. My aunts saying my mom’s name in just that Chicagoan way- “Joanne?”
6. Resolve in my stepfathers’ voice.
7. Wind whipping fall leaves past the single story building, wind on the roof, teasing leaves into small tornadoes in the parking lot outside the window.
8. My own strong heartbeat.
9. The silence of my husband’s calm presence.
10. All the songs we sang- from the “Weenie Man” to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, all the dear partings from the staff members as they came in to say farewell to Mom, and the absence of those who did not come for this moment of gray blue death swinging in to the room.

What I said:

1. What I wanted, which was to stay by her side as long as I could.
2. That it did not matter if I was not there for her last breath exactly.
3. That I needed a break, a rest and would sleep with my phone under my pillow.
4. Hello, I am here. I will be there in 5 minutes.
5. Will you come with me?
6. Do you want to sleep longer?
7. Mom is dying now.
8. She has gone.
9. No, she is still here.
10. Now, she is gone.

Gaining ground in handfuls today, all because of Paige and Marion and the desire to write it out for you, so you can know how it is for me and by the dearest chance that that will make a difference in your day.
All my love and thanks to my writing friends,
S

I will be presenting here tomorrow.
Please consider joining us!
http://www.MOMmuseum.org/conferences/

Love, Suzi

Here is it September 28.

The air is cool here with a storm coming.

Flannel sheets feel good again.

These last few days of my favorite month will have visual moments of the summer to savor with you.

What did you love about this past summer?

I spent a long time visiting with my German family.

We made art for 3 ½ weeks.

I did the same thing for one week with my sisters in Spruce Lake, Michigan.

I will post about that tomorrow.

And, for you skillet tossing fans, more on the ribbon I won in the Northeast Kingdom this Friday.

All my love, S

PS Have you done your new thing yet? Will post mine later tonight on my new page Do One New Thing Every Day. xoxo