May Festivities

 May is an exciting month for me. I have several things I'm very enthused about.

 I've learned to make Photoshop brushes, two of which I've included for your viewing pleasure. They are so easy to make and fun! I highly recommend doing a google search to learn this skill. If you have Photoshop and aren't making brushes, you're missing out on a great graphic tool.

Also, my three grand-nieces, ages 12, 10 and 5 years of age, are coming to visit me! We're doing art projects, going to the Aquarium, the Discovery Museum and cruising the Tennessee River. We're having Camp Sissy-Grammy, as I'm their grammy's sister... Logical, huh? Too FUN!

Additionally, an interview I participated in with Monessa Guilfoil, about my greeting card business, aired May 1, by National Public Radio, WUTC, 88.1. As a result, my website that usually has seven to ten hits a week had 110 hits the day the interview aired! Wow, so much for the power of the airwaves. For those of you who missed it, I’m attempting to add an MP3 player to my blog, but no luck so far. I’m sure it’s operator error, but nothing I’ve read and tried has worked. If you want to hear it – and can’t wait for me to figure it out – email me and I’ll send it to you. THAT I can do! :-)

Additionally, May 18, an article that I wrote about migraine headaches, will hit the streets when the May edition of HealthScope Magazine is distributed. This is a Chattanooga-based publication that goes into bookstores, homes, and doctor’s offices and waiting rooms. I am very psyched about the whole process, from having received the assignment, to conducting the research and doctor interviews, to composing the data into an interesting (hopefully,) and informative narrative. My wish is that someone with migraines will read it and discover new facts that may help their life become more manageable.

I’m also working on a compilation of my essays, photographs and art work – sort of like a picture book for adults! It’s interesting to remember that the first book of poems and illustrations I made was in 1975, as a gift for my parents. After their deaths, I found it among their treasures, and I still have it. I was surprised that one so young (21) had such insight into life – although the poems themselves were pretty sappy – the sentiments were deep. I sit back sometimes and try to reconnect to that young girl and assess where we’ve been since then and how we’ve grown!

It’s an exciting month for me. Thanks for reading.

To Look Beyond the Obvious

I’ve recently been in the Catskill Mountains helping a friend get ready to close on her sold house and to have a moving sale. Next to her beautiful house, which is named Marmalade Manor and was built in 1815, flows a rushing stream. I took a lot of pictures and enjoyed its sounds and spray.

However, next to my friend’s house and the rushing stream, is a house that has collapsed. Its owners died, no heirs came forth, and the building’s front eventually fell against a tree that had overgrown the front entrance. The remaining structure followed, falling into a dozen skewed piles of boards, cabinets, nails and furnishings. I stood across the stream and imagined the meals that were served within, the babies that were born, the illnesses that were endured, the weddings, deaths, and a million other events that evolved as life happened. While I pondered, I spied an apple cider-looking jug and a canister of flour that were still upright on the counter, seemingly awaiting hands to put them away. I felt melancholy for this family that put their life’s blood into their home never knowing that someday it would be a pile of rubble. I also was, and am, dismayed that such waste occurs.

I wondered how a house that withstood over a century of rain, snow, sleet, wind and sunshine could be left to just fall down – especially in a day of such homelessness and a need for lodging.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a repository of abandoned buildings into which the homeless could move for a new start and to establish roots? Would cities, municipalities and towns allow property to go to one of modest income and to become a home again instead of allowing it to fall into ruin or of selling it to the highest bidder? Would the neighbors shun a low-income family relocating into their territory, or would they pitch in to help with repairs, childcare and other necessities for the working poor? I know, I know, some homeless individuals have chronic addiction issues that preclude their interest in four walls, however, the average age of a homeless person in the United States today is nine years of age…

  N I N E  Y E A R S  O F  A G E. 

Several years ago, I was helping build a Habitat for Humanity house. It was in a neighborhood that had been lovely, had declined, but was on its way back to prosperity. As I walked from my car to the building site, I was enthused about helping Wendy and her family, build their home. Wendy and her children had put in sweat equity, so I’d become acquainted with them. She was delightful and, like so many women whose men leave, underemployed, but hard-working. She will be an asset to the neighborhood, thought I.

I was scheduled to help install siding on this particular day and I'd helped with roofing the evening before. The house was almost finished. I was excited.

As I walked by, I threw up my hand at the neighbors, and smiled a greeting. They turned their backs to me. My greeting was met with silence – stony silence. I was stunned. A woman living across the street yelled, “Of course, you’re happy, you just build the house and leave the neighborhood. We’re left to deal with those people and our lowered property values.” The “backs” pivoted forward again, waiting for me to answer the challenge.

I gulped.

As naïve as it seems now, this neighborly response had not been on my radar screen. I thought ANYONE would be HAPPY to see a homeless family have a home. I believed no one could want a family to be without lodging. However, from that point forward, I realized that the home had to be in someone else’s neighborhood for people to rejoice about the homeless having a home. Empathy costs money – so no empathy from these neighbors on this day.

So what’s the answer? The answer to homeless is complicated I know; however, there are measures to help those in dire conditions.

Interfaith-Hospitality Network is nation-wide and coordinates the lodging for homeless families in church buildings while the parishioners are away, snug in their homes. The homeless must be up and ready to leave in the morning before church business begins and are brought back in the evening for dinner and to sleep. Each housed person is allowed one plastic bag with which they may carry their belongings from church to church, until Section 8 housing opens for them. I have watched, tearfully, as children schlepped their bags from their make-shift rooms, to the bus, for their next relocation. NO toys, there is no room. Each church stay lasts a week and then it’s on to another church and new smiling faces of dinner-serving volunteers making small talk - no questions of any consequence are ever asked of the guests. The privacy of each guest is respected.

In addition to Interfaith Hospitality Network, there are also Community Soup Kitchens that serve food, offer health care and job assistance.  These are organizations that meet acute needs.

These are all vital interventions, but what about after jobs have been secured and individuals are ready to move forward? Often, Section 8 housing has built-in issues, such as ensconced drug dealers, violence as a matter of course, and people who have lost hope. This spawns generation and generation of angry, discouraged people who often seek lawlessness to meet their needs. It becomes an ideal training ground for impressionable youth - remember - the average age of a homeless person is nine.

So, as tax-payers, do we pay upfront and help the homeless into safe-affordable housing or pay on the backend and support them during incarceration or by our very lives, lost during violent acts? Do all homeless become drug-addicted, violent offenders? Of course not, but the odds rise as resources and hope diminish.

So, what about abandoned buildings being slated for the homeless, and vacant lots being dedicated to inner-city vegetable gardens and playgrounds? Couldn’t this cycle of waste be interrupted by outlining a process where need meets availability? Technology makes it doable; tax rolls could identify buildings, and organizations, such as Interfaith-Hospitality Network, could identify candidates.

There are people smarter than I who wrestle with this issue. This just seems like a possible intervention – especially when buildings fall down from neglect. We could ask, couldn’t we? Or is that too simple – or too complicated? Remember, the average age of a homeless person in the United States of America is nine years old.

What were you doing when you were nine years old? Do you remember? I’ll bet the homeless nine-year olds of this generation will always remember where they were when they were nine years old – without toys, friends, X-boxes, or necessities, carrying all their belongings in a garbage bag to the next handout; or, worse yet, sleeping under a bridge somewhere, hoping to endure the night.

Abandoned buildings; someone’s way to wealth or someone’s way to wholeness? We can ask can’t we?

Mother's Day Memorial

Until I was seven years of age, my mother worked outside the home.

She managed the concession stand of the only drive-in theatre in the area. She introduced Pizza Pie from the home office of Chicago, Illinois to the drive-in theatre going public of Independence, Missouri and they were immediate sell-outs! Also, for the shredded beef Bar-B-Que sandwiches, she made Morgan’s Bar-B-Que sauce from scratch, which was her family’s own secret recipe. It still remains a closely guarded secret, and hides out in my pantry, still in Mom’s handwriting. Everything she did was just a little more special than the norm. She was also an excellent business woman and was recruited several times by other corporations.

Whenever she worked during the day, taking inventory, I would run up and down the ramps of the drive-in, finding treasures that had fallen out of cars during the evening or I’d investigate places I’d never been. During one of my morning ventures, I went into the men’s bathroom and saw my first urinal. I thought it was a very cool bathtub and wondered why women didn’t have such treasures in their restrooms. It hardly seemed fair... Then, sometimes, as the popcorn machine was preparing the night’s offerings, she’d let me get my own hot popcorn and use the butter machine to slather my tub with as much butter as I wanted – at least four squirts. It was too special for words.

I never felt deprived by Mom working. I thought the adventures of new venues and babysitters were fun. During my daytime visits to the theatre, I also expanded my circle of friends, as I buddied up with Mom’s employees. There was a man who looked just like Arnold Stang, of Chunky candy commercial fame. I always asked him to say it for me and he’d grin a huge grin, and then – he would! “Chunky! What a chuuuuuuunnnnnnk of chocolate!” he’d say, smacking his lips. It never ceased to make me laugh! Lila ran the popcorn machine, Elvin grilled the hamburgers and Michelle ran the register. They were like another family.

Also, whenever there were special promotions at the theatre, such as finding the needle in the haystack for $100 prize or the performing white German shepherds, I always got a good seat to see the events. Every Easter, the drive-in held a sunrise service on the roof of the concession stand and broadcast the Easter message through the speakers. Although I’ve never been a morning person, I loved getting up while it was still dark, putting on my new Easter clothes and rummaging through my Easter basket while the minister preached about love and redemption.

At other times, when I was unable to accompany my mother to work, my eldest sister, Harrylon, who is nineteen years my senior, would babysit me. We were big buddies while I was growing up. Her son Lonny, three months younger than I, was my best friend. When it came time to send me to kindergarten, Harrylon called a taxi. My daddy, “Curly,” used to drive a taxi and all the drivers in our small town knew that I was Curly’s little girl, so I felt perfectly safe – and special. They’d always say, “Are you Curley’s girl?” I’d smile and nod and we'd speed off to deposit me at kindergarten.

I loved being with Harrylon and Lonny. Harrylon always had some interesting new food to try, pickled pig’s feet is one I remember now with revulsion, but loved then, and Lonny had a Jerry Mahoney puppet, which we’d play with on the sidewalk, next to their duplex.

Additionally, because my mother worked, we had money for extra things. I always had beautiful clothes. “This is the latest fashion,” my mother would tell me about my aqua dropped-waist dress, or the black and white checked with the red bow, and that I’d repeat whenever anyone complimented me. We received great toys for Christmas and birthdays, yet were generous with those in the neighborhood who didn’t have much.

Our house was lovely, and sported salmon-colored living room walls with sanded-paint and floor-to-ceiling draperies with impressionistic pictures of the Eiffel Tower, Parisian cafés, and the Arc de’ Triomphe. The year I was five, I wanted twin dolls for Christmas and got two Buddy Lee dolls, one a sheriff and one an engineer, which I still have. They sit on the bookshelf in my office and overlook my progress. That same year, I also got multi-colored bells on which I learned to play a variety of songs. Life was full and rich and fun.

Then, in an instant everything in the world as I knew it, changed.

Dorothy, mom’s sister, lived in Miami. She called to tell us that her husband had committed suicide with a gunshot to his head. Their twelve-year old son had gotten to him first. Mom flew into frenetic activity to go to her sister’s aid. My brother, Billie and his wife, agreed to stay at our house and care for his two little sisters; Kandi and me. Mom, Daddy and Imza, my middle sister, made arrangement with Delta Airways, to fly from Kansas City, Missouri to Miami, Florida to be with my Aunt Dorothy in her time of need.

However, there were hurricane warnings.

Regardless of the warnings, my mother, who possessed true grit beyond grit, went anyway. She needed to get to her sister and no warning of inclement weather was keeping her grounded. Their plane tossed, twirled and did loop-de-loops in the perilous weather and, as a result of pressurization loss, both of my mother’s eardrums ruptured during the flight. Until the day she died, her ears continued to extrude black liquid. As if the trauma of such an event was not stressful enough, upon her return, she had to stay in bed for weeks, trying to regain her equilibrium.

Her career came to an abrupt halt. Although the company held her job for her for months, she was never able to work again. Life as we’d known it, ended.

Although Daddy worked also, and was diligent and hard-working, his position as a laborer didn’t pay the money my mother’s in management had paid. So, we began to live the life of those who were poor. We ate commodities from the government. I wore my sister’s old clothes and coats that didn’t fit. Our toys and clothes from that point forward came from the Goodwill. I don’t remember caring about the toys being used, but I can remember not wanting to go to school sometimes because I didn’t have anything pretty to wear. Hmmmmmmmmmm, self-conscious even then – some may say, vain. Now that I think about it, pretty clothes continue to be paramount for me, perhaps it’s some unresolved childhood yearning rearing its head…

For years after Joe’s suicide, Mom rarely felt well enough to sit upright. I’d come home from school and find her lying on the sofa or behind her closed bedroom door. Our relationship changed abruptly with the onset of her illness. As a child, I didn’t understand all the changes; but I knew that my mother’s attention had been diverted from me. I felt sad and abandoned, although I couldn't put words to it for years. Our household went from fun and frivolity to darkness and solemnity.

Because Mom’s position included management activities during the day and supervising staff in the evenings, Daddy watched us at night, and we had great fun. He’d fix our dinner, watch the Mickey Mouse Club with us, and then later, we’d sit in the Adirondack chairs in the back yard, listening to the Cicadas and eating watermelon or ice cream. Additionally, he had a goofy sense of humor and we’d often jump around whooping like monkeys or he’d pretend to groom my hair as monkeys do to one another – monkeys seemed to be our favorite animal to imitate. Then, because Missouri nights are so hot and we didn’t have air conditioning, he, Kandi, and I would all sleep in the one bed that had the big window fan blowing. Daddy slept in the middle with Kandi lying on one of his arms and me on the other. In this Christ-like pose, I don’t know how he ever got any sleep, but he loved his girls and seemed unaffected.

That all ended also.

With Mom not working, Daddy’s responsibility as caregiver ceased. Because he arose at 4:30 am, and no longer needed to remain alert in the evenings, by 7 pm he was usually asleep in his chair. We occasionally did things together on the weekends, but not very often. Life became about being quiet and not bothering Mom, who didn’t feel good or Daddy who had to sleep.

However, Harrylon was a stabilizing presence until three years later when she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in a Missouri mental institution. She received extensive electro-convulsive therapy, as well as massive amounts of pharmaceuticals. As her illness continued, she was eventually diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. I was ten.

I understood all of this with the understanding of a child. However, as I matured, I never seemed to expand my understanding and let Harrylon off the hook for her disruptive behavior. With Mom and Dad, I acknowledged that they’d done the best they could, given their health and the circumstances; but not Harrylon.

Life took on a surreal quality when Harrylon was around and we all ostracized her for it, except Mom. Mom always forgave Harrylon, regardless of the transgression. Mom said we didn’t understand enough about mental illness to make judgments.

Harrylon said she’d shoot our mother; we kept the drapes drawn and stayed away from the windows. When I was twenty-three, she dragged her daughter, whose arm was caught in her car, down a road, to teach her a lesson; I went through the court system to take custody of Lisa. Harrylon fought to keep her, until she learned that I didn’t intend to take her $10 weekly child-support payment. She then allowed me to relocate her sixteen-year old daughter to my home, 2,000 miles away. She’d kept her children home from school because she was lonely; none of them finished high school. She got mad at one of her five husbands and baked him a cake out of Ex-Lax, instead of cocoa. She put sugar in the gas tank of another man with whom she was angry. She got mad at our Mother for an imagined wrong and allowed her to die of cancer and languish with multiple fractures suffered in a horrific collision with a tractor-trailer truck, without ever making peace with her.

I was through making excuses for her! How could you love a boil that always threatened eruption? This was Harrylon: sore to the touch, menacing and unpredictable - she frightened me with her wicked ways.

So, my self-righteous anger kept me insulated from her illness - and her pain. Following the incident with our mother, I decided I wouldn’t talk to her – again - ever. Twenty-six years after I made that vow, Harrylon had a stroke. When I heard about it, I began to sob and to experience deep remorse about my silent treatment toward her for all of these years.

I went to see her.

In addition to the stroke, she has dementia and pneumonia. She resembled a tiny bird slumped down in her hand-cranked hospital bed with only her eyes peering over the top of her blanket. I don’t know if she recognized me, but when I told her my name, she said, “Well, you sure have grown.” I wondered if she’d remembered me as that little sister who so adored her all of those years ago. I hope so.

She’s 75 years old, still paranoid schizophrenic and still exhibiting multiple personalities. I’ve changed. Thank goodness.

In retrospect, it’s unbelievable to me that I’ve held her to normal standards for all of these years, when she was incapable of behaving normally. Her ranting always involved images of the church, Christ, or the devil. She seems to be haunted and has believed black devils sit on her back and on the backs of those she loves. She was and is ill.

That doesn’t mean her behavior didn’t make our family dynamics ricochet off the chart when she was episodic, but, as a fifty-something, I don’t have to let her behavior influence my love for a sister who has known a lifetime of hospitalizations, medications and shunning. I can be kind and loving toward her without needing to fix her (because I can’t) or insist that she acknowledge all the pain she’s caused to those who’ve loved her – because she can’t. The definition of paranoia is the BELIEF that someone is out to get you. This is what she BELIEVED. Her actions, crazy and incomprehensible to her family, were to protect herself – not to harm someone else. The distinction may seem like semantics, but is huge in its implication.

I also want to believe that she did the absolute best she knew how to do, given her circumstances.

Limitations come in all types of forms and behaviors. We all have them. Usually, only when we acknowledge that we aren’t perfect and never will be perfect, do we make peace with our foibles and by doing so, are able to accept weaknesses in ourselves and in others. I hope I continue to recognize and accept the flaws within myself and then continue to offer grace instead of judgment to others – and to myself.

This Mother’s Day, the best gift I could offer in my mother’s memory, is to continue to extend grace, understanding and peace to Harrylon until the day she is released from her troubled mind, when her spirit rejoins our mother’s, and she is free from her demons, at last.

WOLVES: Our Expendable Resource

Wolves...

Red-riding hood taught us how sneaky and ravenous they were.

Horror movies taught us that they shape-shifted, posing as innocents, until an opportune time when they could have their way with their victims.

Even the Three-Little Pigs scorned and mocked the wolf.

Wolves have been maligned, feared and hated through most of recorded history.

So, what’s the truth of wolves?

Are they nasty, vicious, gratuitous killers or nurturing, loving animals that kill only to eat?

I have had the opportunity to be in the company of wolves; to pet them, howl with them and sit in their pack. It was an experience that I will never forget or regret. These magnificent creatures were kindly, yet powerful, and I respected them. However, before I left the alpha female came up behind me. She put her teeth on my scalp and began to groom my hair.

The pack is structured. The male leader and female leader (alphas) are established, as are the other roles. Each pack member eats at the kill and each looks after the litter when the pups are born. They engage in play and demonstrate love by grooming one another.

I was an interloper who came bearing gifts of food and play. The grooming was their acceptance of me. I was honored.

By doing research I have learned that wolves are not indiscriminate killers. Wolves kill only to eat. There has never been a report of a healthy wolf attacking a person. Wolves, by nature, are shy and stay away from people.

Hopefully, we all still recoil in horror as we remember the videos of the aerial killings of the wolves in Alaska. Each year in Alaska, wolves are chased by planes until they drop from exhaustion, then they’re shot and hung on the strut of the plane to trade for bounty. I view this with great shame. Wolves are hunted by air and killed because some politicians decided it would be so.

Also, Friday, another terrible blow was dealt to the survival of wolves.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that he would follow the discredited path of the Bush Administration and delist wolves in the Northern Rockies and Greater Yellowstone region. This is a stunning development, just six weeks into the Obama Administration. This delisting paves the way for almost 1000 wolves to be killed. One thousand wolves will be killed - because we have big guns and we can indiscriminately kill - even though wolves don't and won't.

I am in mourning that we cannot learn to live harmoniously with other creatures of the earth. Are we so egocentric that we believe we are the only ones who deserve to live unencumbered? Yellowstone has not seen its present level of environmental health since the wolf was hunted to extinction a hundred years ago.

But, in addition to wolves eating elk, bison and moose that have stripped the trees and shrubs, ranchers are also losing cows to wolves. So – the wolves will be slaughtered. The government pays the ranchers the going rate for their lost livestock. But, it is not enough. The price must be extracted in blood. The wolves must die.

Please write, or email, President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to reinstate the protection of the Endangered Species List to the gray wolves of the Rockies.

Secretary Ken Salazaar
1849 C Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20240

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W
Washington, DC 20500

Gray wolves have been brought back from the brink of extinction once. However, we may not be so fortunate the next time and they will go the way of the Mexican wolf and the Red wolf which have only a few mating pairs left in the world.

Where, oh where, oh where is our honor?

To the Bookstore and Beyond!

One of my favorite activities is spending a leisurely morning (afternoon or evening) at a bookstore that has a coffee bar and lots and lots of magazines and unusual book titles – not just the bestsellers. I have discovered some of my favorite non-fiction authors in this way: Daniel Boorstin, Stephen Jay Gould, Sarah Ban Breathnach, Gregg Levoy, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and many others.

My bookcases overflow with books which I plan to read and also with the treasures that I’ve finished and believe I must keep for reference. Books open new worlds of thought that help me know more about myself and those with whom I come into contact.

The worlds I've discovered in books have enriched my life more than I can ever express. Years ago, I overheard the conversation of some friends discussing something they wanted to learn and said they’d just get a book to instruct them on how to go about it. As peculiar as it seems now, I remember being a bit stunned to think I could learn something without formal instruction. Those were the days before the Internet and learning anything involved studying the library’s card catalog and hoping for the best. But, man-oh-man, the vistas this opened. I’ve spent hours at the library researching first one thing and then another – and for free! Amazing!

My friends say that I can carry on a conversation with a fence post and eventually get it to answer me. Some of this is a result of all that I have absorbed through reading. I know a little bit about a lot of things. However, I also learned how to be an engaging conversationalist by reading, How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. For years, I continued to be too shy to fully practice what I’d learned, but the concepts were swirling in my brain awaiting my willingness to jump into conversations and contribute.

Today, with television as a learning-tool, many people engage in monologues instead of conversations, as conversation involves two or more people talking, not one talking non-stop. Have you ever met anyone who talks at you, but not with you, as they don’t ask you questions to include you, but they talk on and on, often repeating themselves trying to find a way to tie up their thoughts?

In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie outlines how to ask questions, listen to the answers and respond thoughtfully. I believe if this book were required reading for every middle school student in America, there would be a lot less angst during those years of insecurity and awkwardness. We wouldn’t have to make fun and rail against others as we’ve learned on television, by listening to Homer Simpson and others, but would know how to be interesting, conversational and kind when talking.

How to Win Friends and Influence People; great book for anyone who struggles in social settings, from one who has struggled.

Also, another fun book I found during one of my obscure title quests is, The List, by Gail Belsky. The book, as its title states, is a list which explores ninety-nine adventures by women who made decisions about what they wanted to do, researched how to go about it, determined dates to venture forth and then followed through. The book tells of yearnings as diverse as swimming with sea creatures to joining a cattle drive; setting up a web site or buying yourself a sex toy. There are ninety-five others just as innovative and wacky that sparked creativity within my own mind when I read them.

I made my list:

To finish my book of art and essays and to be published
To have my screenplay about Harry Truman produced by Gary Ross or Rita Wilson and her husband, Tom Hanks
Make a CD before my voice is so decrepit I can no longer hit high C
Finish my one-woman play and actually have the courage to perform it
Learn to belly dance
Go to Yellowstone, Machu Pichu, Alaska and Montana
Learn to sea-kayak
Photograph running wild horses
Attend the Astra writing workshop in Greece
Find out more information about my mysterious Greek great-grandfather
Camp on a lake and awaken to birds singing
Learn to play the violin, bagpipes and banjo
Learn to carve and produce a carousel animal
Learn pottery
Visit Madagascar and photograph Lemurs
Take an African safari and photograph everything in sight…

What would be on your list and how could you make them happen?

As I said, these are the ones that come to mind right now. Considering my age, I wonder when I will make plans to do these things. Without planning, they will not happen.

Life is so much more exciting when I have something to look forward to. I’ll keep you informed.

In the meantime, you will find me at the bookstore, by the coffee bar probably munching a chocolate chip cookie, crouched over a mountain of magazines and books seeing what further adventures await.

Courage; Fear Made Known

My last posting about fear seemed to resonate with many. Since every yin has yang and every up has down, I want to share, expound, pontificate – whatever I do – about my beliefs on courage. Courage isn’t a word we hear much anymore unless it’s attributed to heroic rescues, but, exhibiting courage is dealing with our fears, all fears - big or small; that is courage – always.

I read two quotations recently: “Courage is standing up for your beliefs when others remain seated,” and “Courage is listening and remaining silent in the face of contrary opinions.” Obviously, thoughts penned by people of very different temperaments and different ideas of courage. Courage may manifest by standing, staying seated or a variety of ways - it depends on personal fortitude. Courage may be exhibited in a loud and obtrusive manner, but it may also enter timidly and masquerade as every day behavior.

FIRST:

We can’t exhibit bravery without first experiencing fear.

A person may be labeled as courageous, but unless fear was part of the equation, that person may have accomplished great things, but they did not exhibit courage. Courage denotes overcoming the terror that shrieks, “I can’t!” and then behaviorally, we do. We persist in moving forward in spite of being frightened.

Any forward momentum in the face of fear is courage.

I want to repeat that…

Any forward momentum in the face of fear is courage.

Let’s all celebrate our victories of courage instead of beating ourselves up for the times, metaphorically, that we cower in the corner and can’t take one more step.

Let’s celebrate the computer-nerd father who gets out in the yard with his children, when he doesn’t know a fast ball from a snowball, and risks feeling and looking foolish; the introvert who takes a job interacting with the public and expends tremendous energy learning extroverted behaviors and returns day after day to the job that drains their inner-resources; the mother who admits she needs a break from a new infant – and asks for help; or the depressed person who gets up and functions, instead of sleeping to escape those thoughts that make them suffer.

THESE are some examples of courage.

SECOND:
Candidly, there may be times when all we can do is put the covers over our heads and refuse to go one step further until we recoup. Demonstrating courage takes an inordinate amount of energy. When our wells run dry, we have to tap into our higher-selves through rest and meditation and regain energy to begin again. There really are scary things out there that distract us from goals – whether anyone else acknowledges they’re scary or not. No one else has to understand our fear for it to be real – to us.

Growing up, I was much more introverted than other family members. Once a passel of relatives came to visit from another state and stayed at our house. Getting to know these people, who were strangers to me, drained me. I kept going outside, hiding in our motor home, until I could recoup my energy to be conversational again. In retrospect, I guess my fear was of being judged as not being lovable because I wasn’t charming enough, conversational enough, yada, yada, yada…

But, uh-oh! My mother, the extrovert, came looking for me. (I can hear the da, da, da, da, da, da, of the Wicked Witch of the West song now.) The motor home door flew open. My mother stood there; eyes blazing and said, “What do you think you’re doing? You have company to entah – taaaane.” (Her southern accent came back when she was about to use all three of my names.) “Tawnee Vivian Isbell, you need to get back into that hauhse riiiiiiiight nouw.”

I muttered, “I feel scared.”

In a way only a mother could, she - said, “WHAT”S wrrrooooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg with yyyyyyyyooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu? (Encroaching on Belle-ism.) That is your faaahhhhmahllleeeee, in theahr. Your fahmahlee.” She stomped back into the house and yelled over her shoulder, “You are so strange.”

She, being an extrovert off the scale, didn’t understand. Leaving and going back in – for me - took courage. If you’re an extrovert reading this, I’m sure you’re totally flummoxed (I love that word, it almost sounds obscene, but isn’t in the least) and without a personal point of reference, you may believe my mother was right – I AM STRANGE. Ah, and there’s the rub.

Does another have to recognize an act as being courageous before it IS a courageous act?

Of course, the answer is no. It’s the same premise as no one having to understand our fear for it to be real and to be part of our make-up. If I go to the gym, am afraid to go (too awkward, too fat, too whatever), yet go anyway, I have no witnesses, but I have still acted courageously.

THIRD:
In most religious beliefs there is a statement about accepting the truth and you will be set free. This tenet applies also to our fear. If we choose to deny we have fear, then it will continue to control our behaviors. Only when we acknowledge our fear, accept the truth of it (because it is what it is, denying it will not eliminate it) and choose to behave in graceful ways that move us gently forward, will we be able to transcend the feelings and make friends with our fears.

There is a book called, Loving What Is, by Byron Katie, the reading of which has nearly dissipated the mental quagmire that has kept me paralyzed through much of my life. She poses four questions to ask ourselves when thoughts begin to cause us to suffer (and if you have fear you have labeled as irrational, then you suffer):

Is it true?
Is it really true – how do you know it’s true?
How do you feel when you believe that’s true?
How would your life be different if you didn’t believe that were true?

Then she advocates something called a turnaround, which is complicated, but you can view by going to You Tube and searching for Byron Katie - or by clicking on the video, I've added at the end of this posting...

Inculcating her recommendations, which she calls, “The Work,” has been life-altering for me. I now have a process with which to dissolve the fears that have kept me a prisoner. By bringing rational thought to my unconscious fears, I’ve realized it’s been my ego ramrodding my behavior: the fear of rejection, fear of feeling foolish, fear of looking foolish, fear that I’m not loved, fear of getting hurt, fear of not doing something perfectly - fear, fear, fear, fear - irrational, immobilizing, paralyzing - fear.

FOURTH:
However, let me also say that some fears are ABSOLUTELY VALID and are radar for our safety. Another excellent book called, The Gift of Fear, written by Gavin DeBecker, helps us process our perceptions and intuition when someone or something may mean us harm, and to act upon them, so that we may stay safe. We ignore these signals at our own peril. If we believe it is unwise to get into an elevator with a stranger, regardless of how it may be perceived by the stranger or by others, don’t get in. Those hairs that stand up on the back of our necks and that feeling we have in the pit of our stomachs have scientific explanations, but the short answer is they are warnings.

Those fears protect us; our conjured fears inhibit our growth.

As the youngest child on the block, I eavesdropped on the monster-movie conversations of the big girls without understanding that monsters weren’t real. Don’t even get me started on Dracula and the deed he held on my sleepless nights or the tears I cried over the possibility that my parents would become werewolves. I expended a lot of energy warding off goblins of my own conjuring.

My mom used to say that I borrowed more trouble than anyone she’d ever known. Mark Twain said it another way: “I’ve experienced many troubles in my life, and some of them actually happened.”

FINALLY:
Courage is what keeps us going. Courage props us up to try again and again and again until we accept that we have fear and welcome it into the light. We can then begin to live more peaceful lives - without the need for so much courage.

Choices and Fear

I’ve recently been seeking additional streams of income. (Translation: Job – I feel my skin crawling and my stomach churning as I put that word into print. That word is so jarring to this artist’s sense of freedom, just writing it causes palpitations.) As a result, I came across a new type of art therapy (yeah! feeling calmer) that referred me to a page in Facebook for more information. To view the site, I had to register with Facebook and become a member.

What a new world!

Pictures and moment-by-moment happenings and links to web site and blogs – woo hoo, what a place!

After registering and adding my information, I began to hear from people I hadn’t heard from in years – including the boy who lived next door to me all my growing up years. He was Tag, to my Annie Oakley; Tonto to my Lone Range; “it” during hide and go seek! (Yes, I was a bit of a bully – although I just thought I had better ideas for fun - and ALWAYS got to be who I wanted to be. Sorry, Richard. I’m better now that I’ve had therapy…)

Additionally, with Facebook there is an ease of correspondence. Unless you send something privately, everyone who has listed you as a friend can see what’s been written. So, a comment I make to my friend in Colorado may prompt conversation from a friend in Texas and so forth. I always thought Facebook was a tool used only by young cruisers, but am pleased to discover it’s a marketing tool for one’s business, as well as a social network for increasing ones’ contact with the outside world. You know we artist types, the lone wolves, get lonely from time to time and want company - when we want it, by golly, and with Facebook there is almost always something new posted.

Very Cool.

So, if you are registered with Facebook, you’ve probably received the circulating request that tells you to post twenty-five random things about yourself and then to send it to twenty-five other friends for their input and before you know it, it’s gone around the Universe twice and is making a third rotation. HUGE stuff! It spreads like the proverbial wildfire or – middle-aged abdominal roll – whichever resonates with you – but it goes FAST.

A good friend of mine sent me the request, so I promptly got on the computer, wrote my list and complied further by forwarding the request on to my friends – although I didn’t have twenty-five friends registered at the time, I sent it to those I had. Now that I think about it, no one from my list has answered my request – uh-oh – bottlenecks! You all get busy so our community can be better informed about one another. All right, I know, I know, you’re busy and I work from home. GOT IT!

Regardless, it was a fun exercise. It’s interesting what comes up when one sits down and begins to ponder what twenty-five random things denote life’s memorable moments. Here’s my list –

1. I am the youngest of seven children. My father and mother married with two children each; Daddy had boys, Momma had girls then they had two together. They had children in the public school system from 1938 – 1971, when I graduated from high school. No wonder they were tired by the time I was born, that, and the fact that they were 40 years old at my birth!

2. My twenty-two year old daughter, Bree, graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in May with a BS in business. She works as an assistant media buyer at a large advertising agency in Nashville. She attended the 2008 CMA awards, sat on the main level with the stars and has met Reba McIntire. She’s having a fun life! Additionally, she’s a kind and loving person. I’m very proud of her.

3. I have hiked the Grand Canyon and soared 2,000 feet above the Sonoma Valley in a glider.

4. I have a black-rescued cat, Starlette, whom I love and adore. She is an angel kitty. She didn’t leave my side while I recuperated from surgery following a ruptured cervical disc.

5. Although my parents had life-long ethnic bias, our family gatherings were similar to small United Nations groups. One sister married a German national and had children with skin as fair as to seem nearly translucent. Another sister married a Mexican-American and had children with beautiful brown eyes and smooth, brown skin. My eldest sister’s third husband (fifth marriage) was Native American, and although they didn’t have children together, he had a daughter who was welcomed into the fold. Additionally, Aunt Dorothy adopted two Japanese orphans when she and her Air Force husband were stationed in the Pacific country following WWII.

6. When I worked as a sales rep at an Arizona hotel, John Wayne spent the night at our property. I met him, gave him my morning paper as the gift shop was sold out, and shook his hand. He was a very kind man. I’ve been in the energy of THE DUKE!

7. Speaking of those I’ve met, I grew up in Independence, Missouri less than a mile from Harry S Truman, one of my heroes. I’ve written a screenplay about his life as a young man and his life-long love of Bess Wallace, the woman he married. I have put out to the universe that I want Gary Ross, who directed Seabiscuit, to produce and direct the movie. GARY ROSS WHERE ARE YOU – HARRY CALLS!

8. Depression plagues my family of origin. When I began taking Effexor XR for menopause symptoms, I awakened for the first time in my life without sadness. Since I had nothing with which to compare my prior mental state, I didn’t realize that I had endured low-level depression my whole life - until I didn’t any longer. I believe my family is genetically pre-disposed to low Serotonin levels, which explains many of the shenanigans I endured as a child…

9. My father, mother, sister, brother, aunt and three uncles have died of cancer.

10. I was diagnosed and received treatment for cancer in 2007. I am eager for adventure and travel knowing – emotionally as well as mentally – that our time is finite.

11. I am of Greek, French, Irish and Native-American ancestry.

12. I am on a life-long learning quest; I am a bibliophile.

13. Bob and I had our second wedding anniversary flying over the Atlantic. We were headed to Romania to help with needs of some of the 500,000 orphans and abandoned babies who reside there. We’ve also been to Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and England for fun. I hope to go to Greece next and find relatives!

14. One of my most breathtaking moments was the first time I saw a Great Blue Heron take flight.

15. My best friend growing up was my nephew, Lonny, who was three months younger than I. During the 1980s, and many years of internal torment, he chose sexual reassignment surgery, and became my niece. I am writing a memoir about our lives, together, and also of our separate paths.

16. As a child, I wanted to be a singer, an actress or an archeologist for my life’s work. I have done a fair amount of singing, although I’ve always been so terrified I wouldn’t perform perfectly, it’s been very sporadic. The acting thing worked itself out through my introverted self attempting to portray an extrovert – very painfully at times. And the archeology – well, there was that one man I married…but, surely that wasn’t it. THAT must still be ahead of me!

17. I feel fortunate to still be friends with high school buddies.

18. I am passionate about animals and seek to have encounters whenever possible. I have had physical contact - held & loved on – innumerable dogs and cats, as well as Bengal Tiger cubs, a leopard cub, a full-grown cheetah, a Kinkajou, a tiny, baby Coati Mondi, a Cockatoo, giraffe, rhino, wolves and an Asian brown bear. I want to love on a lemur next. When I was in Costa Rica I began talking to a wild Three-toed Sloth in the treetops of the rain forest. He stopped munching, turned his body to see me on the ground and climbed down the tree, as if to come and visit. I became a bit frightened; stopped talking to him and pulled my energy in. He quit his descent, hung by his back claws, looked me in the eye and patted his hands together – almost as if he were applauding. If I hadn’t had witnesses, I’d have thought I’d inhaled too much noxious gas from Mt. Arenal and as a result was hallucinating. Amazing encounters!

19. I was a safety-patrol crossing guard when I was eleven.

20. Studying with Lynne Forrest changed my life forever. (www.lynneforrest.com) She introduced me to Core Beliefs, as well as to Eckert Tolle and Byron Katie. I no longer suffer from self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors - or rarely do - anymore.

21. White cats have been present at most major junctures in my life. I don’t know what it means; it’s an observation.

22. I love elephants; according to Ted Andrews, the author of Animal Speak, they are my totem animal.

23. I have vertigo and feel ill when looking down from high places. However, I climbed a 30-foot telephone pole to participate in a ropes course. I wouldn’t do it again. I just didn’t want to be controlled by fear.

24. Mamma Mia is my favorite movie of all time and I LOVE movies! It is too fun; music, dancing, amazingly beautiful GREEK scenery, Meryl Streep’s acting! What’s not to like?

25. In high school, I was voted the craziest girl by my classmates of 400. (What do you think?)

Although, these items denote twenty-five times I’ve embraced life, there are more times than I care to remember when fear has stopped me in my tracks. Three in particular come to mind:

When I was very young, my parents would take me and my sister to dinner at a restaurant located at a near-by lake. Each time we drove the few miles to the lake, we’d pass a field that was flat and was the color of the crayon Spring Green, from the Crayola box. There was no air conditioning in vehicles yet and when we rolled by the field, it always smelled fresh and cool. I would say aloud how I yearned to run through the field. One day, my mom pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, told me to go ahead and run through it and she’d wait for me.

I was gripped by uncertainty and fear and cowered in the back seat. She put the car in gear and drove on.

As I had time to reflect, I told her that I would get out and I asked her to stop again, but she never did. Looking back, the field was probably someone’s crop of spring wheat or some other green produce and it was good I didn’t trample it. But, I’ve always regretted not jumping out of the car and having the mud squish through my toes as I ran with abandon in that glowing green field.

Then, when I was in my twenties and living in California, a man heard me sing and offered to finance my next career move. He told me about investors he worked with and that it would be strictly a business arrangement, and by-the-way, “he had been one of the first to have heard Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour Club and recognized HER talent.” Those were days before the Internet or music videos, what was I going to do promote my career? I’d always worked in an office and sang, very rarely, on the side.

I toyed with the idea, but had no idea what to do with the $50,000 he offered me. I said thanks, but no thanks. All of my life all I’d ever wanted to do was sing – and yet, fear kept me from moving forward. I told someone who believed in my gift that I wasn’t interested and continued to work in an OFFICE! Oh, my. Now, was he on the up and up? Did he have an ulterior motive? I will never know because I refused his offer.

And, my life took a very different path – actually – not a different path than it was on – it was on the path of offices and frustration. The fork was presented to me and I chose safety.

The third scenario was just as regretful.

A physician, who lives in a near-by town, began working in animal rescue. Bob and I were at his compound visiting with him, as he worked shoring up an enclosure which housed three adult tigers and seemed to be made of residential fencing. As we spoke, a juvenile lion in the next enclosure, ran in circles clamoring for attention. Since Bob and I had just volunteered to help in his efforts, he asked me if I would come on a weekly basis and help socialize the lion. It would involve being in the cage, talking to the lion, petting him and generally helping him accept humans as friends.

I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to begin! A lion – and a male lion, at that, mane and all! Although this little fellow still had his camouflage spots he would grow into the mighty King of the Beasts and I would be his companion!

And, I wasn’t afraid: Not one whit – not one - until I questioned why I wasn’t afraid of one of the most powerful carnivores in the world. Okay, and get this, then I was afraid that I wasn’t afraid…

Huh?

I was afraid that my lack of fear would cause me to do careless things like turning my back on him or dropping my guard while playing and I would be mauled by him. I envisioned having slash marks and trying to untangle myself from his mighty claws. I refused the opportunity. I refused an opportunity to be in the energy of one of the most beautiful and noble animals in the world. I truly wimped out.

A couple of years later, I was back at the compound, when I had my Kinkajou encounter, the pictures of which I've added above. I went to see my lion. His mane was not completely full, but had grown in and he sat on the second floor of his enclosure looking sad (anthropomorphizing, I know) and very alone. Lions live in prides with many other lions, whereas tigers are solitary animals. It seemed ironic that the tigers had roommates, but Leo was doomed to solitary.

As I looked at him, the wind ruffled his mane and he stared at me as I stared back. Until my dying day, I will regret that fear kept me from nurturing that magnificent creature.

I said all of that to say this: Sometimes there really IS only one chance to run barefoot in the field or to have a singing career or to love on a lion.

The fear that prevents us from following our hearts is our ego running rampant. Our egos long to keep us caged and controlled. Sometimes the fear isn’t even tangible; fear of what? Sometimes it’s only of looking foolish. Sometimes, it’s fear of being another’s lunch. But, most of the time it’s just fear, free-floating, paralyzing, “I’m not going to do that,” fear.

I strive daily to manage my fear – not to conquer it. I believe the more we deny our fear the more it possesses us. The more I deny that fear courses through my body, the more fearful I become, then I become agitated, then I become downright hateful – because the person I hate at that time is me - me, being controlled by my fear.

I now accept my fear almost as a mother embraces a crying child. I question it: “What’s the worst that can happen to me?” or “How will accepting this opportunity enhance or detract from my life’s journey?” I am gentle with myself as I accept my foibles and shortcomings. I no longer believe I have to appear perfect for people to love me.

My spiritual teachers tell me that there are no accidents and that life unfolds as it will. I say I believe it, but then again, I wonder how different life would be today if I’d run through that field, believed in my talent as much as a stranger believed in me or taken a once in a lifetime opportunity to socialize a lion.

Groundhog's Day and Other Celebrations

Today is February second, Groundhog’s Day, the supposed predictor of the next six weeks’ weather. It’s also Sandra Wilson’s birthday.

When I was growing-up, Sandra Wilson lived around the corner. Each day for school, she wore a brown headband with blue stars and moons and she had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. She also wrote with a green-striped fountain pen that flowed peacock-colored ink. She was two years my senior. I thought she was a goddess.

Sandra moved away when I was nine. I haven’t seen or heard from her since her mother’s car pulled away from the curb. But, every February second she pops into my mind, and I think, "Today is Sandra Wilson’s birthday. I wonder where she is."

The older I get, the more important it becomes to ponder the influence people have had in my life and to reach back to embrace them. As the guardian angel Clarence proclaims to George Bailey in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, “All of our lives touch each other’s lives and when you’re not there, it leaves a terrible hole.” Lives intertwine and destiny changes; no encounter is exempt.

In 1953, my parents bought a house. Daddy had experienced a terrible fall at his place of employment and following the surgery, his settlement money gave him the down payment to make the purchase. It was the first house he or my mother had ever owned. There was a two room apartment in the front of the house which would help make the $50 monthly mortgage payment they owed to Mr. Snodgrass, the former owner, who'd financed it himself. Mr. and Mrs. Mock resided in the front apartment. They were our tenants.

Mr. Mock drove a taxi and Mrs. Mock wore a floral apron and raised robins. When I was barely old enough to walk, she and I would go to a nearby stream and dig worms for her birds. When we returned with our wiggling victims, I’d sit in the sunny bay window and watch as she fed the hungry yellow bobbing mouths, each competing for its share of the nourishment. She helped potty train me and would allow me to crawl into bed with them in the mornings, and listen while Mr. Mock read the funny papers aloud. They moved away when I was three. I never saw them again.

At this stage of my life, as my own daughter is raised and living in a near-by city, I have more time to think. And, for whatever reason, Mr. and Mrs. Mock have come roaring back into my mind. I wish I knew how to get in touch with their children to hear stories about the lives of these two who helped raise me and that I loved.

I always fantasized that I’d run into Steve, my first serious boyfriend - meaning he kissed me instead of just holding my hand - somewhere, maybe at the supermarket by the celery or frozen food, or perhaps at a restaurant as I’d swoop by looking chic, slender and amazingly desirable. He resembled Brad Pitt, with similar luscious, generous lips and drove a red sports car in which he picked me up every morning for class and drove me home each afternoon. We dated until he went away to Vietnam. He served in the infantry.

He came back to our hometown, remote, and addicted to drugs. In my very prim and proper manner, I would not be involved with anyone addicted to drugs, so I went out with others, even as he sat in my living room watching television with my sister. He had a short courtship with another woman and married her. I moved to another city.

He died a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen him since I was eighteen.

At his visitation, as my sister looked at the photographs displayed of his life, she picked one up of him and me, taken in 1967, at the Missouri State Fair. His wife walked over and said that she’d discovered the picture in his wallet and didn’t know who the woman was with Steve. I am saddened that for forty-years I yearned to see him by the celery and he carried me in his wallet – two old friends who never made peace with our life’s divergence.

People come into our lives to teach us lessons.

I used to think that people were interchangeable and if I became disenchanted with the behaviors of my friends, I could merely look for someone else with whom to spend my time. My life lesson is that individuals are not replaceable. Individuals’ spirits casts their own glow about us that another’s will not. We are forever changed by our encounters – all of our encounters – not just the dramatic ones, but all of them.

I didn’t learn this lesson in time to tell Steve that I was sorry for my hubris, or to hug Mr. and Mrs. Mock again or to tell them that I loved them, but I’m going to Google Sandra Wilson and call her every February second, tell her I thought she was a goddess, and wish her a happy birthday.

Life-long Dream Fulfilled!

I received some fantastic news this week. Actually, it’s news that fulfills a lifelong dream. My work is being published in a quarterly magazine: Life Images, a publication of Stampington Press.

I submitted the above photo of the Red-eyed Leaf Frog I took in Costa Rica. I also submitted an essay about the picture and what role it played in beginning my greeting card business. I am excited beyond measure.

I first submitted a proposal to a magazine in 2001 and this is the first time I’ve ever been accepted – eight years later. I recommend determination, continual reading and study to always improve one’s abilities, and then also, to actually submit! Since eight years have passed between now and my first submission, one may think I’ve spent these years walking from my mailbox, disgruntled with yet another rejection. However, this is only the second time I’ve ever submitted. I hit a long, dry spell – huh?

I guess it could have happened sooner, but it didn’t! So I’m thrilled today instead of sometime long past – and that’s all right! Work within your own pace, not evaluating your worth with what you accomplish or don’t.

Someone once asked me to tell them about myself. I started with what I did for a living only to be interrupted by the inquirer. He said, “I didn’t ask what you do, I asked who you were.” I was momentarily stumped.

I’ve thought of this encounter often when I begin to feel frantic to accomplish something – anything – as long as I’m doing, I’m all right. I’m okay about myself and the space I inhabit if I’m contributing – I just have to keep going, going, going, going - until I don’t or can’t.

I also have queried my body if some of my illnesses, especially the cancer of 2007 have resulted because of my inability to process change and turmoil, peacefully. We’ve all read the reports of stress and its effects on the immune system. My body did not communicate its secrets, but my mind said, “Of course, you Dolt! You think YOU are exempt from stress-related illness? Think again and get a grip on yourself!”

I’ve finally realized I’m probably not going to discover a cure for cancer (you notice, I still said probably, old habits die hard) or write a great American novel, but everyday when I get up, I set my intention for the day. Lately, it’s just been a stated desire to let me be the best I can be on this day of my rising and to experience joy in the doing.

It’s a new peaceful way to live.

Ironically, it seems now that I’ve taken the pressure off myself, I’m accomplishing more that I did when I was a frantic pursuer of tasks. I show up, am willing, listen to my body and heart for direction and respond accordingly.

Look for my first published piece in April’s edition of Life Images. It can be found in the magazine section of Barnes and Noble Bookstore. (I do autographs! HA!)

Pleasant dreaming!

Let's Start at the Beginning...

A friend once told me, “It doesn’t matter where you are in life. What matters is how far you’ve had to come to get to where you are.”

I’ve navigated roadblocks, avalanches and heartaches, as well as mitigated scorn and judgment to arrive today. As far as the plains of Kansas are from the mountains of Kathmandu, is metaphorically, how far I’ve had to come. I’ve allowed emotions to derail me and withered when the winds of cynicism blew, but, I survived it all and today breathe this sigh of gratitude, and to share these words and color with you.

I am an artist, writer, photographer, singer and inventor, and we artisitic types don't always find the understanding we seek. Growing-up, my mother’s favorite term for me was, “odd.” Thus the long journey seeking my heart's delight began under the scrutiny of my elders. The roadblocks of which I spoke, were mostly self-imposed. When making decisions, I consulted my intellect and ignored my heart’s pleadings.

The family into which I was born was blessed with singers and artists, but none of them believed in themselves or in their abilities. Consequently, my course of rebuff was generationally set. I was told to be serious and to learn skills, not to play with paints or to sing songs or to waste time writing poems. I was six when I wrote my first poem about a bug named Mary, and then composed a melody I devised from the twenty-two working keys on the piano that sat on our back porch and a lifelong passion was born.

Later, when I really began to sing in earnest, was given solos at school and began voice lessons, my dad would interrupt my practicing by asking if there was a sick cow in the room - then he'd smile and acknowledge that it was just me - singing. He intended no malice and was trying to be clever, but it’s taken years to get over the embarrassment that results from being judged and found lacking. Wanting to create, to perform and to bring light and then – the shame of “showing off” by sharing, either my creations or songs dimmed the ardor and enthusiasm.

We are such complex creatures.

My purpose in starting,” Words and Color with Tawnee,” is to urge each person to embrace the joy that comes from turning off your internal critic and engaging your playful, willing self to experience more exuberance - to LIVE LARGE! There is a saying that the artist Mary Englebreit illustrated, that reads: “Life’s too mysterious, don’t take it serious.”

Byron Katie in her book, Loving What Is, writes succinctly about worry and taking in judgment: "Whether worry occurs about these things or not, they are today, as they are. You may sit with a frown on your face all day and wring your hands, but you have not changed the facts of the situation, you’ve only robbed yourself of joy and vitality. You cannot resist, “what is,” and be happy."

If you paint, or take photographs, or write, or participate in any of a gazillion other outlets of creativity and you experience joy - rejoice! The situation that causes you concern, will be as it is; your vacating your post of worry affects it not a whit. However, you’re regenerated and enriched – and so are those with whom you share your works. You have no need to feel guilty by finding beauty and by experiencing joy, even if others can't or won't

Anais Nin tells us that, “As we spend our days, so we spend our lives.”

 I resigned my position as a vice president with one of the largest financial institutions in the world to be just where I am in this journey, so – gulp – I guess I’m committed. I have lots to share about where I’ve been and where I hope to go, but for now, I’m going to just share a poem with you I wrote about how I arrived here.

Rebirth
Tawnee Isbell

I'd swoop high in the swings at my grade school
and watch clouds as they swirled into shapes
I’d see stars and dragons and lions
And melons and cougars and apes

I'd draw and paint and laugh out loud
And crow how much fun it all was
My mother said, “Quit all that foolishness.”
I asked why, she said, “Just because.”

She said that someone like me should learn typing
That people like us won’t find dreams
That pain and darkness and heartbreak result
Not acclaim or blinding klieg beams

She implied that I wasn't special
She said there were millions like me
That to believe any different was foolish,
“Be normal,” was my family’s decree

I felt confusion and shae amd heartbreak
While I searched for my place on the Earth
I put down my brush and took up my pad
And filed memos in a small, naked berth

For years I conformed to a standard
For years I tried to fit in
While my spirits drooped and my arches fell
My pen poised in a room full of men

Why do I care if they think I'm crazy?
Why should their opinions matter to me?
It’s my passion that’s choking and smothers
It’s my spirit that begs to be free!

"Come hither to us," purr the mountains
“Come hither to us!” yell the trees
The inspiration, my clouds, swirl waiting
for my soul to paint what it sees!

The high-heels I gave to the Goodwill
Also, the suits, to constrain someone else
The politics, conference calls and meetings
I left with my keys on the shelf

My new paints are vibrant and gooey
They are naughty and fly off the page
While I paint the melons and lions and cougars and apes
I envisioned each day from my cage

Hope resisted that toxic life sentence
While Joy hibernated within
The message, well-meant, was erroneous
To say dreams can’t be, is a sin

Sometimes there is only one person
to say what the World needs to hear
Or to find that new species, or to discover a cure
How missed dreams change the World, isn’t clear.

Out task is to encourage and be willing 
To take risks and be part of the plan
To paint, and to dance and to write and to sing
To be present and be all that we can


If you mustered the courage to do one thing differently and to be more intentionally creative, what would it be?