I’m used to being one of those annoying full-of-juice, c’mon-let’s-go people who get everyone else motivated and moving and having way too much fun as we make waves in the world with our artful creations. So now it surprises the shit out of me when sometimes I feel like I’ve been rolled over by a […]
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Tag: courage
I MISS MY DOG
Back in the 90s, I lived in two of the bays of an old abandoned fire house, where the town fire trucks had been kept. There was a big parking lot out front. At the beginnings of our daily walks out into the desert, my dog IO (pron. Ee-oh) would come out into the lot […]
DON’T GO CRAZY – JUST DRAW!
There are some days when things in life seem so shitty that I can’t get my mind bent around a single thing – except drawing. Drawing is my life-saver. Today was one of those days. I’ve been completely occupied with the travesty happening in North Carolina - I got totally sucked in. I try to not do […]
GARDEN FEAST
My ma had the most awesome organic garden. She had every veggie known to man and some we had no clue what they were. Despite it being the source of so much deliciousness, we kids hated that garden, because we had to go out and weed it every weekend. It was only when I finally […]
NASTURTIUMS: MY SAVIORS
The Park Fire here in northern California tried to snake its fiery fingers right into my world, coming within three miles of my house. It freaked the living daylights out of me, relentlessly debilitating me for a whole month. The fire is still raging, many miles to the north, over 450,000 scares burnt, lives cut […]
“I Can’t!”
Here’s a little inspiration for you if you are worried, anxious, scared, or having a desperately hard time. Or maybe it’s for someone you know. I’ve heard you say, “I failed.” I’ve heard you say, “I’m so tired.” And “I’m so afraid.” I know it’s hard when you’re exhausted and it feels like you have […]
Be A Fierce Bear about Your Art
You have to know the value of what you create. To me, whether it’s my visual art or my writing, it is the Divine Voice speaking with my voice and hands. Its value is incalculable. Never let anyone dissuade you from regarding your art as valuable. When my kids were little, they’d join me in […]
Reading Time
My buddies love it when I read to them! We gather together and sit on my bed with piles of snacks, and they help me choose which books to read. We love the Mysterious Island, and all of Nathan Lowell’s sci-fi stories. I have to be careful of Kitty, though — she likes to lean […]
The Squall of All Squalls
I used to love to fish. Down at the dock, I’d dangle my feet off the end, feeling the outright peace being saturated with sun and calm and things-are-just-right brings. Sometimes I’d row a skiff out, and float around in the shadows under the piers, throwing in my line to see what I could catch. […]
Feed the Lot (A Dream that I wish was rea...
In a dream, I’m the manager of a catering company. We get an order to cater The Cattleman’s Association Annual Stockman Gathering. 800 people. I’m thinking, wow, 800 people! That’s a lot of people — I didn’t even know there was a group called that, much less that there were so many of them! So […]
You Know I Love Cats . . .
A long, long time ago, I had a black cat named Oedipuss. . He used to strut into the room where we were sitting, come stand by our feet, look around, and then oh-so-casually reach up and swat the dangling foot of the one with crossed legs. He’d then shrug like he’d done his dirty […]
How Peace Bringer Brought Spring Back
Isn’t it just like life! You have to brave going through the shit in order to finally get to the gold – which has so much more value, the more trouble it was to get it. TRIGGERS: If you are sensitive to mentions of violence or harm, you may not be brave enough to read […]
I Had A Tantrum Yesterday, and It Wasn’t
Finding out I had zero choice set me on fire. I can usually put up with automated customer service, whether on the phone, or online chat. But this time? Oh my. We bought a new mattress/box-spring set from a company we found online. It was delivered, unpacked and set up; the delivery guys left; I […]
What’s Your Destiny? Mine Is Scary.
I’m assuming that I’m going to live to be 100. So I’ve been thinking about what I want to see happen in my life in my last 22 years. On the one hand, most of me just wants to disappear to a small hideout on the beach somewhere. I want to putter in a thriving […]
Why Should I Bother Making Art in Times o...
I got a call from an artist friend who was all upset about the way the world seems to be inside out and utterly falling apart. She said, “When I look at how the world has gotten, I think why bother making art anymore? People say they are either too worried about rent to buy […]
Excruciating Pain and Horror to Unending,...
The emergency room intake attendant side-eyed me in disbelief from under frowning grizzled brows. Holding my pulse with one hand, with the other he was hurriedly filling in my chart with cryptic slashes and numbers. He looked back down at it on his lap, and glanced at me again. Not really seeing me. “How is […]
My Dad Thought It Was Sooo Funny When He ...
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, looking back up at me, actual tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” My dad used to burst into my bedroom, at dawn:30, throwing the door back with a thunderous bang. He’d roughly yank all the covers completely off me and my bed, tossing it all aside, and cheerily spout, […]
Happy, Happy Birthday to Meeeeeee!
Yesterday was my birthday! I never thought of myself as a writer . . . I woke up to grey skies and freezing cold air — I’d forgotten to close my window to only an inch like I usually do. It was wide open, and all the cold night air was hurricaning around in my […]
That Damn Cat!
How my mother was attacked by an enormous rasty-looking tabby cat…. (You can watch/listen to this story in a video at the bottom of this page!) My family used to live in a wonderful old 1880s farmhouse. Upstairs, my folks’ bedroom had a dutch door that opened onto a wide, sunny deck. My mother liked […]
Signals that There’s Something Going on U
Speaking with my business coach about a plan we were creating for my own coaching, I started to get really sleepy. If I didn’t lie down right now, I’d simply collapse on the floor in a puddle… (Watch/listen to me reading this story to you here!) I had been blazing wide awake the moment before, […]
God Rays Under the Water
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part IV Each day, just as evening began to shade the sky, an enormous, rippling line across the horizon in front of us appeared, darkly ominous, growing bigger and bigger. The first time I saw it I about wet my pants! In no time at all, it was […]
Sailing with Giants
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part III As we began to plod our way through the Doldrums, I started having a recurring dream when I settled down in my bunk to sleep after my night watch was over. My habit was to lie in my bunk fully dressed, because I didn’t trust James. […]
I Was Tossed Around Like A Rag Doll; My A...
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part II One moment, sunny sweet skies — the next, the Mother Hulk of a demon storm with hideous, grotesque grey-green and black clouds pelting us square on with sheets of ice-cold rain. We were hard-put to keep our footing, being tossed around by gigantic heaving swells. I […]
Almost Raped 400 Miles from Land; How One...
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part I I struggled to sit up, holding my head on with both hands. I couldn’t seem to stand, so I slid off the bunk, and inch by inch slowly creeped on my hands and knees over to the box…. It was a hot mid-August, 1984, just a […]
I Was A Disaster As A Mother
My now-grown kids have told me they loved it that I was an artist and showed them by example about being creative. However, my personal opinion is that I might have felt more successful as a nurturing, loving mama if I had not been so completely focused on my artwork all the time. But I […]
Dreams of Devastation Morph into … Pickle
I keep having dreams where I’m standing in a dried up, deserted field. In the distance, I see the crumbling husks of hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the blackened, burnt skeletons of the once-magnificent trees that used to shade them. The cracked mud on the bottom of the creek is rock-hard, bereft of even […]
How the Voice of Dreaming Saved My Life
Isn’t it funny how, even though a period of time was one of the most painful ones of your life, later on you can look at it as one of the most fortunate? It’s January, 1999. After returning from visiting a friend back east, I’ve been homeless for months because I can’t afford to rent […]
My Mind Starts Eating Before I Do
I’ll be sitting here writing, or doing some other task, and in the back of my head I’m busy preparing the juicy makings of a delicious tomato salad, or a nice spicy wrap around some cheese and micro-greens, or some yummy curried lentil soup… Or making art of some kind…. If I don’t get up […]
Unity-ness. Loch Ness. Lock-ness. Open-ne...
From a Dream, Narrated by The Voice of Dreaming: Word play. Philosophy in Silli-ness. The Doctrine of Jest. Farcicality of Foolery… Starting here and ending where? Unity
Last Does Not Mean Loser
(Published in Small Craft Advisor Magazine) We were in the last part of the first pack. The finish line seemed impossibly far away. It was right then that I made the most colossal mistake. I had been so proud! I’d been invited to be one of two kids to represent our local sailing club as […]