Upon buying my tickets to go carve marble in Italy, I also bought a language system called Sybervision so I could study Italian. It was the easiest language system I’ve ever used. By the time I landed in Rome, I could ask where’s the city center, what street is my hotel on, where to eat, […]
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Tag: courage
STONE CARVER, Part I
I’m a self-taught stone carver. I had been a studio potter for 15 years when, in late 1981, my car was struck right behind my driver seat by a guy running a red light through an intersection as I attempted to cross. My car did a 180 into a parked car, which slammed into my […]
GIVE IT UP!
Since my parents took me sailing almost before I could walk, being able to sail is like being able to breathe. It’s more than second nature — maybe more like a second set of senses. I can tell right away if someone is a sailor — there’s just something about them — the way they […]
MAKE ART, NOT WORRY!
I was stunned when the first lockdown was announced. Like most, my first thought was, “I can’t go OUT?” But then I realized – I hardly go out anyway! I’m an old fart, so I don’t walk well, and I’m deaf as a post with failing hearing aids, so interactions are difficult to start with. […]
THE ANCIENTS
When T and I moved into the little one-BR house on Maui near the beach, no one thought to mention it had been built over an ancient Hawaiian burial ground. It had been covered up in the late 1800s to make room for a white-man’s housing development, rows of little plantation houses for the cane-field […]
UNDER THE ORDERLY NIGHT SKIES
We finally got to Huntington Beach, and stayed with T’s mom for a couple weeks. After our snowy misery back east, the good weather seemed just this side of paradise. T got to bliss out surfing every day, while I filled drawing pads and played in the sand. But soon it was obvious we were […]
THE CORNER THAT ALMOST KILLED US
The rest of our visit with my folks was blah-normal. At last it was time to go back to California. After about a nano-second of deliberation, T and I decided that finding a hire-car to deliver to the west coast for someone was a much preferable idea over hitching back. We had had enough of […]
A HARD-WON PEACE
Our drive from Des Moines to Long Island was flawless. I was almost shocked at how easy and fun it was, after our two almost-fatal encounters with truckers. Our ride, Harley, was a delightful man who, instead of leaving us off in Des Moines as we had planned, invited us to stick with him all […]
BILLY’S 18-WHEELER
We left the thrift store wearing every single thing we’d bought. They may have been new-old clothes, but it was beyond description how heavenly it was to be warm again. Now we were seriously hungry. Good fortune was ours — there was a diner close by, so we trudged over, lugging our heavy back packs […]
DONNER PASS
T and I came back to California in the middle of January. Being used to the weather in Hawaii, I forgot all about how wet and cold San Francisco was, and was wearing short-shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops. By the time I got off the plane and over to the baggage claim area, I felt as […]
SNOW BIRTH
“Nurse! Hand me the scalpel, please, it’s 9:00 and my dinner is waiting!” Nurse hands scalpel to doctor, and my first live birth, my first son, Aaron, comes screaming out into the ice-cold delivery room air. “Nothing wrong with the lungs on that one!” the doc declares, as he rises from his chair, gloved hands […]
ALL CONNECTED to AI
Recently, we have suddenly been inundated with the ‘introduction’ of new avenues of access to various types of AI, Artificial Intelligence, software. I say ‘introduction’ because ironically, we have actually been using it for years, without it being called “AI” outright. Do you use spellcheck? Alexa or Siri? Siri’s voice recognition and is powered by […]
MA’S GARDEN
I didn’t want to write this. I’ve been back and forth, afraid to post it. But I have this feeling I Have To. Know what I mean? Not for me, but for Someone Out There. I hope it somehow brings you peace, whoever you are. So to preface the story: It’s been a hair less […]
IT’LL BE FUN, HE SAID…
Seven hours, crammed in with T’s squiggling, wiggling 2 and 4 year old boys in a narrow, silver tube, flying across the 3000 miles stretch of treacherous open ocean with nowhere to go to escape. I thought I’d go mad. Finally, Honolulu Airport. I was so ready to dash out the door and board the […]
ALIENS OVER MY NEIGHBORHOOD
1966. I was living in a flop house with ten other hippies in Santa Cruz, California, with my brand new boyfriend, T, who would eventually father my children. I woke up when the morning paper slammed to the porch. I went outside, picked it up, and read: ALIENS TO GET GREEN CARDS The article went […]
SEND LOVE, NO MATTER WHAT
This was a hard lesson for me. I grew up in a family that loved to sit around after dinner and make fun of, criticize and totally shred politicians, celebrities and other people in the news. It became second nature to be arrogant. You can imagine how many friends I lost, one by one. I […]
EYE LIGHTS
I have this weird thing that happens if I’m looking straight ahead, and there is a shiny thing on either side of me – the shiny thing makes light rays that go out and catch me – kind of like strings that pull my attention. Hard to put into a drawing – this is as […]
CAVE CANEM
When my parents built their beautiful self-designed house, they embedded a 4-tile Italian design of a growling dog, in lovely ceramic colors, into the wall next to the stairway. It wasn’t just a regular stairway – oh no, can’t have that! It was a curved stair, open, with huge, thick wood steps made out of […]
SAM: Likes Shiny Things
The second time I was raped was a far cry from the first. Looking back, I count what happened to me that day as a stroke of incredible good fortune for myself, and out-of- the-blue evidence of amazing community solidarity in its intolerance for violence and cruelty, and its endeavor to maintain peace. I was […]
SCREEN PARALYSIS: JESSE: Caught
I’ve been writing up a storm lately, and last night as I got up to take a little break, I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I left – I looked kinda like this! I realized I’d be practically glued to the screen for days! So today I’m focusing on remembering fun, funny, […]
MARTHA, SUNFACED
Well, so I started a new series. This is the Odd Critters Series. Although it will probably include humans, too. I can’t help it. I just keep seeing all these new beings, and have to draw them. The underdrawing is all in blue against the black. Then I go over it with white, and include […]
SPLASHY PAINTER
I have a friend who is more prolific than I am! Can you believe it? He paints so much I think he has paint for blood! So of course I hadda paint him, right? He’s splashing and painting away, and there is his doggie, howling to go for a walk… Can you see the pens […]
CHOPPY DAY
When I was a kid, I spent my summers sailing and swimming. On weekends, we’d race our boats in little weekend regattas. Either I’d crew for one of my family, or one of them would crew for me. One weekend when I was 13, my older brother Tom was supposed to crew for me. We […]
DAWN WAVE
Sometimes, before the sun is up all the way, the wind skittles across the glassy-smooth surface of the ocean, and it looks like a pinky-blue streaked mirror. The swells come rolling in, incessant, constant, hypnotic. Every so often, the current and the swells clash just right, and a surprised wave pops its head up to […]
WING and WING
I grew up on a small harbor right off Long Island Sound. We used to go down to the little beach near our house and watch the 12-meter racing boats cruise into the harbor on their practice days. So exciting – they were so huge! One of them could have eaten my tiny 13′ boat […]
JOURNEY
I think I have mentioned that, for 35 years, I carried in the back of my mind, continual, persistent, destructive thoughts of offing myself. Wondering, how can I do it – pills? A gun? A knife? Drive over a cliff? But somehow my eternal self, the One that is the True me, kept me going. […]
HE WAS ABOUT TO…
I was cruising on Facebook, when I saw that my friend, Bruce, who lives in South Africa, had posted 3 or 4 posts saying stuff like, “…Bruce Maxwell Cross …This is my journey thru an incredible life as I lay down my Cross and look forward to Heaven…….” And another post saying, “…Anxiety Depression and […]
I WILL KEEP YOU SAFE ALWAYS
When my kids were little, they were friends with a pair of brothers whose mother was insanely over-protective. She used to drive me nuts. I can still hear her shrill shriek, “Don’t climb that wall, you’ll fall off! If you go up that tree, I’m not going to take you to the hospital when you […]
WASABI
It was 1966. I was 21. I was new to California culture, having been brought up back East. I had come west to stay with an aunt and uncle in San Francisco, after I divorced my first husband. I eventually landed in Santa Cruz. Those were the hippy days – lots of pot and acid, […]
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY…
How many times have we heard, “Laughter is the best medicine”? Lots! Right? Well, a neighbor who is constantly bugging me about this little thing or other started in on me today. I had been standing on my little door stoop, enjoying the sun, and wasn’t about to let him wreck my day. I thought […]