Thursday 13: Another Mish Mash

This was a pretty good week. Here I am again in Provincetown, having arrived last night with dinner on the table. One of my best friends, her husband, and two great sons are here with JB and me for the rest of the week. We will all play at art much of the time.

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1. What you are looking at is magical. This is a work in progress done by a nine year girl who doesn't feel very good about herself and whose greatest wish is to spend more time with her mother. She and I made two clay characters together during the school year (Bob and Lacy) and decided we would spend the summer writing a story about them. That has led us to adding some more clay "props", coloring background scenes, and planning our story, which I will photograph and somehow figure out how to put the pictures and words onto paper and into a finished book.

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But here's the most important part" MOM is sitting at the kitchen table with us having as much fun as my client and me. We're creating, using our hands, and here and there sharing some feelings and fun. This is "therapy" and I couldn't be more pleased so far.

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2. And speaking of MOMS, here is mine. She has been in serious-to-severe back pain for three weeks, barely out of bed. This Monday we carefully took her for an epidural. The doctor's office was freezing and there were no blankets to be had. So the nurse found an extra sized johnnie and we wrapped it around my mom. By the way, if you haven't read about my mother before, her name is Rose and she is 93, with the most charming and caring and funny personality anyone could have. She has zero memory, ZERO, but in the present moment, she is there 100%. Things weren't always easy between us, so to have and love her so much now is another piece of magic.

3. Magic # 3: this book of mine. I've just finished a book signing this morning: 30 minutes and one small sale. But it's all totally good. This week I sold 6 books and whatever happens next is safely in my hands. The more I promote, the more I'll sell. Getting this book written and published has helped me grow as a person and a writer more than I can express. And to all of you who have supported me and/or bought the book, thank you so much.

4. Some people are special. They just are. And Renee is special. This week has been awful for her and her family: her mother is hospitalized, and her beloved sister Jacquie and Jacquie's son are both undergoing sudden and emergency surgery today: both involve cancer, and this is all so unfair I could easily rip a room apart when I think of Renee's pain. Please pray for Renee. I mean really truly pray: take a moment or many moments and send her all the love and healing that is available from a benevolent God. Please.

5 & 6. Thanks to Aimee from Artsyville, I have joined a journal group and that has pushed me to draw more and rely less on words in my beloved moleskine. I don't know HOW to draw, but I am going to learn.
7. Want to visit me in Provincetown? Just walk up the brick walkway and hang a right at the patio.

8. When I lived here, I avoided Commercial Street in tourist season. But now I'm happy to stroll along and seek out my favorite images. This building is called The Little Store. I buy my newspaper here every morning, and here too I long to buy cigarettes, which I don't and won't.

9. After my book signing, JB and I had breakfast overlooking the scene and sidewalk below. I'm leaning out the window thinking, 'man, I've had an awful year. I've been sad and stuck for most of it. I'll probably have a certain hole in my heart for the rest of my life. But I don't want to be sad anymore. I want to appreciate everything I have and every wonderful person around me. '

10. This is for Mim. This is perhaps the store you and DH stood in front of during that electrical storm in Ptown. They make their own taffy in the window and tourists buy their fudge by the pounds. I hope you have another memory like this in Ptown, Mim. I actually like the idea of Lolo and me, and maybe Debra Kay and Suki and Soulbrush being part of it. And can you even imagine Emily finding a way to get Marianne here too?..........

10. Just before the candy store, just to the right of the Town Hall, the town face painter left this note on her table. Help yourself to paper and paint until I get back, it said. That is Provincetown, and it's what I love best about being here.

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11 & 12. Our friend Gordon is a wonderful painter. He started this painting this week when he and his family arrived at our place. He, like me, says he creates here so effortlessly it's as though some unknown force pushes his brushes. That's how I feel when I am writing here: effortless.

13. No thirteen. Does that mean I'm supposed to tell don't show instead of show don't tell?

Well, okay, here's my final mish mash today. Tomorrow Gordon and JB and I are paying $ 10 each to draw a nude model at the local art museum. I have never ever done anything like this before, but I am going to bring my micron pen and colored pencils and see what happens.

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Somehow art is coloring my life. Artists and Writers surround me like never before. And want to know why? It's this blog. It's a life that includes blogging. It's YOU.

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xoxo