Category: Reflections

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All Possibilities

I heard a story about a woman who traveled to Japan. She did not speak Japanese. As she entered the airport panic set in. Every directional sign was in Japanese. No English anywhere. Her heart beat wildly, Her son was supposed to meet her at the baggage claim but she had no idea where to go.

Fortunately, she remembered something her son had told her, something he learned in the Army. When you are afraid your vision will narrow. You will actually loose your wide angle vision for a time. He told her that the solution was to take  deep breath close your eyes and then open them again.

She did this. Deep Breath , Look again. Much to her surprise she saw that under all the Japanese writing was  an English translation.

It was there all the time.

Everything is there all the time. All you need is there all the time. You just need eyes that see.

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Moving

We had to  move over the last few days so blogging is sparse. But there is one thing about moving that is wonderful. Your head gets cleared to see new things. It is sort of like going a trip.

But the house we moved to was calling out to have a new look so I had to spend a few days changing things around .

When you move furniture  around or paint a wall or two , it feels like a new place. You moved , time passed , your perspective changed,  so its time for a face lift to match. That is one blessing of moving.

The other is you look at all your possessions again. Those kept in drawers stashed away, hidden for even years, get pulled out and examined and either let go or packed away for the move.

This blessing is harder to take. First of all , the number of things that we pack away is pretty astounding. Then having to pick them all up and look at them reminds me of why I really put them there for in the first place. I did not know what to do with them. Too good to toss, but you aren’t going to actually use them again. Maybe never use them again. So it is the limbo drawers. Things that have no place.

For a thing to have a place it has to be used. Use it or lose it is definitely another  way to look at that phrase.

To keep an item , it has to do one of three things. 1.Necessary for survival, things that are nourishing to your mind or soul, And beauty. Beautiful things are necessary for health and to remind you that you are a human being , The last one is beneficial to the first two.

Its the last one that saves most of my possessions from getting tossed.

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The Day my Dad died

Most of my brothers and sisters and my Mom were together. We were hanging around the house in a state of shock is all I can describe it as. We did not know how long was left. He was quiet in the front room, laying on the hospital bed. Thank God we brought him home . He was in his house, not a hospital room. The sun was out so we decided to clean up the yard. We all went out to get every weed out of the lawn and clean up the flower beds. Dad loved the garden so it seemed like what he would want us to do. After an hour or so it was looking perfect. So back into the house to wait . Everyone was in the kitchen talking and being together. For some reason I felt like I should go check on Dad and tell him we got the yard all cleaned up. I held his hand and noticed that he was breathing very quietly. He was supposed to do the dying breath breathing when it was close to the end and he was not doing that .He was just breathing softly. Then he stopped. I called to Mom and said he stopped breathing and she called back”oh he does that sometimes” But he did not breath again.

His face was absolutely beautiful. He always was handsome but after going through all he did , even at age 90, He was flawless. Not a wrinkle on his face. He had lost so much weight that he was perfect. . We all were marveling how beautiful he looked . My brother shaved him and we put a suit and tie on him and took his picture.

Looking at the father that we all loved more than we knew. He  was with his family at the end.   I think there could be no better end than what he had.  Painful as it was to lose him, I am infinitely grateful to God for that day going as it did.

It felt like we carried him out on our shoulders and handed him over to God.

I think about Dad all the time, I wish I could tell him how the garden is doing, What the roses are looking like. I want to tell him how my son bought a home with a third of an acre with fruit trees and wisteria. He would love that.

I know I will see him again one day and then I will tell him everything again. We will plant new trees and watch them grow.

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The white paintings

I had this dream about doing a whole show of white paintings. Do you ever do something because you have a dream? I never have, but why not? Maybe the dream paintings ( I would totally call them that) are the most interesting ones you have ever done. The difficult process of making something pretty interesting in all while shades would be  a challenge.

Ok what I did right there is just free form dreaming doodling just let it go kind of thinking. Who cares where ideas come from. Maybe you have a hairsbreath of an idea but it sparks you. Go for it.

Most of the time you start somewhere definite and go toward the light, but it is really fun to start anywhere  and go for what might be a glimmer of a light then a shadow, then a flood light.

 

so with that in mind. 10 white paintings might look all the same till you went close and then you see the nuances. Sort of like a whisper.

things seem more important when you have to move close to see their beauty.

 

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The Wrench

To get to different  level  of  accomplishment  , you have to do something you aren’t expecting. You need a wrench . The unexpected forces you to have to overcome your usual way of thinking and planning . It forces you to do something new and  maybe  better. You can make your own problems too. Your own obstacles to overcome.

I like to look at tiny houses. I like the see what people can do when given the tiny space they are forced to use to create a functional living home. It has to be livable. It has to be very small. Where you walk and dress and cook has to make sense. “The Cube” was an English design that used the ten feet up space to put levels of living.

Problems that come up, can help you look until you find new paths that may lead to a better product.

I invented my technique for painting just that way. I had done this painting in ink and it was just becoming a black mess, I had invested 10 dollars into this heavy duty piece of paper so did not want to just throw it out.  I put the whole thing into the sink and scrubbed it off with a scrubby sponge. What remained on the paper was so beautiful that I framed it and won first prize in an art show later that month.

I told that story before but there is more. I have since learned to remove layers of paint with paint remover which is even more aggressive .  I tried a scrapper too and even  burning it . But that is just the same idea rehashed. Once its a proven thing you lose the wrench.

I think I will try lemons next time. They are more subtle than a wrench.

 

 

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