What If Depression Catches You??

 Whether it's situational, seasonal, or random, everybody finds themselves under the weight of depression sometimes. 

You can wallow in it. Or you can act to rise above it. 

Depression is a manifestation of brain a

nd body chemistry. Brain and body chemistry changes with time, eating, drinking, moving the body physically, with mental, emotional, and physical stimulation, which can be initiated with changes in surroundings. 

Nudge change in the positive direction with mental or physical stimulation by just DOING SOMETHING.

It won't fix everything but it can get you in your way.  Get up, do something.  Here are some things that have been helpful to others.

I. Take a shower. 

As long or short as you want. Hot or cold. Maybe with some smelly soap or shampoo. Scrub or don't. Just get up and do it 

II. Put on clean clothes. 

Comfortable things. Fun things or warm things or pretty things or funny things. Just get dressed.

III. Clean or organize something.

It can be a big thing like a closet or a little thing like a drawer. A shelf. Your backpack.  Clean the shower. A bookshelf. A nightstand. Sweep a floor. Dust the ceiling fans. Clean off a tabletop. Your car floor. A corner of the garage. Under a sofa. Any little thing. 

IV. Nurture something.

Do you have plants? Water them. Dust the pots. Pick off dead leaves. Stir up the top of the soil a bit. Talk to them. Name them.  If you have it, give them some fertilizer. Look up what the are and where they grow in nature. 

Do you have pets? Cuddle them. Clean up their food area. Give them treats. Plump up their bed. Find their toys and play with them. Talk to them or sing to them. Tell them a story or read to them. 

Do you have kids off in their own worlds? See if they need help with homework or want to organize a closet or do a craft or play a game or anything on this list.

V. Listen to music.

If it makes you sadder, switch until you find something upbeat. Dance. Get up a let your whole body dance. Or at least move body parts from your chair. Find lyrics and follow along. Find videos of live versions. Find videos of interviews with the artists about the songs. 

Vi. Make food. 

Search the kitchen and pantry for ingredients. Find recipes that use them. Open cans and heat things. Make boxed mixes or rice or soup or pancakes or oatmeal or popcorn. Sit down and eat with no distraction and notice the flavors and textures. Clean up and enjoy watching each item get clean. 

Vii. Make something.

Write a list or write a haiku. Write longer poems. Write a story. Write a memory that was happy. Sketch something. Make squares of office paper and fold origami things. What art supplies are available? Markers, paints? Clay?  Watch craft videos. 

Viii. Go outside. 

Dress for the weather. Stand still and inventory all your senses. Walk in some direction (take your phone.). Look closely at things, plants, building details, how signs are out together, different kinds of doors. Touch things. Listen. Greet people. 

Ix. Go for a drive.

Just head in some direction. Make sure you have your phone so you can navigate back. You'll see interesting or pretty things. But if you don't, pick a thing to look for. Big trees, dogs,  yard ornaments, different kinds of street lamps, flowers.  

x. Go to a library. 

Look up a topic that's always interested you. Or just browse the stacks and read titles. Ask a librarian what's popular or for their  recommendations. Look at bulletin boards and displays they've put together. 

Xi. Be a tourist.

Go to a nearby attraction like a museum of art or history or some topical museum, a zoo, a botanic garden, a sculpture park, a nature center, a famous building, a state capital or county seat building. Look and absorb or actively look for information to learn. Greet other visitors. Think of a question to ask staff.

Xii. Call somebody and chat.

Think up a thing so you can say "this reminded me of you" so it won't feel funny to have called. You don't have to admit you're depressed or talk about you.  Ask questions about what they are working on and the people in their lives. Ask followup questions. Keep asking.

Xiii. Call a friend and say "Let's do something." 

You don't have to have a clue what that might be before you call because you'll plan together. It doesn't have to be right now but you can plan for the future. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It can be a walk around the block, going for coffee, going to the drugstore for odds and ends, just getting together right away or planning to later. If it doesn't work, at least you connected. And then you can do something on your own anyway.

The key is to move. To do. To make your own distractions. To move your thinking outside your head into the world. To think about now with intention and let that move your thinking into a future.

Get up and do anything. Be. 

 

Isaac the Eater and Wesley the Playful

It's a tale like many others, it but has lessons for us nonetheless:

There was a town whose people feared a dragon that lived in the woods on the north side of town.

There were frequent skirmishes with much sword swinging and rock flinging and harsh harsh words during which the dragon would disappear into the dense foliage of the many trees and the townspeople would trudge wearily home, angry and sad that the threat of the dragon persisted, disappointed that they had failed in their mission to be rid of the dragon.

One day after a halfhearted effort to lure the dragon out of the woods into the open meadow with taunts and threats, the people gave up and gathered at the town's picnic grounds to share a meal together and tell stories and make plans. 

The head cook brought out roasted meat sandwiches and young Isaac, age 2,  and his brother Wesley, age 7 and graduate of Kindergarten, each took a sandwich, as did all the adults. The head cook soon brought out another platter, and everyone except Wesley took a second. Younger Isaac however, was not finished and did take a second meat sandwich. Later, the cook brought yet another platter and again little Isaac took a sandwich and bit off a bite. Ooh he can't eat three the people said, as they each took another to prove they could keep up with the little lad. But he did, and more. Plate after plate, the cook brought sandwiches and the wee Isaac took one and the adults took one until all the adults were so full they could not move. Soon they drifted off to an overfull dreamy slumber, leaning this way and that upon each other.

Surprised to find himself unsupervised by adults, Isaac finished off his last sandwich, picked up his small stuffed toy dinosaur in one hand and took his brother's hand in the other, and they wandered off. North, as it would happen. When they got to the shady woods, they saw many ferns. They started to make up a little song about living under the arching fronds with toads and chipmunks. 

Soon the curious dragon heard their voices and came to see. The children saw the dragon peeking out from behind the trees and waved. Little Isaac just happened to wave with the hand that was holding the dinosaur toy and the dragon asked if the toy was a dragon like her. The children move closer to show the toy to the dragon and explain what they knew about dinosaurs, which was a great deal. Isaac told the dragon that the toy dinosaur was named Cow. The children and the dragon played some games and sang some songs and made up stories together.

Eventually some adults woke up and saw the boys were missing and roused the others and they set off to try to find them. After some misguided wandering south, and then east, someone got the idea to try to see if the Archie the hunting dog could give them a clue.  They let the dog sniff the children's naptime blankets and pretty soon Archie headed off north. The adults followed. When they near the edge of the woods, there they saw the children playing with the feared and hated dragon and they hollered at Wesley and Isaac to come here, come here.

The children obeyed of course but before they went to the adults, they each took a hand of their new friend the dragon and brought him toward the gaggle of adults. At first the townspeople were horrified, but then the boys and the dragon started to skip and sing a song they'd made up.  That's when everyone realized the error in their ways about the dragon and started asking the dragon questions and getting their pictures taken with the dragon. There were high fives and cheers and the dragon allowed herself to be petted and even gave a few of the smaller people short rides.

Isaac the Eater and Wesley the Playful are all grown up now but the people still enjoy a lovely relationship with the dragon. The dragon comes to tell them when the various woodland fruits and berries and nuts are ripe and the townspeople bring the dragon sweet treats now and then.  The people have picnics at the edge of the woods and invite the dragon to picnics in their town square and the dragon participates in their parades and celebrations. Sometimes they have an outdoor play or concert so that she can enjoy some entertainment with them.

-

There are some morals of the story there for you if you bother to look.

Grand Reopening 2021

 It's been a long time. Who knew when we closed our doors that evening after the 2019 Candlelight Shopping event that it would be nineteen months before we opened for business again? 

We're opening the doors at 11:00 a.m. on July 15, 2021. 

If you're fully vaccinated, welcome on in. If not, I ask that you wear a facemask over your nose and mouth.

I'll have all the new jewelry, from the antler tip pendant, many styles of silver earrings, the leafy creature pendants, the new earrings and pendants with bezel set fossil stones, and a full range of sizes of bezel set stones on finger rings. 

The science that brought us effective vaccinations is truly a wonderful thing. 

Rings Rings Rings

 Offering finger rings can be tricky. If you see a ring you just love, but it's not your size, you get angry at me and go away sad!  So we must have a pretty large inventory and full range of sizes to keep peace! 

Well, Covid certainly did suck, but isolation gave me production time!

I'm also offering a new service. I'll have cards for each guest to fill out and take home or leave in my file. We'll measure each of your fingers for your ring size and record it on your card.

I'll have separate little display boxes of each size so you can shop according to your measured sizes. 

Does that sound like fun?

Flower Memories

Many of my memories of people are cemented in as association with flowers. In the olden days, we got Mother's Day corsages for our grandmas to wear to church on Mothers Day. Grandma Getty loved softer things and we got her pink and Grandma Theresa loved brighter bolder things and we got her deep red. It was often a white carnation with accents of the color in baby roses with a matching ribbon or the carnation was the color with white baby roses. Grandpa Getty grew tiger lilies in the corner of their house and I remember standing under them and looking up at the flowers. There were those tiny white clover flowers in their lawn and we would pick them and take them in and Grandma would put them in a tiny bottle, maybe an old perfume or medicine bottle. Grandma Theresa had tall yellow flowers, Golden Glow, in the corner of the house where her rain barrel was and she would flick the water beetles off the surface and get us a dipper of cool water to drink. I don't think mother knew about that. My sister and I went rogue and abandoned the florist's book of photos to draw up our own designs for Mother's funeral flowers, shamefully abundant in yellow roses and lilies that we knew she loved. The cashier cried when she found out whose funeral it was because she would save out deliveries of flowers to Mother for last so she could go up and visit with her. We didn't know that about our mother until then. I made my sister's gardenia bouquets for her wedding and almost passed out from the fragrance in the cooler when I bent down to put some things into the big box. My friend's bridesmaid bouquets were pink roses and daisies and we all tucked Kleenex into our bouquets so they would be there when we cried during the service, but they touched the floral foam in the holders and absorbed the water and became sodden useless masses which we each discovered one at a time during the service and tried not to laugh as we caught each others' eyes.I weeded for a woman who had cancer and wasn't supposed to work outdoors due to lowered immunity from chemo and I took my toddler along to play in the grass while I worked.  She came and got him and played with him on her patio, probably totally negating the whole "stay away from germs" thing, then took me on a tour of her garden when I went to collect him and showed me her double flowering white trillium.  Dwight has the awesome crabapple that we gather under.  Enid was fond of my various magnolias and asked their names.  I dug celandine poppy and wild ginger with Katie for her yard.  Sherri and I rescued green dragons in a dramatic last dash to the development site after it was technically closed to our group.  I cleaned and spaced geraniums in the greenhouse for Ivan on my first after school job.  My high school friends went together and bought me a cyclamen plant and the "War is not healthy for children and other living things" pendant for my birthday.  My mother in law put peonies in these glass water filled globes and later gave one to me.  My friend from landscape design school decided I was a better designer than he was. so he hired me to design things for his clients and he always made me include a Rose of Sharon.  I think of him when I am surprised by their bloom in the fall.  Pat Armstrong protects her prairie smoke plants with wet newspaper when she lets us help burn her prairie garden.  My sons and I would go on the ritual skunk cabbage hunt right after our spring break trip to Arizona every year, to reassure ourselves that coming back from the warmth of the desert was not a mistake.  What flowers memories do you link to people you love?

If You Are Someones Boss, Don't Be A Prick

I remember it like it was the day before yesterday, though some aspects may be slightly augmented for effect, I will admit. I was in his office for some tiny project related slip, though the blame was probably shared by others who had refused to do their jobs such as requirements developers who left gaps or failed to communicate the details effectively. He asked why I had made such a giant horrible mistake and I began to explaining, "Well, I assumed that . . . " and before I could complete my thought, he was up out of his chair and at the white board. There, he dramatically and with great proud flourish, wrote in giant capital letters, ASSUME. He then said "Never assume, for when you assume, you make and ASS", where upon he enthusiastically drew a huge circle around the A and the two S's and continued, "out of YOU", whereupon he circled the capital U, "and ME", as, you guessed it, he put a circle about the M and the E. He confidently finished with a smug smile, then snapped the marker shut, dropped it onto the rail under the board, and dusted off his hands for final emphasis, a move I . . . assume . . . is a holdover from when he lorded over employees in the age of chalk boards instead of the dustless white boards of the day.

I felt crushed, demoralized, demeaned, dismissed, and instead of leaving after a conversation where I learned how to better interact with coworkers to get information I needed and he learned where the gaps in communication among his people were such that he could better manage then, I dropped to my knees to kiss his scuffed crappy brown cheap leather shoes, and crawled out into the hallway to slink back to my desk and try to figure it out on my own. Actually, I probably rounded up a couple sympathizers and took a two hour lunch, but that is neither here nor there.

Assume. We must assume. It is a critical asset to daily life. We assume we are supposed to return to work each day and complete the project as defined weeks earlier and that if the scope or direction changes, our manager will tell us. We assume that people in other areas are doing their jobs and that our manager is keeping up with that so that our piece will come together with other pieces at the right time and in the right way. We assume that certain processes and procedures have been followed by others. We assume that in the best interests of all, we have been given the correct and true information and will have access to certain resources to do our job. And that we assume makes the manager's job easier. Repeat:  That we assume a set of things makes our manager's job easier because he or she is relieved of constantly having to reiterate the obvious and reassure us of continuity.

Imagine if I were to stop by his office every day and ask if I still was to come in to work the next day and continue work on the project. Imagine if every bit of information I got, I came to him for verification. Imagine if I stopped by several times a day and asked if anything had changed about the project. Imagine if I spent great parts of my day checking and double checking and second guessing and reaffirming. What a nuisance I would become.

No, dammit, John, we assume a great many things a great many times a day, in work and in every aspect of the real world, and I hate you for your lapse of management that day.

You seemed clever and powerful, but you were a toad. I hope you have warts. Actually, I hope you have somehow learned your lesson and found ways to manage that are not so demeaning to those whom you entrusted to manage.

If YOU are a manager, do NOT use the cheap trick of mocking your employee for assuming or for using the word.  Instead, do the managerial work of helping ferret out where the errors in assumption were and fix what you can as a manager and teach your employee to communicate more effectively in the future.  

Service Without Gods

Where do ethics come from?  Where does responsibility to other people originate?  With religion? With your god? From a following of a religious teacher? In obedience to a set of rules?
Too many times we read the mission of a service organization that is full of reference to gospel and following Jesus or it being faith based.  But if you strip the Jesus and God and gospel and faith out of it, what is left?  Are you doing 'good' to curry favor with your god to ensure your salvation or your good standing?  If so, is it really service to others, or merely service to yourself? 
Why do you want to help, to be a 'do gooder'?  Is there something you are trying to 'pay back' bcause someone did good for you?  Is there something you are trying to 'make up for' because you did harm?  Does it just feel good?  Or is it just who you are?
And why do we have to explain?  "What motivates you?" Why do we have to have answers for that?  Shouldn't it just be how we are?  Shouldn't it just be 'regular' and not stand out as especially unique?
A mother feeds a child, a father takes a hand, a grandmother gives a hug, you sit down next to a person.  It's what we do.  Offering help is just that. 
If you think a person doing good wants some recognition, go ahead and ask them.  But if they seem reluctant to explain, let them be.  Don't ask for reasons or explanations.  Just say thanks, if you must, but even that might not be necessary if doing good and right are just who we are an what we do. 
Maybe instead of asking why or even thanking, we should just take the example and do something good ourselves. 

Seeds

I give these prairie tours every fall at a farm museum and I just never know what is going to stick.  Does anyone really learn anything or is is just cheap entertainment for a day? I do this thing where I strip the seeds off a stem of yellow coneflower and let the kids pass them around to smell their minty spicy aroma.  It's a crowd control gimmick because it makes them quiet down to carefully pass the handful of seeds from palm to palm and sniff and compare assessments of what the fragrance reminds them of.
But this fall, something a little different happened.  One boy stopped me as I was about to move on the the next topic and said, "Wait, you said they were seeds.  Does that mean I could grow flowers from them?" Cautious of the pronoun and any offer of forbidden samples I might be agreeing to, I said, "Yes, these are the seeds of a plant called yellow coneflower and if whoever still has them wants to drop them on the other side of the path, maybe they will grow there."  Catching my attempt to thwart his attempts to appropriate prairie, he says "Can we take some HOME and grow them?"  Okay, HOW can I resist. I explain that we have a rule against letting kids pick things because we are going to have hundreds of schoolkids thru the tours that Friday and hundreds of members of the public thru on Sunday and we'd have nothing to show if everyone took something, and then I say that whoever wants some can line up and I'll give them a few seeds, just this once, and they can't tell.  Every single student in the group got into line, palms upturned, to take a seed head and carefully put it in their pocket.  I told them to be sure to remember to not leave the seeds in their pockets for the laundry, and to plant them in a place that was sunny when they got home or any time before spring. The young man suggests that the teacher write that in her notebook so that they will remember about the sunny location part.
We moved on to the beebalm, where I showed them how the leaves are fragrant when crushed and how there is a tiny black seed at the bottom of each tiny tube in the cluster of tubes that make up each flower.  Again, a question from the same boy, "Could we grow these too?" Internally mentally rolling my eyes at what I have unleashed in my rule breaking escapade, I cautiously answer "Well, yes, I suppose you could."  They line up again, palms open.  "Wait," says the ringleader, "How will we keep the seeds separate in our pocket?"  I ask the teacher how much paper she has and she shows me a full notebook.  I ask if each kid can have a sheet and she agrees, and I ask for one myself, tear it in half, and show them how to fold it into a tiny envelope.  Soon, I have nine kids on their knees in the grassy path, folding tiny envelopes and fishing the seeds from their pockets to put in one.  I pick a beebalm head for each for their second envelope, and we move on to talk about the birds that are eating the seeds of the tall stalks of prairie dock. 
I love those kids and I really hope at least one of them remembered to plant their seeds.  I also secretly hope the seeds of that plant spread into a nearby fencerow bed and the seeds of those plants jump the fence into a neighbor's perennial garden and the neighbor on the far side admires it and is given seeds for their own garden.  Do YOU want some prairie seeds?  I have yellow conefower and dock this year.  And I can tell you where to buy others for next spring. 

Eagle Cams in Late March 2014

When I was a kid, in the era of bad chemicals, on a plain that used to be prairie, there were birds that were rare and others that were only seen in books and on television nature shows.  The bald eagle was one such bird.  We had a few hawks, not many, but  no eagles at all.  It was many years later that my dad would tell of them migrating through, eatting the dead fish after flood waters returned to the banks of the river, and still later, of a few that stayed around to fish and hunt across the county.  And most recently, a brother-in-law there in the former prairie land had a nest in a tall cottonwood tree maybe a mile from his farm home.  I guess they were common on the prairie, preferring to fish the lakes and rivers but also taking an occasional small mammal or even a bird from the air, and certainly, helping clean up some of the carrion left by natural death, the predation of others, and probably, that left by native people.  Yet, an impoverished childhood, bird of prey-wise, means I never fail to get excited and joyously happy by a sighting of an eagle or an eagle family out there over the Wisconsin hills.  And I dearly love to visit these live webcams of nesting eagles.  I put their links here as a way to find them when I need a little bit of eagle love.  And I share them with you!

Some cams are closer to the nest, some are farther away, some are better maintained, some have annoying ads, some have young already, some have eggs, some are still awaiting eggs, some have dead fish and other parts of dead prey animals, some have car traffic in the background, some sway noticeably in the wind and actually make me a little motion sick!  Enjoy!

Decorah, Iowa Eagle cam

Central Minnesota Eagle cam

Tennessee Eagle Cam

Davenport, Iowa Eagle cam

Florida Eagle cam

Twin Cities Eagle Cam

Maryland Eagle cam

Wisconsin Eagle cam

Duke Farms New Jersey Eagle Cam

Pennsylvania Eagle cam

Georgia Eagle cam

"To be human is to yearn . . . "

"To be human is to yearn . . . " The Crane Wife, Patrick Ness.
There are more theories out there than I can remember, of what made us human, what small change lead us down the evolutionary path toward being so very different from other animals. No, we are not entitely different, but in so many ways, we are different by degrees, huge degrees.  Animals seem to use tools, but only one or two at a time, not whole arsenals and kits and versions and variations like we do, from trivia like dental floss to massive machines that we set loose underground to dig a tunnel for us and process and eject the debris.  
Animals play but their play seems more like practicing for life, such as pretend stalking and pretend fighting, and seems not to have the imaginative pretending that includes building fantasy worlds to the extent that we humans play.  Animals seem to mourn but never so long as we and never to the extend of creating and visiting memorial sites.  Animals seem to not look much to the future, beyond storing food for an immediate next season.  They certainly do not seem to plan ahead to stock pile building materials for future use or build and store tools they won't need until later.  Animals communicate about territory and mating and immediate needs, but certainly don't seem to possess any story telling capacity.  A few animals seem to ornament their environment, but these are en extension of mating attraction or nest building, and never come close to the human making of art as story telling and expression of concepts.  The human brain is more complex and therefore permits and accomplishes far more complex behaviors than any other creature on our planet.
There was a theory long dismissed that we evolved to stand up in water, and once our hands were free, we could make tools.  But other primates have hands free and have not embraced the tool making to the point we have.  There was one about us evolving in grassland and standing to see above the grass.  There was one about how once we began to cook food, we could get more nutrition from it and did not need to eat and hunt and gather as much.  Other theories say that it was language, moving from simple grunts and gestures to more complex sounds that become increasingly complex symbols for objects and actions and emotions.  Did language and food cooking and tool use and standing upright cause us to become human, or were they merely products of some other change that made us human first then lead to us evolving those traits?  
Maybe it was as simple as wanting more.  Maybe instead of being content with enough food, enough shelter, we began to yearn.  To want to try different foods.  To want to see what was just beyond that hill, that forest, that plain.  To make a tool and make another, and then more after that, every improving.  To not be content with basic words but to want to add detail and intricacy.  To want the shelter to be stronger, higher, more portable, more lasting. To see just one day or one season or one cycle of the sun beyond and want that one to be better and more than this one. To see colors and shapes in nature and want to decorate our things with them to have the colors and shapes with us even out of the season of the flowers and the birds and the insects. To not be content with now, but to wonder about before and wonder about after.  To  not be content to let happen but to plan and cause to happen.  To not just be but to cause and make.  
What if it was as simple as just not being happy with what was and wanting more?
Is that what sets us apart? We feed the dog and he lies down for a nap, content.  We ponder how the meal could be a little better next time, what to have for dinner.  We give the dog a nice cushion and he scrunches it up a bit and turns and lies down, content to be comfortable.  We get a new home and paint and fix and tile and sit down to rest and ponder if maybe different window blinds are needed or maybe a bookshelf over there, never done, never happy to let things be.  The dog is content with the same walk every evening, while we tinker with it, one more block, east instead of north, a loop down past the park, what about over there?  We have myriad forms of transportation to take us farther and faster.  
We get a job and we complain it isn't challenging enough, it isn't interesting enough.  We get a car and we add new floor mats and special wiper blades.  We tinker and tweak and adjust and change and add and grow and accumulate

and still, we aren't happy.  We travel on vacation and are pondering while there what we should do next time, instead of being in the moment now, we are far out ahead making plans, setting goals, leaning forward, yearning.  We analyze the past and constantly ponder the future.  It is our curse to do these things to the exclusion of experiencing the details and nuances of the present moment, We yearn.  Is that what got us here?  And where will it take us?

Remembering Linda

It's been a while, but it still hurts.  I still need her sometimes.  I met her pretty late in life, when we were both well past 40.  I had plenty of wonderful friends and I really wasn't looking for any more.  But we had this thing.  We were both screwed up in sort of the same way.  It's an ADD thing, to be overwhelmed with ideas and not ever have enough time, to feel guilty for not getting enough done, all those unfinished projects, never really successful at anything big, feeling like we are supposed to be tho.  I didn't even know I was ADD when I met her, and maybe she hadn't labeled herself yet either.  I can't remember.  I just know we sort of clicked and vowed to have lunch more often, but that became one of the things we didn't get done and felt bad about.  Somehow, though, we decided to set aside an afternoon a week to do pottery and so we got together and did that.  Once.  I still have the stuff unfired on a shelf.  Seriously.  I do.  But she called with this fabulous idea.  There was this little place right on a main through street for rent.   We could start an art gallery.  The one our town had for many years had recently closed when the lovely folks that ran it retired and surely they would help us figure it out.  She had this co-op idea in mind, where we'd find other artists and each of us would work a day and pay a fifth of the expenses and bring in other artists and wouldn't it be cool?  By this time in our friendship, I knew that the only way to get her off a 'brilliant' idea was to go down the path a little with her and convince her of what was wrong with the idea, otherwise she wouldn't let go of it.  So I went with her to look.  It didn't seem THAT crazy.  I made some calls, sent some emails.  I found 3 other artists, all doing very different things.  One needed to work weekends, the other said she'd be in as long as she didn't have to work weekends.  So it fell into place and that lead to other things that fell into place and pretty soon, she was leaving to start new things, things that are still going on long after she really left us for good. And even when she was sick, we never really believed she could really leave us. But she did. I miss her.  I am proud of the things she did and who she was.  I am proud she called me a friend.  I'm still screwed up in a million ways, but I beat myself up less for them.  I don't get as angry about things and I don't give up as often.  Well, I do, but I get my own self back at them later.  I pause more and take in the little things and I forgive people more for not being perfect and I forgive myself more for wanting them to be.  I miss her.  I am better for having shared some part of this journey of life with her.

The Myth of The Screwed Up Artist and How It Hurts Us All

There is so much hype about artists and the artist personality.  Artists are allowed to be, maybe even expected to be, screw ups. There is an idea out there that somehow one needs to be a little screwed up in order to be creative.  But this is simply not true.  Artists are people who have chosen to produce a product for others, sometimes a useful product in the case of pottery or furniture or clothing, sometimes utterly use-less product, in the case of wall art or jewelry or sculpture or other purely decorative items.  We do what we do to enhance the aesthetics of our surroundings and sometimes, to provoke thinking about an issue or to teach something to our audience.  That requires sanity and thoughtfulness and organization skills and disciplined habits and a healthy lifestyle.

A successful artist is a person who is normal and conventional in most respects.  An artist lives in a home and responsibly pays the rent or mortgage about at the same rate as other people. An artist eats meals to stay healthy and sleeps to renew.  An artist doesn't drink excessively or take drugs because one cannot produce product while drunk or high, at least not quality product.  Those that flirt with the myth that drugs or alcohol enhance creativity soon find that it hampers rather than helps and they don't bother with such wasting of their time. 

Most artists, like most other people, pay their bills on time, keep their appointments, meet their deadlines, keep their promises, treat others kindly, do not lie, cheat or steal from others, say please and thank you, struggle with insecurities but keep on going, keep on the right side of the law, maintain good interpersonal relationships with family and friends, practice good personal grooming, eat healthy food, drive responsibly, follow the news and keep informed of current events, vote, maybe keep a dog or a cat, and don't call their mothers often enough. 

Successful artists are NOT screwed up and certainly do not need to be to make good art.  Artists find ideas and inspiration in beautiful nature and healthy relationships and current events and in the other arts such as literature or music.  There are ample sources of ideas and inspiration and artists do not need angst or personal tragedy to find them.  Artists are regular responsible sane kind people, just like most of the rest of the population. 

Some artists are immature and use the myth of the irresponsible screwed up artist to continue to be irresponsible and screwed up.  Just like some young people use the excuse of youth to do irresponsible immature things.  But it need not be so, they can mature up and live a normal regular responsible life.   Such irresponsibility does not enhance their art and probably is an obstacle to their success as an artist, like it would be in any job or career. 

Some artists struggle with mental illness, just like some truck drivers and some retail managers and some farmers and some dentists, but it hampers their success, just like in all other jobs or careers.  It does not help them be more creative, nor more productive.  It is an obstacle they must overcome to be an artist, just like it would be to keeping any job or maintaining any successful relationship.   It doesn’t make their art any better and sometimes just makes it creepy. 

Let's stop glorifying the screwed up artists of history.  In many of those cases, the magnitude of their problems is exaggerated, for they may have had periods of mental illness or instability but also periods of normalcy.  At any rate, the number of artists who have been making a living or part of a living as artists while leading regular normal lives is vastly greater than the number of the few who were mentally ill or unstable. The few artists that were screwed up were the exception, certainly not the rule. They represent a tiny part of the entire larger pool art healthy well balanced artists.  Another aspect to consider is that in their day, they did not have access to psychiatry. They had no choice but to suffer and struggle with their mental illness.  The same is NOT true today:  Medical help is available.  An artist or nurse or plumber today who has issues with depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia has access to meds and medical care that were not available then, and so has a responsibility to others in his or her life to utilize those benefits to minimize their personal trauma.  To fail to do so is irresponsible.  To use art to justify the neglect of a mental illness is just part of the mental illness and no more essential to being an artist than it is to being a landscaper or bricklayer.  Medical help is there for artists and everyone else and all have a responsibility to manage their mental illness. 

Artists are just people, no more messed up than the rest, and they certainly don't NEED any messed-up-ness to BE good artists.  And anyone who claims otherwise is looking for excuses for bad behavior, immaturity, or irresponsibility.  Artists are responsible, hard working, regular people who choose to make things of aesthetic quality, and they deserve respect for managing regular lives while making beautiful things, rather than the disrespect of a stereotype.

Strange Beliefs and The Necessary Propensity to Hold Them

Look at it out there, dusk-like at nearly noon, the trees bare dead looking sticks, even the evergreens a black shade of dark, the grass a sickly yellow brown, once pretty fallen leaves crushed and tattered, mud streaked everywhere, no sign of life to be seen, not even a fly found so annoying last summer, sky a putrid pale color of nondescript pale. Yet, we believe spring will come? Imagine being a child just becoming aware of the world and of cause and effect and asking whence your morning cereal came and being told it grew on a plant last summer? Grew? On something out there? We are expected on this day to believe that green growing things will rise up from the drab dank ground, that those barren branches will grow plates of life like the pages of junk mail we toss in the recycling only green and soft, that birds will fly thousand of miles to sing in the quiet dead air again, that animals and frogs will come up out of the ground, that there will be FLOWERS! Yes! We believe that on a day like this. We must! Yet that propensity, that willingness, that EAGERNESS to believe opens us to believe all sorts and kinds of other unlikely and improbable, even impossible, things like conspiracies and demons and guardian angels and spirits and gods and visiting aliens and force fields. No wonder we have difficulty discerning real from not real, true from utter bullshit, because if we did not possess that ability to believe in things unseen and only hoped for, we'd just succomb to the fear that this was all there is and throw in the towel on a day as gloomy and dark as this. Spring: I believe! The other stuff? Not so much.

What Does Pretty Mean?

Does your girl ask if she is pretty?  How do you answer?  You answer "Yes, of course you are," because she is.

She's pretty and talented and smart and funny and kind and caring and creative and curious and interesting and fun and courageous and loving and honest and strong and determined.  She is pretty and being pretty is just one facet of a complex person. Just one part of a whole person.  Of course she is pretty and it is no more important or less important than any of her other attributes.

She is pretty because she is unique and individual and different from every other person. She is pretty because of her individuality and uniqueness, not because she meets some set of standards.  She is pretty for her own unique individual combination of special traits.

She is pretty because she has features in common with her ancestors and her other family members, becasue her version of prettiness tells a story about past people and present people.  She is pretty because she is unique because of those people, not because she is part of some average or meets some percentage or expectation.  She is pretty because of who she came from, because of her connections to those people past and present. 

She is pretty because she smiles and makes people smile by sharing her joy and taking theirs in.  She is pretty because she expresses her joy and her happiness with laughter and grins that cover her whole face.  She is pretty because she is also not afraid to express sadness or worry or doubt or compassion with her whole face and body.  She is pretty because she makes eye contact when she listens and raises her eyebrows when she is curious.  She is pretty when she is sweaty because it proves she works and when she is dirty cuz it proves she gardens or builds or runs or climbs or plays.  She is pretty for who she is and what she does and how she expresses that every single day.

Her scars make her prettier because they are reminders of stories of courage or taking a risk or proof of surviving adversity. Her imperfections are part of what makes her even more unique and interesting.  Her story is part of what makes her pretty.

She is pretty now and always has been and always will be, no matter how her body or face changes over time. 

She is pretty because she is who she is. 

We Don't Need Wilderness (I'm Not Saying What You Think I'm Saying But)

We glorify the idea of the wilderness experience, long to experience it, honor and envy those who seek it when we lack the drive or the means or the ability to do it ourselves.  But the value of the wilderness is overrated as the only or even the best way to experience nature.  There are so few things that are fabulous about a wilderness experience that we cannot get close to home or right at home.  Holding the wildnerness in such high esteem and assigning it mythical status as the only best way to experience nature is to deprive ourselves of frequent meaningful enjoyable encounters with nature on an extremeely frequent basis.  It can be an excuse to deny ourselves nature.  But it need not be.

Make a list of the things that you think you will or that you have experienced in the wilderness.

For me, it is the early morning mists, the process of the sunrise, the birds taking over the predawn from the silence of deep night, the changes in light patterns as the sun moves up into the sky, the changes in colors as the sun angle changes, the insects that move about, the sound of leaves and grasses moving, the heat rising up and drying off the dew and mist, the various bird species that come into activity, the insects that begin moving about as the air warms, the way the sun catches flowers and leaves at different angles, preparing and eating a meal outdoors, the pleasure of stretching out on a rock in the sun for an early afternoon nap, relaxing with closed eyes to listen, to feel the air on my skin, the rousing back to awareness of breeze and bird sound and leave rustle and insect buzz, the pleasure or working my body to hike or paddle, the warmth of the light as the sun angles low in the afternoon, the way that low light lights up the leaves of trees, the changes in bird and insect life as the days cools, the colors of the sunset in the sky, the cooling of the air, the way the wind rises and falls throughout a day, being there as a storm cloud moves in, as first small raindrops fall, as heavier rain builds, being out in thunder and lightning, the softening of the rain as it lets up, the building to a loud roar as the rain gets heavier, the tapering off as the clouds move on, wind rising then falling and rising again, these patterns within wind and rain and being out there to observe and feel them. 

Now, what on that list can I not partake of in my nearby park or forest preserve or botanical garden or even in my own back yard? 

It is not so much that we need to GO TO the wilderness to experience nature as that we need to be present in nature wherever we are, to make ourselves present for these changes and patterns, to observe these details.  We can get up and go sit on the back deck before it is dark and experience the changes in light and air and the waking of the birds and insects.  We can stay outside as a storm approaches.  We can take out meals outside to the lawn or over to the park and sit there and eat them.  We can go outdoors at the end of the day and stay there long enough for the changes to happen.  We can sit quietly or with a book or magazine and be present for the changes.  We can stay up past dark and sit out there to enjoy the ending of the day rather than turn on the lights and rush into the house.  We can go to a place and close our eyes and listen and feel.  And we can stay out there long enough to let changes happen, to be present for the patterns, to experience the moving and shifting of the natural world right in or own back yards and neighborhoods.  We can stay outside of we are caught in a rainstorm or actually GO outside to experience one and stay there as the patterns of the rain and wind and clouds change. 

We can experience this local nature with all our senses.  We can make oursleves do this on purpose at first until it becomes normal for us, by closing our eyes and paying purposeful attention to what we can hear or to what we can feel on our skin or to what we can smell, giving each sense its own deliberate turn. 

We DO need wilderness.  We need wide open spaces for nature to practice her cycles and routines and extremes and for the whole continuum of plants and animals and microorganisms to fully flourish and prosper so that we have that resource to replenish other parts of the world as we diminish them, we need to occasionally experience the one thing about the wilderness that IS unique and that is the getting away part, the distancing, the bigness.  So wilderness has inherent value and does need to be preserved and protected. 

But to say that wilderness is the only or best way to experience nature is to cheat yourself.  Get out there.  Early, late, for extended periods, during adverse weather, in all varieties of habitats, stay, linger, listen, feel, and do it every day nearby, and you can enrich your life far more than that one rare trip to the wilderness ever will.  We need the wilderness, but not for the reasons we think we do.  To have amazing experiences with nature, we do not need to go that far or wait for that special occasion:  We can have those experiences every single day in whatever part of the nature world we are present.