Taking Time Out to Celebrate

Just a bit of color

Where have I been? I took a break from writing, working, and even sleeping at times, to help a dear friend with her small, intimate, and lovely wedding recently.

A beautiful entry to a wedding

I had great fun being creative and experimenting with all kinds of ideas, and dear Heather was a dream bride and basically approved just about everything I suggested. Ok, some ideas were out there, but creativity can be a strange bedfellow. Or is that politics? I can never remember.

I did suggest making a huge frame and using it as a photo booth of sorts (blame Pinterest, the mother of all time-sucks on the planet and a new passion of mine). She turned that idea down quickly, but then she said the one word that turned it all around — TARDIS. That led to asking the husband to create a 6′ TARDIS frame to be used at the wedding for a photo booth. Yeah, he did it, and he did an amazing job. The wedding party loved it and everyone had fun taking photos in there.

The Daughter contemplating a trip with The Doctor, fez and all.

What I didn’t plan for was the fact that everything had to be transported to Tucson in my car for the ceremony. While I piled and stacked things on my dining-room table all month, and the pile spilled over onto the sofa, the stash for the back of the Tahoe began to grow. The back seats were removed, then the next row of seats were flattened. The TARDIS (in two pieces) was placed in first, then all the candles, ribbons, bows, glasses, drink dispensers, serving bowls, etc. On top of that, Daughter and I baked 300 gluten-free cookies a few days before the wedding, and ordered 12 dozen bags of gluten-free pita bread that the bride requested from a local bakery. Yeah, I went there and picked it up the night before the wedding. What else was there to do? Two teenagers and I squeezed into the car and took a 2-hour drive while listening to show tunes (OK, that was their idea and these kids are awesome but that’s another post.)

Just a few of the refreshing goodies that made the day special.

But the end result was worth all the effort. And on top of that, I did manage to squeeze in some work and a bit of writing on my own WIP in the midst of all the planning, which was quite satisfying.

Now that it’s over, it’s back to editing and writing, which is what I do best and what makes me happy. I’m so touched and glad that I took part in this wonderful celebration, and my days as a wedding planner are over. You can find me back in my chair, listening to Pavarotti and typing away. Right where I belong.

Dying to look like Laurie Partridge

Ever since I can remember, reading was a wonderful escape for me. Not fitting in with my peers was a given, but I always seem to fit in when I was reading a book. I never worried that the characters in the book would care that I didn’t have the latest Jordache jeans or didn’t have the money to travel to a resort in Upstate New York for the summer like everyone else. One book in particular, The Velvet Room, took me to a place that I have never forgotten.

In the book, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Robin and her family are migrant workers and land in California. While trying to hide from her siblings, Robin finds a tunnel leading to an empty mansion on the hill. But one room is not empty. It is filled with ceiling-high bookshelves and tall windows with red velvet drapes and window seats. Robin finds herself returning day after day to the room, reading and exploring. She begins to wonder why just one room in this large empty house is furnished. I was engrossed in this book for many reasons, but mainly I wanted to find a room like that. I wanted to get away from my family and our dysfunctional drama into a room with tall windows and red-velvet curtains drawn tight against the sun. I wanted to wander and read all the leather-bound books on the shelves without fear of interruption or ridicule. It didn’t matter what you wore in the Velvet Room. Even Robin, in her worn clothes from the fields, didn’t have to worry in there. She could escape the hard life she lived at the bottom of the hill by curling up on the window seat with the curtains drawn and her feet up under her while she read a book.

I carried that book around with me everywhere when I was 11, to my mother’s dismay. I read passages about the room when I was alone, or wanted to be, which was most of the time. At one point my mother wanted me to come out of my shell and allowed me to put a sweater on layaway at K-Mart, a sweater that look so much like the kind everyone else was wearing I was giddy with excitement. It had a brown and yellow zig-zag pattern with a smart-looking tie at the waist. If I could talk her into a pair of wide bell-bottoms, I imagined I would look just like Laurie Partridge, although with my frizzy blonde hair and c-cups at age 11 there wasn’t much chance of that happening too soon. But I dreamed, and went to the store and put another $2 on the sweater each week. I patiently waited for cooler weather and the chance to wow everyone with how hip and groovy I looked in my sweater.

Needless to say, when I finally got the sweater I didn’t look anything like the incredibly thin, poker-straight-haired Laurie. I looked more like her little brother Danny (as in Bonaduce). I was wrong, that sweater didn’t change anything. I retreated back to my book after wearing the sweater for a full week, every day, with no ooohs and aaaahs from anyone.

Virginia Wolfe said every woman should have a room of her own. That might not always be possible, but a corner? How hard can that be? For the moment, I’ve got a large chair in my studio that faces my tiny bookcase and I’m content with that. I’ve got a room, and before that I had a corner. I’m going out to buy red velvet material to make curtains for the tiny windows in my studio this week because after all these years, I think I deserve them. Don’t you? Oh, and I found a copy of The Velvet Room on E-bay a few years ago, and I see it’s on Kindle now. It’s still a good book, and I still look a little like Danny Bonaduce. Some things never change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why creatives need each other, or, another lesson from Papa Hemingway

Perhaps I need to open a Restaurant and Social Club for Writers and Artists

Being a writer/artist can be a lonely life. Many of us end up sitting for long hours in quiet rooms writing/painting/creating. (I am tucked away in my tiny studio neatly hidden in my backyard as I write this). Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint, it is certainly something we choose to do. I write better when I am alone and I lose track of time. For some writers, the coffee shop becomes a refuge from the solitude. I know people who write all day in a coffee shop, blocking out the chatter and kicking out chapter after chapter. Then others work at home and end up hanging out in public with fellow writers when they have the chance.

I return to A Moveable Feast often, and I find that I do that when I’m feeling isolated or I start to get into a self-defeating mindset. Even Earnest Hemingway understood the importance of surrounding himself with creative people, including T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, etc. He liked to be alone and write, but he kept acquaintances and friendships with many creatives. I realize that this glamorous era in Paris when all of these creatives were drinking and socializing and sharing their work makes more sense every day. Yes, they had arguments and it wasn’t all rosy, but the bottom line was that they all encouraged each other. (OK, maybe Fitzgerald and Hemingway stopped encouraging and started bickering, but that’s later. Follow me here for a moment.)

Surrounding yourself with creative people fuels your creative juices. It has to. Being around that kind of energy and enthusiasm and angst can’t do anything else. We are all in the same boat, trying to create and share our work. We all understand the depression and elation that comes with being creative. Why do you think that writer meet-ups are so popular, or that writing groups meet all over the country in bookstores and cafes?

Who do you surround yourself with? Do you have a circle of people who knit with you, scrapbook, etc? If you’re a writer/artist, do you have a core group that “gets you?”

I realize that although I have a few friends who are writers, I don’t frequently hang out with other writers or artists. I had the chance to meet a lovely, encouraging writer recently and what a great feeling it was. Just hearing that someone else had doubts about her success or talent, or that someone else felt the need to create and didn’t know why. It’s a grand and fabulous feeling to talk about your work and be validated, and that’s what all those lucky people in Paris were doing. And that’s what all those lucky people in writing retreats do, and writing meet-ups in cafes. And yes, I know that the cyber world enables us to have relationships with other creatives from the comfort of the back studio, but there is nothing like being face to face with another writer and nodding your head as they express feelings you’ve had so many times.

So, my goal is now to add to my creative circle of people to share my journey. I know it can only be beneficial to me and to everyone else who has a chance to grow from it. Thanks to Shannon for adding me to your circle!

 

Saturdays

Peace, quiet, create, music, A/C, overcast, flowers, words, commas, he said, she said, coffee, tea, chocolate, stretching, thinking, dreaming, imagining.

Graffiti with a message

It was on the bright, Pepto-Bismol pink wall, on my right as I sat at the red light. I thought about my writing, my life, my morning, and then the world spoke to me. Simply, quietly, succinctly. I love that this could mean so much to so many people, and it meant so much to me. Thank you, nameless graffiti artist.