Here Is My Heaven

Here in California to paint in plein aire is such a way of life among artists that it almost becomes mundane and ordinary.  Each artist’s statement sounds the same.  We are all motivated by the earth’s beauty and our love of connection.  But here’s the rub.  This ordinary is as extraordinary as the birth of a new baby or the explosion of a distant star.  I paint as part of a community.  We chase the light and live for the feel of rocks under our feet and a mist of salt covering our bodies.  We live for the slick feel of paint as it caresses a rough canvas.

Me in my heaven

I paint as a meditation.  Setting up the altar of my easel in preparation for my ritual, I gently wrap myself in my paint spattered apron. My mantra is the windchime sound of my paintbrushes as they jumble between my fingers and the hollow clink of metal as I open my turpenoid can.  With a tap and a swish I enter the present moment. 

A series of moments are captured with each movement of my brush.  I connect with everything.  Within the intimacy of a relationship with a rock or the ocean I enter into the rhythm of the earth.  I sense the breathing of the earth in the ocean’s heaving tides.  My breath and movements mirror the crashing waves. 

I blend my colors as I begin my dance with the paint.  When the palette disappears into the world around it my eye knows it’s time to begin.

I close my eyes and listen....I lick my lips and taste the salt.  The scent of ozone fills my nostrils.  When I leave this place pieces of it leave with me.  What you see here are the remains of the day...

Each of these pieces carries bits of the heaving deck of the boat or the crunch of my aging knees as I carry my gear up and down mountains to enter my heaven.  

Most of my time is spent away from these places but the moments I live there last forever.  

That’s why I do this.

Fall Football Flashback

During grade school and high school I lived in one of the outlying neighborhoods of St. Paul, MN.   The oldest of four in a good Irish family of rough and tumble kids, I was an avowed tomboy.  I loved running, jumping and goofing off with friends.  It was in the days when we could safely play anywhere as long as we were home before dark.

Every year the neighborhood kids would take over the streets playing touch football.  I learned to pass with fingers on the laces keeping my eye on my target as I dodged all of the guys rushing to knock the ball out of my hands. We were actually chasing each other attempting to get our hands on each other's pockets.  For the uninitiated it's called two-handed touch football. That may explain why we played the co-ed version.  We also spent many Sundays watching the Vikings almost dominate pro football.  

We moved to Alabama in 1976 where my brothers both played high school ball in Dothan, AL.  They were a year apart and shared the same position.  I think they were halfbacks; one would sub for the other.  It could get a little competitive around the house in August. We also went through a lot of cereal. My sister was in flag corps in Birmingham. Just west of there in Tuscaloosa, Bear Bryant was considered a god.  (See University of Alabama football in the 70's.)  When Bear passed away I was at the University of South Alabama where many of the big football fans on campus actually wore black armbands the day he died.

The trigger that brought these memories flooding back today came at my yoga studio.  In laughter yoga we played "Guerrilla Football."  It's basically a non-competitive version of indoor football where we ran around randomly tossing a stuffed monkey back and forth.  When I started to look for strategic openings where I could either run or pass I realized I had automatically switched into offensive mode!  Talk about a conditioned reflex.  This was a yoga studio.  Pretty funny.

When I got to high school one of my dreams was to be a cheerleader.
After much practice and coaching from my best friend Barb Seery, I managed
to get the jumping, clapping, and shouting thing down.

That class was topped off in power yoga with the hanumanasana pose.  For anyone unfamiliar with Sanskrit, the photo here shows me in the pose at about 15.  We called it the splits and I could come from a running jump into that pose.  HELLO hamstrings:)  I don't do that any more.

Neither of my children played football but Andy was in the band and our family spent lots of time cheering on the home team.  The little SoCal town I live in now has a classic cross-town rivalry and I'm happy to say that eight years as a Rio Mesa Spartan mom gave me a California alma mater that I still love to this day.  I cried the first time I drove by the local stadium where Camarillo and Rio Mesa played the first game of my post-high school years as a mom.  Funny how life and memories can hit.

The window to my apartment faces a large playing field not unlike the one behind my old Minnesota house and I can hear a group of guys playing Saturday ball.  The sound of running feet and occasional cheers adds another layer of memories.  I love it.