5 star book review

Attention all artists, writers and friends who love creativity, joyous word-smithing and a good rollercoaster of a read. I just finished Sam Weis' new novel "Abstraction." Some of her sharply defined idiosyncratic characters will make you laugh out loud ; others will make you lust to share studio space. Remember to breathe. Such a delightful, crazy/original premise. The book also made me want to visit the Pacific Northwest, very much a character in the book. That's it. I'm not going to say anymore. Oh, except that Sam is one of the finest abstract painters I know and a renown 12 string guitar performer as well as a captivating writer. And she lives here!!! Lucky us.

Life and Death on a Grey Day in Key Largo.

So it's been a few (ok, a lot) of years since I've posted here. Yuli the wonder cat no longer fits as comfortably in the sink for naps (and yawning)as he used to. We're marching past middle age together.

My mother is 95 now. When I saw her Tuesday, looking good and all dressed up, sitting near the nurses' station in her speedster wheel chair, she asked me if she did the right thing by having breakfast. Of course you did, mom. Well, she saiid, I wasn't sure if you were supposed to have breakfast on the day of the funeral. Whose funeral, mom? Mine, she said. No mom, today is not your funeral. You are alive and well. Oh dear, she said. I invited Shelley. I wanted him to come. Maybe he won't won't pick up his messages.

I look outside my giant window at the waving Gumbo Limbo branches and say hey, it's overcast in the tropics -- yay, only 78 degrees (whoever thought I would think of just under 80 degrees as cool  weather :-). Dangling, dancing branch tips are evidence of a light breeze. Perfect day for a walk down Jenny Lane, through the woods to the ocean. Or a bike ride. The Overseas Highway here in Key Largo is to be avoided on any weekend, but especially on this one, jammed as  it is with cars headed to Key West for Fantasy Fest. The biggest attraction is the parade, costumes showing more body paint than clothing. And then there are the naked bicyclists with no clothing at all -- just pink and purple striped penises and star-bedecked breasts. Jugglers and stilt walkers ramble where there used to be creative floats.

In Mexico next week people will flock to cemeteries to weed and decorate their parents' graves. At night, they will bring food and beer and babies and blankets, have picnics, sing loud mournful songs and know that when they are gone their kids and friends will throw them a party too, shed a tear and pass the salsa. Dia de los Muertos, a no fear holiday, my favorite (Tu Bishvat, the Birthday of the Trees comes a close second). One year I flew to Mexico City, hopped a bus to Patzcuaro, caught a ride with a friend to Tzintzuntzan, an indigenous cemetery whose name in Nahuatl means butterfly. "Butterfly." Perfect. Graves were decorated with so many yellow flowers and tall candles they looked like giant wedding cakes.

Tomorrow I will be carpooling, caravanning to Mt. Nebo in Kendall for the funeral of a friend. Sudden, shocking departures rock me. Five girlfriends this year, three of them close, two I shared travels with, to Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Bhutan. Rest in peace dear Gretel Porter, Gail Gutradt, Barbara Cegalis, and Patty Lawler. Tomorrow we will say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead that makes no mention of death, for Patti Silver. It's raining now. No walk until it stops.

Teaching Art

From noon to 3:30 today, I got to play Art Teacher. Four different grades, four different lesson plans, piles of materials on tables, chairs full of excited minds and squirmy bodies. Kindergarteners made  3-D pictures (even tanks--oh how boys will be boys) out of biodegradable packing peanuts! First graders made puppets out of socks stuffed with paper, and second graders squashed tin foil into sculptures that somehow became alligators, puppies, soccer players and airplanes.  I think I learned more than they did.

My Mother, An Unveiling, and Gratitude

My mother, Bea, is on her way to 92 years old. Her  sisters are older, 18 months apart, and all of them are bright loving women living on their own, husbands dead for at least 15 to 30 years, minds active, legs and eyes and ears not so functional anymore, but oh their productive arthritis ridden hands -- flying knitting needles are their natural extensions.

So why am I thinking of Mom today? Perhaps because I too am a digital compulsive. (Yesterday I painted --  a lotus flower, inspired by a photo taken on an outing with lovely granddaughter Aisley at one of our favorite Mr. Desert Island haunts, the Asticou Azalea gardens). On days that I paint or draw or cook or write, especially in the company of a friend (cheers to Lizzie my studio companion) I am happy.

Or maybe it's because I am going to an unveiling today, that particular Jewish custom of marking the "end" of a year of mourning, as if one could ever stop mourning the sudden totally unexpected inexplicable death of a beautiful young woman, doing good in the world, helping rescue exploited African girls, involved in redeeming American politics, intensely loved by family, friends, employers, and community. At her memorial service last year, after remembrances so moving I felt the loss in my  gut as if I'd lost my best friend, the curly headed blond cantor, who looks remarkably like the picture of this woman these thousand people assembled in a synagogue were missing, sang Dylan's song, "Forever Young." It shattered us. In a good way. It is ok to be able to break open, maybe even necessary. We are different from the stone that will be unveiled today.

So here's to you, Mom, still here and smiling through your pain, productive every day, and to the family of the girl who's been gone a year. This brilliant, warm, generous rabbi, Talia's father, said it all last  year: "How do we cope? With gratitude to have had this shining being in our lives for as long as we had her."

I'm grateful too, for mom, the rabbi and his wife, their daughter, the people in my life whom I love, and my hands.

Abstract Painting and Collage

What a week of learning. Collage mixed with abstract painting, text, stencils, stamp blocks, acrylics and glazes has opened a whole new world to me, reminiscent of Goddesses in the Garden Party days when we collaged matchbooks. I can't wait to try making photo transfers. Amazing how layers of paint, words, and photos create layers of meaning.   

Unexpected Discovery!

Hmmm. three and one half years later,  I find this nearly naked blog site. The trauma of the fall and crippled finger must have shocked me into localized amnesia.  The space for my first entry, like a well-intended garden plot whose owner moved away, is ready but forgotten. Dang! I was sure I could grow lush tomatoes here.  At least there are no weeds.

First Flush and Aftermath

April 10, 2009: Is it relevant that immediately after setting up this blog, happily tripping the light fantastic down a brick walkway on my way to a workout, immoderately cheerful about breakfast with good friends, the whole week's Passover activities, the matzoh ball filled seders up the gazoo, the once in a lifetime ceremony for the sun (or at least once every twenty eight years), not just relevant but maybe even significant and metaphorical that the high was followed by a low. It was more of an adrenal shock than anything, the toe stub, the trip, the slowish motion fall scaring the pants off me and causing any onlookers a huge moment of grimace at the sight of my ring finger. From the middle knuckle up, the finger which has never worn a wedding ring, became  transformed by fate.  It became a pointer finger,  defied the laws of nature and body mechanics, and leaned hard to the left by nearly 90 degrees, a form not found  in nature.


body mechanica