Years ago I was driving through a Santa Barbara neighborhood when I saw an old, battered RV. Written across the back was the word: JUBILATION. I fell in love with the word and immediately adopted it as my word for the year (in spite of its somewhat evangelical leanings.) AI helped me reconstruct the memory which almost seems like a self-portrait at this point. I have a lot of miles on me … joys and sorrows, wins and losses, questions, some answered, many more still gathering data.
A favorite song as a kid was Hank Snow’s “I’ve been everywhere.” (If you don’t know this bit of Americana, don’t miss it here.)
My story sounds somewhat like the beginning of a fantasy tale … lonely, only child living in the Kansas flatlands with only books and her dog “Shorty” to explore the woods where she carves her initials onto sandstone rocks and dreams of being far away. (When I saw the Wizard of Oz, I stood up and yelled, “NO … don’t go back … !” … well, I wanted to scream that.)
After that inauspicious beginning, my life became magical. I went to college, moved away to the sea with my knight-in-shining-armor Marine husband, slowly stepped into the life of being the writer I dreamed of being, and traveled across a bit of the world, although I haven’t quite lived up to Hank’s song.
Somewhere along the way, reality tossed the lessons of disease, divorce, disappointment, bankruptcy, and death into the mix.
The game changer: Art
After years of “wanting to be” and trying every medium known to art workshops, the death of my second husband spun me into a digital collage workshop in a fishing village in Mexico. Nothing was ever the same.
One of the unrecognized benefits of becoming a late-in-life artist was being too old to jump into the “commercial artist” world. Grandma Moses notwithstanding, the chances of becoming “big” in the art world as a 60-year-old newbie were slim to none. And, I had no ego invested in the effort. I was just crazy delighted to be making art that didn’t need to be hidden in a dark closet, that it didn’t matter if no one bought it (although, suprisingly, that did happen occasionally in the galleries I was wondrously invited to join.)
In case you think I’m exaggerating, here’s the BEST of my art workshop days. The Fierce Goddess of Disappointment.
And, here’s one of my early digital collages, Inching into Wonderland, which is still how I feel about my life.
However, the question you most likely want to know is …
why are you here and should you subscribe to my twice-weekly newsletter delivered to your email inbox?
This has been the long way around to say I write about the Wild Beauty of life in images and words from a long perspective of living and growing in the world. I am not a wunderkind or a child prodigy of wisdom. What I know about the world and life has come … and is still coming … slowly, inch by inch.
I follow curiosity’s snail trail, writing and making art about anything that interests me along the way. Then I wrap them into a newsletter post and send them out into the world and listen to the echos that bounce back from readers. Without your response this would be a soapbox when what I truly want is an interactive learning channel … my wisdom to you … your wisdom to me.
So, I hope you decide to subscribe and be part of the process.
Gratitude got me here and will still be a huge part of this newsletter. However, recently I recognized a need for a bigger umbrella and decided to rebrand this space as …
For two meme-like views of my philosophy of life and what I write here, my posts will always resonate with these:
To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe
Subscribing brings you free twice-weekly posts delivered to your email inbox. If you find that my posts bring you stories and ideas that inspire or enlighten you and want to chip in the annual paid subscription amount to support my work … thank you buckets! (Plus you will receive my monthly flipbooks (small digital magazines) as a special thank you.)
Or … you could also “buy me a coffee” when a post delights you. However, whether you subscribe or buy me a coffee or not, I’d love to hear from you and I answer every comment and question … (one of the benefits of not being a STAR ;-).
My intention is to dive beneath the surface, to go marrow deep into anything I'm curious enough to write about (including my own life) and bring back the simple truths gathered there.
If you love stories as much as I do, you may enjoy these posts.
In addition to weekly posts, I make occasional flipbooks (small, digital magazines) that go primarily to paid subscribers. However this article turned into a flipbook which is available to everyone … click here. It is an amazing story, hope you enjoy.
