rockbridge times

Post RoevWade, I Am 'Them', Now the Hunted

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 19:00:00 +0000

SO, those Americans who slogged through 53 years ever focused, ever fighting for 'life' got their reward. Roe v Wade was aborted last Friday. The outpouring of rage and tears from millions of Americans was instant. So were the cries of victory from Americans who ardently worked to revoke a woman's right to oversee her own body. Our politicized Supreme Court ruled against abortions and now states will make decisions about the use or misuse of women's bodies. FOX declared victory for America. MSNBC affirmed our anger and sorrow as we vow to send $$$ to organizations arranging transportation for clients from states where abortion is banned to states where a woman's right to an abortion is still viable.

I spent Friday on Instagram copying posts that echo my feelings.

The posts that truly grabbed me were those that sought to involve men, to name their part in this turmoil. No politician or judge or conservative evangelical citizen is putting any responsibility or consequences for those who ejaculate in a woman's vagina.

And that tells me a lot. It's not really about the unborn child because as Sister Joan Chittister said years ago, "Just because you are opposed to abortion, that doesn't make you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born, but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That is not pro-life. That's pro-birth."

The back story to this storm is not about protecting new life. It's about control of women. Women have advanced too far - we vote, get advanced degrees, become lawyers and doctors, live independently and choose when and if we will have babies. Until last Friday morning, women had choices.

Books I've been reading of late: "Jesus and John Wayne" by Kristin Kobes Du Men, "The Flag + The Cross" by Philip S. Gorky and Samuel L. Perry, "Bad Faith" by Randall Balmer and now into "Moral Combat" by R. Marie Griffith. Each of these books give context to what my gut was already telling me.

Many Americans see our world with heroes (always white) who fight in their name to maintain and advance freedom. Many Americans want to 'take back their country', return to a glorious time when white cowboy heroes kept us safe from 'them'. The 'them' changed from time to time, from the savage indigenous to the enslaved, to French Catholics, to wild Irish Presbyterians, to Chinese immigrants, to Mexican and Central American illegal immigrants. There is always a 'them' to be brought to heel, to take the blame in the service of freedom and individual rights for 'us'.

Interestingly, the news clip below confirms what I know for sure. This Roe v Wade thing is but one of many rights that go against the grain, against the back story so many American hold dear and close. The back story according to this clip and the books and news articles I've been reading - and my gut:

"This is our nation, not theirs. We are in charge, always have been. However, we see a day coming when we could be a minority. We fight to see that this day never arrives. So we will forever be in charge. We will take back our country, now under siege because of 'them'."

I count myself among 'them'.

And no, the Congresswoman did NOT misspeak at the rally on Saturday in her home state. See clip below.

From this moment on, remember RBG.

The Meaning of STOP, 2020 Election Morning

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 22:38:00 +0000

It is just after 8:00 a.m. Becalmed by a good night’s sleep, I am taking my time before I face this 2020 election day, a day radically different from four years ago when so many of us were filled with quiet joyful expectation. In four years’, time, our everyday has been turned upside down. Who knew that the 24/7 tweets of a reality TV star, now inadvertently the president, could have such a profound effect on us? Who knew he’d tapped into the ids of so many? One id to another, “It’s so unfair. All fake. We are not being treated well. I alone can fix it.”

Blustering on a television show gave the man a patina of success, enough to sway a base of disillusioned Americans. This savant who captures each news cycle has taken all of us prisoner.

As for those almost three million more votes cast for Hillary? Even three million couldn’t bust the strictures of the archaic Electoral College. This man did not expect to win, had not prepared a victory speech, had instead booked a private jet to fly off to Scotland for a game of golf on his very own course.

And yet he won and after four years, his ineptitude, his bullying meanness, thuggery and outright thievery are exposed, none of which would ever have come under public scrutiny except for his unaccountable win. It was not supposed to be this way.

It is 10:00 a.m. and I am still sequestered. The sun is shining outside my windows. Instead of tuning in to live coverage of this election day, I changed the sheets on my bed, arranged and rearranged multitudinous ruffled velvet and batik hand stitched throw pillows. And then I dressed, flung a scarf around my neck, put on eye makeup because at 78, I do not go downstairs to the lobby to pick up my morning newspaper without makeup.

This predator in chief has grown accustomed to the office, is loath to leave it. Of course, he is enraged by the possibility that he may no longer be among the most powerful men on earth. And indeed, should he leave this high office, he is at once so very vulnerable to lawyers who lie in wait in the Southern District of NY.

He is a bull gone mad. Win or lose this election, his rage and his intent will be the same. Destroy as much as he can because he can. He will take us all down with him. I know whereof I speak.

What is astonishing is that this man can wreak such carnage because no one in 73 years has ever said STOP. He has crossed so many lines, pillaged so much, disparaged so many, and no one has ever said STOP.

His father Fred never said STOP, considered it in his own best interests to bail this son out. Roy Cohn and the Mob would never stay STOP. They owned him. The banks who loaned him money never said STOP because this borrower was too big to fail. A Republican Senate intent on holding power, chose not to say STOP. His generals are long gone, as are the truth tellers from the impeachment trial. Perhaps the newly minted Supreme Court will signal a green light too. NO STOP.

In these last steroid infused days of campaigning, this man has inveighed his followers to insist on victory by midnight. Tonight’s victory party is scheduled for the East Room in our White House. The gathering is lawless, unethical and against all precedent. Our White House is being barricaded for the second time this year by unclimbable walls. He will be safe from us. In this moment.

Though not safe from the Coronavirus. But after all, he is done with it, bored by it. He contracted this disease and lived to tell. Why the outcry? Fire Fauci on November 4.

At the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina at 5:44 P.M. EST, he said the following:

“I think it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it’s a terrible thing when people or states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over because it can only lead to one thing, and that’s very bad. You know what that thing is. I think it’s a very dangerous, terrible thing. And I think it’s terrible when we can’t know the results of an election the night of the election in a modern-day age of computers. I think it’s a terrible thing.”

Near noon, CNN reports the following:

“More than 102 million Americans have voted nationwide before the polls opened on Election Day….

“These votes represent more than 48% of registered voters nationwide. 22 states and Washington, DC have seen more than half of their registered voters cast ballots already.

“Pre-Election Day voting has skyrocketed nationwide amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“At least seven states, including Texas, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Montana and Oregon, have surpassed their total turnout from the 2016 general election in recent days.”

It is almost noon and I’ve made 10 oz of black coffee and now am ready to confront this election day. I will begin quietly, detached from the bedlam that will come, generated by the president of this nation. He is, after all, orchestrating reality TV and one can’t prolong the outcome for days or weeks. It is unfair and unreasonable not to have a full vote tally by the witching hour. If there is no signal of victory, then there can only be fraud. Remaining ballots should count for nothing.

Should we leave out some of the 102 million early votes? Absentee ballots from citizens overseas and our military? Shall we cast these aside too?

How much will FOX News, Proud Boys and presidential tweets overrule the system of each state, putting all in chaos and in the lap of the Supreme Court. Lawyers and Brett are waiting.

In his desperation, this man who has never heard STOP, is rabid. He is the sticky tape we cannot shake from our heel.

And from election morning four years ago:

Awoke with a gentle expectation on this election day morning. Awoke with none of the angst and dread I've felt for months. Instead, there was calm and a wish to savor the dawn of this day when Americans might very well elect their first woman president. I awoke from a dream in which my daughters and I were together, we were complete.

On this election day morning, I want to say to my three daughters, "Remember today. Take a moment to feel this morning, so when Hillary wins, you can always conjure up the beginnings of this momentous day."

And leave the Donald out of this. Donald has been a big distraction. This morning is not about him. It is about Hillary, and women like Doris and Shirley, my mother and my grand-mother who both had high hopes and unfulfilled dreams. Let us make this day, November 8, 2016, about every woman on this planet, our aspirations and disappointments and victories.

Holding on to this early morning moment reminded me of a day in the summer of 1945. I was three years old and my brother a newborn, and Mom toted us both to the pediatrician's office for John's first check-up. Mom led me to an open window overlooking Watertown's square, where marching bands and soldiers were parading. "Remember this day," she said to me, "Remember this day, Mary Margaret. The war is over."

I've not forgotten her admonition to remember the day, the particular moment. My wish is for each of us to remember this early morning because it is the beginning of a momentous day.

For me, the early morning is quiet, for my daughters, it is filled with kids and carpools, and a bus ride to work. For extended family and friends and colleagues, it is filled to the brim with getting out the vote, and whatever we do for love or money.

Remember, this day is exceptional.

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Sick At Heart: Everything is Worse in Every Way Every Day

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 14:10:00 +0000

RBG died 9 days ago and I wept when I read the first text received from a daughter and then even my brother called to tell me because he knows I do not own a television. When I saw the first image of mourners on the steps of the Supreme Court, I cried again. Not just for RBG, but for our country and all of us who now feel unprotected and vulnerable. As long as she lived, she was our champion, claiming justice for each of us.

As RBG lay in state in our Capitol rotunda, the first woman and indeed the first Jewish person to be so honored, the president did not appear to pay tribute. Nor did his legislative enablers. A day earlier he was booed as he stood in the Supreme Court by her casket. At least, he made an appearance. Incredibly, as she lay in state, her successor was declared. How off is this timing?

In just eight days RBG's successor stepped into the Rose Garden for her moment with the president. I noticed that the Rose Garden is becoming more and more militaristic. Huge American flags were hung vertically between each of the portico columns. Really. Looks evermore like Hitler's stage settings. So did that July 4th extravaganza at Mount Rushmore. In late summer Melania had the Rose Garden's apple trees removed and new paving set in. All ominous visual signals. Nothing soft or natural going on here.

Great irony. This new nominee for RBG's place on the court most certainly benefited from the cases RBG won before the Supreme Court. And yet her belief system would take us all backwards to pre-RBG.

And even with RBG's death and Covid-19 and mounting voting fears, Friday, September 24, was such a good day. Began with half an hour spent up on my building's rooftop watching morning clouds in the east and I thought to myself, "Take what is pleasant about this downtown place that always feels temporary and count these good things among your blessings." I am so lucky to have seen this sunrise and its reflections in the water in our rooftop pool and on neighboring buildings with windows like mirrors.

Friday was a productive day. I finally have a system for organizing parts and sections of 'the book'. Spent the entire day creating a grid of nine categories and placing things I've written under each of the nine. Kept at it until mid afternoon and then picked up in the early evening again. I think organizing written materials is harder than organizing/making a collage of photos. One can see photos at all times. Hard to keep content of written materials in my head when I am mixing and sequencing them.

However, it is becoming manageable, as if these nine categories have become an outline, giving this project structure. I look back, and see that in 2018, I tried using a grid of nine as a way of organizing material. I just never proceeded to put dozens of written pieces under each category.

There is far too much material. My family has saved three generations of back and forth letters, and then there are 60+ years of my journals and diaries. And a decade of blog posts. And assorted other stuff I've written and SAVED. With this new system of nine categories, I can edit and place short pieces under each. Hurray for Flash Non-fiction. Perfect for what I am attempting.

And then there are the visual/collage sequences to think about. Intend to intersperse and/or overlap them with the written pieces. And all must be coherent, one thing leading to another and then another.

So Friday was a good day, but on Saturday I stumbled, became heartsick, even after a decent night's sleep. I am scared shitless for the United States of America, quite soon to become a failed democracy. All because of one man's insane desires and ineptitude and his enablers who never veto anything he says or does. He is sending daily messages to his supporters. "Do not accept election results. Voting by mail is flawed, shouldn't be counted. Take to the streets to quell domestic terrorism."

I could become a domestic terrorist simply by marching. I cannot imagine what would happen if millions of us took to the streets as we did the day after his inauguration. This time around the Proud Boys and their ilk will have guns trained on us. Our military has already signaled they will not participate in a fight with other Americans who they vowed to protect. The only pundits who are calling it right now are those who've reported on or been in other failed democracies. They are warning and many of us are not hearing or feel helpless. After November 4, the streets may be our only recourse.And I am tired and still scared about Covid-19. Millennials in my building and especially those with dogs do not wear masks. "Do you have a mask?" I ask them when the elevator door opens. Some become sheepish, make hand gestures, tell me their mask is in the car and others are not at all sheepish. I do not get on the elevator. "I'll wait," I tell them. I tell the folks in the leasing office and they send out an email with mask wearing instructions. For a week or so, tenants are responsible and then they slack off. I hope they do not kill me.

And then there is school or lack of for so many kids in Texas. A friend on a Zoom group gathering last evening recounted the story of Ellen Cohen tells about her experience as a Texas legislator. She asked her colleagues if it bothered them that Texas ranked near the bottom of the list for spending in education and healthcare outcomes. "Not a whit," was their uniform answer. They were not about to spend our tax dollars to help 'them' in any way. 'Them' being anyone not white. Texas is truly a southern state. Seems short sighted to me.

THIS WEEK: Texas has the widest digital divide in the nation. Some 1.8 million public school students in Texas that lack necessary broadband access. As schools across the state begin a staggered remote start, some families have been forced to choose between sending their children for in-person learning or stretching their own resources for virtual learning. “Families that are suffering from the digital divide are dealing with a lot,” says Carlotta Garcia, an organizer affiliated with Central Texas Interfaith. “These are families dealing with life and death. Right now they’re dealing with food, medicine, sickness, and the threat of displacement.”

So, I fell into decline yesterday, anxious and sick of it all. Today is Sunday and my good long time friends, who are 'forever' readers of Sunday op-ed pieces - I count myself among them - are texting back and forth about Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat. My NYTimes did not arrive with the Sunday Houston Chronicle this morning and I've texted my paper delivery guy - will he deliver it later this morning?

I am noticing more and more family and friends are dealing with anxiety and apprehension and sleeplessness. All is uncertain and suspect. We are stuck in our domiciles, we who are lucky enough to have a domicile and a job and enough food to eat. I remind myself I need to send regular donations to Houston Food Bank. I am among the most fortunate. Be grateful and prepare to soon be considered a domestic terrorist.

Where are we all headed? We are like buffalo being run off a cliff for someone else's gain.

Catch Up Post - 2 More Days to See Atablo' @ Heidi Vaughan Fine Art

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 02:16:00 +0000

Several weeks since I've added a new post. Very busy days with frequent trips to Heidi Vaughan Fine Art when friends make appointment to see Atablo'. Lovely visits with women I've not seen in awhile. Jenny Black dropped in last Saturday at noon. Years ago, I took her wedding photos in Cuemavaca when the official photographer did not show.

One of my collages titled 'Baby Women' has an image of her upended wedding dress which I saw upended on a chair the morning after. She bought the piece and then texted later and bought a second collage with lots of red - currants, pomegranates, peppers and images from a Chinese screen I saw at the Dallas Museum of Art. Lovely to sell two collages and lovely to see her again. Jenny is SO chic - what an outfit and I suspect a size 2.

Two more days for Atablo' - show runs through Saturday. Bobbi and Marci visited the gallery near noon today. Gad they came to ee the show as they financially supported the weekend of conversations for "Finding Our Way' in 2015. Marci collects high end vintage clothes and we spoke about me wandering through her collection and photographing what catches my fancy. I am excited. Could be an entire new series of collages. Marci adorned with vintage rings and bracelets today.

Sally saw the show yesterday and as we were by ourselves in the gallery, we had a really nice catch up visit too. We agreed, way too infrequent.

And Kem and Cay dropped by yesterday too. And yet another photo with Daphne's shoes.

On Monday, Rochella and I made a Zoom tour of Atablo' for a group in her apartment building. Call ins from Colorado and Cape Cod. We had a good time and enjoyed it so much that we will talk about having another conversations together and calling them podcasts.

Also working with quite some diligence on 'the book'. Went to John's office last week and spent hours on two days printing out pages of what I've written and/or transcribed in the last half dozen years. Must have a ream of paper and now am organizing it, preparing to select and create an order for 'the book.' Have more concrete ideas on its structure now. Dining room table is covered with stacks of paper clipped tougher by subject. That would be steel cut oats and blueberries for breakfast in that bowl.

After the last Inprint wiring workshop on-line class, the group decided to continue meeting to workshop our new stuff. I am so happy to have this group of writing women who are smart and good writers and are able to offer spot on criticism. I think we are all pleased with ourselves and the fact that we will be meeting on Zoom every few weeks.

So this evening is the final night of the Republican National Convention and the president will give his speech on the front lawn of the White House - the People's House - he is brazen and no one ever stops him. I read his niece Mary Trump's book about him and no one has ever called him out or taught him anything. All is performance in the public eye - of which he is.a master.

Melania gave a frightening performance two nights ago - walked down the portico to the end of the Rose Garden in a military laden green tailored suit — like a female general sent to lead us. I found her speech, filled with empathy and caring for loyalty to Donald her husband all SCARY. We are headed off a cliff, if enough of the public believes this stuff.

And the seventeen year old white kids who shot and killed two people had a mom who drove him with gun in hand to the protest and he is underage and a cop gave him a bottle of water. So much about white privilege or perhaps ore accurately, our country's caste system described in Isabel Wilkerson's new book 'Caste' keeps us all in line.

This is a disjointed random post and will be more so when I add photos from the gallery. But that's the way it is tonight. In bed with lights off, deciding whether to watch an Amazon movie or read some more in one of the multitudinous number of books that are piling up in. this domicile. Enough for now.

A few photos I took today of Megan, she who works for Heidi and wears incredible clothes and has tattoos so I find myself wanting to photograph her every time she appears in the gallery. Here goes from today.

Today is my sister Kate's birthday. Happy birthday Kate.

Day #147 Confronting a Conundrum - I Am Not a Natural Born Organizer

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 21:19:00 +0000

From this day forward, I will devote myself to completing a first draft of 'the book'. I have both space and time and two good reasons to move on this.

1. Not one of my friends here in Houston has contracted Covid-19. None of my family members have taken ill. Nor have I. I do not have anyone - yet - for whom to care and pray.

2. Between today and November 4 - when pandemonium could break out, sending to march in the streets - well I can use these weeks before the election to assemble the first draft of a memoir.

Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote last weekend for an Inprint workshop:

This idea of ‘the book’ is so timeworn that when I speak the words ‘the book’, my hands automatically rise to make quotation mark motions.

The notion of ‘the book’ appeared in junior high on the pages of my diary. I reflected then that whatever was happening in my life would be material for a very interesting book. When I became an author, I wrote, I would call upon my life stories. At fourteen years of age, on the evening of September 22, 1956, I penned, “I usually think of myself and everybody and as characters in a book or play, and that everything will finally come out right. But life is NOT a book.”

Or is it?

Over and over, I live my days as an imagined book. Over and over, I am a spectator, a transcriber, forever filling white space on paper with typewritten words that will somehow mark time.

It is already Friday of the week I had planned to organize all recent work - see what I have that will work in a FLASH non-fiction memoir (pieces from 200 - 750 words) I've written good stuff since April and thought I'd integrate it with things previously written, begin to arrange, edit, give order, much as I would do with a collage of photographs. But I am flummoxed.

It always comes to this. I attempt to organize what has already been written and come to a dead end. Years ago, a friend of mine, who was at one time the editor of a local magazine, organized what I'd written on one particular subject. She gave it linear/sequential order and it filled a big red three-ring binder. But perhaps the memoir is not linear. Perhaps it is a tapestry, a crazy quilt is more like it.

Last summer, I sorted what I've written by arbitrary subject matter and dropped the pages into file folders - each folder a category from which I could ostensibly weave into a whole. The folders remain on top of my bookshelves, awaiting my attention. I envisioned a magic grid of nine as a way of giving order to what is already written and pinned nine squares of paper on to a wall, labelled each square. This paper grid has been on that wall for so long that I no longer 'see' it. I must begin anew - if indeed I still want to order 'the book' into nine sections/categories.

Today, my living room floor is covered with paper, sorted and piles are named with hot pink Post-its labels. Truly is does no good. Because pages of print are different than clusters of photos. With photos, you can plainly see content, begin to see relationships and sequences.

Typed pages, little notebooks, handwritten letters and journal entries do not lend themselves to similar scrutiny. So for today, I've given up. Instead, I will print out what I've written since April and then see what comes in and among these new pages.

Happily, the eight women in this latest Inprint workshop decided we'd continue by ourselves. We will meet with Zoom every two weeks. For the first time ever, I have a writer's group of sharp discerning women, most of whom are on a writing roll.

So. Back to thoughts of organizing literally reams of material. At this moment on a Friday afternoon, I'd rather NOT continue to sort. I'd rather download PhotoShop and begin to tinker with the program. It's high time to learn how to layer images with words, create book pages on my screen instead of using real photos and real objects and real translucent or transparent paper covered with those real words.

Even downloading PhotoShop seems an effort at 4:15 p.m. My eyelids are heavy. How much easier it would be to settle in bed with Netflix 'Longmire', a series on which I've been bingeing for a week. Even though there is so much to be done.

Day 143: Today I Am Cassandra and Privileged to Boot

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 19:17:00 +0000

I see a cliff ahead of us. Like buffalo on the plains, we are being driven to the cliff's edge and there is apparently nothing and no one to stop us, lasso us, pull us back from the abyss. I think about my daughters and grandchildren - will they survive being thrown off the cliff and live to play a part in a fallen world, the next world? I have begun to count the days to November 3. I have begun to plot out my activities with a focus on 'the book'. How much of a first draft can I get on paper? Or perhaps the task is to put what has already been written in some semblance of order? I've begun a list of work that needs doing before the chaos I expect on November 4. It has come to this.

My long time friends are texting back and forth about VP picks and which woman is more electable/worthy than another. For me, that is beside the point, a diversion. That metaphoric cliff and the millions of votes thwarted or uncounted are all that matter.

Early this morning I read an op-ed piece on Medium: 'How Trump's Planning to Win' by Lauren Martinchek.

FYI: I subscribe to Medium. Medium is considered left of center. Founded in 2012, Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Medium considers their platform as social journalism, having a hybrid collection of amateur and professional people and publications, or exclusive blogs or publishers. Basically, they are a blog host.

Martinchek writes about what I believe is already well underway. Trump is purposely messing with the US Post Office in a campaign effort to slow down delivery of mail-in votes. A crippled post office coupled with voter suppression and the lessening number of polling places will throw the election. Add roiling waves of Covid-19 and extreme economic distress, hunger and homelessness for so many. This fake orange-headed blowhard could prevail. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine treatise did not foresee the hugeness of America's fall.

After reading Martinchek's story, I immediately copied the link and wrote this email message to long time friends. I felt compelled to share the bad news:

"We are watching it happen and no one is taking him on. Talk about VP choice is not where we should be focusing. I do not understand how Democrats, Mueller, the judicial system, past presidents - how no one can stop him. Where are Bloomberg’s billions? And where for that matter are Soros and Bill Gates? Could Bezos step up and deliver mail-in ballots via Amazon Prime?

I fear our country's collapse. Votes will not be counted, will be left piled up in post office warehouses as people die of the Coronavirus. How many bankruptcies has this blowhard sustained? Everything he touches falls apart."

I did NOT push Send. Thought better of it. I am writing this blog post instead.

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I Googled Lauren Martinchek and discovered via Facebook that she lives in Canton, NY. Really. Surveying her Facebook page, I felt a sudden kinship with this young woman. Introduced myself to her on Messenger. Hope she will respond, hope she will not think I am a stalker.

Her hometown, Canton, NY is the North Country and the North Country is the place I come from. Canton is just miles from Potsdam, where in 1949-51, my mother taught choral music at the state teacher's college before we abruptly moved to Aruba. Canton is just miles from Lisbon where my great aunts and uncles grew up and farmed, and where my conservative cousins still gather for church and fellowship. Canton, NY and the North Country is the place to which I return, from time to time, always with nostalgia.

When I visit the North Country, feel the softness of the air, survey the century old farmhouses of aunts and uncles, smell lilacs and pick stalks of rhubarb, hear the cry of crows and the quiet of the countryside, I feel an outsider. In the North Country, I sense differences of opinion. Common ground is sought and found when we relate the stories of generations of family. We are, after all, blood related forever.

Time spent in the North Country is precious. I am at home in this place, and yet not at home in this place.

So, to know there is a sort of kindred spirit in Canton, NY is a gift. I want to meet this young woman.

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This morning, my daughters text back and forth. They have learned they will all be working from home until early 2021. That means perhaps forever.

This morning, I vow to be ever more careful about seeing other people. I do not want to get sick and die.

This morning, I made two appointments - one for a second pedicure since the beginning of semi-hiberation and another for my third hair cut since the beginning of semi-hibernation. Do I see myself at cross purposes here?

This morning, I will call my housekeeper, who is scheduled to clean my domicile tomorrow morning. I will postpone her arrival for another two weeks, have already sent her check - if the post office sees fit to deliver it.

This morning I feel privileged. Let me count the ways:

I feel privileged to live in this air conditioned and well appointed apartment in downtown Houston.

I feel privileged knowing that my refrigerator and freezer are well-stocked with Trader Joe's foodstuffs and my dining room table hold a vase overfull with Trader Joe's fresh flowers.

I feel privileged that I could pay my rent for August and will be able to pay my rent for the foreseeable future.

I feel privileged that I could choose to watch episodes of Netflix 'Longmire' until 3:00 a.m. last night and sleep until after 9:00 a.m. this morning.

I feel privileged that I can spend this morning writing these words and then can read a book all afternoon.

I live in a privileged cocoon. I do not take it for granted. I will pray for a better outcome at the end of 2020 than the one I suspect and dread. I will pray for the survival of all of my family and friends and their families and friends and on and on. In this time of staying separate from one another, we must find ways to hold together. Our world depends upon it.

Day #135 Sunday in Semi-Hibernation in the Time of Coronavirus

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:58:00 +0000

On the wall, behind my dining room table - ES portals into distance realms, dream-like, don't you think?

It is Sunday afternoon with dark cloudy skies and intermittent rain, the effects of Tropical Storm Hanna in South Texas. I took an hour's walk this morning in the Montrose and then had a breakfast of steel cut oats with blueberries, walnuts and a dollop of berry jelly. Of course, food knocks me out – almost any food makes me sleepy of late – but I persevered, reading the NYT and Houston Chronicle and meandering through editions of Maria Popova's Brain Pickings - that wonderful email column that arrives every weekend, filled with links to the most interesting of writers. Here's what I read today on Brain Pickings:

Adrienne Rich, in contemplating how love refines our truths, wrote: “An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word ‘love’ — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.” But among the dualities that lend love both its electricity and its exasperation — the interplay of thrill and terror, desire and disappointment, longing and anticipatory loss — is also the fact that our pathway to this mutually refining truth must pass through a necessary fiction: We fall in love not just with a person wholly external to us but with a fantasy of how that person can fill what is missing from our interior lives.

Collage that is being printed on metal. A new thing for me.

I clicked a link which took me to psychoanalyst Adam Phillips addressing a central paradox with uncommon clarity and elegance in Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life :

“All love stories are frustration stories… To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn’t know you had (of one’s formative frustrations, and of one’s attempted self-cures for them); you wanted someone, you felt deprived of something, and then it seems to be there. And what is renewed in that experience is an intensity of frustration, and an intensity of satisfaction. It is as if, oddly, you were waiting for someone but you didn’t know who they were until they arrived. Whether or not you were aware that there was something missing in your life, you will be when you meet the person you want. What psychoanalysis will add to this love story is that the person you fall in love with really is the man or woman of your dreams; that you have dreamed them up before you met them; not out of nothing — nothing comes of nothing — but out of prior experience, both real and wished for. You recognize them with such certainty because you already, in a certain sense, know them; and because you have quite literally been expecting them, you feel as though you have known them for ever, and yet, at the same time, they are quite foreign to you. They are familiar foreign bodies.”

Mustard pot still life on pink.

Of course, I ordered a GOOD USED copy of Phillips' book. Also a copy of Eric Fromm's classic 'The Art of Loving', which I owned decades ago, but is missing from my library.

I also dipped into ”Tell It Slant, Creating, Refining and Publishing Creative Non-fiction” looking for clues for how to intertwine visual images with my short pieces so it all makes sense, so words and pictures inform one another. I think the two little books I made for ‘Finding Our Way’ in 2015 worked. Have not yet been able to make more that truly work.

Growing carrots from those I've sliced and eaten.

Waiting for Catherine to write and publish a story on ‘Atablo’ in www.papercitymag.com She and I spent another hour together in the gallery last Monday and I am waiting patiently. Also waiting patiently for the fiv- minute video to be finished so Heidi can submit to GlassTire and we can send both to her mailing list and mine. We have August in which to sell more of the work. As mom would say, “It’s time to get crackin’.”

Another look @Atablo' with Catherine Anspon.

Much of this past week has been taken up with the provocations of federal troops in Portland, OR. We are so tilting toward outright fascism in this land of ours. The only things stopping our complete takeover are marchers and protesters - and some decent decisions coming from courts unencumbered with partisan ideological judges.

Portland, OR when the tear gas begins and it looks like war. Just what he wants.

Throughout it all, we are wearing masks and hibernating in this time of the Coronavirus. So far, so good for my loved ones and me. But Covid-19 is hitting closer to home. One of my ALF classmates is in hospice now, stricken with the virus. Earl's daughter and family are recovering in San Antonio, among the fortunate - if after-effects do not kick in, and no one knows yet how this plays out in those that recover.

Solidarity in Portland, OR.

Fragments from Atablo'

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 14:46:00 +0000

Often, it is in fragments that we find the whole of things. The details, the asides, the overhead and the dreamed of tell the story. All becomes better than if we looked straight on.

Sustenance is both savory and sweet.

In the eyes of the beholder.

Mom was always the most beautiful.

Crysallis

Baby Women

Mussels @ Epicure and East End Mexican breakfast migas - two of the best.

Daughter of Elenora Medici

Daphne's Shoes

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 13:53:00 +0000

Daphne's Shoes have become 'a thing' @Atablo'. I found these yellow satin shoes years ago on a shelf at Good Will. Bought them specifically to fill with succulents. When Aggie and I were in Paris, we travelled to Giverny where I saw vintage pumps in a village flower shop. Loved the idea. Atablo' is the perfect place for this pair of shoes.

This summer, ES began to paint scenes of Daphne and Apollo. I remembered Bernini's white marble sculpture with Daphne's arms and legs fast becoming laurel branches. So, it seemed to me Daphne's Shoes was the only possible name for these yellow satin shoes planted with tiny succulents. Daphne's Shoes have become a gallery photo-op.

Heidi Vaughan

Elizabeth Mule

MMH

Avisheh Mohsenin is toe to toe with Daphne's Shoes.

Sahar Golafshan

Micah and Iindia

Nan Hall Linke

Barbara Friedman - displays a different color on each toe.

Catherine Anspon

Sarah Gish

Antonia Day Helland

Mary Scott Hagle

There will be more of these photos. Collecting hand photos too.

Barbara Friedman wears the most fantastic rings.

Lizzy favors watermelon.

Catherine and iPhone

P.S.
Heidi hard at work.

'Anne of Green Gables' and Family Time Every Saturday Morning

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 13:23:00 +0000

Toward the end of April, Mary B organized a family Zoom time. Every Saturday at noon Central Time, we gather - Caroline, Mary B, Kate and often Kathy (friend of Mary B and Queta who lives in Colorado) for the ostensible purpose of hearing me read 'Anne of Green Gables', a book I dearly love and have read countless times since Aruba childhood days. I read several chapters and then we visit, catch up. Yesterday, we watched Caroline make sourdough English muffins on a stovetop grill. And we heard how she discovered edible glitter and put it in homemade jam and hamburgers and potato salad. Sounded wonderful to me. I will invest in some of this edible glitter for a gelatin mango dish.

Yesterday, our Zoom extended to 2:00 p.m. I miss my girls and their kids. Haven't seen them since Christmas. My grandkids will be strangers when next I see them in person. Often I think I should be texting them every day, keeping in touch. But it does not happen. I have no clue how Charlie spends his days now or what's he's thinking, Nor Kelan, Nor Lauren. Nor Lulu. Is this happening to families everywhere - families who are used to flying cross country to spend time with grandkids, to see their plays and concerts and sports events and graduations. Not that any of these activities are taking place these days. The effects of this pandemic on these kids is enormous. Even when they are spared Covid-19. Even when their parents still retain their jobs. These days and times are irreversible. And we are - so far - the lucky ones. Health, jobs, reasonable amounts of sanity.

I sure would like to eat one of Caroline's warm freshly made English muffins.

See you all next Saturday for more of 'Anne of Green Gables', a book that makes Mary B and me laugh and cry, chapter by chapter. Kate says she knows why we cry - I am just like Anne. I say I am just like Anne and my grandmother Shirley May Keyes Thompson. All three, peas in a pod. More on 'Anne' soon.

Day #121 Scary Times and the Constant Urge to Tableau

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 12:47:00 +0000

Covid-19 numbers for Houston area continue to rise - astoundingly - and a week ago, Governor Abbott at long last issued a mask wearing directive. I notice more millennials in our building are wearing masks. If they aren't wearing a mask and confront me in an elevator or hallway, they are abashed, avoid eye contact. Sometimes, I ask "Where's your mask?" and then say, "You know, you're going to kill me." Leasing staff is back on duty after two weeks of home quarantine - good news for them and for tenants because it means none tested positive.

Lovely to see Barbara Friedman. We kept social distance.

Antonia Day Helland and Mary Scott Hagle perusing collages.

For several hours both Friday and Saturday, I was at the gallery because friends made appointments to see Atablo'. We social distance at first and then as we converse, we inch closer together. Over and over, I have to remind myself to step back. Good friends are careful and I am delighted to see them.

One woman who appeared with friends - a woman who knows no boundaries ever - repeatedly approached me after I'd taken a picture to see how she looked in my photo. And as Mary B says, if she does not respect your space, you know she does that with others. So should I quarantine myself for two weeks because of her gallery visit?

Every time I walk into Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, I am happy with the way Atablo' works in the space. It is a world apart from our everyday, on walls during the time of the Coronavirus. My collages, made over a year's time, are what goes on in my head, composites of what I see from day to day, surrounded by color and words. Overall, my collages en masse appear as confections - at least, that is how I see them in the gallery space. In folk's homes, would a single collage still appear as a confection? Is being seen as a confection a bad thing?

I look at the embellished chandeliers and if I had my way, I'd have them all in a single room of my home - much as The Dunlavy (that restaurant along the Buffalo Bayou Park trail) hung a multitude of crystal chandeliers throughout the space. Those chandeliers make the space they occupy glorious. If I had a home again, I'd have walls mostly hung salon style and then juxtapose the busy walls with one or two giant images and plenty of mirrors. This urge to tableau is a constant.

Gold rimmed porcelain dinner plates titled 'Masks Women Wear.'

Lizzy Hargrove and new hubby Gregg Stephens, masked visitors to Atablo/

So, the sun is up and Sunday is beginning. I will go to the lobby and see if the NYT and HChron have arrived. Will make a cup of coffee and draw up a TO DO list. And I will send up prayers that I am not incubating Covid-19, unbeknownst to myself. Ever onward.

Micah and Iindia, new neighbors who live right below me. Lovely of them to visit Atablo'.
They've just moved to Houston from North Carolina.

Day #116 Post-show Opening Malaise in the time of Coronavirus

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 19:56:00 +0000

What, exactly, is going on with me as I re-hibernate here in my apartment? I'm at loose ends, struggling to find the energy to do any work past noon, tired of the plot predictability of Amazon Prime and Netflix and Acorn series, worried about leaving this domicile for the outside world as the pandemic appears to rage just outside my door (millennial tenants often do not wear masks). Over the weekend, after seeing the lead story in the Sunday NYT, my youngest daughter and her mate urged me to stay at home for the foreseeable future. They don't want to lose me, especially as my daughter says, I've not yet written 'the book' (a memoir I have been contemplating for 60+ years of my life).

My coffee table with a bowl of wilted roses, books and the Houston Chronicle with a headline that
advises us to stay at home on July 4 weekend - and perhaps, for ever after.

Now that Atablo' is on the walls @HeidiVaughanFineArt for the duration of the summer, I have the time to devote to writing the short flash pieces that I know will make up the substance of what can be only be called 'the book.' This evening at 6:00, I will log on to Zoom for the second week of a six-week Inprint workshop. I will read what I've written and hear what others think of my first effort. Will get another assignment this evening and will carry on. Also now have the time to look at the list of literary journals given me in the last workshop. I have been encouraged to submit my short Flash works to journals I did not know existed. This is another task - which should be fun. Perhaps I need another cup of coffee - or even better a pastry and an Italian espresso that kept us going forever when in Rome and Naples and Florence and wherever we were in that Italian landscape.

My favorite ever pastry in Florence.

And yet these days, even with coffee running through my veins, I am in a slack state of mind. A friend said it is natural after working so hard for months and then after the show opens - well, it is natural to feel at loose ends and let down. I think a walk along a Galveston beach would help, but the beaches are closed. I think meanders through The Guild Shop or Half Price Books would help. My frequent forays to those two places were made when I was at loose ends, the slots of time between tasks and duties. Those restorative side trips are gone for the time being. So I am photographing the tableaus I see in my domicile.

Last year's first attempt at decoupage includes a portrait of Nina, a Houston artist who painted a magnificent collage in Houston's East End. This decoupaged cardboard bowl is filled with dried permission stems and one lemon slice, sunglasses I bought from a street vendor in Naples. A multitude of textures.

A duck feather found in Galveston and now set in a bouquet of dried eucalyptus.

Handbag I purchased long ago in a London antique shop with my friend Elizabeth. Now ensconced in an on-going tableau.

Books, always more stacks of books. What's not to love and well, perhaps cherish?

So, here I am at my dining room table and in order to feel better, I need to write something. Perhaps something more than this blog post, though blogging is a start. Looming large over the rest of his hot humid Houston summer, the very air suffused with Covid-19, is 'the book'. Goal is to have a big chunk of it in first draft form before the election in November, when I am sure all hell will break loose when he determines he's lost the popular vote and the electoral college vote, but it's all a hoax and he will demand vote counts and run out the clock and declare a national emergency and he will remain in the White House. I can see that happening, though I try not to think about it. I need to keep my mind on task with selling Atablo' work on the walls AND with writing ever more Flash segments for 'the book.' In this time of the coronavirus.

Wilted blossom on a vintage painted plate.

Glass from an electric light pole, mid-20th century. From my grandmother's house.
She kept this piece of glass and I inherited it by request.

Small framed piece - a photo of one of Elita's tiny porcelain ladies resting in my garden -
when I owned a garden and created so many tableaus amongst the verdant greens.

Instead of writing today, I am photographing wilted and dying roses. Beautiful, but I must move on. I must write instead. A few paragraphs this afternoon before my Zoom class. There is time.

An admirer during the opening of Atablo' @HeidiVaughanFineArt

A bit of perversity after the gallery closed for the day.
When does a watermelon sit on a caned highjack chair?
This is not a riddle, merely a rhetorical question.

Day #111

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:23:00 +0000

Today is the 111th day since I began counting days of hibernation in the time of the Coronavirus. Except that I was not truly hibernating during all of these 111 days. The show must go on - in this case, Atablo'. I have been out and about creating the work, and then last week we installed it, and now, I am watching over Atablo' @ Heidi Vaughan Fine Art. I am truly weary.
So, Harris County just issued a new order requiring masks be worn in all businesses and urged all of us to stay put in our domiciles. I am more than happy to close my door and hibernate and rejuvenate. Especially with Amazon Prime movies, the BBC's Acorn offerings, stacks of unread books and a full refrigerator and freezer. I could stay in this quiet space for weeks.

Stacks and stacks of books on every surface.

Ever true to myself, I have overextended yet one more time. Signed up for a I six-week Inprint writing workshop on Zoom. It began two evenings ago and I must write and upload several pages by Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. I confess I hit a wall yesterday as I attempted to put words on paper. Feel much the same ennui this morning.
I loved the other two workshops in which I engaged earlier this spring - Creative Flash Non-fiction and Genre - both with Cait Weiss Orcutt. Learned a lot and wrote several good short pieces. The timing may be off on this third workshop. Or not. Will I rally?

Atablo' looks good. One definitely enters into an environment. I am pleased with the work, love having it on walls and ceilings instead of stacked on newspapers in my domicile. What I saw in my head is definitely in the gallery.

We were very careful during the opening last Saturday. Actually made the decision to have an opening just a day or two before June 27. Perhaps two dozen folks walked through the doors between noon and 6:00 p.m. All had their temperatures taken at the door, all wore masks and held to social distancing. No food or drinks were served, though bottled water was available when leaving. Good to see some long time friends and meet a few folks I did not know. Sold #tagged chandelier to Lizzy, a small framed piece and several plates. So a good start.

Ginny Camfield, such a long time friend. We met in 1968 when we moved to 4904 Yoakum.

Bill Camfield takes in 'pages from the book' collages.

Lizzy and Greg

MMH and gallery artist Avisheh Mohsenin. Love her photo images on metal.
See Artist page @HeidiVaughanFineArt for Avisheh's work.

Four pages from 'the book' and a stand alone collage titled 'The Joy of Eating Out'

A masked Catherine Anspon visited on Tuesday afternoon. She'll write an Atablo' story for www.papercitymag.com which we should be able to access in a week. Catherine honed in on Atablo' details, much as she did years ago when she wrote about my domicile on Rockbridge.

MMH and Paper City's Catherine Anspon

It's all in the details.

My brother John is a constant visitor to the space. The gallery is midway between his office on the N 610 Loop and Bolsover and therefore geographically desirable. Last Saturday he stopped by twice - just passing through the neighborhood.

JT assesses Atablo' collages.

My best-ever brother.

So, today is Thursday and it will be a writing day and tomorrow will be another writing day. May good words flow on to the page. Just writing this blog post has loosened me up - like playing the scales when practicing the piano. Now for the 'real' stuff.

Thanks to Heidi Vaughan for making Atablo' real.

Flour and the Girls made us a deep chocolate cake to see us through these busy days.

View from behind the desk.
Collage has images of China and Italy and text on the spread of the Coronavirus.

78 Today

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 13:18:00 +0000

Today marks the 78th year I've lived on this earth. The sun is shining in Houston and I am about to begin installing an installation titled Atablo' at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art later this morning. Am off in a few minutes to pick up a dozen gluten free cupcakes with chocolate frosting from my niece Carrie. BTW, her bakery is Flour and the Girls on W Gray.
I'd have to say I am in good spirits for whatever reasons. Our country has run amok; is without leadership except on the local level and we are on the edge of the precipice and the Coronavirus is spreading ferociously. And yet....

I am excited about taking a space and making it into a place like Rockbridge or/and Second Seating. Will add photos as we work our way through the next several days.
Made a Simple Prints book over the weekend with photos taken as I made the collages and embellished the chandeliers that will be in the exhibition.
Perhaps Atablo' is the best birthday present ever?

OLD for the first time

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 14:13:00 +0000

Meant to write on Tuesday, the day of Houston’s downtown peace march to honor the life of George Floyd. I debated with myself. Should I march during this time of the Coronavirus? Was it worth the risk? I debated with my friend Beth – should we risk it and march? Should we stay put? Back and forth, back and forth. We decided NO. As the day progressed, I lamented, but did not change my decision. My friend Sally sent an email, also lamenting not being counted at this march as she too opted to stay home because of Coronavirus risk.

After making this decision to stay put in my domicile, for the first time ever, I felt the meaning of OLD. Always before, I’ve felt ‘older’ and ‘wiser’, but never OLD. So, no matter that I still can bend down on my knees and stand on one leg and sit cross legged on the floor. No matter that I am hard at work on an upcoming exhibition, that I am writing ‘the book’*, that I walk (perhaps not enough), that I have a good haircut, that I enjoy the company of friends and colleagues…the list is long. I am now designated as elderly, vulnerable and perhaps expendable. The Coronavirus has done this. Made me into OLD.

The silver lining here? I may have escaped the Coronavirus to live another day. I am alive and well. I can do my part, join the conversations, make monthly contributions to #BlackLivesMatte.r OLD is not the end of meaningful work. OLD can still exert its presence. I’m on it.

Today marks the 81st day of self-imposed social distancing and mask wearing.

(Photos from Houston Chronicle)

77th Day of Semi-Hibernation

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Sat, 30 May 2020 13:11:00 +0000

It is just past 7:00 a.m. I am awake, still in bed and thinking about the day ahead. What needs to get done today to 'move the meter' as Cindy used to say? I need to make that call to the chandelier shop on Richmond to see if they are open, so I can deliver the mauve glass saucers that go on the Murano chandelier. I need to paint a couple of white feather fake birds I bought off Etsy and see how they look on this chandelier.

I need to get out that bottle of matte medium again and affix the photos on at least two more collages today - or this weekend. Actually, altogether, I need to glue down five collages and then I'll be done. Have to write on three of them. Then all will be taken to the framer and that part of the show - which opens on June 27 - will be finished.

Last night I typed a two page list of all the things that must be done in three weeks time. It is daunting and doable. I will just keep at it every day. Unlike this past week when I was immersed in a writing workshop hosted by Glass Mountain, the proceeds of which benefit UH creative writing undergraduates. I chose the same instructor as for the Inprint Flash Fiction workshop. Cait Weiss Orcutt is a poet, UH graduate and leads with intensity and enthusiasm, offers kind and thoughtful advice and critiques of our efforts. Beginning with Nancy Aronie's workshop a year ago at Omega in Rhinebeck, NY, I've learned to write differently - from a prompt, in ten to twenty minutes time and much of that time, leaving my left brain behind. I've discovered that when writing a short piece in a short time, the words come from my gut, not my head. What I write is tight and intense. And in Cait's workshop, I learned one can submit these short Flash pieces to countless journals, be published. After I finish the two-page TO DO list I printed last night, I will submit.

++++

At the same time, I am collaging and writing in semi-hibernation, things are burning in Minneapolis because once again, a police officer killed a black man. He killed George Floyd on camera as the world watched, as folks pleaded for Floyd's life, as Floyd said he couldn't breathe. There was no need for murder. Is there ever in these cases? But the blood must have been boiling in this white cop. How easy to kill a black man for dark, inchoate reasons.
There is rage and grief and fire in Minneapolis. As in Watts, Chicago, Ferguson... as MLK said, "A riot is the language of the unheard."

And deaths are rising in specific states from Covid-19. Rural areas where there are meat packing plants and authorities in Iowa won't even release the numbers of cases stemming from one plant. There is such secrecy around this disease as powers that be put business over life itself. The president becomes evermore incoherent, sent out an executive order on social media because Twitter angered him by noting his untruths. There are now over one hundred thousand deaths in the United States.
If Democrats do not win in November, we will reach a tipping point and become a failed state.

On this 77th day of semi-hibernation, the wonderful/terrible are in stark relief. Which reality will survive? Mother Nature carries on. The cauliflower, which I ate three weeks ago now looks like this.

Artworks in Progress - While the World Goes to Hell

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 15 May 2020 16:24:00 +0000

Six weeks until show-time @HeidiVaughanFineArt and every single day is totally taken up with finishing/making/framing/conjuring the work. One moment I am confident I have the goods and minutes later, anxiety seeps over me. Will it all come together?
I am basically an editor with a good eye. I put things together and I know when things are working. The very name of this exhibition - A tab lo' - describes what I do - I make tableaus as my daughters maintain. My long-time friend Sally would concur.
I am working in my apartment - so miss my studio and screen porch - and am missing a space where I can lay everything out to see how - or if - things are pulling together. I must 'see' the gallery installation in my mind's eye. That week of installation could be fraught indeed if I have not 'seen' it really, really well in my mind's eye.

This week, I am attaching all the little photos that make up each collage onto their painted backgrounds on cold press Arches paper. The collages have been in existence for a while, just not glued together. I am a great believer in masking tape and will hold things together until the very end until I am forced to glue. This time around, I am affixing with matte medium, which is less messy, more forgiving than glues and spray fixatives that need to be used outdoors.
Making small changes in placement as I move along. Finished a duo on Naples that in view are playful, montages of what I love about this frenetic messy city. All the collages will be surrounded with hand written text - phrases from those blog posts and www.papercitymag.com articles.
Beginning work in earnest on embellishing several chandeliers. Yesterday, I took them over to the chandelier place on Richmond. The same folks who helped me with Second Seating. They have chains dangling from their ceilings on which to hang the chandeliers. I'll be able to look really hard at them, 'see' what can be done. Helps to work on the actual objects.
And through all of these show preparations, I feel at risk, a truant every time I leave my apartment. It is madness. I limit my trips, wear a mask always, keep distance - yet it's risky. Have taken to wearing gloves also. Yet when I am out, so are many other people, coming and going.

I plan one gallery wall of small pieces hung salon style. Excited about these. I really need a floor space to place more than a dozen pieces to see how they work together, what will stay and which will go. Pondering where to find such a space. Think I may have a couple of ideas.

So, there it is. Perilous days with the world going to hell, perhaps quite literally. And I am spending these days sorting images, arranging images, affixing images, juxtaposing images - all in an attempt to create an alternate slice this world. And as long as my family and friends are OK, remain healthy and still have jobs, I can focus unhampered, though always with 'the world is going to hell' running underneath it all. Opening date for A tab lo' at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art is June 27.
Reworking this collage, repainting the edges, trimming photos, mixing it up for the umpteenth time. And as I reworked it this morning, the words for the text around the edges came to me. Wrote them down on today's TO DO list.

The Good and the Crazy Bad

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Wed, 13 May 2020 00:54:00 +0000

The Good

The man who stood six feet behind me in the Trader Joe’s cashier's line during the 8:00-9:00 a.m. senior shopping hour said, "You look spiffy this morning in that outfit," then added, "And to be this put together so early in the day."

I smile beneath my mask and say, "Thank you," then added, superfluously, "I haven't been grocery shopping in two weeks," as if that was reason enough to wear wide gathered pants and the new Hawaiian cotton print mask my daughter Caroline made, as if that was reason enough to be taking extraordinary pleasure in having had a haircut on my hairdresser's patio, thereby taming an unruly cowlick and giving shape to my very person.

++++

The Crazy Bad
(if you don't like rants, scroll down to another Good.)

The Coronavirus unmasked (pun intended) the extreme vulnerabilities of our economy and culture. Most of us live on the edge of too little. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost in April; the president, tired of the pandemic, declares the country will 'open'. I know he misses his rallies. Thousands of Americans are dying every day and it turns out that more people of color are dying, folks in prisons, in assisted living and homes for the aged. I get a sense that there people who find such populations expendable. Weed them out. The white and the strong will live on, without wearing masks, you betcha.

On Mother's Day, C& C restaurant in Castle Rock, CO, was overrun with customers, none wearing masks, all sitting at crowded tables. A sign on the door proclaimed: Our freedom doesn't end where your fear begins."

“It’s America. You should be able to do what you want,” said Tyler Magana, a cafe customer. The eatery opened despite a public health order requiring restaurants to remain closed to in-person dining. No love for thy neighbor with these sentiments, is there?

The Good
My floors and tables are covered with work in progress. I've made myself a goal to finish text around each collage by the end of this week. That gives me four days. Will also make a trip to consult with the men refinishing two chests for the installation. Will also go to the chandelier shop where the lighting fixtures I bought in February will be hanging, so I can stand and contemplate them until ideas for embellishment begin to flow.
Six weeks until A tab lo' opens at Heidi Vaughan's. There is work to be done. I'm on it.

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Tue, 12 May 2020 03:18:00 +0000

Caroline C gestures with a peacock feather. Photographed her last week. What a good time.

Blogger.com finally got rid of all those gray ovals that were taking the place of photos in our blog posts. Took them well over a week to fix. Wonder what the problem was? I was about to shut Rockbridge Times down and begin a new blog for this new time. But it's so easy to continue on with this blog, that I'll write for a bit longer. I cannot take on one more new technical project at the moment.

Caroline C. with Bavarian flower vase. Will have the vase in the show at Heidi's.

I am taking an Inprint Flash Creative Non-fiction workshop on Zoom - six consecutive Monday evenings. Cait Weiss Orcutt is our instructor and a poet, comes out of the UH Creative Writing Program. I like her. She's thoughtful, giver of gentle and good advice. I'd take another class from her anytime. I like having to write something solid every week. Spend hours doing writing draft after draft. With this sort of discipline and time spent, 'the book' - that memoir I've spoken about for 65 years - could be taking shape. I think it'll get done.

I am also working half a dozen hours each day on preparations for my show at HeidiVaughan Fine Art over on Colquitt. Show opens in late June, so I have about two more months to pull it all together. I am going to finish the collages and then begin on the chandeliers. I am envisioning something like 2009's 'Second Seating' on a much smaller intimate scale. Hope folks are enchanted and BUY. This is the first show in a long time where I am footing the bill and need sales to break even. Raised funds and got grants for both 'Second Seating' and 'Finding Our Way.' Big difference.

Doris Ramos portrait with rose petals - may make it into the June show.

Busy, productive days and I am tired at night. Watching very little Netflix or Acorn these evenings. Read a bit and fall asleep. All good. Family and friends still healthy and so I feel little guilt about writing and working on this June show non-stop, full time. I am privileged and lucky to be doing exactly what I want to be doing.

My work space. I miss having a studio and screen porch for work spaces.

Laid out, but needs text and glue and then matte spray varnish.
Part of series called "pages from 'the book''"

Is It Time To Say Goodbye to 'Rockbridge Times'?

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Tue, 05 May 2020 13:45:00 +0000

After fourteen years, I may say goodbye to Rockbridge Times, inaugurate a new blog on a different platform. In a month's time blogger.com still has not gotten to the bottom of the serious issue of NO PHOTOS. Instead of photos on our posts, we see a gray oval with a horizontal line. I wonder if blogger.com was totally hacked? I wonder if the problem so huge they cannot/will not tell us. Gray ovals in place of photos is bringing angst to tens of thousands of bloggers, and from their pleas on HELP, I can see it is affecting their businesses. They cannot tout their products without photos.

Rockbridge Times does not sell product, rather its posts recount my life and times. I use photos to tell my stories and have done so since 2006. Lately, I even find myself using the hard bound annual editions of my blog as a reference source. When I cannot remember dates or exact details of events, I consult my blog and usually find the info I need.
So, I am giving thought to a new blog called A tab lo' and simply carrying on as usual. I no longer live on Rockbridge Lane, haven't since late 2017. Perhaps, it really is time to let that brand go and begin anew. With photos. Definitely.

Day 44 Hibernation in Houston

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:57:00 +0000

BTW, I've not posted in a week, waiting for blogspot to fix its photo problem. All photos in my last three post have become gray ovals. When I went to HELP, I found that others are experiencing the same thing and blogspot has replied saying they are working on it. Must be a pretty big issue to take over a week to fix?

Low moving gray clouds from the southeast and plenty of drizzle in Houston on this 44th day of hibernation. It is already 4:00 p.m. and what a busy day. I tend to over schedule so once again, the writing I planned on hasn't yet happened.

Up and out this morning at 8:15, wearing one of Caroline's masks, for the once-a-week food shopping expedition to Trader Joe's on Shepherd and Alabama where staff is so careful about handing us wipes and rubbing down each shopping cart handles. Today I was even reminded by my cashier to stand behind the blue line as she checked me out, well away from the clear Plexiglas wall between us. Stopped by Kroger on W Gray for a gallon of distilled water and Hertez green salsa. And though someone was wiping down shopping cart handles and there were Plexi shields between cashier and customers, I didn't see as much attention being given to cleanliness and distancing at Kroger. Bought enough this morning to last 10+ days. It is almost pleasant to write that I do not need to leave my domicile for these ten days, except to take walks. I love this time for work. As long as family and friends are well and retain their jobs, I feel free to write and make art. A time when the wonderful and terrible are side-by-side. I am privileged and very, very lucky. So far.

Haven't been to the warehouse in a month; John told me it is open so after unloading groceries, forgetting to wash some of them and leaving others on the floor, I headed out again. Have a mental list of all the stuff I can use for the June installation at Heidi Vaughan's gallery. Plan on hanging chandeliers, reminiscent of 2009's 'Second Seating', so went on a search through boxes for my cache of Hurricane Ike distressed fabrics. Intend to tear them into ribbons and embellish light fixtures. Gathered a half dozen empty frames that I will hang salon style and fill with objects. Looked through boxes of photos from that 1979 trip to China, searching for a print of workers wearing masks. Want this particular image for the collage Catherine Anspon wants for June issue of Paper City. They are featuring artists' responses to the Cornovirus. I found the photo, but it's in its original 1979 frame and I cannot budge the screws holding it all together. I'll take myself to John's as he'll have the strength and the right size screw driver to free the photo.

Mid-afternoon, I put a Trader Joe's made in Italy frozen kale broccoli pizza crust in the oven for lunch and then covered it with spaghetti sauce and ground beef, sautéed spinach and grated pecorino. I continue to count myself privileged to be living so comfortably and well, amid this nightmare of a mismanaged pandemic. Over 55,000 Americans are dead and not not word of comfort or condolence from the president. Learned today from several news sources he had daily briefings in early February about the severity of what was to come, and he chose to do nothing. Fox News and his gut feelings guide him. We are fast becoming a third world country, pitied and looked down upon - all in the space of 3 1/2 years. The Coronavirus simply unmasked the inequities built into our system.

Enough. The sun is out and I will rummage through a couple of notebook filled with short ramblings that will/should/must be made pieces for 'the book.' Hoping blogspot gets its picture saving abilities back. Stay safe.

Day 34 Hibernating in Downtown Houston - Where Do the Days Go (make that weeks)?

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 20:28:00 +0000

Windowsill garden - leeks grow like miniature towers of Pisa.

Unbelievably, it is Friday and the weekend is upon us. Each passing day has so little definition. Where did the week go? I sort of remember Monday evening when I participated in the first of six Zoom gatherings for an Inprint workshop on creative flash non-fiction with Cait Weiss Orcutt. A new experience for me. Not the Zoom part, but the Inprint workshop part. I like Cait and I've plowed ahead with the first assignment which is writing no more than 250 words that begin with, "One (season - spring, summer fall or winter?), followed by 'I was' and then a metaphoric image. Move between different time periods and end with a sensory detail connected to a metaphoric image, ideally the one in the first sentence. That's it. Anyone care to join in parsing their version of this assignment?

What I noticed is that writing the piece came fairly easily in the light of day. But on Monday evening when Cait made the assignment and asked us to pluck an idea from our mental stash and write a first sentence, I could only think of holding my eyes open. Write a sentence to specifications?
I am doing less and less well in the evening hours. Age? Probably. We will see about my workshop participation level. At some point, I may have to confess my disadvantage.

Monday also included a two mile late afternoon walk in Montrose where I ran into Roberta. Nice to have a visit in person with someone, albeit with 8-10 feet between us as we walked in the middle of the street. Confederate jasmine is rampant and fragrant.

An Ebay purchase arrived on Monday. This 'so-bad-its-good' working electric clock with golden ceramic puti will spend some time on my grandmother Shirley's library table before it becomes part of the June installation at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art. Shades of 2009's 'Second Seating'.

Could remember nothing about Tuesday until I looked on my iPhone photo stash and see that I walked again the Montrose and saw lily seed pods and an empty lot of Texas wild flowers. And I went to the eighth floor of my building where they have locked the doors to the deck pool area. I miss this outdoor place where I used to go often very early in the morning to watch the sun come up over downtown. Bet the other folks in this building are missing the outdoor BBQ grills and the pool itself. And the gym.

Wednesday evening, Terrylin orchestrated a Zoom gathering for our very long-time friends dinner group. Six of the eight of us spent a pleasant almost two hours. Talked about books we've read during these hibernating days. Sally spoke about her school teaching year in Greece after a summer working at the Texas pavilion at the World's Fair in Queens, NY. I went to the fair that summer. Did I go to the Texas Pavillion?
Thursday I wrote a short piece from a prompt for Nancy Aronie's Zoom gathering. Almost 100 participated and broke into small groups to read what we'd written. Always inspiring to hear what others have written, but again, evenings are no longer a good time for me. My energy level is nil.

And so now it is mid Friday afternoon and I've not left this apartment except for the newspaper. Cabbage salad lunch with fresh pineapple and a few blueberries, both of which may be what knocked me out for an hour - too much sugar? Another cup of coffee, some Mozart commandeered by Alexa and I'm into this blog post.
There are new outrages every day from the president. He is so eager to 'open up' the country without a plan, without widespread testing. Each day is a circus and the states are doing their best except for those like South Dakota where I read the governor is asking each person to take personal responsibility for themselves, make their own decisions about whether or not to buy into social distancing and to stay at home days/weeks. Folks there in highly populated areas are at last taking ill as the governor maintains personal responsibility will see them through.
Promised my sister Kate, I'd glue down all the photos in this collage I made for her and get it in the mail. I am not an expert gluer, never have been. Always a neatness challenge. However, I love this piece which shows the immensity of the wheat fields we passed on our Canadian sojourn almost a year ago. Need some text around the borders too. Onward.

Day 31 What's She Doing? This Creative Elder Hiberating in Houston?

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 02:19:00 +0000

Day 31? Really? This is a hard post to write. Because I feel almost guilty about my good fortune - my good fortune so far. On Day 31 of my hibernation, none of my family has taken ill with the Coronavirus. Nor have any lost their jobs. Yet. We are lucky, fortunate. My friends are still OK. The coronavirus did strike a long-time friend's son and his family. They are recovering. On Day 31, all is not well in our world, but I have been lucky, fortunate.
Our country is turned upside down, people are dying, our Federal government is unable to marshal its forces on our behalf, health professionals are stretched to their physical and emotional limits. Days, weeks and months more of the Coronavirus lie ahead. At the end of it, none of us will remain the same or be unscathed.
So spending quiet days by myself seems luxurious, self-indulgent during in this horrific time. These alone days have become a habit and more than that, I am having a good time. I even have a garden of sorts on my windowsill. New little leeks like the leaning tower of Pisa are sprouting from leek roots. Carrots stalks are growing new little leaves; tiny green spikes have popped out of garlic cloves.

I rarely leave my apartment except to get the morning paper from my building's lobby, or carry a bag of garbage and Amazon Prime boxes to the trash shoot. Every few days, I drive to a shady neighborhood, of late to Montrose, park and walk a mile or two. Confederate jasmine is now in full fragrant bloom - there are walls of it along sidewalks. Always, I look for bees, remembering how they used to feast on jasmine blooms. I do not see bees this year, nor did I see them last year. Perhaps a stray bee here and there, but not like days past. Another thing about which to worry.

This morning I saw trailing vines, curious sidewalk cracks, wild flowers, old fashioned lilies and lily seed pods, morning glories, patterns on the trunk of crepe myrtles - and always the play of light.

Meanwhile, the daily news is dire. Americans die every day. More and more are taking ill. Hospitals have refrigerated trucks to hold the dead. Families are bereft, unable to comfort their dying or see them into the ground. Nursing homes and prisons and I suspect, illegal detention centers, are death traps. Health professionals, bearing the brunt of the crazy lack of national planning, are besieged and overworked, some to death. As of today, the USA has more deaths than any other country in the world. With social distancing, we can lessen the disease's reach. That is our only remedy.
Americans are out of work and have no money and little food. Millions have applied for unemployment insurance. Checks for $1200 should be arriving from the Federal government shortly, but for so many, it's too little too late. Houston Food Bank set up a special Covid-19 Emergency Fund. Yesterday I made a contribution, and will do so for the foreseeable future. Non-profits are running on empty. We who are able need to step up.

Made Caroline's cauliflower soup today, seasoned with cinnamon, lemon juice and garlic.

I am more than privileged to be living in a pleasant apartment, eating fresh organic produce, making home made soups. I have books to read, Netflix to watch, and every day, writing and art-making to be done. I am doing precisely what elders have been told to do - STAY AT HOME.

Plus these instructions: When you do go outside your home, wear a mask. Stay at least six feet from other folks. Wash hands many times each day. Wash your groceries - there is an entire protocol for washing.

During these day of hibernation, I have a peculiar freedom. I get to do exactly what I want. I fill a notebook with ideas for an installation of my collages scheduled for mid-June at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art - if life is somewhat normal by then. Who knows? Yet the work must be ready, and so I collage and cover pages with words that I will write on the collages already assembled. I've designed a series of gold rimmed porcelain plates with images, have plans to embellish several chandeliers, may have a few images printed on metal.

One of the images that will appear on gold rimmed porcelain dinner plates.

I blog more than I have in a year or two. I'm writing a series of posts for www.papercitymag.com titled Hibernating in Houston. The tone is light and heartfelt; I walk a fine line between entertaining and sending a sober message.

Collage that appeared in www.papercitymag.com

While I am spending my days happily in hibernation, our entire country is on the skids - what a performance the president gave yesterday granting himself the powers of a dictator on national television and at tax payer expense. What was supposed to be a Coronavirus briefing turned ugly as he turned on the governors of these United States. He who has taken little or no responsibility for helping individual states and has said as much, now claims, "The authority of the president of the United States, having to do with the subject we're talk about, is total." The president added, "The president of the United States calls the shots" and then, "If some states refuse to open, I would like to see that person run for election."

May the president's karma catch up with him sooner rather than later. Later may be too late for our survival as a functioning nation. I never cease to be shocked and horrified by what he says and thinks. He is toying with the lives and welfare of millions of Americans. I just heard he is having his signature imprinted on every check that goes out to Americans. As if he'd sent each of us a personal check in time of need.
One bright note? Even with voter suppression going on in Wisconsin, aided by our Supreme Court, Democrats won the primary for the State Supreme Court candidate. Folks took risks, left their homes to vote and Jill Karofsky won by over 100,000 votes. BTW, I had to search the Houston Chronicle for news of this primary and today, found the story on page 6.

In this moment on Tuesday, April 13, a CNN news alert flashes on my iPhone, "Trump halts World Health Organization funding over coronavirus outbreak." He says they have mismanaged and covered up the spread of the coronavirus. With such regularity, the president pushes blame on others for the very things he has failed to do.
During these days of hibernation, American life has changed, may never be the same again. Day 31 has come and gone. Tomorrow, I will walk and write. Have that Inprint Flash Non-fiction piece to work on. If the first draft comes easily, it will make my day.

Day 27 Good Friday in the Time of Coronavirus

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 17:56:00 +0000

Fifty-five years ago, I worked at Bloomingdale's in NYC and I remember leaving the store on my lunch hour for United Methodist Church over on Madison Ave for a Good Friday service. Seemed the thing to do on that day.
Today is Good Friday 2020, the time of the Coronavirus, and I am not leaving my domicile. The Galveston-Houston Co-Cathedral is right across the street from my building and I couldn't cross its threshold if I wanted to. The cathedral is closed as are so many other churches and places of worship.
The cathedral's Holy Week liturgies will be live-streamed. Today at 3:00 p.m., one can watch on-line Good Friday of the Lord's Passion.
St. Philip Presbyterian Church, where I served as an elder back in the day, also has Holy Week services on-line. I've missed the 11:00 a.m. Good Friday Prayer Service, but can attend this evening's Good Friday Tenebrae Service at 8:00 p.m.
Easter is upon us in this very strange and horrific time. What will the message be from pulpits this Sunday? My grandmother Shirley always asked this question on Easter Sunday, "Well, did he (the pastor) get Christ out of the grave?" which meant, "Was the sermon a good one?"
May pastors truly get Christ out of the grave on Easter Sunday 2020.

Our Federal Government Arrives Way Late and the President Wants Folks to Be Appreciative

noreply@blogger.com (MMH) — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 17:23:00 +0000

Excerpt from Associated Press, Michael Biesecker, April 5, 2020

Trump spent January and February playing down the threat from the new virus. He derided warnings of pandemic reaching the U.S. as a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media. As the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Jan. 30, Trump assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control” and he predicted “a very good ending.”

His administration was so confident that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Feb. 7 that the government had airlifted nearly 18 tons of donated respirator masks, surgical masks, gowns and other medical supplies to China.

On Feb. 24, the White House sent Congress an initial $2.5 billion funding request to address the coronavirus outbreak. The next day, federal health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the virus was spreading quickly in the U.S. and predicted that disruptions to daily life could be “severe,” including school and business closures.

Unfazed, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told lawmakers on Feb. 27 that “the immediate risk to the American public remains low.”

During those crucial early weeks when the U.S. could have been tracking the spread of the disease and containing it, hardly anyone was being tested after a series of federal blunders led to a shortage of tests and testing capacity, as AP reported last month.

Without data showing how widespread the disease was, federal and state governments failed to prepare.

By the middle of March, hospitals in New York, Seattle and New Orleans were reporting a surge in sick patients. Doctors and nurses took to social media to express their alarm at dwindling supplies of such basic equipment as masks and gowns.

Trump accused some Democratic governors of exaggerating the need and derided those that criticized the federal response as complainers and snakes.

“I want them to be appreciative,” Trump said on March 27.