"Other things may change us, but we start and end with family." (-Anthony Brandt)

This past weekend, I went up to Cambridge, Massachusetts to visit my son. His wife was traveling, so I didn’t get to see her, but as always, it was really pleasant to spend a few days with Eric. They live in a high rise that looks out over a verdant urban park, which pleases me to know that he has at least some semblance of Nature close by!

When we talked a few weeks ago, and I said that I would come up to visit, he said that he was going to make dinner reservations, so I asked him not to go to any special trouble for my visit.

His sarcastic reply, typical of Eric, was:

“OK, well, right--we may water you, and we might let you out for some sunshine, but you’re right—we probably won’t plan on feeding you.”

(You would think that after 31 years, I would have anticipated such a reply.)

When I arrived, on my bed was a sweet card from his wife, a book about Boston, and this elegant box of chocolates to welcome me. Last year when I visited, he and I walked all over: to the Public Gardens in Boston, through Newberry St and all around town. We also spent a day at the DeCordova museum and sculpture gardens, which was right up my alley.

This visit, we had wonderful meals, ate outdoors, went to a creative, artsy shop that he knew I would enjoy, and just talked and relaxed. He watched as I tried, (and failed,) several times, to sketch my gift, but he offered encouragement as he always does.

And as usual, when he dropped me off at the airport, I welled up—I happen to be extremely sentimental when it comes to Eric. I will hear from him often in emails and phone calls, but I won’t see him again for some time, with my wacky work schedule, so I’ll cherish each visit and remember it with fondness.

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around—and why his parents will always wave back.” (-William D Tammeus)

The Usual Suspects

I’m always learning new things about the birds we see.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of an incessant tapping that went on for some time. We’d opened the door of our bedroom last night, which goes out onto a tiny deck. So, this morning, it turns out I was hearing a male downey woodpecker drumming away on the gutters outside the house. I always wondered what makes them do that. I guess I’d assumed that they tap on trees to find and help to dislodge bugs there, but then I recently read that this is a sign of territorial ownership or a mating call, or it’s to let a mate know of his whereabouts. Of course, that makes sense, but I never knew that.

Black-capped chickadees are adorable birds. I have recently been seeing one that comes over and over again to our hummingbird feeder and sips away at the nectar. While I'd read about that, no other birds but the hummingbirds have ever shown any interest in it, but this bird seems to love it. He also nabs sunflower seeds, thistle, peanuts and suet, but will sometimes fly off with the seeds. I read today that they will store food for later on, and they store each piece in a different location and can remember up to thousands of different hiding spots!

My favorite “chunky charmers” are the Carolina wrens, and it’s the males who sing the loud songs that waken me. They repeat, over and over, a sweet song that sounds like they’re very quickly saying “tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle.” Some mornings, I'll lie in bed and just laugh, they're so loud and so non-stop. It's as if they're doing their best to rouse us all for the day. Recently, I learned that a male and female will form a bond and stay together for life.

The sleek, gray and black-capped Catbirds often come in groups to our deck. They’re pretty gentle creatures, but I read recently that sometimes a Cowbird will lay an egg in a catbird’s nest. If so, the catbird will often toss out the cowbird’s egg!

Even though I watch the birds constantly, I’m ever fascinated by them!

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?” (-Rose Kennedy)

"Stressed spelled backwards is 'desserts.'"

"Coincidence? I think not.” (author unknown)

How did I ever wind up with someone who doesn’t like desserts the way I do? It’s incredible: Joe could go the rest of his life and wouldn’t care less if he never saw another piece of cake or a cookie. And ice cream? He’s the only person I’ve ever met in my life who doesn’t like it. Me, on the other hand, I’m a total sucker for sweets. A Dove bar sends me into paroxysms of ecstasy.

I tend to want to eat more healthy foods as a rule than he does, and when it comes to vegetables and fruits, I love them. If I do indulge in sweet things, I'll try to mentally adjust, thinking of what I should NOT eat at the next meal, so that "it will all balance out in the end." But I definitely love my desserts. The more decadent, the more I enjoy it.

Growing up, my siblings and I never ate snacks in-between meals. Unlike some homes, we never had chips or candies sitting out for us, but we always had a dessert after every dinner, every day of our lives. So now, after a meal, I tend to crave a sweet ending to it. Now, Joe will enjoy a good pie, which is fine by me... I like pie, ...and I like it even better with a good dollop of ice cream or whipped cream on top of it...but life without cake would be cruel, indeed.

“A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” (-author unknown)

"Take it with a grin of salt." (-Yogi Berra)

“Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.”
(-William Hazlitt)

Well now,... how could something like this happen? Evidently, I’ve become one of those people who collect salt and pepper shakers. There was no premeditation here, mind you. I never meant to do it. In fact, I've been known to make fun of those folks who do. It just happened.

Growing up, for special occasions, my mother had delicate, individual, glass salt cellars for each person at the table, and elegant , tiny spoons to go along with them. She gave them to me some years ago, and I have them in a pretty little box.

Joe came home one day with sweet little tulips, knowing that they're pretty much my all-time favorite flower.

Then, he and I were at the art museum, and I happened upon a set of “Picasso-esque” salt and peppers. Joe is a huge Picasso fan, so needless to say, they came home with us. I was enamoured of the way they sort of nestled together, as salt and peppers should.

At the flea market a few summers ago, we found two sweet bluebird S&P’s, and how could we resist that?

Finally, when I was at Biltmore this past spring, lo and behold, in the gift shop, I saw charming little pink birds for $7 that I had to have and now I've even done sketches of them.

Which is my favorite, you ask...?

I'd have to say...this one:

As Yogi Berra would say:
“Take it with a grin of salt.”

("...wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?")

“The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs.”

In every room of our house, there’s always a vase with cut flowers in it. Doesn’t matter what season: even in the dead of winter, we’ll have pansies and camellias to bring inside to brighten up the place. We're fanatics about it. I'll spend lots of time placing flowers in every room, and Joe will ask me, in a concerned tone, "Did you remember to put one in the bathroom upstairs?" Horrors, "yes," I'll respond, and he will calm down immediately to hear that reassuring news.

People tell me we have a lot of vases, and it’s true; we do. I suppose it’s a weakness, but it’s an ailment Joe suffers from even more than I do. He’ll spy a vase that he likes and he just can’t pass it by. I’ll remind him that we have plenty of them, but it’s just an addiction and I tell myself that he really can’t help himself.

As for me, I’m certainly not going to turn down a new one. Some I've had for years, some friends have given us and some Joe surprises me with. Cut flowers won’t always last that long, but part of the beauty of flowers is their ephemeral nature, and that’s what makes them so appealing to me in the first place. We're fortunate that most of our cut flowers are from our own gardens, and we love them.

“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And don’t forget to smell the flowers along the way.” (-Walter Hagen)

"What the caterpiller calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly" (-Lao tzu)

A Study of Two Pears
(-Wallace Stevens)

1

Opusculum paedagogicum
The pears are not viols,
Nudes or bottles.
They resemble nothing else.
2

They are yellow forms
Composed of curves
Bulging toward the base.
They are touched red. 3

They are not flat surfaces
Having curved outlines.
They are round
Tapering toward the top.


In the way they are modelled
There are bits of blue.
A hard dry leaf hangs
From the stem.
5

The yellow glistens.
It glistens with various yellows,
Citrons, oranges and greens
Flowering over the skin.

6

The shadows of the pears
Are blobs on the green cloth.
The pears are not seen
As the observer wills.

"There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who love chocolate, and communists." (-Leslie Moak Murray)

When I was a child, my mother sewed all of our clothes. She made dresses and coats for my sisters and me, and matching dresses for our dolls. It was nothing to see her slipcover furniture or whip up drapes for the rooms in our house. Our Halloween costumes were always hand-sewn creations. I remember wearing a witch’s hat that was a lampshade in a former life, so it hurt my head, and I didn’t like it.

My mother said, “You have to suffer to be beautiful!” and I remember thinking I definitely did not want to be beautiful if that was the case.

As a result of all that sewing, one of my mom’s favorite things to do was to go fabric shopping. Now, as an adult, I loved fabric shopping, but as a little kid, I hated it! I remember being small and visiting fabric stores where all I could see, at eye level, was bolts of fabric for what seemed like miles on end. It was beyond boredom to me at that time; I dreaded going.

Back in the late ‘50’s, we had only one car, and so, since my dad took the car to work, it meant that we would sometimes walk downtown to shop. We were not even remotely interested in going, but my mother was smart. She had a secret weapon that worked like magic to persuade us to go along with her:

I remember watching her take out of her bag a single bar of Hershey’s chocolate, and without fanfare, she would slooooowly give us each just one tiny square at a time.

That was it. That’s all it took.

“For energy,” she’d say.

We were happy to follow her to the ends of the earth if she appealed to our baser instincts this way. I’d let that tiny square of chocolate melt luxuriously in my mouth as if it was the last thing I was ever going to savour. We’d walk past an old armory in town, and I remember climbing up on the concrete blocks and steps as we went along. I would wonder if there was going to be another square, and sure enough, there usually was. Not many more, but that little bit of chocolate made the trip one I actually came to relish.

It wound up working out very well; one of my first lessons in the fine art of compromise: she got the makings for a new outfit, and we got dessert.

“There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.” (-author unknown)

Chocolate.

"When it is darkest, men see the stars." (-Ralph Waldo Emerson)

A woman named Jillian Curtis from Winona, Minnesota sent me an interesting email one day, asking me to take part in a lesson she is devising for her school-age sons. She wants to educate them about the history of the Holocaust, and how it is through hate and fear that something so horrific could occur in our world.

Her family watched the movie “Paperclips,” about a school that collected six million paper clips to try to represent the sheer magnitude of the Holocaust and its victims. She wondered how she could involve her sons in a similar effort, and developed the idea of asking people to contribute stars to represent those millions of lives lost.

I am taking part in her family’s efforts, and am sending off some stars. If anyone is interested in participating, please jot her an email at:

jillianmcurtis@yahoo.com

Her project brings to mind the South Pacific song by Rogers and Hammerstein that sadly is still pertinent today:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

“Here comes the sun,…and I say, it’s all right…”

Umbrellas, brollies, parasols—call them what you will: whether they’re being used to keep the rain off or the sun out, or just as a decorative accessory, in art, they’re always appealing to me.

Many artists I admire have depicted the sun streaming through the transparent fabric of colored parasols. Our local museum here in Raleigh has a famous Frieseke painting and we have this same print hanging in our guest room, along with a couple of other figures with parasols. Monet painted women with beautiful parasols in the sunlight as well, emphasizing their ability to shade.

Sargent sometimes depicted friends whom he asked to don costumes with elegant parasols. He invited his guests to sprawl out on the grassy knolls near streams while he painted the magic in the cascading light.

And Richard Miller, another artist I enjoy, has romantic images of women in undulating fabrics and rich, graceful parasols that create beautiful reflections and shadows on the women carrying them. What's not to like about these?

“It ain’t no use putting up your umbrella ‘til it rains.” (-Alice Caldwell Rice)

“Life is like a rose garden—watch for the thorns and keep the pest dust handy.” (-author unknown)

Roses are difficult for me to paint. My left brain starts thinking I have to replicate every single darned petal, and then I get lost trying to find where I left off as I paint. They’re such beautiful flowers, and so I want to learn to loosely get the big shapes and just “suggest:” ROSE.

Our yard typically has roses everywhere, but a lot of them are the dark, rich pinks, and while they are lovely, I am drawn to the pale, soft whites, corals and pinks that are delicate and fragile looking. So now, we’ve added a pretty yellow rose and a white rose. Friends also gave us a miniature, light, coral rose that we’ve planted in the ground this year and it’s thriving.

I should have lots of possibilities for practicing my sketches, but I do tend to get frustrated. My brain doesn’t seem to want to lean towards strong swooshes of color, but wants to niggle at it like the anal-retentive person I am! So, you can imagine my exhilaration to realize I was not alone in my feelings, when I read this quotation:

“There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.” (-Henri Matisse)

“He’s really the painter of light. Rembrandt is light on faces; Vermeer is just light, period.” (-Eduardo Serra)

I have always been a huge fan of Jan Vermeer’s paintings: without ever having had the benefit of a camera to aid him in his observations of it, he had such a masterful sense of light and its play on people and objects. He painted mostly interior scenes, and was purportedly very slow in producing only a few paintings a year. Only 35 paintings are firmly attributed to him today.

One of my favorite movies is Girl with a Pearl Earring, not so much for the story, but for the cinematography and the beauty of the lighting. Each scene in that movie resembles a Vermeer painting to me.

I was fortunate that I was able to visit Delft, in the Netherlands, Vermeer's hometown, some years ago. It’s a wonderfully quaint little town and I found myself wondering what it was there that so impacted Vermeer to create the beautiful images he did. Sadly, when he died fairly young, he left his wife with a large family to support and debts to be paid. She was forced to sell paintings and his tools of the trade to erase those debts. He was hardly known outside of his hometown, and when a diplomat came to visit the town and wanted to see some of Vermeer's work, he was sent to the local baker who owned several pieces of art that had been exchanged for bread for Vermeer's family.

“Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.” (-Ralph Waldo Emerson)