THE RED BUNGALOW

   
      I live in a red bungalow on High Street in Auburn.   I live with my daughter Anna, and a cat and a dog.  The windows in our house are old and paned and rattle on windy nights.   The fireplace is made of old, red bricks.  The little kitchen has lots of lovely pink formica and a floral wallpaper that is cheery and clean.  The wooden floors are cold in the winter and perfect in the summer, creaking when we walk about in the early morning.

     In the living room is a wonderful window seat....long and cozy with pillows and throws.  We sit here often, doing our reading or chatting, or checking our e-mails.  We can look down on the street and watch people run by, or ride heir bikes, and walk their dogs.  All the parades in our town pass by our house.

      The gardens at this little house were pretty even before we moved in.  Gray rock in walls and planter boxes, old established vines growing on them, and paths and stairs meander through the grounds.  The trees are large and leafy, providing beautiful shade on the hot afternoons.  We grow flowers in the spring.  Digitalis love the shade here.  The shasta daisies grow all summer long.

      Birds love the large pine in the front yard.  In the the spring, the cedar waxwings come through and eat all the new red berries on the branches of the pyracantha bush.  We have grey squirrels and scrub jays.   Finches flock on the bag feeders of the thistle seed.  In the spring, we have to add more seed every few days.  There is an old gray bird bath where several kinds of birds congregate.

    I truly love the way this dear old house is set up high, above the ground.  It gives a feeling of being in a tree house.  The windows open to the sides and the evening  breezes cool every room on hot summer nights.
   
    Living downtown is friendly, and noisy, and handy.  Anna and I can walk to the bank, or to Tango's for a frozen yogurt.  We can walk down to Old Town events, or uptown to a movie in the town square.  We can hear the clock tower chime, and Fast Friday's cheer.  We can hear the voice of Mr. Burge announcing at the football games, and the buzzer of the heats in the swim meets.  I like the bustle of it all.  And I like people...

FEELING FACES

C. SHOWING HIS WORK

     Working with a large group of children on Friday afternoons, I have made some lovely friends and found tremendous delight in watching them grow as "little people who LOVE to create".

      We use large pieces of newsprint to do most of our work.  The children spread out all over the room....on table and floor.  We use watercolors, pencils, sharpie pens and sometimes a special gold or silver marker.  We listen to music.  We talk and think, wonder and discuss w h i l e we work.

      On Friday, December 21st, we painted 12 faces with different expressions....mad, sleepy, calm, worried, happy and others.   I asked the kids to think about the ways our mouth and eyes change as we emote.  We found that our eyebrows were very important to express the feeling we were depicting.

      The drawings were really fun.   The creative energy was really high.....and the finished product was very pleasing to almost all.  

The P O W E R of Observation

........When we look closely at something during our art class we try to pretend that we are looking at it for the very first time.  We try to forget what we thought we knew about the thing, and then begin to LOOK at it like we would if we had pulled it from a "Time Capsule".
        We have practiced this technique over and over with insects, seed pods, flowers, and birds.  One day this Fall, I wanted to try the technique with an OREO.   THE KIDS WERE THRILLED!  Every child received one oreo cookie to observe, to hold in their own hands, to render with a sparpie pen and contour lines, and then to eat.  We took twenty minutes to look and sketch.....then we took twenty more minutes to LOOK AGAIN.....noting the details that perhaps we had passed over.  When most of the children told me they were "done" I noticed that they had not done their most precise work and I asked them why they felt the need to hurry......the answer was obviously that they could not wait to eat the cookie.  
       

      "Ramona, I would like it if you w a l k e d   q u i e t l y," said Miss Binney.

     

       "I am the littlest Billy Goat Gruff," explained Ramona.  "I have to trip-trap."

 

       "You may trip-trap when we go outdoors."   Miss Binney's voice was firm.  "You may

      

        not trip-trap in the classroom."

             At playtime the whole class turned into Billy Goats Gruff and trip-trapped around the playground, but none so joyously or so noisily as Ramona.  The gathering clouds, Ramona noticed, were dark and threatening.

             Sure enough, that evening rain began to fall, and all night long it beat against the south side of the Quimby's house.   The next morning Ramona, in her boots and raincoat, was out long before Howie arrived to walk to school with her.  She waded through the wet lawn, and her boots became even shinier when they were wet.  She stamped in all the little puddles on the driveway.  She stood in the gutter and let muddy water run over the toes of her beautiful new boots.  She gathered wet leaves to dam the gutters so she could stand in deeper water.......

Dear Mr. Rogers

listen.......this quote is quietly stated.....but the ramifications are enormous, as some of us know.     "Please think of the children first.  If you ever have anything to do with their entertainment, their food, their toys, their custody,  their day or night care, their health care, their education....listen to the children, learn about them, learn from them.  Think of the children first."          Fred Rogers

The Necessity

As a human I find, I truly NEED sleep.
As a gardener I understand, my hands will get dirty.
As a member of a family, I know I must think  r e l a t i o n a l l y.
As an artist I am constantly compelled to create.
As one who adores children, and their development,  I spend long hours observing.
As a casual ornithologist, mycologist, and entemologist, I must get out of doors.
As a wife whose marriage has dissolved, I must have courage outside many camps.

As an o v e r c o m e r.....I must have TIME ALONE.   This is not only a reasonable ambition, it is imperative for any of  the roles listed above to remain healthy, whole, dynamic in the sense of evolving to greater places of UNDERSTANDING.
One of my dearest friends has no idea I exist.  Infact, we have never met.  She died recently, but left me a legacy of W OR D S that live on in my soul.   She stated once,
       "The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone."

But she did.......and I continue to see how clearly I do.

These are her words:  ".....But if one says:  I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.  What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it-- like a secret vice!"

Anne Morrow Lindbergh knew the secret of "living from a core of inner stillness while actively responding, as we all must do, to the 'here and now'.  She quietly set herself free, into her own life and into all life."

Musing on these things......while I am alone.