December 29, 2015 – Patience and practice – my wish and intention

One reason I’ve not been painting – I’ve been puzzling! This one is of one of my paintings – Paris – fun to be re-working my own artwork!

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A year ago, at the end of my last post of the year, I wrote this:

“Tomorrow is the last day of 2014. Though it’s rather arbitrary, the calendar is a structure that we live around. As such, we look at endings and beginnings. I’ve been shying away from New Year’s resolutions for several years. I’m so susceptible to the “bright-shiny”-ness of the hope for a “whole new me.” Though it’s still useful to reflect and envision. Looking back on this year [2014], much of what I was so eager and hopeful for at the start, has not come to be. But what I do see, is a profound deepening of my understanding and appreciation, for who I am and what I’m here to do and offer…

…Looking into 2015, with a tender heart, I wish for Life in Full Color to expand, to find its way to bring life, light, color, inspiration to other hearts that resonate with it. I wish for whatever is needed in me, for me to understand, that Life in Full Color is so much more than me, and that bringing it more fully into being, will take much more than me. And I trust that at the end of December 2015, I will look back and see, that something has moved and changed and grown. It’s the nature of the universe.”

Reading this and reflecting on where I was when I wrote it, I feel the tenderness of my heart and the hopes and dreams it held for the coming year. There is a daring in sharing these hopes. We have no idea what will unfold – or how. Things did change and expand and grow this year. I reviewed much of what happened in a post at the end of September, marking a year of writing every week. Right after that was the Pilgrimage to Paris – an enormous expansion! And, the “team” that makes Life in Full Color happen, is no longer just me. Since sometime in the spring, Shonna Hirney with Heart and Soul Virtual Assistance – a lovely, lively and capable woman near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, takes my words and images, and creates these posts – here on my site and on Facebook – and sends the emails, so that I can get back to painting.

On a deeper level, as compared to a year ago, I have a visceral experience of both how resilient I am, and how precious and valuable what I have to share is. It’s not that I’m really any more resilient or that it’s more valuable or precious than a year ago, it’s that I now see it, I know it, I have it in my bones in a way I did not. I also have more clarity about what is possible through making art a major part of our lives. We wake up and become more conscious and present – to who we are as people – and to life. This all provides another place for me to stand, at the edge of a new year. But looking back, I see that the growth I’d hoped for was bigger than this. I know I’m not alone in my hope for change to happen really quickly.

I keep forgetting this, but my endeavors, my business, Life in Full Color, is my creation just as any of my watercolors – only on a larger scale. All that I observe and learn about the art-making process – in myself and the artists who paint with me – applies to creating my business as well. In a wonderful book on making art called, “Art and Fear”, I read this: “The artist’s life is frustrating, not because the passage [of bringing our imagination to life] is slow, but because he imagines [emphasis mine] it to be fast.”

In the same book, there is a story of a pianist, who laments to his master that he can hear the music so much better in his head, than he can get it out of his fingers. The master asks him “what makes you think that ever changes?” It’s the distance, the mismatch between what we envision and the reality of our work, and life that keeps us working towards our vision. It is a really good thing that our hopes leap out ahead of our lives.

I have no idea where it has come from, but I’ve been ambitious about my endeavors as an artist from the start. I found these synonyms to the various meanings of “ambition”: aspiration, yearning, longing, goal, aim, drive, force. There is a forward motion in these words. They seem to move from one to the next – almost accelerating. Ambition is the force that brings our work out of us. But ambition must be also be balanced – there’s the cautionary term “blind ambition” for a reason. The purpose of my work as a creator, is to be in service to those who are there to receive it. My work must be done in relationship with the world, with life – my partners in evolution. If I’m blind to what the world has to show me, I can’t include it in my work.

To the impatient parts of us, a year seems like a long enough time to have all we dream of in our endeavors to come to be, but it’s hardly any time at all. It takes lived experiences to reveal things to us, that we couldn’t have thought of. The clarity and specificity that is required isn’t there… until it is!

What I’m wishing for, for the New Year is patience. I will faithfully hold my hopes and dreams for expansion, and I will endeavor to remind myself, to trust that all things come in their own time. I will also faithfully do the work. There is no substitute for sitting my butt down and doing what is mine to do. There will be emails to send to let you know what I’m offering, another Pilgrimage to Paris, maybe a watercolor retreat on Kauai, maybe another in the wine country, a calendar for 2017, and of course my regular groups to lead and my paintings to paint.

I don’t have a regular spiritual practice, and I’ve been told so many times (including by myself) that I really need to. It has occurred to me, that my painting is my devotion – and in that, it is my spiritual practice. But, there are many, many days that get by me – like the past two weeks or so – when I don’t paint at all! I know! With that same tender heart, I set this intention for 2016: I will paint every day. I’m saying here, that I’ll paint for at least a half an hour – but 5 minutes will do. Every day. Off-to-the-airport-travel-days, staying-in-a-hotel-room-days, not-feeling-so-well-days – I will put brush to paint to paper – every day.

In painting every day, I’ll start with finishing this one!

It’s scary to share this publicly. But, I’ve shown myself that I can keep to a practice with these posts. And doing so, has me hold myself differently. Now, I’m upping the ante. It will take arranging my life (like bringing art supplies with me wherever I go) so that I can keep the commitment. And I’m guessing that doing this will shift my relationship with my art-making. I look forward to the post at the end of 2016, when I’ll get to share with you how!

For 2015, I thank you for your faithful following of my journey each week. Knowing you are there is what has me corral myself to get writing every Tuesday morning. And for 2016, I wish for you what you wish for yourself (thanks, Lynda Wise) – in its own time and way.

Love,

Cara

December 22, 2015 – Being Christmas

I’m married to “Mr. Christmas.” He does an amazing job on the lights – just one of the ways he lights my life.

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I wrote a story several years ago, as a contribution to a friend’s site: tellourlifestories.com. It was about a Christmas that was unlike any of the others in my life so-far. It was 1996, I was newly divorced and had just come back from my six-months in Paris. I was in the very fortunate position to have been able to buy myself a little two-bedroom house in San Anselmo. This was before the real estate market around here went into the stratosphere, and I was able to swing it on my own. Escrow closed on December 12th and there was work to do. My brother and his crew and subs (including the love of my life-now my husband, Joe), were putting in a new kitchen and some recessed lighting – and I was doing what I could too. After work in the City (in San Francisco) and on weekends, I scraped and sanded woodwork and prepped and painted walls, soft colors. I was so, so excited to have a little place of my own, I didn’t care that everything except the new bed I’d bought myself, was still in storage. I had a few clothes in a suitcase on the dusty floor and my toiletries. That was it.

I spent Christmas Eve day in my grubbies – working.  I decided not to join in on a family celebration that evening. I wanted to work as long as I could on my new little house. I got myself a Duraflame log, poured myself a glass of chardonnay (I don’t remember where the wineglass came from!) and baked a Marie Callendar’s chicken pie in the old oven, that was still in place. Wearing a big baggy sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up to my elbows, old paint-stained jeans and tennies, my hair full of dust and a little paint, I sat myself in front of the fireplace on the rolled up piece of carpet that was to become an area rug in the living room. I can still feel how incredibly peaceful and content I was – blissfully happy, even – all alone on Christmas Eve. I was home – in my very own place for the first time in my life, and it was perfect, just perfect.

I’m sure that my contentment was related to the fact, that I also had plans to get cleaned up and dressed up to go to my parents for Christmas the next day, but it was still an unusual way for me to happily spend a Christmas Eve. Christmases and Christmas Eves before and after have been filled with people and presents and rich, yummy food – and furniture to sit on! I’m certain I also had no latex house paint in my hair!

There is a lot that is said about the hassle and stress this time of the year, but this year I’m really feeling the magic too. When I was little and still believed in Santa Claus, I remember waking up on Christmas morning overwhelmed with anticipation and excitement. I almost shivered with the intensity of my wondering what Santa Claus had brought us. Decades past really thinking that a big-bellied man in a red suit with a white beard actually came down the chimney to bring presents – and I still feel it. Christmas morning sparkles.

Christmastime means such different things to us. For some, it’s all about the tree and decorations, presents and Santa Claus and sweets and big feasts. There are those for whom it’s a sacred celebration of the birth of Jesus – the Christ child – the Christ spirit. And for many of us who celebrate this holiday, it’s some form of both. If you type “Christmas” into a search engine (yes, I Googled “Christmas”), the first thing that comes up is a Wikipedia page that is rich with history and background. Assuming it’s all correct (which I mostly always do), what we know as Christmas now is an amazing mix of ancient traditions and relatively new influences – including earth-based winter solstice rites that celebrate light in the darkness and the eternal life of evergreens, a Roman celebration of the Everlasting Sun , the ancient Germanic people’s celebration of Yule, a 4th century Greek bishop (St. Nicholas) and Charles Dickens who, with “A Christmas Carol,” sought to create a family-centered celebration based on generosity. Much of this has been folded into the celebration of the birth of Jesus, as practiced in the Christian tradition. This year I’m feeling the connection between it all.

For me the magic of Christmas is all of this – it’s light in the darkness – (I especially love colored light), it’s the generosity of life – feasting and making offerings to each other, it’s feeling an open-hearted, joyful spirit and wishing each other goodwill. To me this is all part of celebrating the birth of the Christ spirit that lives in all of us – in all of life, really – whether we are “Christian” or not. And I love “Merry Christmas” – all of this is in these two words in a way that I don’t get with “Happy Holidays.”

For many people, this is a very difficult time of year. There are loved ones who are gone or estranged, or life is not particularly abundant.  The magic everyone else is feeling can be a reminder of their pain. But even that it’s a hard time of year for some people points to that it is a special time. There are also lots of expectations that cause that hassle and stress. I’ve been finding myself for several years now wanting to pare down what I take on. To me “taking back” Christmas, means listening to our own voices for what it means to celebrate – and deleting emails urging me to shop!

In my late 20’s, early 30’s, I used to make a dozen, dozen of a dozen different kinds of cookies. I started in November, and put away tins and tins of cookies in the freezer. The day before Christmas,I put together cookie baskets,with jars of jam I made in the summer and little mini loaves of nut breads – all wrapped in green or red cellophane with a big ribbon. Baskets went to everyone in our families and many good friends. Of course I was younger then – and I wasn’t painting – but thinking about all this makes me want to crawl back under the covers!

Baba’s cookies

For about 4 or 5 years I’ve been saying “I’m not going to bake this year.” Then this week comes around and I start thinking about the little pecan-pie like cookies that my Baba (our step grandma) used to make – and I buy a package of cream cheese for the pastry, and get out the flour and brown sugar and nuts. I’ll also make some gingerbread – everyone in our families loves it – and a just few loaves of homemade panettone – not twelve of them like I have in the past.

Even as I pare down, I’m plagued by the pull of feeling like I need to do more – especially since I used to do so much. Procrastination is actually my friend in this. It keeps me from going overboard, and hopefully only that which is strong enough to pull me into action is all I need to be doing to celebrate. It’s tricky. There’s an enormous Christmas cyclone that can sweep us up into it. This year my aim is to be Christmas more than do Christmas.

Whether it’s your tradition, your holiday to celebrate or not, I hope that this week holds all you want and not much of what you don’t. I wish you light in the darkness, I wish you generosity, I wish you good will and a bright spirit.

I wish you Merry Christmas.

Love,

Cara

December 15, 2015 – What I want for you

The hydrangea leaf in the middle of this painting was hard for me – out of that came a wonderful day.

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We had the last of our “Special Saturdays” this past weekend. Ten artists joined my mom and me, to take a careful look at leaves – and how we might paint them. And we explored greens: green pigments and mixing greens with different combinations of blues, greens, yellows, golds, oranges… This past summer I found myself challenged, by representing the complexity of a hydrangea leaf in my painting “Douce,” which gave me the idea to offer this as one of our Saturday themes. When the regular Saturday painters asked for a December class – I thought everyone was too busy! – I had a theme ready to go.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but it was an especially “special” day. There was something about this group of ladies – though we missed you regulars who weren’t there. There seemed to be extra appreciation of the opportunity, to be together and explore and discover. I was left with the feeling that it was the perfect way to end our Saturday series for the year.

I’ve been grappling with how to describe, what happens in our painting groups. It is very clear to me it’s something beyond practicing the skills of painting watercolor, beyond what I offer about color and beyond the technology I make available. I hear often that coming to paint is better than therapy – which means something, but what exactly? This morning when I woke with this bouncing around in my head, it occurred to me that maybe this “something” might be related to my intentions. In four years of having watercolorists gather around me on a very regular basis, I realize, that there are things that I actively want for them – and want for you – whether you paint with me or not.

First, I want for you what you want for yourself. I thank Lynda Wise, a coach and one of my leadership tribe-mates for this. She signs her email newsletters this way, and I’ve always wanted to steal it! Even before this though, is that I want for you to want. Wanting is a muscle – “a wanter” – that we can exercise. This flies in the face of spiritual teachings like letting go and non-attachment. And some of us have not been granted permission, or have not granted ourselves the permission to want enough. It’s connected to our sense of entitlement – in the Elizabeth Gilbert sense – that we are entitled, not because we are special, but simply because we exist. It’s primal too – wanting keeps us alive.

I want for you to be known, for your voice to be heard. My mom went to an art critique session once, and was told that she didn’t have a distinct style. Really!? My mom goes out into her garden and zooms into one flower. She takes its photo and she paints it. She’s done this over and over, on dozens of paintings. It’s where she stands – zoomed in – taking in what’s before her, as if it is all the world. One look at her paintings, and she has such an obvious style. She was really crushed by what this person said. She wasn’t gotten, her voice wasn’t heard. Our art is an extension of us and is to be celebrated.

I want for you to not be stopped by your own resistance. A couple of years ago, there was a beautiful Anders Zorn exhibit at the Legion of Honor, in San Francisco. It was a rare treat to see such refined and masterful watercolors – I went to see it twice! Towards the end of the exhibit, there was a canvas of a nude, that he had slashed up. A friend had rescued it and put it back together. There it was with all its scars, evidence of its creator’s frustration. Resistance is real and it will not only destroy some of our work, it will keep us from even getting started. Its counter is desire – see why it’s good to work our “wanter” muscle? When you follow that desire and sign up to come paint and yes, even fork over money, (funny how that is) it gets you going. It’s a structure that overcomes the resistance, that prevents us from bringing forth our art.

I want for you to feel safe to risk, explore, expand, grow. Somewhere along the way, I was told or read or heard that in order to learn something new, we must open ourselves to let it in. And we can’t open ourselves if we don’t feel safe. If we fear that we’ll be criticized or judged or put down by trying something new, we will head the other way. We all have, factory installed, a well-functioning machine that provides plenty of all of that. There’s no need for voices outside us to chime in! There are only three rules in my groups. The most important one, is that no one is disparaging of anyone else’s work – hopefully even our own. In this environment you can paint a new subject, try to “loosen up”, or even just take the enormous step of putting color onto paper, for the first time.

I want for you to be curious, and to expand your capacity to see. Learning how to really see and honing what we pay attention to, is really what we are up to in our groups. In order to function though, we need to filter out the vast majority of the sensory input we’re bombarded with, in every second. I know of two children whose filters are deficient and life for them – and their families – is really, really hard. They are hyper-sensitive and have little capacity to cope. And, these same filters get in the way of how we see in order to create representational art. Cultivating curiosity, being really interested in our subject matter and slowing down, we can learn to really see. We practice seeing the shapes, the colors, the textures as they are – rather than what we think we see, based on past information.

I want for you to have a good time. Pleasure is powerful. When we experience pleasure, our bodies produce nitric oxide. When I first read this, it sounded toxic. It’s just the opposite – it is a helpful free-radical. Its effect is to relax our blood vessels, increasing blood flow to important places – like our hearts (it’s also a component of Viagra!). So a feel-good experience is not at all frivolous – it’s good for our health. Stretching ourselves to learn to paint – a never ending project – is hard work. I want for that hard work, to be done in the context of having a really good time. The caring, engaged attention of everyone in the group, brings pleasure. The connections we have with each other, bring pleasure. Looking at beautiful color, beautiful imagery and the beautiful artwork we make, brings pleasure. Witnessing the realness of people creating something tangible, from within them – that never before existed – brings me enormous pleasure.

In writing every week for over a year, I’ve discovered a process. I mostly don’t know what I’m going to write, I start with a germ of an idea, and then stuff comes through, that is either new to me or is clarified in a way I’d not seen before. Today I started with “what I want for you” and this is what came through. Though I’m not certain that it really is the “something” else that I’m grappling with – but – and – it’s really helpful to me to have articulated what my intentions and desires are. I also see that not only are they my intentions for you and your creating, but for me and mine – my paintings, my writing and my endeavors in the world. Physician, heal thyself.

With my love,

Cara

December 8, 2015 – Are you in it for the long haul?

I’m being faithful to the process of this painting and the rhythm of my life – not much progress and I WILL finish it!

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I have a relatively new dear friend. She and her family live on the next street over. Bo and I walk by their house, when we go up the hill for our hikes most days. She’s smart and awake and real, and we automatically became friends. She has a sweet (little) dog too. and sometimes our schedules meet so we can hike with our pups together. Last Friday was one of those days. She is a savvy businessperson who loves marketing. I have this drive to expand the impact of my work, so on Friday I was happily lapping up her advice and suggestions – until she suggested creating an event, a class, for people who are bored and might want to learn to watercolor.

I found myself getting snagged on the thought of it. It brought to mind the events that are popping up all over, where people go to a restaurant or bar – or wine bar for an evening of painting and drinking. The artist-instructor gives them all a canvas (usually) some paints and an idea to paint from – a seascape, a piece of fruit – basically a template for them to follow. These events seem to be designed for those who have never painted before – giving them a whole new experience. They get to take home a painting, finished in an evening – happy and proud – or at least (hopefully) having had a good time with their friends. It’s been suggested to me more than once, that I see about putting together this kind of event.

As much as it’s a fabulous way to introduce new people to making art and for the artist to find new potential students, it’s not me and I can’t see myself doing this. I am always willing to look at my own resistance – sometimes it’s based in a keep-me-safe-from-too-much-risk kind of fear. But in this case it’s protective in another way. It’s keeping me from going down the wrong track. I’m not that teacher. I don’t make quickie art, I can’t make quickie art, so I can’t teach – or lead – quickie art experiences.

All of this was behind my getting snagged on her idea. She asked me then, what is you? I said I want to teach or rather guide people, who have a hunger to make art. If it’s not a hunger, it is at least a desire. I’m here for those who want to have making art a regular part of their lives, and who share my love of watercolor.

This past summer, I had the experience of being hired to teach someone to paint, who either didn’t have the hunger, or more likely I’m guessing, didn’t have ready access to it. I’m always compelled to provide what’s lacking, so I found myself feeling the need to generate the energy for the art to come out of her. It didn’t work. And from this experience I got that it doesn’t work this way – in general. No teacher, mentor, guide can provide the impetus to do our work. It must come from us. Creativity comes from the un-manifest world through us. And its energy, its fuel is our desire, it’s the “I want to…” that we hear coming out of our mouths.

People who have this hunger are my people. I didn’t set out to lead groups of watercolorists. But doing so, has not only become a major part of my work life, one of the biggest ways I serve the world, but has revealed to me what I do have to offer – the gifts that I’ve been given to share with others. And all of this has come to be, because of the desire in the core group of women who were there at the start. They called me out of my fears. Their desire to take their paintings to another level, created an environment for them (through me) for that to happen. See how powerful the creative force is? It can even change others’ lives!

In the process, they showed me who I am to serve and how. As much as I love leading my color class, I love sharing the information that empowers people, to have more freedom and confidence with color – a mainstay of our work, I’m made for my on-going groups. I am made to accompany people along the often bumpy road to a finished painting. The way that I – and most of the people who paint with me – work, it takes considerable time for our paintings to start to looking like “something.” Along the way inside our heads, are noisy places.

It is for this reason, that I’m hesitant to “demo” painting techniques. For me, it doesn’t work like it did for dear, departed Bob Ross, and his “happy trees” that came out of his brush so automatically. There are stages in my paintings that are awkward and clearly unfinished-looking. To my eye, these parts look like I don’t know what I’m doing – and I worry that people watching will think this too! When I do demonstrate, I talk about how I actually often don’t know what I’m doing, that we all are finding our way through our paintings. My intention – and hope – is that this will normalize the self-doubt and internal chatter for them. If I do what I do, if I paint what I paint while these “noisy” voices echo in my head, then you can too.

In my web wanderings in the past day, I came upon this article about Parker Palmers commencement address at Naropa University. He talks about taking on big jobs worth doing – like spreading love and peace and justice, which means resisting being caught up in our cultural obsession, with effectiveness in terms of short-term results.

“Our heroes take on impossible jobs and stay with them for the long haul because they live by a standard that trumps effectiveness. The name of that standard, I think, is faithfulness — faithfulness to your gifts, faithfulness to your perception of the needs of the world, and faithfulness to offering your gifts to whatever needs are within your reach.”

For me, a life-worth-living means taking this advice. Spreading love, peace and justice are big, impossible jobs in our world full of violence and suffering. But if the gifts we are given include making paintings that beget love, peace and justice – in the form of watercolor paintings, then this is our “impossible job” to take on.

Working on a piece of art, or a making art becoming your life, takes this same faithfulness. It takes faithfulness to stick with and/or come back to work over a period of time – which for some of us is months and months. This isn’t everyone’s way of working, but it’s ours. And if you have this hunger and the faithfulness to follow it, paint! Bring forth the art that is in you! And let me know, if there’s some way I can help you.

With my love,

Cara

PS: I know some of you have requested this help in the form of video recordings from me – instructing you how to paint. The desire to fill these requests is in me. And I’m still sorting out what form that will take. This is my creative challenge. Though it may not appear so, solving this creative problem is in the hopper. Any specific suggestions as to what you want from me (especially given what I’ve shared here, about being more of a guide than a teacher) are heartily welcome. Your desires have power to manifest themselves through me!

December 1, 2015 – Get yourself some “Big Magic”

Lustina – I painted this in part while listening to Sue Monk Kidd’s “The Invention of Wings”

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I love stories and I am compelled to expand my consciousness – which means I love books. But since becoming a watercolorist and artist, I don’t read actual, paper books like I used to. There is a voice in my head that tells me I could always be painting. The rest of life pulls me away from my painting time enough, so sitting to read a book hardly happens – except right before bed, when I get two pages in before falling asleep. It takes me months to finish a book these days. But – there are so many books that I want to read! Since I have the capacity to listen while I paint, I’ve become an audio-book-listener. When I look at certain paintings, I can recall the books I’ve listened to while I painted parts of them:

• “Late Summer Zin” was “The Help”
• “Dazzling” was “The Paris Wife”
• “Lustina” was “The Invention of Wings”
• “Jubilee” was “The Hundred Foot Journey”
• “Eternal” was “I Always Loved You” (about Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas – a wonderful book)
• “Blush” was the first three seasons of “Downton Abbey” – I was just about the last person to fall in love with the series. One evening in December 2013 I binged listened (mostly) while I painted on the glass vase. I had my iPad propped up on the painting and I glanced over now and then to see what was happening. You’d never know by looking at that part of the painting!

Right now I’m still working on the red-pink-orange roses, and last night, started listening to Elizabeth Gilbert read to me her new book called, “Big Magic.” I’m completely hooked. She is, like I am, a student and curious observer of the creative process, and I’m having a twinge of book envy. I am in no way the writer she is (nor should I be – I have been writing just a few years as compared to her whole life). My appreciation is way bigger than my envy though – I’m completely emboldened by her words – and somehow even more so listening to her, as opposed to reading. I love having her tell me all about how she sees creativity, and how she holds the art-making process. My philosophy is exactly hers, which is incredibly affirming. I know she’d applaud what I find myself saying to those of you, who paint with me in our time together.

I read her blockbuster book “Eat, Pray, Love” in 2006 while we were living at my parents, while our house was being remodeled. It, along with Sue Monk Kidd’s “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter,” got me through that stressful time. Not only were we remodeling, but I was Worship Committee Chair, while the pastor of my church at the time was on sabbatical – there were 20 Sundays that year we had to plan for without her, I was writing the church newsletter, I was in a demanding 10-month-long leadership program and I was a relatively new real estate agent, with anxious clients whose house wasn’t selling, as the market had just peaked. After dinner, while the TV was on in another part of the house, I cuddled up in bed and fell into Italy, then India, then Indonesia and her funny-wise writing.

Neither of the books she’s written since have called to me to read, but reading the first part of “Big Magic” got me. The way she talks about creativity, is incredibly energizing to me. And – freeing. Here’s how she is preaching to the choir:

• There aren’t creative people and non-creative people. By virtue of the fact that we exist, we are creative. We are wired to make things.
• We are not geniuses so much as have them. Ancient Romans thought that geniuses were separate entities outside of us that visit upon us – taking all the credit as well as pressure away from us. Yay! Freedom to just make stuff – “good” or… not so “good.”
• She quotes the poet David Whyte with the phrase “the arrogance of belonging” and gives us permission, if we feel we lack it, in doing so gives a whole new spin on “entitlement.”
• There’s no requirement for us to save or even change the world with our work, it’s enough to simply enjoy it. Phew, I can just paint pretty pictures – I don’t have to make any “statement” or push any boundaries with what I paint.
• Ideas are living things separate from us that want to become manifest in the physical world. If we are faithful to our process of creating, they will see that we are serious enough about what we are doing for them to come through us.

And I’m not quite half way through the book.

I’m not sure that this book will revolutionize how I live my creative life – so much of it (so far) is right where I live. But already, I’m emboldened to get on with the idea that came to me last week – to find friendly places for me to leave stacks of calendars with envelopes, for people to mail me a check – on the honor system. I was all excited about the idea, and then hit a snag and doubt has crept in. But, I’m going to take action on this idea today. (There are SO many calendars still for me to find homes for!). If I look at my art as the work of my (external) inspiration, it’s my job to make it and see it into the world, if that’s what is in me to do with it.

It’s also calming down the “ee-gads” going on inside me, in reaction to what I’m doing with this painting above. Out of a conversation with someone, who is looking for a painting for his wife for Christmas, I realized I needed to do something else with the background. The roses partly painted, I’ve stepped back from them and stripped away the dark green and blue background down, to as much bare paper as I can (without destroying it!). And now I’m painting in a fuzzy background. The lower part is coming out ok – though I do need to make the leaves and stems more well-defined. But I wanted to put in some sunlit leaves at the top. What I’m finding, is that the paper really needs to be white, in order for the glow of yellow and yellow green to come through. The stain in the paper wasn’t allowing it to. So, I’m working with opaque paints and even some white gouache. It’s an entirely different deal – white from paint, not paper – just like painters of all other media use. It’s an experiment. I’m not sure it’s going to work and I’m sticking with it. I’m learning how to work with gouache, and I have a fresh appreciation for the way pure watercolor on white paper, portrays luminosity. There is – and will be – plenty of white-paper-luminosity in the roses and in any case, I’m hearing my own words: “it’s just a piece of paper, not my self-worth.”

We’ll see what happens. Maybe by next week I’ll have it done to share with you. I know I’ll have listened to the rest of “Big Magic.”

If you are looking for encouragement or permission to give yourself over to your creative life, or to give yourself to your creative life more, get yourself “Big Magic.” And then – go make stuff!

Love,

Cara

November 24, 2015 – The blessing of painting together

“Susie’s (not my) painting in progress. Amazing, huh?”

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The week before last, in our Thursday group, Susie was asking me about the painting she was working on. It’s this one here, of a bowl of candies. She was wondering whether she’d gotten the nooks and crannies, between the candies in the silver bowl dark enough. She, like just about all of us, works from reference photos, so I said let’s see what the image has to tell us. Her printed photo was very small and somewhat dark, so I picked up her lap top and her painting, and leaned against the wall with both held outwards for her – and everyone else, who spontaneously gathered around – to see. I couldn’t see either her painting or her image, I was just inviting the process of having the reference image, provide the information to answer her question.

As I watched and listened, as they were looking and pointing and noticing and suggesting, I was filled with the most amazing sense of satisfaction, appreciation – and joy. I told them I was having a moment of ecstasy and they immediately got why. It dawned on me that they don’t really need me all that much anymore. This has been happening more frequently – without my being there to hold up their paintings, either. I hear the artists in my groups chiming in with kind, respectful and helpful feedback about how another artist might solve a problem, or where she might take her work.

Learning how to paint, means gaining skills through instruction and lots of practice. Becoming artists takes giving ourselves over to the process – to our own process – as we are practicing these skills. There’s no place to arrive to; we are all consistently in progress along with our paintings. Mastery is a relative term. I’ve recently picked back up a painting that I started on three years ago. It’s really interesting to look at the parts I painted then, and gauge how I have grown. I’ve expanded and refined my ability to see – what’s going on in the image – because of all the time I’ve spent doing just that, on all the paintings since I set it aside. We are never finished! I’m witnessing how this process is being lived, in the artists in our groups on an unconscious level. And as we paint, the voices in our heads are just as noisy and intrusive about what’s happening on our paper, but we take these voices in stride – and just get back to work, to our work – at the level we are each on at the moment.

“I painted the rose on the left 3 years ago and am working on the one above now.”

The community that has been created in each group – and to a certain extent amongst all of the artists who paint with me regularly – self-generates a force field of support and love. When we gather, what happens is special. Or rather, what is made possible is special. It’s safe. No one echoes our damning voices. And there is momentum to help us move on to from one painting to the next – despite all the temptations to not paint – which are relentless, especially this time of year.

I read a blog post by Jennifer Louden, about a month ago. The title of the post really grabbed me. What she had to say in the actual post met me less than I was hungering for, though. But the title was a big contribution to me: “How Making Art Changes Your Life and Why You Can’t Make it for that Reason.” I SO get this! Making art has completely changed my life. And I didn’t learn to paint because I wanted to change my life. I learned to paint because there were paintings in me! But exactly how does it change our lives? This is what I was hoping Jen’s post would illuminate for me. But it didn’t – at least not in the way that meets my very personal sense of this question, so I am having to sort it out for myself.

What we do is hard, it takes shifting the way we normally perceive. It uses other parts of our brains that we don’t commonly use. And for most of us, this isn’t easy! It takes focusing intensely on what’s happening, with color, with the amount of water, with the way the brush works, pressure and angle. And then there’s the whole inner process that I talked about before. Overcoming all of this challenge, to produce a tangible result, does something to us. I hear my mom say all the time that she looks at a painting she’s finished, especially one done some time in the past, and she marvels that it was she who painted it. And then she has a voice that tells her she could never do that again. My mom is one of the most rational and logical people I know, so it’s not surprising to me that she has this experience. Painting requires suspending this way of being – it means looking at shape and shade and color and taking action based on what we’re seeing, not in thinking about the leaf, stem or petal – the “thing” that we’re painting.

When we spend time painting – making the required shift in how we perceive and how we are using our brains – it is like a trip to another dimension. Our paintings “happen” – they come to be – out of being in an altered state. So, of course, when we return to our “normal” state, it can be hard to believe that it was actually us who painted them. In a way it wasn’t. The part of us that is in disbelief, is not the part of us that actually painted our paintings.

It is spending time in this altered state that changes us. Our groups provide a structure to spend time in this state, on a regular basis. And there seems to be another level of impact, because we are in each other’s company. I’m not sure exactly why – something to explore in another post. But, I hear over and over and over, how time in our painting groups is “better than therapy.” Though what happens is not therapy, as it is commonly understood, what happens is therapy. Please know that I’m a big believer of the other kind of therapy. I’ve healed enormously in the presence of my Donna. And I wasn’t able to paint like I do, until I did heal some of the deep hurts that were in the way. Just needed that said too!

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the US, and we are all about what we are grateful for. Just typing these words plopped me right into my heart, feeling the warmth of what that is for me. I don’t know where to begin – what I’m grateful for feels boundless. And having the privilege of making art central to my life and getting to spend time every week – and month – with these artists is a big hunk of it. You, who have made coming to paint with me part of your life – and what we’ve created together – are the beating-heart of my work-life. How grateful I am for you – your commitment to your art and yourselves and each other – is so profound it’s hard to put into words.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Cara

November 17, 2015 – Paris

Ellen took this of me on our last night in Paris.

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First a note: This took me a long time to write. It felt like there wasn’t anything else I could write about today and be real. And yet, I feared saying something, in some way, that would offend someone. If I did, I ask for your forgiveness. We are all finding our way through.

Friday I was with my mom in her office after the Friday group had all left, when I got a text from Carla, our bookkeeper: “turn on CNN.” There’s no TV in the office, so we went to CNN.com and saw Paris – the staggering violence being unleashed in this city, that holds such a special place for so many of us. I just came back from there – a month and a day earlier. We never were actually in any of the locations that were attacked – we stayed and visited to the south and west, but still. My loved ones told me they’re so glad this didn’t happen when we were there. I am too. Seeing how the violence in Paris has struck people all over the world, being so close to the epicenter, the impact would have hit us so much harder. It would have been an entirely different experience, and we’d likely be traumatized by having been right there. (As well, it could have bonded us in a way that we weren’t otherwise.) And we would have come home.

My thoughts and heart are and were with those directly impacted – those who were killed, injured, and witnessed it directly – and their loved ones. And I’m thinking about my friends – among millions of Parisians – who live there, for whom this is not just a special place, but home – where they sleep, and get groceries, and go to work and take their kids to school. I went to a dinner party my last Saturday there at my friend’s apartment, that was walking-distance to one of the places that was hit. For them, there’s no other place to go home to. One of the women on our trip has an adult granddaughter living there, who went right by one of the restaurants on a moped and was a block away, entering her friend’s apartment when the gunfire started.

Through my horror and grief, I’ve found myself wondering about all of it. What came up first was “why Paris?” Of all the big cities in the west that could have been attacked, why Paris – again? It could be that the French are part of the coalition that is fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but there are literally dozens of countries who are supporting military intervention against them. It could be that France is, as I read, “fiercely secular” (see this cartoon in response to #prayforparis) and the French society is founded upon free thought and free speech – some of which has been anti-Muslim. The attackers are religious fanatics whose point-of-view, maybe even their existence, is threatened by all of this. I’m certain there are other, more complex factors involved – France’s treatment of its Muslim immigrant population may be one. I’ve read of more than one young man who became “radicalized” in a French prison. I’m a meaning-seeker, and I have to wonder if there isn’t something – unconscious or not – about the forces of darkness attacking the “City of Light.”

I’m also wondering “who are they and what are they after?” I read about their leader and his life-long, seemingly single-minded dedication to reciting the Koran. But also I read that it was the chaos in the region, that has allowed men with his bleak, doomsday vision to rise to power. A related question I’m asking is “why are young people (mostly men) – even those from the west – joining with this vision?” Is it that there will always be some people who are disposed to align with darkness? What has a young, strong, capable man strap explosives to the middle of his body, to willingly end his own life? What kind of meaning-seeking compels him to do this?

Then I ask “where’s my place? Where do I put all of this?” Even though I love Paris and have people I’m very fond of who live there, I strangely don’t feel personally attacked. I’m touched by those who have reached out to me this weekend, because of my relationship with Paris. On Saturday morning, Joe and I came up to Tahoe – to the cabin we stayed in this summer. We’re here with no intention, other than to rest and just hang out together with our puppy dog.

I love to do jigsaw puzzles. I am a total addict, so I don’t let myself do them very often, or I’d not have a life! But letting myself get completely consumed by a puzzle, is just what this trip is about. When I was packing up to go, I found a puzzle of a Monet painting of water lilies, Joe’s sister had given me one Christmas that I’d never opened. The painting is in the Museé Marmottan Monet – I just saw this painting last month. Oh, perfect. While it snowed all day on Sunday, I matched colors and shapes to put his painting back together. I was intimate with the brush strokes, he laid down on this canvas a hundred years ago. In some way, even if it’s so obvious it’s a cliché – this was the right meditation as I asked these questions. Not a drab color on any of the 1,000 pieces – pinks, blues, greens and whites – of the lily pond in the garden he created in Giverny – we were just there too.

“Yesterday’s hike in the snow”

Yesterday we woke to sun, shining on the snow covering everything. It was boot-deep as we took a hike along one of the paths we take in the summer. It was all new, to see this very familiar place covered with white. I kept exclaiming how beautiful it all was – so much that Joe was rolling his eyes at me. It was very quiet too as the soft snow absorbs sound. Except for one man and his dog coming back just as we were heading out, we saw no one. Bo took to the snow like he’d been in it all his life. He romped, and ran, and sniffed and had a big party. It was all so peaceful.

I’ve not watched the news or followed what’s going on online. Joe has and has given me some of the highlights. Violence has been pledged in retaliation. We have to stop them. It’s not over, there will be more. None of this is particularly helpful to me. I’m finding myself more contemplative and gaining perspective. Violence happens every day, many days in far greater magnitude. We can’t imagine ourselves in a café in Beirut or Baghdad or even Tel Aviv. But we can if the café is in Paris. Even if we’ve not been there, we’ve dreamed of it. So, we feel the impact. Besides that it was Paris, a place that captures the world’s imagination like maybe no other. It’s a symbol of our way of life – much like New York. The terrorists get this.

We’re going to hike again this morning – it’s another spectacularly beautiful day. And then I want to paint. Roses. A painting that I started two or three years ago that has been waiting to be finished. I’d just finished one of the grapes and hadn’t sorted out what to paint next. So, I’ll work on this one. It’s what I do. I paint.

We live in a world that contains violence. And I’m very grateful for those who are called to step up, risking everything, to prevent and mitigate it as much as possible. And I hope in doing so, that the violence isn’t perpetuated. And I believe our world contains even more grace and beauty and love, than it does violence. It is evident – otherwise the forces of darkness would have taken over and life would not exist. Most of the response to the violence in Paris is filled with the forces of life, of light – connecting us to each other. Most of us are drawn to the light, to perpetuate life. It feels like I keep saying this – but I’m finding myself looking for the capacity to hold it all – the bloodshed and the snowfall, the violence and the beauty, the outrage and the compassion, fear and love.

With my love for all of you and for all our world,

Cara

November 10, 2015 – Friendship

Brenda and me in the mid 90’s

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I spent several hours on Saturday with my dear friend Brenda. We started our time together over the phone squabbling. It struck me that this was the sign of a really deep, long-standing friendship. It was silly – and pointless – who said what about when and where we’d meet. But, when we got together, it was as if it hadn’t happened. We were just so glad to be together and share the new calendar (yes, they’re here!). Over lunch I found myself deeply appreciating this beautiful woman, who has been my close friend since the 1980’s.

We became good friends because of a phone number! She managed the branch of Personnel Pool – one of the temp agencies that my company used. I was in charge of requesting new temporary help for the warehouse where I worked. Because they had an easy-to-remember phone number, I called them most often. And because we gave them so much business, she took me to lunch in appreciation and a friendship formed. We always went to A Street Café in Hayward, a sweet little French place that had pink tablecloths – a lovely escape from the gritty environment I worked in, where I was surrounded by a bunch of guys who ate off a roach coach – long before food trucks were for foodies.

We had a lot of fun in the first years of our friendship. She and Jeff lived out near the Delta, and had a ski boat. My first husband and I spent many weekends at their place, on their boat. We waterskied and got too much sun on our skin. Even though sometimes there was too much drinking, we had a blast. Then, she watched as our marriage started to unravel.

She’s witnessed my evolution from the young woman who had just walked blindly into an alcoholic marriage, to who I am now. And she’s played a big part in my world opening up as it has. Sometime in the last months of my marriage, Brenda took me to see Diane Sullivan, an energy healer, who did some kind of magic on me, because when I went home, just being in the presence of my husband, made me feel like we were the opposing ends of a magnet. I could hardly bear to sit across the table from him at our favorite Chinese restaurant. It was at Brenda’s house I first read of the Enneagram, first heard the music of the Gipsy Kings, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kater and Nakai. Brenda is also the “Godmother” of my art. It was she who pulled it out from under the bed, out of the plastic bags and insisted that it be framed and hung. She saw it before anyone else did.

In the twenty-eight or so years we’ve been in each other’s lives, we’ve supported each other through many trials – illnesses, deaths, loneliness, relationship struggles – there’s a fierceness in our love for each other that means we show up for each other, we hide no truths and we wrestle whatever is between us, until it’s strengthened our bond even more. And I’ve learned how to be a friend in the process.

My memories of female friendship until I was well into my 20’s, were often not happy ones – friendships that were mutually supportive and loving mostly eluded me. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have any sisters – and neither did my mom for me to witness female relationship – or that I was surrounded by boys a lot, but I recall a lot of heartbreak and feeling left out with my girl-friends. I found myself making friends with two other girls or young women who were closer friends with each other, than either was with me.

Since my late 20’s, through my travels in work and life, wonderful friendships have developed. Some of them started with more time spent together and now are very sporadic – life has taken us away from regular contact with each other. The way I see it, we have only so much bandwidth, like ports on our computers. For each of us, there’s only so much capacity to be connected – some of us have more than others – but for everyone it is limited. Dear friends come to mind every single day who I want to call or email – and I don’t get to it. I’m really glad that this way it is for all of us, so that when we do call it is ok – we are happy to be in touch and not hurt by the lack of connection.

This is now a requirement for me – there has to be room for each of us to be and say and do what we need to – or not. Recently Brenda and I were talking about a long-standing relationship with a friend of hers, that had become difficult. What came out of my mouth, is that our female friendships need to be the safest places in our lives. What I said, I realized, has guided me with my friendships. I’ve had at least two friendships in the past several years, that I’ve intentionally let go. As much as it goes against my natural tendencies, to want to always try to mend and heal, I’ve grown the ability to discern where my energies and time are best spent – and with whom.

This brings me to the women who are in my life now. Relationships with these women, form a web of love and support that undergird my life. My closest friends are not a group who all know each other. Though some of them have met, they each take a unique place in my heart, and make a unique contribution to me. As integral parts of my life, they appear in these posts and they form the web that holds me. Inside a feminine-oriented being’s head it can be noisy and bumpy. The doubts and judgments and fears that, at times, have me wonder where my place is, would be unbearable without them. We share encouragement, counsel, honest feedback, commiseration, humor, appreciation, companionship, and celebration. We love each other into loving ourselves.

“Jump and the net will appear.” I don’t know where I first read this – Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way, is coming to mind. It may be so over-said that it’s become a cliché, but it’s how I feel about the women in my life – you are the net that have appeared under me. In many ways, I hardly resemble the young woman, who was responsible for the temp labor at Businessland Hayward. It has required that I take risks, I’ve had to jump – in order to have grown so far beyond that version of me. I’m incredibly grateful for the soft places to land that you are. And I’m honored to do and be that for you. I want you to know that I’m planning on continuing to take these leaps. So, I’m counting on you to be there!

With my love to all of you who are there for me –

Cara

November 3, 2015 – Deep space, deep faith

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When my husband Joe moved in with me, in my little house in San Anselmo 17 years ago, he brought with him his portable Jacuzzi spa. As Marin-cliché as this is, there has always been a hot tub in our backyard since. They are just one of the great things (along with, of course, black Labrador boy-dogs) that came along with my sweetheart. Most nights, just before bed, I wrap myself in a towel, and go outside into the dark and slip my bare body into the warm water. I leave the jets off, so it’s still and quiet. The temperature is just right, warm enough that it feels really good, but not so hot that I have to get used to it. It’s heaven. It warms me to my bones, so I can crawl into bed with a really warm body and can fall asleep right away. I don’t know about you, but if I’m cold when I go to bed – especially, if it’s my feet for some reason – I just cannot get to sleep.

While I’m soaking, I gaze up at the night sky. Most nights seem to be clear around here, so I can almost always see the stars. Sometimes I can pick out the Big Dipper – pretty much the only constellation that I can easily recognize. Now and then a plane goes by, and I imagine the human beings up inside it, most likely headed to SFO. Part of the month the moon is up and full enough, to cast shadows in the backyard. It’s a special time – I’m alone and really present to being alive on our little planet, amidst a vast universe beyond my comprehension. I feel small in the very best way.

There’s something about this time I spend out there in the dark, that re-frames my challenges and worries. It has me feel both insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and very precious at the same time. The ways in which I worry if I “do enough” to further the causes of good settle down, and I can be happy that I get to appreciate beauty and make art, and have people in my life who love me and who I love too. I am also really embodied. It’s intensely pleasurable to be submerged in warm water, breathing cool air, and I cannot help but be aware of how good it feels to be incarnate.

Betsey’s photo from Route 97 in British Columbia, ©2015 Betsey Crawford

I read a post a couple of weeks ago, written by a treasured person in my world. Betsey and I met at the Sausalito Art Festival two or three years ago, and she showed up the very next Friday to paint with us. She and I now belong to each other. Since the early part of the year, Betsey has been on a road trip to follow the wild flowers from the Mexican border to Alaska. She takes absolutely exquisite photographs of the flowers and landscapes along her way and posts them, along with her always perceptive, often funny and sometimes provocative thoughts at: theSouloftheEarth.com. This post was called “Wayside Beauty”, where she shares the magnificent scenery that she passes, as she drives her truck and trailer along the highway – stunning photos included. Nature that has been untouched by humans has a particular kind of magic, that can be like looking up into the night sky – it evokes a particular kind of wonder.

In addition to appreciating the beauty Betsey saw though, I had another reaction to this post: “but what about the beauty we create?” I’d just returned from Paris, having gorged on human-made beauty in the form of art, architecture, style, design and use of color. And then there was the beauty of sound – the bells of Notre Dame, and the concert in St. Chapelle – the other day I heard Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and it took me right back to listening to the sounds Mozart crafted, coming out of the musicians’ instruments, while surrounded by all that stained glass – a moment with its own kind of wonder. Then there was the beauty in food – to look at, to smell and oh, the taste! We humans have ideas, inspirations and then we create things that weren’t there before, or we transform what was to something altogether different. What we create can be just as inspiring to me as a pristine landscape.

One of my favorite of Monet’s: (Les Roses, oil on canvas, Paris, Musée Marmottan) I loved seeing it again a few weeks ago.

Certainly plenty of what we have created is not beautiful. We seem to be seriously waking up to this now, in our impact on the environment and the climate. This is behind the idea that humans are viewed as separate from nature – as counter to nature – nature vs. humans, natural vs. synthetic. The thing about this that puzzles me is, how can we not be nature? We evolved out of other creatures – we and our consciousness are part of the evolution of the universe – of all-of-creation. And our creations are also part of-all-creation. Nothing that we make, not Impressionist paintings or stone cathedrals, not plastic candy wrappers from Halloween or chemicals that pollute our waterways, nothing that we make came from anywhere or anything else than nature. We and all our trappings are nature – part of all that is.

I just have to believe that the point of evolution of life on earth is not that life, or even human life goes to hell in a handbasket. I believe we are going to continue to evolve, and come up with creative solutions for the problems we’ve created. Crisis is what draws creativity from us. When things are all going along smoothly we aren’t spurred to act. I’m hearing the word “partnership” all the time these days. I think it’s where we are heading. Co-creating the future – humans and nature. Partnership, as I’m learning from Alison, is an act of what she calls “human spirit.” It’s not something that comes out of our – largely unconscious – survival instinct. In order to be in partnership, we need to be in relationship. My evenings with deep space, Betsey’s reports from the wild lands between here and Alaska, and painting the beauty I see in a flower – all this connects me – I am part of nature.

I tend to the trash at my mom’s office where we paint. I’ve set up three bins: compost, where our used paper towels go, recycle for metal, most plastic and glass and the garbage, which ends up in the landfill. Not everyone reads the signs or knows where it all goes, so I regularly re-sort it. And usually when someone sees me, they ask about what goes where. Sorting trash is not my favorite thing to do, but I do it because I care, because I’m compelled – to do my “part” to be in partnership with nature. I really work to not get preachy and righteous about it, but I do want help, I do want others to join me in re-using as much of our resources as we can and putting as little as possible into the waste fields, where still the vast majority of what we discard ends up.

Over the weekend, I read a quote attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which has been echoing in me. It included the phrase “deep faith in the future.” As I read it, I realized I have this. I am absolutely faithful in our future. Because there is so much suffering and violence in our world, to stay out of despair I have to have faith that everything is alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end (I love this line from the movie, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”).

Gazing up into deep space before I sleep feeds my faith. It brings me out beyond even the massive human challenge of climate change. It expands time and space out to infinity. And, it brings me right into my space, my body, and this moment. I sleep and then wake to do my part – record the beauty I see in paint and write to you, and sort trash and love my loved ones.

Love,

Cara

October 27, 2015 – I’m still his little girl

I can “see” his love in how his hands are touching me.

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Last week my parents came for dinner on my mom’s birthday. My dad had not heard or read my post – my birthday ode to her, so I played the recording for us all to hear. After it played, I had the feeling that the teeter-totter had been left with someone hanging up in the air – it needed to be balanced out. Life is a mixed bag – we all have challenges and blessings in our lives. On the blessings side of my life, are the two people I was born to. I scored in the parents department – and today I want to tell you all about my dad, my Papa.

When I talk about my dad, I say that he is gifted with teaching, with preparing food, with growing things and taking care of his kids. He’s also a storehouse of knowledge, especially about the natural world. He has planted an enormous, organic vegetable garden every summer of my life. He’s the cook in our family (Mama is the baker), and it is from him that I got my obsession with learning and knowing – when we don’t know we must look it up. Google was invented for my dad – and me!

He was born James Joseph Brown to working class parents: Joe and Marge (Margaret) Brown. My grandma was an identical twin, and she and her sister Helen were pregnant with boys at the same time. She told me they were a sight walking down the streets of San Francisco together, identical faces and big bellies! He and his cousin Curt were born 6 weeks apart, and each were only children – it was the depression and people weren’t having a lot of kids. When I was once preparing a talk about my history with food and cooking, I asked my dad how a city kid got so interested in growing food, and he told me this story: “From my Uncle Dick in Fresno, I was probably 7 years old, I can’t remember if I was staying with him or with my grandparents, and visiting his house nearby. He and I prepared a little plot of land in his backyard and planted some radish seeds. They germinated and started growing and I then had to go back home to San Francisco. A few weeks later, I got a package in the mail. My uncle had harvested the radishes and sent them to me.” His voice had a catch of emotion, as he remembered his uncle and receiving those radishes.

My dad is a renaissance man. He was a Marine during the Korean War, but also was and is interested in everything – food and cooking, but also classical music and opera. He is an artist – he did some oil paintings and later became a ceramics artist and teacher. He took two bare plots of land – around the two houses my family has lived in – and built beautiful landscapes – of stone and wood and exposed aggregate. He worked the soil and then planted trees and shrubs, fruit orchards and of course the vegetable gardens. He loves to read – especially stories. I remember him reading aloud short stories like “The Cask of Amantillado” at the dinner table after we finished eating.

My memories of my dad when I was a younger child, include him with a carpenter’s pencil behind his ear as he built decks and fences around our house, going to the ceramics classroom with him on the weekends and getting to play with the clay, having “Dr. Brown” patch up stubbed toes and skinned knees (it wasn’t Mama who tended to our boo-boo’s!). But most of my memories are with him in the kitchen. Mama went to work when I was in junior high and Dad took over the cooking. He was a high school teacher then. So after school each day, he went grocery shopping and when he got home, he and I made dinner every night – until I went away to college. I distinctly remember him teaching me how to cut up a chicken, how to dice an onion, and how to mince with a chef’s knife. It became second nature for the two of us to cook together. Mama tells me that I’d correct her – when she was doing something differently than Dad did, I’d say “Dad doesn’t do it that way…” These days he doesn’t have as much energy and sometimes he’ll ask me what he can do to help – when I cook for our family out at their house. He trained me well and all those meals we prepared together made me a skilled, confident and creative cook – one of the things that I’m most grateful for in my life.

Dad’s trimming artichokes, I’m horsing around!

Several years ago we had the idea for the two of us to write a cookbook together. We thought we’d call it “Sunday Night at the Browns” – a menu cookbook of the recipes from our family’s Sunday dinners. Along the way, we’d record a year in the vegetable garden, to capture all the wisdom and experience in Dad’s head – and have it include our artwork. We started it long enough ago that I said that it’d be great to finish it by the time he was 80 and I was 50. We’ve passed those two marks by 4 years. The other “projects” I’m involved in have pulled me away. But lately it has been really nagging at me that we’ve let it go. We have an outline and a list of recipes. I know that getting it going again mostly lies in my lap, as I’m the writer between us. So, I’m telling you all about it, in hopes that making it public, I’ll carve out the time to make it a reality. It would be such a testament to the bond we share.

There’s another very tender way in which I’m connected to my Papa. As the only girl in the family, it followed that I was Daddy’s girl. He used to sing to me “Soliloquy” from the musical “Carousel.” “My little girl, pink and white, as peaches and cream is she…” And “Cara Mia My” by Jay and the Americans. I was embarrassed by the attention and used to brush him off. I realize now how sweet it was that he sang to me and I feel sorry – for both of us – that I wasn’t able to just bask in his love. Not that long ago, I was having some energy-body work, which tapped into my feeling the old fears of being such a sick baby. In the middle of this I had a not-quite-memory, but more a felt-sense of my soft little toddler body, being held by my dad’s young, strong masculine body. I felt his solidness, the safety of being held close to him. When I shared this with him, he told me that it actually happened. He told me he’d put on music and pick me up and dance around the room with me – his little girl.

A snuggle with my Papa while on vacation in France in 1995 with he and Mama.

That solid and safe love is there in every hug, hello or goodbye. Even when we say goodbye on the phone – his love is in the timbre of his voice. If Mama is the energy – the sun – in our family, my Papa is the center of gravity – the earth, life-generating, healing, understanding, steadfast. He’s had some health challenges the past few years, which have had me start to worry about how much longer we’re going to have him here. He told my hubby a few days ago that he needed to talk to me – to tell me that it’s not yet time to worry – that he’ll tell me when it is. Ok, Papa, I’m not worrying. So let’s get cooking on that cookbook!

Because, I love you so much!

Cari (my family name)