Honest Songs #1

 

Doorbell by kb. mcanelly

Some things ring right. And some things ring true.

Some things bring joy, like when I think of you.

And I know how long it’s been… since we sang together.

And frankly, my friend, it seems like forever…

Yes, it’s been forever.

Thirty seems awful when you stop to think on it.

It’s halfway to to sixty if we live that long.

But all I know is I’m more than beholding

Since I never was there when you sang that song.

I’ve been to the coast and watched her waves washing

the rocks in the water, the sand on the shore.

and I’ve wandered and wondered

between so many stages

and come to think on it, I couldn’t do more

except wait for you to knock on the door.

Copyright 2013 

Working With Limitations

I’m learning to work within the confines of my current health situation while developing a plan of action for the next three weeks. It seems redundant to say that I need to quit smoking having been diagnosed with C.O.P.D. and living with an extremely low energy level that ought to be increased with a new exercise routine. Cutting back to less than half a pack a day and using two different kinds of inhalers is not enough. Yoga and walking are on the calendar as soon as I return from this short visit with my daughter. In the meantime I’m developing a routine for my creative endeavors.

Back in early March I left my poorly paid cake decorator position that was causing extreme physical pain to pursue self employment in the body painting field. Yes, body painting, as in what some clowns do when they aren’t clowning around. Before the month was over I was to depressed, after a series of personal and family health issues surfaced, to even leave my apartment except for visits to the doctor. With no income, an inability to function outside the home, my son and daughter helped me to change my environment, living circumstances and choices. They both think I should apply for Social Security. Seems appropriate. Still, I think I can make a living as an artist.  Pink Floyd is suitably playing on my daughter’s cd player.  This too seems appropriate.

And so I begin. Again. Blogging, writing, drawing, perhaps finally getting out to do some body painting, and finishing what I can with the tools I have just to see what happens next. Sculpting is what comes easiest but costs the most. Problem:  I’ve yet to even bronze my first work of art. The materials, wax, tools and space are not at my disposal. Solution: utilize fabric,  sewing machines, threads and scissors.

Looks like puppets and other such things are in the pipeline of my creative.

Making Each Day Count

Oh joy! To be spending extra time on my laptop while visiting my daughter for two weeks is a real treat. These peaceful minutes between naps, meals and reading have been so pleasant that my daughter felt it necessary to tell me that I’m “getting my cake and eating it too.” However, it doesn’t quite feel that way. 

This ultra quiet time has been spent researching horticultural avenues, such as Japanese tea gardens, Kentucky wildflowers, septic systems, and designing fountain layouts. All while I try to figure out what kind of materials are best suited for outdoor sculpture. Yeah, okay, I’m day dreaming again. 

Actually, this dream scheme began a couple weeks back when I came across a home listing that included healthy chunk of property.

Yep. For just under $3,000,000.00 I could buy a big ranch house, lake, gazebo, picnic shelter, and more,with and enough acreage to do whatever I wanted.

So I pondered the possibilities. Why? What fer? And so on.

Simply said, I could use a space like this to develop aesthetic gardens with a healing focus. No less than sixty pieces of sculpture, edible gardens, textured pathways, hiking trails, wheel chair accessible cabins, functional structures and plenty of seasonal activities for the scientific, artistic and family oriented people that I want to serve through a place like I’m dreaming of.

Ah, this idea has some potential, maybe this really could serve a purpose to society?

Okay, I can seriously imagine, in one area, an ongoing program for families of children with autism. An educational cooperative of therapists, volunteers, experienced legal mentors, families, scientists, researchers, all united, mingling with the one focus to develop new ways to reach, touch, and assist children and adults with Autism. 

A good start. 

Lots of ideas pouring out. Lots of ways to spend my time.

And no funds. 

The next step is to organize my skills in such a way as to earn the money that it would take to get through the first eight or so years. After doing some very rough estimates of costs, insurance, stipends for interns, employees, tools, equipment, transportation, materials for art and shelters, and other resources such as solar energy, I can fairly say it would all cost somewhere around $19,000,000.00. 

Nineteen Million Dollars! An amount like this would have to come from Lottery winnings. And I don’t play the lottery. Add to this that my last job was only $8.13 an hour after I receiving my first and only raise there in two years. I am no longer employed as a cake decorator in a grocery store and insist on following my talents to a place that will permit me to help others. And I am penniless. How cool is that. Low man on the starving artist’s totem pole.

I’m presently looking at several ways to bring in an income. I could go back to a day job on my feet that destroys my hands, design and sew purses to sell online or in consignment shops, finish illustrating a few books I wrote some time back, sculpt some design for collectible plates, or attempt claymation with no experience.

Which two do you think are my favorite ideas to make a living?

Which one do you think would bring me closer to that $19,000,000.00 faster?

By the way, my 19 month old grand daughter was diagnosed with autism. I will not sit still and accept things as they are now when I can be doing something that will make somebody’s life better.

Ken Pyle’s Smile

The Leo tweeted about Ken.

I want to help but being between jobs I essentially have no budget to work with. So I’ll figure out some way to help raise funds for Ken’s medication expenses.

Why?

You cannot pass up an opportunity to help Ken Pyle if you’ve met him.

And I’ve met the man. Twice.

The first time was during a poetry even some years back. All smiles. Busy. Easygoing. Friendly.

The second time was less than a week after my mother passed away and I was an emotional wreck. I’d been at Buck’s with one of my mother’s friends listening to her play the piano and was now attempting to get to another venue by bus but was afraid to walk through a neighborhood I didn’t know.

Ken went out of his way, after I found I didn’t have enough cash for a cab, to help find a ride from a friend and patron that was currently dining at The Rudyard Kipling before going to film video of a band.

The gentleman’s nickname was Budda. In the process of transporting me to a gallery off of St. Catherine he loaned me his glasses to read the signs, then gifted them to me after finding I had none of my own.

I was able to see the world more clearly for a year and a half through Budda’s glasses. Thanks to Ken’s wise and kind introduction.  

I googled Ken and found this: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSaJegQzUjlhiZCpgOn6Bz61hko9lEqRfWFNv6p2IrLIBM7KwwH

Testing…

Testing upload and Twitter connection.

Scribbles and Trees

With the about page written I guess I should get at least one real post completed.

According to my Mom “squibbles” is a word my brother used as a child. He meant squirrels. I use it as a reference to scribbled notes and sketches on napkins, paper bags, etc. Most ideas, good and bad alike, get scribbled down as quickly as possible so as not to lose them. I’ve been known to draw on my hand for lack of a napkin.

I’m also known to have wasted my share of paper writing down lists of things I want to do, get, have, buy, keep, get rid of, share, send, draw…

I’ve used my share of trees improperly and am paying my dues with a pang of guilt.

I woke up yesterday and heard the Japanese word “Sensay”. I know I’m probably not spelling it right but writing from this quirky little cell phone in a timely fashion doesn’t permit me checking for errors with spellcheck, google, or whatever else is available.

Anyway, the word meaning teacher/mentor hit me with a serious reflective moment. Trees have always been something I lean on, and admire. The seasonal changes, natural order and abundance of lessons make trees my teachers. They line the street where I live. And when I look back on my life trees have always had an particular impact on my wellbeing.

My childhood memories are filled with happy minutes picking up Magnolia leaves for my grandfather, eating Pommegranites half naked on the back steps, and hiding from a neighbor boy beneath a young see through Weeping Willow. I remember dancing circles around a Walnut tree pretending I was a gypsy wrapped in my mother’s pink square-dancing skirt as an eight year old and climbing to retrieve my son’s kite at twenty-eight.

Trees have brought me through my grief.

Silent and strong poetic beings that reached out to me with their branches, changing colors, leaves drifting off with the wind.

Trees contain the mysterious etchings across a moonlit night. They enhance a youthful love shared by holding a tangible memory of carved initials. And when I see a fallen tree I crumble inside just a little more than the average person.

These trees are my teachers. My life’s markers and mentors. So I think it’s fairly smart of me to accept that the Original Garden had its variety of trees plus one. I can easily imagine Adam and Eve walking with God between the lushness of creation and God saying “This is good.”

***
I was sharing a memory yesterday with a friend about my father’s reaction after reading what I thought was one of the best poems I had ever written at that time. A poem about dead birds and non existent trees. A poem that dissapeared long ago.

When my Father had finished reading it he silently handed the carefully scribbled pages back to me. I waited for his applause. He frowned then asked me why I had written such depressing mumbo. I never showed him another. And this was the man that turned me onto Longfellow and Keats? In short this was an important chapter in my life. Like a three minute tornado ripping across the land. You never forget.

Trees and Squirrels go together. It took me fifty-five years to figure this out.