tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15749552563636173152024-03-04T21:13:35.107-08:00Meditations and ReflectionsLaurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.comBlogger173125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-68468502388175006262021-06-03T06:34:00.001-07:002021-06-03T13:53:11.784-07:00Tennis Lessons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmbRpGJxRu0lfZNizK3RIX_QZni8ZBSqdG5DDRgtpT0BMmgmHaXAgsBkXWtXZ6v0eP2vCOzZhRMTUd_nb-dLRYrn78tp_HhbgW-E2aeXs8m6NggM90fv9f55Sx-icwEmVt69LiWkaM6AI/s977/Roland+Garros+Roses.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="977" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmbRpGJxRu0lfZNizK3RIX_QZni8ZBSqdG5DDRgtpT0BMmgmHaXAgsBkXWtXZ6v0eP2vCOzZhRMTUd_nb-dLRYrn78tp_HhbgW-E2aeXs8m6NggM90fv9f55Sx-icwEmVt69LiWkaM6AI/w490-h328/Roland+Garros+Roses.png" width="490" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roland Garros with roses</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For Cynthia Boyd.</div><p>I met Cynthia ten years ago when we were both taking tennis lessons on Friday mornings. I had just had my twins and was struggling with balancing my life. She had a boy in elementary school; we were both underemployed. Immediately I sensed that Cynthia had the same passion for the game as I did, and I asked her to play outside the lessons. We haven’t stopped playing since. We’ve played through injuries, job changes, aging bodies, and grief. We’ve played outside in wind and sun, inside when it’s cold; we’ve played in spring, summer, fall, winter, and lately, COVID.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even though we are on opposite sides of the court, we are somehow a team. When I start losing my serve, she cheers me on. During injuries, she’s fitted me with proper bracing to keep me healthy. We trade secrets, observations we’ve made of the pros, how we can improve. If she wins the first set, I’ll win the second. When my serve is on and I am confident, I can win; without it, her swift, powerful forehand leaves me scrambling. I can’t help but admire how perfect her shots can be. As competitive as I am, on some level, I am rooting for her, too.</p><p><br /></p><p>“Did that catch the line?” she’ll shout from the other side of the net. If I have any doubt, she gets the point. If not, she accepts it and we move on. Same thing can be said for my shots. We never quibble over points—that just cuts into the playing time and with our busy lives, there’s only so much of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>We’re in our fifties now and after we play, my knees ache, and I’ve got to ice my forearm and elbow, otherwise the tendonitis will worsen to the point where I won’t be able to hold the racquet. Cynthia takes care of herself better than I do: she’s always fit with the proper braces, has the necessary water bottles, extra can of balls, towels for sweat. I, on the other hand, am often ill-equipped and run off to the court as if I am running for my life.</p><p><br /></p><p>Two years ago, I had a cancer scare and needed abdominal surgery; it was Cynthia on the other end of the line telling me to calm down and not jump to any conclusions. While I convalesced, she’d text me, “You got to take it easy, go slow. Rest.” I knew she genuinely cared, but I also knew she was checking in to see when I was ready to play.</p><p><br /></p><p>Last spring, when COVID hit, Cynthia lost her mother. She hadn’t seen her before she died and when we finally met on a warm day in May, she told me she was busy going through her things—her clothes, jewelry, make up. “My beautiful mother,” she’d say, immersed in grief. I knew she was suffering, and I knew to deal with it, she had to play. I tend to bring my life’s anxieties and frustrations onto the court, but Cynthia doesn’t. Those court lines act as a barrier to the woes of her life, and when she is within them, there’s nothing but that ball and me.</p><p><br /></p><p>In tennis, as in life, you need to be confident. As a writer who is constantly in the throes of rejection, I wrestle with this. But I’m learning from Cynthia. I’ve watched her struggle through a first set: she can’t return my serve, hits the ball out or into the net. I hear her talking to herself, diagnosing what’s wrong, pointing out what’s right, giving herself a pep talk. Her attitude shines through with positivity and she starts her come back, while I flounder mentally, losing confidence. She comes back to win the set having been down 5-0 and all I can do is watch her and learn the right way to play tennis.</p><div><br /></div>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-40393929518535961512020-12-01T09:29:00.003-08:002020-12-03T09:04:10.479-08:00Review of Feel More Alive! 30 Brilliant Ways to Reinite Your Inner Spark by Giulietta Nardone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-d58OPvq679idJbAty1eF078c9ED0q6oXG6Bt0zARc5Gm633YFwmn_qFBeQZAYgK0fpUxudVF1YnmaI1kht_IVns6b453yjq8udI58WhtC4XkmVqv08rCDgV2SmXZWxP1rXYzMf4Rys/s688/Screen+Shot+2020-12-01+at+12.01.24+PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-d58OPvq679idJbAty1eF078c9ED0q6oXG6Bt0zARc5Gm633YFwmn_qFBeQZAYgK0fpUxudVF1YnmaI1kht_IVns6b453yjq8udI58WhtC4XkmVqv08rCDgV2SmXZWxP1rXYzMf4Rys/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-12-01+at+12.01.24+PM.png" /></a></div><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alive-Brilliant-Reignite-Inner-Spark/dp/1947708252/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RTFRW3N8CDX0&dchild=1&keywords=feel+more+alive&qid=1606841992&sprefix=Feel+MOre+A%2Cstripbooks%2C160&sr=8-1">Feel More Alive! 30 Brilliant Ways to Reignite Your Inner Spark</a></i><div>by Giulietta Nardone</div><div>published by Citrine Publishing</div><div>188 pages<br /><p>I started reading Giulietta Nardone's book <i>Feel More Alive! 30 Brilliant Ways to Reignite Your Inner Spark</i> this past October because I needed something inspirational. Having been unemployed since May due to the pandemic, the uncertainty with respect to my editing, teaching, and writing careers was starting to cripple me. </p><p>To be honest, I am not one for overly enthusiastic self-hope books. For the most part, they seem unrealistic to me, and I find the narratives predictable and self-aggrandizing. But Giulietta's book is different. I liked the fact that it contained her art, and since I was battling the responsibilities in my everyday life to fit in my own painting work, I decided to delve in.</p><p>I found Giulietta's anecdotes interesting and relatable; her spirit of conviction shines through this book. I immediately respected and empathized with her; here is a woman out to take control of her life and truly live it. Here is a woman who would not settle for the <i>Groundhog Day</i> life, a woman who traveled Europe alone, learned to sing (and then re-learned to sing once her voice ruptured), created her own community television show, slept in a tent amongst lions in Africa, and starred in her own one-woman stand up show--to rave reviews. </p><p>The book is divided into five sections Awaken, Liberate, Improvise, Visualize, and Express with each section having six mini lessons with personal anecdote on the lesson's topic and fun exercises to complete. Giulietta includes a toolkit for each chapter that lists books, movies, and songs that bring home the theme. She believes as I do that successful change is "a series of smaller, internal tweaks that anyone can implement without turning their lives upside down." In this way, <i>Feel More Alive!</i> works like Julia Cameron's immensely popular <i>The Artist's Way</i> series. While reading, I found myself writing furiously in the margins, communicating with the author; I suggest a notebook or journal to record thoughts to help the process.</p><p>Here are some of the chapters that rang true for me:</p><p>Brilliant Way #7, Slap Yourself Awake</p><p>For some of us, routine extends beyond the comfortable and renders us nearly comatose. Giulietta echoes Thoreau in this chapter and emphasizes how "[t]he mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Reading this chapter brought me back to my first job out of college; I was working as an engineer at a dull job commuting to work by the Long Island Railroad from Long Island to Manhattan. During the commute, I observed the people around me, nodding off or staring blankly out the window. I, too, remember thinking, "Is this all there is?" Giulietta writes of her first job as "days...spent in a trance" and a life led "in a constant state of inertia, fear, and loathing." This disconcerting state of mind often leads to therapy, as it did for both Giulietta and me. For me, it took a complete breakdown to recognize the artist side of me (documented fictionally in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Portal-Vibrancy-Laurette-Folk/dp/0983066612/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=A+Portal+to+Vibrancy&qid=1606840303&s=books&sr=1-1">A Portal to Vibrancy</a></i>), for Giulietta, it took in ad in the paper that set her on her way toward a love of singing. </p><p>In order to be happy, we must "slap ourselves awake" and set out to find the things that ignite us. No one else is going to do it for us.</p><p>Brilliant Way #15, Astonish Yourself</p><p>In this chapter, Giulietta writes, "Most of us rarely live up to our potential because we are too afraid to try the thing we secretly want to do." All of us have things we secretly want to do. This was true for my maternal grandparents. My grandfather secretly wanted to be a policeman instead of a butcher and my grandmother secretly wanted to be an actress instead of a housewife. These dreams died because my grandparents did not believe they could balance the dream with responsibility of raising four kids. Also, the paths never presented themselves. My paternal grandmother, however, lived a full life. She loved music and played piano and accordion for the people in her community. She took art lessons and sewed her own clothes. She needed not set her sights to be a concert pianist; she went small, but big enough to satisfy her creative desires. She consistently was happy, astonishing herself and others in small ways.</p><p>I have always wanted to be a painter. The characters in my books are painters. I have books on painters. But I kept telling myself I didn't have the space nor the time to paint. And then I found some tools that helped me see things differently. I found a tabletop easel I could place on my kitchen table. I found a palette of acrylic paints that I felt I could work with, bypassing the complexity of oils. I found a book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Your-Visual-Voice-Developing/dp/1581808070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Finding+Your+Visual+Voice&qid=1606840350&s=books&sr=1-1">Finding Your Visual Voice</a></i> that inspired me to think about media and subject matter and technique. This all happened over a couple of years. I now have a process and with every new painting I learn and, to some extent, astonish myself.</p><p>For Giulietta, it took someone to call out her own fear. A woman who listened to her sing at karaoke said that she wasn't showcasing her talent by her song choices; she should aim higher, sing songs sung by greats like Donna Summer and Whitney Houston. Giulietta has a condition called "spasmodic dysphonia," which at one point took away her singing voice, "the core of [her] identity." With perseverance, she learned how to sing again, but stayed with songs that were safe. After meeting the woman who honed in on her fear, however, she took to singing more songs, harder songs, and it turned out that the fears of missing a note never materialized. Instead of being crippled by fear, Giulietta uses it as a spring board. She writes consistently in the book about how she does this, and I admire her for it.</p><p>Brilliant Way #22, Self-Educate</p><p>"Research some of the world's most successful people, and you'll find that many of them didn't finish high school or college. They had an idea they couldn't stop thinking about, and they pursued it with enthusiasm until is came to fruition," Giulietta writes in Brilliant Way #22, Self-Educate. I think this chapter is the most important one in the book. We must all be life-long learners to reach our potential; we must be informed citizens, and set out to find our passions, because for many of us, they won't find us. This chapter's personal anecdote is one where Giulietta recounts how she and a friend started a cable show for their community called "What's Really Going On." Neither one of them studied journalism or television production. They attended public meetings, asked questions, researched and retained documents. Ultimately, they portrayed their educated opinion of the goings-on of local government in their show and it became a hit, making them local celebrities.</p><p>"Choose to educate yourself about topics that pique your interest. Read books, research findings, interview experts and take informal classes," Giulietta says. So much of our technology supports this, from blogs to movie making software. Start small. There will be a momentum that moves you along.</p></div>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-53850485877284448322020-11-13T09:19:00.004-08:002020-11-13T11:39:42.749-08:00Studying van Gogh's sunflower series<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiwa31_PsQ8CJW2teWEnMpVw533lsZdyvYcRh-Jpw-cyK22Dgndq4XQSsSyeiB0nWziOVHjdpMxu8NGIIg-dWir8BCAdP2piAQ6mF-1_KWglOgsjWrbPCPBZDg3YPyRuM1g4F_DgeZts/s2048/sunflowers+final+final.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1701" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiwa31_PsQ8CJW2teWEnMpVw533lsZdyvYcRh-Jpw-cyK22Dgndq4XQSsSyeiB0nWziOVHjdpMxu8NGIIg-dWir8BCAdP2piAQ6mF-1_KWglOgsjWrbPCPBZDg3YPyRuM1g4F_DgeZts/s320/sunflowers+final+final.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Homage to van Gogh, II<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">As a way of commemorating the ending of the growing season, I decided to paint sunflowers. I thought I would set them up in a still life with bottles and fruit and have a go at it. I picked a color for my under painting and drew my sketch. I thought about my palette of yellows, oranges, greens, burgundy for the wine and the layout of the composition. I thought it would behoove me to take a look at van Gogh's sunflower paintings, because I have always loved his colors and over-all style. My own style, palette, and subject choice seem to be approaching his. I looked deeply into his paintings and experienced an intimacy with van Gogh that I had not had with a visual artist before.</span></div><p></p><p>Van Gogh's sunflower series consists of a total of twelve paintings. I've included some of them here. He painted five in Paris in 1887 and seven in Arles from 1888-1889, according to lectures I've listed to and websites. His Arles paintings were painted for Paul Gauguin when he came to visit van Gogh in the yellow house he rented in Arles. Van Gogh wanted to welcome Gauguin with the paintings; he revered the master and was excited about having Gauguin stay with him. Also, he thought it was the start of an art colony, the beginning of a camaraderie between like-minded creative people to combat the loneliness endemic to the craft. </p><p>I wonder what Gauguin thought walking into his new bedroom and seeing the paintings of sunflowers. Did he scrutinize them? Delight in them? The two artists traded paintings (van Gogh gave Gauguin two sunflower paintings and Gauguin gave van Gogh a river scene from his time in Martinique) and set to work. During his stay, Gauguin painted van Gogh painting his sunflowers. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjATc1j2HvzrfM62iTTINh6mowPesfowSAKYQTmz-4XSkTPWlBTt_qpUOtlMUoOOIzPsYxP0c3_PVhUsvTxL5wxvHRhs88BXwIUb76hNkC2PKsh4jrvM-KPehyIzTMwVf2EWki_VxZ2sZ4/s953/Gauguin%2527s+painting+of+van+Gogh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="953" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjATc1j2HvzrfM62iTTINh6mowPesfowSAKYQTmz-4XSkTPWlBTt_qpUOtlMUoOOIzPsYxP0c3_PVhUsvTxL5wxvHRhs88BXwIUb76hNkC2PKsh4jrvM-KPehyIzTMwVf2EWki_VxZ2sZ4/s320/Gauguin%2527s+painting+of+van+Gogh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>But the friendship went awry when van Gogh had his breakdown, which infamously led to his severed ear. Gauguin, instead of helping van Gogh, packed up his things and split, because Gauguin, as it is known in the art world, was somewhat of an egotistical asshole who did not extend himself for others' sakes.</p><p>Sunflowers, to me, are the epitome of summer. They mimic the sun, follow it across the sky during the day. When the sun rises in the East, they face East. When the sun sets in the West, they face West. Some grow to over twelve feet tall; others are dwarf size and grow to two feet. In Brighton, where I lived in my twenties, sunflowers grew in my neighbor's yard and in the fall, they hung their overly seeded heads portraying oppression. I thought I might paint them then, portray that feeling, because I was feeling it too from the depression I was experiencing at the time.</p><p>Van Gogh's paintings are famous masterpieces for several reasons, as I will explain below, but first and foremost, they bring out the essence of the subject. Van Gogh expresses the sunflower-ness in yellows, rusts, oranges. He literally draws with the brush, outlining petals and stems with intent. He used impressionism to depict the different hues of green in the leaves by painting pixel-like strokes with a small brush. The more I studied the paintings, the more I understood this in a very visceral sense. The two-tone vase was probably not two-tone at all in real life. This was an invention of van Gogh's to use color for emphasis: he didn't want the vase to disappear in a similarly colored background. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc5sW5DYiqOm_o-DY0DJ2VyxANu_w2v3fMxloYjatNDq0LZ_m4pOuo36gkehglBxtiU-rWMo8av5003A9c4llcG_m7En0JKpd8m5ono8-1eSiWOfmddA3-FMg1RGhDjuMMGW3_soXW6LM/s250/van+Gogh%2527s+three+sunflowers.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc5sW5DYiqOm_o-DY0DJ2VyxANu_w2v3fMxloYjatNDq0LZ_m4pOuo36gkehglBxtiU-rWMo8av5003A9c4llcG_m7En0JKpd8m5ono8-1eSiWOfmddA3-FMg1RGhDjuMMGW3_soXW6LM/s0/van+Gogh%2527s+three+sunflowers.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>For my first attempt at painting sunflowers, I went to Tendercrop Farm store in Wenham and bought several bunches of sunflowers. In September, the fields around the store have a myriad of varieties of sunflowers in full bloom and it is a personal delight of mine to go there and be among them. So I set up my sunflowers in a vase and photograph them. I put them in a still life with a bowl of peaches and glass bottles. Homage to Vincent, I is my first attempt, and what I realized from completing this painting is that sunflowers have too much energy to be in a still life with other items. This is why van Gogh painted them alone. In my painting, the bottles and fruit have a calming feel and cannot possibly balance the vibrancy of the flowers. You can call it contrast, or you can call it a painting that doesn't exactly work. Also, I painted my flowers when they were very nearly fresh from the ground. Van Gogh painted his when they were drying up, some of them had lost their petals entirely and were just the heads with leaves curling into interesting shapes. In this way, van Gogh captured the flower's essence before it was too late, emphasizing its ephemeral nature. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7z4ApnpD8H5OR8WZGlQt4dg1h4VznqEMjIm0KOfy3ONUqzkyOed7BUZhpHmKpPVRpfd1WswjxIf-LPOJJ_6YUwZTHojRHAHKdU8I9vqYA3knh7tgNhgpa04LG6fQ5R51PczX7hz68Bog/s2048/20201112_175343+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7z4ApnpD8H5OR8WZGlQt4dg1h4VznqEMjIm0KOfy3ONUqzkyOed7BUZhpHmKpPVRpfd1WswjxIf-LPOJJ_6YUwZTHojRHAHKdU8I9vqYA3knh7tgNhgpa04LG6fQ5R51PczX7hz68Bog/s320/20201112_175343+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Van Gogh used oils and I used acrylics and I realized first hand the limitations of the paints. It took a lot of trial and error in mixing to get hues I was satisfied with, but in the end, I still wasn't entirely satisfied. The newly available yellow oil paints were also something that made Van Gogh's masterpieces possible. Van Gogh, according to an artist website, was one of the first artists to use them. In the painting I have pictured here, there are only shades of yellow and orange with some green.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD7TbbxW90oTmLnTOyjxv1vcUCW6vnHESjywg2JXVv_VRYXRCScSj4rnPwvUNJhyurb4kg0snC0KS8ywnc5kZX54Mp5fPPmELMqR5U1MOBtuqQvlN1X6xzEH4oQXmZxbwK3hD73nAeGAc/s832/Screen+Shot+2020-11-13+at+11.52.23+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="632" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD7TbbxW90oTmLnTOyjxv1vcUCW6vnHESjywg2JXVv_VRYXRCScSj4rnPwvUNJhyurb4kg0snC0KS8ywnc5kZX54Mp5fPPmELMqR5U1MOBtuqQvlN1X6xzEH4oQXmZxbwK3hD73nAeGAc/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-11-13+at+11.52.23+AM.png" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">So what makes this painting a masterpiece? I have come up with four reasons.</p><p style="text-align: left;">1. Subject matter. Sunflowers are interesting; they mimic the life force of the sun in shape and color. They are dramatic. In this painting, van Gogh emphasizes their ephemeral nature by painting them in various stages of decay.</p><p style="text-align: left;">2. Filling the canvas, composition. Van Gogh presents various shapes-the circles/ovals of the heads and triangles of the leaves, as well as and strokes- from outlining to dabbing in a sponge-like pattern to what I call pixel-ing. He fills the entire canvas, which is the number one rule for painting.</p><p style="text-align: left;">3. Choosing a palette of harmonious colors. Van Gogh uses a palette of various yellows in this painting from a rust yellow to a lemon yellow. There is no one jarring color that sends the viewer out of the painting.</p><p style="text-align: left;">4. Detail. Van Gogh doesn't gloss over the irregularities of the leaves and the petals. He cares for each one and makes it its own shape. His power of observation is steadfast and acute. Detail is arduous to do, but makes a difference. I have learned to see a galaxy of stars, nebulas, and dark matter in the heads of van Gogh's sunflowers and used this technique in creating my own. </p><p style="text-align: left;">5. Find the essence of the thing and express it in style. By the time van Gogh was painting sunflowers, his style was intact and he knew what he was doing. This is why his paintings are recognizable (reasons 2, 3, 4). </p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">For Homage, II, I realized the sunflowers I bought were not going to inspire reasons 3 and 4 in me, and despite numerous lovely photos, scrapped them entirely. I went online and found a picture of a vase of sunflowers that seemed more interesting via their long petals and paler yellow hue. I painted them, only to realize that the petals from flower to flower were too similar, so I violated reason number 4. This was somewhat frustrating, but deepened my appreciation for van Gogh's work. I will keep trying, though.</p>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-88307963231245405712020-10-13T11:43:00.005-07:002020-12-03T09:05:21.535-08:00Grasping Ferrante’s Female Psyche <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYxeRqP0OoLMVThTjP_X1C1ZEZVIRvcIvr0voOQFVTKSPJLRZDnJ49Ru78PnUwq6WfRITPBJQsVOgLTxlwZkDX8K4BG0zXOQ0V5y29-etUI7r7wE9AZLNCEzzEsOvVsA1TSO-nBhMr2NM/s2048/women+suffering.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1468" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYxeRqP0OoLMVThTjP_X1C1ZEZVIRvcIvr0voOQFVTKSPJLRZDnJ49Ru78PnUwq6WfRITPBJQsVOgLTxlwZkDX8K4BG0zXOQ0V5y29-etUI7r7wE9AZLNCEzzEsOvVsA1TSO-nBhMr2NM/w281-h393/women+suffering.jpeg" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">sketch by Laurette Folk<br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />It’s almost cliché, as an Italian American, to say you have relatives in the Mafia. Seemingly, we are all linked to that criminal patriarchal order. My grandfather, with his long overcoat, brimmed hat, and pencil-thin mustache looked like he belonged in <i>The Godfather</i>. It’s rumored that he moved his family from Queens to Long Island—nothing but farmland back in the fifties—to escape what some believed was his obligation. His own father pressured him to become mafioso, but my grandfather was fit with a prominent moral code and opted instead to make an honest living as a butcher, sparing his family the repercussions of a life in crime.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>The Godfather</i> movies were often discussed at the table on Sunday, and the machismo was celebrated by the men in my family. I have only seen glimpses of the movies myself because they made me anxious. I knew too well the passions of love and rage from my parents' tenuous marriage and extended family dynamics. We weren't a people who suppressed our passions and this often felt treacherous to me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Mario Puzo and Frances Ford Coppola deserve their accolades for portraying the passions and humanity of a larger-than-life crime family, but I was alienated by these fictions primarily about men. I longed for a different kind of voice, a different kind of story from my Italian heritage. When I started writing, I wrote alone in my room, accompanied only by the authors I read. I read many books, none of them by Italian or Italian American writers. I read English writers, Russian writers, Irish, Indian, Chinese, South American, African writers. It wasn’t until my forties, after two of my own books were published, that I found Elena Ferrante. I found the voice I was looking for, and it was incredibly close to my own.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Three of my eight grandparents emigrated from Naples, Ferrante’s birthplace and the setting for most of her books. The Neapolitans in my family were working class—a practical people who favored business as a means of livelihood and were wary of education and making a living in the arts. Patriarchy was the predominant code by which they lived, from the church they worshipped in to how their families were structured. You followed the patriarch's orders because he knew what was right for you, never mind what ideas you had for yourself. My mother, who is about Ferrante’s age, expressed an interest in going to college in Boston after high school, but was ushered to a nearby secretarial school instead. She met my father and went from her father’s house to her husband’s house, as was typical of women in her generation. In the same way, my father, a bit more evolved than my grandfather, convinced me of a career in engineering, despite my interest in art, because it was more practical.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The similarity of the tropes in <i>My Brilliant Friend</i> and my first novel, <i>A Portal to Vibrancy</i> (Big Table Publishing, 2016), are uncanny. I wrote about this in the essay <a href="https://ovunquesiamoweb.com/archive/current-issue-vol-1-issue-3/laurette-folk/" target="_blank">“Stumbling toward Selfhood: Tracking the Path of the Italian (American) Feminist in a Patriarchal World.”</a> Both have impressionable, creative female protagonists who each emulate a model friend. Both include irreverent intellectual lovers, patriarchal specters, the pressure of the tribe, model artists, and the poverella, the lonely, crazy woman who is first and foremost, an insidious threat—someone the protagonist could become if she isn’t careful.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I went on to read all of Ferrante’s books, including <i>Frantumaglia, A Writer’s Journey</i>, which consists of Ferrante’s letters and the interviews she conducted via email. (The Italian writer known as “Elena Ferrante” is an “absent writer,” writes under a pseudonym, and never appears in public, as has been well-documented). Reading Ferrante’s books pushed me beyond these tropes, coaxing me to delve deeper into the female psyche. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If the Puzo/Coppola trilogy examines the lives of men and asks the question Who’s got the power?, Ferrante’s books examine the female psyche and the challenge to find the power within. This begs the question, how does a female protagonist find her power in a patriarchal world? What are the common elements of the thinking protagonist in Ferrante’s novels? I can name three of them: surveillance, harnessing the frantumaglia, and understanding the threat of the poverella.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i><b>Surveillance.</b></i> Ferrante’s protagonists are startlingly aware. They are not only astute observers of the external world and can size people up quickly and acutely, they are equipped with a keen perception of their own thoughts and bodies. This is a novel concept according to Ferrante. She explains in <i>Frantumaglia</i> how the “women of the preceding generations were closely watched over by parents, by brothers, by husbands, by the community, but they did not watch over themselves, or, if they did, they did so in imitation of their watchers, like jailers of themselves” (103).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">My own mother nicknamed her father “the watcher.” He was very strict with his daughters, more so than with his sons, mostly because he trusted no one, especially young men. There is this image in my mind when hearing my mother reminisce, of my grandfather looming in the picture window, looking down on her as she was leaving for a date. Later, he tracked her like a spy to make sure everyone behaved themselves. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante explains how her characters’ surveillance “displays watchfulness, vigilance, invoking not a gaze but, rather an eagerness for feeling alive. Men have transformed surveillance into a sentinel’s activity, a jailer’s, a spy’s. Surveillance is, if well understood, more an emotional tendency of the whole body, an expansion and an inflorescence on and around it.” This inherent monitoring of the body is particular to women because of pregnancy. The female psyche is wired to monitor a “swelling wave all over, and every sense is affectionately active” (104).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">A perfect example of this is Delia’s relationship with her mother Amalia in Ferrante’s first novel, <i>Troubling Love</i>. The relationship is complicated; reverence and enmity are forever entwined in the language of bodies:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">She had pulled her dress up to her waist, revealing baggy waist-high pink underpants. Giggling, she had said something confused about her soft flesh, her sagging belly, repeating, “Touch here,” and tried to take one of my hands to place it on her flabby white stomach.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I had pulled back and rested my hand on my heart to calm its rapid beating. She let fall the hem of her dress …A single step beyond the open doors and she had disappeared into darkness. Alone in the car, I had felt a peaceful pleasure. (24)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante, in dealing with this hyper-aware self, often comes smack up against the id and its primordial desires that have noteworthy powers of their own. This is not unlike the primal urges in <i>The Godfather</i>. However, unlike <i>The Godfather</i>, whose primal urges center around the violence of patriarchal competition, the power of Delia, the protagonist in Ferrante’s first novel <i>Troubling Love</i>, is derived from the selfish and visceral desires of a child to own her mother:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">On the other hand I hadn’t wanted or been able to root anyone in me. Soon I would lose even the possibility of having children. No human being would ever detach itself form me with the anguish with which I had detached myself from her, only because I had never been able to attach myself to her definitively. There would not be anyone more or less between me and another aspect of myself. I would remain me until the end, unhappy, discontent with what I had furtively taken from the body of Amalia. (65)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Because Ferrante’s protagonists are operating in oppressive societies, self-empowerment by whatever means—hypervigilance, primal urges—is necessary for not only survival, but “feeling alive.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i><b>Harnessing the frantumaglia</b></i>. When I was in my twenties, after I had abandoned a career in engineering, I was stricken with anxiety and panic attacks to the point where I was not eating or sleeping. I sought medical help from a nearby clinic and a doctor diagnosed me with existential angst. I remember wanting an exclusive remedy, a specific medical diagnosis, and instead, I got a pat on the shoulder and a short lesson in philosophy. But the doctor wasn’t wrong. I was anything but grounded, drifting from temp job to temp job, from quasi-relationship to quasi-relationship. I was neither fully adult nor a child; I was abandoned to the land of limbo, distraught that I could not make the career that I chose work for me, no matter how many times I changed jobs. I was especially aware of brokenness, how, despite my hard work and accolades, it all fell apart. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante got the term frantumaglia from her mother. She defines it in the book <i>Frantumaglia</i> as a “jumble of fragments… debris in a muddy water of the brain. The frantugmaglia [is] mysterious, it provoke[s] mysterious actions, it [is] the source of all suffering not traceable to a single obvious cause” (99). This reads to me a lot like existential angst. You reach a certain age when you have collected enough rejection, grief, disappointment, and unfairness from the world that it attains a critical mass and starts to weigh upon you. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante’s characters are plagued with doubt, self-criticism, and the internalized scolding voices of the tribe. Her writing may be labeled as confessional, complete with shock value, but it is anything but gratuitous. What the readers sees on the page is a sort of grappling, a processing of ideas in the frantumaglia via surveillance that ultimately leads to what Ferrante calls a “new equilibrium.” She’s careful not to use a term like “enlightenment”; her characters must still fight the old ghosts and tropes of the patriarchy; they haven’t really moved on. But the key word here is fight. The expectation these characters have to break the old misogynist traditions “never arrive,” but instead of yielding, as their foremothers had, “they fight, and they cope. They don’t win, but they simply come to an agreement with their own expectations and find new equilibriums” (203).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">For the artist, the equilibrium place is a place for reflection. At this point, the frantumaglia becomes useful: its fruits can be novels and great works of art. The desire must be there, however, to express, to explore the frantumaglia and give it names and terms. It is in defining the vagueness, naming the ghosts of the frantumaglia that women can derive their power. I think here of the artist Frida Kahlo; her surrealist paintings are a visual voice for her physical and mental anguish. Ferrante, herself, is an example of this, especially with her first three novels (the <i>Neopolitan Quartet</i>, she exclaims, is an exception because it came out nearly whole). The existential angst that I experienced in my twenties was fodder for <i>A Portal to Vibrancy</i>. Through the writing of that book I realized that I was suppressing my creative power for the sake of earning money at a practical job, and it was turning into a “creativity perverse,” something that could torture me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Understanding the threat of the poverella. My aunt Lauretta was funny and fun-loving and one of my favorite people. She had a side to her, however, that was always in emotional turmoil due to her failed relationships with men. My aunt closed in on herself because of this, like a flower at night, and as I got older and had my own failed relationships, I understood why. In an Italian, and by extension, Italian American family, you were supposed to marry to save yourself from the difficulties of life, and my aunt did just that, but her marriage failed. It was an unspeakable thing, talked about behind her back. She was in danger of becoming a poverella. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">A poverella is an abandoned woman, according to Ferrante. In <i>The Days of Abandonment</i>, a poverella is defined as a woman who “doesn’t know how to keep a man,” a poor woman who is “no longer loved” and “left with nothing” (16). In the novel <i>My Brilliant Friend</i>, the poverella is the crazy woman Melina, who sweeps the steps, eats soap, and is rumored to have killed the child she had with her poet lover. In <i>The Days of Abandonment</i>, Olga, the protagonist, “dream[s] the story of the poverella’s waterlogged, lifeless body, a silver anchovy to be persevered in salt” (52) and witnesses the poverella’s ghost after her own husband leaves her. In <i>A Portal to Vibrancy</i>, Grandma Gracie is the hypochondriac agoraphobic afraid to go out into the world, an immediate threat to Jackie, the protagonist, whose worst fear is that her own anxiety and depression will worsen such that she too will be confined and miss out on the rest of her life. In these novels, the poverella is a prominent threat because she is estranged from her own power. She is the very antithesis these women protagonists seek to be.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But eradicating the poverella is not the answer, according to Ferrante:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Suffering derives, instead, from the fact that crowding around them, simultaneously, in a sort of achrony, is the past of their ancestors and the future of what they seek to be, the shades, the ghosts: up to the point, for example, where Delia [of <i>Troubling Love</i>], after taking off her clothes of the present can put on her mother’s old dress as the definitive garment; and Olga can recognize in the mirror, in her own face as a constituent part of her, the figure of the poverella-mother who has killed herself. (108-109)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">What Ferrante is saying here is that to leave behind the poverella is pointless; she must be assimilated. This is a very feminine idea. We can’t demolish the hurting parts of ourselves; that’s impossible. They will rise and fade with the seasons of one’s life; we name them as essential parts of the frantumaglia, bear witness to them, create around them. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">My aunt Lauretta ended up marrying again and had a son, my cousin, with her new husband. She had a good job in a lawyer’s office and wanted to study to become a paralegal. When the boy was six, she died of cancer. It was a heart-wrenching thing to witness—to see her crawl away from the fate of the poverella, only to die young anyway. I remember her saying to the family at Sunday dinner, touching her bald head, how she was chosen for this particular fate, while we all stared into our plates. It wasn’t for nothing. I suppose it was her way of owning her pain, giving it meaning, and that made an impression upon me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Later, when I was writing my creative thesis for an MFA program, Lauretta appeared on paper as Etta, the character to my second novel, <i>The End of Aphrodite</i> (Bordighera, 2020). The Etta character immediately had a sense of power. She had the voice my aunt died with, one of certainty, conviction. Yes, there was still the dependency on men, but mostly, relationships were on her terms. It was interesting to write a character in this way—irreverent, beautiful, smart, and somewhat outrageous—so unlike any of the women in my family and more like Lila of the <i>Neapolitan Quartet</i>. I felt as if I had transcended something.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I no longer write alone. I have found a community of Italian American writers and we meet monthly at IAM Books in Boston or via Zoom. We women still gather and share our awe for Ferrante and what she’s accomplished. By putting the ideas, fears, struggles of a young woman yearning to be educated amongst people who did not value education nor women, telling that story, a vastly different story than what Puzo and Coppola put forth in <i>The Godfather</i>, Ferrante has educated the rest of the world of what it was like for the ultimate underdog. It was a major accomplishment, to have had such a voice—the voice of an Italian woman—heard and heralded by so many. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Works Cited</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante, Elena. Frantumaglia, A Writer’s Journey. Europa Editions, 2016, pp. 99, 103-104, 203.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante. Troubling Love. Europa Editions, 2006, pp. 24, 65.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Ferrante, Elena. The Days of Abandonment. Europa Editions, pp. 16, 52.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-51385691904174946442020-10-04T08:02:00.004-07:002020-10-04T08:08:17.659-07:00The Evolution of a Painting<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzC02_pSkIHHhlca7i1TfFkzXBtJUUCrK5pywrKK6DebdRCqbyTREN8ci2O39FciKZVGKkSYMfyblRKtWGntPDo06Aidi477tCd_V5R996RV7MXs9ZOp2VdkaU-3qxfDkk3IdyudjENPk/s2048/Great+Marsh+lll.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1596" data-original-width="2048" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzC02_pSkIHHhlca7i1TfFkzXBtJUUCrK5pywrKK6DebdRCqbyTREN8ci2O39FciKZVGKkSYMfyblRKtWGntPDo06Aidi477tCd_V5R996RV7MXs9ZOp2VdkaU-3qxfDkk3IdyudjENPk/w334-h260/Great+Marsh+lll.jpg" width="334" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Marsh, reworked<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>During this time of unemployment and uncertainty, I want to paint. My writing projects have all ended or are at stopping points, so I decided to switch mediums. I have gone back to paintings that I thought were finished, taking them out of their frames and reworking them, addressing the issues that have nagged at me. The Great Marsh is one of these. I framed it in early spring of this year and hung it above the fireplace. I stared at it for months, feeling there were things that could be further worked out. When I took it out of the frame, I looked deeply into the painting. There were shapes that weren't quite right, colors that needed silencing or fortification. I worked for hours to address these issues. <p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfugnkTZM-KPISxRji7U4ZDFY-6fNrms0qIAzfPczrmkSguSBLW_aZ0kWbyHxOerqfamikzRm-V844NmkAncADozpO3pz_Cp14NHUAreOff8kVV_EjJuE2w3RnJFn1jBgbHSnl0dFkT30/s640/hartley_IMG_6710_1.jpg.640x640_q85.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="477" data-original-width="640" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfugnkTZM-KPISxRji7U4ZDFY-6fNrms0qIAzfPczrmkSguSBLW_aZ0kWbyHxOerqfamikzRm-V844NmkAncADozpO3pz_Cp14NHUAreOff8kVV_EjJuE2w3RnJFn1jBgbHSnl0dFkT30/w334-h248/hartley_IMG_6710_1.jpg.640x640_q85.jpg" width="334" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soliloquy in Dogtown by Marsden Hartley</td></tr></tbody></table><br />What I have realized is that there are deconstruction phases and reconstruction phases to the process of making art. In painting, this is immediately evident, because painting is visual. This immediate perception brings on immediate responses like, oh no, what have I done? The fear of something irreparable arises. When I was younger and more inexperienced, I would chop up the painting and make it into a collage. But I've reached a point where I don't need to do that. I push through the deconstruction phase, look deeply into the painting, into the images I want to express to find answers. I wait. I test my patience. I take what I have learned from revising writing and use it for painting. There is always this devil on your shoulder wanting things from the work, accolades, the beauty of a finished product. You need to drown that bastard, listen to the angel that says, everything has its own time. I had a friend tell me that she wants nothing to do with old writings, old manuscripts; they came from a time when she was less skilled and need to be filed away under that heading. If I had done that, the two novels that have been published thus far would have remained in their primordial states, unknown. Everything can be reworked; it's up to you whether you want to do it or not.<p></p><p>From the original painting, I cut the river to a precise edge, softened the blue and used gold in the mud flats and grasses to add an ethereal element. I was happy with this. My intention for the first painting was to make the river a wild, energized thing, like Van Gogh's night sky in Starry Night. But for months, I felt as if the river were falling out of the painting. The evolved painting is more Marsden Hartley, with stylistic shaping, bold coloring, and a reflective essence. What I have come to realize in writing this, is that these masterworks were in the back of my mind, guiding my hand.</p>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-76861845831531874712020-06-30T18:11:00.001-07:002020-06-30T18:11:48.446-07:00Gallery of Smaller Works, collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Stuff of Dreams, paper collage</div>
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Ghost, mixed media collage</div>
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Hot Summer in the City, paper collage</div>
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Bowl of flowers, mixed media collage</div>
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Memorabilia, mixed media collage</div>
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Of Myth and Dreams, paper collage</div>
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Ritual, paper collage</div>
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Decadence, paper collage</div>
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Tattered Doll, paper collage</div>
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Truly, Truly, mixed media collage</div>
<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-30264362954883866542020-04-05T12:00:00.002-07:002020-04-05T16:56:49.789-07:00Thoughts on Devastating Knowledge and the Lack of Inspiration<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Heat stream hiss from the radiator. There is this pretentious pressure surrounding me. I don’t write from a deep place. I write from the air just above my skin, not my bones. The air is thin and odious. It smells of nervous sweat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The other day I was driving home and the kids and I got talking about the body, its cells, and a memory came to me, of drawing muscle cells for biology class. Thin, orange, tube-like structures, each with a single eye. I thought about the texture of meat, and how it all made sense. I thought of mitochondria, the powerhouse, and Mrs. White who had perfectly sculpted blond hair and a nearly round nose. She had a soft-spoken manner and was generally likable, the kind of teacher the kids didn’t want to irritate because it would be too awkward. I wanted her to like me, but I went virtually unnoticed in her class. The classroom windows looked out upon the playing fields where we ran free at the base of Bowling Green Mountain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a child, I used to like holding up a small mirror against a larger mirror and watching the image repeat itself to a vanishing point. Mirror upon mirror, image upon image, if you moved one, they all shifted in unison, like the sweeping of a dragon’s tail.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Josie’s walking around downstairs. Now she’s slurping water. I hear her struggling to breathe. We no longer can do our long walks in the woods, because she can’t handle the hills, and her breathing becomes too labored. This labored breathing mirrors the labored breathing of the people with the virus; thousands of them extend outward to a vanishing point. Around the world, machines breathe for these people, because their lungs are turning to glass. A big red glob of a lung cell reaches a tiny, hopeful hand out, and the virus plunges a thorn into its palm. The hopeful hand has no choice but to take it in where the virus feasts on proteins and multiplies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Breathing. To take a breath is to “inspire.” Every moment we become new with new oxygen, the same way ideas reach us and stimulate us, making our minds new.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But things are different now. When I listen to some of these experts speak, I get a lump in my throat, like I used to when anxiety once overwhelmed me. I now know the difference between the lump and struggling for breath, though. I hear Josie and I know the difference.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She won’t heal on her own, my girl. She’ll just get worse and worse until her throat closes. So I have a decision to make: have her go through the ordeal of an operation at the age of twelve or let nature take its course. The disease is called laryngeal paralysis, and it’s common in Labradors. I walk around, go about my day, knowing this, like I knew about my father’s cancer and Ralphie’s tumor, a ticking time bomb lodged in his heart. I go through my daily duties wondering if I will in the future be hooked up to a machine, or, if there will be one available, should I need it. There is all this devastating knowledge I carry around with me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I walk in the woods alone now, and try to be marveled by the sky, by the frogs resurrecting themselves from the mud, singing. The Cooper’s Hawk perches in the Japanese maple, its soft, maple-colored breast an irregularity in the landscape, something the eye can detect. She swoops across the yard with silver wings, rapid fire. The doves around the birdseed have disappeared. They don’t hang out by the safflower like they used to, stuffing themselves under the soothing green limbs of the hemlocks, too fat to fly. The saddest thing is finding a dead dove with its breast torn open, its soft down, scattered. Eyes shut. There’s something angelic and innocent about the shut eyes. I place a shovel under it and its head lolls this way and that. I bury it with soft earth, and guard the mound, watch if creatures come to claim it, dig it up, like they did the swift I buried last fall.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last walk in the woods with Josie was on a cold, March morning. We were coming down the sidewalk, and she was moving with the kind of grace known only to momentum. I looked up and saw it there, its striking edges prominent on the fence. It was a perfect cross, a shadow in the sunlight coming off the fence. There was no “is that a cross, or oh, there is a cross” it was more like: Cross. And I didn’t take it to mean “here is a cross, and I am protected by God.” Its edges were too sharp for that. I took it to mean: suffering. An acknowledgement, more or less, of my suffering and the suffering that is to come.<o:p></o:p></div>
Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-28503386380129784432020-03-14T19:08:00.009-07:002020-11-13T07:50:57.685-08:00Gallery of Larger Works<div class="separator"><br /></div><div class="separator"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKnhfx6nv4dZ8al2l5UuTNddBIMCHawI36JnZlA1CzF50OMFCryDQV4rkGktNUB_uaHic9jZdbj41ydly2vqeguFbpoVj6AvX4XuaF88kUy2zRHb9Y2Rx-5pfLHqwSW8XMwcCqJT9MEA/s1600/Bowl+of+Clementines.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKnhfx6nv4dZ8al2l5UuTNddBIMCHawI36JnZlA1CzF50OMFCryDQV4rkGktNUB_uaHic9jZdbj41ydly2vqeguFbpoVj6AvX4XuaF88kUy2zRHb9Y2Rx-5pfLHqwSW8XMwcCqJT9MEA/s320/Bowl+of+Clementines.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bowl of Fruit and Vases, acrylic</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWAGgNM1rjpD0N6RjNrYIz4Hg024ArwRWZUJTgDVXT1DwCzTyHI8rjClfrSTjlbdiTxx_BUTcO8HwarWP1rFqOPJRATfvPgAh4Jm662Se6nK3mBeo0OsBWMO4-XCh0ejc_ac3qnGTO8E/s2048/20201112_175343+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWAGgNM1rjpD0N6RjNrYIz4Hg024ArwRWZUJTgDVXT1DwCzTyHI8rjClfrSTjlbdiTxx_BUTcO8HwarWP1rFqOPJRATfvPgAh4Jm662Se6nK3mBeo0OsBWMO4-XCh0ejc_ac3qnGTO8E/s320/20201112_175343+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Homage to Vincent, I</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjKCzNAfA_DyoXCdDJPIltbgopnywa7X1IGJhjXUUkqY63r2u2tcUmLAM6BzHDjRM2pL-RIilmzO_GMfMZVFzVm6zivzMmnnpBOgaWto_talmexCJNKmnxFoFzlGFJu4uMkrhiXjAPOo/s2048/sunflowers+final+final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1701" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjKCzNAfA_DyoXCdDJPIltbgopnywa7X1IGJhjXUUkqY63r2u2tcUmLAM6BzHDjRM2pL-RIilmzO_GMfMZVFzVm6zivzMmnnpBOgaWto_talmexCJNKmnxFoFzlGFJu4uMkrhiXjAPOo/s320/sunflowers+final+final.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Homage to Vincent, II<br /><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0jXKT2JTEEUDJLOEmSslXB4VzVoHLGMzoYLsqma95wEi97A7W5I-tezfEnvqxu3GRalxRqB8gcT0mInufIT_Lm0rG64Ri0HlunzMfk1N-dWC89QK-V4_A40D1bc0crJDIqZRQshlqNo/s2048/The+Handmaid.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1481" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0jXKT2JTEEUDJLOEmSslXB4VzVoHLGMzoYLsqma95wEi97A7W5I-tezfEnvqxu3GRalxRqB8gcT0mInufIT_Lm0rG64Ri0HlunzMfk1N-dWC89QK-V4_A40D1bc0crJDIqZRQshlqNo/s320/The+Handmaid.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Handmaid, acrylic</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1yBaVyZFDnldw0dVj4hSWKT6Kqjl2Yl4dRbH6dBg-taA-YlqV4vweLVNN0mzFNk_G-eZ5xAnIZj0Y9PQnvbZubpSDpWhqwcu-RSmiyxNnSzB2X-OBl3eQhWq3mDWLjos1PZJyPcSYU0/s571/Lady+with+Pet+Dog.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Lady with Pet Dog, acrylic" border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="571" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1yBaVyZFDnldw0dVj4hSWKT6Kqjl2Yl4dRbH6dBg-taA-YlqV4vweLVNN0mzFNk_G-eZ5xAnIZj0Y9PQnvbZubpSDpWhqwcu-RSmiyxNnSzB2X-OBl3eQhWq3mDWLjos1PZJyPcSYU0/w320-h236/Lady+with+Pet+Dog.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Lady with Pet Dog, acrylic</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlvuI0zIt1IIoqOoJJnozrGIyVPxVf6pLyJ4UGC3nphQYTDZKyiCjkoPNCAs8_aF6bxNYoHHJ7kG55TojjSMkqF2DSlIRppMpqPMG7zdLHYDMyaJhrFbZshJdsOFteK9djsgYJQnxwXQ/s1600/lady+in+red.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlvuI0zIt1IIoqOoJJnozrGIyVPxVf6pLyJ4UGC3nphQYTDZKyiCjkoPNCAs8_aF6bxNYoHHJ7kG55TojjSMkqF2DSlIRppMpqPMG7zdLHYDMyaJhrFbZshJdsOFteK9djsgYJQnxwXQ/s320/lady+in+red.JPG" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady in Red, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bride's Shoe, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZ5R2y1Bjfk7WG4DQNtNGIW-JsrR7CDV9JDOC7uI3xB5Z6O5qOtvL6Z-r_CIhGu79s4o3LbXea4dEBZ77dZ_sVKPG3UTj3792U4k97H3kV9m32a3lxJcTsLvDZXb8w_KVApnqLdquNpU/s1600/Sicily.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="506" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgZ5R2y1Bjfk7WG4DQNtNGIW-JsrR7CDV9JDOC7uI3xB5Z6O5qOtvL6Z-r_CIhGu79s4o3LbXea4dEBZ77dZ_sVKPG3UTj3792U4k97H3kV9m32a3lxJcTsLvDZXb8w_KVApnqLdquNpU/s320/Sicily.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sicily, acrylic</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcClTH4ZqTFPXNWYpL2cL2SjjV3YOkZz_h50y0nMZusgN2yfHU2z_kaMBXbfO8T7QHuQA3mTRmkzcpNbEDTPtPLKW92OZByl79t-gAEX47HQnP5Sai-0aghVwvsB6kYRpkr4GLHmNgECM/s2048/The+Great+Marsh%252C+II.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1632" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcClTH4ZqTFPXNWYpL2cL2SjjV3YOkZz_h50y0nMZusgN2yfHU2z_kaMBXbfO8T7QHuQA3mTRmkzcpNbEDTPtPLKW92OZByl79t-gAEX47HQnP5Sai-0aghVwvsB6kYRpkr4GLHmNgECM/s320/The+Great+Marsh%252C+II.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Marsh, II<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxnAKH2uGQfmEUQCQzHwtHM5RxTX7YMdfdJxSlhaJ9LTgZU-vnRUCKY1sCQpSrQXnoYFJpIiHd7RJafuUihhnPp2JLFQgypNzKZswHekE7bmmJnvygCccuPz1gqxa9DwjVyo56wcJHOlU/s1600/Reaching.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="367" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxnAKH2uGQfmEUQCQzHwtHM5RxTX7YMdfdJxSlhaJ9LTgZU-vnRUCKY1sCQpSrQXnoYFJpIiHd7RJafuUihhnPp2JLFQgypNzKZswHekE7bmmJnvygCccuPz1gqxa9DwjVyo56wcJHOlU/s320/Reaching.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reaching, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xDOu7RBJd_X0UDzieMDRfZtgaywwJzUp2nicrPozXSKjbKOw7hVGV0Dx37cqGYhB6LldXEIKjvB66KtlbtiRzeiP9EzULkVIZ99UawgDvmA9o0NjNBgVkMvoX0Ywxa3e9RA_N9pwpPk/s1600/rose+and+pear+still+life_painting.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1242" data-original-width="1600" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xDOu7RBJd_X0UDzieMDRfZtgaywwJzUp2nicrPozXSKjbKOw7hVGV0Dx37cqGYhB6LldXEIKjvB66KtlbtiRzeiP9EzULkVIZ99UawgDvmA9o0NjNBgVkMvoX0Ywxa3e9RA_N9pwpPk/s320/rose+and+pear+still+life_painting.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still Life with Flowers and Pears, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfu1Zu7-Q87b74pm7wyRsDt_LkXevaMLVGLPyx7fcxUevDZHughblLqUFSbF-Ynh3s4MX8wEpH-HMvVGRCDzDwtTOpgO5N9ICcfEYKJl0mqXnImtNZPxBRP8EQFos6PXuCQpn_aQk0cbg/s1600/Aphrodite+.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfu1Zu7-Q87b74pm7wyRsDt_LkXevaMLVGLPyx7fcxUevDZHughblLqUFSbF-Ynh3s4MX8wEpH-HMvVGRCDzDwtTOpgO5N9ICcfEYKJl0mqXnImtNZPxBRP8EQFos6PXuCQpn_aQk0cbg/s320/Aphrodite+.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aphrodite, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xKKSLZRmaknGeAncDc4FOyKQc_Yk35ZRdlk2elFSH7rCe9ki-SzNZuqahYVAPQblNXw1Qn7WWwgp0CSEbRwr0hsm2SR3smu521fyzZWjj-Qm06Ou4DaMX9XNfwbsboZiIPyfD5So-pw/s1600/Danae.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="483" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xKKSLZRmaknGeAncDc4FOyKQc_Yk35ZRdlk2elFSH7rCe9ki-SzNZuqahYVAPQblNXw1Qn7WWwgp0CSEbRwr0hsm2SR3smu521fyzZWjj-Qm06Ou4DaMX9XNfwbsboZiIPyfD5So-pw/s320/Danae.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Danae, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtbp16M-bCxd5K8WDqIxrb3QKRZWvn44Utb5mkK062dYGapI1nRjg-oyRaOoA9Ax0ftDg4U5YNuhibz02psEje4LG96Da20X_dm5Z4inK7rxPAysBgu4nVWJdM7dqEmDr_ashJ-o1UDY/s1600/birches.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1033" data-original-width="1600" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtbp16M-bCxd5K8WDqIxrb3QKRZWvn44Utb5mkK062dYGapI1nRjg-oyRaOoA9Ax0ftDg4U5YNuhibz02psEje4LG96Da20X_dm5Z4inK7rxPAysBgu4nVWJdM7dqEmDr_ashJ-o1UDY/s320/birches.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Birches I, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROEaDQnF7AfHlIJsbnkjywMcKQWvcH8qaUhrpXF7ErhiEz3-_os1NpfkkT_LOchIitIM9_jKWJ7NL6dpdWC3qc7DXB3L-HR0f-hr7Nlfg_nRHojaFbW_EySKq3M2zBddUKLuruAjtvpM/s1600/Lily+of+the+Valley.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="371" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROEaDQnF7AfHlIJsbnkjywMcKQWvcH8qaUhrpXF7ErhiEz3-_os1NpfkkT_LOchIitIM9_jKWJ7NL6dpdWC3qc7DXB3L-HR0f-hr7Nlfg_nRHojaFbW_EySKq3M2zBddUKLuruAjtvpM/s320/Lily+of+the+Valley.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lily of the Valley, pastel</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magnolia Flower, pastel</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lotus Flowers, acrylic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ssQF7S0-Z9gb1COws23_FqlV5Gf5AgghOQRPQCIhSMhyphenhyphenbLbU0YBVmfBDhabvyXUkVH8G3qxkmG-UbmgC0IBXYsVen_sgBs1r5O4xAFHGapy3t5_SQqLAirUUuTl2_5VIMOfsrksEhBc/s1600/Constructed+Angel.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1134" data-original-width="1372" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ssQF7S0-Z9gb1COws23_FqlV5Gf5AgghOQRPQCIhSMhyphenhyphenbLbU0YBVmfBDhabvyXUkVH8G3qxkmG-UbmgC0IBXYsVen_sgBs1r5O4xAFHGapy3t5_SQqLAirUUuTl2_5VIMOfsrksEhBc/s320/Constructed+Angel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Constructed Angel, paper collage</td></tr>
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<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-63890383035981919462020-01-30T09:59:00.001-08:002020-01-31T10:16:37.020-08:00The Mystery of Memory: Review of Abby Frucht's Maids<br />
We wonder about people in our past. We wonder, and to some extent are haunted by people who have passed through our lives without any real evidence as to who they were. To the writer, that wonder is a sort of power that fuels creativity and helps appease the gnawing mystery of memory. Abby Frucht, in her book <i>Maids</i>, uses a stream of conscious writing style to recollect and explore that wonder regarding the domestic women she knew as a girl.<br />
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This book reminds me of Susan Minot's novel <i>Monkeys</i>, because it is written from a deep place, a place where unresolved questions live--questions about people with hidden lives and loves. To pry open meaning, a stream of conscious style seems appropriate; formalities in language could blunt emotional impact. Author Molly McCloskey gets it right when she says in her blurb of the book "[O]ut of the shards of language a story coalesces." These shards are sharp and puncture. It only seems right that themes of race be written in this way.<br />
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At the heart of this book is a question Frucht poses to herself: why "this fug of mortified shyness she can't stand in herself when she's around black people"? By recollecting memories of the women when her interactions began, she constructs characters who may give her answers. There is Ida, the woman who "moves into the hallway her legs and arms attached to the shape of the Hotel Housekeeping Short Sleeve Dress," and Della who "slides her comfortable body between the two twin beds in the master bedroom," marking the text in time, and Cynthia who sits facing away from [the family] into the kitchen where they can look at the buttons at the back of (her) uniform." Frucht writes in Cynthia's voice, composing imagined letters from Cynthia to her husband Charles and daughter Wanda. Frucht the writer, the doctor's middle daughter now grown, asks "is it wrong to hope to imagine Cynthia's feelings? To put words into her thoughts into hopes in her"? This question is posed to the conscientious mind: is it right to invent, in the form of fiction, the thoughts of real people? The creative mind indulges not because the person (character) isn't capable of speaking her own mind, but because the daughter, the observer, the writer, wasn't there to hear it. It's a type of processing, of supposition, to alleviate the nagging mysteries of memory.<br />
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I love how the writing in this book is so close to the way actual thought forms in the mind (without commas, without formal grammar and realistic logic) cramming past with present, making unflinchingly honest associations: a unknown black man on a train becomes a potential thief and then Cynthia's husband:<br />
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<i>[I]t's nearly impossible to avoid at all times the wrong things to say or the wrong ways of saying the right things to do but the daughter at least likes to try such as by moving the pocketbook sideways as if unconsciously just an inch or two sideways away from his finger the finger jumping in surprise...They slip into his lap the offended fingers the orange plaid cuff with the snaggled thread as side by side he and the doctor's daughter ride the rest of the way to Penn Station in silence less comforting than before their quarrel unspoken coming and going such as when did it start and when might it come undone?... Goodbye she even bids the man now in her mind your own daughter dear Wanda my exact same age whose name waves itself away</i><br />
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Although the prose takes some time to get used to without the formalities of punctuation and language (I had to read the book twice), the book is so satisfyingly human, it's worth the effort.Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-41158420647859860432020-01-04T18:25:00.002-08:002020-01-04T18:26:01.751-08:00Happy New Year, paper collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXllEZ8MJXFQlOgBfrsdzfh81mn3icuk2-ORXdvRztKMzO_ta-fMygr1x2eja3tjvWh8Hz7mqw4xk9Ip2P9DreVKCb-6PkMVVZtagU0FXQWP1Yp0kl4ziMwRSI3qSdRw3KyA0eSZpn9o/s1600/new+year%2527s+eve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbXllEZ8MJXFQlOgBfrsdzfh81mn3icuk2-ORXdvRztKMzO_ta-fMygr1x2eja3tjvWh8Hz7mqw4xk9Ip2P9DreVKCb-6PkMVVZtagU0FXQWP1Yp0kl4ziMwRSI3qSdRw3KyA0eSZpn9o/s640/new+year%2527s+eve.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-10256957317436406852019-11-17T08:24:00.003-08:002019-11-17T08:24:37.167-08:00Mid November Discoveries<br />
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I discovered a skull blanched white, turning to stone, smooth with only a few back teeth present. The holes for the missing teeth were delicate crevasses I could peruse with my finger. The skull may have belonged to a skunk; it had a narrow nose, and was the right size. I stuck it between the tripod trunks of a large oak.<br />
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I discovered a gray world hovering over the river. I looked deeply into the grayness and felt I could disappear there. It was melancholy but peaceful, a serene oblivion, one we all fear, but shouldn't.<br />
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This morning it was bitter cold and the leaves hung lifeless on the trees. They had forgotten to drop, or were just about to, but froze. They are now stuck, and I wonder if they will be hanging lifeless all winter, be covered in snow, form haunting shapes at night. Nature's confusion. I find this obstinate green disturbing.<br />
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We walked around the block and the shade was nearly unbearable; we walked and tried to reclaim the sun, but couldn't. I instead found a mask with black shimmering sparkles on bone white. It made me think of Venice, a city of lace and other well-made things, a city, perhaps of "spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made" to quote Calvino. A city that presents a tourist face during the day, and yet, as a tourist, you sense there is something beyond this. The masks hanging in the shop windows indicate another Venice, a Venice that arrives only at dusk and leaves at dawn; a Venice of primal urges disguised in elegance, of intrigue, deceit, play, the antithesis to the banality of daily living.<br />
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I discovered a city across the river with a bell tower and a historic brick factory. It is my city, and it should be familiar, but from this perspective, it's not. It is a far away place, a northern city with exclusive artifacts I may find interesting.<br />
<br />Three days ago, I discovered a painting. In it, a poet stands in the portal to a cottage where the dark mystery of November and the gray pathways of a river surround him. The poet is like a ghost who haunts himself and instead of seeming dreary and morose like November can often be, it is elegant and ethereal, like a masked Venice at dawn. To its onlookers, it presents a certain mysticism worthy of exploring, if they would only stop complaining about how miserable November is.<br />
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Today on the trail, I discovered a fox. She ran out from underneath the bushes by the bridge and surprised me. She stopped when she was a good distance away, about 100 feet or so, and turned to regard us with curiosity. I talked to her in a soft voice, tried to ease her worries. She was diminutive, had delicate limbs, and that typical bushy tail. My dog sniffed the air; the hair on her back went stiff. The fox didn't move and we didn't move. The marsh grasses around the bridge were still as well, when typically they whisper and rustle. Then I crossed the bridge to the river banks where the river was between tides. The sun came out and I felt as if the sun were a god, acknowledging me, finally. I bowed my head, as if given a blessing.Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-77774467748042781922019-10-02T10:47:00.000-07:002019-10-11T08:48:38.934-07:00How I Define Short, Shorts (Flash Fiction) or How to Make Fodder of Your Dreams<br />
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A couple of years ago I gave myself the task of writing from my dreams. I thought I could embark upon the world of flash fiction this way, by using the surreal images and story lines of the unconscious. To do this properly, I used meditation to recall the dream; my life being as it is, it isn't possible to record notes in the morning when I have to get the kids off to school or walk my dog. <br />
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Most of the time I sat down to do this, I was immediately convinced that I would produce nothing substantial, that it would be a waste of time, that I really should be doing something else, like looking for a job or cleaning the house. But always, always something materialized on the paper, something obvious and alluring, and I felt satisfied and surprised. I had something to work with.<br />
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In a few instances, what I had written was nearly the final draft. This happened with several micro pieces and the story "<a href="http://waxwingmag.org/items/issue16/39_Folk-The-Dream-of-the-Moth.php" target="_blank">The Dream of the Moth</a>," which made it into <a href="https://www.thesonderpress.com/bsf-selections-2019" target="_blank">Best Small Fictions 2019</a> via <a href="http://waxwingmag.org/" target="_blank">Waxwing</a> literary magazine. These drafts required minimal manipulation and crafting. Each of these was a gift on a plate; they were waiting for me, and I had to only pay attention to properly receive them. With others, the image from the unconscious was there, as were certain feelings haunting that image, but the story was just a shell and took a consistent amount of arduous crafting, of cutting and adding, cutting and adding, to produce something of merit.<br />
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The unconscious is a bouillabaisse of ideas, feelings, and images. Elena Ferrante calls it the Frantumaglia, meaning <i>fragments</i>. I call these up during meditation by listening to a recording of a crystal bowl. The sound of the bowl sets my mind at ease, and when the mind is at ease, it dreams. My writing is a sort of note-taking, but also an interpretation. I do my best to record the essence, the meaning behind the images and emotions. Sometimes I make connections and incorporate past stories or journal entries. I see where the story wants to go.<br />
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I have to admit, the flash revision process can be maddening, and at times, completely fruitless. I would like to believe that no story is a failure, that when it reaches the dreadful place of limbo, it is only still evolving. Sometimes it doesn't reach fruition (am I just impatient?), and I have to cannibalize parts of it to fit the needs of another. In the end, this is satisfying as well. <br />
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Rejection by a literary magazine is also another way of the piece telling me it isn't finished yet. It's part of the evolutionary process and not a direct insult to my delicate, delicate ego (although I have to keep telling myself this). I go deeper with every rejection, look at my list of criteria for writing flash. I've forced myself to come up with a list and here it is: <br />
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1. Something dire; something treacherous. This has all to do with
subject matter, either blatant and in your face, or latent and conveyed
through images. A famous short short story that comes to mind is Hemingway's "<a href="http://faculty.weber.edu/Jyoung/English%202500/Readings%20for%20English%202500/Hills%20Like%20White%20Elephants.pdf" target="_blank">Hills Like White Elephants.</a>" (Note: as it is published, "Hills isn't flash because it's more than 1000 words, but it could easily be edited into a flash piece by nixing some of the beginning dialogue and exposition without losing any of its power). It's almost a gimmick the way Jig and the
American dance around the dire topic of abortion, but Hemingway's iceberg theory works. Even if you don't know what the euphemism "let the air in" means, you get the sense by Jig's hesitation and the American's persistence that something serious is going on. <br />
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2. Image. This is where tapping into the subconscious is so fruitful: it is a bounty of images. If an image is prominent enough and perfectly placed, the story will revolve around it. The mind will pick it up like a glittering shell in the sand. In "Hills" the symbolism of
the white elephant, rare and pure, nails Jig's latent desire to have a
child and live a more respectable life. <br />
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3. Yearning. According to Robert Olen Butler in "A Short, Short Theory"
from the Rose Metal Press <i>Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction</i>, fiction
must include a character that yearns. Plot is the thwarting of that
yearning. Again "Hills Like White Elephants" comes to mind because Jig's yearning to have a child is thwarted by the American's selfishness and desire to live a non-committal life. That yearning turns sour and makes Jig a petulant, sarcastic child. The fact that emotion morphs has all to do with<br />
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4. Emotional Complexity. Characters need to be round in flash and this is what's difficult because you have to construct the character's complexity in as few words as possible. <br />
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5. Vivid, compact, efficient language is absolutely paramount in flash. Jennifer Pieroni gets it right in "Smart Surprise in Flash Fiction" from the <i>Field Guide</i>: "Excellent flash fiction displays a true mastery of language...As in a sonnet, every word in every line matters in the mathematical sense." Unnecessary wordiness will kill a flash fiction piece. A great example of a paired down flash piece is "<a href="https://savethosethoughts.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/flash-fiction-snapshot-harvey-cedars1948-by-paul-lisicky/" target="_blank">Snapshot, Harvey Cedars: 1948</a>" by Paul Lisicky, anthologized in <i>Flash Fiction</i>.<br />
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6. Surrealism, magical realism. This might not be on everyone's How to Write Flash Fiction list; some people are diehard realists, but I love the surreal, because it's fresh and transcends the cliche of rationale. It's the language of the underworld, the id and the myth, the stuff of dreams, the refreshing <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">exposé</span></span> of primal inclinations as in Shabnam Nadiya's "<a href="https://shabnamnadiya.com/fiction-3/eating-bone/" target="_blank">Eating Bone</a>" and Rubem Fonseca's "Night Drive" from <i>Flash Fiction International</i>. I want to make my flash pieces like Leonora Carrington's paintings (see above). I want dead people moving in and out of my stories. I love wacky images like Francois Camoin's "father [as] a small blue pyramid with a single brown eye, like the picture on the dollar-bill" in "Things I Did to Make It Possible." I love the falling girl in Dino Buzzati's "<a href="https://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/cms/lib5/CA01000508/Centricity/Domain/2894/The%20Falling%20Girl.pdf" target="_blank">The Falling Girl</a>," how she lives her entire life in one delicious descent, and Barry Yourgrau's "By the Creek," anthologized in <i>Sudden Fiction International, </i>in which a group of boys convene in the woods wearing their fathers' heads. <br />
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7. Flow/Layering/Density/Depth. This has all to do with language, but also integration of layers of time. You can make a flash piece a moment, a vignette, or you can span a lifetime, so long as you do it efficiently. This means only including what's electrifying, skipping the minutiae, and foregoing the nagging need for exposition (hard for traditionalist fiction writers to do, easy for poets). See "Snapshot, Harvey Cedars: 1948."<br />
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8. Epiphany, irony, surprise, and/or illumination. Epiphany is the yearning realized, accepted, and a gain of knowledge; to quote Butler quoting Joyce, it is "a moment at the end where something about the human condition shines forth in its essence." In David Brooks' "Blue," Butler's definition of yearning is satisfied because it is the yearning that is exposed. Kate Chopin's short, short "The Story of an Hour" hits the entire list. Louise Mallard sits in her room after hearing of her husband's death and resonates with the spring outside her window; she realizes that she is "Free, free, free!" because "she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely." Just after this epiphany, Brently Mallard shockingly arrives home safe and sound and Louise dies of what the doctors declare "joy that kills," but we, the readers, know better. Boom, boom, boom, Epiphany, surprise, and irony: just when she gets to live life as she sees fit, she dies.<br />
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9. Inspiration. If you want to write good flash fiction, read good flash fiction. The <i>Best Small Fictions</i> series is excellent, as is <i>Sudden Fiction International</i> edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas and Norton's <i>Flash Fiction International</i> edited by James Thomas, Robert Shapard, and Christopher Merrill. The Review Review's "<a href="http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/extremely-helpful-incredibly-comprehensive-g" target="_blank">An Extremely Helpful, Incredibly Comprehensive Guide to Flash Ficiton Submissions</a>" has a list of top notch literary magazines that publish flash.<br />
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10. <i>Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction</i>. This how-to book edited by Tara Masih contains enlightening essays on the craft and sample stories. It's a must-read if you want to indulge in what Stuart Dybek calls "slipping between the seams." <br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-12074893767991829352019-08-16T10:58:00.001-07:002019-08-16T11:04:37.708-07:00The Miracle of Jennifer Martelli’s My Tarantella<style>
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What happens in the world permeates us in very personal
ways; events attach themselves to our most intimate lives. The murder of Kitty
Genovese affected my friend Jennifer Martelli in this way. In her collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Tarantella</i>, Jenn acts as a channel
for Kitty. But perhaps I am oversimplifying things a bit by saying that. Jenn’s
poems are not at all simple; you can’t say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh
here is when she</i>… or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oh yes, it makes
sense that</i>… This is the stuff of dreams, of ideas, that, like fruit to
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I peek through/the sliced webbing of my gloves, forget to
protect/my belly and throat. Golden birds, velvet bats/escape my mouth and no
one hears me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In “Kitty Genovese Names Her Fourteen Wounds,” wounds become
mouths (“There’s a mouth below the mouth across my throat”). The 14 wounds that
Winston Moseley inflicted upon Kitty Genovese in the vestibule of the Tudor
Apartments in Queens (where some 38 witnesses hid in their apartments) speak to
a poet who is striving to hear: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I thought of Kitty so hard, I was afraid she would manifest,
smiling—/in the dark corner of my laundry room, from my closet hook where belts
hang—</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a book that was meant to be written. This is a book
that transcends imagination and plunges into fate. We artists, writers, poets
begin our journeys based on the intersection of curiosity and creative prowess;
it’s an exploratory process that poses specific questions. When we are on the
path of the truth, the world answers back. A psychology-student friend of mine
once termed this as “oracular consciousness.” While Jenn was writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Tarantella</i>, our mutual friend
Jennifer Jean found an image of Kitty Genovese stenciled on a building near her
home:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is this Kitty? Is this who you’re writing about? She
was/barely formed, barely filled in, except for the contours of her face:/the
messy bob, the arched brow, oh that beautiful top lip curved.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The face on the wall was like a ghost saying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes.</i> The yes is like a breath, relief.
Proof. Corroboration. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keep going.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In “A God Lives in the Amygdala,” Jenn expresses precisely
what so many of us feel when we hear of such an atrocity, that God is
indifferent to what happens here, that “[h]is indifference has settled deep
within our ribcaged country.” It’s something that needs to be said, a
frustration that needs to be voiced: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you know that nothing outside of our mouths will save
us?/A god lives in the amygdala, but he is weak, too, asleep under the
new/moon./Did you see an angel’s viscera across the sky?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember when Jenn was writing these poems, the haunting images
that came to her: gold bugs, bats, Queen of Night tulips. I remember her
telling me she wanted to plant the black satin-like tulips in her yard. She was
living the book when she wrote it, and this is what makes it not just a book.
It’s a life too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If Jenn is a channel, Kitty is a catalyst. In “After JFK’s
Assassination, Things Got Really Bad” Jenn writes “Kitty puts things in order,
things I thought I’d forgotten.” Kitty serves as an impetus to shake Jenn’s
memory. We’re not talking nostalgia, here; nostalgia is too simplified a word
and too rosy. A specific hunger for the past is evident and this makes sense.
As we get older, the need to remember becomes more pronounced; it is imperative
to have proof we have lived. We need to be connected to this life, because it’s
the only thing we’re certain of:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the Bicentennial, when the Tall Ships</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
sailed into the Harbor, I wore a tube top</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with red and white stripes like the flag’s</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
bloody wounds. I wore sailor pants deep navy blue</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with two rows of white buttons tracing the shape</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of my uterus. I wasn’t smiling</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ultimately, Kitty’s murder is more than a murder; it’s a
metaphor for the disregarded female—an archetype subtly known and sadly, widely
accepted, as evidenced by Hillary Clinton’s loss: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last night, on television, I saw a woman scrubbed/of makeup
give a speech. I read about a woman who screamed/but no one came.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I found this book to be a seminal work for the voiced and
the voiceless. I feel I cannot do it justice by the meager words I’ve typed
here. The evocative images, the divining words—it’s a kind of miracle, a kind
of justice for a voiceless voice finally being heard.</div>
Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-62642479995787234132019-07-24T19:19:00.001-07:002019-07-26T08:05:22.455-07:00When Creativity and Domesticity Clash, There May Be Brilliance: A Review of Domenico Starnone's novel Trick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In Domenico Starnone's fourteenth novel <i>Trick</i>, septuagenarian Daniele Mallarico is a renown illustrator in the twilight of his career who must return to his childhood home to care for his grandson Mario, a precocious, goblin-like child who demands his grandfather's attention at all costs. The two battle wits, jockeying to have their needs met--Mario to engage his grandfather in play and Daniele to illustrate Henry James's ghost story "The Jolly Corner." Despite Daniele's league of frustrations in trying to make art happen with a four-year-old in the house, he ultimately produces a brilliant body of work, but not for the James story. What transpires are illustrations of Daniele's own ghosts, of family, his former selves, and to quote James, "all the old baffled foresworn possibilities," different versions of himself he may have become, having grown up in Naples, a city known for its rage ("la raggia").<br />
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Daniele admits that he is afraid of being without work, that he is less in demand, that his body is deteriorating; the James story is a chance for him to sustain his productivity and confidence, his life force. But he is thwarted at every turn by the child and by his own limitations:<br />
<br />
<i>I had no fun at all. Playing with the child had not only worn me out but depleted energy from the drawings I'd felt the urgency to pin down...Now they sat there like ailing beasts waiting, mutely and blindly, either to heal or die.</i><br />
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He becomes stumped, blocked. He can't envision the New York apartment where Spencer Brydon sees his ghost and he stops trying. He succumbs to what comes easier, to what demands recognition, reckoning:<br />
<br />
<i>I still saw my father in flashes, grim, throwing his hair back with both his hands, and my mother, who transformed amid fits of terror and melancholy from a shabby Cinderella to a lady in a veiled hat, and my grandmother, who having suffered a stroke, now sat always silent, arrugnata, a word that, in dialect, meant a body folded in on itself, curved like a billhook left to rust in some corner. </i><br />
<br />
Daniele realizes in the midst of his reflections that he is the lucky one; yes he has always had "various human types lurking in [his] body, some violent, others wretched" but because he had talent, he could conveniently "crush all [his] other spirits and banish them to the farthest reaches of [his] blood." Without his talent, without his work, however, he lies vulnerable to these; they rise up and taunt him just as effectively as the child does.<br />
<br />
I found this book to be utterly spot on in portraying the clash of creativity and domesticity; I read it with awe and empathy. Starnone is like Ferrante, immeasurably close to the witness self, precisely articulating each of the protagonist's experiences and the emotion and thoughts that accompany them. Both Starnone and Ferrante (argued to be one in the same or husband and wife) deal in what I call "the brutal truth." There is no pretense in their writing, no decorum, no niceties, no moral trivialities; these writers write from the primal self:<br />
<br />
<i>When my father sent me to the foundry he wasn't being wicked, poor man, he was giving both himself and me a lesson in realism. The tradition in my extremely sprawling family tree was to be a mechanic. Or an electrician, like my father. Or a turner like my grandfather...Or [making a] living by my wits, by hustling, by the wiles of necessity, leaving no doubt that I only ever have women on my mind, that I'm never satisfied with any of them, that I collect them, caress them, take advantage of them, beating them when they don't want to bend over nice and quiet...Or to reject the dark chasms of women and slip into male bodies with the excuse of humiliating them, or only because it's easier to feel at home with known actions and reactions, or because the drives are confused, the flesh is uncertain, always moving without resolution from men to women, from women to men, holes here and holes there, so many useless distinctions.</i><br />
<br />
The story culminates with little Mario locking his grandfather out on the balcony in the rain and the cold. The boy literally holds the old man hostage, and as with most hostage cases, release only comes when something is gained. This gain is twofold: the boy succeeds in gaining the grandfather's undivided attention, and the grandfather gains insight and acceptance: he's never going to finish the illustrations for the James story; he can't, it's beyond him, and that's okay. What's more important is that he's pinned down his own ghosts, in a kind of artistic reckoning. <br />
<br />
<i> </i><br />
Jhumpa Lahiri (<i>Interpreter of Maladies, Unaccustomed Earth, The Namesake</i>) does an impeccable job in translating the novel from the Italian and her introduction is written with grace and respect. She gives us food for thought on how a translator deliberates over words, the dance of words on the page, the different levels of meaning. The dialogue she captures is so real it seems as if you're hearing it and not reading it. She informs us of Starnone's penchant for James and how the two stories play off one another. Also included in the text is an appendix of real drawings done by the artist Dario Maglionico, which are haunting and surreal, a perfect and justified complement.<br />
<br />
<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-39889050459622161262019-07-21T06:03:00.002-07:002019-07-21T06:04:03.651-07:00Visions of Maine<br />
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It's early July in Maine and the beach roses are still in bloom, as are the irises. We're staying where we stayed last year at the Ocean Point Inn in East Boothbay, a charming old inn that was built in the nineteenth century and was once a farm house. Our unit is an efficiency with a deck that looks out at the bay where boats are docked and rock gently with the lapping waves. Across the water is what appears to be an island with rocky shores and rugged firs. There's a house there, a grandiose house and whoever owns it must own the island as well. That's what people up here do: they own islands. We saw one for sale when we were kayaking.<br />
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Last night I watched the sun set over the water and an osprey halted itself in mid-air then dove for a fish. I was awestruck at its acrobatics, how it could reverse direction so efficiently, be so precise. It snatched that fish decisively and was back up in the air in less than a second. And then its mate came from somewhere else and the two flew home over the firs. We humans have to think, plan, execute, but animals can simply execute. They run on instinct, a code in the brain.<br />
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This place reminds me of the essay by E.B. White titled "Once More to the Lake." White talks about the new flywheel motors and the third track missing; I don't get a sense of the passage of time here, more that time is slower and involves less. You would think I would be okay with that. I want to be okay with it, but the truth is there is this undercurrent of unease rippling inside me, as if all those things time is normally stocked with are rumbling underneath my skin, and I can't let myself truly be present.<br />
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The lobster boat chuffs now into the bay there are far away voices. The water is relatively still. It's a quiet sight. A dog roams the rocks on the island, a trap is dropped and the boat makes a turn and stops. I think to myself, why am I not enjoying this? What tears at me?<br />
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In a dream my father planted an orchard<br />
when there were apples already in the trees <br />
and protested when I bit into one<br />
In a dream women came to decorate with holiday flowers<br />
begonias in the windowboxes with satin ties<br />
<br />
In a dream my English teacher tried to teach me algebra<br />
and a shelf of her precious books was burned<br />
because it took up too much space<br />
In a dream my high school turned into a labyrinth<br />
and I walked through the same shadows again and again<br />
<br />
In a dream I had racks of beautiful clothes and pants that fit me<br />
because they took out the tumor and my stomach was slim<br />
In a dream I called my boyfriend by the wrong name<br />
and embarrassed myself in front of my family<br />
In a dream I needed someone to love me<br />
so I thought him up and he appeared miraculously at my side<br />
and freed me from the labyrinth<br />
but this stranger was a quick fix<br />
and I longed for the time I forged my own way<br />
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There are tiny bees here that reap the nectar of the antique roses, and I found two mating on my arm. Delicate but steadfast creatures, I had to wait a while before the wind took them away. At night, frogs chirp and croak in the lily pond between the buildings and the lotus flowers peek up from the muck like the soothing thoughts of a bodhisattva. Mary walks the sea wall with tiny daises in her hair and Stephen can recite the totem animals of Maine. When he put on a Polo shirt with miniature sharks on it, I could see the handsome man he's destined to become. And I am half here, because a part of me drifts a few feet above my head in a limbo space, where I am wishing and waiting for a time to create and process the gifts of this place. But that never really comes. Despite the separation from my daily routine, there are responsibilities here, things to do as a family. Even here there are things that must be done.<br />
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I debate with myself what I should do in the brief time I have to myself. I could swim in the ocean, but the rocks would cut my feet. The cold water will numb my limbs. The sun burns my skin if I don't use sunscreen and the mosquitoes will devour me if I walk in the woods. This is a treacherous environment despite its beauty and you must be prepared, but I never am.<br />
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My husband tries to be prepared at all costs. He spent hours packing the day before the trip and then again just before we left. He gets anxious that he will miss something, the car has to be packed just so, and he often snaps at me and the kids before we leave for one reason or another. His neuroses usually pays off, though, because we have everything or almost everything we need. He packed food, clothes, toiletries, drugs, vitamins, drinks, books, electronic devices and their chargers. (We had to buy salt and paper towels). I am one who believes in spontaneity and being resourceful; he can't tolerate poor planning. He thinks my lack of planning and packing is childish. Reckless. I think I have more faith in life than he does. I am willing to put myself out there, rely on instincts, wit, or at least this is what I tell myself.<br />
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The homes on Ocean Point are well kept; some are refurbished cottages, others are hidden mansions accessed only by a private road or trekking up the granite coast. It's a precarious hike, you've got to be careful of your footing, and the question in my mind is what must one do to acquire, build one of these museum-like habitations? And I use the word habitations loosely, because it doesn't appear as if anyone is in them. It's wild on this nook of the coast; all you can hear are gulls and waves and you get a sense of the treacherous solitude of Maine. What must one do? Further down the coastal scenic road and I have a full sense of Have and Have Not. There are "PRIVATE" and "NO TRESPASSING" signs everywhere. I can't help but feel rejected when I see four inviting Adirondack chairs facing the sea and a red and black "PRIVATE" sign.<br />
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We went kayaking on the Damariscotta River and it felt right to exert some energy to be fully indulged in the landscape. It cleared my head. In the evenings, we perused the Boothbay Harbor shops, had dinner and ice cream. Mornings, we had a full breakfast at the Inn and were served by hospitable people who spend their summers working at the inn and then live somewhere else during the winter. They were seasonal people, and I wondered about their lives, if they were always working, working, the maids in their beautiful Jamaican braids and their carts full of cleaning items, cleaning the toilet bowls and the rugs and the sinks, making the beds, finding who-knows-what the guests have left behind. What was this place to them?<br />
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The last day, we visited the Botanical Gardens (the pictures I have posted are from there). Here people have learned the secrets of the treacherous landscape and have harnessed it to put forth blooms. I finally feel at ease and delight in all the burgeoning flora; it's like the Garden of Eden, and I feel welcome here. A cultured space like this belongs to everyone and no one at the same time.<br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-82717657385565045802019-06-30T18:20:00.000-07:002020-04-05T17:03:16.716-07:00When one field is fallow, the other one is blooming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXNkvlzqmJVFfHH_wwH62u3w5hLplIEVkmc9coBo-tvvDpn84QAF86-49t2tCbzacxq2kmdPsFhuKfdM-7gFrvHCafZYQcS7yuM3elylxmMOVIB8TLEnH6a1JspIwp3VeXEJ5rVnNPXc/s1600/portal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="335" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXNkvlzqmJVFfHH_wwH62u3w5hLplIEVkmc9coBo-tvvDpn84QAF86-49t2tCbzacxq2kmdPsFhuKfdM-7gFrvHCafZYQcS7yuM3elylxmMOVIB8TLEnH6a1JspIwp3VeXEJ5rVnNPXc/s400/portal.JPG" width="321" /></a></div>
My garden beds are between blooms and I stare hard at them, trying to figure out how to add color in the now. It's not an easy thing for me to accept-- the lack of vibrancy. There are times, I tell myself, when a field should lie fallow. Every organism needs a rest period. Maybe this explains why my writing seems to be nonexistent? But when one field is fallow, there are others in bloom. Somewhere. When one medium is resting, the other thrives. Today was a productive day with respect to collage, and I am grateful.<br />
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With these collages, I tried to keep the colors similar, because I knew I would be posting them <br />
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together. The above collage, which I am calling "Portal," is indicative of the door to the subconscious. I think collage is the perfect medium to depict dreams (my creative inspiration these past couple of years for stories and art) because it is composed strictly of disparate images, as are dreams. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvqF_iQs1SDe9N3fMFzNzPm6D9NjzQR628UOy-CYaUBVCiHkLVqlsAR9-jj0saryQrMoxT1RcPTXesKUqU18Y4vilsbs_rquLYxzsQ_SejmIReewnVZrvktaOBVjdVJHFywAsb_h06cL8/s1600/contents.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="411" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvqF_iQs1SDe9N3fMFzNzPm6D9NjzQR628UOy-CYaUBVCiHkLVqlsAR9-jj0saryQrMoxT1RcPTXesKUqU18Y4vilsbs_rquLYxzsQ_SejmIReewnVZrvktaOBVjdVJHFywAsb_h06cL8/s320/contents.JPG" width="294" /></a></div>
"Contents" has a mirror at its center and emanating from it a spiritual aura. I once wrote a poem titled "Mirror" and described a dual opposite world. I would include it here, but I wrote it when I was twelve and it's terrible.<br />
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The dream world, like the opposite world in a mirror, isn't logical. The symbols in dreams are merely contents--and often have no unifying meaning.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG5VAJJjIYhUlu16BTypJTWYWO9sdvTA_G0o5TLwPfsU4hKOEQJnRmWayEPuxEvK07pOWIGodOBMcqcKjOam2XOy-Kwmp4OAp0L_pUkfb-H_lisD7OXN9ICZreO0RqrIztdJQbBoW5QtU/s1600/women+are+sacred.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="378" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG5VAJJjIYhUlu16BTypJTWYWO9sdvTA_G0o5TLwPfsU4hKOEQJnRmWayEPuxEvK07pOWIGodOBMcqcKjOam2XOy-Kwmp4OAp0L_pUkfb-H_lisD7OXN9ICZreO0RqrIztdJQbBoW5QtU/s320/women+are+sacred.JPG" width="291" /></a></div>
"Women Are Sacred" is a collage in response to the ridiculous anti-women sentiments popping up around the country. When a woman carries a child, she is a sacred vessel, but this cannot be enforced by banning abortion. It's ludicrous to even think it. A woman forced to carry a fetus to term becomes an incubator and that is a violation of her rights. <br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-81847071865708326052019-05-11T19:40:00.000-07:002019-05-11T19:41:56.458-07:00Reflections on Motherhood, Revisited, with New Collages<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFfNCx3txO2TfisV7i_dq_uPWHcjXESzXGYUmqQyKfcAqV9FcuE4UGCCuehFo_-IVxdW0WzZsqPlA1WNfNhNRqFfN0kU5kcpANG7Ij864jhcyMnUqjhlTFUIXAoIPn5aOssruTYZwgJg/s1600/Mother+and+Child.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFfNCx3txO2TfisV7i_dq_uPWHcjXESzXGYUmqQyKfcAqV9FcuE4UGCCuehFo_-IVxdW0WzZsqPlA1WNfNhNRqFfN0kU5kcpANG7Ij864jhcyMnUqjhlTFUIXAoIPn5aOssruTYZwgJg/s640/Mother+and+Child.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mother and Child, 2019</td></tr>
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The following essay was written in 2015 when I was steeped in my contemplation of motherhood. I am publishing it again in celebration of Mother's Day.<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><b>Reflections on Motherhood: The Good, the Bad, and the Wonder-full</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdknrJss9jRn_IiB4QwWY9zD1qZZmt3D1ssnsUN5Hi1oZMHEmPOyuE4uvohGQzXtMCdyq8H1GslmCLVnoGBKfCULDlkdDuONjKG5_MNJ5y3S9bttuwjbFCjnNUDKghEt-_lWl1KO9fFzg/s1600/Mother+in+a+grotto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="374" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdknrJss9jRn_IiB4QwWY9zD1qZZmt3D1ssnsUN5Hi1oZMHEmPOyuE4uvohGQzXtMCdyq8H1GslmCLVnoGBKfCULDlkdDuONjKG5_MNJ5y3S9bttuwjbFCjnNUDKghEt-_lWl1KO9fFzg/s320/Mother+in+a+grotto.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mother in a Grotto</td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love that does not
have humility as its mother and holy awe as its father is orphaned from all
goodness.</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>~Mechtild
of Magdeburg</i></div>
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I don’t find it easy to write about motherhood, probably
because the independent, creative self wants to be free of all duty (and
motherhood, although a blessing, is indeed a duty). But the above quote struck
me as true. No matter how talented you are, no matter how brilliant,
successful, etc., motherhood and the type of humbling love that accompanies it
can knock you on your ear. </div>
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A couple of weeks ago I posted two pictures of myself side
by side on facebook: the one on the left was taken of me when I was newly
married before motherhood; in it I have long model hair, a tan, and I’m smiling like
the world is my oyster. The one on the right is of me as of my twins’ third
birthday: I’ve gained weight, have bags under my eyes, wrinkles across my
forehead, and I look exhausted.<br />
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Motherhood takes its toll; you get gray hairs and no longer
have visible abs; you are often at that <br />
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place of Wit’s End, but as a friend
once advised me, that’s how you know you are doing it right. Love that does not
include the hard part isn’t love at all. And what is the hard part exactly?
Compassion. Putting another first, caring for them first, satisfying their
needs before your own. </div>
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The
women of my generation went to school and got jobs; we knew how to put
ourselves first. When we wanted a new dress, we bought
it. When we wanted dinner and drinks, we called a friend. We lived
independently from our parents and followed our passions even if they
failed
us. My mother’s generation never complained so much about motherhood (no
one
ever told me it was going to be this hard, we always say when we’ve
found a
confidante); they went from their father’s house to their husband’s
where they
assumed the role of caretaker and that was that. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM1d-PoCorho1SqNwxTy5Y9yMfO3OaFrxn9FkF9eD1z6YE7gXBaSVTyiCosjxJW-jzIDQlVxYTw81l-obOiceGkvKFo2kfDEwTD00w8ubrYGb5LmlNqMvxTaWbHcSy1PqvEp3e9jypyY/s1600/Mother+Singing+Praise.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTM1d-PoCorho1SqNwxTy5Y9yMfO3OaFrxn9FkF9eD1z6YE7gXBaSVTyiCosjxJW-jzIDQlVxYTw81l-obOiceGkvKFo2kfDEwTD00w8ubrYGb5LmlNqMvxTaWbHcSy1PqvEp3e9jypyY/s320/Mother+Singing+Praise.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mother Singing Praise</td></tr>
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This is why motherhood is more of an adjustment for my
generation. The education, thinking skills, and experience we got serving
ourselves translate to valuable wisdom for maneuvering our own kids through the
world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We use these skills to try and
strike a balance between a life for ourselves and a life for our family, but
that just isn’t easy in today’s society. This often leaves us frustrated and it
can get the best of us. </div>
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When I was pregnant with the twins, I remember observing a
gull with its baby, a speckled bird bigger than its demure white and gray
mother. The baby followed the mother along the edge of the water, crying and
squawking incessantly. The mother gull walked ahead, ignoring her baby, and
then she suddenly took flight across the bay and the baby hurried after her. Yep,
I thought. That’s a part of mothering, too, wanting to fly away.</div>
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I take my dog for a walk every morning and when my son sees
me put my jacket on, he importunes, “Where are you going, Mommy? Huh? Stay
here, Mommy. Sit down right here on the couch.” My daughter confronts me every
time I fetch my purse and keys, “You’re going to come back, right?” What do I
do that makes them question if I will come back? Is my restlessness that
visible?</div>
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I remember how frustrated my father used to get when my
brother and I started acting up, so much that he would voice this frustration
and threaten to leave. And he did take off, for weekends at a time, to go
hunting in upstate New York, to be free for a little while and blow off some
steam. But my father always came back. And this is what a humbling love does:
it brings you back to the people who need you most. </div>
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I try to see the world though my children’s eyes. My
daughter is delighted by dandelions, pill bugs, and worms. She likes to carry
them around. She tells me she loves them, that they are the most beautiful
things to her. My son notices every truck and construction vehicle we drive by.
He moves his matchbox car over the sofa and observes how the wheels rotate in
unison. My children are enthralled by the world, by snowflakes, spring blooms, tidal
pools, and I can reach back, back and recall this feeling of the “gift of life”
of a sacred wonder, where everything was new and precious. For me, it was the
fiesta colored azaleas with their silk thread stamens and the rainbows in the
hose water, the peonies with their ant sentinels patrolling each bud, and the
feel of the cool grass between my toes at twilight. I was safe. My parents were
home and my parents were everything. </div>
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And that holy regard one has for one’s parent does not go
away, no matter how old you are. A couple of weeks ago I was giving a public
lecture at North Shore Community College and my mother walked into the room.
Something inside me cracked open and I wanted to sob. She’s here. She’s come.
My mother.</div>
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So I remember what it’s like to need a mother, to love a mother
and I need to be mindful of this-- in my rush to be this and my desire to do
that-- because to be anything less than a mother would bring suffering to my kids and that, to me, is unthinkable. </div>
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Regarding
those two photos, the motherless me and the mother
me, well, here’s a secret: pound for pound, I’m happier being the
mother,
despite its physical and emotional drawbacks. I have lost the
existential angst
that used to plague me during my younger years and I wouldn’t want that
back
for all the model hair in the world. This humbling love is hard, and it
has taken everything I’ve got, but it has meaning and purpose, a deep
soul kind of
meaning and purpose that confirms, no matter how nuts I get, that I am
on the
right track.</div>
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-77492067532630744792019-02-16T15:40:00.002-08:002019-02-16T15:47:19.196-08:00Excerpts from My Dream Journal with Collages<style>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tidal River</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOts4no3eET8K6Ge38VcXogzb3nDTG89lk3jny5DFVwfeBGEDP6bV9IM0ot89q4A95xxOL9IQ1aOphc0zFqjqei7qqL6lYmZbYV6YeiTst9Rk_Jp4INESrS3ivqFhwAEjpbhFKcxYCPeM/s1600/Statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="145" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOts4no3eET8K6Ge38VcXogzb3nDTG89lk3jny5DFVwfeBGEDP6bV9IM0ot89q4A95xxOL9IQ1aOphc0zFqjqei7qqL6lYmZbYV6YeiTst9Rk_Jp4INESrS3ivqFhwAEjpbhFKcxYCPeM/s400/Statue.jpg" width="315" /></a>Last night I went to a beach with a tidal river, and it
swelled the sandy banks with its pristine water. There was a museum with
ancient Greek statues, half eroded in pure chalky white marble. I looked
through glass into the immediate depths of the river, wondering if it was
dangerously cold. The water was perfect; you could see every grain of sand in
place at the bottom. And then the glass was gone and the river was allowed to
wash in lovingly around the statues, brush its foam against their pedestals. It
was all part of a dynamic exhibit that included the tidal river acting as a
sensual element, how it contributed to additional sculpting—a subtle type of
erasure. There was also a shop where items were displayed. These items were
mostly rusted iron figurines that were buried in the sand for thousands of
years, uncovered by the river’s washing in and washing out and discovered by
people walking the banks. I made a choice, some rusted relic with wings, and
brought it to the cashier. She rang it up and charged me $4. She put it in a
sturdy paper bag and handed it to me. I went out to go sit on the bank, but by
now the river was swelling in full and people who were sunbathing had to leave.
There was no room; if you were going to stay, you had to swim. I looked out at
the night sky stealing in, a dark slate, how it contrasted with the white foam of the rushing
tide and I felt pure fear. I was alone.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Supernatural Fish
Bones</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcoJ3t29RI5p_Z62ImOLslVJarGnem4IGq745_0m8TpuFqOASdPJ972rUNkdIgD4-TTH26Avjugcxxd8EbLSXEQzB5loJtT8Zsl4V9QxLsB58S-pHbT1lgWC9PEubNaA0oofpGtgcIFDY/s1600/supernatural+fish+bones.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="122" data-original-width="174" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcoJ3t29RI5p_Z62ImOLslVJarGnem4IGq745_0m8TpuFqOASdPJ972rUNkdIgD4-TTH26Avjugcxxd8EbLSXEQzB5loJtT8Zsl4V9QxLsB58S-pHbT1lgWC9PEubNaA0oofpGtgcIFDY/s400/supernatural+fish+bones.JPG" width="400" /></a>I had become distinctly aware of something floating just
above me on the right side of the bed. It was a fish, but this fish had no
scales, no flesh. Its bones were radiant and its eyes glowed. It hovered above
me in a lime-green hue, fluorescent, flapping its tail gleefully. It lit up the
dark. And just when I reached to grab it, I slipped back through the portal of
consciousness. My immediate feeling was terror, because I had realized then
that I had been with something unworldly. Why is my first feeling always fear?
Would not a supernatural fish be intriguing? Wouldn’t this be a particular
remedy to a day-to-day life that chisels away continuously at imagination? Am I
not constantly yearning for imagination? </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Fish Kiss</b></div>
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Last week, on an abnormally warm day, I took the twins to
the dentist. As I sat there watching them lay back in their silly sunglasses
getting their teeth cleaned, I noticed a large empty fish bowl on a shelf. It
was wonderfully round and elegant. Before they were put in their chairs, the
kids were asking for the fish, where were they? Where was the tank? They had to
be told several times that the fish tank was being repaired. The fish were
unavailable at the moment. This was very disappointing to my kids. Marielle
pointed out the empty fish bowl on the shelf, and that's when I put to mind the exquisite curvature of the bowl. The fish bowl reappeared in my dream a following night, and inside it was a
fat yellow-bellied fish. This fish was female, and it floated vertically in the
water with its lips puckered at the lip of the water. I placed my lips on top of
its lips. What a delicate thing to do! And then suddenly there was a marring of
the water in the tank; there was a dust plume floating beside the vertical
kissing fish. Or was the dust plume a placenta? There was no baby. I attempted
to get the fish out of the dirty water into clean water without letting in the
dust plume placenta; this was arduous and I nearly gave up. I finally succeeded in placing the
fish in a two-part tank in which she could slide over a small plastic bridge
and into a second body of water. I thought this could be an interesting
activity for her, to keep her from getting bored. And then suddenly, as if it
was spontaneously generated, a carp appeared in the tank. The carp was a
brilliant vermilion color and could jump from one side to the other. I thought
the yellow-bellied fish could learn from the carp, how to jump and live a more exciting
life. But the carp wasn’t happy jumping from one part, over the bridge, to the
other part. The carp leapt out of the tank entirely and landed on the carpet,
twitching. I fetched it, and he flopped in my hands. I put him back in the tank
and then he flipped back out again. </div>
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Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-90570940603289188132018-12-28T16:59:00.001-08:002018-12-28T17:47:52.508-08:00The Idea of Simple Christmas and Simple Christmas Collages<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3k9502vDM0BBu_HvOF4f6dZlquDckyN_xm5AXO_1GOKhyHJDZuDbYeJvgpArXfe3O0ATNh5rRcALmQ_pfUbFqc-hReMVA-gnYl2YqqVtsxNSK_nfM4lEt2YPM90IfwYF3q6R1JjpQCg/s1600/l%2527hiver2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="354" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3k9502vDM0BBu_HvOF4f6dZlquDckyN_xm5AXO_1GOKhyHJDZuDbYeJvgpArXfe3O0ATNh5rRcALmQ_pfUbFqc-hReMVA-gnYl2YqqVtsxNSK_nfM4lEt2YPM90IfwYF3q6R1JjpQCg/s320/l%2527hiver2.JPG" width="288" /></a></div>
Early Christmas Eve morning, there was a bone-white moon in a pale pink sky. I had seen its face--a circle of ghastly white--suspended in the embroidered web of the tree of life, a curtain I have had hanging in my living room for ten years or more. It was a full moon, a placid moon, a Christmas moon. The previous night, it was a comfort, as it has so often been, while I lie with one eye awake on the couch, watching Josie, who lay in her bed on the floor, a bandage over the gash she opened a week ago. She was fidgety, and I was worried she would get into it again, nibble at the sutures the doctor sewed into her after he took out the tumors. Part of the incision has healed fine, but the part she had gotten to bloomed into a fleshy pink rose with an opalescent white center, a tendon, perhaps, in the middle of it. I couldn't look at it at first, but life has a way of making things mandatory. So now I am a professional dresser of wounds.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKbqNBE0-M3KrA01nb_dcp2S3sggv9mt8j_CQCmhVMeg8CNbVTF7_oPD87wjvdCNay-lj5uR74eb0bNfyB_WG7f0ee7RMIpMO6pRvdA4l39qdoKqBScgF219GW_VwERcM9OJoMF92CSQ/s1600/The+Gift.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKbqNBE0-M3KrA01nb_dcp2S3sggv9mt8j_CQCmhVMeg8CNbVTF7_oPD87wjvdCNay-lj5uR74eb0bNfyB_WG7f0ee7RMIpMO6pRvdA4l39qdoKqBScgF219GW_VwERcM9OJoMF92CSQ/s1600/The+Gift.JPG" /></a>This entry is supposed to be about Christmas, the concept of Christmas, or rather, what I have long discovered, how Christmas can never live up to what we expect from it. This is the mistake we make in our society. The "stuff and story" part of Christmas renders it a child's holiday, toys, Santa, elves, etc., but even children feel the insatiability of Christmas, of materialism, always looking for one more present to open. (I can acutely remember the hollow feeling of Christmases past and opening that last gift, myself). Adults over drink and over eat. We over decorate, over buy. This all feels so stupid and I keep asking myself why do we keep doing this?<br />
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If you look south when you drive over the Bridge Street bridge, crossing the Bass River at night, you'll see a small tree out on a pier, lit up with lights. It's just a a simple pine tree, maybe four feet tall. It doesn't have a thousand fancy ornaments, and there are no presents beneath it. I look at that tree, and it gives me such joy to see it. It's as if someone is saying, I know there is darkness everywhere; it is the time for darkness, but there is light, there is festive light, if you take care. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElKrJansB1BvG8U1qoTaUciHdTuzp90XbNcHaKQrymvdF6C_jMg5oWzD7aX39FKOZejbsuWOkcU2UmNdtuN0L4qJG_a-gEJ5OVy51krwX5ofSd4xVb2VyeTbbEJLqGOdXUYH_AdH0LQo/s1600/The+Angel2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElKrJansB1BvG8U1qoTaUciHdTuzp90XbNcHaKQrymvdF6C_jMg5oWzD7aX39FKOZejbsuWOkcU2UmNdtuN0L4qJG_a-gEJ5OVy51krwX5ofSd4xVb2VyeTbbEJLqGOdXUYH_AdH0LQo/s320/The+Angel2.JPG" width="196" /></a><br />
Hearing a choir sing Silent Night also gives me joy, as does the moon on an anxious night, and a star, a prominent star, something to follow, to reflect upon, early Christmas morning. Josie had fallen into a deep sleep, and I thought I could go up to my bed, top off the night with quality rest, and I turned to look out the stairway window and I saw it. It was the brightest star I had ever seen, and I waited for it to move because it just had to be a plane, and I blinked, and still it did not move. It was a star. It was the Christmas star. There wasn't a congregation of angels dancing around it. It was just a simple star, but it was the brightest star I had ever seen.<br />
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If maybe we start to expect less of Christmas, we will have a better chance of being fulfilled. If we turn to nature, as the Wise Men did, we might find our gifts there. The collages that I have created here are my attempts to find a simpler Christmas, one more soulful and satisfying.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnNjtTomtGszhVc2qiVdvl3crI2P9arycjEN2IDcEYQEygt7Kyer41C01jCC_HodNu3CupMqXufm_phUgZ7a-jbiqmlOj8PuV8XDAlmuDqTJXOBiHNBmnaBm2bOaH_lou5RVxXKv27qY/s1600/Christmas+buck2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="362" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnNjtTomtGszhVc2qiVdvl3crI2P9arycjEN2IDcEYQEygt7Kyer41C01jCC_HodNu3CupMqXufm_phUgZ7a-jbiqmlOj8PuV8XDAlmuDqTJXOBiHNBmnaBm2bOaH_lou5RVxXKv27qY/s400/Christmas+buck2.JPG" width="258" /> </a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDfviohIePx00YDmbtBqQudKbjhK0kaXlDaqGdw44x2qVtmBVsX-UYtojPvOzfVlPY0qCJ9Fvq_smdlxLE0m_-O-u8A_k8pDqoECuU8Xh1S0KkvpNsFuFa8bXufh1CuMDRlXyMfHjH0X0/s1600/Christmas+barn+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="309" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDfviohIePx00YDmbtBqQudKbjhK0kaXlDaqGdw44x2qVtmBVsX-UYtojPvOzfVlPY0qCJ9Fvq_smdlxLE0m_-O-u8A_k8pDqoECuU8Xh1S0KkvpNsFuFa8bXufh1CuMDRlXyMfHjH0X0/s400/Christmas+barn+2.JPG" width="296" /> </a></div>
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-11398525714850075522018-11-25T08:57:00.000-08:002018-11-25T12:11:12.274-08:00On Grace and GratitudeI hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my house and I was determined to do it right. Tasks were delegated to family beforehand; each member was to bring a side dish or other provision. My sister cooked the turkey; I baked the pies. I devised a clean-up plan that included certain stations: garbage scraper, compost filler, dishwasher loader. There were activities for the kids: a puzzle, a papier mache turkey to decorate, card games. I thought I had Thanksgiving conquered. But when it came time for the meal, for what should have been grace, there was this chaotic momentum that destroyed the most sacred part of the day. It all happened at once: the kids needed their plates made at their table in the kitchen, and I wasn't in the dining room to put a halt to the passing of food, which then led to the eating of food, to a full communal nose-dive into every plate and platter. It wasn't one of our best moments.<br />
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Truth is, I had planned to find a poem on gratitude, or better, write one, but there was this debate going on in my head about being too literary--it might turn people off--or too cliche or sentimental (that would turn <i>me</i> off). I didn't have time to strike a balance and deliver words that could be effective. So I skipped it. In truth, I ran away from the question of grace and how to properly say it.<br />
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It was a moment indicative of the times. Our society is so incredibly fast-paced and overburdened with stuff, so focused on satisfying needs and desires, on acquiring things (we've even allowed Black Friday to infiltrate our day of thanks), we don't create an adequate space for gratitude. Yes, you can have the typical Thanksgiving grace where you utter a quick prayer to God (really it's more of a nod) and go around the table with every guest uttering something for which they are grateful, and we all say the same things: family, food, shelter, possessions, successes, without really acknowledging the value of these things.<br />
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My mother attempted to rectify the situation afterward by having us all gather in the living room, hold hands, say a prayer, give thanks. By doing this, she created a space for gratitude, but it was a bit awkward and somewhat shame-inducing. I suppose it was better than nothing.<br />
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To truly make a space for gratitude, to fully incorporate it into a life (and I am speaking mostly to myself here, to teach myself a lesson) it has to involve ritual or creativity or concerted effort. You need to have not only a space, but time. Thanksgiving grace is fleeting and can be trite, the way it is normally done. So how can we do gratitude right?<br />
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First, we need to examine what gratitude is. In "<a href="http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/11/21/thanksgiving-science-of-gratitude" target="_blank">The Science of Gratitude: How Being Thankful Makes Us Happier</a>" David DeSteno, professor of psychology at Northeastern University and author of <i>Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride</i> defines gratitude as "an emotion that we feel when we believe that someone or something has given us something that we couldn't easily achieve on our own." DeSteno says that gratitude, when it is fully recognized, is not a "passive thing." It inspires us to want to pay back our givers, or perhaps even "go above and beyond" and pay it forward.<br />
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So, fully realizing gratitude has a chain reaction effect, and this is all good once the realization actually occurs. That's the hard part. To stop the momentum of life to fully assimilate gratitude.<br />
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DeSteno recommends gratitude journaling. I think this is a good start. Taking time to write out the things you are grateful for and explain <i>why</i> is key. I can easily say I am grateful for family, friends, etc, but this is trite. If I elaborate on <i>why</i> I am grateful, well, this fleshes out a certain history, one that may include a significant about of suffering. We shy away from that, but we shouldn't.<br />
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Before my husband and children, I struggled, overall, with existential angst that would manifest itself in crippling anxiety. I worried endlessly about irrational ideas regarding my health. My relationship with my husband has grounded me; I knew from the beginning that I was guaranteed love. He was and is my rock and rampart. My kids, two beings that I created with my own body (at the same time, mind you), astound me daily with their physical beauty and talents and the cute little sayings that come out of their mouths. They give me a strong sense of purpose, but they also teach me not to take myself too seriously, which is the perfect anecdote for angst.<br />
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So there is the <i>why</i> of my gratitude. Or part of it. I need to remind myself of this when the days are stressful and I want to run away.<br />
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I know myself, though. I must be careful to curb my perfectionist tendencies, because these are the enemies of gratitude. I tend to have expectations for people as I have for myself. This can be a real gratitude killer, because I nitpick about what is missing instead of appreciating what is there. Perfectionism is another topic entirely and it does have its place, especially in terms of writing and art, but one needs to be also mindful of its propensity to destroy a perfectly good emotion.<br />
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I recently bought an over-priced but extremely quaint and festive Advent calendar from Pottery Barn. I was planning on stocking it with chocolate and candy for the kids for the 24 days of Advent, but I think I need to walk the walk and push myself to come up with something, some little or big thing that I am grateful for on each particular day and have the kids do the same. This will hopefully offset any of the materialistic indulgences of the holiday season.<br />
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Well, maybe it will give it a nudge. <br />
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Because it is a type of meditation, I fully believe that a practice in gratitude can change the wiring in the brain and the emotions it triggers (or doesn't trigger). It's truly a matter of discipline. I can only hope I stick with the challenge to reap its benefits.<br />
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Here are some websites:<br />
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Gratitude journaling: <a href="https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/gratitude-journal/">https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/gratitude-journal/</a><br />
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Gratitude meditation: <a href="https://jackkornfield.com/meditation-gratitude-joy/">https://jackkornfield.com/meditation-gratitude-joy/</a><br />
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Gratitude poses in yoga: <a href="https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/two-fit-moms-8-gratitude-poses-illuminate-blessings#gid=ci020756aee00a25bd&pid=two-fit-moms-in-wild-thing">https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/two-fit-moms-8-gratitude-poses-illuminate-blessings#gid=ci020756aee00a25bd&pid=two-fit-moms-in-wild-thing</a><br />
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Gratitude crafts including making your own gratitude calendar: <a href="https://www.bhg.com/thanksgiving/decorating/bring-thanks-to-your-thanksgiving-table/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bhg_mybhg&utm_content=editorialboost_netflix&utm_term=2018111917">https://www.bhg.com/thanksgiving/decorating/bring-thanks-to-your-thanksgiving-table/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bhg_mybhg&utm_content=editorialboost_netflix&utm_term=2018111917</a><br />
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Gratitude to-do calendar: <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Happy_November_2018.pdf">https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Happy_November_2018.pdf</a><br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-18231910301343193372018-10-31T20:15:00.001-07:002018-10-31T20:15:20.586-07:00Strega Nona CollageHappy Halloween!!!<br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-45431741654374288622018-09-30T08:35:00.000-07:002018-09-30T08:42:03.331-07:00Meditations in the Ethereal: Poetry and Collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For me, the ethereal has a spirituality about it, something that transcends the banality of daily life. It has a suddenness to it; it comes unexpectedly, in sudden realizations. It has an ingredient of subtlety; if you're distracted and not in tune, you won't receive its gifts. The ethereal has much to do with lightness, air; ether is at the heart of the word. The ethereal has an elegance, an arabesque, a sort of delicacy, like a lace doily that rests under the frame of a loved one. It can be whimsical. It's definitely elusive.<br />
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My daughter seems to have an ethereal quality to her--she is just a wisp of a thing with eyes, eyes that tell the story of emotion and beauty and sensitivity. Eyes that are apprehensive about this world. Eyes with an ineffable hue; eyes not of this world. Her naked body getting into the bath reminds me of Sally Mann's nymph-like children; there's innocence there, but otherworldly qualities as well that portray a sort of ancient knowledge.<br />
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Maybe this ancient aspect can be translated into timelessness. Maybe the ethereal, like the divine, exists outside time. And yet, maybe science is honing in on it; it manifests in a higher frequency on the electromagnetic wave spectrum (after all, the ethereal is shaped in light). This science intersects with memory and myth in the mind. These are the ingredients. It's seemingly abstract and incomprehensible when we first witness it, but the mind makes its emotional connections and we learn to define its suddenness for ourselves. This is the interface of story, of myth.<br />
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Whatever it is, ethereal is the fine dance of mystery that exists in all of us.<br />
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I've tried to match some of my ethereal poems with collage work that has traces of that same quality. I am not sure I was successful in accomplishing my goal, but then again, the ethereal is foremost elusive, and maybe by not capturing it, I've captured it precisely. <br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfUmX-lUGqGTppKbbJSBAkiJVTAnnn79lFFgv1NAGg69vilJqyzEtKX122PfqLv5uidHYgEBfA96Q05Y6X-60jLD95f7HhdkfJUumAPs-facAPtB1eOT4uzf5kEduKd_lCWbBNqpjnkI/s1600/coin_pale+green+air.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1211" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfUmX-lUGqGTppKbbJSBAkiJVTAnnn79lFFgv1NAGg69vilJqyzEtKX122PfqLv5uidHYgEBfA96Q05Y6X-60jLD95f7HhdkfJUumAPs-facAPtB1eOT4uzf5kEduKd_lCWbBNqpjnkI/s320/coin_pale+green+air.JPG" width="242" /></a></b></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Totem Beasts</b><br />
There are no ghosts in this house.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"></span> No hem of a muslin dress</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>draped over a riser.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>No Emily Dickinson
archetype</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>figured prominently at the banister.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>No face in the naked
glass.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The boreal firs, always a regiment,</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>are noble, melancholic
as the </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>tide bathes the sedge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We listen for what the hayfield
says.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>We
wait </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>for totem beasts, but no coyote
parts these</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>fallow fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No moose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>osprey in wake of wind.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Quotidian, these crows,
those gulls.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am filled with pale green air.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>My sister's child thumps
in Utero.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clouds snuff the sun, the sacrament,
the</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>fiery heart.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Night comes.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I sit quietly inside myself.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>My father bows his head
here,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>the lines echoing
around his eyes.<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The Slow Pale Rise of
Indigo</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2TJVBRDmP75OZc_gom4YmrrcrAxwX9dT8Ipye7eeLClZO6aGpLMyc20Rm4R_X9CnwKCtRFqN9kjG9YhU1IgURc2Aovxh63uQtVUBO4OpaJkIq5jpRiHQLmwDhFz1DdmUfPYoi3351ZM/s1600/whimsy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1372" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2TJVBRDmP75OZc_gom4YmrrcrAxwX9dT8Ipye7eeLClZO6aGpLMyc20Rm4R_X9CnwKCtRFqN9kjG9YhU1IgURc2Aovxh63uQtVUBO4OpaJkIq5jpRiHQLmwDhFz1DdmUfPYoi3351ZM/s320/whimsy.JPG" width="274" /></a></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The slow pale rise of indigo taps</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>at the door of the
Underworld—</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>it wants to walk here, free.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It knows</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>every twilight is a prophecy</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and the visible carries</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the invisible on its back.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our last breath passes through
tarnished</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>skin and</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>clogs the holes in our bones.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>We fret, catch the slack
vowels</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of the lullabies we sing ourselves.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Something stands between me and the </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>morning glory's cup of
prayer.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Its thin vine grasps at every near
thing.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>At night, it wrings itself
tightly</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as if it had hands.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Swollen Mandala</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNZmbCnWF5VIxSD4p67NcJagb12wyQQycOFI3vrG9C4hV7qeS6QEnSPYlPSDQsRrM0tPDc8RLP-u0RyFkxmPo_qRPWWdP2UvDx7CUvsH1InSgGH7nYHCH0mb7skWafgkV6ro-ruEp3Ec/s1600/creativity.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1274" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNZmbCnWF5VIxSD4p67NcJagb12wyQQycOFI3vrG9C4hV7qeS6QEnSPYlPSDQsRrM0tPDc8RLP-u0RyFkxmPo_qRPWWdP2UvDx7CUvsH1InSgGH7nYHCH0mb7skWafgkV6ro-ruEp3Ec/s320/creativity.JPG" width="254" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everything white, as if baked in a kiln.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moon hazed now, my one hundred year old</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
eyes closing, a song hidden just under my skin </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
demands an ear or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The seeds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
have been sewn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
sacred chant and </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
four rosettes are embedded in the </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
swollen mandala.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
summon the myths </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of my ancestors, the mountains supine </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and shadowless, the labyrinth on the hill,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the chapel, the Golgotha of cacti crosses.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Huddled in the back pews, the Indigenous</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhya7aZ-RR0KXz8V411dnF6H8ijiY7KbGosxmW8vvbK080R1WWDFCAIfvGSuypsUsDRIpl_eKI8HuNYKc6wbWc1NWbFRo8IH9FigYK2xc0_W-XsHZvqZCcOqyNp4069q17SzAIVXYuI1Ss/s1600/bottles+and+sun.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhya7aZ-RR0KXz8V411dnF6H8ijiY7KbGosxmW8vvbK080R1WWDFCAIfvGSuypsUsDRIpl_eKI8HuNYKc6wbWc1NWbFRo8IH9FigYK2xc0_W-XsHZvqZCcOqyNp4069q17SzAIVXYuI1Ss/s320/bottles+and+sun.JPG" width="261" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
their dark eyes, pious heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I walked</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the labyrinth to settle my nerves while </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
their sorrows protruded through the dirt </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
like small weeds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My sister's child is a molded angel</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
white as the dust in that kiln.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
on the sill, stone wings draped in leaves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take root, I say to the rosettes, unfolding.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lay your pious heads on the translucent pillow, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
wrap yourselves in the crimson sheets </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
and be lulled by song.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-39582684121751777492018-08-31T18:15:00.001-07:002018-09-30T07:04:32.446-07:00One percent inspiration: a manifestation in collage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQl9BCUnhJyHwdQvxR2WW4_202BQ7qg5gDpELAlytJAj_4GaDSOd7eynGoZCdJ6ztGqwD0_wxZdWKGaP5lsSZh-PVEJkM4cHmdgVtlL7nOV738LBKnPl9StJKBHG-YlaoR-mIuAqIdbyA/s1600/inspiration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1240" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQl9BCUnhJyHwdQvxR2WW4_202BQ7qg5gDpELAlytJAj_4GaDSOd7eynGoZCdJ6ztGqwD0_wxZdWKGaP5lsSZh-PVEJkM4cHmdgVtlL7nOV738LBKnPl9StJKBHG-YlaoR-mIuAqIdbyA/s400/inspiration.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
In my days of monotony, work, mothering, domesticity, I yearn for the exalted existence, for beauty. Sometimes I can find the time to create; most of the time, I can't and it kills me. That's what's happening in this piece (left); there is a tightness, a gut-wrenching aspect, but also something ethereal, something divine, something lovely. I think that's what creativity is: it's the work, the churning, the suffering, the yearning, the knots, and then, the release, the unraveling, the denouement, the divinity, the manifestation. Epiphany. Beauty. One percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. That sort of thing.<br />
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More ethereal work to follow.Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-31902463325985342892018-07-30T18:16:00.000-07:002018-07-30T18:25:19.980-07:00Jesus, Debunked (Sort of): A Review of Reza Aslan's Zealot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHt172ey5sG8EYK22MjlFv-DeF2jZ-HHyOM0HYVNWEPPxVF_zFKuLq2aK-2RLPL6XOpkB31HKJlH2LfaYSSKvn_hIJ2_LrBL6LQ3JauXb4HOvlpWjFntnlVXf6juzPwof_LDwb_CaOLkE/s1600/Zealot_The_Life_and_Times_of_Jesus_of_Nazareth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHt172ey5sG8EYK22MjlFv-DeF2jZ-HHyOM0HYVNWEPPxVF_zFKuLq2aK-2RLPL6XOpkB31HKJlH2LfaYSSKvn_hIJ2_LrBL6LQ3JauXb4HOvlpWjFntnlVXf6juzPwof_LDwb_CaOLkE/s320/Zealot_The_Life_and_Times_of_Jesus_of_Nazareth.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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My daughter and I were sitting in Panera the other day when I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation at the next table. Here was a group of elderly people, three women and two men, and the men were eating their bagels and drinking their coffees while the women chatted away. The two men seemed to be deep in their own thoughts, looking away from one another, until one of them said, "A funny thing happened to us while we were at the park the other day," or something to that effect. The gentleman then proceeded to tell his friend quite casually how he and his wife saw Jesus's face in the bark of a tree. The wife noticed it first, and then she pointed it out to her husband. "Do you see it? There, there..." and sure enough he saw it, and they both sat there marveling at the famous face for a while. He went on to say that his wife went back the next day to see it, but the face was not there. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see it. Then the older gentleman, who seemed to me a reasonable and rational man, one that had seen many things in his day and one who was not easily excitable, sat back, and without any facial expression whatsoever, said, "Imagine that, two Jews see Jesus's face in a tree."<br />
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I have recently had my own run in with Jesus--the historical Jesus--upon reading Reza Aslan's book <i>Zealot. </i><br />
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I found Aslan's argument fascinating, acutely documented, and very plausible. It confirmed my own beliefs of how the world works and how with every heroic figure, there is a very human agenda. Jesus's agenda, according to Aslan, was to free the Jews from the Romans. The occupied state was everything to Jesus and made him who he was.<br />
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One of Aslan's main claims is that the gospels, written decades after Jesus's death, were embellishment, but embellishment with a specific purpose, and Aslan carefully lays out the reasons for this embellishment every step of the way.<br />
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Aslan constructs his argument on the claim that the gospels "are not eyewitness accounts." Obviously this is the case because of the time the gospels were written. The gospels instead are "testimonies of faith" and in this way "tell us about Jesus the Christ, not Jesus the man," i.e. the spiritual figure--the myth.<br />
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First of all, it must be said that the people of the ancient world "did
not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality; the two were
intimately tied together...[t]hey were less interested in what actually
happened than in what it meant." So this "embellishment" had a purpose
and that purpose was to connect with the Christian mythology that was <i>needed</i> at the time. And when I say myth, I do not mean "lie," as is often interpreted. (See Joseph Campbell's <i>The Power of Myth</i> for a more thorough explanation). Myths are archetypal stories to
instruct us on how to live; they deal with unconscious desires of the
body and mind, rites of passages, ways to define mystery, and social
ethics. Ancient societies were tied to myths because they had less
distractions: they were intimately connected to the world of the
subconscious (dreams) where myths arise.<br />
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But Jesus the man, the Son of Man (a very interesting and enigmatic term), the zealot revolutionary, was a remarkable figure in himself.<br />
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Aslan begins making his case by giving us the lay of the land and what was happening at the time, the key figures in the occupied society and its social mores. Jesus wasn't the only one claiming to be the messiah of the Jews; the place was crawling with men claiming to be messiahs including "Hezekiah the bandit chief, Simon of Peraea, Athronges the shepherd boy, and Judas the Galilean."(Note the term "bandit" does not mean thief but zealous itinerant rebel who resisted the Roman occupation).<br />
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This begs the question, <i>What makes Jesus different? </i>Why was he the pillar on which a worldwide religion was built? The answer lies in one event: Jesus's trashing of the Jewish temple and the philosophy behind it.<br />
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Aslan painstakingly describes the elements of the Temple in Jerusalem in the chapter "A Different Sort of Sacrifice." The Temple was the one and only place for Jews to honor God by the ritual of sacrifice, i.e. the shedding of blood. This was the sacred place where the high priests slaughtered animals to wipe away the sins of the Jews; the shedding of blood was believed to be a sort of purification process. These animal sacrifices were not unlike the ones you read about in the Iliad and the Odyssey; it was a thing for ancient people. It was a way to make things right with the gods.<br />
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The sacrificial animals were sold right there in the Temple. Money changers exchanged "foul foreign coins for the Hebrew shekel," collected tax, and even issued credit. So this holiest of holy places was also a place of business, and that really pissed off Jesus, so much so that he did the unspeakable: he trashed it. And with this came the crucifixion and Jesus's fame: "Above all, this singular event explains why a simple peasant from the low hills of Galilee was seen as such a threat to the established system that he was hunted down, arrested, tortured, and executed."<br />
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I found myself constantly underlining text, starring it, rereading it, writing myself notes to process it. Aslan's argument is so informed, so complete, it can't help but ring true as to why Jesus rose to fame. Moreover, you get a sense that Aslan needs to define who Jesus was for <i>himself</i>; as a former born again Christian who studied history of world religions in college, he walked the path of faith, then doubt, then reverence:<br />
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<i>I continued my academic work in religious studies, delving back into the Bible not as an unquestioning believer but as an inquisitive scholar. No longer chained to the assumption that the stories I read were literally true, I became aware of a more meaningful truth in the text, a truth intentionally detached from the exigencies of history. Ironically, the more I learned about the life of the historical Jesus, the turbulent world in which he lived, and the brutality of the Roman occupation that he defied, the more I was drawn to him.</i><br />
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Aslan's argument also focuses on the duplicity of the high priests and their favor with Rome, the brutality of Pilot (not the innocuous figure who sides with Jesus in the gospels), the role of John the Baptist, the role of James, Jesus's brother (dismissed by the Roman Catholic Church to keep Mary's virginity intact), the role of Saul/Paul, and the Roman intellectual elite for whom the evangelists (gospel writers) rewrote the story of the crucifixion, holding culpable not Rome, but the Jews themselves:<br />
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<i>A generation after Jesus's crucifixion, his non-Jewish followers outnumbered and overshadowed the Jewish ones. By the end of the first century, when the bulk of the gospels were being written, Rome--in particular the Roman intellectual elite--had become the primary target of Christian evangelism. Reaching out to this particular audience required a bit of creativity on the part of the evangelists...the Romans had to be completely absolved of any responsibility for Jesus's death. It was the Jews who killed the messiah. The Romans were unwitting pawns of the high priest Caiaphas, who desperately wanted to murder Jesus but who did not have the legal means to do so.</i><br />
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So the evangelists adapted the myth to the times and people who were willing to practice the faith. One could say that the faith "evolved." One can also say this with respect to the Resurrection: it was a part of the "evolution" of the faith. This event in itself is the reason a "failed messiah who died a shameful death as a state criminal [was] transformed, in the span of a few years into the creator of the heavens and the earth: God incarnate."<br />
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How exactly did this happen? Aslan argues that the apostles themselves were ill-equipped to deliver Jesus's message and could not "theologically expound on the new faith or compose instructive narratives"; they were illiterate lay people. It took a diaspora of "educated, urbanized, Greek-speaking Jews" who would deliver the message of Jesus to both Jews and gentiles. These people, steeped in "Greek philosophy" and "Hellenistic thought" are responsible for transforming Jesus from revolutionary zealot to "celestial being."<br />
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That was hard thing to wrap my head (or is it heart?) around; the idea that the Resurrection was fabricated to prove that Jesus was not a failed messiah. The Resurrection means a lot to me, as it does every Christian; it's the link between this world and the next. It gives us all hope that we do not simply end with the body. <br />
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And why wouldn't it? After all, mythology is a set of archetypes to show us the natural progression of things. Myths don't have to happen as factual history to be something to believe in. A novel can have all the elements of human truth but not be factual with respect to history. Moreover, the fact that the Resurrection was juxtaposed in the spring with the pagan celebration of Eastre, the goddess of spring and fertility, is key. The two events resonate with each other and are further proof that myth, which translates across religions, which is steeped in story and metaphor, is a universal message connected to the spiritual realm, to ritual, and something we must live our lives by to give them meaning. <br />
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Despite all this debunking--separating the mythical Christ from the historical Christ-- I still feel the need to for a sanctuary on Sundays where there is a lesson on how to be good, where there is soulful singing, where you can shake hands with people and wish them peace. Christ, despite being a revolutionary zealot, was a compassionate man who championed humility, who cared for the poor, who embodied the Golden Rule. I don't think Aslan would dispute this. And Christ, the myth, the spiritual being, has his own way of showing up in people's lives, and this is not exclusive to dogma. He manifests in the love we express for one another, in forgiveness, compassion, or just maybe in the bark of a tree.<br />
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<i>Note: Another aspect of the mythical Christ is his miracles, raising the dead, healing the sick, etc. Aslan says there is simply no way for us to know whether these supernatural events actually happened as fact and are part of the historical Christ; what we do need to recognize is that Jesus's followers (and enemies) were wholly convinced of them. This, of course, was recorded in the gospels. </i><br />
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574955256363617315.post-92129755703773227792018-06-30T04:55:00.000-07:002018-06-30T08:37:03.502-07:00The Collage ProcessHere are some of my latest collages.<br />
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The creative process of collage has taught me a lot about <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOquGBv-wdgV7_O3Mfwa9-xd21PwAtCmX7z4SNwsB6Da4Fmc_8Amh_rtRIa6aYW-uxHBHuGle5PGyzj3Ztrw-TkL2XEfqziT0l1JM9-AqgslnfDf7lO89nWJSQp3ogLs3YDPArx04bC8/s1600/rose+beans_reworked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1131" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOquGBv-wdgV7_O3Mfwa9-xd21PwAtCmX7z4SNwsB6Da4Fmc_8Amh_rtRIa6aYW-uxHBHuGle5PGyzj3Ztrw-TkL2XEfqziT0l1JM9-AqgslnfDf7lO89nWJSQp3ogLs3YDPArx04bC8/s400/rose+beans_reworked.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Rose and Beans, mixed media</span></td></tr>
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composition (juxtaposition of color and form) and how art emerges. Unlike a painting, I never go into a collage with an idea of how it should be. I peruse shapes, subjects in magazines and my own artwork, cut them up, and arrange. Through this process, I have discovered the technique of layering. I
use a simple monoprint to serve as a first layer (this is evident in the collages below). The synthesis of the parts--monoprint, magazine cutouts, etc-- brings into being an entirely new image. What delights me, what keeps me coming back for more is these emergences, discoveries that I make while playing.<br />
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I think that is one of the secrets of contentment: always setting time aside (and space in the mind) for small discoveries, be they artistic or otherwise.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWobbFBwYQV0G1peGgm65w5k3eWJ3yNCuQumyiisMeffgtlyNr8VQ3ZoJGSCEHrR_c5rRNKWUKrfylpUz8cfp6SWb3dR_o3ebgwiBh8tdzSfEzLlrkRIdwc9ZFYqLA8D_m7Xs5n5i1a8/s1600/REM+guitar+dream2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1394" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWobbFBwYQV0G1peGgm65w5k3eWJ3yNCuQumyiisMeffgtlyNr8VQ3ZoJGSCEHrR_c5rRNKWUKrfylpUz8cfp6SWb3dR_o3ebgwiBh8tdzSfEzLlrkRIdwc9ZFYqLA8D_m7Xs5n5i1a8/s400/REM+guitar+dream2.jpeg" width="347" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: #0000ee;">REM Guitar Dream</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: #0000ee;">mixed media (the music of our sleep)</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbPVh2GyDmy12WnMJ4U0EXNXwVatBwtegiKnwDIKS5GP0mCWXP-f_F3fZJiD93RZatE5VtsjdBKz1ZSLsVptHoKJCa7SanzTNIWlePRnxG6juaWq5yu7Kp3pJHBcNOhIM3k7wcGOZ5No/s1600/bright+idea2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1030" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbPVh2GyDmy12WnMJ4U0EXNXwVatBwtegiKnwDIKS5GP0mCWXP-f_F3fZJiD93RZatE5VtsjdBKz1ZSLsVptHoKJCa7SanzTNIWlePRnxG6juaWq5yu7Kp3pJHBcNOhIM3k7wcGOZ5No/s400/bright+idea2.jpeg" width="255" /></a> Bright Idea, mixed media (If only there was a potion we could drink to give us bright ideas!)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVFvwj5-tpDqycyDGULIR0zPRrzjCkDdyf7XRR0CcPMX6-Ga9Nb9sPOUygiDKU88K-P4Uv2LpC9vIv059tD3FIostPvJ9CnQ9_sz4FeCSvhnrFz5NXqwDbPRyRnkh_nAS7tH9-Ew0tkUs/s1600/bottles2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1076" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVFvwj5-tpDqycyDGULIR0zPRrzjCkDdyf7XRR0CcPMX6-Ga9Nb9sPOUygiDKU88K-P4Uv2LpC9vIv059tD3FIostPvJ9CnQ9_sz4FeCSvhnrFz5NXqwDbPRyRnkh_nAS7tH9-Ew0tkUs/s400/bottles2.jpeg" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bottles, mixed media</span></td></tr>
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<br />Laurette Folkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16051603075015450715noreply@blogger.com0