Moss Cottage through the trees!
Early December through the windows
Public library haul
Highly recommended for anyone who recognizes the value of unscheduled time away from the digital world. Alan Lightman is wise.
Winter version of porch life
The Secret Stairs on a recent walk!
How do I love you Lucy Barton, let me count the ways…
The smoke trees on display! One turns orange, the other one gold.
Good, but not great. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport is a more substantive read in my opinion.
Treasures foraged on a walk!
I potted my poinsettias and will prune them back in the spring when they go bare.
A few weeks ago when I still had some leaves on the little trees in front of my window
Books glorious books!
Little houses everywhere! Lucia Leyfield’s 2 hr zoom class on timbered houses was a delight! The title is Illustrated Pop-Up Cottage, but I made mine into a model instead of a pop-up. The taller medieval houses on the left are from an Etsy store template.
I found this sturdy table on the curb. It’s my new art table for the patio. I painted it green!
Let me just scooch into this pear basket Uncle Ray sent us. I think I can fit.
Meanwhile in Santa Barbara
Time machine chronicles…
Textile treasures from Mary Stanley’s house.
A wonderful visit in Painted Cave at Mary’s art cabin in the forest! Sharron and I loved it.
Mary’s house is like a museum of cuteness. We share the same storybook sensibilities!
Mary collects Nathalie Lete art and has been to her studio in France.
Carpinteria gas station specializing in gerbera daisies!
Sunset in Painted Cave
Beautiful Mary in her kitchen nook!
This vintage crewel cottage lives in my bedroom now. It’s big! Originally from Lancaster, England.
I was lucky enough to visit Santa Barbara in November and December.
Happy New Year dearest middle-aged mammals. I haven’t posted in awhile so expect this post to be random and unhinged. Like me! As usual, I’ve tried desperately to limit the photos to an amount that is tidy, but I have failed. However if one considers I started with 100 and managed to reduce to a slim 35, that is success. Go me! Good old EXTRA me, at your service, faithful readers.
First things first. It’s 2025. Holy hellfire! I started these dispatches on a winter day when I was not middle-aged. I was a little 44 year old. And just look at me now, turning 62 in one week. I’m a senior. I’m ever grateful that you tune in to read my dispatches, that you email occasionally, leave comments, and let me know you’re out there on parallel journeys of your own. Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Side by side, here we go. Let’s do this.
Things I’m still doing since my last postcard:
wearing wigs, making soup (split pea with pearl barley, pork and beans, unstuffed cabbage soup with cinnamon), reading, journaling, porch sitting, patio sitting, guerilla gardening, very occasional housework, filling out mountains of retirement paperwork (5 months and 10 days to go!), napping, cat wrangling, and extended time staring into space. Also the artist in residence of faculty meetings. Have noise cancelling air pods, itunes, sketchbook, and pens keeping me sane until the very end.
Also an enormous table landed in my patio. Sent on high from the Universal Gift Distribution Center.
Lately I’m devouring books from the public library. I’ve stopped reading books on my phone using the Kindle app and have returned to the old-school version of reading. I’m taking my books with me to bed instead of Tik Tok. And if TT gets banned, I shall turn to the NYT Cooking for my soup recipes.
The ideas Alan Lightman writes about in In Praise of Wasting Time feel big and important.
Each of us once swallowed that first bite of the wired world, then the second, then we were addicted. Soon we couldn’t remember what we had lost. The situation is dire. Just as with global warming, we may already be at the point of no return. Invisibly, almost without notice, we are losing ourselves. We are creating a global machine in which we are a mindless reflexive cog, relentlessly driven by the speed, noise, and artificial urgency of the wired world.
I like the idea of creating a wild preserve within our own minds where we stay disconnected for longer and longer periods. Where we return to old forms of communication with people. Where we embrace doing nothing, being bored, still, quiet, alone with our big thoughts.
Anyway about that found table… I painted it green and it’s perfect for my new outdoor headquarters. In retirement I shall gather with friends around the table and make art messes with other middle-aged mammals on a regular basis. The details of this are sketchy and vague and taking shape in my mind.
When I was a child I loved visiting the public library. I worried about what would happen if I read all of the books. What then? When I retire I shall make weekly pilgrimages to the library (leave my phone in the car) and see what my wild mind discovers on the shelves. Last week I stumbled down a chinoiserie rabbit hole. I’m excited by the idea of so much time to explore. Work has kept me tethered on a short leash. I’m completely unable to fathom how I taught online art classes and worked at the same time. NO IDEA! Was that even me? Probably not.
I shall make gingerbread cookies at Christmas and decorate them and give them to other nearby homo sapiens.
As Cal Newport encourages in Digital Minimalism, I shall pursue high quality leisure activities in retirement. I’ll be working in my garden, sketchbook, and kitchen. Making, building, creating, connecting. I remember the freedom of following art ideas down meandering paths. These last few weeks of not working have reminded me of how much can blossom when one has the freedom and space of time. The peace of not working in a noisy chaotic environment. Of not answering questions.
Thanks for craning your necks up to follow my crazy smoke signals. For following the barely there plot of this latest missive.
May your new year feel fresh and shiny and very very large. Full of the possible. I’ll try not to splash you with my oars as I slap the water – picking up speed now as I barrel towards retirement. See you, love you, bye.
