Hello you crazy kids, how are you? Since last I wrote a new year full of promise rolled onto our paths.
and now here we are, following it deeper into the forest.
As my 5th graders say, “Let’s goooo!”
I became a 59 year-old as of January 8th and am one revolution closer to that dim star called retirement. I long to get there so I can play play play and nap nap nap, but alas I know better than to rush because I may trip and cause an untold train of calamities to derail right in front of me.
That’s the trouble with wanting to speed on toward the future. I might miss something right here, right now.
It wasn’t until my 58th year that I began to understand what it means to STAY HERE. To avoid the impulse to leave. There are countless distractions that keep me out of this experience of being alive right now.
Overthinking, over scrolling, over consumption of information. Dark tricks that keep me on the run.
Wyatt tries to teach me to stay, but I’m a slow learner.
But I am here now. On my porch typing out this missive to you, gentle reader. It is morning and the air is cold. There is a hot cup of coffee next to me. I pause every few seconds and look up into the trees, across the hills. The birds are stirring and beginning their morning business of song and flight.
I had a marvelous 3 weeks of a break from working life. Instead of keeping my ship of 30 students sailing forward through choppy seas, I spent it immersed in the act of sketchbookery. Inspiration fueled by action, naps, books, and oceans with sand carpets and perfectly placed shells ripe for the taking.
And there was water! Pouring from the sky! Right here in Los Angeles!
In the Sierras great blankets of snow layered themselves feet-deep over the mountains and passes.
I hunkered down in my Santa Babs rental and drew and painted and collected and wrote and drove and walked. And life was good. Better than good.
Great ropes of yellow kelp flung themselves onto the shore in advance of my morning walks.
Shells opened and closed. Sand gathered in ripples and folds under my feet.
I said yes to everything. There was so much.
If you follow me on The Instagram, these sketchbook pictures are old news so feel free to skip over them. I started posting again over there. Who knows how long it will last. When it starts to take up too much time I quit. But so far I’ve got it under control. Like all fixes, they work until they don’t.
I cleaned out a drawer of paint and found ancient tubes and tubs of old acrylic. Gouache is my favorite thing, but I’ve also been taking the matte acrylics for a spin again. The fluorescent red is making me feel delirious. I can’t help it, I like pink & red & yellow v.v.v. much.
I’ve been sketching with a wet brush. Just whatever I see around me. Even after my great summer declutter and streamlining I still have loads of little-old-lady-in-training knick knacks lining my tables and shelves. Many moons ago one of you sent me that rabbit with the cocked head. He is a favorite companion. Always leaning against a picture frame or looking out the window. Plotting who knows what in that pensive head of his.
Bananas, pears, fruit, cookies, birds. There are always birds.
My studio perch up the coast had a huge porch and I enjoyed having friends over for playdates and lunch.
Omicron snuck onto the scene since I last posted. The great unknown variant. Surely more will arrive. The Greek alphabet is long. All of us primates will probably continue to bicker and fuss over masks and vaccines.
I will try and uphold Rumi’s wise words and “give up opinions on all matters.”
Those words help me when I am longing to pick a fight with someone.
My sister, Dottie arrived from New Mexico. She wanted to visit the beach so I pointed the chariot north once more and we headed to beloved Santa Barbara county. String of beaches and walking paths spread out before us.
Yours truly in my favorite place at dawn.
Back in LA we visited another favorite place – the Huntington Gardens of San Marino.
I reworked my wall of art in my wee studio office.
I discovered Pema Chödrön’s books and felt like I had struck pure gold.
I walked and found shadows.
Clouds. Waves.
A candelabra euphorbia.
Boats.
I rowed my own tiny boat past everything. I saw it all. And now on this first post of the new year, I present my findings to you.
I have come up with a plan for staying active in my sketchbook practice while working. It’s called not over-working in the classroom. I’m finding a 30 minute session in the sketchbook is possible just before bed. My IG photos are sometimes dark and sized incorrectly, but I don’t have time to focus on all of that and it’s not important. Posting to IG keeps me accountable to myself (for now). It’s a little like walking next to a drowning pool. One wrong step and in you go! New mothers and teachers will relate to finding the time to maintain an art practice.
Fill me in on your goings on. I hope you are well in your worlds as I am in mine.
If you want to find my posts in your inbox you can subscribe at the very bottom of the blog. I don’t send out newsletters or anything like that, it’s just my monthly blog post. Occasionally I manage to post more than once a month, but not often.
As always, your posts inspire us full time teachers and part time sketchbookers. Thank you!
I’ll retire when I’m 70, and I’m making it my mission to keep learning and growing my educational skills until my last day in school.
I’m in frozen western NY, so your blog post makes me long for the desert and the ocean, and outdoor flowers. Thank you for sharing your lovely thoughts, paintings, and photos with us!
Big love to you fellow Capricorn… this post is joyful
as is your art 😀
& yes!
Pema Chödrön really is pure magic
thanks for sharing Rumi
I shall make a note of that
X
I’ll second this!
Everything from ‘fellow Capricorn’ to Pema Chödron’s magic and right through to a new Rumi quote to write down and remember when I feel the boxing gloves slipping on.
All the very best!
Dear Mary Ann, Thank you for the lovely post. I am struggling. I know some of us are wired differently from others. I seem to be wired for depression, even in the best of times. I am trying to keep my head above water. Meditation, online therapy. I will check out Pema Chodron.
Take care.
Thank you for your beautiful post. You make me smile.
Dear Mary Ann,
I love all your posts, your sketches, your paintings, your photos, your writings and musings, how you see beauty everywhere and how you capture it in paper, pen and
paint and word and photo.
Such a gift and a challenge at the same time when one has an artist’s heart and soul. I’m a gardener and a painter and a grandmother and I was a teacher too—grades
3, 4, and 5. Many years retired—a collector of gardening and decorating and crafting and British Country Living magazines. Mostly dreaming about being creative and
yes, never enough time to make and paint and stitch all the beautiful things I want to do. On a British Gardening Tour to all the amazing great gardens, I had and inkling
that the other people on the bus with me were the really beautiful flowers in life. Those little faces in your class are the real beauties, their sweet little faces (as hard and
more and more exhausting as it is these days to do and be all you are expected to be and do for and with them).
My sincere thanks for all you share with them and with us out here. You keep me inspired.
Dear Ms Mam! Always a pleasure to get your smoke signals! I am waving to you from Quail Hill on Vancouver Island (wave wave)
Re IG and photos. I have found an app called NoCrop to be useful, you may want to give it a whirl. I hope to see you up here sometime as you exore Emily Carr Country. Blessings of this Full Moon.
Beautiful photos, and fun to see you on instagram too, every now and then. Take care and keep up with your sketchcookery! 😉
I am always happy to see you on your journeys. I have managed to retire but struggle to create the routine yet to dive into my loved journals. Thank you for sharing yours again. I applaud your devotion!
Karen the truth is an ongoing art practice takes repeated effort and commitment. I struggle too, we all do. Trying to do something daily has a snowball effect. Getting started is the hard part. You’ll get there. I’m rooting for you!
Mary Ann,
I always wait for your blog posts… I start looking for one at three weeks from the previous one hopeful that you will feel like writing a bit earlier than the month. It is always lovely to “hear” your “voice”. And its marvelous to see through your eyes all the colors and tiny details of the world. It is good to see that Wyatt continues his vigilance.
Happy new year to you!
Susan
Thanks, Susan. I always love to hear from my readers. Getting notes from you is a great pleasure. I’ll give Wyatt a pet for you. Dottie took that awesome photo of him. xo
Hi, I am huge fan of the West. Always avoided LA….seeing your photos and the beautiful cottage I might think again! So there are wonderful places in that chaotic urban environment!
Yes, the last years of teaching are tougher than the first 35 years! I really struggled to the end, before I could retire after teaching 40 years fulltime . This is 5 years ago….and yeah!! Look forward to making more art!
Kind wishes,
Eva
Eva,
LA’s doors are closed to visitors so I can see why you might have found it chaotic and urban. It’s not a city that can be accessed through a casual visit. You have to have an intuitive guide and or live here long enough yourself to come to know her charms. For us who inhabit her sprawling neighborhoods and wild places it is not in the least chaotic. As with all magic places, it reveals itself slowly over time, but rarely to visitors. I’m in the hills of NELA (northeast los angeles)
It’s good to see you here. I’ve just resumed sketching myself. It’s been a brutal couple of years and I’m ready to come back to my life. Art will be a major component of it.
oh i am glad for that, Tina. xo
I adore the loose freedom of your sketchbookery! I do a lot of sketchbooking, as I’m privileged to already be retired, but my pages look so neat and tidy compared to yours (not always in a way that I like). I will try to channel my inner MAM. 😉
enjoy your artsy retirement for me, Tina.
I am a few weeks away from 69. I really never thought of my age until now. Your post touched many feelings in me now. I have followed you for maybe 20 years. I have lived travel through you and loved it all.
happy early 69th Pam. Soon I will be where you are and you will be where i am going.
I’m making Valentine’s cards for my sisters and nieces and nephews and dear friends. I’m using a set of Posca paint pens from my son and a pack of blank kraft cards from Walmart. It feels so good right now.
I love your posts Mary Ann, so full of wonderful words and photos! I kind of feel like I had a quick visit to the beach. Except my feet are still cold. Lol. We got up to a balmy 36 degrees in Colorado today. You are so lucky to live where it’s warm.
i do count my blessings, but moss cottage, being nearly 100 and poorly insulated does get quite chilly in the winter. sometimes it’s warmer outside! HAH. i want to get to colorado and see that mountainous beauty!
An especially wonderful post to start the new year, Miss Moss.
I loved it all, and especially the photo of you and Dottie.
Wishing you a happy, healthy new year ahead in 2022.
Do you have any good books to recommend?
loving THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY at the moment!
Always love your pictures and views and writings. Couple thoughts, I just finished The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. I have decided she is my favorite author. I did a blog post about it if you haven’t read the book. I enjoy birds also and painting them and I wondered if you have seen this artist, Gennine. She paints wonderful birds with watercolor. Here is her Instagram feed. https://instagram.com/geninne?utm_medium=copy_link
Oh the wonderful, wonderful MAM missives! How I enjoy them and their saturated colors, artistic musings and beautifully captured images of the western coast! Thank you again for sharing your stellar eye through photos and color. I v. much enjoyed your paint swatches and use of “old paint” it’s amazing what beauty we artists can create out of “rubbish”
All the best to you for the New Year….and things that have never been!
Ahh yes, Susan. And the best to you too. Who knows what treasures we may find in 2022!
The light on that candelabra euphorbia is incredible and on the building to the side of it. Perfection!!!! Clap clap clap.
My word for the year is NOW