Dr Doolittle, I Presume

     Yes, I talk to animals.  I talk to plants.  Those of you who know me well know that I don't usually have a hard time talking, period!  But lately, I have really enjoyed nature, in all her lovely forms.  I had fun the other day taking photos of my backyard and will share some of them with you in this post.  I will probably also repost some photos of my zoo "friends".

Ancient climbing roses

A flower basket

     I always warn people going to the zoo with me that I actually do talk to the animals - especially the gorillas whom I know by name, and the gibbons (Tembling is my favorite little guy with the amputated hand), and the lions (I'm really cheering for Abutto and Lomela to give us some babies soon!).  I usually speak to the hippo sisters and the Syrus crane, Romano, who always comes to the fence to see me when I call her and will usually preen and then do her happy dance. 
     I love telling Asha what a great mommy gorilla she is and how pretty she is.  She always comes to the glass to greet me.  And I tell Dembe to stop being such a nuisance to the other gorillas.  He is definitely in his "terrible twos"!  And Tumani is such a good big sister.  And daddy Rafiki is so handsome!  I can usually tell the older females apart now and try to talk to them and I realize there's a double paned window between me and them, but somehow I'm sure they can understand me.  Andy says he doesn't think so as I don't speak gorilla, but I think they probably have figured out English by now.  They're pretty smart.

Three generations of gorilla females - Asha with her kids and her mother, Juju

Rafiki and Dembe playing

     In my backyard, I talk to the sparrows and the ring-necked dove pair, the lovely finches, the ornery squirrels, and, most recently, the robin family.  Mommy and Daddy Robin are doing their best to train the three "juniors" to fly and to find worms.  I had no idea that it took such a long time to get them to fend for themselves.  They are full grown, but not quite into their adult plumage, and are still hopping along after mom and dad waiting for one of them to find the worms and turn around and give it to the juniors!  I say they are big enough to find their own food!  And, oh my, mom and dad were quite noisy when teaching the juniors to fly.  It has all been very entertaining - for me, anyway, not sure about the robin parents.  I think these parents will be glad to see their kids all grown up and leaving the nest.
     My backyard is my sanctuary.  It is not well-designed or even planned.  But this time of year, it rewards my non-efforts with amazing beauty.  And, yes, I talk to the plants.  I'm so glad I live in an area of the US where one can enjoy the outdoors almost every day or the year.  No humidty, no great heat, no bugs!  Just me and my kindle and my ice tea and my dogs - and nature!
     So here I will leave you with some photos of my backyard.  This week's journey has been kind and fairly uneventful so no major bends to contend with.  Those kind of weeks are nice to have, but unfortunately do not lend themselves to being blogged about! 

My pansy and petunia corner

My day lilies are finally blooming

Lavender will bloom soon

Mommy robin enjoying a nice bath - away from the kids!

 

 

 

And never far from my thoughts is my valley in France!                                                                

The Neste Valley in SW France

     Merci for your continued interest in my posts and for  joining me on my journey!

The Quiet Beauty in Art

     I had a hard time with the title.  It doesn't really reflect what I want to talk about today so if you have a better idea please share it!  I was reading last week from Francis Mayes' sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun entitled Bella Tuscany.  In this particular chapter, "Breathing Art", she talks about the conscious recognition of art (my words, not hers).  I want to quote a few passages and then give my own thoughts.

          "Across the piazza, three boys bounce a soccer ball against the side of the Orvieto cathedral.
     The sun strikes the great, gilded facade of that stupendous, dazzling, arrogant building.  I'm just
     basking in the reflected light, sipping a mid-afternoon capuccino. . . . Inside the cathdral, I've
     already seen the stop-in-your-tracks Signorelli fresco of judgement day - when skeletons just raised
     from the dead are caught by the artist as they are about to, and just have, melded back into their
     restored bodies - bodies at their prime of health. . . . I looked up until my neck hurt.  When I
     turned away to explore the rest of the cathedral, I passed a woman praying.  Her market basket
     propped beside her was stuffed with vegetables.  She'd slipped out of her shoes and was cooling
     her feet on the tiles.  A little girl nearby braided her friend's hair.  Their dolls sat upright on a bench.
     A young priest idly turned the pages of a magazine at a table laden with Catholic family publications.
          "They are knowing that splendid place through their pores, knowing so intimately and thoroughly
     that they do not have to know at all. . . .
          "As a seven year old, I had no consciousness that included an act such as painting.  I thought
     pictures had to do with table settings because I did see my mother endlessly lavishing her attention
     on tablecloths and polished silver and flower arrangements.
          "Art meant the English hunting scene over the sofa, the pink ballet dancers in my bedroom, and
     the oil portrait of me that scared me with its likeness and crude vivacity.  . . .
          "Watching the downshifting of light on the facade at Orvieto, I begin to breath slowly, taking in
     the shouts of the boys, the man at the next table completing a crossword puzzle, two nuns in long
     white habits, the angled shadow of the cathedral crossing the piazza like the blade of a sundial.  I
     feel a grinding shift occurring in the tectonic plates in my brain.  In Italy, it would be curious to
     not be intimate with art.  You grow up here surrounded by beauty, thinking beauty is natural."

     I could include so much more of her writing on art, but I hope that will get you thinking as it did me.  I tried to remember my first conscious meeting with art - not the art you do as a child, but the centuries old art that is famous and time-tested and somehow speaks to one's spirit saying, "There are things beyond your present understanding."
     I came up with two vivid images of me as a child recognizing art as something of timeless beauty.  The first happened at my grandparents' (the Manchesters) house in Ohio where we visited every summer.  I was probably around seven years old at the time of this memory.  I always had the little second floor dormer bedroom that faced the front of the house with a view to the woods and creek.  I felt like it was something out of a fairy tale, not in the way it was decorated, as there was not much in the room besides a bed and lace curtains on the one window.  But it just had that feeling of being almost not real - a little magical perhaps in my vivid imagination.  The only thing on the wall was a painting of two small children crossing a bridge holding firmly to each other.  Above them was a beautiful angel, her arms and wings outspread to keep them safe.  I realized then how special and powerful art can be.

Guardian Angel painting

     The second memory that I have is of looking through my mom's old Bible when we were sitting in church.  Again, I was probably around seven.  You may remember the older Bibles having famous paintings of biblical scenes.  I found them fascinating and never tired of looking at them.
     I probably took art appreciation classes all through school and in college, but it wasn't until I spent part of my junior year living in the city of Reims in northeastern France that I really became aware of the power and beauty in art.  And it began, not in a museum, but in the beautifully designed and decorated cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims.  I never tired of making a stop there when I went into town.  I have wonderful memories of being the only person in the cathedral other than perhaps the cleaning woman sweeping the stone floors or the voices of an unseen male choir practicing for a service.  I still remember how enchanted I was by the stained glass windows, the way the sun made patterns on the floor shining through them, the faces of the statues of angels and saints all around me.  It was then that I began to take notice of the beauty of art.
     Francis Mayes talks about how different growing up in Europe is to growing up in the US.  The Europeans are surrounded by art everywhere they turn - on tiny streets and bustling squares, corner churches and ancient townhouses.  Sometimes we have to look very hard in the US to see art outside of a museum.  How fortunate are those who grow up in European countries!

Monet's Ponds painted by Claude Cambour

Chagall's Bouquet with Bird  (Yes, I own this!)

     So, my friends, what is your earliest recognition of art - that force beyond ourselves that makes us pause to wonder?  Yes, there is art I do not like, there is art I do not understand, there is art that I'm not sure why someone calls it "art".  But I appreciate the emotions that went into bringing something to life on a canvas or marble or bronze or glass or . . . .   I have become somewhat a collector of paintings that I have bought from auctions.  Most of them are by French artists, most of them are what I would consider "impressionism" as that is my favorite art movement.  These I will never get rid of (as I'm purging my house and closet of so many things.)  These are not "stuff", they are works of beauty that I love looking at.  I shared some of them earlier in this blog.
     I hope that you are enjoying the Summer Solstice.  Having visited Stonehenge and a few Mayan cities, I can see how powerful the movement of the sun was for ancient cultures.  We take it for granted many times.  Or we complain about how hot or how cold it is - and then we go into our temperature controlled houses and cars!
     Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my blog and to follow me around the bends - this week, the bends of my mind!  Merci!

The Art of Being Still

     Last week was busy, busy, busy!  I began the week with nothing on my calendar except a massage on Tuesday.  It quickly filled up!  I had planned to have my ceilings painted in time for company at the end of the week, but that never happened as I ended up having company all week and in between company there were all the preparations for company.
     I loved seeing friends from my childhood, friends from Kansas, my cousins from Texas and Oklahoma and being able to do lots of fun things with them like meeting them for breakfasts, or lunches, or dinners, or sightseeing.  Like I said: busy, busy, busy!  My poor day planner has hardly any white blank space -it was taken over by the black pen of planning!
     I have always been a planner.  I keep lists in just about every room in my house.  Lists of things to accomplish, to plan - I'm always thinking about the future, both near and far.  And I enjoy doing that.  However, it can become overwhelming and then I'm not so good at turning it off, if you know what I mean. 
     My childhood friend, Karen, is still teaching (the retirement in Oklahoma is not nearly as wonderful as it is for teachers in Colorado!).  She asked me at breakfast Friday morning if I had ever had beginning-of-the-schoolyear nightmares.  I still have them!  When we shared what those dreams were about we realized that it was a fear of lack of preparation.  And with that revelation, I found that that is why I'm still having those dreams.  I still feel that need to be prepared, no matter what, and that's why my mind can't turn off.
     Many years ago I read Eat, Pray, Love and was in awe of the author taking a year to find her own meaning of life when her present situation became so difficult that she was consumed with anguish and disappointment.  She didn't want to live her life that way.  It wasn't healthy for her or for the people she was around.  She needed a new perspective on her life.  Granted, taking a year off to travel to Italy, India and Indonesia might seem a little extreme for most of us, but that's what she needed.
     In India, she joined an ashram - a place of meditation and reflection.  I could relate to her not being able to turn off her mind long enough to benefit from meditation.  She would sit in the TM room, close her eyes, begin the chants and then find herself thinking, "what a great room.  I could put one of these in my house, although I'd definitely want AC.  What colors would work best, I wonder. What should I put on the walls . . . "  The completely wrong way to approach stillness.  But, how does one turn off the mind?
     At first I was going to entitle this blog "The Art of Being Lazy", but that isn't really what I wanted to talk about.  I can do lazy pretty well!  Just sit around all day and drink ice tea and read my books in the sunshine. (Didn't get to do any of that last week and thus the topic for this week!)   But I believe stillness and laziness are very different.  Being still requires a certain mindfulness that being lazy does not.  But how can one be mindful of emptying the mind?
     I love taking yoga classes, but I find that even when I concentrate on the poses I'm still thinking about how cute that lady's outfit is, how I hope that yoga can help that overweight woman lose weight, wondering where the other person got her mat, how does my pose look in the mirror, where will I go for lunch afterwards,and so on, and so on . . . Sheesh!  I can't even concentrate on my breathing which they say is one way to avoid all the extra thoughts.  After about five mindful breaths I take off again!
     I think the closest I can come to stillness of both body and mind is when I'm surrounded by nature.  Perhaps that's why I love the SW of France so much.  Nature is more prevalent than civilization.  When we were at the farmhouse, Andy took off on some runs in the woods and I took off for walks around the perimeter of their property.  I concentrated on my senses - the sound of the birds and the little stream, the sight of the thick undergrowth and the trees all around me, the feel of the soft moss under my feet, the smell of the loam and the woods and the newly mown hay.  I was so relaxed and felt so at ease and calm and still.

The farmhouse

The path of stillness

     I can do that in the mountains here in Colorado, but since I'm never that far from home, I'm afraid that my thoughts always manage to creep back in.  Thoughts about what's on my calendar for tomorrow, who has a birthday coming up that I need to buy cards for, what am I planning to do for dinner . . .
     I know there are people who have to have constant sound.  I see people running or walking and they have their earbuds in or their bluetooth.  People playing their music loudly in their cars.  In the last ten years of my teaching I wanted no sounds on my way home or even once I reached home - no radio, no TV, no talking on the phone.  I was surrounded by noise all day at school and I needed quiet and calm once I left there each day.  I still love quiet and calm, but I'm still working on keeping my mind quiet.
     I don't plan to spend time eating my way through Italy (although that is very tempting!), meditating in an ashram in India, or finding the meaning of life with a guru in Indonesia, but I hope to someday be able to master my mind to the point that I really can turn it off for long enough to feel rested and renewed and refueled for the next step in my life.  And I hope to have many more steps!  Which may take me to places beyond France.  Who knows?  It's a great big wonderful world out there and I would like to add my footsteps to so many others who have walked before me.
     Thank you for joining me as I turn each bend on this road that I'm on.  I hope it will be a journey of discovery in every sense of that word.  I will continue the work on my house this week - at least at this point in the week I seem to have enough blank space on my day planner that there will be time for that.  But I hope to also work on how to be still.   I don't know that it is something I can ever master, but it's all part of the journey, right?  Merci, mes amis!
    

That Darn Bend!

     Sometimes that bend is not kind!  You're going along just fine, enjoying the scenery and looking forward to the next sight along the road and then you come to an unexpected (and unwelcome) bend that sends you in a tailspin.  Well, it wasn't all that unsettling except for Andy's gun being stolen out of his locked glove box in his Jeep.  That's a huge tailspin that has left him pretty upset.  And I don't blame him.  He filed a police report, but the chances of them recovering it are pretty slim, I imagine.
     There have been a number of thefts and vandalism lately in our usually quiet neighborhood.  People have even had the milk stolen out of their front porch milk box!  How crazy!  And bikes have disappeared from sheds in people's backyards, UPS packages off of front porches, basically anything that's not nailed down!
     I belong to a neighborhood website and we can share things like that.  Also if people are selling something or looking for something to buy or need help or are offering help.  It's a great service in many ways. 
     Besides Andy's Jeep being broken into, I was having problems with my computer and was afraid it would have to go into the shop.  Fortunately, my friend Chuck, whom I used to teach with, gave me all kinds of suggestions and eventually I got it to working again.  I really love my Sony Vaio laptop and hope to keep it until I'm ready to move to France.  Then I'll probably look for a new laptop.  I've had this one for about 10 years now.
     And my lawn mower died!  I had a little electric mower that worked great for the small area of grass in my backyard.  Most of my yard, front and back, is xeroscaped so it needs very little work.  I took the mower into the Lawn Mower Hospital (yes, that's what it's called) near my house and they said they'd take a look at it.  But yesterday I got the word that it is not able to be fixed!  Darn it!  So, I ordered another little electric mower from Lowe's and can pick it up in a couple of weeks.  With all the rain we've been having, my grass looks like a jungle and Coco gets lost in it - almost!  I actually took my weed eater to it yesterday just to get it down a little.  That was not fun!
     I shouldn't complain about these bends that are not the ones with fun stuff on the other side - we have to take the good with the bad, right?  And certainly (other than Andy's gun being stolen) these have not been earth-shatteringly bad. 
     I'm looking forward to company next weekend.  My cousin, Cindy (who's more like my sister), and her mom, Aunt Mary Ann, are coming to spend the summer at their cabin in Cripple Creek.  I love that they'll be here all summer!!!  And then my cousin, Sara, is going to be at a conference in Woodland Park Wednesday through Friday and she'll be able to be with the rest of us for dinner on Friday - hopefully including my cousins Randy and Lynn who live in Black Forest. 

Me with Cindy in 1962

Me with Cindy at Stonehenge in 2013

     And, I get to spend some time this week with my childhood friend, Karen Vincent.  Karen and I grew up together at the Central Church of Christ here in Colorado Springs.  We have known each other for about 55 years!!!  (I know you're wondering how that's possible when I'm only 39!)  She and I were also college roommates our Senior year at Oklahoma Christian.  She's visiting here from Edmond and we're going to the zoo tomorrow morning. 
     I don't have anything else to report for now.  I have not yet started to paint the ceilings but will try to get going on that this week if I have time between all the fun stuff I have planned - and at some point I must clean my house as Cindy and Sara will be spending Friday night with me.  Can't wait!  That will bring back old times when we were all at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Liberal, Kansas and all us cousins would sleep upstairs on the floor.  However, this time we will each have our own bed :-)

Cousins in 1960 - Cindy is in front with her arms crossed, I'm behind her, and Sara is the naked baby!

     Thank you for taking the time to read this week's post.  I appreciate your comments and encouragement more than you can possibly know.  Until next week I bid you "au revoir" and Merci!

Progress and Playtime

     It's so great to see that I'm at the end of the ceiling scraping ordeal!!  A friend at church asked if I were going to hire myself out as a ceiling scraper now that I'm so experienced.  I told him I'd be happy to do his entire house for a mere one million dollars!! That should tell you how I feel about the experience.  Not that it was all that difficult; it was just really time consuming and hard on my right arm and shoulder.  No need to lift weights - I've found out how to get rid of those baggy arms, no gym membership required!
     I've been asked how I did it and I'm happy to share my knowledge for those of you brave (or as in my case, poor) souls who would like to rid your house of that lovely 1970s and 80s look.  (Really, whose bright idea was that to spray on that horrid stuff!!!???)  I filled a spray bottle with tap water, climbed up my ladder, sprayed the area that I planned to scrape, wait a couple of minutes and then I used a 4 in putty knife to scrape.  They do make an actual ceiling scraper that's about 8 in wide with an attachment for catching the popcorn in a bag.  Well, that didn't work for  me.  Maybe I wasn't strong enough, but the only part of the ceiling that got scraped was the 4 in area in the middle of the scraper.  And as far as catching the popcorn, well, that was pretty much impossible as it goes everywhere!  Oh, that's the other thing.  Be sure you have drop cloths on your floor.  I taped them up the wall about 10 in to make sure it caught everything.  It's a mess!!!! 

The scraped ceiling!!

     I could only keep it up for about 2 hours at a time as it is strenuous work and my arm would finally say "enough!"  At that point I would clean up what mess I had made.  Vacuum if on the carpeted area and mop on the wood floors.  Take the drop cloth outside and get all the popcorn and fine dust (of which there is a ton!) into a large garbage bag.  Then take the cloth (or clothes depending on the area) out in the alley and, while still wearing my mask and goggles (oh, I forgot to mention that part - a necessity!) shake out as much as I could so that I could use the drop clothes again for the next section. 
     At that point I hopped in the shower, clothes and all!  I always covered my hair so that it wasn't too bad.  But it's crazy where all that popcorn dust settles. 
     I used to hate painting, but  now I kind of look forward to it because it means I'm done with the scraping!  And I found that it's easier to scrape the sheet rock ceiling than it was to scrape the old plaster ceiling.  I think it was put on a lot thicker over the plaster. 

How green is my garden?

     There's also progress out in the garden!  Just look at how lovely my raised vegetable garden looks - the rains (and more rains) have been a huge help.  As you all know, you can water and water and water, but all it takes is one good rain and everything looks so much better!  Not sure when I can expect everything to bloom - did you know that potatoes and onions bloom?  But I read that I can't harvest anything until after the blooms die and start to fall off.  I'm so tempted to peek below the dirt and see what's happening down there! 
     There are two neighborhood yard sales coming up.  One this weekend and one the next and so I'm also making progress going through drawers and closets and organizing what I'll be selling.  Wish me luck!  It would be great to get rid of a ton of stuff and make a little money also.
     Two weekends ago I volunteered to help at the Run to the Shrine which our zoo sponsored.  It is only on this one day each year that pedestrians are allowed on the road up to the top of Cheyenne Mountain, so the event attracts lots of runners/walkers who want that experience of saying they went to the top without a vehicle.  When I showed up in the Broadmoor parking lot at 5:45 am that Saturday morning I was given a choice of jobs and I chose to be the traffic director!  So, I got to stand near the intersection of the main road and the one that turns off to the parking lot/registration area.  I had an "official" shirt and loved directing traffic and answering questions. 

The Will Rogers' Shrine

     My job was over around 7:30 as that's when registration ended and I was told I could drive on up to the zoo if I wanted, which of course I did!  The zoo opens on Saturday at 8am for members and that was my first time to be up there that early. What a great time to be at the zoo!  The animals are all waking up and energetic and ready to start their day.  And I had the whole zoo practically to myself!  It was awesome!!

Dembe chillin'

Dembe and Tumani playing

Asha and Dembe

   My first and last visit each time I go is at the Primate House.  As you probably have figured out by now, I am so in love with our Lowland Gorilla family and could spend hours watching them.  If Asha sees me she will usually come over to the window where I am and sit right in front of me.  It's like we're visiting!  And she'll sit there for as long as I stay.  It's always fun watching her little ones interact.   Her daughter, Tumani, is 7 and her son, Dembe, is almost 3.  Asha's mother is also part of our zoo family and she, Juju, is almost as social as Asha and often comes over to see me.

Ember and her mommy, Hadiah

    Also in the Primate House are the orangutans and we have a 7 month old named Ember who suffers from perpetual "bad hair day", but that just makes her more precious.  And her daddy, Tujo, gives kisses if he's next to the window and you pucker up.  I'm telling you, if it's been awhile since you've been to our zoo, you really need to get up there!!!  I try to go once a week and really love going early if I can.  It's fun when you can hear the lions all over the entire zoo.  Makes you feel like you're in an exotic locale.  And I love watching the antler progress on our moose.  Amazing that they lose their rack every year! So, that's been my playtime and a wonderful stress reliever.  When I was there on Saturday, I actually overheard a couple speaking French and so, of course, I had to go and ask where they were from and we had a great conversation.  (They were from western Africa originally).

Tahoma in Moose Lake

     When I started this post I wasn't sure I had a lot to write about, but, guess what? - no problem once I got started.  But then those of you who know me well know that I seldom have a problem thinking of something to talk about!  ha!   A friend asked if I was planning to continue the blog after I move to France and the answer is a resounding "YES!"   I would love to share with you all of those wonderful things I find around each bend in France.  And I won't have to share any more remodeling stories - at least not for awhile.  And if I do, it will have a certain French twist as I figure out all the housing terminology and the tools, etc.  That should be interesting, right?  But as I plan to housesit I'm hoping the houses I stay in will not need me to do any work for them - otherwise I'll have to stick to my one million dollar charge!
     Thanks for taking the time to read and for following me on my journey.  I'm getting closer to my goal.  Every ceiling I scrape, every wall I paint, every floor I refinish (there's a song in there somewhere) . . . .  And it's been easier knowing you are all encouraging me.  Merci!!