Thoughts that have crossed my mind this week:
Shoe polish is so easy and so important: I have all these black shoes and boots, and I finally ran out of the hard-to-use, messy, not-all-that-effective black shoe polish I had on hand. Finally broke down and on a whim bought one of those little squeeze bottles of Kiwi Instant Shoe Polish ("With Wax Shine") for about $3.75 at Nordstrom Rack.
Damn!
This is probably the easiest to use, shiniest, coolest thing I've ever found for shoes. And cheap! I have now "rehabilitated" pairs of shoes and boots that basically I thought were beyond work-grade polish, and now they look spiffy.
Amazing when tools work -- I guess I'm so jaded that I usually expect new "tools" of any sort to (a) not work, (b) maybe work, but be really expensive, or (c) not work, but be too cheap to complain about, so I just throw it away, and then feel pissed that I was duped into throwing away my money on something that doesn't work and isn't worth taking the time to try to get my money back.
Weird -- shoe polish made me happy this week.
What else?
eBay.
I spent $12 to buy a 1960-vintage original poster print by Robert Wood, a landscape artist who was "Sears & Roebuck popular" several decades ago. Don't know why I'm so hooked on his work, but I am. I've actually started COLLECTING Robert Wood prints, after I found the first one, of a so Cal beach, at Goodwill for about $8, and then one that I was surprised to recognize as being a print that my mom had hanging in our entryway when I was a kid, on eBay for about the same price (plus shipping, of course). Then I started looking at eBay every now and then for his stuff, because i knew it was popular.
Then I found "October Morn" which now hangs in my bedroom and I just LOVE. And a few weeks ago, I found a huge, sofa-sized print of another scene that I ordered on eBay, received in a tube, wrapped in copies of an Arizona newspaper, just a couple of days ago. Now I'm trying to decide if I actually need to go to the expense of getting it framed, or if I can just go with the tacks on the wall. Marty HATES things that aren't framed (like my Peasant Wedding, Wedding Dance Brueghel right over my desk) -- but I don't care.
I just like the notion of losing myself in a lovely landscape.
I put the question, "What are you happy about?" on my office whiteboard last week. Very interesting to note who walks into my office and sees it AND comments on it. Usually it's the upbeat, positive people. But, it's a great question -- what ARE you happy about today? What matters?
I will be leaving in a couple of hours to head to the airport and pick up Ayla, who's been having a grand time in Las Vegas with her friend Ashley. 17, blonde, in Vegas. What's not to have fun? I wish her flight wasn't in at midnight -- I'm old! I'm old! That's past my bedtime! -- but it will be so good to see her again. It has been a very quiet week without her.
I tidied her room and changed her sheets, made her bed. Made it very comfy and welcoming for her. I miss having both my girls around. Brenna calls me very often, though, which is great, and Ayla is still nice to me.
I never got to have the "mom relationship" as the daughter when I was their age -- they've outlived my daughter-experience, since my mom died when I hit 15. That's getting to be a bigger and bigger deal to me, as they get older: I just don't have a frame of reference on "how to be a good mom" to them as they grow toward adulthood.
When I see Brenna, I always want to just TOUCH her, hug her, or stroke her hair, or just put my hand on her arm. And she hates it. She always hates it, and yet I always seem to deeply crave that contact with her. I remember when she was so little and would fall asleep in my lap, or snuggled against me, usually while I was reading to her... and it still feels like a missing piece, having no closeness to Brenna. I mean, she was never a really cuddly kid (Ayla was, though) -- but when I get to see Brenna, I'm always SO happy to see her face, and to give her a hug. And I want to just inhale her (and THAT makes her FURIOUS but I can't seem to hold my breath when I hug her). This probably reads as psycho-clingy, but honestly it's not that, never has been. When you have a baby, you learn that there's just no smell on earth like the smell of your own baby's head. That's just reality. Your own baby's head exudes the scent of heaven, of life, of love. And as a mom you never really lose that connection. Scent is an ancient and deep sense for humans, who are still animals, after all...
And Ayla has gone back to being a blonde with long extensions, that at one time must have grown off some 3rd world peasant who was shorn to sell to Sally's Beauty after being bleached to a fare-thee-well. FAKE! But she looks so cute, but just not like AYLA. I miss her shining, glorious red mane. She had her hair lovely natural red for almost a year, but then she needed a change.
Hair. I've stopped dying my hair after many years of "Copper Penny" and "Strawberry Blonde" and other bottle colors. It has amazed me to see the Bonnie Raitt-like streak of grey bloom from my left temple in a quarter-sized swath of bright silver, surrounded by red. At least I still have the red, though! Even with the streak of silver, it's still recognizably me.
Getting the chunk of grey has finally, finally started getting through to me -- I'm not 27 any more. In my head, I'm still years away from 30, still a greenhorn, still in need of mentoring and guidance, still NEW. But, in reality, I'm now the mentor. I'm the one that others look to for the decision, the advice. And I am not fully there yet. Even though, objectively, I look at what I DO -- what I've been doing for years, and I see someone who's decisive, who's got the experience and the confidence to know what's the right decision, and what's not... still, in my own private head, I'm still so young.
Maybe that helps me be good at what I do. I don't presume to guess.
One thing that's great about this blogging adventure, and pushing myself to write, is that -- even though I KNOW I'm not always interesting, not always clear... I have really started to like the act of writing.
I'm listening to Stephen King's On Writing on my Zen. I've read that book and listened to that book since maybe 2000 (I think that's when it came out) and I have always loved the man's work. I find his writing style utterly captivating, in a way that all other pop writers just never hit. (For ezample, I cannot stand Danielle Steel and people of her ilk, they just make me want to hurl).
King's book On Writing makes me start thinking again of what it would take to actually write one of the books that has gone through my head over the years, but that for one reason or another I have not tackled.
WHY NOT?
Why not go ahead and do it? How much writing, every day, for a chunk of time, would it really take?
The idea still sits, vivit and clear, in my mind. I KNOW what I want to write -- and amazingly enough, I even think the topic would be sellable. But getting to that point?
Maslow's Pyramid. Food, shelter, etc... I've fought against that for ages, and only now am I finally starting to feel that safety is at hand. As long as I continue to deliver at work, and they value my work, work is there. That's something to keep in mind. And with that as my base, and my kids nearly out on their own... I may have a future, a plan, a path...
I do love to write. I have since I was a very little girl. I've always wanted to write, to be acknowledged for being a GOOD writer, and to tell a good tale.
Maybe I'm approaching the right time. It's okay to be a late bloomer, some of my favorite flowers are.
