Monthly Archives: November 2015

Birthday! Walk in my shoes…

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

 

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Still love crazy shoes after all these years…

Today is my birthday and of course I am introspective….life goes by very quickly. When people tell you time flies, believe them and use it well. Life is a racehorse, but living a life is all about the journey, not the finished line.

The speed with which I have arrived at this point is absolutely stunning, the speed of light to me, in retrospect. I would tell you how old I am but it is truly, most of the time, unimportant to me and I also want it to be irrelevant to you….except for today. Today I want to celebrate it, then I want to forget it for a long while. At least a year, OK?

If I told you how old I am you very likely might pass judgment about what kind of person I have become and how I like to spend my time and what I like to do and who I like to do it with, what turns me on (yes I can still get turned on, thank you very much) and what types of activities and which places on the earth I return to again and again because they fill my heart and soul with wonder and delight. I can get high on life in the blink of an unsuspecting eye, all of a sudden giddy with its miracles and gifts; inspired by just a film, a great dinner with friends, a good painting,  a boat ride across gorgeous water, a beautiful stone or a deer in the woods.

A hearty laugh. Especially that.

If you knew my age I would be willing to bet you would be grossly underestimating my current situation and my potential. I can still dream big. I have plans. I want days packed with joy and surprise. I paint, I write, I travel and walk on mountains, beaches and among ancient ruins, I cook more fabulous meals than when I was younger and I walk on the edge a little bit more with my beliefs about the world; I refuse to be stagnant. I am flexible, I am a good judge of character after all these years., but I try not to judge.

I am in love. With life, with my friends and family, vistas and views, Amy lifestyle and one magnificent man who deserves me, and I him.

I have incorporated much of what I believe about life inside my third book, a brand new novel titled A CANARY FLIES THE CANYON. It is the life story of one artistic girl who learned about life and love the hard way… a love story about art and creativity and the misguided choices she made…but it has a super ending. You would enjoy it – available on Amazon.com – and a perfect holiday gift.

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IMAGINE

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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photo courtesy of Jo Ann Brown-Scott, Singapore,  Buddha Tooth Relic Temple…..one of my favorite places on earth

I am having trouble finding words…eloquent words…to express my profound sadness at the world’s malaise. I am just one person, just one voice, and certainly a small one at that. I don’t understand the degree of violence and hatred that is ripping apart families and countries and causing a tidal wave, a tsunami of suffering.

This is the time of year when the word HOPE usually carries extra weight; the word JOY is meant to sound a joyous call of celebration and the phrase brotherhood of all men ought to bring us together as a collective world family here on the big blue dot that is planet earth. If that was the answer I believe we’d have it all figured out by now, but apparently we need much much more.

I keep thinking of the children. I see their faces and I die for them, wondering how they will ever find a place of safety and love upon which they might build a new start in life. So many children. Clothing, food. Jackets, shoes, hats and hot soup. Four walls and a roof. Warmth during winter. The unknown luxury of books and toys. The loving arms of parents and people who will hug them to sleep.

Can you imagine? In the words of John Lennon’s, “Imagine”…

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only skyImagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one
Read more at http://www.lyrics.com/imagine-lyrics-john-lennon.html#GGBowHGpdzw5j16G.99

Excerpt – A Canary Flies the Canyon

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Back from a little mini-vacation to the great Northwest – Whidbey Island and then Vancouver! I am happy to find that my new novel is getting more 5-Star reviews! I think that is a lovely treat to come home to….a HUGE thank you to all the people who cared enough to write a review on Amazon.com. Your comments are invaluable to me!

These days social networking is everything – it is word of mouth in its newest and most effective incarnation. There is simply no better way to get the word out, spread the news, show pictures and be an accessible author who will accept communication from anyone anywhere anytime!

Today I am offering you another excerpt from my book, from Chapter 18 – this time giving you a glimpse into a period of time when my heroine Annie worked as director of a very successful Denver gallery, owned by a woman named Kerri. This experience would eventually change Annie’s life, and in this brief excerpt I am introducing the reader to Kerri’s mother and some of the other staff  who also worked there:

I thought Kerri’s mom was an interesting study. She was an aging beauty, a little worse for the wear, highly eccentric, constantly nervous with several tics she kept repeating as she spoke – a cracking of her neck to one side, a thing she did with her shoulders that went up and down and a tendency to lick her lips excessively. Perhaps a bit unstable and hair-triggered, I thought. Rather impulsive; a reactionary personality. She loved men and she hated them, exactly like my own mother. I could not quite figure her out but I certainly did not want to get on her bad side for any reason real or imagined, and I had a slight suspicion that could happen at the drop of a hat. Her mood swings came and went twenty times a day. She wore things that wrapped, she was always swaddled in a bunch of fabrics of varying color and pattern. I had no idea where she was inside all that. She looked like she was running a fever for lack of ventilation. She was perennially flushed.

The guy, Troy, who shaved his head and oiled it up until it was shiny chose his words carefully so as not to appear stupid, and was so obviously in love with Kerri that it hurt to watch him. She was entirely out of his league; he would have cleaned the floor with his tongue for her. I liked him, but he seemed unsophisticated and naïve, yet we needed him because he was our muscles. He made himself useful with framing, doing any heavy lifting and art deliveries for clients.

Then there was another employee named Sandra who was a lady wrestler in her off time, with an alias lady wrestler type name which cannot be repeated here. She was a little hard looking, tatted up and muscular but she could sell art til’ the cows came home. In fact she could not stop talking, but in sales that is sometimes a plus. After I began working there I found out that she was sort of on probation, in danger of losing her position, because she was a little on the undependable side. Her boyfriend Chung was a rock star in the world of wrestling, with his giant chiseled body, long lanky hair and dozens of piercings. He was a scary dude. Having him in the gallery occasionally to pick up Sandra was both an attraction and a detriment – crowds of (also pretty wacked out) wrestling fans who recognized him quickly formed a gang asking for his autograph but then other potential art buyers, more cultured and refined, bolted for the door. It was never a dull moment in there. Psychos to the left of me and freak show on the right, stuck in the middle…welcome to the art scene. It sometimes reminded me of the bar scene in one of the original Star Wars movies, and if Jar Jar Binks himself had walked in to apply for a job or purchase a painting I would not have given it a second thought. Thank you very much, I thought, glad to be back. This is going to be entertaining. Is it cocktail hour yet?

Please read the book’s full description on Amazon.com!

Available on Amazon.com

http://www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com

Google Chrome – http://www.joannbrownscottauthor.com

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