Category Archives: living a good life

The Creative Epiphany – Neon Pink Post-It Notes

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

party

On a daily basis I have been writing a few lines in an engagement calendar  – the one titled “Under The Tuscan Sun”, by Frances Mayes – for over twelve years now. It doesn’t provide enough space for anything lengthy so I have to choose the best or not best part of each day and distill it down to basic information with few adjectives. Since that is difficult for me, I somehow get a bit of extra satisfaction by adding a bright neon pink post-it note to the page when something quite startling has happened. It gives me a mental marker reminder about some big deal kind of thing. I stick it on there so some of it peeks out above the page and screams at me. It can be a really oddball reason or a monumental one. Bad one or good one. Funny one or serious as a heart attack one. Sometimes it even means something happened to someone else who means the world to me.

There are days in your life, my life, all of our lives that deserve neon pick post-it notes. As you look back over things, certainly a selection of spectacular days come to mind. Lucky be you. They ought to make mud-brown post-it notes for the days that are, quite frankly, crappy. Normal be you. You don’t have to keep a journal to remember the good, bad and the ugly – your mind has a place where you catalog all of your days for reference allowing you to pull them out at will and review them for what they are – rare and wonderful or miserable, maybe a day that taught you a difficult lesson. Neutral days don’t ever get post-it notes, but of course they are remembered.

It is already too late for me to die young, so I am fortunate in that regard and supposedly wise for the years I have logged in my life. I remember my mother used to say, “The stories all repeat themselves – the names just change.” Her way of saying that she had seen it all. But I am constantly surprised at the things people do and various things I could never have imagined keep happening. Is it the times we live in? Or am I just a late bloomer who is constantly in awe of life? Have things really changed that much from when our parents were our age? I believe they have. I say that without judgment – things have just changed. Amazing life, incredibly amazing times we live in, based upon other amazing times….I guess it is all relative.

When a neon pink day happens in my world, and it is spectacular and rare and energizing and never to be forgotten in all the best of ways, then that is to be highly valued.  I’m talking about a day when nothing is “off” one single dot from 100% perfect, and it flows as smooth as creme brulee from morning until long past dinner. I had one of those days yesterday. I was with my favorite artsy people, all of us expressing our love of life and our appreciation for time spent together as I prepare to end this chapter, change my residence and move onward. People spoke and said wise things, people joked and said crazy things, some made toasts and everyone made delicious food. Peach tulips graced every cheerful table where we dined. Each laugh filled the room and escaped through the windows of our open hearts. Lovely words were etched in our minds and many thanks were given. We ennobled  the day with our gathering, and we gave wings to our faith in the future. I had never been to such a heart-warming party, much less one in my honor. But the party honored us all and our common desire to create a neon pink day to remember. You must do that whenever you’re able because it’s all precious and life goes by like a candle in the wind.

The Creative Epiphany – A Moving Experience

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

stuffbrushesartpaperskitchennative  Were you listening when I told you I was moving? If you didn’t quite get the enormity of that statement – if you can’t imagine the chaos and the boxes and the agony of the process – the stacks of stuff that don’t deserve to move to Colorado measured against the stacks of stuff that get to go – or if you have not done this recently, in this new century,  then I bet you are clueless. After moving out here to northern CA. in 2006 with my husband’s job transfer and settling right in, thinking I would be here for the duration, I proceeded to bloom where I was planted, as the saying goes. I really did bloom. I have loved being in California. But my husband died, other family members shifted from their Tahoe location to a more exotic locale and so now I am ready to return to Colorado. This time truly for the duration. I am so busy that it’s hard to justify taking the time to make a blog entry.

I am working my way through this 3 bedroom house, including an art studio filled to the gills with paint, brushes, collage papers and canvases, books and art teaching materials. I have a kitchen where a lot of cooking actually happened – these days you see gorgeous kitchens looking like no one ever even boils (a yummy pan of) water in them. There are dishes here for several different types of family meals, both casual and elegant. Linens – I love nice bed linens. Towels must be comfy and thick and plentiful. Art? Are you kidding me? Every wall was arranged with art. Sculpture done by my father and even me, including a tall skinny Massai type woman who I sculpted in college – she has lost her head several times in various moves (I have almost done the same) and I always glue it back on, because where I go, she goes. Masks and tribal finds from Africa and continuing unique gifts from my children’s trips, and those kids of mine don’t go just anywhere. Well actually they will go just about anywhere – one of them is on his second passport now and the other one has 40 countries under her belt. They bring me the weird and wonderful un-noticed items that only they would know I will love. An amazing hunk of stone from Yemen that resembles a petrified brain, if you can imagine that. Taken from the ground in a land of nothing but sand. A nice-sized chip from an ancient pot, gathered from an historic southwestern place where such pieces still casually litter the ground. Both from my son of course. A beautifully embroidered, little bit dirty sleeve of a tribal dress, sold at a market in the hill country of Viet Nam. Just the sleeve, because you see they throw nothing way. So I have this sleeve, which I cherish, from my daughter who knew I would put it out somewhere and honor the intricate beauty of it and that I would also leave it lovingly dirty with authentic Vietnamese soil. Just a few of my treasures collected over a full lifetime. It all has to fit into a truck. Driven by someone I do not know from a hole in the wall. Will he be sober? Does he drive too fast? How’s his vision? Can I please just meet him and look him in the eye before he takes off across Utah and Wyoming with all my things? He has to go over Donner Pass into Reno, then those Utah salt flats, then through that desolate part of Wyoming…

The other night I dreamed that my moving truck went off a cliff. All was lost. My globe-traveling son would hold me in higher esteem if I had fewer possessions – he admires those who live quite simply. He doesn’t own a TV. Even my daughter has  streamlined her environment since she and her husband have begun to live abroad; it is a scary crazy thing to move an entire household of your goods in containers stacked up like chicken crates on the outside deck of a rusty old ship headed across an ocean. Still I have my own humble concerns about the journey  my things will take. I would hate to experience the simple life as a result of my truck going off a cliff. But I am sure I would survive and maybe be the better for it. Although maybe not. I would try to be better for it but…it would be hard to live without my special rock and my tribal sleeve.

The Creative Epiphany – Soul Food

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

soulfood2

This mixed media collage is titled SOUL FOOD – I did it several years ago and it is now owned by one of my favorite people. It is a large painting, it makes a strong statement,  and requires a dedication of space, much like the various things that feed my soul. If you examine it closely it reveals details about the passions in my life. I could not get them ALL worked into the composition of course but there is a selection of clues. Sort of like Cliff Notes. But my life is an open book…always has been. If you ask me a question I answer it honestly – if  you know me it does not take long to figure out what makes me tick. I reveal a lot in my art and my writing, and of course those “life journals” are pretty much out there all over the damn place so it is already too late for me to be mysterious even if I claimed I wanted to be. I am a communicator. It runs in my family – the genes from my straight-up-tight English Lit and correct grammar teacher mother combined with my artistic, musical, eccentric risk-taking furniture salesman father gave me no choice in life, really. My dad could tell a story – always a true one – and it would be hilarious. He was charismatic, handsome, romantic and a naughty boy to the very end. So the fact that I seem to be drawn to that very  type of guy is no big surprise.

But I digress – soul food is what is on my mind today. Cravings – soul food places and faces and things that feed me and fill me up, leaving me satisfied and content. I hope you all know what your soul food is, because when you need symbolic comfort food and you need it NOW then you probably know just what to do with yourself. I guess my equivalent of the old tried and true comfort soul food mac & cheese has got to be the BIG SUR COASTLINE of California. When I move back to Denver this summer I just don’t know what I will do without it. There is a very special place to stay as you travel south on highway 1 – it is a charming cluster of motel cottages perched along the edge of the sand dunes  on a desolate stretch of beach overlooking my Specific Ocean, as I call it – it is going to beckon you again and again once you go there. The place is THE SANCTUARY, just a bit north of Monterey and Carmel. Visit the website at   www.thesanctuarybeachresort.com

Oh and by the way, as you begin your drive down the coast, in the town of Pacifica just south of SF (that place that is always on the news because it is losing chunks of real estate into the sea)  be sure to stop for BBQ at The Gorilla BBQ place, 2145 Coast Highway 1, Pacifica – located in an orange railroad car on the left if you are headed south – the best BBQ I have EVER had. They do have mac & cheese.   www.gorillabbq.com   They even have their own theme song available on the website.

Another must-visit place, farther down the coast past Carmel by almost 2 hours is Nepenthe – you can Google or Bing it and read to your heart’s content – I cannot possibly do it justice with my mere words, but I will say that the word Nepenthe means to alleviate pain or sorrow….to cause to forget trouble….and it does live up to it’s press. The views are beyond belief, and on my last visit there for the occasion of my late husband’s memorial day spent along Big Sur with dear friends, my pain lifted and I felt lighter than air when we settled in there for a very long dinner on the terrace. Go there to feed your soul. Go.

There are many areas here in northern CA that I consider my soul food places. In the 7 years I have lived here I have soaked up a lot of rare and wonderful memories. Yosemite leaves me breathless, Tahoe of course is my family’s playground just an hour and a half from my front door. Wine Country – Oh my goodness. My favorite art supply store of all time is FLAX in San Francisco – it is like a candy store for me. The exotic collage papers imported from all corners of the world are my magnet, pulling me in and holding me hostage there for hours. That store is responsible for changing my artistic life and direction. And it is so much more than papers – it is a great place for kids and for wrappings,  ribbons and albums, books, journals, paint of course and canvas and every single thing you can think of in art.  www.flaxart.com

This blog entry will be continued – so much to say and so little space. Emotional Soul Food is a concept that I highly recommend you explore – if you find a safe and comforting place to go, a particularly wonderful person to visit, something satisfying to eat, a lovely location to sit for awhile or a midnight walk along the beach – if you know how to employ your special people, places and things for your own peace and comfort – well then you are taking care of yourself well. And I believe in taking care of yourself. There are few people who will do as good a job of that as you do, and it is indeed a full time job.

 

 

The Creative Epiphany – Loose Cannons & Wing-nuts

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

buddha

Part of the reason the internet is such a magnet for our attention is that it can deliver us juicey news items well before the TV and radio broadcasts are able to do so, and of course we Americans are news junkies of the highest order. We have the attention span of gnats and we like our news fast and furious. Each breaking news item must be more intriguing than the previous one and if it is not we become impatient. We tremble with withdrawal and shake with news hunger. We need lots of info, arriving 24/7! Even with a globe the size of earth, on any given day, there might not be quite enough stuff happening to satisfy our appetite for rapid-fire news excitement. So therefore we have assembled our own entourage of loose cannons and wing-nut freaks that we can fall back on to supply us with ongoing sad sagas, shocking quotes, substance abuse spectacles and train wreck disasters. They are our side-shows, positioned adjacent to the main event three ring circus world that is already crazy enough for Pete’s sake. They parade themselves in front of our eyes performing one outrageous, twisted act after another and we eat it up like M&M’s.

You know who they are – the spoiled substance abuser “Lindsey Lohan” poor little beautiful but brainless types and the Justin Bieber “baby brat” types who want so desperately to drop their pants and reveal their bottoms to the world. The “loud-mouth” types like pouty lipped Donald Trump and his counter-part angry as hell Rosy O’Donnell. Then you have the political blow-hards who announce that authentic rape is not really an act that can result in actual pregnancy and the wanna-be-dictator-son-of-the-big-daddy-dictator who threatens to send his nukes our way if Dennis Rodman does not have the leader of the free world call him “maybe” on the phone, as the pop song lyric goes. There are many varieties of these dysfunctional news dominators, and most of them are having babies and making more just like them.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? How come they get so much PRESS when other far more uplifting and informative stories go unnoticed? The fruit loops of the world get the attention because we love watching insanity play itself out up on the big screen, day by day so we can see every sweaty pore up close and personal, as we wait for the final meltdown. We love us some meltdowns, now don’t we? We are fascinated to see that bad behavior really does get rewarded by getting most of the attention. The squeaky wheels DO get the grease, don’t they? If you asked each of the people mentioned above what their contribution has been to the world – what non-material “good” they have accomplished – I doubt if they could offer any convincing answer. They are the examples not to be followed and what a distinction that is.

I really like the new Pope, although I am not Catholic. He seems like a nice man who knows what a powerful message his pure humility delivers to the world. He seems to be walking the walk that he talks and I would like to hear more about him. You do not have to be a Mother Teresa or a Pope, however, to deliver a life message of simple gratitude and love that says you are indeed truly, joyfully alive and feel profoundly blessed to be living here on the beautiful big blue marble we call earth. There is plenty of room on the humankind yardstick between the Lindsey Lohans on the far left and his divine Holiness, the Pope at the far far right. The rest of us can all just jump in there somewhere, hopefully far to the right of center, and begin to do the right things with our lives, making breaking news for all the best reasons even though it might not ever be reported. I can never understand how someone can squander their life – waste a precious life – spending valuable time on negativity, violence and self-destructive behavior. There are no excuses for that, whatever our circumstances. All we have to do is to gather our courage, rise above our circumstances, and live our lives the best, most positive ways we can, touching other people’s lives in such a way that we leave a positive and memorable mark where we passed.