Category Archives: time

78 and counting

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The iconic Clock from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris – the Museum was formerly a train station, so clocks are everywhere, and my message for you is time-oriented…

Here I am again, inside the chaotic and dangerous inner sanctum of the pandemic, except I have finished another trip around the sun. I had a birthday, in spite of covid. My heart goes out to all those people whose life journey has ended much too soon. I grieve for you and your families every day. It is like Russian Roulette, this disease. Chances are that you might get it in some random, thoughtless nanosecond when your guard is down. I hope not. Never lose your focus and your awareness of what you are doing, where you are doing it, what your hands are touching and the quality of the air you are breathing. We are all stuck together here in this moment in time, and I care about you.

They say you should write about what you know, and I know all of this. Later birthdays are difficult under even normal circumstances, but when you get up into numbers that are in the clouds birthdays can be stunning and sobering. It seems the older you get the more you think about the past. I try, teeth gritted, not to do that. I make it almost my mantra to live in the now.

The nights are the most daunting. Oh I can fall asleep just fine, but waking up at 3:42 am every morning is predictably infuriating. I know I am not alone.

For weeks, months, even years our “getting older” minds are awakened in the pitch blackness to worry about THINGS. We waste the wee hours on trivial pursuits – what was my dog’s name when I was 6 years old? How come I never liked that one curly-headed kid in my biology class? Isn’t he famous or something now? Why did I have to learn about where babies come from in an idiotic, intellectually insulting book that my mom handed me much too late? But more often the worst case scenarios dominate our thoughts. The hot water heater is on its last legs. It will probably quit when I can least afford to replace it. Probably Christmas Eve. That pain in my leg is probably something really bad. I don’t feel comfortable going to see my doctor during a pandemic. I will just wait it out and worry about it again tomorrow night. Are blue whales really making a comeback?

The things you wake up to worry about are often suddenly replaced, in your waking life, by a different big worry thing, worse than all the other things that you ever anticipated, that surprises the heck out of you. Oh my god I never even thought of that! The entire furnace goes out plus the hot water heater! You find out that pain in your own leg is just unimportant arthritis but someone else you dearly love has a far more dire health issue. How silly of you to have been worried about your mere leg, you say. Those stakes were not high-value worrying at all. Just your leg. What a waste of time.

Once in a while the thing you were so worried about never ever happens and you are shocked by a wonderful something that distracts you completely from worrying and renews your joy and optimism. That can happen. One year my daughter amazed me with the news that I was going to Paris! For my birthday! Well that surprise shot right up past everything on the worry list to top notch #1 most wonderful of things. A whole different list! Both my kids are always telling me I am going to live to be a hundred. (But is that supposed to be a good thing? Do I really want to?) They seem to have gotten a call from somewhere, from someone who knows, because they are so sure. But usually when my birthday comes, every single year, I can’t help but wonder how many of them I have left. My sweet daughter says, enthusiastically, “Mom you are not done yet! You still have things to do! Things to see! Start thinking about what you would like to do on your eightieth!” So I wonder if someday when I am 97 or a hundred, the two of them will quietly slide over to me and tell me, in a kind quiet voice, in my totally deaf ear, “Mom it is time now. Get your stuff together. You are done. “

With this blog post I am beginning a new-ish direction with my blog posts – I realize I will be losing a chunk of younger followers with this move but that is ok. I feel the urgent need to write what I know for sure about being older, starting out now, in the time of “cholera”, and continuing on into any time and place I want to go, for that matter. The experience will be bittersweet. Funny as hell one moment and tragic comedy in the next, but forever real. I hope to touch upon all subjects that we seniors are dealing with. Health, spirituality, love, romance, hobbies, self-worth, travel, inspiration and basic everyday living. I invite you to come along, no matter what your numerical age or your mental age, because I believe you all will find something of relevance here.

I will include an image with each blog, either a photograph from my own travels or a painting of my own creation, (often smaller and more affordable than my usual painting size). Prices will be listed.

You can email me here:

JO ANN BROWN-SCOTT email jabsart@yahoo.com

ART WEBSITES – www.artistjoannbrown-scott.com

Prints of my original art are available at https://fineartamerica.com/art/jo+ann+brown-scott

NOVEL – www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com

NON-FICTION BOOKS – The Creative Epiphany, gifted minds, grand realizations

and Your Miraculous, Timeless Creativity, the care and feeding of your creative gifts

Books are available on Amazon and Kindle

INSTAGRAM – The Creative Epiphany

All of my previous blogs can be found in my Archives.

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The Year Long Canvas #14 – Progress, Endurance and a Big Spill

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

“There’s a little black spot on the sun today

That’s my soul up there

It’s the same old thing as yesterday

That’s my soul up there

There’s a black cat caught in a high treetop

That’s my soul up there

There’s a flagpole rag and the wind won’t stop

That’s my soul up there.”

Lyrics to KING OF PAIN by STING

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YEAR LONG CANVAS – very beginning, last week and today’s small progress

Well hello again – the YLC canvas and I welcome you back. In the previous post I listed some of my background info and news, and since I am putting together a brand new portfolio I had all that information gathered together so it was convenient and easy to do a blog around it. The painting I posted with that blog entry WAS NOT the YLC, as I hope you realized from its title….and its composition. That post was a delay and denial tactic. The YLC has sat untouched.

So we are due for an update on the old YLC and this period of time has  been tough – I knew those times would get here…. I have not been able to concentrate much on the YLC for the past few days. I have been concerned about some issues that are so near and dear to me that my mind is preoccupied. Nothing life threatening, just annoying small stuff that usually I can shake off, but this week not so much for some reason. Even the horrific news about Iraq has me rattled. As if I could do anything to change it. The result is that the YLC has not enjoyed a single new stroke or even a fond glance for about 2 weeks. But I have gotten a lot of other tasks done. Stuff that requires absolutely no intelligence, actually, but has to get done. One of which was to change the printer ink, when I spilled red ink all over me, instantly looking as if I had been brutally stabbed in my thigh, stomach and hand…and it will not scrub off. So what an interesting weekend that will make when I get out and around.

After the stabbing however I did make a few offerings to the YLC and the art Buddha. Nothing major – uninspired things you might not even notice, nevertheless I can honestly claim that I changed her. That is all I have to do, you know, is keep changing her.

Just for fun I have pictured the canvas as she was when I started on her months ago, then the second photo is how she looked before I worked on her today, and the third photo is the newest version of the canvas as she is this very minute. Maybe you will see the changes. If not, don’t worry about it. It’s pretty uneventful.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

Return to a Place

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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This weekend, as my beloved Rocky Mountains tip-toe lightly into SPRING, careful to sidestep any more major snow and wind events,  I was fortunate enough to return to a favorite mountain hideaway. A place isolated from the circus of everyday life; up a long, lethargic driveway, meandering around Aspen groves and pines, hidden high on a sunny south slope enfolded by trees, commanding a place of importance under gigantic rocky outcroppings. This place is a sanctuary for me and I am its’ grateful guest. In my absence of six hard winter months, I dreamed often of its hand-worked beauty and primitive silence. It is a place like no other. When I could not sleep I would wander its rooms, imagining how strongly the wind was rattling the roof, wondering how many mice families were frolicking there, riding out the winter in its relatively balmy interior. Hoping no trees were uprooted. Looking forward to seeing the wildflowers that were planted last summer just outside the kitchen door.

I have spoken before of the significance of PLACE. If you are someone who has an extraordinary place to go to – one that gives you back your sanity and holds the rest of the world at more than an arm’s length for you as you regroup – well – if you have that you are indeed blessed. This special place need not be grand; it could be a humble chair in a tiny space by a fire, could be a beach, a trek, a restaurant, a cabin, an art studio or a journey to St. Peter’s Basilica. But if it always without fail gives you the gift of peace and comfort, it is a home place.

Walking in the door was like returning from an enforced confinement somewhere else. A home without a family comes alive again when a door is finally opened, after long days and nights signifying nothing but the passage of time on empty rooms, and people arrive.  Everything looked bright in the noon sun. The dust motes danced in swirls as we entered, instantly transforming the stagnant internal climate with our human presence. Piles of dead bugs were neatly arranged in corners as if they all knew where the graveyard was and went there when the end was in sight. Cobwebs swinging like iridescent threads with the breeze of our movements, the smell of powdery, dry dust – it was all perfect. We smiled and embraced the beauty.

Getting water back in the pipes. Turning on the heat. Cleaning the bugs out of the sinks and bathtubs, then discovering a small bathroom window that had been accidentally left half open all winter long! Through record-breaking snows and roaring wind racing through the pines at break-neck speed this window gave old man Winter access to the house. Why didn’t a raccoon tear through the screen seeking warm shelter? I wonder how much snow had piled up on that floor….what the temperature plummeted to in that area of the house – mysteries we will never have answers to.

A builder of fine homes once told me that houses need people in them – they deteriorate rapidly when they are empty for long stretches of time. The materials that go into the construction and the interior finishes need the warmth and humidity that people provide, doing all the things that people do. Cooking, washing clothes, taking showers – all that and more is what houses need. Houses are almost alive. Wood needs to breathe. Call me crazy but I firmly believe that houses need love, laughter and conversation too. If you do not believe that houses have a heart, a soul, and a need for human companionship then I am sorry for you – you have missed a key point somewhere along the road of life. Several of my very best friends have been magnificent old houses, weathered, wrinkled and wise…

Your special place need not be a house, of course. The discovery is yours. But do find yourself a unique footprint that you can return to for re-fueling. It will keep you sane, prolong your life, listen intently to your thoughts and that place will watch for your frequent return.

The Year Long Canvas Project #5 – Taking Off

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Canvas in progress, not yet titled, copyright 2014, Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Things are finally beginning to take shape – the composition has gained complexity, additional depth, and more color without losing its rhythm and movement. It is still recognizable from last week, but at some point it will give up its former identity and be in the witness protection program….my way of saying that it will have a whole different look, probably. That is very likely to happen with a year to go.

I am pleased with the progress this week, but already wondering about how I will add another warm color to all these cools….what intensity, what shades, what COLOR? I really don’t want the Naples yellow to be the only sunny color. Although it could. But the artist says she wants more color.

Last week the painting that resulted AFTER I stopped working on this year long canvas was pretty cool – it can be seen in the #4 post – and the same is true this week. I am working on another 24×30 canvas at the same time I work on this one and it is going to be a fine painting, I think. I am not quite ready to go public with it, and this post is supposed to give center stage to the year long canvas, so….we shall see.

Abstract art is supposed to work from any orientation – whether  you turn it upside down or rotate it sideways. As you can see, there is very little happening in the upper portion of this canvas, and that issue must be addressed soon. It’s never a good idea to get too far along and still have such a void in one large area – it makes you desperate to fill it up at some point, and then whatever you do to it looks like an afterthought rather than an integral part of the composition. Right now it is screaming for my attention…and I am not answering yet, living on the edge of a decision about what to do to it.

This entire canvas screams at me sometimes. I hear it calling for attention and yet I can’t run ahead too fast. A year is a VERY long time. You would think that the larger the canvas the easier the challenge, since you would have such a vast area in which to screw up and figure out how to fix it, time and time again as the months go by. But if you remember, my instructor told me not to add the challenge of SIZE to an already difficult assignment. So here we are at 24×30 and every single minute stroke shows up. You cannot sneak anything in there without it being noticeable. Idiotic moves will show….and the idiot has to correct them. I realize that there is no failure with this project, only learning experiences, but even so there will be days when I am not at all happy with what has happened to the canvas by my hand, on my watch.

I am going on a walk now and I am going to see if I can find the art Buddha to come along, because this abstract world is enough for now.

The Creative Epiphany – The One-Year Painting Challenge, Official Blog #1

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

dasl   room   floor

Denver Art Student’s League – the building, a classroom, the floor – March 17th, 2014    

In review – My esteemed instructor for Advanced Contemporary Painting, Homare Ikeda, has offered me a challenge – to work on a painting for a solid year. Certainly not at the exclusion of other work but parallel with all my other works. The canvas, we have decided, need not be larger than 30×40″ and could in fact be a bit smaller. The task, which of course I accepted, is more about the 365-day journey than the destination – more about having patience and resilience than the amount of time required – more about trusting yourself with the addition of each and every gesture than in asking for constant direction from the instructor. For a person like me who usually works quite fast, it is an exercise in pacing and meditation over the work being done.

**For the first two (unofficial) posts introducing this project, see my archives titled “Art Imitates Life, as they say…” published 3/13/2014 and “Back To The Classroom, Seeing Things Again for the First Time” published 3/11/2014

March 18th, 2014

Today I have begun. I have finally made my decision about the canvas size based upon Homare’s recommendation not to choose an odd-ball size (I was considering a tall narrow size of 20×60″) that would only add unnecessary frustration to this challenge. So the chosen size is 24×30″

It’s almost a blizzard now, where I am, in my second floor home studio south of the Denver metro area, but it won’t last long. It’s SPRING! Great day to paint. The north light in this room is wonderful, especially with lots of snow flying around outside.

I begin by painting the entire canvas with my favorite base color – unbleached titanium. It’s warm, it’s neutral, and it’s friendly with the color palette I usually hang with. I slap it on with a large palette knife because that also adds subtle texture, and I am all about texture, color and pattern.

palletteknife   closeup

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Now it has to dry before I can do anything else to it. That doesn’t take long, especially in Colorado’s altitude and low humidity, but you can also use a hair dryer if you are impatient, which I am supposed to NOT BE in this challenge. I am already getting excited to do more. Calm down. I need to watch it a lot, getting to know it. Calm down. Looking for inspiration. I might be hit with a flash of brilliance….something I want to do right away! Color! But I might not touch it again for several days…calm down.

Stay tuned……

The Creative Epiphany – Wherever You Go, There You Are

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

fragile From Northern California back to Denver…..

On the fifth night in my new residence, dead tired from unpacking and lifting and climbing stairs and settling in, I woke in the night wondering where I was. It was as if I had been in a coma and regained consciousness, and had no idea of my location. Without moving a muscle I looked around. There was bright moonlight cutting through the deep purple darkness  in long narrow slices made by slatted blinds I swore I never bought.  I was wondering – which window was it? I don’t have a window like this one, do I? What room am I in? Where am I? Oh yes, I gradually realized. Someone had moved my bed across 3 states and put it down in a room that didn’t make any sense to me…yet.

When you change your residence you don’t have to be half asleep to wonder where you are. Moments of confusion come at unexpected times when you can’t comprehend how it all happened, although it was a 3 month process. You need something from the fridge and you open the pantry, you turn right headed for the bathroom and it takes you into the laundry room. If you get up at night for a drink of water you impact the wall where you thought there was a door with such force that you wonder if you broke your face.

Moving is not easy. But it is worth it, if you are fortunate enough to have done it for all the right reasons. In my previous blog post, titled SURFACING, I gave you enough info to know that this move of mine has been a wonderful leap, coming at a time in my life when recharging the batteries of my heart and soul was the right decision. Moving is always a major jolt and a chaotic endeavor, however, no matter how you plan it and attend to details. The members of my family do a lot of it. We are all gypsies who will leave point A and flash forward to point B for reasons of career opportunities, quality of life and being closer to those you love most. They said one night on Animal Planet that all the great migrations of the animal species are made for just 3 reasons – plentiful food, water and mating opportunities. Some things are just universal.

My brother and sister and I were born in Ohio and we have made our individual journeys to the West with relish and perseverance. Kind of like Sherman’s march to the sea. We burned some bridges behind us in the process but it was worth it and no one was injured. Then one of us moved back east again, but south. We Ping-Pong around.

It is an energizing event in life – the move. It wakes you up at your deepest core, at the very least. It requires a great, complicated  thought process to purge and pack. I have it down to a system, having moved about 25 times in my life. Each of those times, I learned more and refined my process. I have dozens of tricks and short-cuts up my sleeves by now, learned in the deep trenches of relocation suffering. My sister says I ought to write a book about it. But I am too busy doing other fun stuff.

I actually enjoy waking up in the night wondering where I am. I look around for clues and it comes to me eventually. And maybe some far off night when the clues in the darkness make no sense at all to me, and the familiar answers as to my location do not filter into my mind, well then…..my moving days will be over.

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The Creative Epiphany – Flashing Before My Eyes

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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My life is flashing before my eyes in Technicolor dreams of days gone by. Excuse the melancholy interlude. It was bound to happen.

Relocating to another area, another state, familiar as it is to me and as highly motivated as I am, still seems a heavy load to carry alone. I see, with every item that is packed, a long life placed neatly in boxes, as if it could be condensed to just that. Small a space. With a lid on it. In spite of  my pride all these years at not having a lid on it. No matter how many boxes there are, the headlines of my life, the subplots, the nuances, the places and faces and times and history that define a life well lived are almost all missing, without documentation. They could not make enough boxes…to hold a lifetime of my experience. And so, for the most part, my memories are lost in space, floating in and out of the bank of clouds in my mind where they have enough room to stay.

Every goodbye changes a relationship. I am a good and loyal communicator – I do well at keeping in touch. But it is never quite the same. I will miss seeing the spontaneous expression, the revealing tear pooling up in the corner of an eye, the laugh lines deepening and the weathering of a human face. Your face and mine…because we are reflected in the eyes of eachother. Being with someone who is telling a story is a priceless window of sharing when bonds are made based upon visual impressions, heartfelt exchanges, and unspoken words. Oh you can Skype and you can do face-time, but the daily connection is what will be most missed. Because life is that – so very daily. It grinds forward like a heavy wheel, ponderous and unrelenting, and yet each moment is rare and fleeting. Such an odd contradiction. The slowly rolling wheel and the nano-second flash of a memory.

As James Taylor sings,”The SECRET OF LIFE is enjoying the passage of time.”

He also says, “Take to the highway……walkin’ on COUNTRY ROADS…..reckon my feet know where they want me to go…..walkin’ on country roads.

“SHOWER THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE WITH LOVE. Show them the way that you feel. You can run but you cannot hide. Shower the people you love with love. Things are gonna turn out right if we only will.”

From his song FIRE & RAIN  – “Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone….I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain….Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around…I’ve seen sunny days and I thought they’d never end….but I always thought I would see you again….somehow one more time again…..thought I’d see you one more time again….say nice things about me now…..I’m gone.”

To be continued at the other end of this journey….mid-July. Denver. My Rocky Mountain home.

The Creative Epiphany – Life is a Three Ring Circus

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

 

oct11 002 Painting by Jo Ann Brown-Scott titled Red Sea at Night, Sailor’s Delight

As I was having dinner with a couple friends the other night we happened upon the subject of getting older – a subject we don’t dwell on here where we live but it does rear its gray and wrinkled head from time to time. We live in  a  lovely 55+ active senior community of over 7,000 households that affords us many choices for how we might enjoy spending our leisure time. Sun City here in Lincoln, CA is a state of the art senior retirement area that has it all. We are located in the rolling hills leading into the Sierras, halfway between SF Bay and Lake Tahoe, so we can certainly keep ourselves busy when we go “off campus” as well. There are many people here who still work, and many who do very well at staying productive and relevant although they are completely retired. I have had a part-tine job here for the past 3 years teaching adult art classes, so I fall somewhere in the middle. The lifestyle we wake up to every morning is a positive example for anyone over 55 who is dedicated to staying active and young at heart for as long as possible.

One of my friends mentioned that she doesn’t like to volunteer her age in social gatherings because some rude harsh realists instantaneously make a judgment to themselves about her when she does – mentally placing her in a category they see as appropriate to that number, thus stereotyping her based upon no actual factual information. It drove her crazy – she could see it happen before her eyes. They either made remarks of utter amazement at her ability to stay looking and acting so young, as if she was some mutant who had drunk from the fountain of youth, or they saw her as doomed any minute when her age finally caught up with her. So she made a conscious decision to be “age-free” similar to some people who never discuss their weight and refuse to acknowledge a scale.

They said recently on TV (and sometimes we want to believe what we hear on TV) that 70 is the new 50. Well! That got the attention of many people I know. You can call this denial or readjustment of numbers a silly tactic or you can call it clever marketing….. I happen to believe it is no one’s business how old you are or how much you weigh. Who cares. I certainly don’t. But I will say this – when you arrive at certain pivotal markers in life, you do begin to realize that you may no longer be in the “center ring”. You pick up on subtle clues…in a heated discussion of some topic, for instance, involving a group of people of which you are the oldest, you realize that no one cares what you think. No one asks, no one wonders, no one directs the conversation your way. Or perhaps a group starts making plans for an activity that is quite physical, maybe a hike, and instead of asking if you’d like to participate, they assume it’s going to be too strenuous for you and leave you out of the plans. No one wants to be dragging your sorry ass up the trail. And maybe it is too strenuous, but an invitation would still be nice. Please let me hold onto my dignity; I will decide what is too strenuous for me. Maybe I’ll die trying but that’s for me to decide. Maybe I’ll just stop halfway up and eat my lunch.

It is difficult to start feeling irrelevant long before you really are. Many cultures include the older members of the family in their extended living arrangements, and that seems to me a great way of elongating  the productive years for seniors. There is usually something we seniors can contribute to the family whole that is valued and helpful, and being included in daily conversations and activities of the people you love is a crucial to feeling relevant. It has been proven that longevity is far more likely if accompanied by a healthy and happy quality of life that gives you several reasons to get up in the morning, whether it is a garden to tend, a pet to feed, a child to read to, a porch to sweep or just a friend to have coffee with on a regular basis.

The circus of life does have 3 rings, and even a carnival side-show. The trick is to figure out how you can continue to be productive in some arena. Then after that, be a little assertive about holding your place in the order of things. Don’t vacate your hard-fought territory.  Offer your opinions, laugh and listen to the conversations around you. Insist on being the same you that you have always been. This is not our parents world; this is not Leave it to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet. This is the brand new 21st century and the statistics say we are going to be around longer. However we choose to handle ourselves as active seniors, you can be sure we are being observed. We are the new Poster Children for active senior living. Let’s make some noise about it and leave everyone proud we were here for so long.

The Creative Epiphany – Neon Pink Post-It Notes

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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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 – Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

recentfolder 013  Time Weavings, mixed media by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

They – whoever they are – say that our lives are shaped more by the prayers that are not answered than the ones that are. When I say “prayer” I use that term loosely – because I think of the word “prayer” as a visualization, a power of positive thinking, a goal strongly sought after, a long-term dream you have chased. But indeed it is a focused request to yourself, or to your higher power, and/or the universe or your soul for something you greatly desire. Well that is kind of a scary thought. Makes you start going back over all of your unanswered prayers, trying to remember what happened or did not happen after you realized that one particular prayer and probably others were never answered. I would guess that in some cases what came instead was a far better thing, and perhaps in other cases it was just a void. Nothing much seemed to take place. But at the time you had no perspective. You were so far under the mountain that you could not see the view.

But let’s just say that, lucky you, your dream sort of comes true. Maybe it isn’t the total 100% super duperest extra special perfect version of your spectacular technicolor  dream, but it is this —- close —- to the dream you always had. What are you inclined to do with that? Did you believe you deserved the absolute perfect answer to your prayers? Are you that entitled and that lazy in your requests to the universe? You must have the best, the very best, or nothing at all? You don’t return a gorgeous and rare rose because it has one split petal. Or maybe you do. Are you going to snub your nose at this gift and curse the imperfection? Or are you going to feel blessed that it came, even in a less than ideal form, inviting you to expend a bit of elbow grease and effort to mold it into the almost impossible version you wanted? Maybe it’s a test – because life does send us tests – to see how badly you really wanted what said you wanted.

By the time you are in the second half of your life, that life that has blessed you with many gifts and unexpected delights, you really ought to be able to look back and see the larger picture. It should be  obvious that if all of your wild-eyed, crazy-ass, howling at the moon prayers had been answered the results would not have been as blissful as you imagined. You thought you wanted this and then that. You wanted what you wanted and you wanted it now. The clock was ticking – you got impatient. When Where and How were your dreams going to come true? You asked for a person or a thing or a time or a place or a cure or a circumstance or a winning ticket. And you didn’t get it. What happened instead? If you made wise decisions based upon what you knew you could realistically have, rather than what you perceived as all the ways the universe had slighted you, I would be willing to bet the results were spectacular and satisfying. The weavings of time may seem enigmatic, but in time you see the threads are carefully woven for the quality of the entire tapestry.