{by Michelle DeRusha of Graceful}

They sit on beach chairs, on beach towels rumpled and striped, legs splayed, faces to the sun. They sit while their kids splash and mold kingdoms out of cool damp sand. They sit amidst florescent pink and yellow pails and shovels, amidst half-eaten bags of Cheetos and uncapped bottles of Dr. Pepper. They sit with flesh wrinkled, saggy, taut, bronzed, fish-belly white. They sit and gesture and talk in French and English. And is that Portuguese perhaps?

I don’t often get the opportunity to observe the human masses. The airport is a good place for that, but more often I’m riding the moving walkways with exuberant kids or standing in line for McNuggets and fries. The mall is a fine place, too – settled onto a bench to watch shufflers and shoppers – but usually I’m leaning on the metal rail, gazing dizzy at the carousel as my kids spin beneath colored lights or sweeping frenzied past kiosks in search of the perfect birthday gift an hour before the party.

The beach is the perfect people-watching spot, and two months or so ago I did just that. I sat on a fabric chair low to the sand, book propped on my lap, sunhat pulled low on my brow, legs stretched across infinitesimal bits of coral, and I watched.

{By Laurie of Laurie Writes}

I’m sitting in the bookstore trying to grab ahold of the words before they leave me. The game club of Maryland is gathered here, and the bookish men and women at the table next to me are playing a card name whose name I can’t remember, even though I recognize it on sight. I once sat across the table from someone and learned to play it myself, wondering why I was there when it made no sense to be, beyond the fact that I have a tendency to put myself in risky places when I stubbornly and often stupidly feel it’s worth it.

Names dance across my screen – words and facts and possibilities that I’m trying to file alphabetically under what makes sense, whittling them down into a decision that lets me sleep at night, even if I have to sell my car or walk strange city streets alone and mostly unafraid to do it. Sometimes I don’t think I can, that I’ll just let the waves of the next thing wash over me until I’m that half mile down the beach that you float before you even realize it, when all of a sudden the familiar umbrella and your people are specks down the shore, waving you back if you choose to pay attention.

When Virginia Woolf walked into the water of the River Ourse and didn’t emerge, the stones weighing down her pockets, I can’t imagine that no one saw, but maybe that’s just because someone has usually been watching me – not known to be a strong swimmer. Still, I’ve never been truly afraid of the ocean, and can spend more time than you’d believe floating on my back, finding the mellow spot past the breakers where it’s warm, going up and over the tiny waves, chasing the sun on the tops of my legs and my chest and my face.

On that same odd trip to the beach when a truly very sweet man and I played that card game, I took a photograph of an exceptional sunset. When I finally made it to the sand the next day, I was alone. It was cold out, walking into the water out of the question, except dipping my toes in to say I touched the ocean, a personal ritual regardless of the season or temperature. I sat on the sand with a notebook on that cold March day, and there was no one around for a good distance. It occurred to me that at that moment, temperature aside, I could walk into the water and just not stop, nothing on the other side but China – a concept we’d been taught as children digging holes for sand castles. We ignored the barrier of Europe and Africa beyond the Atlantic, even the idea of the Far East as ephemeral as air then.

I remember writing this idea of immersion down that day, feeling guilty for even thinking about it, knowing I’d never do it, knowing as sure as I sat there that later that day I’d be getting in a car and heading home, gazing out the window and wishing things different, but far away from this idea and the ocean itself. Still when I thought it, I wondered if, miles or just yards away as it happened that people who cared about me were, would they feel it? Was there an imperceptible shift in the air around the people close to them when people did things like walk into rivers not intending to emerge? Especially when they succeeded? There had to be, I thought – at least a palpitation or a whisper of an itch. But maybe not.

{by Melody at Brave Girls Club}

After a dear friend telling me about a hurtful experience she’d had this week…..I began thinking again about a story I have told a few times….a story that my children will tell to their children, and maybe even beyond that… because it was such a learning experience in our family….maybe even a turning point…it’s a story that I think about often because we were the main characters in it 3 or 4 years ago, and even though it was something that lasted less than 15 minutes….it changed all of us….and now I see others differently, especially when it seems that they might be main characters in the same story…or one a lot like it. I used to be too embarrassed to tell this story….but I am not anymore. This is a human story that everyone needs to hear, I truly believe this…I hope you will stay with it, it’s kinda long.

{by Jenny from The Bloggess}

My friend (Sunny) is an artist. She writes and paints and makes beautiful, whimsical dresses out of found objects and magic. One of my favorite dresses of hers is the red poppy dress and I wanted it the first time I saw it but I knew I’d never get it. For one thing, it’s not sensible. It’s impractical. It’s bright red and vibrant and shocking and “inappropriate for a woman my age”. And I have no shoes to go with it. And I have no place to wear it.

And I want it.

I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”. Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better. Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.

And I am worth it.

And last week…?

…I got my red dress.

{Originally Published on Rimarama}

In my violin teacher’s living room this morning, I was fumbling through a rhythm exercise I had executed perfectly just hours before in the privacy of my home.

“I want you to know” I said, “That I sound so much better when I’m practicing by myself and doing it backwards. But then I come over here, and by the time you’ve corrected my hand position and bow hold and reminded me to relax my neck, everything just goes to pot!” I said, by way of a joke.

My teacher considered this, but did not let it roll. “I will always be correcting you,” she said. “That is my job. You can’t come in here, no matter how hard you’ve been practicing, and expect to play perfectly. It’s not like one day you’ll show up and I’ll say, ‘That’s it! You’re done! On to the symphony with you!’ There is always room for improvement, and I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t point that out.”

I was dying to explain myself further, to stress the fact that I wasn’t expecting perfection, I only wanted her to know that I play much better when she’s not breathing down my neck. But if I’m honest, in my heart of hearts I am always sort of hoping that one day she’ll say, “You know . . . you have real talent!”

But she continued: “Being so hard on yourself is no way to live. When you expect perfection of yourself, it spills over into your relationships with others. You expect them to be perfect, too. And no one wants that.”

She had imparted this wisdom with no hint of malice or judgment, but still my jaw dropped to the floor. Was my violin teacher lecturing me about personal relationships? The last time anyone besides my mother had offered up unsolicited advice was in 1997, when a close friend counseled me to quit the job I hated or stop bitching about it, already.

And then my teacher brought up my old nemesis, the adorable eight-year-old violin student.

“I think I’ve mentioned him to you before” she said. “He can barely get through one measure without me adjusting something, but do you know what he does? He just laughs, shrugs, gives me the cutest little impish look, and keeps on going! He is totally unfazed! And SO JOYFUL! I wish we could all be more like him!” she said, sunbeams shooting out of her ears and reflecting off her dangly silver zen earrings.

{Originally published on Grown Ups Are Like That}

~

As I reach my hand into the bottom drawer of my desk I pull this out:

rice candy
sun room
honey bear
autumn spirit
october leaves
fall song

and this:

blue overtones
a few brave men
movie star
stonewashed
independence day
ozone

Paint chips are some of my favorite little objects in the world. I love the matte, powdery feel of the sample. Like just-sanded pine. Soft and smooth, their bookmark shape fits comfortably in the palm. The one (and I have many) labeled with names such as submarine, swamp fog, and fizzle has maroon crayon marks all over it. I can close my eyes and feel the transition from chalky pigment to waxy, bumpy lines. I can sit for hours running my fingers over these bits of color that please not only my eyes, but my fingers, too.

In this same drawer I have a small wallpaper sample book from 1978. Like the paint chips, the pages are not just food for the eyes. These sheets are rich with texture. The page called Williamsburg Fruit is durable and thick. They even suggest taking a hard brush to the orange and green fruits “It’s Scrubbable!”

{Originally Published on Collecting Raindrops}

I was nine, living out the unfortunate fashion legacy of the 80′s, on any given day sporting Jams and jellies or leg warmers and Keds, and devouring Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret when no one was looking. I was ugly and I knew it, like an English Bulldog puppy. The kind of ugly that tugs at heartstrings and causes onlookers to want to scoop her up, fix her a cup of cocoa, swipe the smudges from her pink plastic glasses, and entertain her wild ideas.

A fair amount of my time was spent watching surgeries/procedures, studying oddities that my Dad retrieved from the stomachs of his equine patients, and exploring the barns and acreage around his veterinary clinic. I enjoyed the dual citizenship extended in childhood, dividing my days between reality and imaginary worlds that spun themselves into convincing, more entertaining versions of the truth with colorful landscapes and curious culinary creations.

I was an odd little girl, (which may be the most redundant phrase ever uttered, following the previous paragraphs.) I wrote myself into mystery stories. I concocted ridiculous diary entries that chronicled the life of a more ordinary and attractive girl. (If someone were to find that little diary, some day, which is hopefully decomposing nicely in a landfill somewhere in Oklahoma, they’d be bored to tears and think I lived a very different life…with platinum blond braids.) That was the year I decided on my career path: I would attend Harvard Law School followed by a brief, but spectacular stint as a lawyer before being appointed to a judgeship which would of course, lead me directly to my seat as Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. I was nine–where are the dizzy daydreams of riding unicorns over rainbows (both of which enjoyed popularity in the 80′s thanks to Rainbow Brite, The Care Bears, and Hippies having children) or wanting to be a Marine biologist and work at Sea World when I grew up?

My Mom and Dad encouraged this phantasmic life plan. I was really good at Memory so, you know, I was already qualified.

It never occurred to my adolescent self that I might not be the Chief Justice, or attend Harvard, for that matter. These things were guaranteed because in my other world, my imaginary world, I had already lived them.

My imaginary world was as easily accessible as my back yard. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that it started to crumble. Reality came crashing down and the pillars of my youth showed deep and unsettling cracks. I began to question everything. Pragmatism emerged as an important ally in the days after my Dad left and my Mother couldn’t stand up underneath the sadness that enveloped her. Dreaming, planning, writing, inventing, creating, were dismissed (by me) as childish and I no longer had the luxury of being a child. I locked the door to that world of dreams and tossed away the key.

{Originally published on Thursday Drive}

I was in the middle of nowhere, but I felt as though I had arrived at someplace important and pivotal. A place that should show on some map of my life with the words Go here.

Heavy and golden, the moonlight sank to earth on a parachute of stars and brought everything around me out of the shadows – the hulking shapes of mountains, open space, a black ribbon of road. Far away, the light of one house.

I stood in the middle of a road in northwestern Montana, shivering with the wind that ran through me like a hundred ghosts. I had stopped to get out, to look. No other car would pass by while I stood there. The night was big. The world was big. How many times had the wind that filled my lungs traveled along the curve of the earth? I breathed in, sure it told me secrets of what my life could be, how big it could be, now that it was all mine again.

Back home in Connecticut, my job waited for me and my husband did not. Our separation was new, no older than a month. With less fuss than it took to plan our wedding, we decided to break apart the marriage, each of us taking uneven halves of the whole, pieces that had never quite fit together and always left a space between two people who tried.

I settled into a new place and then took every vacation day and every bit of cash I could, and I drove – this time, from Connecticut to the western side of Montana, 5000 miles in 12 days. It was the middle of September – now, almost to the date. This time every year, I give myself over to nostalgia for that trip and for the person I was then. Brave. Unafraid to go as far as that, alone, to see something beautiful, to be changed.

And despite the disappointment of a marriage that ended, I still thought I could see ahead and predict the future, or shape it.

The joke was on me, of course. On her, on the person I was that night, eight months before I would learn that I was pregnant with my first child. Whatever I thought was brave or scary before hitched a ride to somewhere far away.

But she learned. You want scary? I told her. Having a baby is scary. Cobbling together a life with another person, with a new life between you, takes guts. Believing that it will all work out? Harder still.

{Originally published on Three by Sea}

This simple little sign hangs inside the armoire in my studio. And by studio, I mean the dining room that I’ve taken over as my studio! That same sentiment is also next to my computer and inside my notebook. I read it somewhere a few months back and it resonated within me. It reminded me that life is what you do, not what you plan. Sitting there pondering, and wondering, and thinking, and surfing the internet, and reading about things you would like to do is not the same as doing them.

Holly at Decor8 wrote a great blog post as part of her Creativity Series about “Analysis Paralysis”, whereby one is so overwhelmed with information that they are unable to make a decision. It seems to be a common affliction among creative types. Holly goes on to give advice for moving from inaction to action. The post is well worth reading. Having gone through this myself, I thought I talk about the things that help keep me from getting side-tracked during my journey of starting a business from home.

{Originally published on Velveteen Mind as Victor Vito}

Laurie Berkner’s song “Victor Vito” came on and I felt three seconds of pure happiness, and then I could not breathe. It was like the exhilaration of jumping into a wave, then realizing too late that it’s too high and too deep. Before you know it, you are going under. It felt like that wave.

No. More like a storm surge.

Two years ago this month, I was still unpacking boxes. We had been moved in for a month already, but I had been taking my time unpacking all of the decorations because I wanted everything to be just right. Although we didn’t plan to stay in this new beach apartment for long, it was going to be just the change of pace we needed while we looked for our new home. The home where we hoped to stay for years this time. In the meantime, let’s have some fun in the sun!

Pants’s room was done and it looked suitable for a Pottery Barn Kids catalog shoot, only for a really cool kid with some fantastically groovy stuff. After waiting over a year to bring in the ceramic giraffes inherited from my great-aunt (which I had admired since I was little), we had finally displayed them on the wall with the rest of his mish-mash of funky stuff and it couldn’t have looked cooler. So eclectic. So pulled together. So him.

The living room was coming together and I was so excited that I would sometimes just lie on the couch at night after Pants was in bed, turn off all the lights except for a warm lamp or two, and look around at our home. Everything was coming together. Everything just fit here, even if it was only temporary.

I don’t always tell people that the home we lost in Hurricane Katrina was an apartment we were renting. For some reason, they seem to sort of turn off when I tell them that. As though “oh, it was just a rental” means that it wasn’t a home. That our stuff wasn’t real.

Only the walls were rented. The home was ours…