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In Wilma Flintstone style, I sat at my kitchen table clipping coupons from a flyer that recently arrived in the mail. I couldn’t resist. I still love a good coupon! And did I mention they were made of paper? As I sat at my table clipping away, I was reminded of an earlier time in my life when I thought I was a big help by clipping coupons from the newspapers and magazines that came into our household. That was for my busy mother’s sake. For myself, I remember cutting out paper dolls and their paper wardrobes, proceeding ever so slowly and carefully, trying not to nip the tiny tabs that would hold the clothes to the paper doll. It was a task for which those babyfied, round-edged scissors would not do. Creating a wardrobe was a task more akin to surgery and required the slender blades and sharp tips of grown-up scissors. Patience and focus were as much of a requirement as the scissors. I held my breath and bit my lip as I turned the paper this way and that to get around all of the curves. When done, I exhaled and felt the intense satisfaction one gets from doing detailed work that requires complete concentration. Later, psychologists would study that state I was in and call it flow. These reflections on paper cutting caused me to think of a man I once knew. He was coming to the end of his life and was receiving home hospice care. While he could still move about his home, he didn’t have much energy for getting out of the house. One of the things he still enjoyed was sitting on his beautiful screened-in back porch with a stack of newspapers and flyers and clipping the coupons. Family members, neighbors and friends would bring their flyers and newspapers to the man, and he would clip the coupons and organize them for everyone. He felt useful and it made him happy, but the happiness was not just about being useful, it was also about the joy that detailed, attentive work can bring. And what could be more satisfying for a man who was running out of time than to have those hours each day when time stood still? The famous French artist Henri Matisse understood this long before psychologists began to study flow. He was a visual artist best known as a painter throughout most of his career. He died in 1954, but in the last ten years of his life, Matisse found himself between a rock and hard place. With vision fading and diagnosed with an abdominal cancer that left him bedridden and reliant upon a wheelchair, Matisse could no longer paint and sculpt as he had throughout his career. And so, he picked up a pair of scissors and got to work cutting paper. While many of us spend the last years of our lives thinking about what we can cut out, Matisse gave the words “cut-out” new meaning. He spent his last decade busy painting with scissors and continued to create beautiful and lasting works of art. So, if you are feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place, grab some scissors and some paper and go with the flow! Maybe coupon clipping will be the next great movement in art! Who knows? I may run into you when our works go on display at The Guggenheim. (And I promise not to run with scissors!)
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For the past three days I have been living in paradise. Apparently, I was transported while I slept.
After the craziest winter weather that I can recall from recent years, ideal conditions blew in on a refreshing breeze. The weather has been so divine that it makes it possible to forget about everything else, and it has been better than a beach vacation—no packing and no flight delays. It is all comfort and joy. Perhaps it is not just the political climate that has gotten us all down. Maybe there has been an epidemic of meteoropathy, the physical, mental and emotional symptoms that emerge with changes in the weather. Temperature, humidity, sunlight, darkness, fog, precipitation can all influence our moods, our energy levels, our stress levels, and our intellectual functioning. We can experience weather-related irritability, migraines, insomnia, stress, anxiety, depression, and most familiar of all to us older folks—aches and pains. I never knew I had the condition, but with the boost in memory, mood, attention, energy, and optimism that I have been feeling these last few days, I have to wonder. It has left me feeling more compassion for Mother Nature who must be suffering a sort of chemically-induced menopause brought on by climate change—all those ups and downs in temperature, the burning hot flashes… Long before doctors, neuroscientists and mental health professionals diagnosed seasonal disorders the English language was full of behavioral descriptors based on the weather. I have been known to blow hot and cold depending on the circumstances and to brighten up--again, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes things are clear as a bell, and I am traveling on cloud nine. Other times things cloud my judgment and I can be as cold as ice. These cold snaps can be followed by dry spells especially when blown off by fair-weather friends who sometimes freeze me out. When I am more optimistic, I can have my head in the clouds and life’s a breeze, but lightning fast, someone can knock the wind out of me. Sometimes I am so busy that I have to give you a rain check, and sometimes life rains on my parade leading to rainy day blues. Those are the times when I search for a ray of sunshine. I have been known to skate on thin ice, and that’s usually when troubles begin to snowball until I am snowed under. I’ve noticed that people don’t like it when you steal their thunder. They are likely to storm out on you, but that might just be their stormy personalities. They like to take the world by storm and throw caution to the wind. Sometimes they throw shade while doing it. On those occasions when I am under the weather or weathering the storms, I think I might like to move to Sesame Street where they really know what people need. On Sesame Street they chase the clouds away, and it’s always a sunny day. Soooooo, while we’ve got the ideal conditions, come on out and play! I am stuck on paper.
Research tells me that there are four types of paper: cardboard, sheet, book, and newspaper. Check Check. Check. And check. Yes, I love them all. And this is no fling. I said “I do” to paper a long time ago. No amount of sleek, sexy technology can seduce me or make me untrue to my ply. We have a lot of history together. Perhaps a childhood filled with dollar bills tucked inside birthday cards, coloring books, paper dolls, comic strips, crepe paper party streamers, Nancy Drew mysteries, and letters to Santa solidified my love of paper. It was paper tissues that saved me from carrying a damp, snotty handkerchief around in my pocket in grade school. And I don’t even want to think about life before 1930, before splinter-free toilet paper on a roll became widely available to households. Bottoms up to that! Save for facial tissues and toilet paper, most paper has an extended life if not a resurrection in my household. Even those paper towels that come with the perforated strips; I cut those parts in half and quadruple the life of a full paper towel. I repurpose every bit of paper that I can, cutting it into smaller pieces for lists and notes to myself, for book marks, and to keep the leg of the end table from rocking ever so slightly. Any bit that I can’t reuse goes to recycling. And I can find my way out of a paper bag, thank you very much! Give me a bag with a sturdy handle, and I call that a suitcase. A good sturdy paper bag can be cut, re-shaped and re-used for many purposes from Halloween costumes to Easter baskets to mailers. And who can’t find a million uses for a cardboard box! I have one tall one that once housed an air cleaner. I’ve been using that box for years as an extra laundry hamper in the spare bedroom closet. Sure comes in handy for sorting on laundry day. I find that writing on paper by hand is good for my mind. I remember things better when I put them in writing. Or at least I remember that I wrote something down. What was that? Oh, yes! And I love the power of putting pencil or pen to paper, feeling my hand move up and down and across, folding paper and fitting it into tight envelopes. I admire beautiful stationary and funny or inspirational cards with colorful envelopes and interesting stamps. And give me a note delivered by the old-fashioned postal service! You’ve got mail is another way to say you are loved. Most useful of all is a good handwritten list with scribbles and slashes. I’m getting things done! Just the act of creating the list generates energy and momentum. Few things are more satisfying than crossing off items on a to-do list which is why I usually start the list with something I’ve already done. Check! I am already a winner by the time the ink dries. I refer to my handwritten list in the grocery store even as the younger folks consult their phones, and I ask myself, what kind of preparation is that? Can these be serious shoppers or are they watching Tik Tok videos? Have they properly agonized over their lists, searched their cupboards for items in need of restocking? Planned their menus? Have they really asked each family member: Need anything? In a busy household what else is a refrigerator door for than a running grocery list? And speaking of the grocery store, I do get a little emotional in the meat department looking at all of that Styrofoam and plastic wrap, remembering the old days in my grandparents’ grocery store when meat was wrapped in butcher paper and tied with string. I admit that I am prejudiced. I am suspicious of anyone with a clean desktop who never heard of a paperclip. They are often the ones who try to enlighten me with “save the trees,” but data centers are a worry too. We can plant more trees, but I don’t think we can undo the damage being done to our earth by data centers or the damage being done to our minds and relationships by technology. When I die, lay me down into the earth wrapped in recycled newspaper and mail a note to my children. Looking for a chance to stick it to the oligarchs? Saturday, April 25th is the 13th Annual Independent Bookstore Day. And April 13th was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson that champion of American independence and a reader who said: “I cannot live in a world without books.” I’m with him! I know that I cannot live in a world without books or a country without independence. And I know I do not want to live in a world without the spirit of community that small shops and local businesses create. Find your local independent bookstores and make a visit. And while you’re at it, maybe stop in a locally owned coffee shop or café. Greet the shop owners and thank them for the contribution they make to our lives and to our world. Chat with some of the other patrons and booklovers. Many of us are feeling frustrated if not helpless with the state of the country and the world. Here is a chance to joyfully engage, to take back some of the things that belongs to all of us—independence and community. Don’t let the wealthy oligarchs make us strangers to each other. Times are tough. If you can’t afford to buy a book or some of the other charming merchandise on display, show up anyway and look around. Your effort and your presence say that independence and community matter. Books and the arts matter. Words matter. Consumers have power if we take it. See you at the revolution. See you at the bookstore! The world seems to be falling apart before my eyes, a whirlwind of careless decisions, a twister of thoughtless bravado taking lives, taking our way of life. My heart aches. Some days I feel like I can’t go on. What will be left for the future? The mother in me mourns for my children. I know I am not the only mother worried. Mother Nature seems ambivalent too. In a single day, she shifts: the temperature is 75 degrees in the afternoon, 17 degrees when night falls; sunshine turns to frost with snow to my knees by morning. In the transition a strong wind wails and rattles my windows, Mother Nature weeping, perhaps. My therapy had been regular walks along a shared use path near my home, but on too many days the weather got the upper hand and I lounged at home instead of exercising. But yesterday I said “enough!” And I set out for a walk along my usual path. Deconditioned from the long, unpredictable winter, I immediately began negotiating with myself for a shorter walk. With every step, I chose a new turn-around-for-home spot, yet a part of me continued to ache for my old self, for that familiar strength and vigor, and, so, that old self kept arguing with the weary, deconditioned one: Turn back. Just to the next intersection. Stop here…and so it continued. It was not the pleasant, mindful walk of my yesterdays. Normally, when times and weather were normal that is, I would take two laps around the giant commercial parking lot at the end of the path. Yesterday, I thought about avoiding the lot altogether, but the negotiations picked up: maybe ONE lap. As I got halfway around, I turned into a smaller sub-lot next to the outdoor exercise area for employees. There I noticed tree branches and twigs sprayed all over the grass and pushed to the edges of the lot by the strong winds. They had come to a stop in a heap along the asphalt curb. In one of the short piles my eyes came to rest on a piece of a branch. It was broken, about two inches long, stripped of its graying bark. What was left was a beautiful stub in a rich burnt sienna, one of my favorite colors in the Crayola box. I picked it up. It was as light as a Styrofoam pellet and as soft as my grandmother’s cheek. There was something about the color and the softness and the strength of this broken piece that I could not part with it, and so I put into my pocket. My fingers rubbed against it as I made the second lap and returned to my home. Mission accomplished. I was back! Back to walking, back to myself. I placed the small piece of the broken tree branch on my desk where I continued to study it. I leave it there now in plain sight to remind me that there can be beauty even in a debris field; things can break and still be strong. Just a piece can still serve us, still feed our inner hungers. “Hang on wherever you land,” the broken but strong and beautiful piece tells me. Someone will find you. You will find each other. One lap or two? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we just keep trying. From time to time there is discussion about ending the filibuster, a procedure in which a member of the legislature prolongs debate in order to delay or prevent a vote on a bill. There is a long history of its use. Eliminating the filibuster has been in the news repeatedly the last three presidential terms, but no one has been able to obtain enough votes to end the use of the tactic. So, it continues. Basically, our elected officials talk us to death and nothing gets done. Currently, Trump is demanding the Senate eliminate the legislative filibuster because of the unwillingness among Democrats and some Republicans to accept the Republican funding bill (also known as The One Big Beautiful Bill Act or OBBBA) and end the current shutdown that has led to, among other things, the absence of TSA workers at airports in the United States. According to a PBS News report, the filibuster, at its best, “encourages compromise and deal making.” Well, America, have I got a deal for you! I call it the Feel-It-Buster! And it is sure to drain the swamp like never before and get America working for the people again. Here are a few provisions:
If the majority of the American people are at risk of becoming cave dwelling, food scrounging nomads who can’t afford gas much less wheels, at risk of dying from preventable diseases with no health care, then I agree, we should have a long talk on the Senate floor. Bring on the Feel-It-Buster! Yabba-dabba-doo! Night time sharpens, Heightens each sensation Darkness stirs and wakes imagination Silently the senses Abandon their defenses… … listen to the music of the night (Music of the Night, Lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe) Yesterday, the harsh winter gave an inch, and spring took a mile. Overnight, we went from the depths of winter to late spring. The temperature rose by 42 degrees! Folks were out and about in their shorts and tank tops. Where the bike path had been desolate, it was now teeming with joggers, walkers, bikers, and dogs on long leashes. Everyone was smiling. Even the dogs.
It was so good to be back outdoors, and to be free of coats and hats, boots and gloves. After a day outdoors, I found myself tiring early, and I headed to bed about 9:00 PM with the windows wide open. Despite my fatigue, I lay awake in bed for hours, the air alive with sounds, sounds that a winter night keeps to itself behind the cloak of darkness, closed windows, and insulating snow. I lay in my bed, listening to the quiet, whispered song of the ceiling fan circling overhead. Occasionally, the long silver chain jingled on the twirling air like a choir of tiny bells. A long train rumbled in the distance like a thundering bass drum. The building shook like a giant morocco. The train’s air horn accentuated the beat with a mighty vibrato. Cars whooshed down the four-lane highway at the end of my drive, nylon brushes against brass cymbals. Sirens screamed in the near-distance like blares from a horn while a helicopter hovered overhead with the steady chop-chop of its propeller. A soft breeze kept the mini blinds tapping a steady beat against the window frame. The night was a dark theater. The phantom of summer had returned. I listened in awe-filled silence as I welcomed back the music of the night! |
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May 2026
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