If I were a Baobab,
I’d be raucous and loud, and filled with song.
My veins would be rivers blue, and deep enough
to water the world.
My heart would be an all-hours reservoir;
my lungs exhaling oxygen and
life
in joyous bursts;
my arms
aflame with love.
And I think …
that yes, I can be this Baobab.
Mosaic Art and Poetry by Pam Goode
27″H x 21″W
Have you ever had a really good day turn into a really, really bad day in an instant? I’m not talking about Alexander his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We all have those. Not fun, but they pass, and sometimes with cake involved.
I’m thinking about the pain of those we love. Those who mean the world to us, who take care of us from birth to death, from first glance to last, those who explain how the world works and tell you daily how much you mean to them, those who cherish your every glance, every grin, every messy floor, even when you’re sulky.
Sulky is hard, and harder some days than others. But the hardest is loss.
We all have to deal with it from time to time, but it never gets easier, does it? The only thing that makes us feel better is memory, and memory can fill your soul again and again and again.
So fill me up, Buttercup. We need to spread some extra love today.
Somebody needs us.
What else are we here for?
Photo by Pam Goode
And so it goes. Twenty-one days of beauty, bliss, fascination, sandy toes, storms, old friends, new friends, deep thoughts, waves, madly endless talks, creating, writing, wonder, books, poetry, deep sleeps, love, hugs, love, hugs, more love and more hugs. See you next year.
Some days
I am roundly pleased
to fancy my
self
a poet.
Other days
I open my
eyes
and see
that I am
only
the
typist.
A young man came into the gallery one day and, like many, stood with his mouth agape staring at the art on the walls. “What is this?” he asked. “It’s a mosaic,” I answered with a smile. “Well, how do you make it? Where do you get all these little pieces of glass?” “We cut them,” I said with a little glow.” “Cut them? You mean you have to cut every one of these pieces?” “Yes,” I said. “Every piece.” “Oh man,” he said,” he said. “Why would anyone do this? There’s got to be a way to streamline this process. Somebody needs to sell the glass already cut. Doesn’t anyone sell pre-cut glass?” “Well, possibly,” I said, ‘but then I wouldn’t be interested.”
And there you have the answer in a nutshell. I make art because it’s hard.
During the classes I teach, new students will often take on a familiar stricken look when they first start cutting. I tell them to relax and cut for the pleasure of exploration — that making mosaics means learning to love the process. And the process is hard.
Some might say I like a hard life in general. I’m a good one for trudging through the minutiae of a situation, considering every possibility, and then selecting the most time- and soul-consuming avenue. To me, this simply equates to actually living my life rather than just going through the motions. It’s the same way with cooking, planning, selecting (and decorating) a Christmas tree, traveling, thinking, loving, and art. Either I do it to the max, or I don’t do it at all. Otherwise, what have I gained? What have I given?
One of my favorite quotes is from the movie “A League of Their Own,” when Gina Davis admits that something is hard. Tom Hanks says “Of course it’s hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The Hard is what makes it Good.”
He’s so right.
It’s a funny thing about “easy.” There are many things I do because they’re “easy” for me, like sorting or folding laundry or unloading the dishwasher or writing a press release — I can have them done in the time it takes to think “oh — I should do this.” Accomplishment is a powerful feed-good, and we can rack up way more of the easies than the hards. But does that make them good? Well, no. None of my easies will ever make it to my Very Favorite Things list.
But give me something hard: determining and creating the ideal ratio of perfect cuts to “human touch” in art, cooking the (very) occasional meal that takes alllllll day, raising a child, or growing the balls to be my fullest self, and I’m all over it.
So yeah. I love mosaic because it’s damn hard. I think we all need to love and engage in something that tests us, that pushes us flat up against the wall and says, “Do your best. Now.”
It’s my favorite part of life.
Gotta say there’s NOTHING like visiting my sister, shepherdess extraordinaire. She decided a few years ago to buy a sheep or two and off she went — building hutches, fences and water troughs, scratching limbs, studying every conceivable aspect of shepherding, scheduling and completing regular health and med checks, naming each one in a thoughtful manner (take a look at Crosby and Nash!), keeping the hay stocked and whatever else livestock require, AND growing her own veggies.
And yes, she’s up to 35 sheep now.
Mind you I can do none of these things, and by none, I mean not even the tiniest smithereen of sheep care. I am, however, great at giving each one a big smile multiple times daily. I think they like it.
NOTE: We have no prejudice toward the color of any sheep or person shown in this collection. We do, however, have sweet memories of the song. You’ll notice that our sheep come in delightfully assorted colors.
As a girl with a mirror, I never saw myself as ugly, despite my stubbornly cow-licked hair. I was short-ish and thin, with dark hair and darker eyes that could see to China and back. Out with my mother as a child or with friends in high school, I could feel eyes on me despite my shyness and disdain for beauty products. I had only a handful of photographs from those days, but it was enough. I knew my mirror well then, not because I was vain, but because I needed to see who was behind those eyes — where she came from, what she thought, where she would go. She didn’t spill any of the answers, but I had a passable understanding of her from year to year.
Coming to know who you are is a very personal journey. I’ve never been comfortable on the lens end of a camera, and early photos illustrate that all too well. So while I pulled at non-compliant hair and did my best to fit in, I was invariably the awkward girl in any photograph. And a photograph, no matter how random, how good, how bad, how bland or how earth shattering, changes the way you see yourself, does it not? Even if I could have convinced my brain that I don’t really look like that, or at least not all the time, it’s quite clear that this is the face I show to the world more often than not. But we are never just an awkward face.
My mom hated having her picture taken, and solved the issue by grimacing garishly and sticking her tongue out for every click of the button. It was a pretty effective way to erase the possibility that maybe this was her real face, her real soul, being shown. And why? She was beautiful.
It made me sad.
Thirty years later, I received an unexpected package from a very-long-ago boyfriend that held a cd filled with images he had captured in college. Back in the 70’s when few of us had cameras and even fewer had good ones, he was rarely without his Ricoh. To this day, he remains the only person, outside of my children, who could capture an image that showed my soul, simply because somewhere among those 1,095 days we spent together, I finally relaxed in front of the ever-present lens and let it see me.
And in a flash I was given the ability to see the girl I was, the girl I am, rather than the girl I’d been carrying around for decades. It made me happy.
Imagination / Perception / Memory: They live on in us regardless of how closely they match the actuality, don’t they?
Is there a purpose in waiting? I feel a bit like it’s a vigil, which makes sense. I know it will mean a bevy of time, a tsunami of pain, a gasping of fear.
I can do that.
What it doesn’t require is my personal presence, but most definitely my spiritual presence.
And I can do that.
What it doesn’t promise is a requested outcome, allowing only my prayers.
What is does promise is waiting. I don’t mind waiting, and yet I hate it. Or maybe I don’t hate waiting, but I hate the reason.
Some reasons are joyous. Some, uncertain. Others, life changing.
And the time it takes to receive an answer of “yes, it’s this, and it will be okay. Probably” is both momentary and lifelong.
And the time it takes to receive an answer of “yes, it’s this, and I’m sorry,” is also both momentary and a lifetime.
Lifetime. Lifelong.
I’m not sure I like those words anymore.
I like the word forever. And ever and ever and evermore.
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Love to All
“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.”
(Quote by Bill Watterson)
Today I was totally prepped for a great day. My husband has been on the other side of the continent for a week, and he flies home tonight. I’m wearing my Happy Clothes, saved for special days. The house is clean. Ish. I’ve amassed a neatly folded give-away pile with oooooooodles of my favorite (too small) outfits, we’re deep in the dregs of summer, which means we’ll soon be cooler (right?), I’m on break from cleaning the attic (self-imposed), and the garden flowers are joyously blooming despite daily basking in the bowels of hell.
But then — who knows, but something clicked — or unclicked, and hell threw open that door. And I’d say I haven’t been able to shake this Very Bad Day, but the truth is that I’m just not ready. Because you have to be real. You have to walk through these things rather than around. Otherwise they never go away, and just bury themselves in your psyche instead.
So I looked up Bad Day quotes. And honestly, they totally sucked except for Hobbes and Bill, so I made my own.
Snark: an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
Blech. I really, really don’t like snarky people. We all have so much goodness deep in our hearts — why waste it on the opportunity to hurt someone?
And I guess that’s the extent of it. I haven’t been shot or robbed or suffered a great loss. I have endless happy choices at my fingertips. But today, I guess what I really am is sad.
And I am. I’m really, really sad.
Footnote: Hobbes, named for philosopher Thomas Hobbes, is Calvin’s stuffed tiger and best friend.
Ohhhhhh how I wish I could capture the expressions (and conversation) of the two sitting next to me. I can’t hear either of them, but sometimes the expressions are more than enough.
They’re both young, but that’s as far as similarity goes. I’d say that they’re having a conversation, but he’s the only one talking. He speaks with a firm gaze as though he knows what he needs, and she quietly considers him as if he’s an ass and doesn’t know how to converse. He’s got one arm outstretched and one hand partially raised, as if she just isn’t smart enough to understand his reasoning.
She laughs slightly, but not in the way he thinks she’s laughing.
She’s wearing a cute outfit and and cool white shoes. He’s in flip flops — rarely a good sign.
Her legs are crossed and so are her arms — rather tightly — around the bag in her lap. She knows he’s trouble, and not the good kind.
Her hair is cute — free and wispy. His is tight and sits above a bit of beard. He could be cool, but he’s holding too much anger and even more superiority. He speaks low because he doesn’t want anyone to hear — or worse — to step in — which would certainly throw a wrench into the way he sees himself.
How many times can I look over at him safely? How many times can she?
He wipes down the table. She reaches out to put her hand on his and it moves while he moves, still wiping. He doesn’t look at her.
He stands abruptly and walks to the trashcan. She takes a swig of her frappucino, turns, and follows him.
I wish she hadn’t.
Pam Goode Writes 