I paint to make people smile, at least a little bit on the inside. Smiles are contagious! When you smile, it makes me smile. It’s the same with laughter. Don’t believe me? This happened…
“When There’s Laughter”
Diana Ross sang “if there’s a cure for this, I don’t want it. Don’t want it. If there’s a remedy, I’ll run from it… I don’t want it”. Me either. All I want is to SOL (Smile Out Loud). I hope you hear this 🙂
Whew, 2023. If you’re reading this, then you made it! We made it. Be proud🙏💕
Tonight I stayed home. I’m at an age, where I’m too old to go out clubbing & too young to be in bed before Midnight, so here I am.
Truth is, I’m excited about 2023! And yes, I’m going to be sharing my upcoming projects, my travel plans & I’m going to make work. I’m going to make lots of work. I’m going to sell work & make donations. Because that’s the right thing to do.
And I’m going to make it all look exceedingly easy, so little girls might see me & try, because after a pandemic, isn’t that the whole point?
Sometimes, I wonder how different the world will be when women run things. I’m looking forward to less violence.
I like sports, but I wonder what if boxing wasn’t on TV?
I understand that it’s our very nature, that being human makes us hunters and gatherers, that is who we are at our base level. That is, we naturally look to fit in, search for a tribe (team) so that we can cheer for something outside of ourselves. We understand that, because we think.
But what if domestic violence is in some small way connected to what’s projected onto tv screens, and in a sense it’s being promoted in our homes.
What if, what happens on the grid iron and in the ring was left in the ring, and out on the field?
Sometimes, I wonder how different the world will be when women run things. I’m looking forward to less violence.
I’m thinking about @staceyabrams right now. I’m thinking how she went up against a political machine that’s hundreds of years old- it’s cracked, it’s stale and it’s rusty. But as weak as it may sound, it’s also a solid mass that’s become stuck onto itself, it’s unable or unwilling to budge.
Rest assured she loosened the gears though. Through her hard work and determination, that acted like a degreaser or oil. In time, the old machinations will break down and we can give thanks to her🙏
There’s a celebration going on somewhere, because someone is feeling good about life.
It doesn’t seem to last forever. But in between texting, playing basketball and making work there’s a steady beat that keeps us going. In between the newspaper pages, the endless emails & streaming apps, there’s always a steady beat inside all of us.
Sadly, we don’t always stop to listen or acknowledge it, but we should. Or worse, sometimes we wait until something bad happens, or we don’t feel well and then we rush to check-in… but a stethoscope isn’t the same as a pause button. Is it?
I was just thinking, how we don’t have to download updates to keep our hearts beating. And that’s a good thing, because we’d probably be late or forget. It just keeps beating, almost effortlessly.
If you’re reading this post, then pause for celebration, you’re alive!
For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer. I didn’t have a clear path to that end, there always seemed to be something that I needed to do first.
For instance, I needed to go to college. No one in my family had ever been, and I needed to change that, so I went to Minnesota, where no one knew me and where Winter used icicles to hug tree branches, like an older brother throwing his arm across his younger sister’s shoulder.
I was a sophomore the year I was called into Harriet Sheridan’s office, once the Dean of Students, and on that day, the interim Dean of the College.
She was sitting behind a big desk, she smiled politely and gestured for me to take a seat. After some general niceties, she asked me what I wanted to get out of college. And I replied matter of fact, a degree. She chuckled and said that she had been reading some of my college papers. I must’ve looked worried, because she then opened a folder and said they were quite good.
From where I was sitting, I could see comments written in red ink along the paper’s border. She asked me the same question , differently. “What do you want to be?”
Excitedly, I told her I wanted to become a writer. Then you must leave college she said. I was devastated, what kind of advice is that to give to a college student?
I fought back tears. She explained that I had real talent, and that if I stayed, the talent I was showing would be stifled. That there was different ways of writing, and that my writing talent couldn’t be taught at a school and that college isn’t for everyone.
Years later, I found out that she became a very important professor at Brown University, she even has a building named after her, I might have to get one named after me too 😉
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