Makers and Hope-ers
Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts"
Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Philosopher of the Everyday
Love this photo I recently came across of Iris Murdoch. I'm not sure what she is looking at but it feels like the kind of staring and contemplation that we should all be doing more of.
(check out the Philosophy by Postcard Project for lots of thoughts on Philosophy and its relationship to everyday living: https://www.philosophybypostcard.com. I was honored to be part of this project when it first launched a few years ago.)
A Definition of Beauty
“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness, like. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”
-John O’Donohue from his interview with Krista Tippett, On Being
On Letting Go
Mothermaker. Motherartist. Thinking a lot about motherhood and creativity these days. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Sometimes it looks like this: a toddler on the mend gets frustrated because Momma won’t give her a brush. And no she doesn’t want her own brush, she wants that brush.
Initially I felt frustrated. All I’m trying to do is just paint this background in order to not waste the Prussian blue gouache that I put out on my palette for a different painting, and which I didn’t get to use because she woke up unexpectedly. Hm.
Then I thought, this little tomato pincushion. It’s not a necessarily important painting. It just started out as a quick sketching exercise during a creativity session with Mia of Cloudwalkerstudio.
What would happen if I just let her help me paint the background? The worst that could happen is she doesn’t listen and haphazardly paints all over the page and covers up the sketch of my tomato and maybe gets some on our already stained couch. Ok, that seems fairly harmless.
And so I just let her help me. And she listened. And she tried to be careful. She let me help her dip the brush into the mason jar of water and into the glob of paint on the palette. And then she set paintbrush to paper. And I taught her that she was helping me paint the background. And she listened and also wanted her independence but it was good and an experiment and a TOTAL lesson in letting go during this process and not worrying about mistakes and not taking a piece so seriously and exploring.
Who knew an unexpectedly short nap would result in a moment of motherhood and artisthood (?) like this.
Have you had any unexpected mother/maker/artist moments? Share them below!
Frances’s Unfinished Alphabet Song
Happy Birthday to Russell Hoban, author of the Frances books.
from Bedtime for Frances, Frances’ unfinished alphabet song:
A is for apple pie,
B is for bear,
C is for crocodile combing his hair.
D is for dumplings,…
S is for sailboat,
T is for tiger,
U is for underwear down in the drier.
The Peace of Wild Things
The Peace of Wild Things
Written by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Cornelis Vreedenburgh, Fisherman On A Poldercanal
Mending Socks
Archibald J. Motley Jr., Mending Socks, 1924
