that's mrs. mediocrity to you

I am so honored to have my poem “make-believe” published in Stampington and Company’s gorgeous new magazine, Bella Grace: Life’s a Beautiful Adventure.

To launch this first issue, Stampington set up a blog hop, as a way to introduce some of the featured artists and also to offer you a chance to win your very own copy! It really is a gorgeous publication, more book than magazine, filled with beauty and grace and words from so many fabulous artists.

In addition to the free issue, I’m going to send the lucky winner your choice of any 8×10 print from my etsy shop, and a pair of silver earrings as well! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post before midnight on Wednesday, August 20th. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, August 21st.

Stampington will be updating the blog hop page daily, so be sure to hop over and check out the other artist’s posts for even more chances to win a copy of Bella Grace.

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an ordinary artist,

an ordinary life

The other day, I was painting outside… not art, but my house. Because it needed to be done and it was a perfect-painting-weather day and autumn will be here soon enough.

I was working away on the back entryway, repainting the door my dog insists on scratching when he wants in, and I heard a sound in the stones behind me (we have a pea gravel patio area). When I turned, I saw a very large toad hopping his way across the stones, heading right for the spot where I stood, like he was in a big hurry to get there. After he made it to the rectangle of sidewalk just outside the door, he stopped. And then, keeping one eye on me, slowly made his way over to the pair of sneakers my husband keeps tucked beneath a bench for when it’s lawn mowing time. I watched as my new friend climbed into one of the sneakers and settled in. Apparently, this is where he lives.

Later, as I was painting along, I had to move the bench and in doing so, scared Mr. Toad out of his hiding spot. Before I could stop him, he hopped inside the door I’d left open, and then hopped/fell his way down the basement stairs. And then I couldn’t find him. But two days later, just as I was throwing a load of wash into the dryer, there he was, hopping right up to me again, asking to be rescued. And so, Mr. Toad was set free.

This is my life.

And I am an artist.

When I was young, I thought being an artist somehow meant being special. Weird in a good way, extraordinary, or at the very least, different.

But I was young (and therefore somewhat foolish) and if there is one thing that life has taught me, it’s that I am just like everyone else. A perfectly ordinary woman living a tiny little life in a tiny little house.

If you met me at a party, you’d be quite bored. As an introvert, I’m not good at being charming or social, I don’t dress like an artist, I don’t look like an artist, I usually don’t even tell people I am an artist (unless, of course, they ask). I live in a small town in a very rural setting and my life centers around my family, nature and my garden, the seasons, my art. There’s no exciting city or cultural life going on here. In fact, most weeks, I leave my house 3 or 4 times total, and at least two of those excursions involve food shopping. I call myself a hermit as a joke, but the truth is, I’m pretty much a hermit.

Yet here I am, making my living as an artist. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy life, but somewhere along the way, ordinary magic found me–when I wasn’t even looking. I planted a garden and fell in love with the sky. My pencil found its way back to the page. My camera became a daily accessory. These days, I mark the passage of time by charting the seasons, and the friend I speak to most often is a mockingbird. (I could say it’s a cat, but I’m more inclined to call them family).

I spend my days making something from nothing, and there is no other word for that but magic.

A client needs a brochure, and from a jumble of words and thoughts and half-ideas comes the piece they pass on to their customers. I plant a tiny seed, and a few months later I have a flower. A pile of beads and silver becomes a lovely bracelet. A blank screen with a blinking cursor turns into a poem about love and life and supermarket flowers. A camera and a quiet moment become my latest favorite picture. A refrigerator filled with vegetables becomes the perfect pot of soup.

It’s all magic. It’s all so ordinary.

And it’s all art.

I sit outside when I can and listen to the world. Where I live, that means bird song and tractor sound, grasshopper whirs and wind in the poplars, hummingbird wings and toad feet on gravel.

But I am a busybody when it comes to art. There is never enough time and there are always words waiting to be written, weeds needing to be pulled, birds with new stories to tell. I do the best I can to strike a balance, but most days, I wouldn’t say I’ve succeeded. Most days, I work long hours on the work that pays the bills, and just a few on the work of my heart. But I always squeeze that time in, making it part of my daily existence, part of my ordinary, part of who I am. Art is what keeps me whole and centered and I have learned that, for me, there is no other way to be.

Art is life. Not some glamorous, mysterious pursuit. Nor some extraordinary gift. Not something to be kept in a box, only taken out on special occasions.

Art is the rain dripping from the tips of my favorite flower, the steam rising up from my first cup of tea, the pattern of my footsteps on this worn wooden floor. It’s washing dishes and making beds and painting scratched up doors. And it’s showing up, every day, to do the work. Again and again. The work of living.

Life is, indeed, a beautiful adventure. And ordinary magic is everywhere you turn.

In fact, some days it comes hopping right up to you and makes its home there, at your feet.

All you have to do is say, welcome.

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Don’t forget to comment below to enter to win!

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the water keeps fighting to get in
and i am out of buckets

not learning how to swim
feels like a mistake

now

too late for fixing
and too soon for proving

but already my feet are wet
and the water falls down the steps
with a lion-headed roar

the other day you brought sand bags
built me a fence
to keep the outside out
and the inside in

and that was love

these four walls
are my haven and my prison

and i paint them all pretty
coat them with pictures

but i’m always staring
out the windows

at the empty places

in the sky moon harbor
my hope sloshes home from

it’s cloudy today and the grey
washes in

floating past my knees
in a ribbon of revelation
on its way to almost forgotten

the hummingbird at my window
flies right through the rain
her wings turned to jewels
by habit

and the hollow fueled echo

of hunger

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beauty shines

through every

color

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.

.

.

light

.

flower

.

heart

.

vine

.

.

.

.

.

but look how it

repairs

.

.

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learning

how to bend

keeps you

growing

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The sky is angry again this morning and the dog tries to climb onto my chest as I lie in bed listening to hail hit the windows.

I know the back entryway will flood for the second time this week, just as I knew when I went to bed last night that I wouldn’t sleep for the third night in a row.

Everything in my house feels damp, including the sheets that wind themselves ’round my legs. It’s been one of those summers, but it seems they are all either too dry or too wet or too hot or too chilly. We want perfection from Mother Nature, and she simply refuses to live up to our standards. I love that about her.

Naughty Kitten went outside early, still-dark early, before the storm hit, and I don’t know where he found shelter. He has a secret life when he walks out the door, I don’t think he travels all that far, but he has hiding places I know nothing about, and I will let him keep it that way. He doesn’t mind getting wet in the rain, and he’s not really afraid of thunderstorms. I love that about him.

It’s the end of another July, a memorable one marked by marriage. That day the weather was perfect, and for that I am grateful.

Water runs and there is never any stopping it. If you try, it finds a new path, around you or over you or under you or through you. Just like life.

My garden keeps growing, my face keeps aging, my fingers keep typing.

The sky is black to the east, but I know the sun can’t hide forever. It’s always out there, shining, burning itself up and out with no concern for those requiring its warmth. I kind of love that, too.

Between the trees, the clouds have formed their own horizon, just beneath a mirage of ocean.

If I liked the water better, I’d pretend to find a boat. But my feet travel best on land, gripping stone and root and hard-packed soil, always climbing.

Today, I thirst for nothing.

Water drips off leaves, and just in that moment before letting go, I see the world I live in.

I see it again in the puddle at my feet, smiling back up at me.

In the distance, I hear more thunder.

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.

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is that truth is most beautiful when it’s honest

and it almost never is

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we bury the hard parts, hands scrabbling in hard rock soil

digging a space to place all the real bits

because we can’t bear to smell their lack of perfume

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my yard is littered with these mounds disguised as anthills

and sometimes when i go outside, i kick them

just to make ants scurry

.

how dare they make food of my truths

feeling so at home amongst the words

i have buried?

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i tunnel through these thoughts and recognize the folly

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everything i hold sits in my heart

beneath a layer of crimson glaze

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i prick my finger on the thorn of a flower

grown past its own revision

.

i let go

i let go

i let go

.

and ten drops of blood stain the thirsty dustbin soil

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i cover my tracks with the swipe of a heel

sucking sweets through my teeth

remembering the rhythm of unbroken

.

the sun finds my face and claims me

with the scorch

of yet

again

.

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.

.

after

holds all the bones

of

before

.

I am listening to silence (which is never quiet), I am listening to summer (pretending to be fall), I am listening to flowers bloom (a whispered symphony).

The sound of bare feet on wood floors, old floors, the kind that have enough character to creak.

Bird song that creeps beneath closed windows, a tea kettle whistling loudly, the hushed rush of clouds rolling by.

Everyone has all the answers.

I cover my ears, preferring my unwisdom, my empty bowl of questions. There are things I enjoy not knowing.

Where the tree frog sleeps at night. If dew is enough to quench a flower’s thirst. Why a book can break my heart, and still, I’ll keep reading.

The truth is, none of it matters. The truth is, my truth is always going to be different than yours, because universal doesn’t mean we have the same eyes. There are no perfect gardens. The all have bugs, unless you kill them with chemicals, and then that’s just a synthetic version of paradise.

By this time of year, it’s hard to find a plant in my garden that has no evidence of damage. Holes chewed by slugs, or grasshoppers, blooms made small and weak by pests that suck the life from their stems, leaves yellowed by lack of nutrient. This is life and we call it less than perfect, not-so-pretty.

We look away.

I use scissors to cut out the worst of the leaves, the dried brown blooms gone to seed.

Afterwards, I think the plants look awkward, fake, lopsided. They were happy to show us their bounty, their scars, their proof of life. Happy to be riddled with this evidence of time.

Life always makes its mark on you. If perfect is the only beauty you can see, you’ll always miss the map of scars leading you back to your heart.

I am listening to silence (which is never quiet). I hold out my wrinkled hand and brush dirt from yesterday’s cheek.

I am dirty, I am tattered, I am smiling.

And my lips are stained by berries.