Category Archives: Happiness

We Wait for Change…

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…when we should be agents of change. We wish for rescue when we should be out seeking ways to aid others. We huddle fearfully in the late summer, already conscious that the autumn ahead will lead inevitably to winter’s dormancy or killing frost, when what we could be doing is plotting the way to make use of the transition to position ourselves to take fuller advantage of the ripening and plenitude ahead.digital illustrationWe are, after all, only human. But the exemplary people of generations past have proved, and those of our own time are still showing, that as long as we exist to worry about them the ages and seasons, the events and goings-on do indeed go on, cycle and change, and that if we choose to do so—if we determine to do so and act on it—we can make the changes better and the growth so much the more meaningful and joyful. If we wait for change, it will happen, all right, but it will happen however and whenever the universe or others in it decide. Ours is the calling to engage in the world, no matter how intimidating it is, and move toward what we desire. It may seem like plowing on foot through chin-deep snow, but trusting that there’s a thaw ahead and behind it, renewal, we can stay the course.digital illustrationAt the other end of it is potential that surpasses even our fondest, wildest imaginings, if we dare to move instead of lying waiting.

It’s interesting to me that I wrote the foregoing portions of this post a few weeks ago and set it aside for this very date, not knowing that it would follow immediately on the heels of my publishing my first book, something I’ve longed to do for years but never had the nerve until now. Funny how we sometimes put things in motion without even realizing what we’ve done; it’s a saving grace of our race, I think. O happy day, when we stumble into our dreams because we kept seeking them despite all sense!

The News from Here

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My friends, I’m happy to announce that after many years of working toward it and blurting out to people all over the place that I was going to do so, I’ve finally published my first book. It’s on Amazon and can probably be purchased worldwide already, since my youngest sister, the one who lives in Norway, bought a copy earlier today. My first sale, for which I am of course immensely grateful. If you are interested in laying hands on a print copy of this collection of my art and poetry (aimed mostly at childlike grownups, but most of it will amuse clever children too, and hopefully even the occasional clever adult), please head over to amazon.com to purchase, and I’d be delighted if you’ll review it as well so that it will live higher in the Amazon promotional rotation than otherwise.

In any case, I feel a little like a proud parent, even knowing that my offspring will go forth and do ridiculous things once out of my sight, as all good children do.

I thank my regular readers and blog visitors and friends most deeply and sincerely for your gracious and constant encouragement, which along with that of my family gave me the courage and patience to make this first attempt. I should probably warn you that there are a number of follow-up books in the Sparks pipeline (some serious and many decidedly not) that will, if all goes well, make appearances at regular intervals after this. I will of course explore publishing my full-color work soon, but thought a taste of my longtime favorite style of working in black and white, mostly drawings, would be an appropriate way to make my debut. The cover is in color, if that helps.

book cover image

Miss Kitty’s Fabulous Emporium of Magical Thinking: Drawings & Other Artworks, Tall Tales and Weird Creatures (Volume 1) Paperback – January 25, 2014

Sparkling Repartee

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It’s my sister’s birthday again—not that she’s getting old at a ridiculous rate, but rather that I have three sisters, so their birthdays occur with a certain frequency, since we all have different birthdays despite people’s occasionally mistaking two or more of us for same-day siblings. While we are separated by gaps, there are enough commonalities in our selves and our looks, I suppose, that it’s not entirely shocking anyone might make such an assumption, but those who know us see the vast array of differences more sharply than the less informed might.

And that, my friends, that differentness, is a grand thing. I adore all three of my sisters and love that we have enough in common to be real friends as well as family to each other, but we are clearly the better for having our unique characteristics and points of view and experiences to further enrich our life in common. It’s those distinctions that keep us from being in any way interchangeable and certainly, from having nothing to talk about when we get the all-too-rare chance to visit. We’re all four fabulous, if you ask me!

Take Sister #3, for example, whose natal day we remember on this date (I’m second of the four). From when she was very small—and she was mighty tiny indeed—her fierce drive for perfection and her native and highly honed intellect awed me. She ‘gets’ things that I will never wrap my head around, things like mathematics and the myriad business-administrative powers that keep the machinery of life and work and family ticking along in ways that only happen to me by lucky accident. She is and was the athlete and outdoorswoman I could only dream of being, and her cookery and baking, frankly, kick my measly skills to the curb. And she’s beautiful, inside and out, even if as a typical sibling I didn’t always manage to remind her so as often as she deserves.

That’s all just for starters, but if I were to go on too far I’d sound like I was making her up out of fairy wings and dewdrops and cookie dough, so instead I shall just wish her a spectacular birthday and a year full of wonder and happiness, beginning to end and for many birthdays and years to come.
digital illustration from a photoSpirited Pleasure

Let us raise a crystal glass of Champagne Brut to toast the passing

Of the weeks and months, the years, to raise resounding shouts of “Cheers!”

We’ll ping the flutes “Salut! Cin Cin!“, tip up the stems and drink it in,

For nothing makes it taste so great as bubbly wine to celebrate

(Though if you care not for its pop, I recommend a Lemon Drop)!

Inverted Vortices & Puzzling Phenomena

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I realize that all of us living creatures are scientifically explainable up to a point. We are generally parts of the natural world and therefore part of what scientists study and attempt to suss out and, in some wonderful instances, they do manage to make great discoveries about just what we are and what makes us tick. But me, I don’t really get any of it.digital illustrationHow is it, for example, that I have all of the parts required for me to be athletic, and yet I have never become anything remotely like it despite any school-required or even occasionally, self-imposed, practices? I’ve seen incredible athleticism in people with far fewer obvious tools for the task, not to mention having a visibly smaller inventory of raw materials in the way of the commonly used senses—blind or hearing-impaired athletes, for example—or functional limbs: any Paralympic athlete could clearly trounce my trousers in a trice.

How come, with all of my commendable efforts at garnering a real school-based education and my various attempts as an autodidact, I’ve still got an ordinary intellect and not the mega brain I see in some who appear to have been born to create shade for my dim thoughts?

I say this not to complain but, surprisingly, because it impresses and even sometimes thrills me, this magical, miraculous existence that we have. It’s actually exciting to me to think that there is so much around me and about me that I can’t begin to explain or understand. It may drive me a little batty at times to realize, as I do increasingly with the passing of said time, how little I will or even can ever comprehend about who I am and how I fit into the universe, but then I catch one more glimpse of a star—human or celestial—and remember how fabulous, how inexplicably yet palpably rich, this life can be. And I am both humbled and exalted.digital illustration

Knock Down the Fortress

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photo

Battlements Better Breached

In the windows, down the rooftops, through the stonework of her walls,

All the shadows gone at midday, softly as an echo falls,

Whispered secrets came to haunt her, spoken like a jailer’s dream

Though the sun would flame and flourish and the loneliness extreme

Drove her near the brink of madness, still she boarded up her heart;

All the same, away with sadness! Every ending is the start

Of a different adventure—little did our lady know

That her fortress wouldn’t save her, with its brave protective show,

But when breached and doors thrown open, halls filled up with ringing song,

She’d be rescued by companions she’d been fearful of so long.

Hospitality and kindness, love and great companion friends

Altogether bring salvation: joy is where this story ends.

Fortissimo

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photoTime was when I had a record player, a car radio, and a portable radio that all got cranked up pretty loudly. I’m sure my parents and co-workers and friends might have thought I’d gone deaf from listening to my favorite stuff at top volume, and possibly, mad from thinking of doing such a thing with even the most subtle and silky classical music. I think perhaps I did deafen myself a little, but that more likely was [ahem] situational deafness, the kind that causes young persons to lose the ability to hear and understand their parents, co-workers and friends, never mind their bosses. Even at my most ridiculous, I don’t think I managed to blast my records and radio devices as loudly as many of my peers did theirs.

Here I am, antique as I’ve grown, and very glad indeed that after all of that I can still hear the subtle and silky pianissimos of great singers and players, and yet I still do love to get my socks knocked off from time to time. What can be more exciting and energizing than a loud yet magically tuneful phrase belted out by a skillful symphony chorale or fabulous gospel choir when the text demands such dynamics? I can sit in the back of the rehearsal hall and just plain hug myself for happiness when the whole group gets to that gorgeous blastissimo peak of the piece. I love to hear that pulsing, pounding joy when a pianist or organist puts the pedal to the proverbial and actual metal for the topmost moment of a blues riff, a prelude and fugue, a smashing concerto. If it peels back my scalp just a little, who am I to complain when the music is so potent! A few paltry hairs off my head are small sacrifice for the great pleasures of blessedly blasting music.photoAs long as it’s good, well executed, and thrilling, loudness is not such a bad thing. It might even drown out some of the sadder sounds of the day if we let it. Children who have not yet learned the meaning of the phrase ‘indoor voice’ can exhaust us, but at times in their own boisterous ways they can simply fill us up with welling gladness by chirping to test the sound of their own voices in a large empty space, by squealing with amazement at beauties we’ve forgotten to appreciate, by shouting our names too loudly because we are all the way across the room and they love us so. How can we not love, too, the sounds of finely honed music in all of its patterns and rhythms and tones when they spin into vortices of loud celebration!photo

Persimmon Persimmon Persimmon

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digital illustration

[To my readers who are better educated than I am : Please pardon my humble attempt at kanji. It’s well-intentioned!]

Some words are more delicious than others. It’s not simply that they represent something actually tasty, an edible something full of juice and jazz; the mere sound, even the thought, of these words just leaps up and dances and smacks you in the chops with irrepressible mirth.

I’m not terribly familiar with persimmons as food like those who grew up in its primary regions of growth, but Persimmon bounces as a word. I can’t really imagine a way in which that fruit could have much credibility as a subject for a tragic song, having such a sunny sound. Is it even possible to write a sad story about bananas, other than the gradual present decline of the world’s banana crops? Simply thinking the word Banana makes the corners of my mouth curve up in a silly parody of the fruit. It’s not hard to be Flabbergasted or Gobsmacked by any number of things in this day and age, but would I opt to describe myself with those words rather than Stunned or Mortified if I want a sympathetic audience? Could a pair of Galoshes or Gumboots with my Bumbershoot ever be as sober and somber as Wellingtons?

As anyone who writes with purpose knows, the choice of words is not always easy or obvious in crafting the proper atmosphere. But when the opportunity arises for play, why then there are a whole lovely mess of cantankerous and giggly, hyperbolic and incorrigible and snappy word delights just lying around in dusty corners waiting to be picked up and tickled back into action and it would be a pity to just say what is expected when we can chuckle out slobbery and salacious words that will startle readers right down to their anklebones. Great if I can feel a bit outlandish while thinking and writing it; better yet if someone reading what I wrote can garner a sense of the same otherworldliness too. Go ahead and bite.

Psychedelic Psanity (an Orison to Orange)

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digital illustration from a photoI’ve been known to be loud. I’ve worn bright colors, I’ve shouted, and I’ve been opinionated. Much of the time I’m more modest and even occasionally somewhat self-effacing, and more often than not I’d rather anyone else be the center of attention, but once in a while I do just let
‘er rip and enjoy the noise.

It’s possible that my sometime dislike of bright orange reflected my then predominant shy and introverted parts. When I was little and not yet worried about others’ opinions of me, I chose as my first self-selected garment a coat of the color in today’s illustration, and I wore it proudly and felt like a (miniature) queen in it. Now, ten years after beginning useful treatment for that nasty old anxiety-and-depression cocktail that had drizzled over me in the many subsequent years’ passing after that coat purchase, I appreciate bright orange again. But in that middle time I was a nervous and insecure type and orange was far too ebullient and exotic and full of uninhibited good cheer for me to even look upon it without a twinge.

You know what, though? ‘Orange’ and ‘twinge’ may end with the same sound, but they sure don’t rhyme, and I can’t think of much else they really have in common either, so why should I let the fact that I look awful in that color (never mind my generous childhood self-image) steer me away from delighting in the joy and sunshine that orange represents and just allowing that loud, reckless, gleeful color to shine all over me. Maybe even though I might not be able to be orange enough myself, I can reflect the joy and sunshine of orange a bit. Whee!

Know Thyself

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digital montageA Map of the Interior

What lives inside my busy brain is far from France, the hills of Spain,

the Rio Grande, or the coast of Ireland, and yet almost

each single time I step inside, I see my thoughts roam far and wide,

as though the moment they begin, they light a universe within,

a place nobody else can sense, and yet it’s palpable, immense

and potent as no state on earth; this is my place of greatest worth.

If in your mind you travel, too, I hope the countries that are You

are equally enchanting, wide, and vivid, and that there inside

you find as you grow older, more great places that you can explore—

and if in old age we forget all else, we’ll have one journey yet

to places fond not left behind, the inner reaches of the mind.

Not Just Another Pretty Face

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At some level, most of us—no matter how disdainfully we might pretend to look upon those Others who obsess over appearances—wish to be thought beautiful. We want to fit in with others, to belong in the pack, to be loved.photoOf course, we know that even those who do fit in do so if and as the hierarchy of the pack allows. We are put in our places and told who we are, where we belong, what we’re supposed to be doing, and why we should accept that fate as though it were a natural law. After all, we tend to believe that nature is fact-driven and therefore we, who are mere specks in its vastness, must play our little roles as prescribed in the absolutes of existence. We sit here and take it. In many ways, that’s a useful approach to life, because, well, nature does drive a lot of what is and what happens, and bucking that can be counterproductive or even quite dangerous. And worse, perhaps, such refusal to accept the norms others have agreed upon as right and correct and natural puts us on the fringes and at risk of rejection. Someone along the way is sure to reject the rebel or misfit. Someone will think I’m unfit or, yes, Ugly.photoIt’s a wonderful thing to remember that besides all of the weird and dangerous and unpleasant and otherwise negative possibilities in stepping outside of the normal and expected course of events or refusing to be other than myself in order to seem to fit in better where I really don’t, there are also a vast array of glorious and splendid maybes waiting out there for me to dare to reach for them. Much of what is good and beautifully new in the world happens because one person dared to think, do, and exist differently from the pack, the mass of ordinary people, and brought about an increment of change. How wonderful if I can shed my fears, my need for conformity borne of desire for universal acceptance, and become ever so slightly more notable, one little nth more dazzling, than I was when I was only hoping to be like all the other creatures that I knew.