REAL LIFE

Rabbit Rabbit, almost May, welcome to this episode of “Real Life.” Don’t let the title scare you!! Let the MUSICA do it!😢


The question posed to me over and over again this April: Responsibility. What is it and why do we have it? I think if you have children, the minute they are born, responsibility kicks in for a lifetime. I don’t know, because I don’t have children and so that ultimate responsibility was never mine. Looking back, I think for the most part I got to pick and choose my responsibilities😸, they didn’t land on me like care of children must inevitably do. Children help you notice the years are going by. I forgot to do that. But sooner or later, life tells you you better take responsibility or you’ll be in trouble. Warning lights show up whether we like it or not. That’s when life decisions can no longer be ignored, you find yourself adding up numbers, weighing pros and cons, living in denial as much as possible, suddenly seeing your surroundings in a way you never noticed before, writing a will🤪, and PLANNING for something you have no idea what it is, or when, or how, or even why, because you’re secretly only 23, and very busy, and you don’t DO responsibility. But for some unfathomable reason, to fit into rules not of my making, we’re being forced into it. I would prefer to do TODAY, exactly what I did YESTERDAY, forever. Operative word is forever. Where is my dad when I need him, he had all the answers! So ’round and ’round we go, listing pros and cons, meditating on it, clarifying options, and getting a handle on consequences (guessing, because who knows), debating with myself, debating with Joe, seeing truth but fighting the impulse to lie to myself (I know, that always works🙄), crying while out on our walk ~ and then, back home, my eyes fall on the little stove on top of my big stove, something with zero PRACTICAL value besides cuteness, and I think well, if we have to go, I’m taking that.🤜🤛Still hard to say … But in a nutshell, Joe and I have decided for our old age, it’s best we move to our house in California and sell our house on the island. So many reasons, but number one is the one most of us have to wrestle with, our financial situation … this big old house requires constant maintenance, and if we sell it we will have enough money to ensure our security in the future. All the back and forth, all the worry comes down to that. Now that we’ve finally accepted it, we’re trying to take it one day at a time. We’re in good health, and once it’s all done, if we live through it, we’ll see where we are and what our future holds. I’m sad, but excited too. Change like this brings both losses and gains. Living in this big old house has been the BEST thirty-five years! A dream come true, a miracle. And when we go? We take our memories and go to MORE Beauty!!! Don’t be sad for us, it’s life, the beautiful, wonderful, mystery of right thing at right time. I guess we always knew this day would come. We’ve decided to love each other through it.💞 I’m drinking tea from my Blessed cup this morning.💖

I think back on the years I’ve been writing Willards (LOOK on the right of this page, scroll down to ARCHIVES!)  … put all that writing together and it’s a diary! The longest memoir in the history of womankind! You’ve been with me through it all, and often going through just exactly the same thing at the same time! And now, this. I know we aren’t alone. You know I’ve been homesick all my life … when I’m in California, I want to be on the Island… when I’m on the Island, I miss California. So actually, nothing changes, the homesickness continues.💝 As my mom would say, “so spoiled.” It’s all those fairy tale books I read, not my fault.Just like everyone else, we didn’t know how to do this. And just like everyone else, we’ve had to make it up, CREATE it. We needed all the help we could get, so I Googled, “Biggest mistakes made when retiring” (in so many words, even if you’re NOT retiring!). “Get ready,” they all said, “you will be old someday, get yourself organized.” Heard it for years, didn’t do it. But hearing it so often, you have to (⬅️😱) believe it. We had to figure out what is going to be best for us in the long run. There are helpful studies online that result from questioning people who’ve been through it. Safety was big. Which means, no narrow, steep, ship-like stairs like these built in 1849 by a whaling captain. One-floor living is a requirement. Climate is also important, tying in to safety: Snow is heavy, ice is slippery, don’t get near it. Healthcare and senior services: You should not have to get on a ferry to get that because what happens if the ferries don’t run? Money: cut expenses so you don’t accidentally run out. This was the big one (and the tipping point) for us: no giant old “money-pit” houses (as our accountant referred to our house) that require constant care, where heating costs as much as a house payment, and chores require getting on ladders. And the number one biggest mistake people make, they say, is waiting too long. Grrrr.😲

“So far life had just happened to me. I had to figure out a way to happen to it.” 💖 me

I wrote those words in my memoir “Martha’s Vineyard Isle of Dreams.” I have never liked it when life happened to me, I have always wanted to feel as if I’m making a choice, and if it’s wrong, then I only have me to blame. And although our financial situation limits your average zillionaire’s full-range of choices, I can still choose some things. For instance, I can choose how I’m going to look at this. I could either up my anxiety medicine, or choose joy. I choose joy. I choose the Pollyanna Glad Game that’s gotten me through life since I was 8 years old. I choose to find the good, go forward positively and follow my dreams, we are NOT going to be destitute. And I’m not done yet, but that doesn’t matter, they say, you must prepare yourself. So I walk around with all this in my head, and there, all spread out on the kitchen table where Joe has left it for me, is the newspaper.

And look what it says! The unstoppables! All in their 80s and 90s, lucky to have good health, and they still work because they love it. I imagine they are all have lots of help around them, they probably have children and grandchildren, money is likely not a problem ~ and definitely they don’t have to climb whaling-captain ship-stairs to get to their bedrooms, but look at them! Totally inspiring. They may have had to change lifestyle a bit, but that didn’t mean everything was OVER. It didn’t stop them. And I don’t think it’s because of their ambition as this article says, I think it’s LOVE. Love of life, love of what they do, love of the people they’ve come to relate to and care for through their work. Do people ever tire of spreading love? I don’t think so. Nothing is EVER perfect, but these people, and so many like them, happen to life and don’t let life happen to them until they absolutely MUST. I want to be just like them when I grow up!💖

Yes, it’s hard; overthinking is the thief of confidence ~ but in my studio I found these cards ~ keepers, all together on a shelf. I put them on the fridge to share with Joe. The first one was painted by Kate Taylor, sister of James, a WONDERFUL singer and artist and person, and our friend. Her card says it all.’Course we can!💝

And this postcard about sharing experiences with your bestie…

And this card, so perfect for us, given to me by Joe for our anniversary . . .

And his sweetest words that brings us right back to

You Me, We Can Do This.Reminding us our whole life has been an adventure, why not now?

There are two ways to look at it. As either our greatest loss ever, and or as another fantastic gift of life adventure. I question it constantly, cry sometimes, but then I read the birthday card Mother Seraphima and the sisters sent me that says, “Life isn’t about what you hold in your hands. It’s about what you hold in your heart.” And my heart keeps hold of it all. So, I think, year-’round gardening can NOT be a bad thing. Roses! The sale of Spring Street will enable us to pay off our debts. I hate debt. It makes me feel like I weigh 300 pounds. I will LOVE living near Kellee, Sheri, and Judy again, I feel empowered in our meetings so filled with inspiration. We do better when we’re together. I will love waking up to the gurgling water fountain outside our bedroom window, and looking out my kitchen window, past the bird feeders in the mimosa tree, at the long green farmland ~ all that glorious nature. I will love Trader Joe’s. I will love living a simpler life, will love wine with Diana next to the water, love painting at the same art table where I wrote my Autumn Book, with a view of our picket fence garden, will love a large garden project. But the things I will miss are uncountable, the history, the years, but number one, I can barely write this, are our wonderful friends. But we know we’re coming back, for as long as we are able … we’re just not coming in summer, 
when the humidity melts me into a puddle. And not in the long months of winter, which, despite its many charms, can trap us inside like a perpetual pandemic. We’ll come in the spring to see the weeping cherry trees in bloom, the magnolias, and the dogwoods, for the tulips and daffodils ~ and in the fall, for the smell of autumn, for the leaves flying in the wind, for the colors, and the sweaters. And I imagine it will be more magical than EVER. All part of the adventure. All part of the gratitude, the pure gift I’ve been given in this life. I refuse to be sad, when happy is so easy. I have always loved the flow of life, and that hasn’t changed. I will say the thing I say every day, thank you God.💖

So we are packing up to move! And allowing ourselves to be excited! Because it’s exciting! I walk by the dining table where I am gathering things to take, and hear tiny, squeaky, excited mousie voices all talking at once, “why are we here, what are we doing, where are we going . . .?” The “children” are excited … Petey too! He’ll be in the old Fine Romance Van (ie garden truck), along with us, and Jack, when we drive them across country to their new home. Luckily everyone is up for the adventure! And we’ll bring you along! I’ll have to Instagram the trip! I think Jack will love being the center of attention 24-7. And I will love having him with us.😻

Downsizing! We’ll have less than half the square footage in California! Which I will love. I already feel liberated! I’m taking all our very favorite things and just LEAVING the rest of it, walking away, for an estate sale.  From six sets of dishes, I narrowed it down to two! Proud of me? And everything is going to go with green. Because guess what? I get to REDECORATE! There is good in everything. You’ll see! I can’t wait to show you! Don’t cry for me Argentina. I am going to eight long green acres in the quiet sunshine where gardenias and artichokes grow.

So upward and onward: Life goes on.💝 This will cheer you up! MAS MUSICA! (The kind of MUSICA my house has always loved.💞 I tried to bypass it, but they seem determined to throw commercials in, hit “skip!” It’s worth it!!💝) I’ve always loved dolls, my mom did, and so do I. But she never let herself collect them, and me either because I just can’t bring myself to have a room full of dolls, I love them too much, they would overwhelm me (Joe would kill me), I have no doubt! I go to doll stores, alone, whenever I see one, very dangerous. Even bought one for my mom. But, I’m just too boringly practical. Almost always.So the other day, on our way to our walk, there were signs along the road pointing to an estate sale … it was a beautiful, sunny blue-sky day so we decided to go. Because when you’re moving and trying to downsize, the first thing you think of is “Let’s go get more stuff!”  (And I call myself practical🙄) But LOOK at her. ⬇️ I can’t help it, I BELIEVE her to be beautiful!💝 Wm. Morris would HAVE to approve . . .😊

She’s tiny. She has a hand-painted face, and hand-painted shoes and socks. Her underclothes were clean, but her dress was very dirty and I did my best to clean it, soaked it with lukewarm water and a drop of bleach . . .

One of the sleeves had come apart so I sewed it back together.

She read some of my books while she waited for her dress to air dry. I found her chair at the estate sale, too! And I know exactly where she will go in the house in California! She will be driven in the van with me and Joe and Jack and Petey.💝  My other dolls.

XXX

And here she is … I had to show you her dancing legs . . .

 What else? So much ~ Kellee is getting new things into the Studio every day. I can’t keep up!

All my paint boxes have to be packed up and I have a jillion of them. I don’t know why. I keep thinking there might be a color out there I haven’t seen yet. Taking no chances. And they DO make better colors all the time . . . Look at these I just got:

Aren’t they gorgeous? In cork! I’ve never seen that before. The colors are so rich and vibrant and they flow beautifully from brush to paper! I’ve already started using them . . .

XXX

Even the BROWN is gorgeous! I got them for you too! I also found ⬇️ the sweetest little pad of textured 100% cotton watercolor paper with a vegan leather cover.💖

I’ve always wanted to offer a little set of wonderful watercolors ~ just hadn’t found the perfect ones yet. I still haven’t been able to get brushes, sorry … but my two favorite paintbrushes are Windsor Newton #1 and #4 ~ you can find them at Blick … everyone should give it a try! Look what happened to me! Total accident, but fun for a lifetime! Don’t think you have to be perfect, there is no such thing. Original, no matter WHAT, is best. 💖 Do it your way! And there are so many wonderful teachers out there! Sign up for something! Think of all the nice people you’ll meet! Watercolors are like music, some very ethereal and light, some very dark and opaque, shivering high notes and intense low notes, lighthearted joy and depths of heartbreak, spring and fall, the fast and the slow, some spreads forever, some is short and stops abruptly… do it to your own song and you’ll be doing it right.🧡 Maybe, just maybe, when we get to California, I will learn how to video myself and try to give an art lesson! That would be interesting. I barely know how I do it myself! 💖

My collection of heroes is heading west too . . . I’ve been collecting these die-cut hero-cards to inspire me in my studio since George Washington arrived as a wedding invitation way back in the 80s. Slowly over the years, in bookstores and other assorted places, I found the others, from Mark Twain, to Jane Austen, and all the others. Everyone asks me about them … And Kellee found them for our webstore!

“Susan’s Picks” this week are all about Mother’s Day . . . including this greeting card I made for all the nurturer’s in your life. We also have the guided books I made for moms and grandmas to tell their stories and record their memories. Every day is Mother’s Day in so many of our hearts.💝 Speaking of which, for the Mom’s in your life:

Something new! We have a Girlfriend who makes these wonderful gold filled necklaces for us, perfect alone or for layering ~ so dainty, this one we call Counting my Blessings . . .

I am a heart girl so when I saw this one, I had to have it, and needed them for you too! So here we go! You can see the gold heart necklace HERE. (The little flower necklace you see with it is coming soon!) I hope you love it! They all come on these little cards and in a clear envelope and look really good together! 

I’ve had a chain like this for a long time and love how the light picks up the little extra detail of the beads … so when I saw these I was thrilled I could offer them to you. They come in either gold OR silver ~ I wear it on its own, or add a pendant ~ it’s like a jewelry-box staple. You can see it on Kellee HERE.

Lots of new cards … these have simple summer drink recipes, reminding us to celebrate EVERY wonderful moment.☀️

And these wonderful Alphabet Stitch Kits finally came back in ~ with everything you need, including instructions, needle, and embroidery floss. Make something you can pass down to your family. This one is mine, but that space there at the bottom is for you to embroider your own name and the date…💝

But honestly, despite packing and worrying, and now instead of worrying, meditating and remembering, despite all that, I look outside and see this and go get my phone!!! Who wouldn’t!?

forsythia, magnolia trees, and garden mulch . . . part of the flash dance of spring . . .🌸 Yes we’re going, but the garden says, Hey, don’t forget me .  . . and we never will.🪴🪴🪴

Went out to dinner with friends and this was the view on the other side of the window . . .👀

Driving home under a full moon . . . I’ve had forty-two years of Martha’s Vineyard full moons.😱 At LEAST 504 of them, not counting the Blue Moons! Brought here, I don’t know how . . . How lucky can you get!!!? And I hear there are full moons in California too!💃🏼

Our morning walk has been a pure gift … red bucket and flip flops on the beach this beautiful morning and no one else around! Inspires Morning Science!

And the sunsets . . . 

and new blooms . . . forty-two years of the surprise of Spring . . . I have loved this house to its very soul, and it has loved me back to mine. A part of me is embedded here forever and I could not be happier about it. The world turns, spring passes, summer comes, all is as it should be.💝

Here we go! Off to the next adventure! Good bye April . . .💝

   Hello May 🌸

Plant up a storm Girlfriends, all the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today!🪴 All Love, all joy, all hope, all truth, all courage, to all of you, all the time.💞

💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

 

 

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SPECKS ➡️ . ..

Good morning everyone! Happy Tuesday! Happy new Willard! Specks, you ask, what CAN she mean? MUSICA

Shadows through leafless trees grace our clapboard house as the sun comes up over the harbor on this beautiful spring morning.

Forsythia’s in bloom at the end of our driveway, part of it planted by Mrs. Bowditch (who lived here 1949-1989), her legacy and gift to the neighborhood, and part of it planted by us! Blooming again, as it does every year, thank you very much!Sometimes, as you know, I find things I have written (or painted), maybe never used, tucked between my books ~ like this ⬇️, which I typed at the top of a page, then printed it out, then ended up using as “scrap paper” on which was also a messy list of favorite songs (I write them down as I think of them), for MUSICA. I had just given the list to Judy for Monday Musica on Instagram, read this, and was marveling at how much this paragraph fit my life right NOW … it was undated, and clearly it was summer when I wrote it . . . but as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect for now . . .

Yes, we made it into a  little vase!

Reading that, now I’m DYING to feel the kitchen floor under my bare feet!! Something wonderful to look forward to! And, go ahead, put on a sweater and seek outside, just this once! It’s heaven outside too!

Joe’s been taking down the storm windows, just like everyone else around here, just like we do every year, putting them in the barn . . . a few at a time as the days become warmer . . .

Seek outside, and bring the beauty inside ~ there is such HOPE in it, and your window sills will love it! Forsythia’s not toxic to curious kitties so they can love it too!💛

We have a bumper crop of Cardinals this year . . . here is a female who may have caught sight of me taking her picture from my kitchen window. This year I am determined to see a baby cardinal…Google showed me what they look like so I am better prepared.

She’s a beauty! 

I love the colors of each season, changing them out is part of the celebration. I’ve been going through my house gathering everything that’s yellow or pink . . . redecorating.  I’ve had two parties since we last spoke! Reconnected with our friends which is what feeds US!🌸

Little vases and yellow birds . . .

Daffodil, and rabbits in a yellow cup!My decorating is a testimony to the antique barn, the yard sale, to the slow gathering of little things that make life sweet! Not caring if they are perfect, or if they are valuable, only caring if they want to come home with me.💖 Sort of the way you choose your rescue pets.💖 For the earth (which doesn’t really need more stuff!)! For the seeing eye. For the heart.❤️

I put away all the brown and navy-checked dish towels and got out the yellow and pink.💝

I used jelly beans as table decorations and while we hung around the table after dinner, just talking, being together, slowly but surely, everyone, grazing like bunnies on the lawn, ATE them!🥰 I hadn’t occurred to me, but I will do it on purpose next time!🧡

At the end of my TGIThursday Girlfriends party, everyone took home a little harbinger of spring!💛

Our mornings have turned pink too … I was just outside taking this picture when I was reminded of watching the moon cover the sun yesterday! We weren’t in the path of complete bloto-nation (can’t remember epic phrase used by media, path of oblivion? Something like that, but bloto-nation works), but we had a good view and got our happy little moon-crescent shadows on the driveway and it all reminded me of how much I love to celebrate the moon that belongs to everyone!🌓 MAS MUSICA

I have a file of moon photos, taken from everywhere, from our front porch, rising above the desert from our window on the train, in the English countryside, above ancient gravestones, next to church spires and lighthouses. My own personal moon in Capricorn makes me do it, structure is my name, fascination is my game, and what gives us more structure than the constant, dependable, and beautiful moon that asks nothing of us? 🌠 If you live to be a hundred, you’ll experience about 1,200 wonderful magical full moons in your lifetime. It sounds like a lot, but it’s not really enough.💘

I loved how yesterday was a pure celebration, moms and dads and kids and grandmas and grandpas! We count on the earth, count on the seasons, count on the universe, to keep its promises, to do what they’ve always done . . . and we’re always ready to celebrate ~ the first red leaf in the fall, the first dancing daffodil, the first snowflake, our first tentative step into salt water, every year, all these firsts . . . even the way the shadows change in our houses… keeps our senses alive and ready to make a party of it. 🌸🌸🌸 Yesterday was a really big party ~ not often are we all on the same page like that these days!😲 It was the perfect start to Earth Day! I just LOVE April!🌸

We think of everything being so dependable that we melt down when an earthquake shows up out of nowhere (despite it being very much like an eclipse, only scarier), or a blizzard, where they DO NOT BELONG. But the MOON is still so dependable in this constantly changing world, you can plan parties around it!👏 Like we did yesterday! I’ve loved planetariums since my first AWESOME visit to Griffith Park Observatory with my 4th grade class . . . the excitement, the sharing of this first look into the heretofore silent unknown, something no one had words yet to express, the lights dimming until it was dark, our chairs leaning back to the dome of stars appearing in a black sky, some of us up on our knees, necks crooked, eyes wide, thrilled to see the planets revolving, the constellations appearing, a booming voice saying words we’d never heard, telling us about Pegasus and Zeus, folklore and mythology, ancient Greek and Babylonian traditions that go back to the 18th century BC, BC ~ inconceivable! It didn’t turn me into an astronaut as I was uninterested from the very beginning in leaving the earth for any reason, but it did make me starry-eyed 🤩… and it enlarged my curiosity . . . and it even made me feel forever connected to ancient children!

And every bit of it is all still worth running down to the harbor, one of us practically in her jammies, to take pictures.

What so many people talked about feeling yesterday, staring up at the sky like earthlings have done since the beginning of time, under the shadow of that same old moon, reminded me of what I wrote about after my visit to the planetarium on board the Queen Mary 2 ~ when, like yesterday, we were given lovely insight, a moment to wonder about our place in the universe.💖

It’s one thing to be in a planetarium on land . . .

XXX

But, it’s something else to be in a planetarium while on a ship at sea . . .

. . . where every day was automatically, unavoidably about the vastness, unpredictability, and wonder of ocean and sky, then suddenly, this, a very different perspective, where we became much smaller, not only in this sea and sky, but aware that we were connected even by tiniest parts of our world that can’t be seen with the naked eye. I felt the deep beauty of it, the boundlessness, the gift, and the sadness too, welling up. Suddenly, in that planetarium sky on board the ship, we watched our sun, our very own star, disappear into the cosmos ~ and we disappeared with it . . . specks with an outsized entitlement to it all . . . this was the part I didn’t catch in the 4th grade, when I discovered we were so much more than I thought we were, but the part that’s called wisdom that we (hopefully) get as we get older, is the part where we realize we’re so much less than we thought we were.💖 Sometimes feeling like a speck is a good thing.

Put it all together with moments of unity and connection as we experienced yesterday, we say more, more, more! we want more!… is there ever enough, no, I don’t think so! The adventure continues! 🌠🌠🌠 We never stop learning.💖

As for home, a couple of things we have loved streaming that I want to tell you about, the first is The New Look, about the lives of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel after the Germans invaded France. SO good! Details of history! You’ll love it. Twelve episodes on Apple+. (Now I’ll be looking for a Granville Rose in Dior’s honor, in his sister’s honor, for our garden!) And the other one is (of course) A Gentleman in Moscow. Set your minds at ease, after only 2 episodes I already know it is doing justice to the magnificent book, which if you haven’t read, run don’t walk and get it ~ (unless you have something against utter charm, then forget it of course)!!!💝 

We are still walking the walk every morning, through the leafless woods, in the cold sunshine, out to the water, an ear pod in my ear, another in Joe’s, listening to the same book from my phone. Right now we are listening to Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. So far it seems to be a  light-hearted story about a family of daughters learning about their mother’s almost-famous life as an actress ~ she is telling the story while they pick sweet cherries on their farm in Michigan . . . it might be a little TOO light-hearted for me, but it’s not over, and Meryl Streep is reading it, so I’m not complaining. It has themes that could almost be her own life she’s reading about. Makes us exercise, we look forward to “reading” so much!

One last thing, for my California girlfriends … I promised I would tell you if there was going to be an “estate” sale for the things we let go when we were there. And there is . . . it’s happening on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 19-21. It’s not worth buying an airplane ticket (there are no quilts in the sale, and no Beatrix Potter figurines!), so unless you have a penchant for old post cards, or maybe 30 years of collected wine corks (I heard the seller, Mike, is charging 25¢ a piece for them!), or menus from restaurants and ships we have known and loved, this wouldn’t be the place for you… I hardly remember what else is there, but here are a couple of photos I took before I left, the one corner Joe had begun to decorate for Mike… and then the whole room, as far as it was at the time. I have no idea how it will be set up, but the address is 2416 Lopez Drive in Arroyo Grande, CA, if you’re in the neighborhood and want to take a look, go straight down the driveway to the barn on the left.

I hope you have a wonderful day and that all your flowers bloom and each time it rains you can see them grow by inches… I’m having a No Mow April to go with my No Mow May … I loved it last year!  

 

 

 

 

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