The Artists in My Family...

There is a long line of artists in my family.  From the musically inclined to those who dance to  visual arts...there are so many examples.  My grandparents on my father's side loved music.  My Grandfather played both the fiddle and the guitar; my Grandmother played the mandolin, harmonica and the guitar.  Together they entertained many family members as well as folks out for a good time at an open air dance event.

My mother didn't play a musical instrument, but she had an Angel's voice and loved to sing to us as we were rowing up and also in our Church's Choir.  My dad also had a wonderful voice, but he was too busy with earning a living that he didn't share it very often.  He was a wonderful dancr, however, and that is how he and mom met...at a dance.  They loved to go to the Aragon Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier and dance to the live music of Lawrence Welk.

My brother and sisters and I inherited many of their talents.  Darell has a wonderful voice and has sung in many venues over the years; Chrisie also sings well and plays the guitar.  She entertained in numerous venues in St. George for a period of time.  Patricia had a beautiful voice, but didn't share it except with family members.  Me?  Music and dance were my fortes.  I have lovred to sing sincr I was a very young child.  I had lead parts in numerous church productions in my youth and early 20's.  I also loved to dance.  Ballet, Toe, Acrobatic and Tap dancing were my favorites.  I also loved ballroom dancing and participated in numerous church dance festivals in my youth.  I also loved the piano and had a feel for music.  Thirteen years of piano instruction gave me my love for the instrument; however, I have a hard time reading music quickly, because I learned to "play by ear" and in my youth memorized music in this fashion.

Each of my children have inherited their own gifts.  Kimberly is a most gifted Interior Designer, and she holds a Master's Degree in Interior Design,  Every hone she has lived in is a work of art!  Mark expresses his gift in his craft of Stair Building.  He has earned many "Golden Chisel" awards for his amazingly beautiful stairs.   In his youth, he picked up a guitar and taught himself to play by ear.  He was a mean rock star!  Later, Mark found he loved to draw.  He has a feel and gift for art., Debi is gifted in many areas.  She has taken up the art lately of playing the guitar and does a wonderful job.  She also has a wonderful voice.  Her main gift, however, is in the field of sports.  From baseball to volleyball to running to cycling to keeping her body trim and toned in the gym, she excels in everything she tries.  Photography is also a gift that she shares with her sister, Heather.  Heather  has many gifts.  When she was young, we put her in dance classes and she blossomed from there.  I loved to watch her dance on the stage and I miss that.  She also has a beautiful voice but only shares it at home.  She does beautiful work with a camera and has formed her own business.  From what I hear, her clients are well pleased with her wok.  Billy is my musician.  I'm sure he inherited this from both sides of the family tree.  When he was but a wee little boy, we introduced him to the violin, and then the piano.  When he was 15, he picked up the guitar and blew our minds when he just took off playing everything he heard.  It was amazing.  He formed several bands in his youth, and then he picked up a cello I bought for myself and taught himself to play that instrument.  The cello has become his instrument of choice and he has made a career out of his musical gifts...both playing and writing his own compositions and performing all across America and throughout Europe.

This brings me to JerriAnne.  When she was very young, she was concerned that she had no talents or gifts.  I told her to be patient, and "in the due time of the Lord they would be manifested unto her."  In high school, she discovered she was good at sports, particularly running.  She joined the cross country team and blossomed into a wonderful, graceful runner.  She had also played softball when she was much younger, but that was not her sport.  She was a runner!  In College, she began with a major in Architecture and found drawing was a gift that she had.  From there, she began to use that talent and draw many beautiful things.   Currently, she is working on her Master's Degree in Special Education, focusing on working with the blind.  She has a gift of working with special needs children and has worked in a Charter School assisting with their needs.

And so, this brings me to the purpose of writing this episode in my life.  A few years ago, while living in St. George, Utah and working as a flight nurse with a Life Flight Team, I had an experience that has stayed with me for a very long time.  On one flight to Salt Lake City, it was a particularly stormy day (and flying is NOT fun in those storms).  We landed in Salt Lake, transported our patient to LDS Hospital via Ambiance, and returned to our plane to board for the flight home.  As we were taking off, and had reached an elevation of maybe 1500 feet, I chanced to look back and I saw the most beautiful sight.  There behind us, encircled with clouds, stood the Salt Lake Temple.  There was a break in the clouds just above the Temple and the rays of the sun shown perfectly towards it, bathing it in light.  And to make the picture complete, there was a perfect rainbow in the sky behind the Temple.  Oh, how I wist I had brought a camera!  But I didn't, so I had to keep that memory emblazoned in my memory.

I mentioned this experience to JerriAnne on one of my visits to Provo and asked if she could draw me a picture based only on my narrative of the experience.  She told me she would  try.  And try she did!  I just received the finished product via UPS the other day and was delighted with the results.  It is that piece of artwork that I am sharing here today.

Everything Crooked...

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the old Nursery Rhyme "There Was A Crooked Man"...well, I'm not even pretending to be that "Crooked Man," but I thought this would be an ideal visualization of what my AMD has done to my vision.  Because it has progressed to the "wet stage," this  is how my world looks through my degenerating eyes.  My world is crooked.

When this first happened to me, I thought of Van Gogh, one of my favorite artistsm, with his somewhat distorted images in his art.  We all know from his history that he had problems with his ears and vertigo, but perhaps he also had problems with his vision.  Perhaps he also had AMD.  Just an observation, not based on any truth or historical documentation.

Perhaps one day, through the workings of miraculous modern medicine, they will develop a permanent cure for this disease; meanwhile, I shall continue with the monthly injections into the eye and hope and pray for good results.  Perhaps one day my world will not be distorted any more, but return to its normal, beautiful scenes and the beautiful people in each picture.

The Old Grandfather Clock..

They carried the old Grandfather Clock out the door today.  I watched it pass through the doorway until it disappeared and I felt an old familiar pulling at the heartstrings that I have felt many times before.  The old faithful Grandfather Clock that has stood against many walls in many homes through the years keeping time for us to be punctual for whatever meeting, appointment, bedtime or rising in the morning.  The only time it missed a beat was when it was taken apart and moved to its new home...or the time it needed repairs so it could once again march to the tick-tock of the beat of its heart.

It was a wedding present we gave to each other shortly after we were married in April of 1982.  Thirty-four years it has stood, keeping watch over our little family.  It was there to witness the move into the home we built on Taos Mesa;  it was there in the little Victorian house we bought in Raton and it witnessed a new life enter into our midst.  Little Billy was fascinated by the clock as it struck out its "bong-bong-bong" with every hour.  And he loved the little musical melody it played before each hour and also on the quarter hour.  As Billy grew older, he found it a nuisance when he was trying to record music, and so he would silence the old man.  It followed us to Oregon and into each of the eight homes we have lived in.  Finding just the right wall for it to rest against was sometimes a challenge; other times that perfect wall just presented itself, as if it was waiting for just such a grand old clock.

Thirty four years is a very long time to grow fond of the sound of our Grandfather Clock.  I shall miss it, just as I miss every child that has moved on with his or her life.  It is strangely quiet now, as I am writing this.  It is 7:00 PM and there should be that wonderful melody playing and then "bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong!":  But it is gone.  Good-bye, old man...I shall miss you, even if no one else does.

Winter, 2016...

Winter came on with a vengeance to the Oregon Coast this year.  In the 10 years that we have lived on the coast, I have never seen so much rain!  There were so many reports of severe flooding up and down the coast and in the Valley, too, that I wondered if we might just be getting ready to slide right into that big blue ocean.   And, of course, with the flooding, there were folks who were dis-lodged from their homes...literally!  Poor souls!  Getting to them to offer help would require a row boat...one of those early conveniences we seem to have gotten rid of!

Nature is and always has been a marvel to me.  In my 76 years on this earth and living in the U. S. of A, I have seen snow that burred vehicles on the roads, ice so thick that you might just as well have gotten out of your car and put on ice skates to get to whatever destination you were heading to...or perhaps, this would be a good time to bring back the good old fashioned sleigh.  Makes a body wonder if perhaps modern contraptions weren't such a good idea at all.  Sometimes I think we would have been better off if we had just hung on to some of the good old modes of transportation for winters such as those I have seen in Oregon, Utah and New Mexico.

Needless to say, we didn't go anywhere for the entire month.  Dean was on Jury Duty, so that also put an end to any plans we might have wanted to make.  So, we just stayed home, sloshed back and forth to work, shopping and such and had a wonderfully warm fire in our "gas" furnace/fireplace.
I didn't take any pictures in January, because gloom and doom just don't make for exciting pictures and I wasn't brave enough to get out there during a particularly heavy storm and take photos of the waves crashing up against the cliffs and around the lighthouse.  I'm sure it was a sight to behold, burt I just didn't brave the weather.  Maybe some other time.