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Artist Date

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Photo credit: Pexels on Pixabay

Friday evening. On the sofa with three cats. The fourth is snoring in her perch directly behind the sofa. On this peaceful evening, I contemplate my weekend plans.

Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be beautiful. The rain that has soaked us today will move out, leaving my little corner of the world sparkling and fresh. My plan is to go to the Florence Griswold Museum to see their current exhibit, “Impressionism 150: From Paris to Connecticut and Beyond,” as well as other exhibits and works on display, have lunch in their café, and stroll around the gardens and the grounds.

It’s been many years since I’ve been to the museum. Strange, really, because there was a time when I went down to Old Lyme at least once or twice a year, whether for brunch at the now-closed Bee and Thistle Inn or to visit the Florence Griswold Museum. I once went down on a Saturday, having seen Girl with a Pearl Earring the night before; the movie had just come out, so that would have been 2003, more than twenty years ago. Was that the last time I was there? I’m not even certain.

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Inspiring

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Photo credit: Ian Dooley on Unsplash

“You’ve inspired me today.”

The person who said this to me is an aspiring fashion designer I’ll call “Jon.” We have never met in person. I have never seen his work. Our sole contact to date has been one telephone conversation that started out in the context of both of our day jobs. And yet. . . .

“You’ve inspired me today.”

It all began when I called the appellate clerks’ office to find out whether an appeal has been filed. In the course of the conversation, Jon asked me to spell the name of the potential appellant. I did so, and he reported that no appeal had been filed.

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Refilling

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Somewhere, amid the darkness,
a painter measures a blank canvas,
a poet tests a line aloud,
a songwriter brings a melody into tune.
Art inspires, provokes thought, reflects beauty and pain.
I seek it out even more in these times.
And in so doing, I find hope in the human spirit.

~ Dan Rather (via Twitter)

* * * *

The past couple of weeks have been unusually insane.

From the delightful (taking a dear friend out for his birthday), the exciting (joining a new singing group) and the thrilling (some news you’ll hear about in a later post), to the aggravating (a longtime client who was refusing to honor his promise to pay me at the agreed-upon time), the heartbreaking (my elderly aunt, who lives about 500 miles away and may be in her final days), the frustrating (an as-yet-unscheduled meeting, the scheduling of which I cannot control in any way), and the stressful (a brief to be prepared according to unfamiliar rules and filed in a court I’ve never dealt with), it’s been a whirlwind. So, on Friday night, when I finally received confirmation that the brief had been filed, I declared a holiday weekend. (Since I worked most of Labor Day weekend, I viewed it as comp time.) Continue reading →

For Writers With Day Jobs

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I don’t usually share newspaper articles here, but this one is special. I don’t know this writer or her book, but I love her real-life story.

This post is dedicated to every writer who holds down a day job (including parenthood which, from what I hear, is at least two full-time jobs in and of itself) and still manages to carve out time for writing, reading, researching agents, figuring out publishing, and doing all the stuff necessary to put our stories out into the world. Continue reading →

Writing From Real Life, Part 2: When to Refrain

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Photo credit: Viktoria Hall-Waldhauser 

Last night, a dear friend called to tell me about a horrible tragedy [the “Occurrence”] involving someone who was once very important to her and whom I knew as a friend, although he and I lost touch many years ago. The Occurrence will have repercussions, not only in breadth as people farther from the event are notified–ripples in the pond–but in depth as all of us explore and deal with our own reactions and those of others. Continue reading →