I’m not so sure that I’m enjoying the passage of time lately.

There is a song by James Taylor I first heard about twenty years ago which I quite enjoyed. It had such an easy-going and visionary feel to it…and at thirty-eight years old and having not yet reached that over-the-hill pinnacle of life, I could listen to this with a somewhat contemplative-but-all-is-right-in-my-world-pretty-much feel.

My oldest son was around twelve and my youngest around seven at that time.

Life was filled with homeschooling, church, family times, beach times and lots and lots of calligraphy work.

There were Newark American Little League games and I can recall taking the afternoon nap, then getting the kids to the game and my first husband – their father – biking there from the UD after getting off work.

I recall sometimes volunteering in the clubhouse with the other moms, peeking through the window when one of our sons or daughters were up to bat. And occasionally grabbing a coffee slurpee on the way home from the 7-11 on Elkton Road so that while their dad took over getting the kids to bed, I might go to my office and pull a late nighter – cranking out calligraphy commissions and other artwork projects and listening to music until I couldn’t take anymore and then dropping into bed somewhere during the night hours…I actually enjoyed the solitude and non-distractions of those times…

…I still am a night owl but now at fifty-eight I can’t pull those same hours, at least not as often.

Now I find my hands and fingers, especially my right one, is developing arthritis.

Twenty years and two marriages later, divorced again and re-starting my life, adds a lot of deeply layered feelings of fear and dread and sadness when I think of that song, The Secret ‘O Life and enjoying the passage of time.

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It is not so easy for me to whip out hand calligraphy these days or to grip paint brushes with the same precision as twenty years ago.

It is not as easy for me to focus for hours on website work and promotional work to grow and promote my business and keep taking in work to pay my bills.

And while I love my art, I have also developed a love for being outdoors daily in recent years – working in my gardens and on physical projects and outdoor stuff. It draws me and balances the art part…and in some ways I find working outside easier than working on art these days….

While many things are not so easy, but I find ways of strategizing and most days, I surprise myself with some task or project idea that suddenly gets done! Some project laying around that I have been meaning to tackle.

Today was one of those days.

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A few months back as I continued my sorting of boxed up papers, especially file folders of items, transited from Delaware to Alabama in 2012 and then from Alabama to Delaware in 2019 and then from Delaware to Pennsylvania in 2020, I came across some original artwork and calligraphy items I had saved.

I’ve been scanning many “keeper stuff” that I don’t need the originals of and then shredding the types of papers that twenty years ago would load up file cabinets just in case they were ever needed again.

Several months ago, actually it was last fall probably a year now…the folders of personal cards I saved and these hand calligraphy items carried a lot of emotion as I sifted through them.

Today, for some strange reason, I decided it was time I tackled a few, along with other needed tasks.

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At 9 am I’m thinking:

“What is my focus today? Do I balance one or two of my checking accounts? Do I work on the pet portrait? Do I start the house portrait or painted wedding invitation commission? Do I clean my bathroom? Do I pick mustard greens and other remaining produce, process and freeze? Do I go to the grocery store? Do I finish sewing and hanging a thick curtain for the outbuilding studio to help contain heat this winter? Do I work on my new business website to obtain local work of higher profit (caricatures at events, bouquet preservation, murals, etc?) Do I reach out to a couple clients – again – that I need to communicate with? Do I keep working at a house project started? Do I do some more outdoor work needed? Do I do some painting toward finishing my children’s book in hope I can gift it at Christmas to them? Do I tackle some of my business clerical work or scan some more “keeper” papers of various sorts that can be shredded and archived on the computer?“

And the most seemingly counterintuitive question – should I make another blog post?

I bet I could narrate this upcoming day and fill with periodic contemplations (and visuals) …to express out there into the cyberspace – that place where most of us now get at least a portion of our social and emotional needs met, if even in our own minds.

Because in my circulating thoughts…I really felt one coming on…so I’m narrating my day here in small pieces…

It seems like today I’m inclined to do all of the above – or at least the metaphorical eating of an elephant one bite at a time.

Daily I’m faced with this plethora and daily I seem to take some bites out of many things, leaving me with both the sense or illusion that I’ve somehow done them all and the reality that I have not, yet I’ve made a step forward in each, hopefully…

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High Noon

So with all lights on in my office and elsewhere, computer files open, projects poised for work, items slowly taken from the bathroom to the hall so maybe I can clean it in between….I’ve been at my computer for three hours now and sorting/organizing (oh and printing an order of ten cards) and feel determined to run as far as I can with this stuff today until I drop again tonight…have restless sleep and start again tomorrow…

It’s lunchtime…I think I will go pick some greens and get them cooking and make a sandwich – I can do some more dishes while I stand and cook and eat. And first, print shipping label to get this order in my mailbox before the mailman comes…very soon…

Yes…Yes, I Can. I Can Do That.

Working in bites seems to be my coping strategy developed over a number of years that answers my feelings of overwhelm. It is my best response to I really want to do all these things and I cannot and I feel paralyzed and where do I best start?

I tell myself, “Can you go downstairs and make lunch?”

And the answer is “Yes.”

While making lunch and doing dishes, I notice the rainwater in the black walnuts on my picnic table and I ask myself, “Can you take out the compost, dump it, and dump this water from the walnuts?”

Four minutes later after completing that those tasks…

And the answer is, “Yes.” I can do that.

I come up to my office, finishing my lunch, checking email and writing this, and ask myself, “Can you next go downstairs and set up the ironing board and iron that curtain so later you can make another seam, and while there can you switch over laundry?”

And the answer is, “Yes. I can do that. I will do that.”

Six minutes later after completing that task…

I’m back in my office and I ask myself, “Can you put the calligraphy on just one of these pieces?”

Again I answer, “Yes. I can do that. I will do that.” And I put on instrumental piano music on Spotify…Hyper Silent – a beautiful piece I had it on loop all day yesterday…and Spotify picks up with it…

Forteen minutes after completing that task…and I’m contemplating some things…and I’m a little queasy having put on my reading glasses to do this close-up calligraphy…I tend to keep my face kinda near the work…

A few minutes later I am thirsty, I ask myself, “Can I go get some cold water and clean just the bathtub?”

And I answer, “Yes. I really don’t want to, but I will do that.”

Twenty minutes later I return to the computer, having got my mint water from the frig, cut the chicken piece that was boiling in an amazing chicken-sausage-greens-and-more soup I’m making for a later extra lunch and dinner (I make amazing soups, I really do! – it’s tasting great so far!) and then I sprayed the cleaner on the bathtub walls and decided to make the next seam on the curtain while cleaner is working. Of course, this involved running out of bobbin’ and having to make another – a task people who use sewing machines don’t care for. But I did it. And I took some photos to add to this, thinking about this old Singer machine my mother gave me around 1985. The bobbin’ task caused me to momentarily think, “I better start conserving energy and focus, ha ha…this took something extra from me!” I go into the bathroom, clean the tub, noting my right knee still has a sore spot from a fall that happened on my porch over three months ago. Oh well, it’s on the bone, no big deal…just annoying…not even, as Monthy Python would say, “a flesh wound!” I also notice some voicemails, one from last week – a somewhat upsetting one, but I listen, glad the situation was resolved.

Now I’m asking – telling myself – “It is time to calligraphy the other piece that was on that old notebook paper, on the back side…”

I tell myself, “Yes. I am going to do that.”

Twenty-five minutes later I’ve finished Twinkle Twinkle, and pushed myself the extra with the Ladybugs idea from a note I made months ago on this twenty-plus old notebook paper layout, thinking that would be interesting, too. I’m noticing the little notes I made to myself over twenty years ago…looks like I had a 1:30 appt with someone named Karen…and my test doodles with a silver pen still exist. These layouts were references – I would hand-calligraphy the poems around an opening in an oval matte and finish with silver highlights, to package and sell for inserting a baby photo.

I’m feeling some anxiety and queasy knot in my stomach. Is it from putting the glasses on and off or my sense that this day is passing and I’m a bit tired already but must press on.

Will what I do today be enough?

And enough, for WHAT?

Also thinking about these calligraphy pieces for children I did so many years ago. This part of my life is past. Thinking about what inspired me to do them. Thinking about whether this work today will ever find a home or I will sell prints on Etsy. Thinking about what will or might happen to all my life’s work one day when I die.

I tell myself, “Go drink more of that water, clear off your bathroom counter and clean that.” I’m getting headachy feelings too.

But I’m determined – even more than typically since I’m writing about my process today – “Yes, I am going to do THAT now.”

Thirty minutes later. I have cleaned the sink and done the calligraphy on the original grapes old artwork and also added a Scripture to what appears to be the original (or at least hand-painted ivy on a print of the calligraphy) I Corinthians 13 I found in one of those folders months ago. The piece is designed to put in the names of a couple and their wedding date and good thing I noticed the “r” is left off “never” as it was a space to join a loop down into the names which were, at that time, calligraphed in by hand. I fix that, too. Thinking about how meaningful this verse from Galatians has been to me and remembering how I painted it on my bedroom wall in Delaware a couple years before I moved to Alabama. I think I can locate those pictures from my home in Delaware…

Thinking about the stiff crampy feelings in my right hand joints – as I do calligraphy, use a spoon and type. Certainly not debilitating but I wonder how this will slowly progress. Arthritis like this is strong in the Slifer family and I recall how much my uncle in his later years insisted on doing dishes when I visited because the hot water helped ease his joints. I noticed the same when cleaning the sink and also doing dishes earlier. I’m actually grateful to not have a dishwasher and I find that doing dishes daily around lunchtime in very hot water really is pleasurable and probably helps loosen my joints. I usually spend the mornings on the computer, when my mental focus is most optimal these days.

Now eating some soup at my computer and thinking I should insert some photos now because I will keep losing energy and I hope I can complete this blog writing I started, as it seems to be bringing me some focus and pleasure on this rainy day. By now, Spotify is playing another noticeably beautiful piece, I look down and it is called … Avec ma nymphe by Remo Anzovino. Nice to find links to the same piece on YouTube.

It is now nearly 5 pm. I seem to have been on a high learning curve working with these Image Sliders for nearly two hours…I would put my photos (after re-sizing in Photoshop for the slideshow) in and then think I was inserting a new one but it was the same, I’d change and save and still having issues. Then, I learned to rename them and to duplicate them and some other things. Hopefully this time spent on this in WordPress will slowly strengthen my capabilities as I continue toward building another business website and working on this blog; this is a good feature I will need to utilize.

On and off while working on the images and some links here to this point in my writing, I managed to clean the toilet, scrub the bathroom floor on my knees with a sponge (always the best way!) and was thankful that at one point while forcefully scrubbing a baseboard next to the sink I saw I barely missed impaling my hand with two large pieces of a glass that got broken weeks ago. I thought I had cleaned it all up. I added the calcium deposit remover to the toilet to do its work, made it up and downstairs a few times noticing the clock, wondering how much longer I can keep focus (I’m hoping til about 9 pm), and, I washed the ink from my calligraphy nibs in the newly cleaned bathroom sink. And, put them away. And, wiped “said sink.”

I thought about the coming of evening and night once again and went ahead and turned on the porchlights though not yet needed…and as I did that, the title of a poem came into my mind which seems to fit into the theme of today’s writings…

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas – 1914-1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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I’m about to put my hands in my hotwax treatment to help with the stiffness (it’s colder today and my hands have been in cleaning water…) and make it out to the outbuilding. I will open it up, carry a few things there from my daily hallway stacking…and…and…hmmm….don’t I have some chocolate covered cranberries out there?

Yes, yes I do!

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It’s now 7:15 pm. Eating another bowl of my the soup I made today – a little boring, yes, but it is there – easy and tasty. I’m at that point where my eyes are heavier, I’m tired and losing my focus, but I’m intent on writing and finishing this yet tonight while I still can compose. In the past two hours I have been back and forth to the building, taking the wedding painting inside and scanning it in nine sections (after getting an email from the bride saying “It looks amazing!” with, thankfully, no suggestions for tweaks or changes…). I put these into a Photoshop file which will need to be “pieced and joined” together tomorrow – a task that will take about a half hour, if I’m lucky and it goes smoothly with the rotations, edge erasings and blendings and line ups…

I also scanned three of the calligraphy pieces and from the “Love” and “Fruits” pieces set them up in Photoshop (I used other elements I have created for the Fruits of the Spirit design – it needed some space filled to make it a standard size print for cards, etc. I was going to edit out the name “Elfers” and replace with “Slifer” but I forgot…I think I will leave it. I scanned those grapes years ago and have used them numerous times in custom designs…I was thoughtful as I used my vines with background removed over top of the scan and calligraphy I did on the original painting of the grapes that was in my file folder I sorted months ago…I could have never envisioned being where I am today and all life has brought and that I’d still be working on this art piece, developing it further.

It reminds me that when life seems discouraging and we can’t see the clear way forward that we are to remember we are still in the middle of the story…hard as things are now, there have equally been many good things that I also would have never imagined earlier in my story…

I’ve been painting some on the storybook picture and tried to call my Alabama neighbor Hellen whom I speak with and listen to pretty much nightly…no answer so she must be talking to her cousin Mary right now. She will likely call me later, and I plan to work more on the little ladybugs while we chat some…(well that never happened, and I sent her a text instead).

I’m tired. I should go out to the building again and hang the curtain…the cold air and movement will wake me a bit and keep me going. I’m determined to meet certain goals yet today…it’s only 7:30 pm. I started at 9 am today.

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7:46 pm – I’m at computer again, having hung the curtain and put a first varnish layer on the wedding painting – in the outbuilding studio. Since the bride has approved it and it has been scan, I can varnish. I love how the varnish glistens when wet and enhances the glowing colors. I like to mix half gloss and half satin varnish – not too shiny. Time for another picture dump into an image slider…then I think I will list the two new pieces on Etsy so I can include the finished results here, too! I messaged my friend Erin earlier asking what she was up to tonight, since she normally does all my Etsy listings. She said she was at “Humbug” rehearsal (she’s in Alabama) and I joked “Oh HUMBUG! No worries…I will list them myself.” I’m just out of the habit.

9 pm on the dot…about the point I anticipated I could “run” to today...I put away the sausage that I never picked the mustard greens for and cooked up earlier…I’ve stuck the cast iron pot of soup I made in the frig (too tired to put it in plastic and I figure any iron absorption will be good!). I got my listings on Etsy. I retrieved a basket from the building basement to throw all today’s office paper scraps in for a future fit pit! I’ve snapped some more pictures and done a last image slider here. I will finish this up, post, and then go sit in front of TV and crochet or something…to wind down. I’ve started to make a blanket for my younger son, whom I do not see anymore and miss. Tonight I’ve been starting to think about Thanksgiving this year, wondering what this will be like and how I might approach this holiday. Wondering if my younger might make an exception to not having me be part of his/her life and whether we might have some truce and visit. Not getting my hopes up for that.

I’ve been struggling a lot with not knowing what to yet hope for in this new life here…what is my reward other than enjoying my solitude, creativity…hoping for times with my sons and other meaningful interactions…trying to survive the enormous amount of work and catching up that my situation still seems to be extracting from me daily. Though, gratefully it slowly and imperceptibly moves forward.

One must look back and remind themselves how far they’ve come, even when they feel there is so far to still go…

What is my hope, my reward?

Gratitude

One of my cousins has said several times that if everyone’s difficulties were laying on a table that most people would take back their own set of problems in life…maybe because they are so intimately in tune with how they were created and therefore better equipped to keep working at them? Better the devil you know, right?

I am grateful for so very much, truly. Yet that does not mean I don’t experience many days of melancholy, processing of losses and griefs and plugging away.

If you’ve read this far (and enjoyed my photos to this narrative today) I thank you!

I feel like this is a companion piece to others I’ve written in the past year or so: Growing Old With Oneself, My Life Wasn’t Supposed to Be This Way, Land of the Living. The Art of Aloneness

9:50 pm. I’m finished this. Probably a lot of typos…I will publish and then read and correct later…maybe in front of TV. I have a knack for catching typos on the published post and missing/not wanting to read so closely when it is a draft. Go figure.

I will leave you with the lyrics and video to the title of my post:

The Secret ‘O Life

Song by James Taylor

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain’t nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to
The top of the hill
But since we’re on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride

The secret of love is in opening up your heart
It’s okay to feel afraid
But don’t let that stand in your way
’cause anyone knows that love is the only road
And since we’re only here for a while
Might as well show some style
Give us a smile

Isn’t it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It’s just a lovely ride

Now the thing about time is that time
Isn’t really real
It’s just your point of view
How does it feel for you
Einstein said he could never understand it all
Planets spinning through space
The smile upon your face
Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride
I’ll be sliding down
I’ll be gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It’s just a lovely ride

Isn’t it a lovely ride
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It’s just a lovely ride

Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time