CREATE: ART SAVES LIVES

I'm in one of my favorite places in all the world. (Well, I've only been to a teeny fraction of the world -- that which doesn't involve transatlantic flight, so there's that...but still a favorite place!)  I'm looking out the window on a quintessential Northwest scene with the sun breaking through to shine in warming my shoulder and I am content and happy and feeling deep, deep gratitude for my life.

Every year Hub and I come here for a three-day getaway to celebrate my December birthday and the holidays.  This town, Pt. Townsend, Washington, (Google it -- charming and historic) holds so many memories for us, even though the shops and restaurants change little from year to year and the gorgeous scenery not at all, thankfully.  It's been documented that Hub and I are creatures of habit and return again and again to familiar places we love.  We are "settlers" more than "explorers", I guess.  We have often talked of moving here and I still have a longing to do that and would in a heartbeat but for our sons and their families, especially the grandkids, and our friends who we see frequently and love like family.  A 2-1/2 hour drive-ferry crossing-drive from our current home would make being wth all of them an occasional event, not a multi-day of the week one.  We are tethered to where we live by love and commitment and gratitude.  We won't leave now.  But we come here annually for sure and often more frequently since summers here are glorious as well.

These three days have been a respite from the bustle of holiday prep at home and from the to-do lists that seem always to grow longer and never completed.  At home I wake up full of "gotta get going" energy with things to do, places to go, people to see competing for my time.  Here, in true vacation fashion, I wake up soaking in the creative energy that permeates the air here.  I wake up eager to stroll across the street to a waterfront coffee shop for my first cup, then to the waterfront restaurant on the other end of town that is our favorite for breakfast, then wandering in and out of boutiques and bookstores, home decor, garden, and toy shops.   We might stroll up the hill to "Uptown" to visit a cool grocery there where they sell the best cookies!  We go to the tea shop that has a comfy seating area where we plan our evening -- which of our favorite dinner places to hit before a movie at The Rose -- an old-fashioned movie theater in town.  If the weather is nice, not too windy, we might take a beach walk (and since Hub is reading this, I acknowledge that the weather doesn't hold him back and he just returned from a multi-mile walk while I hung out drinking coffee, so really HE'S the walker, not me, but there is always the possibility I might...)

One thing I haven't left behind is my FB newsfeed and I admit it's been a bummer to follow the ongoing debacle that is the political situation in our country.  I am more dejected and bereft with every Administration appointment and ridiculous Tweet from the minority-president-elect. (Hillary won 2.5 million more votes that he, so he's the "minority-president" forever after in my mind.)   What is happening is surreal -- his Cabinet appointments are gazillionaire business cronies or washed up politicians with no experience for the job.  They have vast conflicts of interest in every position.  It's a joke but it's not funny.  I've talked to so many friends who are still feeling their lives to be off-balance, and I am among them.  I feel like I'm just holding on to my own life, but what's happening around me threatens to pull me out of my reality at every turn.  People say they are going through the motions of their lives, trying to find islands of peace and hope, while also being buffeted by despair and outrage.  It's a schizophrenic experience.

Yesterday, at the coffee shop, I was inspired to write a "rhyming poem", something I never do unless I "hear" music that might apply to it.  I sent it off to two collaborators -- excellent musicians and great friends who have put my words to music and may end up on a couple of CDs one day soon (YAY!).   It was one of those moments where I looked out at Puget Sound and watched the ferry glide by, after having read news of Aleppo, Exxon, Standing Rock and an op ed by Charles Blow in the NYT (he's been a voice that speaks to me) about finding love and justice in the midst of terror and destruction -- of cities and of institutions.  The words floated into my head and out through my fingers on the keyboard organically, without thought or much editing.  I love when the Muse just takes over almost against my will.  The song lyrics I've written (few and far between) are almost always like that -- with the musicians doing the hard work of finding melodies to go with them.  I loved being in a creative groove, because I think art is necessary in a world gone awry.

I once bought a bumper sticker in this town in a shop that featured Native American Art.  It read: Art Saves Lives.  I put it on our old van and it traveled with us for many, many years -- inspiring me and maybe others who sat behind us in traffic, who knows?  Humans have the urge to create.  Find your special place, get quiet, indulge in pleasures that relax, and then do your art.  Whatever that is.  Sing, dance, paint, write, knit, sew, build, weld, cook, tell a joke.  BE.

The world needs us refreshed and ready to save lives, the earth, the future.

At least, that's the view from here....©