You’ve all seen this BLOG writer talk about sayings – old saying, new sayings, never-before-thought-of sayings. Here’s another BLOG with some of my newly discovered words of wisdom. Some will come from writings of peoples long gone. Others will be more current. Some will even come from the thoughts of a writer of movie scripts or a playwright. It does not always take an Einstein to say something worth paying attention to or repeating.

You also know that I watch Hallmark channel movies; I consider them hopeful. I occasionally peruse the other channel films, but so many of them seem so violent. Mayhem and madness – that’s how they appear to me. So, no thanks. I’ll stick with Hallmark. As predictable as they are, there is the occasional spark of insight that I want to remember.

I’ve been watching “The Good Witch,” again. How many times have I seen this series beginning to end? I’ll never tell. However, in a recently aired episode, the character Cassie Nightingale says, “Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

It reminds me of another statement attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Can you imagine yourself stepping from the top of a staircase and not seeing the steps below? An adventure to be sure.

Karen Kingsbury writes many of those “rom-coms” that are watched by so many. In her story called “Maggie’s Christmas Miracle,” a character says, “Life is a river carrying you to your future – whether you want to go or not.” And, truth-be-told, life is like a river. Can we choose whether we’re going to go with it? I think not. Life simply carries us into our future. We can plan and hope that those plans will come to fruition. There simply are no guarantees – it just keeps flowing.

Do you remember the song, “Ol’ Man River?” Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote it. First heard in the Broadway musical, Show Boat, it was included nine years later in the movie, and, again in the 1951 version that I remember seeing.  Other famous singers had their own renditions of “Ol’ Man River,” but, in my opinion, none can ever compare to hearing Paul Robeson sing, “He jes keeps rollin’ along.” Life, like that river, “jes keeps rollin’ along.”

Next to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico sits a large, table-top mountain called Pedernal. This mountain can be seen for miles before arriving anywhere near it’s base..

Cerro Pedernal is in “Indian Country.” She is considered a very spiritual and sacred mountain. The people of the Tewa (including members of the Santa Clara Pueblo) believe her to be such a living person that her name is Flint Mountain.  The Diné or Navajo people consider her important in their stories of the creation. They believe that Cerro Pedernal is the birthplace and home of one of their most important gods, Changing Woman. Changing Woman is important because she represents the Earth in this belief.

Georgie O’Keeffe, American artist who moved to New Mexico and lived, practically, at the the base of Cerro Pedernal painted Pedernal; her paintings include the mountain either prominently or simply as a part of the image. She is reported to have said that “God said, if I painted it enough, He would give it to me.”

Here it is important to note: Cerro Pedernal still stands over the lands it has guarded from time immemorial. And, Miss O’Keeffe is no longer with us.

I am a watercolorist. One of my instructors and mentors is Marie. Basically, Marie taught me how to paint. Watercolor is my preferred medium. I tried painting with acrylic, but every time I attempted using acrylic, about three minutes into the painting process, my palette looked like Devil’s Tower that Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind built on his dining room table. So, I gave up acrylic and stuck with watercolor.

I’ve been extremely blessed to have three mentors to encourage my work. Marie Ungemah, Pomona Hallenbeck, and Henry Fukuhara. With Marie, our classes were on Saturday morning. Many times, I heard her say, “It’s time to abandon your painting.” I took that to mean, stop fussing with it. You can always find something to niggle with if you look at it for a while. So, just stop. She would say to students in my class that we simply had to abandon our painting.

In the same manner, poems are never finished, just abandoned. This is certainly not an original thought on my part.  Paul Valéry,  French poet and philosopher,  noted that a poem is never actually finished; rather, it is always an accident—like a sudden deadline or the need to publish—that forces the writer to stop working on it.

It seems that both ideas about unfinished work – poems and paintings – are related in the way that they never seem to be finished. Writing poems seems to leave closure at a minimum. Do we ever really “finish” a poem? Or, do we just keep revising and revising until it is sent to possibly be published?

Think about the last person who came into your life. A man? A woman? A child? When a new person arrives to be, in some way, with us, do we think about whether that person is a blessing or a lesson. Debbie Macomber provides Hallmark with many movies that seem to allow for a deeper thought than it appears on the surface. One of her characters, in the movie, “Joyful, Mrs. Miracle,” said “People come into our lives as a blessing or a lesson and It’s up to us to figure out which is which.”

I think that is a great and wise way to look at life. Remembering the many people who have been in my life, I think there is a truth about every one of them. Although, I may not have realized the impact when I first me them, I can remember specific people that I realized were either a blessing or a lesson – and, sometimes, they were both.

One of my favorite expressions comes from a man deeply involved in political happenings. John W. Gardner served our country as the US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) under Lyndon Johnson. Apparently, he was a strong advocate for citizens’ participation in their government. He was very involved with launching Medicare and Medicaid that so many of us have as our medical insurance. In addition, Gardner was instrumental in setting the stage for improving education for the poor.

He said, “Life is like drawing without an eraser.” As an artist, I know what that is like – drawing without an eraser.  This quote may also apply, “An old man said, ‘Erasers are made for those who make mistakes.’ A youth replied, ‘Erasers are made for those who are willing to correct their mistakes!’”  (Unknown source)

There is no guarantee that life will continue without making mistakes. And, who hasn’t made a mistake or two – or hundreds? It seems to me that we just have to keep on erasing!
Be Safe and Be Well
The Cranky Crone
Thoughtful comments are very welcome!