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Author Archive for haley montgomery – Page 43

morning letters . friday 081415

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Well, my kids are just a few hours away from having the first week of school under their belts for 2015! We’re excited about the new year ahead, and each of them are enjoying their new classrooms and schools. I guess I’m also getting back to some routines after the fun of the summer and the joy of a more relaxed (and kid-punctuated) schedule. Aside from a couple of client illustration projects, I took pretty much a complete break from watercolor this summer. I took some time to focus on new block printing, get back to a little drawing and doodling, and also just slow down the creative process. It was a nice break and shift of media that sometimes adds a freshness to the creative process. This morning, I picked up the watercolors again for lettering practice. I’m a little rusty, but Eddie Vedder helps to prime the pump!

“When I walk beside her 
I am a better man.
When I look to leave her
I always stagger back again.”
(Hard Sun)

I’m kind of staggering back again, but it feels good to get back into some of my creative routine. Happy Friday, folks!

Revisiting Long Beach

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When I was planning our summer, one of the things I wanted to do was take my kids to a few Mississippi places they hadn’t seen to give them more of a taste of our home state. When we scheduled our family vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama last month, I decided to tack on a few extra days at the front end for us to wander through the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

My late husband, Mike, grew up on the Gulf Coast — in Long Beach, Mississippi — and I have bittersweet memories of only a few visits we made there, and of him sharing with me some of the things he enjoyed most about it. Although the Coast is only about five hours from our home in Starkville, before this summer, I had not been back to the area since we were there together. And, that was also a few years before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

For the Mississippi leg of our vacation, we stayed in Gulf Port, but did a lot of driving and exploring from Bay St. Louis to the west, all the way across to Ocean Springs to the east before heading over to Alabama. The trip brought up a lot of emotions for me. As with many things related to their Dad, I was a little apprehensive about showing the children some of the places that hold deep memories for me. At the same time, I was also excited to show them more about the things he loved and the place he lived as a child. They were so young when he died, and sometimes I think I need to fill in more of the picture they never got to experience with Mike. Of course, with anyone visiting the Coast for the first time since Katrina, I was very curious and apprehensive again about seeing the destruction and the changes it caused — even 10 years later.

It was actually a neat and cathartic experience to return to some of the places Mike showed me in on the coast, even with some of the huge changes caused by the hurricane’s destruction. The children were most interested in the simple details rather than any of the emotions about the places, and that was about my speed too.

We visited Shelter Rock Drive. Mike grew up in a small house on that block which is adjacent to Hwy 90. Although his childhood was filled with challenges, the neighborhood was a good spot, considering his love of wildlife, fishing and so many outdoor experiences. The lot on the corner of his street and Hwy 90 stood vacant since Hurricane Camille in 1969, when the house that was originally there was destroyed. Mike told stories of climbing the live oaks that remained on the lot during his childhood. During this first time back, my biggest glimpse of the reality of Katrina’s devastation was that Shelter Rock Drive is virtually just grass plots and concrete slabs almost grown over now. Not an easy sight to see, although I knew in my head it’s what I should expect.

Aside from driving around a little, the other place we visited in Mike’s hometown was the Long Beach fishing pier. Mike and I actually fished there a few times, which you can read as mostly Mike fishing and me dropping a few casts every now and then. Mike spent a lot of his youth fishing the pier and in some of the streams like Wolf River.
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The water in the Mississippi Gulf looks dirty. Mike taught me that it’s because it IS dirty. Not from lack of care, but because of the Mississippi River. The barrier islands trap water spilled into Mississippi Sound from the river and push it to shore. It makes for a “brackish” environment with its own wildlife and habitat. At least that’s my recollection of his explanation.

Mike taught me a lot of small details. And they’re all sometimes a little sketchy now…

Oleander is very pretty, but don’t ever use the stalks for a marshmallow roast because they are poisonous. The beaches on the Gulf Coast are actually man-made, and the native beaches were a lot more rocky. Deer Island almost touches the mainland in Gulf Port and he enjoyed camping there on occasion with friends. In the days before gambling was legal in Mississippi, the casino restaurant boats would sail out far enough to touch international waters in order to comply with the law. And folks on the boats tipped well. Crab cages have a trap crabs can crawl in, but not out. Crabbers drop their traps with a weight and line and come back hours later to haul in their catch. The water moccasins look just like hanging vines on Wolf Creek. “Floundering” uses this jabby thing on the end of a pole. Flounder have both their eyes on the same side of their body and if you slide your feet along the beach floor, you might stir one up. Fish from the pier really prefer live bait, but cold shrimp will do. Live bait shrimp aren’t pink. When somebody gets a hit on the pier, everybody watches him reel it in. There’s a tiny little jelly fish that washes ashore sometimes during low tide that makes the beach light up as you touch them. Pelicans fly long distances, see their prey from high up and take an amazing dive to grab it.

In our short visit to the pier, the children saw the same pelicans I did when Mike took me there. They looked across to Long Beach Harbor. They watched the daily fishermen cast out their nets with the weights on the end. I told them the same stories he told me and shared the details like I was a pro. Only, I’m not. I’m just trying to remember. The same as they are. All part of weaving together a life that only forms in our memories now.

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I’m so glad we took the time to revisit Long Beach this time — the first time for the children. Like priming a pump, the first time visiting what could be a difficult place draws out the opportunity for future experiences. I’m actually excited about taking them there again, and hoping they can find some of their own special places and memories in the place their Dad called home.

Stay tuned for a few more posts to come as I share more about our visit to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Gulf Shores, Alabama area. We explored as many downtown areas across the coast as we could and found lots of fun places — small businesses, restored areas, museums, collections and more. Good memories!

oh happy day . The Joy of Blurred Lines

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Friday is here, and I’m thinking about joy. I was sitting in my studio the other morning, and snapped this picture from a corner of one of the bookshelves. It was relatively early, and none of the kids were awake yet. It gave me time to enjoy some quietness and plan for my day.

The week has been somewhat overwhelmingly busy with client projects and work needs. I am in the midst of developing two campaigns to promote Starkville tourism, and it’s sort of my “busy season” — if this busy-ness can be distinguished from other busy-ness — in preparation for the fall needs of some of my most faithful clients. Busy-ness is a good “problem” to have. It’s rather like a blessing than a problem, I guess. At least that’s how I see it, and I’ve been quite blessed lately.

With the children out of school for the ever-shortening summer vacation, I’ve been enjoying having three side-kicks with me most days. We keep busy playing outside with popular kids wagons , playing in the dirt is such a valuable lesson. Back in the spring, I made arrangements for them to be enrolled in their normal summer program, but for some reason this year, I was more anxious to take them out of another routine and allow a little more freedom. They’ve each had a few day camps. We spent 10 days on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Gulf Shores, Alabama. We’ve tried to delve into our “summer jar,” as I wrote about in my last post a month ago, and enjoy some family activities. And, mostly, we’ve enjoyed being “off the clock”, so to speak, with the wake up, bedtime and scheduled routine.

What that’s meant for my summer is that I’ve been doing a little extra juggling of projects and my workflow. I’ve been doing more balancing than normal in trying to get work completed. The city planning of “Lego World” on the dining table, staging for the next puppet show, craft projects, comfy clothes, couch “slumber parties”, and a stream of favorite movies on Netflix have all punctuated my very fragmented design time.

In the midst of all this three-ring circus, each of them have invariably commented to me at one time or another, “you always have to work!” And, sometimes, as a freelancer and small business owner, it seems like I do!

I don’t punch a clock. Or leave an office. Or shut down the equipment. Some of my choices for how I’ve structured my work and life-life mean work sometimes happens at odd times, in odd places, and with odd background music like an ukulele, If you happen to be needing strings for your instrument visit Four String Fun shop. And, with the creative process being such a huge part of my business development and perpetual task list, all kinds of odd things get lumped into work — drawing, painting, looking at books, doodling, taking photos, using scissors and ribbons and paper and such! Sometimes just looking at my phone or iPad gets lumped into the work category in all our minds.

When I hear that “you always have to work!” from one of my loves, I try to remind them — and myself — that our freedom this summer means working together so Mommy can take care of responsibilities. Wednesday night, Bug asked me, “do you have to work tomorrow?” His commentary when I said “yes” started some good reminders for me and the children about how privileged we are to structure our lives this way. “You can bring your laptop upstairs with us.” “Because we don’t have to go to after school.” “You can work some and play with us some.” Yes. Yes, I can. We talked about what a blessing it is that we have the choice of whether the kids can stay home today. The choice to set our own schedules. And, I asked them to help me and compromise with me as I make some of those choices to balance what they want to do with what I need to do. To see the fact that Mommy is creating ad campaigns in the living room as the joy and blessing it is.

When I find myself having trouble with drawing the lines or struggling with client communications and design puzzles as I’m tuning out songs from Frozen, I have to remind myself again and again of those same things. To stop and remember how special this time is. How grateful I am to have it. To recognize the blessing and joy born out of those blurred lines. I guess that’s what I was doing when I snapped the “Joy” photo. Thinking about how rare this time is. This “summer break” when all four of us are in the house. When all three of them are vying for my attention, my listening ear, my involvement in whatever project has emerged. And at the same time, when so many new art opportunities are presenting themselves — the chance to work with organizations and clients who make the process very un-work-like. It’s rare. It’s precious.

Oh Happy Day!We

oh happy day . The Summer Jar

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Friday is here, and I’m finally getting back to my Oh Happy Day! Gratitude Project posting series. I started it as a way to remind myself to make gratitude part of every day, every week. Thornton Wilder wrote that “we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures,” and beginning with gratitude is the best way I know to live aware of how blessed we are.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that blessing over the last few weeks as we’ve been finishing up the school year and getting ready for summer. This spring, I devoted some time to thinking through the direction of this blog, and by extension, my business. And, I guess, by further extension, my approach to work and how it integrates with the rest of life. As an artist, so much of creating and exploring new ideas is an on-going process that isn’t necessarily confined by the typical workday. As a single mom, dealing with the loss of my husband and the changes that has brought to our lives, I’ve also grown to understand that for me, it’s very important that what I “do” in my work and how I spend my days creatively be meaningful and inspiring.

As I was thinking through some of my blogging topics and inspiration-focus back in March, I wrote a “creative map” and lots of notes about various aspects of the creative life. For my “living” category, I wanted my thinking, writing and creating to reflect a “quiet, authentic and conscious life” — there is that word “conscious” again. My goals for some of the writing and sharing settled on three things…

  • to talk and “be” about real things
  • to be a good steward of time and blessings
  • to infuse daily life with beauty, creativity and celebration

The concept of being deliberate and conscious in what we’re doing isn’t easy sometimes. Being that “good steward” can be difficult when faced with all the mundane activities required in working, mothering and home-keeping. And, of course, busy-ness can be our enemy as we get stretched and pulled in lots of different directions. We often start to lose the joy in whatever we’re doing and begin checking items off our calendars and to-do lists.

I want to stop that cycle in my life. I want, as Emerson said, to “finish the moment” — each moment — and to make the most of each opportunity represented in that moment. I think I’m particularly more motivated in that commitment as I see my children growing at what seems like an exponential pace at times. As they become more and more independent (and just physically bigger), I find the desire to grab onto each fleeting moment with more of a white-knuckle grip! And, I suppose, summer offers it’s own impetus to slow down. Our schedule slows down, and we have fewer commitments as a family, but how will we use that freedom? I don’t want to get to August and say “where has the summer gone?” We’ve had an unprecedented build-up of excitement anticipating the start of summer, and I’ve been determined to put every effort into taking full advantage of it.

Enter the Summer Jar.

The children and I decided to create a list of things we wanted to do this summer — experiences big and small that would help us have memories and joy to show for the time spent this summer. We decided to put them in a jar that we could pull from to plan for activities or to surprise ourselves with fun experiences. Baby Girl decorated the jar with her special brand of summery illustrations, and we have it front and center on our dining table with a pen and sticky pad ready to add more experience suggestions. We’ve included things like our normal trips to the farm and to the beach, but also things like building our train set and a lego city, getting yogurt or ice cream, going to the library, eating outside on the picnic table, swimming, game nights and more.

None of the activities are earth-shattering, not all of them require “going” somewhere, and most aren’t new experiences. But, the power comes in the intention — the conscious choice of experiencing and “finishing” each moment. I want to recognize the joy and to take time to celebrate it in my heart at the end of each day. I suppose that’s the essence of gratitude. And, I want our summer jar to encourage us to embrace the beauty and wonder in some of those mundane activities that weave our lives together between the other fun experiences. I hope we can have a healthy mix of going and simply being together in those moments of someone sitting in my lap, working together to cook dinner, reading together at bedtime, playing games and sharing the same space.

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We started some of our “summer jar” experiences yesterday with a trip to Denny’s for pancakes for breakfast and a visit to the MSU Library to see the Kinsey Collection on exhibit there. I’ll share more about this remarkable collection of African American art, literature and historical documents in a later post, but today, I’m so thankful we had the opportunity to enjoy it together and have it as one of our memories of the summer of 2015. It is open in Starkville through June 20 at the John Grisham Room of Mitchell Memorial Library, and it’s well worth the time in experiencing some little-seen aspects of our own history.

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On this “Oh Happy Day,” I’m also so, so grateful for the opportunity to build my work life on my own terms with the freedom to organize my days so that these types of experiences with my children are possible. It’s never easy to balance family and work responsibilities, and I’ve become more and more mindful of the blessing I have as freelancer to set my own schedules. It’s a true gift I don’t want to squander or take for granted in these seasons when all my loves are together under the same roof.

Oh Happy Day!

 

grow . Spring Gardening Journal

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Summer may be in full swing, but we’re still basking in the petals and blooms of the spring season in our garden. I love how the light changes through the spring as days begin to stretch out into those long summer afternoons — the “gloaming” when the light seems to dance around. It calls us outside to tend the earth and the delicate growth that’s taking hold. It’s very peaceful to me to sit outside and absorb the colors and textures and light of the garden, so I’ve gradually honed a couple of “sitting” places around the yard. I’ve been doing a lot of sitting and swinging and looking, I thought I would share the view and some of the stages our plants are going through — a spring gardening journal installment. I hope you’ll forgive a huge number of photographs!

The front porch swing is always a treat, and Baby Girl and I sometimes enjoy coloring out there on Saturday morning. It offers a side view of the front garden bed we’ve been working on for several years. This year, I was so excited to see it finally begin to have that “settled in” look. Last year, we added concrete bird bath that I took as a remembrance of my Aunt Betty. The angel child is holding her bowl for the birds while sitting on one of the old pine tree stumps in the bed. Everything has been in a flush of blooms at the same time over the last week or two, and I’ve had a chance to see the vision of that front garden come to life. That joy must be how landscape architects feel all the time!

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Knock-out Roses: They’ve had amazing blooms so far! As I wrote in March, I’ve struggled with them over the last couple of years, but it seems they’ve finally reached their happy place. They have been absolutely beautiful, so I’m holding my breath it continues.

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Lavender: I’ve wanted a border of lavender around the bed for the last year or so to provide a contrast to a full and prolific spread of evergreen vinca. The first variety we used (Blue Scent) did not do well. It was tricky to get the drainage right. So, this year, we found the Silver Anouk variety, and it’s really taken hold so far. It has a newer, less traditional bloom (and a little less showy), but the scent is the same and it seems that the leaves are holding their silvery green color. My mom helped me plant quite a few for the border, and they are starting to meld together.

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Lilies: I’ve had orange daylilies in the front bed for several years, and this year, it’s been neat to see some Easter lilies from 2014 bloom. You know, they never bloom at the “right” time engineered by the nurseries to spread their white petals at Easter. Ours are actually blooming now, and I love that pop of white alongside the green, orange and red!

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Black-eyed Susans: One of my favorite flowers because they have that wild feel, we have them planted in front of the porch beside our swing. Last week we saw tons of blooming clumps on gravel roads near the farm. They bloom slower at our house, but we have one fully opened and some blooms on the way. Last year, they ended up getting really tall like those on the side of the road!

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In the backyard this year, we’ve squeezed a basketball goal the boys got for Christmas onto the patio along with our tables and glider seats. I think we all still have room to do our favorite things 🙂 The patio often serves as an adjunct office during milder days of spring, summer and fall (thank goodness for wifi), and I enjoy being able to look around at pretty blooms. We usually plant Lantana bedding plants in the brick wall that borders the patio. Beyond that, I have some impatiens, begonias and angelonias in pots. The Serenita Angelonia in a mix of pink, purple and white has become a real favorite over the last two years. I love the touch of cool colors mixed in with the reddish color of the other potted plants.

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In the back corner of our backyard, we have another swing installed. I love that area of the yard because it is deep, deep shade. We actually call it the “tree room” because the surrounding treetops merge to provide a roof canopy as we swing. The space feels kind of enclosed by Baby Girls “blue house” and “the little house,” our storage building I had constructed with its own front porch. I’m not sure why we insist on naming everything, but it works.  We have some impatiens hanging back there, but it’s mostly a blur of green around and overhead. Now, if we could only get green grass to grow! Last year, we added a picnic table beside “the little house”, and I’m committed to using it more this summer to take advantage of the shade.

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Grandmother’s Roses: I can’t finish a garden journal entry this time of year without talking about these. This is the second year since we transplanted them from the farm, and they have faithfully bloomed. The blossoms are such a delicate mix of pink and white. You would never guess that they came from the side of our farm road, having been left unattended for a lot of years! They only bloom in spring for a few weeks, and then remain evergreen throughout the year. My next goal for them is to get them planted in the ground and running on a bigger trellis. Right now they are still sitting in the old black plastic pot we dumped them in. I guess I’ve been afraid to bother with a thing that’s working! I’m thinking of an old screen door or a metal structure. We’ll see what happens!

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