To Tangle, Tangle, Tangled, Have Tangled

I like the word tangle. I am specifically often fond of words that seem to have the power to conjure images in the mind that look like the word sounds. Vertices is a lovely word that instantly sweeps you to the top of a group of towering...triangles? But then one has to wonder if these words really do sound  like they look, or do we project our own mental images from years of exposure to knowing what these words mean? For instance, would someone learning English as a second language have the benefit of the mental images to which some English words lend themselves? Language is irresistibly fascinating.

Back to "tangle". In the verb form, "to twist together into a confused mass". It summons up visions of windblown hair, snarled necklaces, knotted, intertwined tree branches.

"O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive" - Sir Walter Scott
"I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions" - James Michener
"We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view - tangled up in blue." Bob Dylan

Now tangle has a new meaning for me. It is the verb form of the new art form noun known as Zentangle. Zentangle was created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts and defined on their website: http://www.zentangle.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=30, 

"Our Zentangle method is a way of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns"

One aspect I love about Zentangle, is the tangled, complex look many of the patterns have, but, when broken down into steps, are simple lines and geometric shapes that can be easily untangled. Untangling is always so satisfying.

So, I'm going to post some of my tangles here. I've recently tangled the lampshade that hangs over my desk and I tangled a tiny pumpkin last fall. Tangling on objects is fun. I also have branched out from traditional Zentangles (3 1/2" X 3 1/2" tiles of art paper that consist of only Zentangle patterns) to ZIA - Zentangle Inspired Art. It still seems a little odd to me that something so new has a lingo all its own already...but I've become so familiar with Rick and Maria, their website and blog, and so many other Zentangle artists and their blogs, that they (and their lingo) all feel like old friends to me. I feel part of a community, albeit an online one. It is one of my sincerest wishes to attend one of their CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) Seminars. They hold them in Rhode Island and they are three days in length. There is one scheduled for August and one for September of this year. September in Rhode Island....then maybe a fall folliage jaunt northward. Wouldn't that be grand? sigh....

More another day. All this uploading is tedious.

(((hugs to everyone who reads this))), and I'd feel so validated if you left a comment. I promise not to go all Sally Field on you...

"You like me!  *sob*  You really like me!"

Really...I won't....not where you can see anyway...

Hillary Rosen Is Right

Hillary Rosen doesn't think my job is a real job. Her quote heard round the Twitter World about Ann Romney, "His wife has never actually worked a day in her life", means that women who don't work outside the home don't have real jobs. She knows that raising kids and keeping house is actual work, so she didn't mean that Mrs. Romney, and the 5.5 million+ of us women who also don't work, don't actually work. What did she mean?

What Hillary Rosen meant was, women who stay home with their children and work at homemaking, rather than enter the workforce, do not have real jobs. And she's right. A job is defined as, "a regular activity performed in exchange for payment". The work I have been doing for the past 36 years could most definitely not be classified in any sense as "regular activity" and I certainly was not paid for it. No, I don't have a real job, and neither did Mrs. Romney. So why all the outrage? The answer makes me smile. The answer lies buried deep within our culture's frenzied efforts to eradicate ideas like selflessness, femininity, masculinity, female dependence upon men, and the original intent of the real American Dream.

I smile, because your outrage means, you really do care, America. In your heart of hearts, you know this heedless remark was not about work. You were instantly, instinctively angered, because you understand...and value...what the nonworking, stay at home mother is doing.  Most of us had one, many of us are one, all of us know one. And we know that some things in this life transcend remuneration, are beyond valuation, and that  mothering possibly tops the list. So I'm simply gratified that for all our high sounding, progressive ideals about equality and empowerment...there's within us still that spark of truth - of knowing - what's really important in life. And like it or not, the knowing involves recognizing that the old fashioned models of selflessness, real gender roles that embody femininity and masculinity, and, horrors, female dependence upon men, are incumbent upon the brave woman who chooses this most difficult of...er...jobs.

So, no, it wasn't Ms. Rosen's stay-at-home-moms-don't-really-work remark that lit my fire. It was the one she made in a CNN interview later:  "This isn't about whether Ann Romney or I work. Other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay at home and raise kids. Most women in America, let's face it, don't have that choice."  Now that made me mad.

"Other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay at home and raise kids". Really? You really think the millions of us who have chosen to rear our own children are all women of means and do it because we can afford it? How could one so educated and experienced, and having risen to among the highest ranks of highly paid working women in the world, be so ignorant of the simple demographics of her own gender? Surely she knows that the median income for men is currently in the neighborhood of 50K. This is not a figure that gives families a sense of financial freedom and whimsy! And given that this wage is an average, many millions of men are earning far less than this. No, dear, we don't do it because we can afford it. The vast majority of us really can't, and are making significant sacrifices to manage it. We do it because we believe.


We believe it is the best thing for our kids. We believe it is the best thing for our husbands. We believe we are responsible for our own kids and we welcome it. We believe in the American Dream of our founders: that any American, male or female, can be anything he or she desires with hard work and honesty, and we want to be the ones to help our children grasp this vision. We believe we are better equipped than anyone on the planet to give our children the unshakable and tangible knowledge that we love them more than anybody or anything else. We believe we are the ones from whom our children should learn about right, wrong, good, bad, and yes, Virginia, there really are moral absolutes. We believe we are the ones who can instill a deep sense of familial identity, security, and belonging in the hearts and minds of our kids. And we believe all this is more important than money and is really a matter of priorities.

What kind of obtuseness, Ms. Rosen, fails to see that we, Mrs. Romney included, are neither motivated nor unmotivated by money in this stay-at-home endeavor? We do it, Ms. Rosen, because we are women of conviction, commitment, and courage. And we'll take it over your real job any day.

"The Trip To Bountiful"

I recently watched "The Trip To Bountiful" again. What a gem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XczocuuAMV8

It is based on a play by Horton Foote. I love him; such an insightful writer.  Geraldine Page won a well-deserved  Oscar for her performance, and the music score is....perfect. An altogether understated, quiet film, but so powerful.

With facial expressions, body language, and a few pointed remarks and barbs in the opening scene, we instantly recognize the plight in which Carrie Watts finds herself. Old, lonely and wistful,  forced to live with her only son and his selfish, carping wife in a two room apartment, Carrie longs to go home. To Bountiful, Texas. She'd really rather be almost anywhere but here, but Bountiful calls her, pulls her. She remembers happy days there, and shares a poignant memory of running in the moonlight there with her son when he was small...she was young.

 Ludie, Carrie's son,  is a weak, ineffectual man, who, unlike his mother, fails to find joy in the small things of life. He denies any recollection of the moonlit excursion with his mother. He has clearly shut the door on his past, and is struggling, grim-faced and white knuckled, to simply hang on to the present.

The story unfolds as Carrie escapes the prison of Ludie and Jessie Mae's apartment. We feel her sense of urgency and longing. We cheer as she foils their attempts to stop her; especially when we learn Carrie has tried many times to run away to Bountiful. Carrie befriends the sweet and accommodating Thelma on the bus. Thelma learns about life from Miz Watts and becomes protective of her. Carrie learns Thelma's husband has gone off to the service, and is kind and sympathetic. She knows about heartache.

Carrie is the recipient of kindness and generosity from strangers; which makes the absence of these from Carrie's own family all the more striking.

We feel the weight of Carrie's grief and disappointment as the reality of the ravages of time hit home. Her friends, her family, her way of life, Bountiful...all changed, all gone. We are sharply aware that this is the way of old age. That it awaits us all. Oh, that we could meet it with the grace and courage of Carrie Watts. A gentle, humble, unsung heroine of uncommon grit and valor.