This is the second attempt at this blog post.  I became way too verbose in my previous crack that it became a convoluted, ineffectual stream-of-consciousness piece of drivel.  Less is more in this case so I will get straight to the point rather than bore my reader, and myself, with garrulous exposition.  Jumping right in, I'll begin with the crux of this blog--literary quotes.  Explication to follow.

From Jeanette Winterson's Art and Lies:

It's a truism that as faith in God has declined, belief in science, especially medical science, has increased.  Yet most people know even less about science than they did about God.  Science is now incomprehensible to the layman but the layman accepts it, even though one of the arguments against God is that He doesn't make sense.


Catholics, it is true, are encouraged to express their emotions, providing that the emotions they express are Catholic ones.


She went to look at paintings....Often, when she liked a picture, she found that she was liking some part of herself, some part of her that was in accord with the picture.  She shied away from what she couldn't understand...that challenged what she thought she knew, what she thought had to be true.


There was a day when Picasso understood.  The only comparable day had been when she was a little child learning to read.  The forms of the letters had hurt her eyes, she found them ugly, crude, arrogant, nothing.  She longed to be out in the sun.  She was good at games, the form of her body was a form she knew, it had shape and meaning. 
             She stared at the page.  It meant nothing to her.
             She stared at the page.  It meant nothing to her.
             She stared at the page, and without thinking, she read it.  The harsh closed letters sang into being.  Sang into her being.  She could read.
             After that, she could not be separated from her books.

There are so many great quotes from this book, which I marked for various reasons.  But I've chosen to reflect briefly on only these few as they are more suitable to the purposes of this entry:  Understanding myself.  The first two quotes speak to my ongoing struggle with spirituality versus religion.  Having been raised a Catholic, I find that no matter what I might learn, or how I may grow spiritually, I am continually drawn back to the church and its tenets.  When a belief system has been so ingrained into one's development as a human being, it can be quite difficult to eschew regardless of a strong desire to do so.  So although I might have adopted my very own unique dogma, many of which theories are in direct opposition with Catholic teachings, I feel compelled to take up the mantle of teacher to a younger generation of Catholics, encouraging them to learn more about their faith and to continue within the religion into adulthood.  That being said, I often find myself playing the devil's advocate (sometimes quite literally) within my Catholic bible study group.  What I have concluded about this juxtaposition of beliefs and behaviors is this:   If I am in a group that might share my belief structure, I will fight like hell against them.  But I will defend said structure to anyone who may question it.  It's not anything I strive to do, it just is what I do.  What I have concluded from this is that I hate being put in a box.  I hate people assuming I will say and do one thing because it is consistent with the label they have pinned on me--or that I have unwittingly pinned on myself.

Reading the next two quotes was like reading something written about myself.  The girl looks at the paintings and discovers that what she likes about a particular piece of art is relative to what she likes about herself.  Art is such a personal thing.  It's personal for the artist who creates it, and the consumer who displays it.  As an artist, I could never part with one of my pieces.  The subject matter, style, and meaning can only truly be understood by me.  The process of making a piece--the motivation behind it, the choices and changes I've made--can only be appreciated by me.  I do not make my art for the masses, I make it because of an irrepressible need to express something.  I cannot respect the makers of "decorative" art.  I do not call them artists.  They paint a tree in golds and greens and reds because those are the popular colors and a furniture store will sell it because it matches the couch or the bedspread.
Like the girl, I discovered early on how important art is.  Art taught me things about myself I couldn't learn anywhere else.  Like the girl, I shied away from art I didn't understand or that made me uncomfortable.  I was quick to judge.  As I became more exposed to various styles of art, I learned to appreciate that which had challenged what I thought I knew.  It taught me not to judge too quickly for everything I "knew" to be true could turn on a dime.
The last quote brought me back to my early childhood when I was learning to read.  I remember being a very active child.  I remained an athlete into my early twenties and therefore always felt comfortable in my body and with my body.  My mind was another matter.  I learned to read before I entered kindergarten, but  I remember being close to tears at one of my first attempts reading a book about dinosaurs.  No one was around to translate at that moment.  I knew the letters and the sounds they made, but could not make sense of those foreign shapes that were words.  I stared at the page and stared at the page.  I went outside, seeking that familiarity of my body in nature.  I threw the ball against the brick wall outside the kitchen window.  I ran down the grassy hill in our backyard to the maple tree that I could not climb for I was much too small.  Meeting with yet another obstacle, I decided to go back inside to have another crack at the dinosaur book.  I stared at the page.  And the words slowly became clear.  And what words they were!  Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops.  No C-A-T for me!  Who thought this was a good book for children learning to read?  Still, once those "harsh, closed letters sang into being", I was a goner.  Trying to separate me from my books is s futile endeavor.   Now, instead of art teaching me things about myself, I rely on literature and, in turn, my writing about it to set me on paths to discovery.  I will end on two final notes/quotes, I've stolen from Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man:

Women don't tell the truth about themselves...Or else the truth is genuinely pure, involving no second-guessing--in which case, who could stand to hear it?
[who indeed?]   

Alex heard two voices together, two opposite voices, and from such extreme poles of his mind that for a moment his brain refused to reconcile them.          
Welcome to my world.

I'm back! I'm back to blogging and I'm back in town from my cruise to the Caribbean.  I got back late last night, and I'm here at work trying to clean up the mess that was left in my absence. When you work by yourself like I do, you have the privilege and autonomy to run things the way you want but don't go away too long or someone will come in and turn your work world upside down!


Ok, so I live in Arizona. I don't know if you're familiar w/our climate, but it gets up to 110 to 115 degrees during the summer. Right now we're in the high 80s. But there's hardly any humidity. It's a common humorous phrase to say down here, "But it's a DRY heat!" So we took a plane to Ft. Lauderdale FL on Saturday where we would catch the ship to take us to the Caribbean. Needless to say, when I stepped outside, the humidity was so heavy, I could barely breathe! But I love how the moist warmth felt on my skin.

Sunday, we boarded the Emerald Princess and settled in to our cozy cabin and awaited disembarkation. We left the dock at five o'clock under stormy skies and even stormier seas. It was not looking like a promising start to our fun filled, sun soaked week in the tropics.

However, Monday morning, we awoke to beautiful clear skies and a calm ocean of the most beautiful shades of azure and turquoise I had ever seen. My brother, his girlfriend and I left the ship early to take a yoga class on the beach at Princess Cays (Princess Cruise's own private island in the Bahamas). It was a cross between peaceful and strenuous. It was heaven to be out there with the soft white sand beneath us with the sounds of the waves lulling us into our meditation, but it it was hell to try to hold some of those positions under the relentless hot sun and humidity. My brother and I were in the back and eventually just started goofing off. Our favorite pose became the Balasana (Child's Resting Pose) and rarely moved from it after awhile.

After an hour and a half of this nonsense, we retreated to a bungalow we rented and met up w/my parents and my husband. My brother and his girlfriend laid in the sun and posed for pictures (they are quite vain) while Brandon and I went for a swim in the Atlantic. I do believe I was a fish in another life so finding my way back into the ocean was like coming home. We swam in a little private cove and rocked with the rhythm of the waves. Later we had lunch and I fell asleep on a beach chair. Big mistake! While applying my sunblock, I apparently missed the backs of my ankles and for the rest of the trip suffered from a painful sunburn. I usually tan, but my ankles aren't used to receiving much sun and reacted quite differently than normal.

Next day was spent on the ship basking in the sun by the pool to rest up for the next three days of which would be filled visiting three different islands.  Wednesday was spent on the island of St. Maarten.  We spent most of our time in town on the Dutch side of the island, shopping and touring the quaint little town of Philipsburg.  It was amazing to experience just a small taste of such a diversity of cultures.  We encountered Dutch, Belgians, French, Indians, West Indians and of course a number of islanders to name just a few.  The afternoon was spent touring the rest of the island and journeying over to the French side.  Both sides are breathtakingly beautiful, but I prefer the Dutch side as they were a great deal friendlier and the majority of the French maintain that nasty habit of smoking.

We enjoyed another delectable dinner--something for which cruise ships are quite reputable--followed by yet another late night of drinks and entertainment.  After all, we didn't have to get up too early the next day for our catamaran and snorkeling excursion on St. Thomas U.S.V.I.   Although the water surrounding this island isn't as brilliantly blue as the others, the land itself is lush and hilly and would be my ideal future resident island for when I retire to a life of a beach bum.  We took a 40 minute boat ride out to a secluded beach and reef to do our snorkeling where we spotted dozens of sea turtles, sting rays, and a variety of tropical fish.  Those turtles are not shy.  Even though it is illegal for humans to have physical contact with them, the turtles had absolutely no qualms about swimming right up to us and looking us straight in the eye!  The water itself was clear and warm and soothing.  I could have stayed out there all day, but alas, we had to re-board our little boat to head back to our big boat.  The crew rendered a wonderful party for us with music and an endless supply of rum punch from the local distillery.  Yum yum rum punch!

We were exhausted once we reached the ship, but that didn't stop us from indulging in another night of fun and games.   We weren't arriving in port to the next island until the afternoon the next day, so we could enjoy a lazy morning on Friday.

I didn't think the water could possibly be more beautiful than what we beheld on St. Maarten, but the colors of azure, cerulean, cobalt and turquoise must be seen to be believed.  This picture does not do them justice. 

While my brother and his girlfriend separated from us to take in another day of snorkeling, my parents, my husband and I began this day in a local upscale art gallery (as per my request, of course) where I spent far too long talking with the manager about my favorite artists while discovering some new ones.  My husband jokingly asked if the manager had offered me a job yet.  Boy, I'm glad he didn't!  It would have been far too tempting.  The four of us then went on a curious little jaunt to "downtown" Grand Turk.  Downtown consisted of 6 little huts on a deserted beach selling charming trinkets and artifacts crafted by the locals.  I purchased a few small items from a couple of the vendors.  I soon found out that the artisans and sellers were actually Haitian and I was quite pleased to have been able to help them out rather than spending my money with the commercial vendors at port.  We did, however, spend some of our money and time at such a commercial venue--we had to check out Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.  The restaurant and shop overlooked a serpentine pool, complete with swim up bar.  It was fun to experience but it's regrettable to see all the tourist dollars being dumped into an already profitable, large scale franchise rather than the local outfits who could really use it.

We left Grand Turk late in the evening and surprised my parents with a late supper at the Crown Grill Steakhouse on board to thank them for their generous provision of the vacation and to celebrate their 40 years of marriage.  It was one of the best nights we had on the trip as it provided an opportunity to express a fraction of our love and gratitude for them and put them into the well-deserved spotlight. 

As we spent our final day at sea, we broke off into our respective couples to decompress and enjoy some quiet time reflecting on our wonderful days spent making memories before returning to the real world.  As much fun as vacation is and as beautiful as the sights were, the trip would have been much less luminous without my wonderful family to share it with.  Thank you Brandon and Michael and especially Mom and Dad.  You all are the best!